proved of such invaluable aid to mineralogists in the measurement of the angles of crystals. On November 18th he delivered the Croonian lecture, " Ön the duration of voluntary muscular action," and gave an ingenious account of the origin of sea-sickness. In his next paper, January 24th, 1811, he, at the request of Dr. Marcet, forwards the result of some of his observations while in practice. His next paper, read February 13th, 1812, was a practical application of his previous one on the reflective goniometer, with more especial reference to "primitive crystals of carbonate of lime and iron spar." On June 11th of the same year was read a paper on "A periscopic camera obscura and microscope," which the author believed much more advantageous than those constructed on the common principle, and of which great numbers were sold. On the 26th November he again delivered the Bakerian lecture, choosing for his subject "The elementary particles of certain crystals.' Α month later he was ready with another paper, on "A method of freezing at a distance," in which he made known his " Cryophorus, or frost-bearer;" while, early in the next year, February 18th, he made known his method of drawing extremely fine wire, and from which he is, as above stated, said to have realized a large fortune; and, as a corollary to this, read, a week later, a paper on A singlelens micrometer," designed to measure accurately the diameter of these excessively fine wires. His "Synoptic scale of chemical equivalents," communicated during the following year, has been of the greatest possible use to the chemist and manufacturer.

66

In 1815 his father died, and during this year no communications were made to the Royal Society. His paper of May 2nd, 1816, is taken up with accounting for the apparently simple question of why the diamond cuts glass. Wollaston shows that this property depends upon its form rather than its hardness. We pass over papers of lesser import, the recital of the mere titles of which would only weary the reader, but which show that Wollaston's mind was ever active, and his time fully occupied with experiment and reflection, and will only note one read 17th January, 1822, in which he proves, from observations made with a telescope one inch in aperture and seven inches focal length, that the earth's atmosphere is finite.

Wollaston was now a vice-president of the Royal as well as of the Geological Society, and continued as before hard at work on experiments connected with the "Waters of the Mediterranean;' "The light of the sun compared with that of the fixed stars," &c.: but death and disease were unconsciously hard at work too, and had already marked the hard-toiling, close-thinking, distinguished philosopher as an inhabitant of their deary, workless abodes. On November 20th, 1828, his fourth and last Bakerian lecture was read, "On a method of rendering platina malleable," and almost as if in solemn mockery to him whose spirit was so soon to go where earthly honours avail not, and where holiness is the only medal allowed to adorn the breast, this last paper was, on the 30th of the same month, awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Society.

A few weeks after, on 22nd December, 1828, his spirit took its flight to that region where faith is lost in sight, the mists of doubt and error are cleared away, and we know even as we are known, and where the faithful servant and steward is sure of an exceeding great reward. Feeling his end approaching, and being anxious that the knowledge of his discoveries and inventions should be preserved for the benefit of his fellow-creatures, he devoted his numbered hours, in the midst of pain and disease, to dictate such information as he thought worthy of being preserved. He also, to show that the consciousness of his approaching end had not impaired his faculties, and that death is a change rather than a dissolution, called for pencil and paper, set down a long column of figures, added them up correctly, and shortly after expired. Truly his end was peace, and one well befitting a Christian philosopher. The cause of death was afterwards ascertained to be an effusion of blood in the vesicles of the brain.

Men of science had valued aright the researches of the ingenious and cautious philosopher, and mourned his loss accordingly. Oe and all were ready to pass upon him the eulogium which he who steadfastly works out his life for the good and advancement of his fellow-men, no matter in what path, so well deserves.

Wollaston, at the time of his death, was Senior Fellow of Caius College, and, as already mentioned, Vice-President of the Geological Society. Dr. Filton, the president of the latter body, in concluding his annual address, thus alluded to the loss of their Vice-President:

"It would be difficult to name a man who so well combined the qualities of an English gentleman and philosopher, or whose life better deserves the eulogium given by the first of our orators to one of our most distinguished public characters; for it was marked by a constant wish and endeavour to be useful to mankind."

