*fo fublime a discovery should have originated in a part of Europe the most obfcure, and hardly civilized, while it escaped the finer genius of Italy and of France. Though a part of the building has been destroyed by fire, the chamber is still religiously preserved in which Copernicus was born. His remains are buried under a flat stone, in one of the fide aifles of the most ancient church of Thorn. Above is erected a small monument, on which is painted a halflength portrait of him. The face is that of a man declined in years, pale and thin; but there is in the expreffion of the countenance fomething which pleases, and conveys the idea of intelligence. His ' hair and eyes are black, his hands joined in prayer, and he is habited in the dress of a priest. Before him is a crucifix, at his foot a skull, and behind appear a globe and compass. He died in 1543; and, when expiring, is faid to have confessed himself, as long and uniform tradition reports, in the following Latin verses, which are infcribed on the monument. They demonftrate that when near his diffolution, all cares or enquiries, except those of a religious nature, had ceased to affect or agitate him.

"Non parem Pauli gratiam requiro,
Veniam Petri neque pofco; fed quam
In crucis ligno dederat latroni,
Sedulus oro."

"Monfieur Luther de Geret, counsellor of the fenate of Thorn, furnished me with fome information relative to the illustrious person in question; and as so little is afcertained of his origin or family, it merits to be preserved. "The father of Kopernic was a stranger, from what part of Europe is totally unknown. He fettled here as a merchant, and the archives of the city prove that he obtained the freedom of Thorn in 1462. It seems clear that he must have been in opulent circumstances, and of confideration; not only from the liberal education which he bestowed upon his fon, but from the rank of his wife. She was fifter of Luca Watzelrode, bishop of Ermeland, a prelate descended from one of the most illustrious families of Polish Pruffia. The name of the father, as well as of the son, was Nichol

as.

To the patronage of his maternal uncle, the great Copernicus was indebted for his ecclefiaftical promotions; being made a prebend of the church of St. John at Thorn, and a canon of the church of Frawemberg in the diocese of Ermeland. Of his private life we know little. He did not reside here altogether, nor did he die here; his body having been brought to Thorn for sepulture from Ermeland, where he expired. A dyfentery, accompanied with a partial palsy, produced his death. In his character, as well as in all his deportment, he was modest, diffident, and religious. It is not either known or believed that he left behind him any natural children. But the family continued to refide here, as appears by a manufcript chronicle still existing, in which it is mentioned, that On the 11tk

H

of August, 1601, died Martin Kopernic, barber, of the kindred and pofterity of Nicholas Kopernic; a young man unmarried and wealthy, of an apoplectic fit, at his garden in the fuburbs.' In his person we apprehend the name to have become totally extinct.”

W

LORD COKE,

HEN 'he was made Serjeant, took for his motto, Lex eft tu tiffima Caffis:-Law is the fafeft helmet."

"Five forts of perfons," says Fuller, "this great man used to foredesign to mifery and poverty: "chymists, monopolizers, concealers, promoters, and rythming poets. For three things he said he would give God folemn thanks:-that he never gave his body to phyfic nor his heart to cruelty, nor his hand to corruption. In three things he much applauded his own success; in his fair fortune with his wife, in his happy study of the Law, and in his free coming by all his preferment nec prece nec pretio, neither begging nor bribging for preferment. He constantly had prayers faid in his own house, and charitably relieved the poor with his constant alms. The foundation of Sutton's Hospital (the Charter-House) (when indeed but a foundation) had been ruined before it was raised, and crushed by some courtiers in the hatching thereof, had not his great care referved the fame."

On receiving from Lord Bacon, as a present, his celebrated Treatise "De Inftauratione Scientiarum," he wrote on a blank leaf, malignantly enough, this distich:

Instaurare paras veterum documenta sophorum,
Instaura leges juftitiamque prius.

You with a vain and ardent zeal explore
The old philosophers' abstruser lore.
Justice and law your notice better claim,
Knowledge of them infsure you fairer fame.

