Jeremiah, an English astronomer, and the first who observed the passage of Venus over the sun's disc, was born at Toxteth, Lancashire, about 1619. Having acquired some grammatical learning at a school in the country, he was sent to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he spent some time in the ordinary routine of academical studies. About 1633 he began to turn his attention to astronomy, and spent some years, with little profit, in studying the writings of Lansbergius. In 1636, he became acquainted with Mr William Crabtree of Broughton, near Manchester, who was engaged in similar pursuits; and both occasionally consulted Mr Samuel Foster, professor of astronomy at Gresham College, London. Horrox, having thus obtained a companion in his studies, resumed them with fresh vigour; he laid aside Lansbergius, whose tables he found as erroneous as his hypotheses were inconsistent; and having procured books and astronomical instruments, he applied himself at once to the theory of the science, and to the observation of the heavens. But whilst thus full of hope and of promise, he was suddenly cut off, on the 3d of January 1641, soon after he had completed the twenty-second-year of his age. A short time before his death he had completed his Venus in Sole Visa. This interesting phenomenon he had observed at Hoole, near Liverpool; but his observations did not appear till 1662, when Hevelius published them at Dantzig, with some of his own, under the title of Mercurius in Sole visus Gedani anno 1661, Maii 3, cum aliis quibusdam rerum celestium observationibus rarissimis phaenomenis; cui annexa est Venus in Sole pariter visa anno 1639. Besides this work, he had commenced another, in which he proposed to refute the hypotheses of Lansbergius, and to draw up a new system of astronomy agreeably to celestial observations, but for the most part conformable to the Keplerian laws. Of the papers which Horrox left behind him, all that escaped destruction were published by Dr Wallis in 1673, under the title of Opera Posthuma.

Horror strictly signifies such an excess of fear as makes a person tremble.

Horror of a Vacuum, was an imaginary principle amongst the ancient philosophers, to which they ascribed the ascent of water in pumps, and other similar phenomena, which are known to be occasioned by the simple weight or pressure of the atmosphere.