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LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 120.-29 AUGUST, 1846.

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SAGES and poets have vied with each other in the invention of significant symbols by which to express the littleness of all earthly greatness, and the vanity of all human ambition-not always superior themselves to a secret ambition of obtaining fame even by showing it to be nothing-of being remembered for the beauty and the excellence wherewith they have typified vanity. Like the sculptor employed to ornament the tomb, they have hoped to be celebrated for their eloquent images of death, and their graceful emblems of mortality. Yet neither amongst the devices feigned by art, nor the objects presented to us by the ravages of time-the broken column, the sarcophagus empty even of ashes, the stone inscribed with a silent history, or with half legible characters-is there any memento of these truths more expressive or more touching, than that which presents itself in the tarnished decorations of a series of portly folios or quartos of a past age, the product of some capacious and restless intellect, which toiled, as was fondly thought and hoped, for immortality-which aspired to be remembered, not merely in biographical dictionaries-those crowded cemeteries of mind -but to hold active and familiar converse with the mind of successive generations-to live in perpetual citation on the lips of grateful and admiring readers. Yet are these misjudging aspirants for fame often consigned to the "dust and darkness of the upper shelf;" rarely opened except by some chance visitor, out of idle curiosity-not from any wish to hold communion with their spirits, or to emancipate even for an instant their imprisoned wit and wisdom. These remains are guarded, it is true, with jealous care, and kept safe behind handsome doors and gratings; but the page is as mute as the voice of him who wrote it; and that supplementary body of ink and paper by which the fond authors hoped to perpetuate their existence, and secure a second and longer life on earth, is dead as the first tenement of flesh and blood, and without a hope of resurrection. To traverse an old library filled with such remains, is like walking through the catacombs of a great city. Could the thought of the utter want of sympathy, the "cold oblivion" which awaited him, have obtruded itself on the imaginings of those who wrought for immortality, it had been enough to paralyze all their energies, and make the pen drop from their nerveless hands.

We have been led into these gloomy reflections by the lot of that great and shining man, on whose life and genius we are about to offer a few remarks. His name is no obscure one; on the contrary, he has achieved, if ever man did, a high European reputation, and his name is laid up with those of the great of all time; and yet we believe there are few, even of the utterly obscure, who, having written so much, are read so little. It is the smallest possible fraction of his works that

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even those who have troubled themselves to peruse anything, are acquainted with; while the immense majority, who yet know him renowned for mathematical discoveries and metaphysical theories, have never read a syllable of him.

For this comparative neglect there are more reasons than one. To a certain extent he shares but the lot of all great philosophers. Their condition, in this respect, is far less enviable than that of great poets. The former can never possess so large a circle of readers under any circumstances; but that number is still further abridged by the fact, that even the truths they have taught or discovered, form but stepping-stones in the progress of science, and are afterwards digested, systematized, and better expounded in other works composed by smaller men. The creations of poetry, on the contrary, remain ever beautiful, as long as the language in which they are embodied shall endure even to translate is to injure them. Thus it is, that for one reader of Archimedes, (even amongst those who know just what Archimedes achieved,) there are thousands of readers of Homer; and of Newton it may be truly said, that nine tenths of those who are familiar with his doctrines have never studied him except at second-hand. Far more intimate, no doubt, is that sympathy which Shakspeare and Milton inspire; "being dead, they yet speak;" and may even be said to form a part of the very minds of their readers.

But this is not the only cause of the almost total neglect of the works of Leibnitz. As he wrote often with great beauty, and on a great variety of subjects, there should be no reason, one would imagine, why he should be less read than many other philosophers whose claims to be remembered is far inferior to his. The cause, we are inclined to think, is owing, in part, to the fragmentary character of his productions though enormously voluminous, there is almost nothing except his Theodicée and his Remarks on Locke that can be considered systematic; and he has nowhere, not even in these pieces, given a complete digest of his philosophical system. The great mass of his works consists of occasional_papers :-such as his contributions to the Acta Eruditorum of Leipsic; and the immense remains of that Literary Correspondence in which he was actively engaged throughout his life, and which included the name of almost every eminent scholar and thinker of the age. In these letters he continually repeats (as was most natural) fragments of his opinions; so that the reader finds that he has got most of what Leibnitz thought, long before he has read all that Leibnitz wrote, and might here, if anywhere, take a brick as a specimen of the house.

