Analytique_, which he had sent from Berlin to be printed in Paris, lay
unopened by himself for more than two years after its publication in
1788. He employed himself in the study of ecclesiastical and other
history, of medicine, botany, and metaphysics. When the discoveries of
the chemists changed the theory and notation of their science, or rather
created a science where none existed before, he threw himself upon the
new study with avidity, and declared that they had made it easy; _as
easy as algebra_.
In 1792, being then fifty-six years of age, he married Mlle. Lemonnier,
daughter of the astronomer of that name, and daughter, grand-daughter,
and niece of members of the Academy of Sciences. This lady well deserves
honourable mention in every memoir of Lagrange, for the affectionate
care which she took of his declining years.
When, after the subversion of the monarchy, a commission was appointed
to examine into the system of weights and measures, Lagrange was placed
at its head. In this post he continued, not being included in the
_purification_, which three months after its formation, deprived the
commission of the services of Laplace, Coulomb, Brisson, Borda, and
Delambre. He took no part in politics, and appears to have given no
offence to any party; hence, when the government of Robespierre
commanded all foreigners to quit France, an exception was made in his
favour by the committee of public safety. All his friends had advised
him to retire from the country; and the fate of Lavoisier and Bailly was
sufficient to show that scientific talents of the most useful character
were no protection. He now regretted that he had not followed their
advice, and even meditated returning to Berlin. He did not, however, put
this scheme in execution; and as the Normal and Polytechnic Schools were
successively founded, he was appointed to professorships in both. His
_Leçons_, delivered to the former institution, appear in their published
series, and among them we find the _Leçons sur la Théorie des
Fonctions_, which has since appeared as a separate work.
It is almost needless to say, so well as the public know how science was
encouraged under the Consulate and the Empire, that Lagrange received
from Napoleon every possible respect and distinction. The titles of
senator, count of the empire, grand cordon of the legion of honour, &c.
were given to him. It is also gratifying to be able to add that his
abstinence from political engagements has left his memory unstained by
such imputations as, we know not how justly, rest upon that of Laplace.
We might have omitted to state that he belonged to all the scientific
academies of Europe; but that it is necessary, for the sake of the
scientific reputation of this country, to correct an inadvertence into
which the able author of the ‘Life of Lagrange,’ in the _Biographie
Universelle_, appears to have fallen. He states that Lagrange was not a
member of the Royal Society of London[9]. The fact is, that he was
elected in 1798, and his name continued on the list of foreign members
all the remainder of his life.
Footnote 9:
Les principales sociétés savantes de L’Europe, _celle de Londres
exceptée_, s’empressèrent de décorer de son nom la liste de leurs
membres.
About the end of March, 1813, Lagrange was seized with a fever, which
caused his death. He had previously been subject to fits of fainting, in
the last of which he was found by Madame Lagrange, having fallen against
the corner of a table. He preserved his senses to the last, and on the
8th of April conversed for more than two hours with M.M. Monge,
Lacepède, and Chaptal, who were commissioned by the Emperor to carry him
the grand cordon of the order of the _Réunion_. He then promised them,
not thinking himself so near his end, full details of his early life.
Unfortunately this promise remains unfulfilled, as he died on the 10th
of April, in his seventy-eighth year. His father had died some years
before him at the age of ninety-five, having had eleven children, all of
whom, except the subject of this memoir, and one other, died young.
Lagrange himself had no children. His private character, as all accounts
agree in stating, was most exemplary. His manners were peculiarly mild,
and though occasionally abstracted and absent, he was fond of society,
particularly that of the young. In the earlier part of his life he was
attacked in an unworthy manner by Fontaine, who at the same time boasted
of some discovery which he attributed to himself. Lagrange replied with
the urbanity which always accompanied his dealings with others, and
while he overthrew the claim of his opponent, he repaid his incivility
by the compliment of admitting that his talents were such as would have
enabled him to attain the discovery, if it had not been previously made.
