Boscovich, nour, followed philosophy; and that philosophy had driven famine, wretchedness, and vice, from their babitations. We dare not say that the interest and aggrandizement of their order were secondary considerations; but we will avow it as our opinion, that the short reign of the Jesuits, and the objects at which they aimed, and above all the means which they employed, were more instructive, promised better, and effected more to humanity, than all the accumulated humility and sanctity of all the religious societies of the Romish church. We have been led into this digression by the coincidence of certain considerations operating at the time on our minds. Boscovich was of the order of Jesuits; that order is no more; its destruction took place in his life-time; gratitude for the delight and the instruction we have received from him and many others of the order; the present disposition among mankind to detract from its merits, to magnify its imperfections, and to confound it with the fanatical and enthusiastic groups of every persuasion which have disgraced the name and the dignity of religion. But to return; our author, on his arrival in Rome, entered the noviceship of the order, where his studies wore a new aspect, but were still pursued with diligence. Christian morality, the rules and constitutions of the order, claimed his attention for two years; after which he was instructed in rhetoric, and became well versed in general literature, in a particular manner in Latin poetry, which at that time was very much cultivated.

From the noviciate he was sent to the Roman college to study mathematics and physics. It was in these sciences that his elevated genius and uncommon abilities shone forth so conspicuously, and procured to him the admiration of his superiors. In three years time he was able to give private lessons on mathematics; and was then exempted from a law, by which the noviciaates were bound to teach Latin and the belles lettres for five years before they commenced the study of theology. This exemption was in consequence of his great predilection to the mathematics, of which he was soon afterwards made public professor. It would appear to us, that the science of theology, as it was then inculcated, had little attraction for the mind of Boscovich ; for it is not likely that a mind intimately acquainted with truth, and accustomed to find her ever plain and undisguised, could relish the retiring obscurities of sophistry, or the flimsy decorations of a mystical religion; nor can we wonder, that during the four years in which he was constrained to the study, he should become more familiar with Leibnitz, Maclaurin, and Newton, than with Loyola, and Laynez, and Aqua

viva.

For the professorship of mathematics he was eminently qualified, as besides a thorough knowledge of all the modern productions in the science, he had acquired a pristine severity of demonstration by studying the works of the ancient geometricians; and he conjoined withal an obliging accommodation of his own powers to the deficiencies of his pupils. It was for their benefit be at this time composed elementary treatises on arithmetic, algebra, geometry and trigonometry. But notwithstanding the arduous duties of his situation which he invariably fulfilled, he found time to instruct and enlighten more than boys; for about this pe

riod, he entertained some of those original notions Boscovich. which were destined to grow up into system, and one day to astonish the whole world of science. These, as they grew, were strengthened by solid arguments in the public disputations, by anticipating obstacles, overcoming and removing them, and by mighty efforts in extending and applying them to the most remote and discretive actions of the universe. The animating spirit of discovery and invention led him to consider every portion of physical science; and indeed so versatile and so vigorous was his mind, we would be at a loss to specify one portion, which, within a few years, it did not comprehend, elucidate, and advance. In confirmation of this we beg to present our readers with an enumeration of the principal subjects to which he turned his attention, and concerning which he published dissertations whilst he continued in the professorship. The transit of Mercury over the sun; the spots in the sun; the aurora borealis; the construction of spheric trigonometry; the figure of the earth; a new telescope to determine celestial objects; the ancient arguments for the rotundity of the earth; oscillating circles; on infinites and infinitely little quantities; the motion of bodies in unresisting spaces; the aberration of the fixed stars; the inequalities in terrestrial gravity; on astronomy; on the limits of certainty in astronomical observations; on the solid of greatest attraction; the cycloid; the logistic curve lines; the vires viva; the comets; light; tides; the rainbow; the calculation of fractions; the centre of gravity; the moon's atmosphere; the law of continuity; lenses and dioptrical telescopes; the objective micro meter; the divisibility of matter. Some of these are short, but all of them contain curious and valuable matter. It is only by perusing them we are able to discover the gradual progress of his mind; and to understand the manner in which he arrived at the theory of natural philosophy, which alone will render his name immorial.

About this time a taste for philosophical poetry was much prevalent amongst the learned, and some of our author's acquaintances had laboured in it with success. Of these we may mention Father Noceti, who wrote on the rainbow and the aurora borealis, and the justly celebrated Benedict Stay, whose poems on the philosophy of Descartes, and on the more modern philosophy, are excellent examples of fine Latin composition and scientific investigation. Boscovich published their works with annotations and supplements, in which a splendid fund of information and learning is displayed.

By such undertakings, the fame of our author was widely diffused, and he became an object of general admiration. The learned societies of many countries in Europe conferred on him unsolicited honours, and several foreign princes invited him to their courts. His opinions on various subjects of civil architecture, topography, and hydrodynamics, were asked and entertained by Pope Benedict XIV. John V. of Portugal, and others. These necessarily required his presence in different states, where he never failed to increase his reputation, and often terminated disputes which might otherwise have gone on to open warfare.

