• DOI:10.1177/002182869202300204
• Corpus ID: 125474099

The 1816 Solar Eclipse and Comet 1811 I in John Linnell's Astronomical Album

@article{Olson1992The1S,
  title={The 1816 Solar Eclipse and Comet 1811 I in John Linnell's Astronomical Album},
  author={Roberta J. M. Olson and Jay M. Pasachoff},
  journal={Journal for the History of Astronomy},
  year={1992},
  volume={23},
  pages={121 - 133}
}

• R. Olson, J. Pasachoff
• Published 1 May 1992
• Physics
• Journal for the History of Astronomy

Six unpublished leaves of sketches by John Linnell (1792-1882), who has been described as "our greatest English naturalist",' were acquired by the British Museum in 1967.2 The leaves, probably a collection of independent drawings, were acquired from a Mrs Lees. They were registered as "Three sketches and diagrams of the comet of September 17, 1811;and three drawings of the eclipse of the moon [sic], November 19,1816" and were subsequently bound together. We offer here the first publication of these drawings together with an examination of the accuracy of the artist's depictions ofthe solar eclipse of 19November 1816 as well as his recordings of the comet of 1811 I, as part of our continuing studies of the usefulness of artistic representations of astronomical phenomena and their connections with the science of the time. In view of the interest in links between science and art, it is significant that an artist of this stature produced annotated drawings of scientific phenomena. Linnell's naturalism followed from his religious conversion in 1811, the year of the comet depicted in the album. Beginning as a nominal Anglican, Linnell eventually joined a Baptist community in Bloomsbury, although his beliefs were still rooted firmly in those of the Utilitarian philosopher and theologian William Paley. This dichotomy led him to understand the meticulous design of nature as direct proof of God's existence, so that truth to nature was not just an aesthetic criterion but also a moral obligation. With this information we can better understand his motivation to record the awesome spectacles of these two astronomical events. While Linnell did not regard the two celestial phenomena superstitiously,' he felt that they revealed the divine presence in the universe. The first sheet (Figure 1), the only one of the six in pen and brown ink, is the most precise and scientific of the group. In fact, it resembles diagrams made by astronomers of the time, as seen, for example, in various manuscripts for articles published in the Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society and in observational records of the Astronomers Royal (formerly housed at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, where we examined them, and now at the University Library, Cambridge) and of other astronomers (at the Royal Astronomical Society). It is not known whether Linnell associated with astronomers, although his friend Cornelius Varley was interested in astrology and invented the "graphic telescope" (a tool for rendering related to the camera obscura and camera lucida), while his friend William Blake executed a great number of works that included comets and meteors.' It is significant, however, that the artist in his unpublished "Journals" (at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge) in the early days of September 1811 not only records various meetings with both