divorce, and still more the subsequent marriage with Anne Boleyn, which
nothing could induce him to favour, with the King’s alienation from the
see of Rome, raised a storm over his head from which his voluntary
seclusion at Chelsea, in study and devotion, could not shelter him. When
tempting offers proved ineffectual to win him over to sanction Anne
Boleyn’s coronation by his high legal authority, threats and terrors
were resorted to: his firmness was not to be shaken, but his ruin was
determined, and ultimately accomplished. In the next parliament he, and
his friend Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, were attainted of treason and
misprision of treason for listening to the ravings of Elizabeth Barton,
considered by the vulgar as the Holy Maid of Kent, and countenancing her
treasonable practices. His innocence was so clearly established, that
his name was erased from the bill; and it was supposed to have been
introduced into it only for the purpose of shaking his resolution
touching the divorce and marriage. But though he had escaped this snare
his firmness occasioned him to be devoted as a victim. Anne Boleyn took
pains to exasperate the King against him, and when the Act of Supremacy
was passed in 1534, the oath required by it was tendered to him. The
refusal to take it, which his principles compelled him to give, was
expressed in discreet and qualified terms; he was nevertheless taken
into the custody of the Abbot of Westminster, and upon a second refusal
four days after was committed prisoner to the Tower of London.
Our limits will not allow us to detail many particulars of his life
while in confinement, marked as it was by firmness, resignation, and
cheerfulness, resulting from a conscience, however much mistaken, yet
void of intentional offence. His reputation and credit were very great
in the kingdom, and much was supposed to depend on his conduct at this
critical juncture. Archbishop Cranmer, therefore, urged every argument
that could be devised to persuade him to compliance, and promises were
profusely made to him from the King; but neither argument nor promises
could prevail. We will give the last of these attempts to shake his
determination, in the words of his son-in-law, Mr. Roper:—
“Mr. Rich, pretending friendly talk with him, among other things of a
set course, said this unto him: ‘Forasmuch as is well known, Master
More, that you are a man both wise and well learned, as well in the laws
of the realm as otherwise, I pray you, therefore, sir, let me be so bold
as of good-will to put unto you this case. Admit there were, sir, an act
of parliament that the realm should take me for King; would not you, Mr.
More, take me for King?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ quoth Sir Thomas More, ‘that would
I.’ ‘I put the case further,’ quoth Mr. Rich, ‘that there were an act of
parliament that all the realm should take me for Pope; would not you
then, Master More, take me for Pope?’ ‘For answer, sir,’ quoth Sir
Thomas More, ‘to your first case the parliament may well, Master Rich,
meddle with the state of temporal princes; but to make answer to your
other case, I will put you this case. Suppose the parliament would make
a law that God should not be God; would you then, Master Rich, say that
God were not God?’ ‘No, sir,’ quoth he, ‘that would I not; sith no
parliament may make any such law.’ ‘No more,’ quoth Sir Thomas More,
‘could the parliament make the King supreme head of the Church.’ Upon
whose only report was Sir Thomas indicted of high treason on the statute
to deny the King to be supreme head of the Church, into which indictment
were put these heinous words, _maliciously_, _traitorously_, and
_diabolically_.”
Sir Thomas More in his defence alleged many arguments to the discredit
of Rich’s evidence, and in proof of the clearness of his own conscience;
but all this was of no avail, and the jury found him guilty. When asked
in the usual manner why judgment should not be passed against him, he
argued against the indictment as grounded on an Act of Parliament
repugnant to the laws of God and the Church, the government of which
belonged to the see of Rome, and could not lawfully be assumed by any
temporal prince. The Lord Chancellor, however, and the other
Commissioners gave judgment against him.
He remained in the Tower a week after his sentence, and during that time
he was uniformly firm and composed, and even his peculiar vein of
cheerfulness remained unimpaired. It accompanied him even to the
scaffold, on going up to which, he said to the Lieutenant of the Tower,
“I pray you, Master Lieutenant, see me safe up, and for my coming down
let me shift for myself.” After his prayers were ended he turned to the
executioner and said, with a cheerful countenance, “Pluck up thy
spirits, man, and be not afraid to do thine office. My neck is very
short, take heed, therefore, thou strike not awry for thine own credit’s
sake.” Then laying his head upon the block, he bid the executioner stay
till he had removed his beard, saying, “My beard has never committed any
treason;” and immediately the fatal blow was given. These witticisms
have so repeatedly run the gauntlet through all the jest-books that it
would hardly have been worth while to repeat them here, were it not for
the purpose of introducing the comment of Mr. Addison on Sir Thomas’s
behaviour on this solemn occasion. “What was only philosophy in this
extraordinary man would be frenzy in one who does not resemble him as
well in the cheerfulness of his temper as in the sanctity of his
manners.”
