profound, had clear and distinct notions as far as his knowlege extended; and this person was the only master whom D'ALEMBERT ever confulted. The taste of the pupil for mathematics grew more and more confirmed; and the time of the law-noviciate was wholly absorbed by this pursuit. Without adequate instruction, without books, and without a friend to advise and to solve difficulties, as has been remarked by his eulogist, he had recourse to the public libraries, and derived his information from the hurried reading of which they admitted. He thus gained fome advances, and even made what he considered as discoveries, but which he afterward, not without a mixture of mortification and satisfaction, found in other books. His friends, however, being desirous of his advancement in the world, persuaded him to discontinue his mathematical studies, in order to adopt some other which would be more profitable. With this view, and as being less foreign from his natural bias, but not from any predilection for the profession, he began to study medicine. In order to follow, without distraction, his new pursuit, he proposed entirely to abandon the mathematics, and consigned to a friend his few books on that subject: but the books gradually and imperceptibly found their way back to the owner; and at the end of a year, he renounced medicine altogether, and gave himself up decidedly to his predominant taste. So completely was he devoted to his favourite science, that for years he wholly neglected the belles lettres, and did not resume them till some years after his admission into the Academy, and about the time at which he began to write in the Encyclopedie. The preface to that work is here described as the quintessence of the mathematical, philosophical, and literary acquisitions made by him in a course of twenty years of study.'

Frederick the Great was the first royal patron of the philosopher; and a trait, which is very honorable to that prince, is preserved in a letter from him to D'ALEMBERT, respecting the destruction of the order of Jesuits. "Though encouraged," (says Frederick,)" by the examples of other princes, I shall not banish the Jesuits because they are unfortunate; I shall do them no harm, being very sure that I shall prevent them from injuring me; and I do not oppress them, because I know how to keep them within the line of their duty." This able and magnanimous ruler was above dreading any mischiefs from toleration.

The portrait which D'ALEMBERT drew of his own character, at the request of a lady, shews a fair and candid mind, and has all the appearance of extreme correctness. Speaking of himself in the third person, he remarks:

!

It is said that his physiognomy has an ironical and malignant cast: it is true that the ludicrous forcibly strikes him, and as he perhaps has some facility in seizing it, it may be that the impression which it makes on his mind is expressed in his countenance. His conversation is very unequal, sometimes serious, and sometimes gay, according to the state of his mind; he is often little on his guard, but is never tiresome nor pedantic. It is obvious at first sight that he has devoted the greater part of his life to profound studies: but he at times shews a gaiety which is even childish; and this contrast between schoolboy behaviour, and the reputation which he has attained in the sciences, causes him to please generally, without any effort on his part. He seldom disputes, and never with eagerness; not because he is not wedded, at least in some cases, to his own ideas, but because he feels too little desire of gaining an ascendancy over others, to take any pains for converting them to his opinion. Besides, with the exception of the exact sciences, he thinks that nothing is so clear and decisive, as not to leave room for difference of sentiment; and his favourite maxim is, "that almost in every thing, men may say what they chuse."

In appreciating his intellectual claims, he describes distinctness of conception and soundness of judgment as the characteristics of his mind:

Living,' he continues, in retirement, and employed in study till he had passed the age of twenty-five, he entered the world not till late, and never pleased much in it; he could never bend to learn its usages and its language, and he perhaps indulges a sort of vanity which leads him to despise them: nevertheless, he is not unpolished, because he is never gross or rude; though he is sometimes uncivil through ignorance or inattention. The compliments which are paid to him embarrass him, because he has not at command the prescribed forms by which they are returned: his conversation has neither gallantry nor grace; and when he says obliging things, it is because they accord with his real sentiments, and are addressed to those whom he loves. The genuine basis of his character consists in an honesty and an openness which are sometimes blunt, but never rude.

Impatient and choleric even to violence, that which opposes and thwarts him makes on him the most lively impression: but his wrath disappears as soon it is expressed in truth, he is very gentle, and easily governed, provided that the design is kept out of his sight; for his love of independence extends to fanaticism, and goes so far as to make him refuse that which is agreeable to him, when it is in any way -Connected with constraint;-a disposition which made one of his friends say that he was a slave to liberty,

Some persons impute malignity to him, because he amuses himself at the expence of silly pretenders who fatigue him; and if this be malignity, it is the sole species of it with which he is chargeable. It would drive him to despair to render any one miserable, even among those who have sought to injure him. He is not insensible to offences,

but

but he only avenges himself by refusing his friendship and his confidence to those against whom he has cause of complaint.

Without family or connections of any kind, left to himself from his tender years, habituated to a confined and obscure mode of life, born as it were for himelf alone, with some talent and little passion, he found in study and in his natural gaiety sufficient resources; he raised himself to consideration in the world without the assistance of any one, and even without any great exertions on his own part.

No man was ever less jealous of the talents and success of others, or more readily applauded them if they were unaccompanied by trick or presumption: where he discovers aught of this sort, he is severe, caustic, and perhaps unjust.'

The philosopher denies that his vanity was so excessive as it was represented: for a moment, he admits, it is very much. alive to blame or praise: but he asserts that in the second instant his mind recovers its balance, and views eulogiums with indifference and satire with contempt.

Though he is unquestionably to be placed in the first rank of mathematicians, he here makes a claim to exquisite sensibility. His soul,' he tells us, loved to lay it itself open to every tender sentiment; at one and the same time all gaiety, and yet ever disposed to melancholy, he finally became wholly resigned to this latter feeling; which inclination to self afflic tion disposed him in favour of the gloomy and the pathetic.'