Such moderation is rare, and as might be expected, it was accompanied by
the utmost modesty in speaking of himself. In the latter half of his
life, it would have been affectation in him to have denied his own
powers, or spoken slightingly of his own discoveries; nor do we find
that he ever did so. In giving opinions or explanations, he broke off
the moment he found that his ideas were not as clear or his knowledge as
definite, as he had thought when he begun; concluding abruptly with _Je
ne sais pas, Je ne sais pas_. Among his studies, music found a place;
but, though pleased with the art, he used to assert that he never heard
more than three bars: the fourth found him wrapped in meditation, and by
his own account, he solved very difficult problems in these
circumstances. He would, therefore, as M. Delambre remarks, measure the
beauty of a piece of music by the mathematical suggestions which he
derived from it; and his arrangement of the great masters would be not a
little curious.
He never would allow a portrait of himself to be taken. A very well
executed bust, which is now in the Library of the Institute, was made
from a sketch by a young Italian artist, sent by the Academy of Turin.
From this bust our portrait is engraved.
Of the character of Lagrange as a philosopher, no description, in so few
words, can be better than that of M. Laplace: “Among the discoverers who
have most enlarged the bounds of our knowledge, Newton and Lagrange
appear to me to have possessed in the highest degree that happy tact,
which leads to the discovery of general principles, and which
constitutes true genius for science. This tact, united with a rare
degree of elegance in the manner of explaining the most abstract
theories, is the characteristic of Lagrange.” This power of
generalization distinguishes all that he has written, and the student of
the _Mécanique Analytique_ is amazed when he comes to a chapter headed
“Equations Différentielles pour la solution de tous les problèmes de
Dynamique,” which, on examination, he finds equally applicable, and
equally applied, to the vibrations of a pendulum or the motion of a
planet. On the exquisite symmetry of his notation and style, we need not
enlarge: the mathematician either is acquainted with it, or should
become so with all speed; and others will perhaps only smile at the
notion of one set of algebraical symbols possessing more elegance or
beauty than another.
The separate works of Lagrange are—1. _Mécanique Analytique_, the second
edition of which he was engaged upon when he died; the first edition was
published in 1788. 2. _Théorie des Fonctions Analytiques_, a system of
Fluxions on purely algebraical principles; first edition, 1797; second
edition, 1813. 3. _Leçons sur le Calcul des Fonctions_; first published
separately in 1806. 4. _Résolution des Equations numériques_; three
editions, in 1798, 1808, and 1826. To give only a list of his separate
memoirs would double the length of this life: they will be found in the
_Miscellanea Taurinensia_, tom. i.-v., and 1784–5; _Memoirs of the
Berlin Academy_, 1765–1803; _Recueils de l’Académie des Sciences de
Paris_, 1773–4, and tom. ix.; _Mémoires des Savans Etrangers_, tom. vii.
and x.; _Mémoires de l’Institut_, 1808–9; _Journal de l’École
Polytechnique_, tom. ii. _cahiers_ 5, 6, tom. viii. _cahier_ 15;
_Seánces des Écoles Normales_; and _Connoissance des Tems_, 1814, 1817.
[Illustration:
_Engraved by Ja^s. Mollison._
VOLTAIRE.
_From an original Picture by Largillière
in the collection of the Institute of France._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._
]
[Illustration]
VOLTAIRE.
François Marie Arouet, who is commonly known by his assumed name, De
Voltaire, was born at Châtenay, near Sceaux, February 20, 1694. He soon
distinguished himself as a child of extraordinary abilities. The Abbé de
Châteauneuf, his godfather, took charge of the elements of his
education, and laboured successfully to improve the talents of his ready
pupil without much regard to his morals. At three years old the future
champion of infidelity had learned by heart the Moisade, an irreligious
poem of J. B. Rousseau. These lessons were not forgotten at college,
where he passed rapidly through the usual courses of study, and alarmed
his Jesuit preceptors by the undisguised licence of his opinions. About
this time some of his first attempts at poetry obtained for him the
notice of Ninon de l’Enclos; and when the Abbé de Châteauneuf, who had
been the last in her long list of favourites, introduced him at her
house, she was so pleased with the promising talents of the boy, that
she left him by will a legacy of 2,000 francs to purchase books. The
Ecole de Droit, where Arouet next studied, was much less suited to his
disposition than the College of Louis le Grand. In vain his father urged
him to undertake the drudgery of a profession: the Abbé was a more
agreeable monitor, and under his auspices the young man sought with
eagerness the best Parisian society. At the suppers of the Prince de
Conti, he became acquainted with wits and poets, acquired the easy tone
of familiar politeness, and distinguished himself by the delicacy of his
flatteries, and the liveliness of his repartee. In 1713 he went to
Holland as page to the French ambassador, the Marquis de Châteauneuf.
