learned library. My apartments confifted of three elegant ' and well-furnished rooms, in the new building, a ftately pile, of Magdalen College; and the adjacent walks, had they been • frequented by Plato's difciples, might have been compared to the attic fhade on the banks of the Ilyffus.'-But, with this fair profpect of his entrance into the univerfity of Oxford he contrafts the defective and abfurd modes of education that prevail there, together with various prejudices and abuses, and, quitting this fubject, fays, The academical refentment, which I may poffibly have provoked, will prudently fpare this plain ⚫ narrative of my ftudies, or rather of my idleness; and of the ⚫ unfortunate event which shortened the term of my refidence at Oxford.'-But he acknowledges, with candour, that, at a more recent period, many ftudents have been attracted by the merit and reputation of Sir William Scott, then a tutor in the Univerfity College, and now confpicuous in the profeffion of the civil law and that, under the aufpices of Dr. Markham, the prefent Archbishop of York, a more regular difcipline, as well as a better course of ftudies, has been introduced into the numerous feminary of Chrift Church.

The unfortunate event to which our author alludes, that fhortened the term of his refidence at Oxford, was his converfion to the Roman Catholic religion. Many years after'wards (fays our author), when the name of Gibbon was become as notorious as that of Middleton, it was industriously ' whispered at Oxford, that the hiftorian had formally turned papift.' My character ftood exposed to the reproach of inconftancy; and this invidious charge would have been handled without mercy by my opponents could they have feparated my caufe from that of the univerfity. For my own part, I am proud of an honeft facrifice of intereft to confcience. I can never blush, if my tender mind was entangled in the fophiftry that feduced the acute and manly understanding of CHILLINGWORTH and BAYLE, who afterwards emerged from fuperftition to fcepticism.'

For the cure of his spiritual malady he was sent to Lausanne in Switzerland, whither he arrived in June 1753, and where he was fettled under the roof and tuition of Mr. Pavilliard, a Calvinift minifter.

The melancholy and unpromifing afpect of his lodging and entertainment, he contrafts with his elegant apartments in Magdalen College. Such was my first introduction to Laufanne, a place where I fpent nearly five years with pleasure and profit, which I afterwards vifited without compulfion, and which I have finally felected as the moft grateful retreat for the decline of my life.'-The courfe and conduct of his

ftudies

ftudies at Lausanne, where he recovered his ardour for reading, which had been chilled at Oxford, is minutely defcribed. Nor does he omit to give an account of the faithful and fuccessful affiduity with which Mr. Pavilliard affifted our author's own reflections in, his recovery from popery. Never was there a more indefatigable, and feldom, we believe, a more fuccefsful ftudent than Mr. Gibbon. The memoranda he has kept of the books which he read, the order in which he read them, and the obfervations he made upon them, may be of eminent use in directing and animating the endeavours of other students.

Mr. Gibbon's thirst of improvement, and the languid ftate of science at Laufanne, foon prompted him to folicit a literary correfpondence, which he obtained, with feveral men of learning, whom he had not an opportunity of perfonally consulting. Before he was recalled from Switzerland he had an opportunity of feeing Voltaire, from whom he cannot boast of receiving any peculiar notice or diftinction.' I was now familiar in fome, and acquainted in many houfes; and my evenings were generally devoted to cards and conversation, either in private parties or numerous affemblies.'