• With such a disposition, (he observes) we are not to be surprized if in his youth he was devoted to the most vivid, tender, and delicious of the passions, though distraction and solitude kept him for a while ignorant of it. The sentiment was asleep, if we may so express it, at the bottom of the soul, but when roused it became terrible; love was the source only of misery to him; and the mortifications which it occasioned gave him for a long time a disgust to men, and even to study itself. After having employed his earlier years in research and meditation, he discovered, like the wise man, the vanity of human knowlege, and seemed to adopt the sentiment expressed in the Aminta of Tasso, that all the time not spent in love was lost.'

We suppose that to many of our readers, to whom the name and character of the philosopher are familiar, this trait willexcite surprize. Can it be that this is said, and truly said of himself by one of the first mathematicians of his age? Yes, the statement is completely verified by his private history. It appears that for a series of years this distinguished person was the lover, and during several of them, the ill-teated lover of a Mademoiselle d'Espinasse, a woman of talents; first the humble friend of the well known Madame Du Deffant, then discarded by her through jealousy, and, in consequence of that ill usage, placed at the head of a very interesting coterie, of which D'ALEMBERT

made

made one. It does not appear at what period his passion for this lady became of the tender kind; that at first it met with a due return is to be collected: but the regards of the fair seem to have been very capricious, and to have been attracted by dif

ferent persons.

Although he lived in the same house with the object of his passion, the innocence of the parties was never questioned. The lady is said to have possessed an ardent mind, and a ro mantic fancy. Though not handsome, she excelled in all the arts of pleasing, and she cherished hopes of engaging the affections of some of the persons of rank who frequented her circle. The celebrated Guibert, who united to a military character the talent of writing, was at one time the object of her partiality: but to him succeeded a young Spanish Marquis, of high birth. Whether it was owing to love or enthusiasm, it is certain that this noble youth became seriously attached to her; and the intelligence induced his family to hasten his return, in order to marry him in his own country. This roving disposition of the fair had no effect on the regard of pauvre D'ALEMBERT: he was still her faithful swain, though we are told that he experienced not only neglect, but was exposed to unpleasant effects arising from the ill humour of the disappointed damsel. Of the fetters in which the philosopher was held, we may judge when we are informed that he was her messenger to the post-office, and the bearer of the letters of her lover, which he was required to deliver to her when she rose in the morning.

Some time after his return to Spain, the young grandee fell dangerously ill, and medical advice was every where sought. At the instigation of the enamoured fair, D'ALEMBERT was obliged to induce a Parisian physician to certify that the air of France was necessary to the recovery of the noble patient; who accordingly set out for Paris, but died on the journey and Mademoiselle D'Espinasse did not long survive this shock. Unkindly as he had been treated by her, the philosopher was inconsolable for her loss, and bemoaned the solitude in which he found himself. It was vain to remind him of the change in his mistress. "Yes," replied he, "she was changed, but I was not; she lived no longer for me, but I always lived for her. Since she has ceased to be, I know not why I desire to exist. Who will now sooth my bitter moments? what now remains to me, when I return home? I find only her shadow. Home to me exhibits all the horrors of a tomb !"

Let the reader reflect on the hard offices which his mistress assigned to D'ALEMBERT, and on the state of his mind when death had severed them; and let him recollect that this person was at the head of the philosophers of the age! He will then

be

be tempted to exclaim, "Alas, how little does philosophy improve the condition of human life!"-While in this account the dignity and force of philosophy appear to disadvantage, it is impossible to exhibit in a stronger light the paramouut authority of the sex in France. The various memoirs of this celebrated person, which are prefixed to this edition of part of his works, have great value, as they describe the manners of the latter years of the French monarchy, and give an insight into the maxims and temper of that philosophical sect in which D'ALEMBERT was a leader. In this view, they form very interesting documents for history.

The present collection contains the celebrated preliminary discourse to the Encyclopedie; the Essay on Men of Letters; The Memoirs of Queen Christina ; a Translation of select parts of Tacitus; Elements of Philosophy, and Dissertations on various subjects,-eloquence, poetry, the latinity of modern dialects, &c.; Apology for Study; Elements of Music; The Destruction of the Jesuits; and a great number of Eulogies.

Whatever grounds might exist for suspicion, no pofitive proofs of the infidelity of D'ALEMBERT had been given till the appearance of his letters, which were published after his death. It has been observed that his works furnish no direct evidence of this nature; and in some of them he speaks with much feeling of the beauties of certain parts of scripture, while he renders great justice to the celebrated preachers of the court of Louis XIV. La Harpe admits that he has not found a line in them expressive of hostility to religion; but that in some parts of his eulogies he mentions it with respect, and even with an appearance of being impressed by it.-When La Harpe's conversion had abated much of his enthusiasm in favour of this philosopher, he thus speaks of his grand literary atchievement:

"It was perhaps the union of a genius for science with the talent of writing, which rendered the preliminary discourse to the Encyclopedie so distinguishing, and which called forth the very unusal praise that was bestowed on that fine composition. It may be regarded as the vestibule of science, and it is regular and noble; it is constructed with a firm and steady hand, all its proportions are just, and all its ornaments are select. This discourse alone would suffice to secure to its author the first reputation as a man of letters. It indicates a sound and comprehensive mind, just taste, and a pure style.

"The Elements of Philosophy," continues the same author, " are inferior to the Discourse, on account of the disproportion of the obects treated: but they bespeak a judicious mind and an elegant pen. Similar praise belongs to the greater part of the eulogies. His Memoirs of Christina, and his Essay on Men of Letters, are eminently ingenious. His translation; of Tacitus, if they do not preserve the

7

force