Drummond himself, which has been often printed.* Drummond, who was distinguished for his learning as well as his poetry, died in 1649, in his sixty-fourth year, having lived through a very agitated period without mixing in its political convulsions, satisfied with philosophy and the Muses. Another contemporary of Napier, whose labours and speculations were more similar to his own, was the celebrated Danish astronomer TYCHO BRAHÉ. Brahé's family was both wealthy and noble; but when he first manifested his attachment to the science by his contributions to which he afterwards acquired so much reputation, being then only a boy at school, his friends did everything they could to check an inclination which they deemed quite unsuited to his birth and prospects; and the young astronomer was obliged to conceal from his tutor the mathematical books he had purchased with his pocketmoney, and to read them, as well as to make his observations on the stars, in hours stolen from the time allowed him for sleep. For, even before he was sixteen, he had begun to measure the distances of the heavenly bodies from one another, although he had no better instrument than a common pair of compasses, the hinge of which he used to put to his eye, while he opened the legs until they pointed to the two stars whose relative position he wished to ascertain. A collection of celestial observations made by him at this early period is still preserved at Copenhagen. When he became of age, however, and was his own master, his fortune enabled him to choose his own pursuits; and, having first spent some years in travelling through Germany and Switzerland, and visiting the various observatories in those countries, he then returned home, took up his residence on his estate, and dedicated himself almost entirely to his favourite science. Some of the results of his studies which he published, soon drew to them the attention of the learned among his countrymen; and, at the desire of the king, he at last left his retreat to teach astronomy in the capital. But the constant interruptions to which he was here exposed disgusted him with a town life; and he sighed to get once more back to his country retirement. All his wishes in this respect were at length gratified by an act of extraordinary munificence on the part of his royal master, who bestowed on him the island of Hueen, in the Sound, together with a pension of five hundred crowns, a lordship in Norway, and an ecclesiastical benefice, which brought him two thousand crowns more, in order that with these revenues, added to those of his original estates, he might be enabled to prosecute his celestial observations on the grandest scale. In this island, accordingly, Brahé now took up his abode, and soon erected on it a splendid observatory, provided with all the best instruments known in that age. He spent, he says, a hundred thousand crowns of his own

* But for the first time correctly and in full under the editorship of David Laing, Esq., for the Shakespeare Society, Lond. 1842,

money upon its completion, in addition to the produce of his grants from the king. Here he resided for seventeen years, during the whole of which time he continued to devote himself, with unabated zeal, to his scientific pursuits. But such was now his fame, that, even in this retirement, besides being surrounded, as before, by pupils who crowded to profit by his instructions, he was sought out by many visitors, both from his own and foreign countries. Among other persons of distinction who came to see him was our James I., then king of Scotland, who passed a week with him in the year 1590; but, if the story that is told be true, this visit was anything rather than a fortunate incident for Brahé. Some years afterwards, it is said, his protector, Frederick II., being dead, he was visited one day by the young king Christian IV., accompanied by his chief minister, Walckendorf; and it so happened that this latter personage, who was very sensitive and choleric, was barked at, as he approached the house, by two dogs belonging to the astronomer, at which he chose to be so much offended, that he went up to the animals and beat them severely. The dogs had been presented to Brahé by the Scottish monarch; and, irritated at seeing them illtreated, he interfered to prevent the enraged senator from continuing his chastisement. This gave rise to some high words between the two, and the result was a quarrel, which Walckendorf, at least, never forgot. From that day, Brahe's ruin was resolved upon by his powerful enemy. A commission was soon after appointed to report upon the public utility of his establishment; and, upon this compliant body declaring that they saw nothing in his splendid observatory but a source of useless expense to the State, a decree was passed recalling all the grants he had received from the former king, and dispossessing him of his island. On this, Brahe determined to bid adieu for ever to his ungrateful country; and, taking with him all his instruments, he retired to Germany. About two years afterwards, however, he was invited to take up his residence at Prague by the Emperor Rodolph II.; and by this prince, who was warmly attached to science, he was provided with a second asylum, almost as splendid as that which he had enjoyed in his native country. But he lived only a very short time after this, having died in 1601, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. Tycho Brahé was the inventor or reviver of a peculiar scheme of the universe, according to which the earth is conceived to be immoveable in the centre of the system, the sun to revolve round it, and the other planets round the sun. It is unnecessary to say that this hypothesis has been long exploded. Indeed, although supported by its author with much ingenuity, it has been generally held to have been a most unphilosophical retrogression from the true system previously established by Copernicus.*