But yet another cause of this comparative neglect is, that with all his intellectual greatness, few other men have ventured to expound metaphysical theories which depend so absolutely on mere conjecture, or which are less adapted to invite disciples. His Monads are unintelligible even to his most devoted commentators; his Preëstablished Harmony has long since been dissolved; and a score of other theories, and rudiments of theories, which were suggested to his ever active genius,

lie scattered in gigantic ruins over the vast field of his labors.

Nor is this all. A very large portion of his writings, as already said, consists of his letters. Now, not only is the Latin in which he often writes far from being Ciceronian; not only are the theories he defends exploded, or the truths he develops rendered elementary in the subsequent progress of science; but the books cited are long forgotten, the very names of the authors never heard of even the doctissimus Hackmannus and the illustrissimus Kettwigius have somehow become obscure the allusions are unintelligible, the incidents without interest, the pleasantry insipid.

These causes are at least sufficient to show why we ought not to wonder that Leibnitz for more than a century has been but little read.

But it is well that those illustrious men, whose voluminous writings, for the reasons above assigned, will never be remembered equally with those of the great poet, should have their periodical commemoration; when the achievements by which they benefited their own generation and all time shall be honorably recounted, their portraits brought out of the dust and dampness where they were fading away, and the lineaments retouched and vivified; when some of their most pregnant thoughts and weighty maxims shall be repeated in the ear of mankind; and some fragments of their wisdom rescued from the sepulchre of their opera omnia. Even this is better than sheer oblivion. They have influenced the mind of the species some generations back, and through that indirectly for ever. It is something more to be permitted to do this directly, in modes however limited, and for intervals however transient. Yielding to the instinct of immortality, each grateful shade, thus honored, will triumphantly exclaim, Non omnis moriar!

Such a festival in honor of Leibnitz seems to be now in course of celebration in Germany. "Old Mortality" is there going his round, and reviving the imagery and inscriptions on the philosopher's tomb; and we could hardly hope to find a more favorable juncture for offering our homage than the present, when his works have just been republished at Berlin, and a new biography composed by Dr. Guhrauer.

We shall commence with a sketch of his life, the rather that it is more varied than that of the generality of literary men; so much so, indeed, as to increase in no small degree that wonder which his prodigious attainments are calculated to excite. It is difficult to reconcile so much activity and locomotion with such severe study. He must have learnt that useful lesson of losing no time "in changing his hand," as Adam Smith expresses it: and of bringing his faculties to bear with resolute promptitude on whatever, for the moment, exacted attention.

errors, but has brought to light some facts hitherto unknown. Many fragments also of the philosopher's writings, which had remained buried in obscurity, enrich Erdmann's recent edition of them. It would seem, indeed, as if these writings were a mine which could not be exhausted. Consisting for the most part of miscellaneous papers and correspondence, they were widely scattered, and were recovered only at intervals. In 1765, appeared a quarto volume of his posthumous works, under the editorship of Raspe. The principal of these was the commentary on Locke's great work, and is entitled Nouveaux Essais sur l'Entendement Humain. This volume is of rare occurrence. The edition of Leibnitz's works by Dutens, in six large quartos, published in 1768, was vainly styled Opera Omnia. It does not contain the pieces published by Raspe, for which Dutens, in his general preface, offers no very sufficient reason. In 1805, appeared an octavo collection of unpublished letters, under the editorship of I. G. H. Feder.

Dr. Guhrauer's work has considerable merit ; but it might have been judiciously comprised in one volume, by omitting not a few digressions on collateral subjects, in which, more Germano, the author has freely indulged. We shall also have occasion to point out some examples of prejudiced statement, into which the customary idolatries of a biographer have betrayed him.

One of the most curious things contained in Dr. Guhrauer's work is a fragment of Autobiography. Fragment as it is, it gives a striking account of the author's childhood and youth, throws a flood of light on his intellectual history, and exhibits all the prominent features of his character-even to its foibles-with a vivacity as amusing as can be found in any composition of a similar kind. As this fragment has never appeared in English, we shall take occasion to gratify the reader by a free translation of two or three paragraphs. Most of the facts are repeated, again and again, in different portions of Leibnitz's miscellaneous writings, but perhaps nowhere else so connectedly or so fully.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz was born at Leipsic, on the 21st of June, 1646. He may be said to have been a foster-child of literature. His father, Frederic Leibnitz, was professor of ethics in the university of Leipsic. His mother was the daughter of William Schmuck, another professor in the same university. His mother's sister was married to John Strauch, professor in Jena, a celebrated jurist.