This place had been solicited by his father in the hope of detaching him
from dissipated habits. But little was gained by the step, for in a
short time he was sent back to his family, in consequence of an intrigue
with a M^{lle.} Du Noyer, whose mother, a Protestant refugee at the
Hague, gained her living by scandal and libels, and on this occasion
thought something might be got by complaining to the ambassador, and
printing young Arouet’s love-letters. He was, however, not easily
discouraged. He endeavoured to interest the Jesuits in his affairs, by
representing M^{lle.} Du Noyer as a ready convert, whom it would be
Catholic charity to snatch from the influence of an apostate mother.
This manœuvre having failed, he sought a reconciliation with his father,
who remained a long while implacable; but touched at last by his son’s
entreaties to be permitted to see him once more, on condition of leaving
the country immediately afterwards for America, he consented to receive
him into favour. Arouet again attempted legal studies, but soon
abandoned them in disgust. The Regency had now commenced; and among the
numerous satires directed against the memory of Louis XIV., one was
attributed to him. The report caused him a year’s imprisonment in the
Bastille. Soon afterwards he changed the name of Arouet for that of
Voltaire. “I have been unhappy,” he said, “so long as I bore the first:
let us see if the other will bring better fortune.” It seemed indeed
that it did so, for in 1718 the tragedy of Œdipe was represented, and
established the reputation of its author. It had been principally
composed in the Bastille, where he also laid the foundation of his
Henriade, which occupied the time he could spare from amorous and
political intrigue, until 1724. Desiring to publish it, he submitted the
poem to some select friends, men of severe taste, who met at the house
of the President de Maisons. They found so many faults that the author
threw the manuscript into the fire. The President Hénault rescued it
with difficulty, and said, “Young man, your haste has cost me a pair of
best lace ruffles: why should your poem be better than its hero, who was
full of faults, yet none of us like him the worse?” Surreptitious copies
spread rapidly, and gained for the author much both of celebrity and
envy. But it displeased two powerful classes: the priests were
apprehensive of its religious, the courtiers of its political, tendency;
insomuch that the publication was prohibited by government, and the
young king refused to accept the dedication. Soon after this, Voltaire
was sent again to the Bastille, in consequence of a quarrel with the
Chevalier de Rohan: and on his liberation, he was banished to England.
There he remained three years, perhaps the most important era of his
life, for it gave an entirely new direction to his lively mind. Hitherto
a wit, and a writer of agreeable verse, he became in England a
philosopher. Returning to France in 1726, he brought with him an
admiration of our manners, and a knowledge of our best writers, which
visibly influenced his own compositions and those of his contemporaries.
He now published several poetical and dramatic pieces with variable
success; but he was more than once forced to quit Paris by the clamour
and persecution of his enemies. After the failure of one of his plays,
Fontenelle and some other literary associates seriously advised him to
abandon the drama, as less suited to his talent than the light style of
fugitive poetry in which he had uniformly succeeded. He answered them by
writing Zaire, which was acted with great applause in 1732. He had
already published his history of Charles XII.: that of Peter the Great
was written much later in life. The Lettres Philosophiques, secretly
printed at Rouen, and rapidly circulating, increased his popularity, and
the zeal of his enemies. This work was burnt by the common hangman.