* But see a valuable article on TYCHо BRAHÉ, in the "Penny Cyclopædia" (vol. v. pp. 323-327) the writer of which declares it to be his opinion, "that the system of

Tycho Brahe was the only one of that day not open to serious physical objections, taking as a basis the notions of mecha ics [then] admitted by all parties."

But, although Brahé may thus appear to have no very high claims upon our admiration as a theorist, he undoubtedly did much in another way to promote the improvement of astronomy. His extraordinary devotion to the science, of itself, operated as an inspiration upon many of the other ardent minds of the time. But it was by the great number and comparative exactness of his observations, far surpassing anything that had been attained by his predecessors, that he chiefly contributed to the progress of astronomy. No other but one in his circumstances could have commanded either the leisure or the pecuniary means necessary for the making of those observations, which, besides having occupied many years, owed much of their superior accuracy to the excellence and consequent costliness of the instruments which Brahé employed. Here, therefore, was a case in which science was indebted to the wealth of one of its cultivators for services which no zeal or talents could have otherwise enabled him to render.

Another man of fortune, to whom both science and the arts are under considerable obligations, is the German mathematician, TSCHIRNHAUSEN, celebrated for the discovery of the peculiar curve called, after him, Tschirnhausen's Caustics. He was born in 1651, at the seat of his ancestors, in Upper Lusatia; and although, after receiving an excellent education, he entered the army at an early age, he very soon quitted the profession of a soldier, and set out on his travels through England, Italy, and France. He spent several years in traversing these countries, embracing every opportunity of obtaining a knowledge of their arts, manufactures, and productions, and seeking the acquaintance of the learned men of the time, wherever he went. On returning home, he took up his residence on his estate, the revenues of which were ample; and the remainder of his life was given to scientific speculations and experiments. The science of optics was that to which he was chiefly attached; and it was while making some experiments with reflecting mirrors, that he discovered his Caustics, which are curves formed by light reflected in certain circumstances, and are so called from the Greek word for a burning-glass. They possess some remarkable geometrical properties.* When Tschirnhausen announced this discovery to the French Academy of Sciences, he was only in his thirty-first year; but he was immediately admitted a member of the Academy by order of the King, Louis XIV. In order to have the aid of proper instruments in the prosecution of his researches, he afterwards established three glasshouses in his native district; at which he employed all the resources of his ingenuity, in endeavouring to fabricate burning-glasses of greater size and power than any which had ever been elsewhere pro

In an article of some length upon Tschirnhausen, in the "Biographie Univercelle" (xlvii. 3), the writer, M. Gley, by a strange blunder, mistakes these curves for

actual burning-glasses: and describes, with great minuteness, their wondertul powers in kindling and consuming, or melting, wood, iron, tiles, slates and earthenw!

