Anstis had a reversionary grant, he resigned his tabard to Knox Ward, esq. February 9, 1725-6, and died March 26 following, at Whitehall. His country residence was Vanbrugh-Fields, at Greenwich, where he built two seats, one called the Bastile, standing on Maize, or Maze-Hill, on the east side of the park. Lady Vanbrugh, his relict, sold it to lord Trelawny, who made it his residence: the name was taken from the French prison of which it was a model. It is said, but no time is mentioned, that on a visit to France, his curiosity and natural taste exciting him to take a survey of the fortifications in that kingdom, he was taken notice of by an engineer, secured by authority, and carried to the Bastile, where his confinement was so much softened by humanity, that he amused himself by drawing rude draughts of some comedies. This circumstance raised such curiosity at Paris, that he was visited by several of the noblesse, and by their means procured his liberty before any solicitation for it came from England. He had another built in the same style at Blackheath, called the Mincepye-house, now or lately inhabited by a descendant. Lady Vanbrugh, his relict, died April 26, 1776, aged ninety, and their only son, an ensign of the second regiment of the foot-guards, died of the wounds he received in a battle fought near Tournay, in 1745.1

VAN-DALE (ANTHONY), a learned writer, was born in Holland, Nov. 8, 1638. He early discovered an eager taste for acquiring the languages, which, for some time, his parents obliged him to give up for the more profitable pursuit of commerce. He, however, resumed his studies when about thirty years of age, acquired skill in Greek and Latin antiquities, and took his degrees in physic, which science he practised with success. He was also for some time a preacher in the sect of the Mennonites (a species of Anabaptists: see MENNO) and seems, upon the whole, to have cultivated theological as much as medical studies. The latter, however, were not neglected, and he died at Harlem, physician to the hospital in that city, November 28, 1708. He wrote in Latin some learned dissertations "on the Heathen Oracles," Amsterdam, 1700, 4to, in which he maintained that they were frauds of the idolatrous priests. Fontenelle has given an excellent abridgment of this work

Many additional particulars of sir John's history may be found in Cibber's Lives.-Swift's Works.-Noble's College of Arms.-Gent. Mag. vols. LXVII and LXXIV. Cole's MS Collections in Brit. Mus.-Reynolds's Works, &c.

in French in his treatise "des Oracles." Van-Dale also published a treatise on the "Origin and progress of Idolatry," 1696, 4to; "Dissertatio super Aristea, de 70 interpretibus," Amsterdam, 1705, 4to, and "Dissertations" on important subjects, 1712, 4to, and 1743, 4to. All his works. discover deep learning and great critical skill; but are defective in order and method.1

VANDER-LINDEN (JOHN ANTONIDES), a learned professor of physic at Leyden, was descended from ancestors distinguished in the republic of letters. His grandfather, Henry, born in 1546, was a master of the learned languages, and suffered greatly on account of the reformation, which he embraced very young, having lost his father, his wife's father, and other relations and friends, in the Spanish massacre at Naerden in 1572. After this he exercised the function as a minister at Enckhuisen till 1585, when he was invited to be professor of divinity at the university of Franeker, then founded, pronounced the inaugural oration when it was opened, and was the first lecturer. He died there in 1614, and left, among other children, a son, named Antony, also a man of talents and learning, and on that account promoted by the magistrates of Enckhuisen to be rector of their college. He was skilled in music, and no stranger to divinity; but his leading study was physic, in which faculty, having taken the degree of doctor at Franeker in 1608, he practised with success and reputation, first at Enckhuisen, and afterwards at Amsterdam, to which he removed in 1625.

His son, John Antonides, the subject of this article, was born at Enckhuisen, Jan. 13, 1609. He was sent to Leyden in 1625, to study philosophy, and afterwards applied himself entirely to physic. From Leyden he went to Franeker in 1629, in order to continue his studies, and received the degree of doctor some months after. He then returned to Amsterdam, where his father died in 1633, and where he continned to practise physic with great reputation until, in 1639, he was invited to be professor of physic in the university of Franeker. He discharged that office with great applause for almost twelve years; reading lectures, both on the theory and practice of anatomy and botany; and it was by his care that the garden of the university was

1 Moreri.-Dict. Hist.

enlarged, and an house built to it. The library was no less indebted to him for a great number of books, which were procured by his address. The university of Utrecht offered him a professor's place in 1649, which he declined; but, two years after, accepted the same offer from the curators of the university of Leyden, and filled the chair with high reputation till his death, which happened March 4, 1664. Guy Patin, who was a friend of this physician, often mentions him in his letters, and seems to insinuate that he neglected himself during his illness, for he died of a complaint of the lungs, in which bleeding might have. been useful. Patin adds, in allusion to Vander-Linden's learning, "I had rather be a blockhead, and bleed sometimes."