DESCARTES.

THIS great Philofopher, who

was one of the profoundest

thinkers the world ever knew, used to lie in bed fixteen hours every day with the curtains drawn and the windows shut. He - imagined, that in that eafy and undisturbed situation he had more command over his mind than when it was interrupted by external objects. Descartes in very early life ferved as a volunteer in the army at the fiege of Rochelle, and in Holland under Prince Maurice. He was in garrifon at Breda, when Bleerman proposed his celebrated mathematical problem. He gave the solution of it, and returned to Paris, where he continued his studies in mathematics and moral philofophy. The philofophy of Ariftotle being then the

philosophy in vogue que in France, Descartes, who was dissatisfied with it, and who intended to attack it, retired to Amsterdam, to avoid any perfecution he might suffer in his own country for not facrific ing to the old and long-revered idol of Peripateticifm.

Count D'Avaux offered Descartes a pension, which he refused, telling this great Negociator, after returning thanks for his generous offer, "The public alone should pay what I do for the public." His biographer says, that Descartes became rich by diminishing his expences, and that whilft he remained in Holland, he always wore a plain fuit of black cloth. "At his table," adds he, “in imita, tion of the good-natured Plutarch, he always preferred fruits and vegetables to the bleeding flesh of animals. His afternoons were spent in the converfation of his friends, and in the cultivation of a small garden, when the weather permitted. After having in the morning," adds he, "settled the place of a plant, in the evening he would amuse himself with watering a flower." His health was naturally delicate, and he took care of it, without being enflaved by that care. "Though," says he in one of his letters, "I have not been able to find out a method of preferving life, yet I have arrived at one point of no less confequence, and that is, not to be afraid of death." Defcartes, who was naturally of a warm and lively difpofition, took great pains to command his temper, and used to fay, that to the controul under which he had been able to bring his passions by early and continual attention to the regulation of them, he was indebted for that ferenity and tranquillity of mind which contributed fo greatly to his happiness. Descartes' favourite device was, " Benè qui latuit, benè vixit;" and he used to say perpetually, "I value my independence at so high a rate, that all the Sovereigns in the world cannot purchase it from me." Yet so difficult it is even for Philosophers not to be flattered by the atten. tion of Princes, that Descartes was prevailed on by the folicitations of Christina Queen of Sweden, at an advanced age, and in very delicate health, to transport himself to the rude* climate of Stock. holm, to become the preceptor of that finglar Princess. His refidence in that cold country, joined to his being obliged to attend the Princess every morning in her library, even in the winter, at five o'clock, to give her lessons, undermined a health too precious to be waisted upon a vain and capricious woman. He was foon feized with an inflammatory fever, in confequence of this change in his

* This appears the more extraordinary, as Descartes had written to M. Chanut, the French Ambassador at the Court of Sweden, (who was the negociator between Christina and the Philofopher) in the following terms : "A man," says he, "born in the Gardens of Touraine, and fettled in a country (that of Holland) where there is indeed less honey, yet more milk, than in the Land of Promise, cannot easily bring himself to quit that country, to go and live in one inhabited by bears, and furrounded with rocks and ice

manner of living, and became delirious; exclaiming in that fituation, when the Physicians proposed to let him blood, " Meffieurs, épargnez le fang Franqais, je vous en supplie." Descartes is described by one who knew him, as a man of small stature, rather of a dark complexion, with a countenance of continual serenity, and a very pleasing tone of voice. He was extremely liberal, an excellent friend and a kind master, and so little sensible to resentmenrs, that he used to say, "When any person does me an injury, I endeavour to elevate my mind so high, that the injury cannot reach it." Descartes, like many other ingenious men, had applied himself a little to the study of medicine, and like many other ingenious men who do not make a regular profeffion of an art so complicated and so highly useful to mankind, and which depends so much upon experience and observation, occafionally fell into grofs errors. The stomach he used to compare to the refervoir of a corn-mill, which if not continually supplied with frest aliment, is destroyed by the trituration of its own muscles. He was therefore, in order to prevent this supposed mischief, continually masticating some light and innutritious fsubstance.

