respectable geometer, did not lay claim, viz., those of rare mathematical talents, and thorough mathematical training and education. He was for years the trusted associate of his father's labors and studies. In Professor Loomis's valuable work on the "Recent Progress of Astronomical Science," a brief but interesting sketch is given of the researches of the Messrs. Bond, father and son, down to the year 1856.—It is there stated that Mr. George P. Bond "has been the independent discoverer of eleven Comets, but unfortunately it subsequently appeared, that each of these, save one, had been previously discovered in Europe. The Comet of August 29th, 1850, he discovered seven days in advance of the European Astronomers. Two other Comets he discovered on the same night that they were seen in Europe, viz., those of June 5th, 1845, and April 11th, 1849. Having found this species of observation too severe a trial for his eyes, he has for the past three or four years given up comet seeking." Mr. Geo. P. Bond's Memoir in the Mathematical, Monthly on Donati's comet, (which attracted the wondering admiration of the world last Autumn,) is a most successful attempt to popularize science. The engravings accompanying it are of surpassing beauty. The non-scientific world is under great obligations to Mr. Bond, for bringing the observations made at Cambridge. and his views upon the subject of Donati's comet, down to the level of readers not versed in the mysteries of the calculus.

No men of science in this country are more honorably referred to in the "Cosmos" than the Messrs. Bond. The observations of Mr. Bond, jun. on the nebula of Andromeda, and his delineation of that most extraordinary object, have attracted the notice of European Astronomers. "For the first time, I believe," says Dr. Nichols in his Architecture of the Heavens, "first at least in so marked a manner,-the existence of dark lines WITHIN nebulæ, [these Italics and Capitals are Dr. Nichols',] or as part of their structure, was

noticed by Mr. Bond." This important paper and another purely demonstrative, on "Some methods of computing the ratio of the distances of a Comet from the Earth," in the third volume of the new series of the Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and still more his remarkable paper on the Rings of Saturn in the fourth volume of the same series, have, with his other publications, given Mr. Bond, jun. a high place, not merely among the observers but among the geometers of the Age. His conclusion from his observation of the phenomena of Saturn's rings, that they cannot be solid bodies, confirmed as it has been, by the subsequent demonstrations of Professors Pierce and Maxwell of the mechanical conditions of the Saturnian system, are certainly among the most brilliant results of Modern Astronomical Science.

I propose in another paper, to pay an humble tribute to the other illustrious dead of the year.

NUMBER THIRTY.

THE ILLUSTRIOUS DEAD OF 1859-PRESCOTT, BOND, HALLAM, VON HUMBOLDT.

Simultaneous death of Hallam and Prescott-Hallam the first standard writer of history in England after Hume, Gibbon, and Robertson-Compared with those writers-Brief account of the History of Europe in the middle ages-Of the Constitutional history of England—Of the introduction to the Literature of Europe for the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries-Personal History-Loss of his two sons-Henry counsels his father not to accept the title of BaronetReceives the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Harvard College-Letter of acknowledgment.

By the arrival of the next steamer from Europe, after the death of Prescott, the public mind received another shock in this country by the news that a brother Historian had passed away in England. Hallam had gone beyond the age of four score, and had for several years ceased from his literary labors. His death left nothing to regret as to the completion of his works, or the maturity of his fame. He enjoyed his well-earned reputation, in a serene old age; the lapse of time had alleviated the weight of the heavy bereavement which he had suffered in the loss of his two noble sons; and he found pleasure in the reflection that, though bereft of them, his lineage would not wholly perish. In the last letter which I received from him, not written, except the signature, with his own hand, he says:

"I return you many thanks for your kind recollection of me, though the pleasure of receiving your letter was much diminished, by the recollection that we can never meet again in this world. I continue on the

whole in pretty good health, but I am become very lame and infirm and unable to walk. Still I should be thankful that I am free from organic complaints, which so often affect people at my very advanced age. I have the happiness of living in the same house with my daughter both here and in the country, for we have a house in Kent, about twelve miles from town, where we pass half the year. I have two grandchildren, one of them only a few weeks old, so that I have a hope of surviving in my posterity."

It was certainly a noticeable coincidence, that two such lights in the intellectual firmament as Hallam and Prescott, shining with such brightness in the same department of polite letters, should have been extinguished within a few days of each other. Having during my residence in England, from 1841 to 1845, been honored with the intimate acquaintance, I may venture to say, the friendship of Mr. Hallam, and with his correspondence since my return, the reader will, I am sure pardon me, even after the lapse of a few months since his decease, for placing on record, in these columns, my impressions of his literary and personal character.

After the last of the three great English historians of the Eighteenth Century had passed away, no writer appeared in the same department sufficiently distinguished, to be considered as keeping up the line of the succession in that country. In this country historical studies had hardly commenced. Many valuable works had certainly appeared, on both sides of the Atlantic, within the domain of history, or closely bordering upon it, but nothing which could be fairly placed on a level with Hume, Gibbon, and Robertson. At length, after mature preparatory studies and being then forty years of age, Mr. Hallam in 1818 published his first, and in the opinion of some persons his ablest work, A View of the State of Europe in the Middle Ages." This work did not claim to be a History, narrating a series of events woven into unity political or territorial, but it was rather a series of historical dissertations, presenting a comprehensive view of the chief mat

ters of interest to a philosophical inquirer, in the period called the middle ages. A work of this kind necessarily wanted something of the epic attraction of a great historical work, properly so called; but for those who read, not for amusement but instruction, it had its counterbalancing advantages. Without possessing the same charm of style as either of the three great writers of the eighteenth century, it is, in some important respects, of higher merit than either of them. In consequence of the great advance of philological studies, during the last half of the eighteenth and the first quarter of the nineteenth centuries, the learning of Hallam is more accurate and critical than that of Gibbon, though not displayed in an equal array of citations, which in "the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" are multiplied with superfluous profusion, and which are, in some cases, from authorities since become obsolete. It is a still greater merit of Mr. Hallam's work,—as indeed of all his works,—that they are wholly free from the taint of irreverence, which poisons Gibbons magnificent and truly monumental history. There is a gravity and dignity in the speculations of a few of the sceptical writers, which commands your respect, however you may deplore their tendency and recoil from their results. But the irony and the veiled sarcasm of Gibbon resolve themselves at last into nearly the worst fault of a writer, Insincerity; while an ill restrained pruriency occasionally manifests itself, which excites no feelings but those of pity and disgust. Mr. Hallam's history far exceeds Hume's in range of topics, in depth of investigation, and extent and accuracy of research; in a knowledge not only of the common but of the civil law, and especially in conscientious dealing with his authorities, in which respect, Hume, either from indolence, or a certain philosophical indifference, was far from exemplary. I cannot think Hume ever intended knowingly and wilfully to mistake or garble the writers whom he quotes; but those who follow in his track will occasionally find traces of a carelessness,