About this time commenced that celebrated intimacy with Emilie Marquise
du Châtelet, which for nearly twenty years stimulated and guided his
genius. Love made him a mathematician. In the studious leisure of Cirey,
under the auspices of “la sublime Emilie,” he plunged himself into the
most abstract speculations, and acquired a new title to fame by
publishing the Elements of Newton in 1738, and contending for a prize
proposed by the Academy of Sciences. At the same time he produced in
rapid succession Alzire, Mahomet, and Merope. His fame was now become
European. Frederic of Prussia, Stanislaus, and other sovereigns honoured
him, or were honoured by his correspondence. But the perpetual intrigues
of his enemies at home deprived him of repose, and even at Cirey he was
not always free from troubles and altercations. Upon the death of Madame
du Châtelet, in 1749, he accepted the often urged invitation of
Frederic, and took up his residence at the Court of Berlin. But the
friendship of the king and the philosopher was not of long duration. A
violent quarrel with the geometrician, Maupertuis, who was also living
under the protection of Frederic, ended, after some ineffectual attempts
at accommodation, in Voltaire’s departure from Frederic’s society and
dominions (1753). He had just published his Siècle de Louis XIV., which
was shortly followed by the Essai sur les Mœurs. After a few more
wanderings, for the versatility of his talent seemed to require a
corresponding variety of abode, Voltaire finally fixed himself at
Ferney, near Geneva, in the sixty-fifth year of his eventful life, and
began to enjoy at leisure his vast reputation. From all parts of Europe
strangers undertook pilgrimages to this philosophic shrine. Sovereigns
took pride in corresponding with the Patriarch, as he was called by the
numerous sect of free-thinkers, and self-styled _philosophers_, who
looked up to him as their teacher and leader. The Society of
Philosophers at Paris, now employed in their great work, the
Encyclopædia, which, from the moment of its ill-judged prohibition by
the government had assumed the character of an antichristian manifesto,
looked up to Voltaire as the acknowledged chief of their party. He
furnished some of the most important articles in the work. His whole
mind seemed now to be bent on one object, the subversion of the
Christian religion. Innumerable miscellaneous compositions, different in
form, and generally anonymous, indeed often disavowed, were marked by
this pernicious tendency. “I am tired,” he is reported to have said, “of
hearing it repeated that twelve men were sufficient to found
Christianity: I will show the world that _one_ is sufficient to destroy
it!” Half a century has elapsed, and the event has not justified the
truth of this boast: he mistook his own strength, as many other
unbelievers have done. These impious extravagances were not, however,
the only occupation of the twenty years which intervened between
Voltaire’s establishment at Ferney and his death. In the defence of
Sirven, Lally, Labarre, Calas, and others, who at several times were
objects of unjust condemnation by the judicial tribunals, he exerted
himself with a zeal as indefatigable as it was meritorious. Ferney,
under his protection, grew to a considerable village, and the
inhabitants learned to bless the liberalities of their patron. His mind
continued to be embittered by literary quarrels, the most memorable
being that with J. J. Rousseau, commemorated in his poem, entitled
‘Guerre Civile de Genève’ (1768). He hated this unfortunate exile, as a
rival, as an enthusiast, and as a friend, comparatively speaking, to
Christianity. Nor were these his only disquietudes. The publication of
the infamous poem of La Pucelle, which he suffered in strict confidence
to circulate among his intimate friends, and which was printed by the
treachery of some of them, gave him much uneasiness. For its indecency
and impiety he might not have cared: but all who had offended him,
authors, courtiers, even the king and his mistress, were abused in it in
the grossest manner, and Voltaire had no wish to provoke the arm of
power. He had recourse to his usual process of disavowal, and as he
could not deny the whole, he asserted that the offensive parts had been
intercalated by his enemies. In other instances his zeal outran
discretion, and affected his comforts by producing apprehension for his
safety. Sometimes a panic terror of assassination took possession of
him, and it needed all the gentleness and assiduities of his adopted
daughter, Madame de Varicourt, to whom he was tenderly attached, to
bring back his usual levity of mind. At length, in 1778, Voltaire
yielding to the entreaties of his favourite niece, Madame Denis, came to
Paris, where at the theatre he was greeted by a numerous assemblage in a
manner resembling the crowning of an Athenian dramatic poet, more than
any modern exhibition of popular favour. Borne back to his hotel amidst
the acclamations of thousands, the aged man said feebly, “You are
suffocating me with roses.” He did not indeed long survive this
festival. Continued study, and the immoderate use of coffee, renewed a
strangury to which he had been subject, and he died May 30, 1778. He was
interred with the rites of Christian worship, a point concerning which
he had shown some solicitude, in the Abbaye de Scellières. In 1791 his
remains were removed by the Revolutionists, and deposited with great
pomp in the Pantheon.
