, son of a Polish Jew, who was a silversmith, and teacher of Hebrew
, son of a Polish Jew, who was a silversmith, and teacher of Hebrew at Cambridge, was born
there, in 1739. He displayed wonderful talents as a young
man; and shewed very early a great inclination to learning, particularly mathematics; but though Dr. Smith, then
master of Trinity-college, offered to put him to school at
his own expence, he would go only for a day or two, saying, “he could learn more by himself in an hour than in
a day with his master.
” He began the study of botany in.
1755, which he continued to his death; and could remember, not only the Linniean names of almost all the English
plants, but even the synonyma of the old botanists, which
form a strange and barbarous farrago of great bulk; and
had collected large materials for a “Flora Cantabrigiensis,
” describing fully every part of each plant from the life,
without being obliged to consult, or being liable to be
misled by, former authors. In 1758 he obtained much celebrity by publishing a treatise “on Fluxions,
” dedicated
to his patron, Dr. Smith; and in 1763 a work entitled
“Fasciculus plantaruui circa Cantabrigiam nascentium, quae
post Raium observatae fuere,
” 8vo. Mr. Banks (now sir Joseph Banks, bart. and president of the royal society),
whom he first instructed in this science, sent for him to
Oxford, about 1762 or 1763, to read lectures; which he
did with great applause, to at least sixty pupils; but could
not be induced to make a long absence from Cambridge.
He had a salary of a hundred pounds per annum for calculating the “Nautical Almanack,
” and frequently received
presents from the board of longitude for his inventions.
He could read Latin and French with ease; but wrote the
former ill; had studied the English history, and could quote
whole passages from the Monkish writers verbatim. He
was appointed by the board of longitude to go with captain Phipps (afterwards lord Mulgrave) to the North pote
in 1773, and made the astronomical and other mathematical calculations, printed in the account of that voyage.
After his return he married and settled in London, where,
on May 1, 1775, he died of the measles. He was then
engaged in publishing a complete edition of all the works
of Dr. Halley. His “Calculations in Spherical Trigonometry abridged,
” were printed in “Philosophical Transactions,*' vol. LXI. art. 46. After his death his name appeWed in the title-page of
” A Geographical Dictionary,“of
which the astronomical parts were said to be
” taken from
the papers of the late Mr. Israel Lyons, of Cambridge, author of several valuable mathematical productions, and
astronomer in lord Mnlgrave’s voyage to the Northern hemisphere.“It remains to be noticed, that a work entitled
” The Scholar’s Instructor, or Hebrew Grammar, by Israel
Lyons, Teacher of the Hebrew Tongue in the University
of Cambridge: the second edition, with many Additions
and Emendations which the Author has found necessary in
his long course of teaching Hebrew,“Cambridge, 1757,
8vo, was the production of his father; as was a treatise
printed at the Cambridge press, under the title of
” Observations and Enquiries relating to various parts of Scripture
History, 1761," published by subscription at two shillings
and six-pence. He died in August 1770, and was buried, agreeably to his own desire, although contrary to
the Jewish principles, in Great St. Mary’s Church-yard,
Cambridge. He was on this occasion carried through the
church, and his daughter Judith read some form of interment-service over his grave. He had resided near forty
years at Cambridge.