be truly said, that nine-tenths of those who are familiar with his doctrines have never studied him except at second-hand. Far more intimate, no doubt, is that sympathy which Shakspeare and Milton inspire; being dead, they yet speak;' and may even be said to form a part of the very minds of their readers.

But this is not the only cause of the almost total neglect of the works of Leibnitz. As he wrote often with great beauty, and on a great variety of subjects, there should be no reason, one might imagine, why he should be less read than many her philosophers whose claims to be remembered are far inferior to his. The cause, we are inclined to think, is owing, in part, to the fragmentary character of his productions: though enormously vouminous, there is almost nothing except his Theodicée and his Remarks on Locke that can be considered systematic; and he has nowhere, not even in these pieces, given a complete digest of his philosophical system. The great mass of his works consists of occasional papers;-such as his contributions to the Acta Eruditorum of Leipsic; and the immense remains of that Literary Correspondence in which he was actively engaged throughout his life, and which included the name of almost every eminent scholar and thinker of the age. In these Letters he continually repeats (as was most natural) fragments of his opinions; so that the reader finds that he has got most of what Leibnitz thought, long before he has read all that Leibnitz wrote, and might here, if any where, take a brick as a specimen of the house.

But yet another cause of this comparative neglect is, that with all his intellectual greatness, few other men have ventured to expound metaphysical theories which depend so absolutely on mere conjecture, or which are less adapted to invite disciples. His Monads are unintelligible even to his most devoted commentators; his Pre-established Harmony has long since been dissolved; and a score of other theories, and rudiments of theories, which were suggested to his ever active genius, lie scattered in gigantic ruins over the vast field of his labours.

Nor is this all. A very large portion of his writings, as already said, consists of his Letters. Now, not only is the Latin in which he often writes far from being Ciceronian; not only are the theories he defends exploded, or the truths he develops rendered elementary in the subsequent progress of science; but the books cited are long forgotten, the very names of the authors never heard of: even the doctissimus Hackmannus and the illustrissimus Kettwigius have somehow become obscure:-the allusions are unintelligible, the incidents without interest, the pleasantry insipid.

These causes are at least sufficient to show why we ought not to wonder that Leibnitz for more than a century has been but little read.

But it is well that those illustrious men, whose voluminous writings, for the reasons above assigned, will never be remembered equally with those of the great poet, should have their periodical commemoration; when the achievements by which they benefited their own generation and all time shall be honourably recounted, their portraits brought out of the dust and dampness where they were fading away, and the lineaments retouched and vivified; when some of their most pregnant thoughts and weighty maxims shall be repeated in the ear of mankind; and some fragments of their wisdom rescued from the sepulchre of their opera omnia. Even this is better than sheer oblivion. They have influenced the mind of the species some generations back, and through that indirectly for ever. It is something more to be permitted to do this directly, in modes however limited, and for intervals however transient. Yielding to the instinct of immortality, each grateful shade, thus honoured, will triumphantly exclaim, Non omnis moriar!

6

Such a festival in honour of Leibnitz seems to be now in course of celebration in Germany. Old Mortality' is there going his round, and reviving the imagery and inscriptions on the philosopher's tomb; and we could hardly hope to find a more favourable juncture for offering our homage than the present, when his works have just been republished at Berlin, and a new biography composed by Dr Guhrauer.

We shall commence with a sketch of his life, the rather that it is more varied than that of the generality of literary men; so much so, indeed, as to increase in no small degree that wonder which his prodigious attainments are calculated to excite. It is difficult to reconcile so much activity and locomotion with such severe study. He must have learnt that useful lesson of losing no time in changing his hand,' as Adam Smith expresses it; and of bringing his faculties to bear with resolute promptitude on whatever, for the moment, exacted attention.

The principal sources of the biography of Leibnitz are the materials left by his friend Eckhart-his Life by Brucker, in the History of Philosophy-his well-known Eloge by Fontenellethat by Bailly, first published in 1768, and republished in his Discours in 1790-that by Kostner, published in 1769-the Memoir prefixed to several editions of the Theodicée, by M. Jaucourt, originally published under the feigned name of M. Neufville-a piece possessing considerable merit, and praised

by no less an authority than Lessing-and the recent work of Dr Guhrauer. This last author has diligently availed himself of every source of information; and has not only corrected some previous errors, but has brought to light some facts hitherto unknown. Many fragments also of the philosopher's writings, which had remained buried in obscurity, enrich Erdmann's recent edition of them. It would seem, indeed, as if these

writings were a mine which could not be exhausted. Consisting for the most part of Miscellaneous Papers and Correspondence, they were widely scattered, and were recovered only at intervals. In 1765, appeared a quarto volume of his posthumous works, under the Editorship of Raspe. The principal of these was the commentary on Locke's great work, and is entitled

Nouveaux Essais sur l'Entendement Humain. This volume is of rare occurrence. The edition of Leibnitz's works by Dutens, in six large quartos, published in 1768, was vainly styled Opera Omnia. It does not contain the pieces published by Raspe, for which Dutens, in his general preface, offers no very sufficient reason. In 1805, appeared an octavo collection of unpublished Letters, under the Editorship of I. G. H. Feder.

Dr Guhrauer's work has considerable merit; but it might have been judiciously comprised in one volume, by omitting not a few digressions on collateral subjects, in which, more Germano, the author has freely indulged. We shall also have occasion to point out some examples of prejudiced statement, into which the customary idolatries of a Biographer have betrayed him.