He

The father of Leibnitz was married thrice. had one son by his first marriage, and one (the subject of this sketch) by the second. He died September 5, 1652, when the future philosopher was only six years old. He left a moderate fortune, and a valuable library, which last the young The principal sources of the biography of Leib- Leibnitz soon began to consider the best part of his nitz are the materials left by his friend Eckhart-inheritance. It is with his introduction to these his life by Brucker, in the History of Philosophy-treasures that we commence our brief extracts from his well-known Eloge by Fontenelle-that by the Autobiography.

Bailly, first published in 1768, and republished in He was sent early to the Nicolai school at Leiphis Discours in 1790-that by Kostner, published sic; but his real education seems to have been in 1769-the Memoir prefixed to several editions carried on by himself, and is described in a whimof the Theodicée, by M. Jaucourt, originally pub-sical manner in the following paragraph lished under the feigned name of M. Neufville-a "As I grew in years and strength I was wonpiece possessing considerable merit, and praised by no less an authority than Lessing-and the recent work of Dr. Guhrauer. This last author has diligently availed himself of every source of information; and has not only corrected some previous

derfully delighted with the reading of history, and having obtained some books of that kind in German, I did not lay them down till I had read them all through. Latin I studied at school; and no doubt should have proceeded at the usual slow

certain points, and already meditated some novel views, which, lest they should escape me, I committed to paper. Long after, I read some things which I had written at the age of fourteen, and was wonderfully delighted with them."

As to his doubts, he tells us that none of his masters satisfied him, but only admonished him that " it did not become a boy to busy himself with novelties, in things which he had not sufficiently studied." Meantime his friends were possessed by a new fear.

rate, had not accident opened to me a method peculiar to myself. In the house where I lodged, I chanced to stumble on two books which a certain student had left in pledge. One, I remember, was Livy, the other the Chronological Thesaurus of Calvisius. Having obtained these, I immediately devoured them. Calvisius, indeed, I understood easily, because I had in German a book of universal history which often told me the same things; but in Livy I stuck no longer; for as I was ignorant of ancient history, and the diction in such works is more elevated than common, I scarcely in "Those who had the care of my education-to truth understand a single line. But as the edition whom my greatest obligation is, that they interwas an old one, embellished with woodcuts, these fered as little as possible with my studies-as I pored over diligently, and read the words imme- they had before feared lest I should become a poet, diately beneath them, never stopping at the obscure so they now dreaded lest I should stick fast in places, and skipping over what I imperfectly un- scholastic subtleties; but they did not know how derstood. When I had repeated this operation little my mind could be filled with one class of subseveral times, and read the book over and over-jects; for no sooner did I understand that I was attacking it each time after a little interval-I un- destined for the study of the law, than, dismissing derstood a good deal more; with all which, won- everything else, I applied myself to that. derfully delighted, I proceeded without any dic-* And in this way I reached my seventeenth tionary till almost the whole was quite plain."

These self-acquired accomplishments having disclosed themselves at school, Leibnitz tells us that his master was much shocked that his pupil should be making such unauthorized progress in learning.

year, happy in nothing more than this, that my studies were not directed according to the judgment of others, but by my own humor; for which reason it was that I was always esteemed chief among those of my own age in all college exercises, not by the testimony of tutors only, but by that of my fellow-disciples."

He graduated as Bachelor of Philosophy in 1663, at the early age of sixteen, and proceeded to his Master's Degree in the same Faculty in the following year. On both these occasions, and on others of a like nature, he manifested the precocity of his metaphysical talents by the subjects selected for the customary disputations.-After giving an account of the dispute which prevented his offering himself for his Doctor's Degree at Leipsic, and sent him to the University at Altdorf, Leibnitz proceeds

"There," says he, "I took my doctor's degree in my twenty-second year, maximo omnium applausu; for when I maintained my public thesis, I discoursed with so much facility, and explained myself with so much clearness, that not the auditors only wondered at this new and unusual ¿zgißela, specially in a lawyer, but even those who had engaged to respond, publicly acknowledged that I had excellently well satisfied them."