Dr. Thomson tells us that "Dr. Wollaston's knowledge was more varied, and his taste less exclusive, than that of any other philosopher except Mr. Cavendish; but optics and chemistry are the two sciences for which we are under the greatest obligations to him."

Dr. Henry says of him that, "trained in the discipline of the exact sciences, he had acquired a powerful command over his attention, and had habituated himself to the most rigid correctness, both in thought and language. He was sufficiently provided with the resources of mathematics to be enabled to pursue with success profound inquiries in mechanical and optical philosophy, the results of which enabled him to unfold the causes of phenomena not before understood, and to enrich the arts connected with those sciences by the invention of ingenious and valuable instruments. It must be recollected that the age in which Wollaston lived was alive with scientific thought and investigation. It was the age of Davy, of Young, of Cavendish, Rumford, and later, of Faraday. Electricity and its kindred phenomena had flashed upon philosophers, and compelled them to search for its cause. In the midst of this,

Wollaston in his own laboratory maintained his ground in the scientific world, even with his great contemporary Davy, who had all the apparatus of the Royal Institution at his disposal. And it is on this account that at the present time we have preferred Wollaston, as an example of toiling upward, to Davy, whose discoveries, though more noisy and brilliant, were not more important than Wollaston's, and whose history may at some future period engage our pen. We cannot better conclude our article than by an extract from the "Encyclopædia Britannica," 8th edit., vol. i., p. 972, in which the merits of Davy and Wollaston are thus compared:

"The strong points of his [Wollaston's] character were precision and rare acuteness in observation, patience and caution in deduction, and habitual devotion of his time and energies to scientific pursuits. His foibles were an excess of caution and a certain microscopic turn of mind, which, though it sometimes rewarded him with valuable discoveries, consumed his time in occupations of mechanical ingenuity, and prevented him from grappling with almost any of the great theories of his day. While Davy was delighting crowded audiences with his eloquence, his discoveries, and their wonderful results, Wollaston was pursuing his solitary experiments on a scale so small that scarcely three persons could witness them at once. While Davy was firing his potassium with ice, and making mimic volcanoes heave by the oxidation of his new metals, Wollaston was extracting by minute analysis from the refractory and unoxidizable ores of platinum substances previously undetected, which neither by their quantity nor their characters could ever interest any but a man of science. While Davy was charging his prodigious battery of 2,000 pairs (the largest which has ever been constructed, a homage to his genius provided by his numerous admirers), Wollaston was proving, after his fashion, how similar effects could be produced by the very same agency on a small scale; and with no greater apparatus than a shred of zinc, a few drops of acid, and an old thimble, he would gratify his friends by exhibiting the mimic glow of an almost microscopic wire of platinum. Davy seemed born to believe-Wollaston to doubt. Davy was a poet-Wollaston a mathematician, or, at least, capable of becoming a great one. Davy announced his discoveries in fiery haste, and presen tedall their consequences and corollaries as a free gift to mankind; Wollaston (estimating more truly the rarity of the inventive faculty) hoarded every observation, turned it over and over, polished it, rendered it exact beyond the reach of criticism, and then deliberately laid it before the world. He had the coolness and the accuracy of Cavendish, but he wanted the spur of his genius and the wide grasp of his apprehension. Davy was admired by thousands, both at home and abroad; Wollaston was little known, except to a small circle who could appreciate the resources of a mind rarely opened in confidence to any one, and of which the world was only partially informed."

Our Collegiate Course.

THE LITERATURE OF ENGLAND; CHRONOLOGICAL BIOGRAPHICAL, AND CRITICAL.

TABLE III.-SPECULATIVE AND SCIENTIFIC WRITERS.

Names and Dates.

[1300-1400.]

Events and Works.

Born at Bury, in Suffolk; brought up by his uncle, a priest; educated at Oxford, and became a monk of Durham, of which (after having been the tutor of Edward III.) he was made bishop, 1333. Next year he became High Chancellor; and, in 1336, Lord Treasurer of England. He was a correspondent of Petrarch's; one of the most learned men of his time, and a great collector of books, his valuable library of which he left to Trin. Coll., Oxon. Author of "Philobiblion," published at Spires, 1483.

