thirty days, having collected the materials a considerable time before; yet we must regret the appearance of haste and disorder which deforms a production of such rare and intrinsic excellence. After a successful suit of eleven months, at Vienna, Boscovich returned to Rome, and received from the senate of Lucca, for his zealous services, the handsome present of a thousand sequins, or about £.450. Thus provided with the means of gratifying his curiosity, he desired and obtained leave to travel. At Paris he spent six months, in the society of the eminent men who then adorned the French capital; and, during his stay in London, he was elected, in 1760, a fellow of the Royal Society, and he dedicated to that learned body his poem on eclipses, which contains a neat compendium of astronomy. The expectation of the scientific world was then turned to the transit of Venus, calculated to happen in the following year. Boscovich, eager to observe it, returned through Holland and Flanders, to Italy, and joined his illustrious friend, Correr, at Venice, from whence they sailed to Constantinople, having on their way visited the famous plain of Troy. In Turkey he scarcely enjoyed one day of good health, and his life was repeatedly despaired of by the physicians. After spending half a year in this miserable state, he returned in the train of sir James Porter, our ambassador at the Porte; and having traversed Bulgaria, Moldavia, and part of Poland, his intention was to penetrate into Russia, if the agitation which there prevailed on the sudden death of Peter, had not deterred him from executing his project. The diary of his journey, which he published in Italian and French, is but a poor book, full of pedantry, and patched up of trifling and insipid remarks. Yet such were his pride and blind partiality, that he regarded with contempt the wholesome criticisms to which it gave occasion. Boscovich began his travels at too late a period of life to profit much by them. At Rome his arrival was welcomed, and he was again consulted on various plans of public improvement. But in the spring of 1764, he was called by the Austrian governor of Milan, to fill the mathematical chair in the university of Pavia. The honours which he received provoked the jealousy of the other professors, who intrigued to undermine his tune. He took the most effectual mode, however, to silence them, by publishing his dissertations on optics, which exhibit an elegant synthesis and well devised set of experiments. These essays excited the more at. tention, as, at this time, the ingenuity of men of science was parti cularly attracted to the subject by Dolland's valuable discovery of achromatic glasses. The expulsion of the Jesuits from the dominions of Spain, prevented Boscovich from going to California, to observe the second transit of Ve nus, in 1769, and which expedition the Royal Society of London had strongly solicited him to undertake; and, as his rivals began now to stir themselves again, he sought to dis pel the chagrin, by a second jour. ney into France and the Netherlands. At Brussels he met with a peasant famous for curing the gout, and from whose singular skill he received the most essential benefit. On his return to Italy, he was trans ferred from the university of Pavia, to to the palatine schools at Milan, and resided with those of his order at the college of Brera, where he furnished. mostly at his own expence, an observatory, of which hegot the direction. But he was still doomed to experience mortification. Some young Jesuits, who acted as his assistants, formed a conspiracy, and, by their artful representations, prevailed with the Government to exclude his favourite pupil and friend from holding a charge of trust. This intelligence was communicated to him at the baths of Albano, and filled him with grief and indignation. He complained to Prince Kaunitz, but implored his protection in vain. To the governor of Milan he wrote, that he would not return, unless things were restored to their former footing. He retired to Venice, where, having staid ten months in fruitless expectation of redress, he meditated spending the remainder of his days in honourable retirement, at his native city of Ragusa. But, while he waited for the opportunity of a vessel to convey him thither, he received the afilicting news of the suppression of his order in Italy; he renounced his scheme, and seemed quite uncertain what step he should take. Having come into the Tuscan territory, he listened to the counsels and solicitation of Fabroni, who held forth the prospect of a handsome appointment in the Lyceum of Pisa. In the mean time he accepted the invitation of La Bord, Chamberlain to Louis XV. and accompanied him to Paris. Through the influence of that favourite, he obtained the most liberal patronage from the French monarch; he was naturalized, received two pensions, amounting to 8,000 2 livres, or 3331. and had an office expressly created for him, with the title of " Director of Optics for the Marine." Boscovich might now appear to have attained the pinnacle of fortune and glory; but Paris was no longer for him the theatre of applause, and his ardent temper became soured by the malign breath of jealousy and neglect. Such extraordinary favour bestowed on a