One of the most curious things contained in Dr Guhrauer's work is a fragment of Autobiography. Fragment as it is, it gives a striking account of the author's childhood and youth, throws a flood of light on his intellectual history, and exhibits all the prominent features of his character-even to its foibles-with a vivacity as amusing as can be found in any composition of a similar kind. As this fragment has never appeared in English, we shall take occasion to gratify the reader by a free translation of two or three paragraphs. Most of the facts are repeated, again and again, in different portions of Leibnitz's miscellaneous writings, but perhaps nowhere else so connectedly or so fully.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz was born at Leipsic, on the 21st of June 1646. He may be said to have been a foster-child of literature. His father, Frederic Leibnitz, was Professor of Ethics. in the university of Leipsic. His mother was the daughter of William Schmuck, another Professor in the same university. His mother's sister was married to John Strauch, Professor in Jena, a celebrated jurist.

The father of Leibnitz was married thrice. He had one son

by his first marriage, and one (the subject of this sketch) by the second. He died September 5, 1652, when the future philosopher was only six years old. He left a moderate fortune, and a valuable library, which last the young Leibnitz soon began to consider the best part of his inheritance. It is with his introduction to these treasures that we commence our brief extracts from the Autobiography.

He was sent early to the Nicolai school at Leipzig; but his real education seems to have been carried on by himself, and is described in a whimsical manner in the following paragraph :

As I grew in years and strength I was wonderfully delighted with the reading of history, and having obtained some books of that kind in German, I did not lay them down till I had read them all through. Latin I studied at school; and no doubt should have proceeded at the usual slow rate, had not accident opened to me a method peculiar to myself. In the house where I lodged, I chanced to stumble on two books which a certain student had left in pledge. One, I remember, was Livy, the other the Chronological Thesaurus of Calvisius. Having obtained these, I immediately devoured them. Calvisius, indeed, I understood easily, because I had in German a book of universal history which often told me the same things; but in Livy I stuck longer; for as I was ignorant of ancient history, and the diction in such works is more elevated than common, I scarcely in truth understood a single line. But as the edition was an old one, embellished with woodcuts, these I pored over diligently, and read the words immediately beneath them, never stopping at the obscure places, and skipping over what I imperfectly understood. When I had repeated this operation several times, and read the book over and over-attacking it each time after a little interval-1 understood a good deal more; with all which, wonderfully delighted, I pro ceeded without any dictionary till almost the whole was quite plain.'

These self-acquired accomplishments having disclosed themselves at school, Leibnitz tells us that his master was much shocked that his pupil should be making such unauthorized progress in learning.

My master, dissembling the matter, repairs to those who had the care of my education, and admonishes them that they should take care lest 1 should interrupt my studies by a premature and preposterous kind of reading; that Livy was just as fit for me as a "buskin for a pigmy;" that books proper for another age should be kept out of the hands of a boy, and that I must be sent back to Comenius or the lesser catechism. And without doubt he had succeeded, if there had not been present at the interview a certain erudite and well-travelled knight, a friend of the master of the house. He, disliking the envy or stupidity of the master, who, he saw, wished to measure every stature by his own, began to show, on the contrary, that it was unjust and intolerable that a budding genius should be repressed by harshness and ignorance; rather, that a boy who gave no vulgar promise was to be encouraged, and furnished

with every kind of help. He then desired me to come to him; and when he saw that I gave no contemptible answers to the questions he put, he did not rest till he had extorted from my relatives permission to enter my father's library. At this I triumphed as if I had found a treasure. I longed to see the ancients, most of whom were known to me only by name-Cicero, Quinctilian, and Seneca, Pliny, Herodotus, Xenophon, Plato, and many a Latin and Greek father. These I revelled in as the fit took me, and was delighted with the wonderful variety of matter before me; so that, before I was yet twelve years old, I understood the Latin writers tolerably well, began to lisp Greek, and wrote verses with singular success. Indeed, in polite letters and in poetry, I made such progress that my friends feared lest, beguiled by the sweetness of the flattering muses, I should acquire disgust for studies. more serious and rugged. But the event soon relieved them from this anxiety. For no sooner was I summoned to the study of logic, than I betook myself with great delight to the thorny intricacies which others abhorred. And not only did I easily apply the rules to examples, which, to the admiration of my preceptors, I alone did, but expressed my doubts on certain points, and already meditated some novel views, which, lest they should escape me, I committed to paper. Long after, I read some things which I had written at the age of fourteen, and was wonderfully delighted with them.'

As to his doubts, he tells us that none of his masters satisfied him, but only admonished him that it did not become a boy to busy himself with novelties, in things which he had not suf'ficiently studied.' Mean time his friends were possessed by a

new fear.

Those who had the care of my education-to whom my greatest obligation is, that they interfered as little as possible with my studies-as they had before feared lest I should become a poet, so they now dreaded lest I should stick fast in scholastic subtleties; but they did not know how little my mind could be filled with one class of subjects; for no sooner did I understand that I was destined for the study of the law, than, dismissing every thing else, I applied myself to that. And in this way I reached my seventeenth year, happy in nothing more than this, that my studies were not directed according to the judgment of others, but by my own humour; for which reason it was that I was always esteemed chief among those of my own age in all college exercises, not by the testimony of tutors only, but by that of my fellow disciples.'

He graduated as Bachelor of Philosophy in 1663, at the early age of sixteen, and proceeded to his Master's Degree in the same Faculty in the following year. On both these occasions, and on others of a like nature, he manifested the precocity of his metaphysical talents by the subjects selected for the customary disputations. After giving an account of the dispute which prevented his offering himself for his Doctor's Degree at Leipsic, and sent him to the University at Altdorf, Leibnitz proceeds