Vander-Linden wrote many books upon physic, which are enumerated in our authorities, and one "De Scriptis Medicis." This, which is a catalogue of books upon physic, was printed and enlarged several times by the author in his life-time; and very considerably so after his death, by a German, named Merklinus, who published it in a thick quarto, under the title of " Lindenius Renovatus," at Nuremberg, in 1686, but it never was either correct or complete, and has since given place to more recent works of the kind, particularly Eloy's Dictionary. Vander-Linden was also the editor of "Celsus," Leyden, 1657, 12mo, and left an edition of the works of Hippocrates, published there in 1665, 2 vols. 8vo, Greek and Latin. With this he had taken great pains, but did not live to finish more than a correct text, to attain which he carefully compared all the old editions and several manuscripts, and restored a great number of passages, which were not correct even in Foesius's edition. His Latin translation is that of Cornarius, because the oldest, and that commonly used. Having been attacked by his last illness a little before this edition was finished, he was prevented from publishing the notes which he intended. 1

1

VANDER MEULEN. See MEULEN.

VANDERMONDE, a learned member of the French Institute, whose Christian name we have not been able to discover, was born at Paris in 1735. In his youth he applied sedulously to study, but we have no account of his progress until he became acquainted with the celebrated

1 Gen. Dist.-Eloy Dict. Hist. de Medecine.

geometrician Fontaine, who foresaw the progress which Vandermonde would one day make in the mathematics; and under his patronage, Vandermonde determined to devote himself to geometry. In 1771 he presented himself to the Academy of Sciences, into which he was admitted; and justified the suffrages of his associates, by a paper relative to the resolution of equations.

From the sixteenth century, the method of resolving equations of the four first degrees has been known, and since that time the general theory of equations has received great improvements. In spite, however, of the recent labours of many great geometricians, the solutions of equations of the fifth degree had in vain been attempted. Vandermonde wished to consolidate his labours with those of other illustrious analysts; and he proposed a new theory of equations, in which he seems to have made it particularly his business to simplify the methods of calculation, and to contract the length of the formula, which he considered as one of the greatest difficulties of the subject.

This work was quickly followed by another, on the problems called by geometricians, "problems of situation." Leibnitz was of opinion, that the analysis made use of in his time, by the geometricians, was not applicable to all questions in the physical sciences; and that a new geometry should be invented, to calculate the relations of positions of different bodies, in space; this he called " geometry of situation." Excepting, however, one application, made by Leibnitz himself, to the game of solitaire, and which, under the appearance of an object of curiosity, scarcely worthy the sublimity and usefulness of geometry, is an example for solving the most elevated and important questions, Euler was almost the only one who had practised this geometry of situation. He had resorted to it for the solution of a problem called the cavalier, which, also, ap, peared very familiar at first sight, and was also pregnant with useful and important applications. This problem, with the vulgar, consisted merely in running through all the cases of the chess-board, with the knight of the game of chess; to the profound geometrician, however, it was a precedent for tracing the route which every body must follow, whose course is submitted to a known law, by conforming to certain required conditions, through all the points disposed over a space, in a prescribed order. Vandermonde was chiefly anxious to find in this species or

analysis, a simple notation, likely to facilitate the making of calculations; and he gave an example of this, in a short and easy solution of the same problem of the cavalier, which Euler had rendered famous.

His taste for the high conceptions of the speculative sciences, as blended with that which the "amor patriæ" naturally inspires for objects immediately useful to society, had led him to turn his thoughts towards perfecting the arts conversant in weaving, by indicating a manner of noting the points through which are to pass the threads intended to form the lines which terminate the surface of different regular bodies: accordingly, a great part of the above memoir is taken up with this subject.

In the year following (1772) he printed a third memoir; in which he traced out a new path for geometers, discovering by learned analytical researches, irrational quantities of a new species, shewing the sequels of which these irrationals are the terms or the sum, and pointing out a direct and general method of making in them all the possible reductions. In the same year appeared his work on the "Elimination of unknown quantities in Algebra," or the art of bringing back those equations which include many unknown quantities, to equations which contain only one. In 1778 he presented, in one of the public sittings of the academy, a new system of harmony, which he detailed more fully in another public sitting of 1780. This system obtained the approbation of the three great musicians of his time, Gluck, Philidor, and Piccini.

With these labours, intermingled with frequent researches on the mechanic arts, as well as on objects of political œconomy, the attention of Vandermonde was taken up, until 1789, the period of the revolution, when he became so decided an enemy to every thing established, that he concurred even in the abolition of the Royal Academy, and associated himself with Robespierre, Marat, and the rest of that party who covered France with ruins, with scaffolds, and blood. This part of Vandermonde's history is suppressed by his eulogist La Cepede, because discussions. on political topics ought not, in his opinion, to be admitted into the sanctuary of the sciences. In that sanctuary, however, Vandermonde did not long remain. He died of a rapid decline brought on by a disorder of the lungs, Jan.1, 1796.'

1 Dr. Gleig's Suppl. to the Encycl. Britannica, from La Cepede's Eloge.