He was employed to correct the maps of the papal dominions, and to measure a degree of the meridian passing

Boscovich. passing through them. In this he was assisted by an English Jesuit, Christopher Maire. An account of their expedition was printed at Rome and Paris, and is interspersed with some curious anecdotes, concerning the opinions which the peasants of the Apennines formed of them, and the operations which they had to perform; but it is valuable on account of the accurate detail which is given of their observations.

In the year 1757, he was sent to Vienna by the republic of Lucca, to reconcile some differences concerning the draining of a lake, in which the grand duke of Tuscany, the emperor Francis I. and that republic, were concerned. It was after he had succeeded in the object of his visit to that city, that he published there his Theoria Philosophie Naturalis in 1758; and that he gained the esteem of the empress-queen.

Another occasion for his mediating powers soon presented itself, and which more nearly interested him, as his native city of Ragusa required them. It had been suspected by the British government, that some ships of war were fitted out at that port for the service of the French, thereby infringing the neutrality. Such a suspicion having no just foundation, alarmed the senate of Ragusa, and required speedy removal, as the consequences of it might be extremely prejudicial to their commerce. Boscovich, who had often been successful in similar circumstances for other powers, appeared to them the most proper person for this purpose, and was accordingly entrusted with it. He repaired to London, and here also effected the object of his mission with honour to himself. He visited the Royal Society, which received him with distinguishing marks of respect, and which he soon afterwards complimented with an excellent Latin poem on the solar and lunar eclipses. This was in the year 1760, when Dr Johnson was in London. Mr Murphy speaks of an interview which took place between our author and Johnson; but in order to magnify the unruly powers of the tremendous companion, he rather unhandsomely tells us of the easy cant with which a priest might travel through Italy and France. We are unwilling to mention what effects on some minds may have been produced by the formidable society of a Johnson; but if they are a contempt of elegant simplicity and ingenuous ease, and an affected devotion to repulsive pomp and authoritative ostentation, be our lot far from his influence, amid the peace and liberty of social life.

Boscovich was invited by the Royal Society to be of the party of their members sent to America, to observe the transit of Venus over the sun's disk, which happened in the year 1762. The nature of his embassy, and the necessity of returning home, however, prevented his acceptance of the invitation. Soon after his return, and when his embassy was fulfilled, he was appointed by the senate of Milan to the mathematical chair in the university of Pavia, and to superintend the observatory of the royal college of Brera. He continued in this situation for six years, when he was made professor of astronomy and optics in the Palatine schools of Milan by the empress-queen; who also requested him to continue his attention to the observatory. This he expected to be the most agreeable part of his life. Admired by the learned; beloved by his friends; having an adequate income, and a constitution sound and vi

gorous; he promised to himself, happy, because useful days, in the tranquil cultivation of the sciences: but a cloud long impending now burst over his head, and these bright days never came.

The mysterious regulation in the political constitution of the Jesuits, though it had attracted the keen curiosity of the world, bad, for very substantial reasons, never been explored; nay, such was the influence of the order over the minds of the most enlightened statesmen, that this impenetrable mystery was held sacred by the civil power in many countries, as if no danger could exist in what was not understood. But the ra pid progress of science, and the gradual decay of superstition, required some evidence of security, and some proof that it was ever necessary to conceal good intentions, and to cover virtuous principles with any other garb than what truth could bestow. These, it is well known, the Jesuits either could not, or were unwilling to give; and they, therefore, justly incurred the suspicion of men. The most trivial circumstances would augment this suspicion, and the least deviation from rectitude in any of the order would serve to justify it : these were not wanting, and soon became invincible; the interest of the Jesuits rapidly declined for many years, and at last, in 1773, their order was totally abolished.

No exemption from the edict for its downfall could be procured; all who held offices were dismissed; and Boscovich sought refuge in the city of Paris. Thither indeed he was invited by the minister (we believe Turgot), by whose means he was made one of the directors of optics for the sea service, and received a pension but it does not seem that his situation was agreeable to him; for it is well known that the peculiar nature of his circumstances was the sole cause of his long residence in Paris.

Whether his dislike arose from the envy of some of the French, his own irritability of temper, or the incongruity of the prevailing manners with his own, we cannot determine: but it is reasonable to imagine, that the ruin of his order, and the subsidence of his own importance, would leave some indelible mark in his mind; and perhaps when he contemplated the apparent levity and the real scepticism of the age, he might be brought to fear that the degradation or the downfall of the world was concomitant. Sentiments very opposite to those of the French would thence naturally arise; morosity and discontent would invade him, and he wished to revisit the scenes of his youth. Be all this, however, as it may, certain it is, he applied for leave of absence for two years, after he had resided in Paris for ten years: this he easily procured, and accordingly set out for Bassano in the republic of Venice. At this place he published, in five vols. quarto, a collection of the works which he had finished in Paris. This forms a body of optical and astronomical knowledge, well worthy the attention of the philosophical and mechanical cultivators of the sciences. It may worth mentioning, that by proceeding on the principles contained in one of the dissertations in this collection, an amiable philosopher of our own country (Dr Robison) believed it possible to ascertain the motions of the earth, though the observer should be confined in a cellar; in prosecuting the subject, however, he F 2

be

found

Boscovich.

