It was his custom, to retire in the evening to what he considered the
most comfortable corner in the house, and take his seat close, to the
kitchen fireside, in order to draw some plan for the forming a new
instrument, or scheme for the improvement of one already made. There,
with his drawing implements on the table before him, a cat sitting on
the one side, and a certain portion of bread, butter, and a small mug of
porter placed on the other side, while four or five apprentices commonly
made up the circle, he amused himself with either whistling the
favourite air, or sometimes singing the old ballad of
"If she is not so true to me,
What care I to whom she be?
What care I, what care I, to whom she be!"
and appeared, in this domestic group, contentedly happy. When he
occasionally sent for a workman, to give him necessary directions
concerning what he wished to have done, he first showed the recent
finished plan, then explained the different parts of it, and generally
concluded by saying, with the greatest good humour, "Now see, man, let
us try to find fault with it;" and thus, by putting two heads together,
to scrutinize his own performance, some alteration was probably made for
the better. But, whatever expense an instrument had cost in forming, if
it did not fully answer the intended design, he would immediately say,
after a little examination of the work, "Bobs, man! this won't do, we
must have at it again;" and then the whole of that was put aside, and a
new instrument, begun. By means of such perseverance, he succeeded in
bringing various mathematical, philosophical, and astronomical
instruments to perfection. The large theodolite for terrestrial
measurements, and the equal altitude instrument for astronomy, will
always be monuments of his fertile, penetrating, arduous, superior
genius! There cannot be a lover (especially of this more difficult part)
of philosophy, in any quarter of the globe, but must admire the
abilities, and respect the memory, of Jesse Ramsden--_Practical
Observations on Telescopes_.
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