He was executed on St. Thomas’s eve in the year 1555. The barbarous part
of the sentence, so disgraceful to the Statute-book, was remitted. Lest
serious-minded persons should suppose that his conduct on the scaffold
was mere levity, it should be added that he addressed the people,
desiring them to pray for him, and to bear witness that he was going to
suffer death in and for the faith of the holy Catholic Church. The
Emperor Charles V. said, on hearing of his execution, “Had we been
master of such a servant, we would rather have lost the best city of our
dominions than such a worthy councillor.”
No one was more capable of appreciating the character of Sir Thomas More
than Erasmus, who represents him as more pure and white than the whitest
snow, with such wit as England never had before, and was never likely to
have again. He also says, that in theological discussions the most
eminent divines were not unfrequently worsted by him; but he adds a wish
that he had never meddled with the subject. Sir Thomas More was
peculiarly happy in extempore speaking, the result of a well-stored and
ready memory, suggesting without delay whatever the occasion required.
Thuanus also mentions him with much respect, as a man of strict
integrity and profound learning.
His life has been written by his son-in-law, Roper, and is the principal
source whence this narrative is taken. Erasmus has also been consulted,
through whose epistolary works there is much information about his
friend. There is also a life of him by Ferdinando Warner, LL.D., with a
translation of his Utopia, in an octavo volume, published in 1758.
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by J. Posselwhite._
LA PLACE.
_From an original Picture by Nedeone,
in the possession of the Marchioness De la Place._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._
]
[Illustration]
LAPLACE.
Pierre Simon Laplace was born at Beaumont en Auge, a small town of
Normandy, not far from Honfleur, in March, 1749. His father was a small
farmer of sufficient substance to give him the benefit of a learned
education, for we are told[4] that the future philosopher gained his
first distinctions in theology. It does not appear by what means his
attention was turned to mathematical science, but he must have commenced
that study when very young, as, on visiting Paris at the age of about
eighteen, he attracted the notice of D’Alembert by his knowledge of the
subject. He had previously taught mathematics in his native place; and,
on visiting the metropolis, was furnished with letters of recommendation
to several of the most distinguished men of the day. Finding, however,
that D’Alembert took no notice of him on this account, he wrote that
geometer a letter on the first principles of mechanics, which produced
an immediate effect. D’Alembert sent for him the same day, and said,
“You see, sir, how little I care for introductions, but you have no need
of any. You have a better way of making yourself known, and you have a
right to my assistance.” Through the recommendation of D’Alembert,
Laplace was in a few days named Professor of Mathematics in the Military
School of Paris. From this moment he applied himself to the one great
object of his life. It was not till the year 1799 that he was called to
assume a public character. Bonaparte, then First Consul, who was himself
a tolerable mathematician, and always cultivated the friendship of men
of science, made him Minister of the Interior; but very soon found his
mistake in supposing that talents for philosophical investigation were
necessarily accompanied by those of a statesman. He is reported to have
expressed himself of Laplace in the following way:—“Géometre du premier
rang, il ne tarda pas a se montrer administrateur plus que médiocre. Dés
son premier travail, les consuls s’aperçurent qu’ils s’étoient trompés.
Laplace ne saisissait aucune question sous son vrai point de vue. Il
cherchait des subtilités partout, n’avait que des idées problématiques
et portait aufin _l’esprit des infiniments petits_ dans
l’administration.” Bonaparte removed him accordingly to the _Sénat
Conservateur_, of which he was successively Vice-President and
Chancellor. The latter office he received in 1813, about which time he
was created Count. In 1814 he voted for the deposition of Napoleon, for
which he has been charged with ingratitude and meanness. This is yet a
party question; and the present generation need not be hasty in forming
a decision which posterity may see reason to reverse. After the first
restoration Laplace received the title of Marquis, and did not appear at
the Court of Napoleon during the hundred days. He continued his usual
pursuits until the year 1827, when he was seized with the disorder which
terminated his life on the 5th of May, in the seventy-eighth year of his
age. His last words were, “Ce que nous connoissons est peu de chose; ce
que nous ignorons est immense.” He has left a successor to his name and
title, but none to his transcendent powers of investigation.
Footnote 4:
A scanty account in the _Biographie des Contemporains_, and the Eloge
read to the Institute by M. Fourier, form our only materials for the
personal life of LAPLACE.
