The wife of Nathaniel Bowditch was a woman of singular sweetness of disposition and cheerful piety, who, by her entire sympathy with her husband in all his studies and pursuits, lightened and cheered his labours; and by relieving him from all domestic cares, enabled him to go on with undivided mind and undistracted attention, in the execution of his great work—the translation of Laplace's MÉcanique Celeste, on which his fame as a man of science rests. He had been heard to say that he never should have accomplished the task, and published the book in its present extended form, had he not been stimulated and encouraged by her. When the serious question was under consideration as to the expediency of Bowditch's publishing it at his own expense, at the estimated cost of 10,000 dollars, (which it actually exceeded,) with the noble spirit of her sex, his wife conjured and urged him to go on and do it, saying that she would find the means, and gladly make any sacrifice, and submit to any self-denial that might be involved in it. In grateful acknowledgment of her sympathy and aid, he proposed, in the concluding volume, to dedicate the work to her memory, (she died in 1834)—a design than which nothing could be more beautiful or touching.^[3]

In the course of his labour, Dr. Bowditch used to say, "I never come across one of Laplace's Thus it plainly appears, without feeling sure that I have got hours of hard study before me to fill up the chasm, and find out and show how it plainly appears."