Born at Oxford, where he was educated. He was one of the tutors of Edward III.; head of the Nominalists, and chief opponent of the Scottists at Paris, where he resided long. In 1327 was sent ambassador from England to Rome. Author of "Commentaries on Aristotle ;" "Lives of Philosophers;" pub. 1472, "A Defence of the Metaphysics of Aquinas."

A Franciscan friar, educated by the Minorites of Newcastle, who sent him to Merton College, Oxford, where he afterwards taught, it is said, 30,000 students. He was sent to Paris, where he took his doctor's degree, and was named "The Subtle Doctor." In 1307 he was made chief of the convent of Toulouse, where he sustained by 200 arguments the doctrine of "the Immaculate Conception." He opposed the doctrines of the Thomists. On 8th November, 1308, he died in a fit. Author of a treatise "On the First Principles of Things," "Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard." His " positive works," which are very numerous, are yet unpublished. His "speculative works" have been issued at Lyons, in 12 vols.

4. JOHN WICLIFFE 1324-1384.

Born at Wycliffe, near Richmond, Yorkshire; was commoner at Queen's College, Oxford; removed thence to Merton, of which he was made Fellow. In 1360, aided the university against the mendicant monks; Master of Balliol, 1361; Warden of Canterbury Hall, 1365; expelled, 1367; 1372, became D.D.; Commissioner at Bruges, 1373; Prebend of Aust, and Rector of Lutterworth, where he opposed the vices of the clergy. In 1376 the monks drew up nineteen articles against him ; in 1377, the Pope sent five bulls against him; he was thereupon cited by the prelates to appear in London, and again at Lambeth. His patron, the Duke of Lancaster, saved him in the former instance, the queen-mother in the latter. In 1381 he issued twelve theses against Transubstantiation, which were declared to be heretical. Left Oxford in 1382; and died from paralysis, with which he was stricken in his pulpit at Lutterworth.

Epitome of Critical Opinions.

1. "One of the most learned men of the day, and is said to have had more books than all the bishops of England together. When he could not purchase books he had them copied, and kept persons for this purpose in his palace.”—Rev. John Barnes, A.M., Oxford. "He was eminent as a scholar, statesman, judge, and divine; his whole heart was given to the collection and study of books, for which his desire was not less intense, and rather more intellectual, than that of bibliomaniacs at the present day."-North American Review, July, 1847.

2. "One of the most renowned scholastics of his age."-Thomas Morrell. “It is right to mention that the (Aristotelic) expositions of Burleigh possess a certain degree of clearness which is not always found in the writings of this period, and did not escape the notice of his contemporaries; it is for this reason without doubt that he owes the surname of the plain and perspicuous doctor.'"-H. Bonchitté. 3. "His celebrated attack on the system of Thomas Aquinas occasioned his having recourse very frequently to vain and idle distinctions; but in all his dialectic disputes he maintained a steady zeal for a deeper foundation of true science. He endeavoured to ascertain a fundamental basis for the certainty of knowledge, whether rational or empirical, and applied himself to demonstrate the truth and necessity of revelation.”—Tennemann. “His subtlety was not, in general, used to confuse principles, and to make the worse appear the better reason, but to bring out distinctions which are of real value, and which the metaphysicians of the latest periods cannot afford to overlook.”—F. D. Maurice. He was the chief of a long-famous school, and gave celebrity for a moment to a system which had greatly occupied the early scholastic era. He was, in fact, the apostle of reslism."-X. Rousillon.

4. “Wickliffe's translation of the Bible is referred to 1383; . . . it has peculiar value to every religions mind as the first translation of the entire Scriptures."— Henry Rogers. “Wicliffe, whom later ages have called the Reformer, was admired by his own and the next generation chiefly as the subtle and learned schoolman."-Thomas Arnold. "As it is in the light of subsequent events that we see the greatness of Wicliffe as a Reformer, so it is from the later growth of the language that we best learn to appreciate the beauty of his writings.”—Prof. P. Lorriner. His style is everywhere coarse and slovenly, though sometimes animated by a popular force or boldness of expression.”—G. L. Craik.