The name of Laplace is spread to the utmost limits of civilization, as
the successor, almost the equal, of Newton. No one, however, who is
acquainted with the discoveries of the two, will think there is so much
common ground for comparison as is generally supposed. Those of Laplace
are all essentially mathematical: whatever could be done by analysis he
was sure to achieve. The labours of Newton, on the other hand, show a
sagacity in conjecturing which would almost lead us to think that he
laid the mathematics on one side, and used some faculty of perception
denied to other men, to deduce these results which he afterwards
condescended to put into a geometrical form, for the information of more
common minds. In the Principia of Newton, the mathematics are not the
instruments of discovery but of demonstration; and, though that work
contains much which is new in a mathematical point of view, its
principal merit is of quite another character. The mind of Laplace was
cast in a different mould; and this perhaps is fortunate for science,
for while we may safely assert that Laplace would never have been Newton
had he been placed in similar circumstances, there is also reason to
doubt whether a second Newton would have been better qualified to follow
that particular path which was so successfully traversed by Laplace. We
shall proceed to give such an idea of the labours of the latter as our
limits will allow.
The solution of every mechanical problem, in which the acting forces
were known, as in the motions of the solar system, had been reduced by
D’Alembert and Lagrange to such a state that the difficulties were only
mathematical; that is, no farther advances could be made, except in pure
analysis. We cannot expect the general reader to know what is meant by
the words, _solution of a Differential Equation_; but he may be made
aware that there is a process so called, which, if it could be
successfully and exactly performed in all cases, would give the key to
every motion of the solar system, and render the determination of its
present, and the prediction of its future state, a matter of
mathematical certainty. Unfortunately, in the present state of analysis,
such precision is unattainable; and its place is supplied by slow and
tedious approximations. These were begun by Newton, whose object being
to establish the existence of universal gravitation, he was content to
show that all the phenomena which might be expected to result, if that
theory were true, did actually take place in the solar system. But here,
owing to the comparatively imperfect state of mathematical analysis, he
could do little more than indicate the cause of some of the principal
irregularities of that system. His successors added considerably to the
number of phenomena which were capable of explanation, and thereby
increased the probability of the hypothesis. Lagrange, the great rival
of Laplace, if we consider his discoveries, and his superior in the
originality of his views, and the beauty of his analysis, added greatly
to the fund; but it was reserved for the latter to complete the system,
and, extending his views beyond the point to which Newton directed his
attention, to show that there is no marked phenomenon yet observed by
astronomers, regarding the relative motions of the planets or their
satellites, but what must necessarily follow, if the law of gravitation
be true. We shall select a few instances of the success of his analysis.
The average motions of Jupiter and Saturn had been observed to vary;
that of the former being accelerated, and of the latter retarded. This
fact, which Euler had attempted in vain to explain, was linked by
Laplace to the general law, and shown to follow from it. A somewhat
similar acceleration in the moon’s mean motion was demonstrated, as we
have observed more fully in the life of Halley, to arise from a small
alteration in the form of the earth’s orbit, caused by the attraction of
the planets. A remarkable law attending the motions of the satellites of
Jupiter, viz.—that the mean motion of the first satellite, together with
double that of the second, is always very nearly equal to three times
that of the third—was so far connected with the general law, that if, in
the original formation of the system, that relation had been nearly
kept, the mutual attractions, instead of altering it, would tend to
bring it nearer the truth. We can here do no more than mention the
analysis of the phenomena of the tides, one of the most important and
most brilliant of Laplace’s performances. Indeed there is no branch of
Physical Astronomy, we might almost say of physics in general, which is
not materially indebted to him. Superior to Euler in the power of
conquering analytical difficulties, he is almost his equal in the
universality of his labours.
The great work of Laplace is the ‘Mécanique Céleste,’ a collection of
all that had been done by himself or others, concerning the theory of
the universe. It is far above the reach even of the mathematical reader,
unless he has given a degree of attention to the subject, which few, at
least in our day, will exert. But Laplace was an elegant and
clear-headed writer, as well as a profound analyst. He has left, we will
not say for the common reader, but for those who possess the first
elements of geometry, a compendium of the Mécanique Céleste, in the
‘Système du Monde.’ This work is free from mathematical details, and,
were it his only production, would rank him high among French writers.
We recommend it as the best exposition of the present state of our
knowledge of the solar system.
