de tous les problèmes de Dynamique,” which, on examination, he finds equally applicable, and equally applied, to the vibrations of a pendulum or the motion of a planet. On the exquisite symmetry of his notation and style, we need not enlarge: the mathematician either is acquainted with it, or should become so with all speed; and others will perhaps only smile at the notion of one set of algebraical symbols possessing more elegance or beauty than another.
The separate works of Lagrange are—1. Mécanique Analytique, the second edition of which he was engaged upon when he died; the first edition was published in 1788. 2. Théorie des Fonctions Analytiques, a system of Fluxions on purely algebraical principles; first edition, 1797; second edition, 1813. 3. Leçons sur le Calcul des Fonctions; first published separately in 1806. 4. Résolution des Equations numériques; three editions, in 1798, 1808, and 1826. To give only a list of his separate memoirs would double the length of this life: they will be found in the Miscellanea Taurinensia, tom. i.-v., and 1784–5; Memoirs of the Berlin Academy, 1765–1803; Recueils de l’Académie des Sciences de Paris, 1773–4, and tom. ix.; Mémoires des Savans Etrangers, tom. vii. and x.; Mémoires de l’Institut, 1808–9; Journal de l’École Polytechnique, tom. ii. cahiers 5, 6, tom. viii. cahier 15; Seánces des Écoles Normales; and Connoissance des Tems, 1814, 1817.
7. Éloge de Lagrange, Mémoires de l’Institut. 1812.
8. The admissibility of discontinuous functions into the integrals of partial differential equations.
9. Les principales sociétés savantes de L’Europe, celle de Londres exceptée, s’empressèrent de décorer de son nom la liste de leurs membres.
Engraved by Jas. Mollison. VOLTAIRE. From an original Picture by Largillière in the collection of the Institute of France. Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. London, Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East.
VOLTAIRE.
François Marie Arouet, who is commonly known by his assumed name, De Voltaire, was born at Châtenay, near Sceaux, February 20, 1694. He soon distinguished himself as a child of extraordinary abilities. The Abbé de Châteauneuf, his godfather, took charge of the elements of his education, and laboured successfully to improve the talents of his ready pupil without much regard to his morals. At three years old the future champion of infidelity had learned by heart the Moisade, an irreligious poem of J. B. Rousseau. These lessons were not forgotten at college, where he passed rapidly through the usual courses of study, and alarmed his Jesuit preceptors by the undisguised licence of his opinions. About this time some of his first attempts at poetry obtained for him the notice of Ninon de l’Enclos; and when the Abbé de Châteauneuf, who had been the last in her long list of favourites, introduced him at her house, she was so pleased with the promising talents of the boy, that she left him by will a legacy of 2,000 francs to purchase books. The Ecole de Droit, where Arouet next studied, was much less suited to his disposition than the College of Louis le Grand. In vain his father urged him to undertake the drudgery of a profession: the Abbé was a more agreeable monitor, and under his auspices the young man sought with eagerness the best Parisian society. At the suppers of the Prince de Conti, he became acquainted with wits and poets, acquired the easy tone of familiar politeness, and distinguished himself by the delicacy of his flatteries, and the liveliness of his repartee. In 1713 he went to Holland as page to the French ambassador, the Marquis de Châteauneuf. This place had been solicited by his father in the hope of detaching him from dissipated habits. But little was gained by the step, for in a short time he was sent back to his family, in consequence of an intrigue with a Mlle. Du Noyer, whose mother, a Protestant refugee at the Hague, gained her living by scandal and libels, and on this occasion thought something might be got by complaining to the ambassador, and printing young Arouet’s love-letters. He was, however, not easily discouraged. He endeavoured to interest the Jesuits in his affairs, by representing Mlle. Du Noyer as a ready convert, whom it would be Catholic charity to snatch from the influence of an apostate mother. This manœuvre having failed, he sought a reconciliation with his father, who remained a long while implacable; but touched at last by his son’s entreaties to be permitted to see him once more, on condition of leaving the country immediately afterwards for America, he consented to receive him into favour. Arouet again attempted legal studies, but soon abandoned them in disgust. The Regency had now commenced; and among the numerous satires directed against the memory of Louis XIV., one was attributed to him. The report caused him a year’s imprisonment in the Bastille. Soon afterwards he changed the name of Arouet for that of Voltaire. “I have been unhappy,” he said, “so long as I bore the first: let us see if the other will bring better fortune.” It seemed indeed that it did so, for in 1718 the tragedy of Œdipe was represented, and established the reputation of its author. It had been principally composed in the Bastille, where he also laid the foundation of his Henriade, which occupied the time he could spare from amorous and political intrigue, until 1724. Desiring to publish it, he submitted the poem to some select friends, men of severe taste, who met at the house of the President de Maisons. They found so many faults that the author threw the manuscript into the fire. The President Hénault rescued it with difficulty, and said, “Young man, your haste has cost me a pair of best lace ruffles: why should your poem be better than its hero, who was full of faults, yet none of us like him the worse?” Surreptitious copies spread rapidly, and gained for the author much both of celebrity and envy. But it displeased two powerful classes: the priests were apprehensive of its religious, the courtiers of its political, tendency; insomuch that the publication was prohibited by government, and the young king refused to accept the dedication. Soon after this, Voltaire was sent again to the Bastille, in consequence of a quarrel with the Chevalier de Rohan: and on his liberation, he was banished to England. There he remained three years, perhaps the most important era of his life, for it gave an entirely new direction to his lively mind. Hitherto a wit, and a writer of agreeable verse, he became in England a philosopher. Returning to France in 1726, he brought with him an admiration of our manners, and a knowledge of our best writers, which visibly influenced his own compositions and those of his contemporaries. He now published several poetical and dramatic pieces with variable success; but he was more than once forced to quit Paris by the clamour and persecution of his enemies. After the failure of one of his plays, Fontenelle and some other literary associates seriously advised him to abandon the drama, as less suited to his talent than the light style of fugitive poetry in which he had uniformly succeeded. He answered them by writing Zaire, which was acted with great applause in 1732. He had already published his history of Charles XII.: that of Peter the Great was written much later in life. The Lettres Philosophiques, secretly printed at Rouen, and rapidly circulating, increased his popularity, and the zeal of his enemies. This work was burnt by the common hangman. About this time commenced that celebrated intimacy with Emilie Marquise du Châtelet, which for nearly twenty years stimulated and guided his genius. Love made him a mathematician. In the studious leisure of Cirey, under the auspices of “la sublime Emilie,” he plunged himself into the most abstract speculations, and acquired a new title to fame by publishing the Elements of Newton in 1738, and contending for a prize proposed by the Academy of Sciences. At the same time he produced in rapid succession Alzire, Mahomet, and Merope. His fame was now become European. Frederic of Prussia, Stanislaus, and other sovereigns honoured him, or were honoured by his correspondence. But the perpetual intrigues of his enemies at home deprived him of repose, and even at Cirey he was not always free from troubles and altercations. Upon the death of Madame du Châtelet, in
