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and engaged them to invite Ozanam to Paris, with a promise of his favour. The opportunity was eagerly embraced; and the business of teaching the mathematics here soon brought him in a considerable income: but he wanted prudence for some time to make the best use of it. He was young, handsome, and sprightly; and much addicted both to gaming and gallantry, which continually drained his purse. Among others, he had a love intrigue with a woman, who lodged in the same house with him, and gave herself out for a person of condition. However, this expence in time led him to think of matrimony, and he soon after married a young woman without a fortune, but for this defect she made amends by her modesty, virtue, and sweet temper; so that though the state of his purse was not amended, yet he experienced a long course of domestic happiness. He had twelve children by her, who all died young; and he was lastly rendered quite unhappy by the death of his wife also, which happened in 1701. Nei ther did this misfortune come single: for the war breaking out about the same time, on account of the Spanish succession, it swept away all his scholars, who, being foreigners, were obliged to leave Paris. Thus he sunk into a very melancholy state; under which, however, he received some relief, and amusement, from the honour of being admitted this same year an elève of the royal academy of sciences.

He seems to have had a pre-sentiment of his death, from some lurking disorder within, of which no outward symptoms appeared. In that persuasion he refused to engage with some foreign noblemen, who offered to become his scholars; alleging that he should not live long enough to carry them through their intended course. Accordingly he was seized soon after with an apoplexy, which termi nated his existence in less than two hours, on the 3d of April, 1717, at 77 years of age.

We are told that he knew too much of astronomy to give into judicial astrology; and obstinately refused all that was offered him to engage him to calculate nativities. Once indeed he submitted to the importunity of a count of the empire, whom he had sufficiently warned not to believe him. He drew up by astronomy the scheme of his nativity, and then without employing the rules of astrology, foretold him all the instances of good fortune, which came into his head. The count at the same time procured his

horoscope to be taken by a physician, who was greatly infatuated with astrology, and who followed exactly all the rules of that art. Twenty years after the count informed Mr. Ozanam, that all his predictions were come to pass, and that none of the physician's had their effect. This account gave him a very different satisfaction from what was intended. The count thought to compliment him upon his skill in astrology, but it only served to confirm him in his opinion of the absurdity of that pretended. science.

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Ozanam was of a mild and calm disposition, a cheerful and pleasant temper, endeared by a generosity almost unparalleled. His manners were irreproachable after marriage; and he was sincerely pious, and zealously devout, though studiously avoiding to meddle in theological questions. He used to say, that it was the business of the Sorbonne to discuss, of the pope to decide, and of a mathematician to go straight to heaven in a perpendicular line. He wrote a great number of useful books; a list of which is as follows: 1. "La Geometrie-pratique, contenant la Trigonometrie theorique & pratique, la Longimetrie, la Planimetrie, & la Stereometrie," Paris, 1684, 12mo. 2. "Tables des Sinus, Tangentes, & Secantes, .& des Logarithmes des Sinus & des Tangentes, & des nombres depuis l'unité jusqu'à dix mille, avec un traité de Trigonometrie, par de nouvelles demonstrations & des pratiques très faciles," Paris, 1685, 8vo; reprinted, with additions, in 1710. "Traité des 'Lignes du premier genre, de la construction des équations, et des lieux Geometriques, expliquées par une methode nouvelle & facile," Paris, 1687, 4to. 4. "L'usage du Compas de proportion, expliqué & demontré d'une maniere courte & facile, & augmenté d'un Traité de la division des champs," Paris, 1688, 8vo, reprinted in 1700. 5. "Usage de l'instrument universel pour resoudre promptement & très-exactement tous les problêmes de la Geometrie- pratique sans aucun calcul," Paris, 1688, 12mo; reprinted in 1700. 6. "Dictionaire Mathematique, ou Idée generale des Mathematiques," Paris, 1690, 4to. 7. "Methode Generale pour tracer des Cadrans sur toutes sortes de plans," Paris, 1673, 12mo, reprinted and enlarged in 1685. 8. "Cours de Mathematiques, qui comprend toutes les parties de cette science les plus utiles & les plus necessaires," Paris, 1693, 5 vols. 8vo. 9. "Traité de la Fortification, contenant les methodes anciennes &