foreigner, could not fail to excite the envy of the sçavans, who considered him as rewarded greatly beyond his true merit. The freedom of his language gave offence, his perpetual egotism became disgusting, and his repetition of barbarous Latin epigrams, was most grating to Parisian cars. Besides, the name of a priest and a jesuit did not now command respect; and the sentiments of austere devotion, which he publicly professed, had grown unfashionable, and were regarded as scarcely befitting the character of a philosopher. Mirabeau, in his letters from Prussia, mentions Boscovich with a degree of slight, bordering on contempt, and warmly recommends it to his court, to invite from Berlin the celebrated Lagrange, a mathematician of the very highest order, and blessed with the mildest disposition. But the geometer of Ragusa was not idle. He applied assiduously to the improvement of astronomy and optics, and his diligence was evinced by a series of valuable memoirs. He revised and extended his former ideas, and struck out new paths of discovery. His solution of the problem to determine the orbit of a comet from three observations, is remarkable for its elegant simplicity; being derived from the mere elementary principles of trigo nometry nometry. Not less beautiful are the heat of delirium, he frequently his Memoirs on the Micrometer, exclaimed that he would die poor and on achromatic telescopes. But and inglorious. His religious feelings his situation had become extremely acquired new force, and he seemed irksome, and in 1783 he desired and to look forward with anxious hope obtained leave of absence. Two for that distinction in a future years he spent at Bassano, in the world, which he thought was unVenetian States, where he published justly denied him in this clouded his Opuscules, in five volumes, 4to. state of existence. In his short lucomposed in Latin, Italian and cid moments, or fits of exhaustion French, and containing a variety of that intervened, he regretted having elegant and ingenious disquisitions spent his time in curious speculaconnected with astronomical and tion, and considered the calamity optical science. During that time with which he was visited, as a kind he lived with his editor, Remondini, of chastisement of Heaven for negand occupied himself in superin- lecting the spiritual duties of his tending the press. After finishing profession. In this temper of resig his task, he came to Tuscany, and nation his imposthume burst, and passed some months at the convent he expired on the 13th of February, of Valombrosa; thence he went to 1787. He was interred decently, Milan, and issued a Latin Prospec- but without pomp, in the parochial tus, in which he proposed to re- church of St. Mary Pedone.print the philosophical poem of "Such was the exit," says Fabroni, Stay, enriched with his annotations, "of this sublime genius, whom and extended to ten books. But Rome honoured as her master, very few subscribers appeared: his "whom all Italy regarded as her Opuscules experienced a slow sale," ornament, and to whom Greece and the imperial minister neither "would have erected a statue, had consulted nor employed him, in "she for want of space been obliged some mathematical operations which even to throw down some of her were carrying on. Every thing but "heroes." too keenly reminded him that he was no more a favourite of the Italian public. The visions of glory melted away. This mortifying reflection preyed upon his spirits, and made the deeper impression, as his health was much disordered by an inflammation of the lungs. He sunk into a stupid, listless melancholy, and, after brooding many days, he emerged into a childish insanity, and at last became furiously mad. It was truly pitiable to behold a man of his eminent talents, reduced to such a humiliating condition. The Milanese government provided for his custody. During 66 The Abbe Boscovich was tall in stature, of a robust constitution, with a long pale visage. His tem. per was open and friendly, but ir. ritable, vehement, and impatient of contradiction. James Boswell, in his amusing Life of Dr. Johnson, incidentally mentions, that the Eng lish moralist, chancing to meet Boscovich in London, had a very keen dispute with him in Latin, on some metaphysical topic. There was much heat on both sides, and the Goliath of literature treated the ma thematician in his usual bearish manner. Boscovich was more distinguished by by the elegance of his mathematical genius, than for talents of invention. The predeliction he entertained for the geometry of the Greeks, led him, perhaps, to undervalue the modern analysis, and rather to neg lect the cultivation of the integral calculus, that astonishing instrument of discovery, which is indispensible in making any great progress in the deeper parts of physical and astronomical science. His example, with similar ones in this country, shews the danger of indulging a taste so laudable in itself, but which has a tendency to circumscribe the powers of human intellect. The only work of Boscovich that has appeared in English, is his "Elements of the Conic Sections," which was, within these few years, translated, abridged, and somewhat altered, by the Rev. Mr. Newton, of Cambridge. This little treatise, we are sorry to