I hesitate, from the apprehenfion of ridicule, when I approach the delicate fubject of my early love. By this word I do not mean the polite attention, the gallantry, without hope or defign, which has originated in the fpirit of chivalry, and is interwoven with the texture of French manners. I understand by this paffion the union of defire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a fingle female, which prefers her to the rest of her sex, and which feeks her poffeffion as the fupreme or the fole happiness of our being. I need not blush at recollecting the object of my choice; and, though my love was disappointed of fuccefs, I am rather proud that I was once capable of feeling fuch a pure and exalted fentiment. The perfonal attractions of Mademoiselle Sufan Curchod were embellished by the virtues and talents of the mind. Her fortune was humble, but her family was refpectable. Her mother, a native of France, had preferred her religion to her country. The profeffion of her father did not extinguish the moderation and philofophy of his temper, and he lived content with a fmall falary and laborious duty, in the obscure lot of minister of Craffy, in the mountains that separate the Pays de Vaud from the country of Burgundy. In the folitude of a fequeftered village he bestowed a liberal and even learned education to his only daughter. She furpaffed his hopes by her proficiency in the fciences and languages; and in her short visits to fome of her relations at Laufanne, the wit, the beauty, and erudition, of Mademoiselle Curchod were the theme of univerfal applaufe. The report of fuch a prodigy awakened my curiofity: I faw and loved. I found her learned without pedantry, lively in converfation, pure in fentiment, and elegant in manners; and the first fudden emotion was fortified

by

by the habits and knowledge of a more familiar acquaintance. She permitted me to make her two or three vifits at her father's house. I paffed fome happy days there in the mountains of Burgundy, and her parents honourably encouraged the connexion. In a calm retirement the gay vanity of youth no longer fluttered in her bofom: The liftened to the voice of truth and paffion, and I might prefume to hope that I had made fome impreffion on a virtuous heart. At Craffy and Laufanne I indulged my dream of felicity; but on my return to England, I foon difcovered that my father would not hear of this ftrange alliance, and that without his confent I was deftitute and helpless. After a painful ftruggle, I yielded to my fate. I fighed as a lover, I obeyed as a fon; my wound was infenfibly healed by time, abfence, and the habits of a new life. My cure was accelerated by a faithful report of the tranquillity and cheerfulness of the lady herself, and my love fubfided in friendship and efteem. The minifter of Craffy foon after died; his ftipend died with him; his daughter retired to Geneva, where, by teaching young ladies, fhe earned a hard fubfiftence for herself and her mother; but in her lowest diftrefs fhe maintained a fpotlefs reputation, and a dignified behaviour. A rich banker of Paris, a citizen of Geneva, had the good fortune and good fenfe to difcover and poffefs this inestimable treasure; and in the capital of taste and luxury fhe refifted the temptations of wealth, as the had fuftained the hardships of indigence. The genius of her husband has 'exalted him to the most confpicuous ftation in Europe. In every change of profperity and difgrace he has reclined on the bofom of a faithful friend; and Mademoiselle Curchod is now the wife of the minifter, and perhaps legiflator, of the French monarchy.'

Mr. Gibbon returned to England in 1758, lived with his father, entered into the Hampshire militia, but ftill continued his ftudies with ardour, and published his firft work, entitled,

Effai fur l'Etude de la Litterature.'-Our author in 1763 returned through Paris to Laufanne, where he pursued a course of studies preparatory to a journey into Italy, which is described, and forms, in a literary view, the most important part of the memoirs, as it was here that he conceived, matured, and prepared, materials for his plan of writing the Hiftory of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

[To be continued. ]

ART.

ART. III. A Mathematical and Philofophical Dictionary: containing an Explanation of the Terms, and an Account of the feveral Subjects, comprifed under the Heads Mathematics, Aftronomy, and Philofophy, both natural and experimental: with an biftorical Account of the Rife, Progress, and prefent State, of thefe Sciences: alfo Memoirs of the Lives and Writings of the most eminent Authors, both ancient and modern, who, by their Difcoveries or Improvements, have contributed to the Advancement of them. In Two Volumes. With many Guts and Copperplates. By Charles Hutton, LL. D. F. R.SS. of London and Edinburgh, and of the Philofophical Societies of Haarlem and America; and Profeffor of Mathematics in the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. pp. 1406. 4to. 21. 14s. boards. Johnson. London, 1796.