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modernes pour la construction & défense des Places, & la maniere de les attaquer, expliquées plus au long qu'elles n'on jusqu'à present," Paris, 1694, 4to. 10. "Recreations Mathematiques & Physiques, qui contiennent plusieurs problêmes utiles & agréables de l'Arithmetique, de Geometrie, d'Optique, de Gnomonique, de Cosmographie, de Mechanique, de Pyrotecnie, & de Physique, avec un Traité des Horloges élementaires," Paris, 1694, 2 vols. 8vo. There was a new edition, with additions, at Paris, in 1724, 4 vols. 8vo; and in 1803, Dr. Hutton published a very enlarged edition, in 4 vols. 8vo, with Montucla's and his own additions and improvements. 11. "Nouvelle Trigonometrie, où l'on trouve la maniere de calculer toutes sortes de Triangles rectilignes, sans les tables des Sinus, & aussi par les Tables des Sinus, avec un application de la Trigonometrie à la mesure de Lignes droites accessibles & inaccessibles sur la terre," Paris, 1699, 12mo. "Methode facile pour arpenter ou mesurer toutes sortes de superficies, & pour toiser exactement la Maçonnerie, les Vuidanges des terres, & tous les autres corps, avec le toisé du bois de charpente, & un traité de la Separation des Terres," Paris, 1699, 12mo; reprinted, with corrections, in 1725. 13. "Nouveaux Elemens d'Algebre, ou Principes generaux pour resoudre toutes sortes de problêmes de Mathematiques," Amsterdam, 1702, 8vo. Mr. Leibnitz, in the Journal des Savans of 1703, speaks thus of this work of our author: "Monsieur Ozanam's Algebra seems to me greatly preferable to most of those which have been published a long time, and are only copies from Des Cartes and his commentators. I am well pleased that he has revived part of Vieta's precepts, which deserve not to be forgotten." 14. "Les Elemens d'Euclide, par le P. Dechales. Nouvelle edition corrigée & augmentée," Paris, 1709, in 12mo; reprinted in 1720. 15. " GeometriePratique du Pieur Boulanger, augmentée de plusieurs notes & d'un Traité de l'Arithmetique par Geometrie, par M. Ozanam," Paris, 1691, 12mo. 16. "Traité de la Sphere du Monde, par Boulanger, revû, corrigé, & augmenté, par M. Ozanam," Paris, 12mo. 17. La Perspective Theorique & Pratique, ou l'on enseigne la maniere de mettre toutes sortes d'objets en perspective, & d'en representer les ombres causées par le Soleil, ou par une petite Lumiere," Paris, 1711, 8vo. 18. "Le Geographie &, Cosmographie, qui traite de la Sphere, des Corps celestes,

des differens Systêmes du Monde, du Globe, & de ses usages," Paris, 1711, 8vo. 19. In the Journal des Sçavans, our author has the following pieces: I. "Démonstration de ce Theoreme; que la somme ou la difference de deux quarré-quarrez ne peut être un quarré-quarré," Journal of May 20, 1680. II. "Réponse à un probleme proposé par M. Comiers," Journal of Nov. 17, 1681. III. "Démonstration d'un problême touchant les racines fausses imaginaires," Journal of the 2d and 9th of April, 1685. IV. "Methode pour trouver en nombres la racine cubique, & la racine sursolide d'un binome, quand il y en a une," Journal of April 9th, 1691. 20. In the "Memoires de Trevoux," he has this piece, "Réponse aux principaux articles, qui sont dans le 23 Journal de Paris de l'an 1703, touchant la premiere partie de son Algebre," inserted in the Memoires of December 1703, p. 2214. And lastly, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences of 1707, he has Observations on a Problem of Spherical Trigonometry. 1

OZELL (JOHN), a writer, to whose industry, if not to his genius, the world was at one time thought indebted, received the first rudiments of his education from Mr. Shaw, an excellent grammarian, and master of the free-school at Ashby de la Zouch, in Leicestershire. He afterwards completed his grammatical studies under the rev. Mr. Mountford, of Christ's Hospital, where, having attained considerable knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, it was the intention of his friends to have sent him to the university of Cambridge, with a view to his being admitted into holy orders. But Mr. Ozell, averse to the confinement of a college-life, and perhaps disinclined to the clerical profession, and desirous of being sooner settled in the world than the regular course of academical gradations would permit, solicited and obtained an employment in a public office of accounts; with a view to which, he had taken previous care to qualify himself, by a most perfect knowledge of arithmetic in all its branches, and a greater degree of excellence in writing all the necessary hands. Notwithstanding, however, this grave attention to business, he still retained an inclination for, and an attention to, even polite literature, that could scarcely have been expected; and, by entering into much conversation with foreigners abroad,

1 Niceron, vols. VI. and X.-Gen. Dict.-Moreri.-Hutton's Dictionary, and Life in "Recreations,"

and a close application to reading at home, he made himself master of most of the living languages, especially the French, Italian, and Spanish, from all which, as well as from the Latin and Greek, he has favoured the world with many translations. Among these are Don Quixote, Rabelais, Fenelon on Learning, Vertot's "Revolutions of Rome," Nicole's "Logic," "The Life of Veronica of Milan," besides some parts of Rapin, Boileau, &c. &c. The only one which seems rather useful is his "Common Prayer, and Common Sense, in several places of the Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, Latin, and Greek Translations of the English Liturgy. Being a specimen of the manifold omissions, &c. in all, or most of the said translations, some of which were printed at Oxford, and the rest at Cambridge," Lond. 1722, 8vo. For this he tells us, in his foolish advertisement hereafter mentioned, the bench of bishops gave him a purse of guineas. Ozell's plays, though all translations, are very numerous, there being included in them a complete English version of the dramatic pieces of that justly celebrated French writer Moliere; besides some others from Corneille, Racine, &c. the titles of which are to be found in the " Biographia Dramatica."

Mr. Ozell had the good fortune to escape all those vicissitudes and anxieties in regard to pecuniary circumstances which too frequently attend on men of literary abilities; for, besides that he was, from his, earliest setting out in life, constantly in possession of very good places, having been for some years auditor-general of the city and bridge accounts, and, to the time of his decease, auditor of the accounts of St. Paul's cathedral and St. Thomas's Hospital, all of them posts of considerable emolument; a gentleman, who was a native of the same country with him, who had known him from a school-boy, and it is said lay under particular obligations to his family, dying when Mr. Ozell was in the very prime of life, left him such a fortune as would have been a competent support for him if he should at any time have chosen to retire from business entirely, which, however, it does not appear he ever did. He died Oct. 15, 1743, and was buried in the vault of a church belonging to the parish of St. Mary Aldermanbury; but in what year he was born, and consequently his age at the time of his death, are particulars that we do not find on record.

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