It is difficult within our contracted limits to give an accurate
character of Voltaire. In versatility of powers, and in variety of
knowledge, he stands unrivalled: but he might have earned a better and
more lasting name, had he concentrated his talents and exertions on
fewer subjects, and studied them more deeply. It has been truly and
wittily observed that “he _half knew_ every thing, from the cedar of
Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall; and he wrote of them all, and laughed
at them all.” Of the feeling of veneration, either for God or man, he
seems to have been incapable. He thought too highly of himself to look
up to any thing. Capricious, passionate, and generally selfish, he was
yet accessible to sudden impulses of generosity. He was an acute rather
than a subtle thinker. Perhaps in the whole compass of his philosophical
works there is not to be found one original opinion, or entirely new
argument; but no man ever was endowed with so happy a facility for
illustrating the thoughts of others, and imparting a lively clearness to
the most abstruse speculations. He brought philosophy from the closet
into the drawing-room. Eminently skilled to detect and satirize the
faults and follies of mankind, his love of ridicule was too strong for
his love of truth. He saw the ludicrous side of opinions in a moment,
and often unfortunately could see nothing else. His alchymy was directed
towards transmuting the imperfect metals into dross. All enthusiasm,
eagerness of belief, magnifying of probabilities through the medium of
excited feeling, all that makes a sect as well in its author as its
followers, these things were simply foolish in his estimation. It is
impossible to gather from his works any connected system of philosophy:
they are full of contradictions; but the pervading principle which gives
them some form of coherence is a rancorous aversion to Christianity. As
a Deist believing in a God, “rémunérateur vengeur,” but proscribing all
established worship, Voltaire occupies a middle position between
Rousseau on the one hand, who, while he avowed scepticism as to the
proofs, professed reverence for the characteristics of Revealed
Religion, and Diderot on the other, with his fanatical crew of Atheists,
who laughed not without reason at their Patriarch of Ferney, for
imagining that he, whose life had been spent in trying to unsettle the
religious opinions of mankind, could fix the point at which unbelief
should stop. The dramatic poems of Voltaire retain their place among the
first in their language, but his other poetical works have lost much of
the reputation they once enjoyed. He paints with fidelity and vividness
the broad lineaments of passion, and excels in that light, allusive
style, which brings no image or sentiment into strong relief, and is
therefore totally unlike the analytic and picturesque mode of
delineation, to which in this country, and especially in this age, we
are apt to limit the name and prerogatives of imagination. As a
novelist, he has seldom been equalled in wit and profligacy. As an
historian, he may be considered one of the first who authorized the
modern philosophizing manner, treating history rather as a reservoir of
facts for the illustration of moral science, than as a department of
descriptive art. He is often inaccurate, and seldom profound, but always
lively and interesting. On the whole, however the general reputation of
Voltaire may rise or fall with the fluctuations of public opinion, he
must continue to deserve admiration as
“The wonder of a learned age; the line
Which none could pass; the wittiest, clearest pen;
_The voice most echoed by consenting men;
The soul, which answered best to all well said
By others, and which most requital made_.”—CLEVELAND.
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by J. Posselwhite._
RUBENS.
_From the original Picture by himself,
in His Majesty’s Collection._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._
]
[Illustration]
RUBENS.