OF

F this laborious and comprehenfive work the compiler gives the following account:

Among the dictionaries of arts and sciences which have been publifhed, of late years, in various parts of Europe, it is matter of furprise that philofophy and mathematics fhould have been fo far overlooked as not to be thought worthy of a feparate treatise, in this form. Thefe fciences conftitute a large portion of the present stock of human knowledge, and have been ufually confidered as poffeffing a degree of importance to which few others are entitled; and yet we have hitherto had no diftin&t lexicon, in which their conftituent part's and technical terms have been explained with that amplitude and precision which the great improvements of the moderns, as well as the rifing dignity of the fubject, feem to demand.

6

The only works of this kind in the English language, deferving of notice, are Harris's Lexicon Technicum, and Stone's Mathematical Dictionary; the former of which, though a valuable performance at the time it was written, is now become too dry and obfolete to be referred to with pleasure or fatisfaction; and the latter, confifling only of one volume in octavo, must be regarded merely as an unfinished sketch, or brief compendium, extremely limited in its plan, and neceffarily deficient in ufeful information.

It became, therefore, the only refource of the reader, in many cafes where explanation was wanted, to have recourse to Chambers's Dictionary, in four large volumes folio, or to the Encyclopædia Britannica, now in eighteen large volumes quarto, or the fill more ftupendous performance of the French Encyclopedifts; and even here his expectations might be frequently difappointed. Thefe great and ufeful works, aiming at a general comprehenfion of the whole circle of the fciences, are fometimes very deficient in their defcriptions of particular branches; it being almost impoffible, in fuch extenfive undertakings, to appreciate, with exactnefs, the due value

of

of every article: they are, befides, fo voluminous and heterogeneous in their nature, as to render a frequent reference to them extremely inconvenient; and even if this were not the cafe, their high price puts them out of the reach of the generality of readers..

• With a view to obviate thefe defects, the public are here prefented with a dictionary of a moderate fize and price, which is devoted folely to philofophical and mathematical fubjects. It is a work for which materials have been collecting through a course of many years; and is the refult of great labour and reading. Not only moft of the Encyclopedias already extant, and the various publications of the learned focieties throughout Europe, have been carefully confulted, but also all the original works, of any reputation, which have hitherto appeared upon thefe fubjects, from the earliest writers down to the present times.

From the latter of thefe fources, in particular, a confiderable portion of information has been obtained, which the curious reader will find, in many cafes, to be highly interefting and important. The hiftory of algebra, for inftance, which is detailed at confiderable length in the first volume, under the head of that article, will afford fufficient evidence to fhew in what a fuperficial and partial way the inquiry has been hitherto inveftigated, even by professed writers on the fubject; the principal of whom are M. Montucla, our countryman the celebrated Dr. Wallis, and the Abbé de Gua, a late French author, who has pretended to correct the Doctor's errors and mifreprefentations.

Regular hiftorical details are in like manner given of the origin and progrefs of each of these sciences, as well as of the inventions and improvements by which they have been gradually brought from their first rude beginnings to their prefent advanced state.

It is alfo to be obferved, that befides the articles common to the generality of dictionaries of this kind, an interesting biographical account is here introduced of the most celebrated philofophers and mathematicians, both ancient and modern; among which will be found the lives of many eminent characters, who have hitherto been either wholly overlooked, or very imperfectly recorded. Complete lifts of their works are also fubjoined to each article, where they could be procured; which cannot but prove highly acceptable to that clafs of readers who are defirous of obtaining the most fatisfactory information upon the fubjects of their particular inquiries and purfuits. On the head of biography, however, the author has ftill to lament the want of many other refpectable names which he was defirous to have added to his lift of authors, not having been able to procure any circumftantial accounts of their lives. He could have wifhed to have comprised in his lift the lives of all fuch public literary characters as the univerfity profeffors of aftronomy, philofophy, and mathematics, as well as thofe of the other more refpectable clafs of authors on thofe fciences. He will therefore thankfully receive the communications of any fuch memoirs from the hands of gentlemen poffeffed of them; as well as hints and information on fuch useful improvements