Boscovich found that an error into which Boscovich had fallen, concerning the aberration of light, undermined the principles on which he had erected such a wonderful but legitimate problem. The candid and very interesting acknowledgment of the error, and his extreme disappointment in the discovery of it, which the doctor made in the 3d vol. of the Edinburgh Transactions, is at once an evidence of his own liberality, and an undefeasible testimony to Boscovich's genius.

We beg to recommend to our readers the perusal of the works which we have now mentioned; they would tend to form the mind to the true mode of investigating the phenomena of nature, and will satisfactorily shew that this mode is always rewarded by discovery. The following is a pretty just account of their contents: A new instrument for determining the refracting and diverging forces of diaphanous bodies; a demonstration of the falsehood of the Newtonian analogy between light and sound; the algebraic formulæ regarding the focuses of lenses, and their applications for calculating the sphericity of those which are to be used in achromatical telescopes; the corrections to be made in ocular lenses, and the error of the sphericity of certain glasses; the causes which hinder the exact union of the solar rays by means of the great burning glasses, and the determination of the loss arising from it; the method of determining the different velocities of light passing through different mediums by means of two dioptrical telescopes, one common, the other of a new kind, containing water between the objective glass and the place of the image: a new kind of objective micrometers; the defects and inutility of a dioptrical telescope proposed and made at Paris, which gives two images of the same object, the one direct, the other inverse, with two contrary motions of moveable objects; masses floating in the atmosphere, as hail of an extraordinary size, seen on the sun with the telescope, and resembling spots; the astronomical refractions, and various methods for determining them; various methods for determining the orbits of comets and of the new planet, with copious applications of these doctrines to other astronomical subjects, and still more generally to geometry and to the science of calculation; the errors, the rectifications, and the use of quadrants, of sextants, of astronomical sectors, of the meridian line, of telescopes called the instruments of transits, of the meridian, and of the parallactic machine; the trigonometrical differential formulæ, which are of so much use in astronomy; the use of the micrometrical rhombus, extended to whatever oblique position; the error arising from refractions in using the astronomical ring for a sundial, and the correction to be made; the appearing and the disappearing of Saturn's ring; the methods of determining the rotation of the sun by means of the spots, proposed formerly by the author, and now perfected;

the greatest exactness possible in determining the length Boscovch. of a pendulum oscillating every second of middle time by the comparison of terrestrial and celestial gravity; a compend of astronomy for the use of the marine, containing the elements of the heavenly motions, and of the astronomical instruments, to be explained to a prince in the course of one month; a method for determining the altitudes of the poles with the greatest exactness, by means of a gnomon alone, where other instruments are not to be had; the determination of the illuminated edge of the moon to be observed on the meridian; a method of using the retrograde return of Venus to the same longitude, for determining the less certain elements of her orbit; a method for correcting the elements of a comet, of which the longitude of the node is given, and the inclination of the orbit has been found nearly; another method for the same purpose, and for finding the elliptical orbit, when the parabolic one does not agree with the observations; a method for correcting the elements of a planet by three observations; the projection of an orbit inclined in the plane of the ecliptic; the projection of an orbit inclined in any other plane; the calculation of the aberration of the stars, arising from the successive propagation of light; some beautiful theorems belonging to triangles, which are of great use in astronomy, reduced to the most simple demonstrations.

After the publication of these works, our author left Bassano, and went to Rome to visit the companions of his youth. From Rome, he proceeded to Milan, where he revised some of his own works, and prepared for publication the two last volumes of Stay's poems.

In such occupations, and amidst friends whom equal misfortune and temporary separation had still more endeared, he had remained happy, and might perhaps have been still further useful to the world; but his leave of absence was now nearly expired, and his dislike to a residence in Paris was augmented by the contrast which his present abode afforded. He was too delicate to apply for more leave of absence; and though he was sensible of the gratitude which he owed to France, he could not reconcile it with the destruction of his own repose. About this time also he had several attacks of gout, but he would admit no medical aid. Under these distresses, and others which we have before mentioned, our illustrious author at last sunk: a melancholy despondency seized on and subjugated his mind, so that for five months he remained perfectly fatuous; and an imposthume having burst in his breast, terminated his existence on the 13th of February 1787, in the 76th year of his age.

The following inscription was composed by Benedict Stay, and engraved on marble by order of the senate of Ragusa, in memory of their useful citizen the illustrious Roscovich.

Multo.