*

duced. In 1687 he had made a concave reflecting mirror of copper, of the diameter of four feet and a half, which consumed wood and fused metals at twelve feet distance, in a few seconds; but, although these effects greatly surpassed anything of the same kind that had been accomplished in modern times, he found the inconvenience of operating by reflection so great, that he determined to persevere in his attempts to obtain, if possible, a lens of equal magnitude. He did not exactly attain this object; for the largest lens he succeeded in producing had only a diameter of three feet. But when it is added that nobody but himself had ever before made one of more than four or five inches diameter, his success will probably be deemed sufficiently extraordinary. The method he employed in fabricating this immense glass is not known. It was convex on both sides, and weighed a hundred and sixty pounds. Although somewhat less in size, its effects greatly exceeded those of the reflector he had formerly used. This lens was purchased from Tschirnhausen by the Duke of Orleans, who afterwards made a present of it to the Academy of Sciences. Tschirnhausen deserves, also, to be remembered as the founder of the celebrated porcelain manufactory of Dresden. Before this time it was supposed that the Chinese employed for their porcelain a peculiar earth, only found in their own country: but he discovered that the same species of ware could be manufactured from a compound of different sorts of earth, which might be obtained in Europe as well as in China. This eminent benefactor to the arts, who, besides his contributions to the "Transactions of the French Academy," was also the author of two separate works-the first, entitled "The Medicine of the Body," the latter, "The Medicine of the Mind,” "being in fact, a system of the art of reasoning—died in 1708.

But perhaps the best example we can adduce of the manner in which wealth may be made subservient by its possessor, not only to the acquisition of knowledge, but also to its diffusion and improvement, is that of our celebrated countryman, the Honourable ROBERT BOYLE. Boyle was born at Lismore, in Ireland, in 1627, and was the seventh and youngest son of Richard, the first Earl of Cork, commonly called the Great Earl. The first advantage which he derived from the wealth and station of his father was an excellent education. After having enjoyed the instructions of a domestic tutor, he was sent at an early age to Eton. But his inclination, from the first, seems to have led him to the study of things, rather than of words. He remained at Eton only four years, "in the last of which," according to his own statement, in an account which he has given us of his early life, "he forgot much of that Latin he had got, for he was so addicted to more solid parts of knowledge, that he hated the study of bare words naturally, as something that relished too much of pedantry, to consort with his disposition and designs." In reference to what is here insinuated, in disparagement of

the study of languages merely as such, we may just remark that the observation is, perhaps, not quite so profound as it is plausible. So long as one mind differs from another, there will always be much difference of sentiment as to the comparative claims upon our regard of that, on the one hand, which addresses itself principally to the taste or the imagination, and that, on the other, which makes its appeal to the understanding only. But we are not to suppose that, because the epithet useful is commonly confined to the latter, the former is to be deemed useless. We call that, by way of distinction, useful which is merely useful. The agreeable or the graceful is plainly also useful. It is useful and something more. The study of language and style cannot with any propriety be denounced as a mere waste of time; but, on the contrary, is well fitted to become to the mind a source both of enjoyment and of power. So great, indeed, is the influence of diction upon the common feelings of mankind, that no literary work, it may be safely asserted, has ever acquired a permanent reputation or popularity, or, in other words, produced any wide and enduring effect, which was not distinguished by the graces of its style. Their deficiency, in this respect, has been at least one of the causes of the comparative oblivion into which Mr. Boyle's own writings have fallen, and doubtless weakened the efficacy of such of them as aimed at anything beyond a bare statement of facts, even in his own day. It was this especially which exposed some of his moral lucubrations to Swift's annihilating ridicule.

On being brought home from Eton, Boyle, who was his father's favourite son, was placed under the care of a neighbouring clergyman, who, instructing him, he says, "both with care and civility, soon brought him to renew his first acquaintance with the Roman tongue, and to improve it so far that in that language he could readily enough express himself in prose, and began to be no dull proficient in the poetic strain. Although, however," he adds, "naturally addicted to poetry, he forbore, in after-life, to cultivate his talent for that species of composition, because, in his travels, having by discontinuance forgot much of the Latin tongue, he afterwards never could find time to redeem his losses by a serious study of the ancient poets." From all this it is evident that the natural bent of his mind did not incline him very strongly to classical studies; and as, for the most obviously wise purposes, there has been established among men a diversity of intellectual endowments and tendencies, and every mind is most efficient when it is employed in accordance with its natural dispositions and predilections, it was just as well that the course of his education was now changed. In his eleventh year he and one of his brothers were put under the charge of a Mr. Marcombes, a French gentleman, and sent to travel on the Continent. In the narrative of his early life, in which he designates himself by the name of Philoretus, Mr. Boyle has left us an account of his travelling