But if it be said that Laplace was much indebted to the labours of
Lagrange and others, for the methods which form the basis of the
Mécanique Céleste, which is undoubtedly true, we have a splendid
instance of what might have been expected from him under any
circumstances, in the ‘Théorie des Probabilités.’ The field was here
open, for though the leading principles of the science had been laid
down, and many difficult problems solved, yet some method was still
wanting by which sufficient approximation might be made to problems
involving high numbers. In the theory of chances the great complexity of
the operations required, soon renders the application of the clearest
principles practically impossible; or, we should rather say, would have
done so had it not been for the researches of Laplace. His work on this
subject is, in our opinion, even superior to the Mécanique Céleste, as a
proof of the genius of the author. The difficulties above described
disappear under an analysis more refined and artificial than any other
which has ever been used. The mathematician may or may not read the
Mécanique Céleste, according to whether he would wish or not to turn his
attention to physical astronomy; but the analyst must study the Théorie
des Probabilités, before he can be said to know of what his art is
capable. The philosophical part of his work, with its principal results,
was collected by the author in the ‘Essai Philosophique sur les
Probabilités,’ in the same manner as those of the Mécanique Céleste were
exhibited in the Système du Monde.
The mathematical style of Laplace is entirely destitute of the
simplicity of that of Euler, or the exquisite symmetry and attention to
the principles of notation, which distinguishes that of Lagrange. We may
almost imagine that we see the first rough form in which his thoughts
were committed to paper; and that, when by attention to a particular
case, he had hit upon a wider method, which embraced that and others, he
was content to leave the first nearly as it stood before the
generalization opened upon him. His writings abound with parts in which
the immediate train of investigation is dropped, either not to be
resumed at all, or at a much later period of the subject. He seems, like
the discoverer of a new channel, to have explored every inlet which came
in his way, and the chart of his labours consequently shows the
unfinished surveys on either side of the main track. This habit is no
fault, but quite the reverse, in a work intended for finished
mathematicians, to be the storehouse of all that could be useful in
future operations: but it makes both the Mécanique Céleste and the
Théorie des Probabilités present almost unconquerable difficulties to
the student. These are increased by the very wide steps left to be
filled up by the reader, which are numerous enough to justify us in
saying, that what is left out in these writings would constitute a mass
four times as great as that which is put in, and this exclusive of
numerical calculations. When we add that those two works are contained
in six quarto volumes, which hold more than two thousand five hundred
pages, some notion may be formed of the extent of Laplace’s labours.
It will be perceived that this slight sketch is intended only for those
who are not mathematicians. In conclusion, we may take the opportunity
of expressing a hope, that at no distant period analytical knowledge
will have become so general, and the public mind be so far informed upon
the great theory first propounded by Newton, and reduced to
demonstration by Lagrange and Laplace, that the evidence furnished by
the two last shall possess equal weight with the authority of the first.
[Illustration]
HANDEL.
George Frederic Handel, whom we will venture to call the greatest of
musicians, considering the state in which he found his art, and the
means at his command, was born at Halle, in the Duchy of Magdeburg,
February 24, 1684. He was intended, almost from his cradle, for the
profession of the civil law; but, at the early age of seven, he
manifested so uncontrollable an inclination, and so decided a talent for
the study of music, that his father, an eminent physician, wisely
consented to change his destination, and suffered him to continue under
the direction of a master those studies, which he had been secretly
pursuing with no other guide than his own genius.
Friedrich Zachau, organist of the cathedral church of Halle, was the
first and indeed the chief instructor of Handel. He discharged the
duties of his office so well, that his pupil, when not nine years old,
had become competent to officiate for his teacher, and had composed, it
is said, many motets for the service of the church. A set of sonatas,
written by him when only ten years old, was in the possession of George
III., and probably forms part of the musical library of our present
sovereign.
[Illustration:
_Engraved by J. Thomson._
HANDEL.
_From a Picture in the Collection of
His Majesty at Windsor._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._
]
In 1703 Handel went to Hamburg, where the opera was then flourishing
under the direction of Reinhard Keiser, a master of deserved celebrity,
but whose gaiety and expensive habits often compelled him to absent
himself from the theatre. On one of these occasions Handel was appointed
to fill his place as conductor. This preference of a junior roused the
jealousy of a fellow-performer, named Mattheson, to such a degree that a
rencontre took place between the rivals in the street: and Handel was
saved from a sword-thrust, which probably would have taken fatal effect,
only by the interposition of a music-score, which he carried buttoned up
under his coat. Till this time he had occupied but a very subordinate
situation in the orchestra, that of second _ripieno_ violin; for from
the period of his father’s death he had depended wholly on his own
exertions, nobly determining not to diminish his mother’s rather
straitened income by any demands on her for pecuniary assistance. But
now an opportunity for making known his powers was arrived; for the
continued absence of the conductor Keiser from his post induced the
manager to employ Handel in setting to music a drama called Almeria. So
great was the success of this piece, that it was performed thirty nights
without interruption. The year following he composed Florinda; and soon
after, Nerone, both of which were received in as favourable a manner as
his first dramatic effort; but not one of these is to be found in the
collection formed by George III., and they seem quite unknown to all
writers on music, except by their titles.