observe, has not yet received such attention from the public as it well merits. For a view of his theory of matter, see the article-Corpuscular Philosophy. than 1735, when the Viscountess Mr. Richard Howe was initiated into his professional line, by sailing for the South Seas, in the Severn, of 50 guns, commanded by the Honourable Captain Edward Legge. This ship (one of Commodore Anson's squadron) was driven by stress of weather into Rio Janeiro, and thence navigated back to Europe. Mr. Howe served next on board the Burfurd, Capt. Lushington, in a squadron under the command of Commodore Sir Francis Knowles, who was detached from Sir Challoner Ogle's fleet, in February, 1743, to make an attack upon the town of La Guitta, upon the coast of Curacoa. The attack was made; the Burford suffered considerably, and the Captain was killed in the action. This attempt having failed, a courtmartial was held, relative to the conduct of the Burford. Young Howe was particularly called upon for his evidence. He gave it in a clear and collected manner, till he Brief Memoirs of the late Earl came to relate the death of his cap Howe. The Honourable Richard Howe, second son of Emanuel Scrope, Viscount Howe, of the kingdom of Ireland, was born in the parish of St. George, Hanover-square, March 8th, 1725-6, O. S.-by the change of style, March 19th, 1726. He was sent for education first to Westminster-school, when his father went to Barbadoes as Governor of that island, having been appointed to his government in May, 1732. From this school Richard was removed to that of Eton, not later tain; he could then proceed no further, but burst into tears, and retired. There subsists a more intimate alliance between steady courage and sensibility, than the gene rality of men are aware of. Mr. Howe was soon afterwards appointed acting-lieutenant, by Commodore Knowles, and in a short time came to England with his ship. His commission not being confirmed by the Admiralty, he returned to his station in the West Indies, where he was made lieutenant of a sloop of war. An English merchantman had been been captured at the Dutch settle. ment of Eustatia, by a French privateer, under the guns and protection of the governor. Lieutenant Howe, at his own earnest request, was sent with orders to claim her for the owners. This demand not being complied with, he desired leave to go with the boats, and at tempt cutting her out of the harbour. The captain represented the danger of so adventurous a step, and added, that he had not sullicient interest to support him in England, on a representation of the breach of neutrality. The lieutenant then requested he would for a short time quit the ship, and leave the command with him. This being done, the Lieutenant went with the boats, cut out the vessel, and restored it to the proprietors. In the autumn of 1745, lieutenant Howe, having served previously with admiral Vernon in the Downs, was raised to the rank of commander in the Baltimore sloop of war, which joined the rest of the squadron on the coast of Scotland, under Admiral Smith. During this cruize, the Baltimore and another armed vessel fell in with two French frigates, of 30 guns each, full of troops and ammunition. Capt. Howe immediately ran the Baltimore between them, and almost on board one of the ships. A desperate action commenced, in which Capt. Howe was severely wounded in the head by a musket-ball, and carried off the deck to all appearance dead; but, by medical assistance he soon recovered signs of life, and, after the dressing of his wound flew again to his post. The action continued till the French ships sheered off, leaving the Baltimore in too shattered a condition to pursue them. For his behaviour in this action, properly represented to the worthy admiral Smith, our young hero was advanced to the rank of post-captain, and on April 10, 1746, appointed to the Triton frigate. With the Triton he was ordered to Lisbon, there found the Rippon, captain Holbourne, with whom he changed ships, and visited the coast of Guinea. He afterwards went to admiral Knowles, at Jamaica, was appointed his first captain, on board the Cornwall, of 80 guns, in which ship he returned to England at the peace in 1748. During the time of captain Howe's continuance with Sir Edward Knowles, in the West Indies, be did his patron a particular piece of service in the domestic way. By an infinite deal of pains he prevented that very skilful, but over-amorous, naval officer, from degrading himself excessively through a most improper marriage. This private anecdote (lately communicated to me from a most respectable and undeniable authority) proves that an carly and sincere desire of render. ing his friendship effectually useful, was remarkably prevalent in capt. Richard Howe. A state of total inactivity could be little suited to the genius of an enterprising youth. We may reasonably conclude, then, that his interval at this time, of about three years, between his actual services, was chiefly taken up by an attention to the study of mathematics and naval tactics; in the knowledge of which he was universally allowed to have been singularly eminent, when of maturer years. March, 1751, proved the recom. mencement of his nautical undertakings. He was then appointed to |