That fublime genius and excellent man Pafcal, in fpeaking of the philosophy of Descartes, says, I can "never forgive Descartes; he was very anxious throughout the whole of his philosophy to do without a First Cause; yet," adds he, "he could not prevent himfelf from giving it a gentle fillip, in order to put the world in movement, and there he leaves it." Father Paulian, an Ex-Jefuit of Avignon, wrote a book entitled "La Paix entre Descartes et Newton," but like most other negociators who are not in the fecret of those for whom they negociate, and more especially when they are not commiffioned by them, by no means carries his kind intentions into execution.

T

GROTIUS.

HIS great civilian and this general scholar is thus defcribed by Auberi du Maurier, who was intimately acquainted with him:

"Grotius was a very good poet in the Greek and in the Latin languages, and knew perectly well all the dead and living languages. He was, besides, a profound lawyer, and a most excellent historian. He had read all the good books that had ever been published; and what is astonishing, his memory was so strong, that every thing which he had once read, was ever present to it, without forgetting the most trifling circumstance. It has been often remark ed, that persons of great memories have not always been perfons of good and of found judgment. But Grotius was extremely judicious, both in his writings and in his conversation. I have often," adds Du Maurier, "feen this great man just cast his eye upon a page of a huge folio volume and inftantaneously become acquainted with the

53

contents of it. He used to take for his motto, Hora ruit, to put hímself in continual remembrance that he should usefully employ that time which was flying away with extreme rapidity.

" Grotius was born at Delft in Holland; was a tall, strong, and a well-made man, and had a very agreeable countenance. With all these excellencies of body his mind was still as excellent. He was a man of openness, of veracity, and of honour, and so perfectly virtuous, that throughout his whole life, he made a point of avoiding and of deferting men of bad character, but of feeking the acquaintance of men of worth, and persons diftinguished by talents, not only of his own country, but of all Europe, with whom he kept up an epistolary correfpondence."

Grotius efcaped from the castle of Louvestein, where he had been confined on account of his connection with the illustrious and unfortunate Barnevelt, by the address of his wife. She was permitted to fend him books, and she sent them in a trunk large enough to hold her husband. She made a pretence to visit him, and stayed in the fortrefs till her husband was out of the reach of his perfecu

tors.

Grotius took refuge in France, and was accused by fome of his countrymen of intending to change his religion and become a Catholic. "Alas," replied he to one of his friends who had written to him on the subject, "whatever advantage there may be to quit a weaker party that oppresses me, to go over to a stronger one that would receive me with open arms, I trust that I shall never be tempted to do fo. And fince," added he, " I have had courage enough to bear up under imprisonment, I trust that I shall not be in want of it to enable me to fupport poverty and banishment."

Louis XIII. gave Grotius a very confiderable pension. He was, however, no favourite with his Minifter, Cardinal de Richelieu, whom it is faid he did not fufficiently flatter for his literary talents, and the penfion was foon stopped. Grotius, however, met with a protectress in Christina, Queen of Sweden, who made him her Ambassador at Paris. Here again he was harrassed by Richelieu, who was angry with him for not giving him that precedence as a Prince of the Church, to which Grotius thought himself entitled as a representative of a crowned head. This dignity, however, was so little agreeable to a man of Grotius's great and good mind, that in a letter which he wrote to his father from Paris he tells him, "I am quite tired out with honours. A private and a quiet life alone has charms for me, and I should be very happy if I were in a fituation in which I could only employ myself upon works of piety, and works that might be useful to pofterity." His celebrated work upon the Truth of the Christian Religion, has been tranflated into all the languages of Europe, and into fome of those of the east. This great Scholar in early life composed a Devotional Treatise in Flemish verse, for the use of Dutch failors that made voyages to the East and West Indies.