"My master, dissembling the matter repairs to those who had the care of my education, and admonishes them that they should take care lest I should interrupt my studies by a premature and preposterous kind of reading; that Livy was just as fit for me as a "buskin for a pigmy;" that books proper for another age should be kept out of the hands of a boy, and that I must be sent back to Comenius or the lesser catechism. And without doubt he had succeeded, if there had not been present at the interview a certain erudite and well-travelled knight, a friend of the master of the house. He, disliking the envy or stupidity of the master, who, he saw, wished to measure every stature by his own, began to show, on the contrary, that it was unjust and intolerable that a budding genius should be repressed by harshness and ignorance; rather, that a boy, who gave no vulgar promise was to be encouraged, and furnished with every kind of help. He then desired me to come to him; and when he saw that I gave no contemptible answers to the questions he Refusing an offer of a professorship at Altdorf, put, he did not rest till he had extorted from my Leibnitz repaired to Nuremburg. While there, he relatives permission to enter my father's library. happened to hear of a Society of Alchemists, who At this I triumphed as if I had found a treasure. were prosecuting, with the usual success, the I longed to see the ancients, most of whom were search after the "philosopher's stone." He was known to me only by name-Cicero, Quinctilian, seized with a strong desire to become acquainted and Seneca, Pliny, Herodotus, Xenophon, Plato, with these adepts; but, as he was absolutely igand many a Latin and Greek father. These I rev-norant of all their terms of art, he knew not how elled in as the fit took me, and was delighted with the wonderful variety of matter before me; so that, before I was yet twelve years old, I understood the Latin writers tolerably well, began to lisp Greek, and wrote verses with singular success. Indeed, in polite letters and in poetry, I made such progress that my friends feared lest, beguiled by the sweetness of the flattering muses, I should acquire disgust for studies more serious and rug ged. But the event soon relieved them from this anxiety. For no sooner was I summoned to the study of logic, than I betook myself with great delight to the thorny intricacies which others abhorred. And not only did I easily apply the rules to examples, which, to the admiration of my preceptors, I alone did, but expressed my doubts on

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to negotiate an introduction. Happily he recollected that their ignorance must be quite equal to his own; and so, boldly extracting from the writings of the most celebrated alchemists, all the most obscure terms he could find, he composed a letter, of which he did not understand a syllable; and from that moment became, if one may indulge in the paradox, as knowing as themselves. What was dark to himself was happily quite clear to these illuminati, who, following their usual instinct for nonsense, or afraid to be supposed ignorant, professed to augur favorably of one who could write so profoundly. They invited him to assist at their conferences, introduced him to their labo: atory, and made him their secretary.

While at Nuremburg, he met with a valuab

duce numberless pieces on the most diversified subjects, which secured him extensive reputation, but which it is beyond our limits even to enumerate. One of his greatest projects at this period, but, like many others, never executed, was to revise and remodel the Encyclopædia of Alstedius, according to a new method, founded on the relations of the various sciences to each other. A curious publication, which appeared in 1670, was very characteristic of his literary habits. He had long been of opinion that Aristotle had been depreciated below his real merits, in the necessary recoil against the tyranny of the Scholastic Philos

friend and patron in the Baron de Boineburg, post which he held till 1672. Without neglecting Chancellor of the Elector of Mentz. Chance its duties, his ever active mind found time to pro(some say) brought them together at the hotel where Leibnitz was lodging. The Baron, who admidst his official duties, had never ceased to cultivate science and literature, was struck with the talents and attainments of his young acquaintance. He gave him his counsel-advised him to attach himself to Jurisprudence and History, as the studies which would furnish him the best means of advancing himself in life, and exhorted him to repair to Frankfort-on-the-Maine for the further prosecution of those studies: meantime, he promised to endeavor to procure for him some office worthy of his talents in the Court of the Elector. With this advice Leibnitz complied, and at Frank-ophy. Instead of treating this subject systematifort abandoned himself entirely to the studies thus cally, in the shape of a distinct dissertation, he recommended. It was there, amidst many dis- contents himself with republishing a work against tractions, that he composed, in 1667, his little Aristotle, written by Mario Nizoli, a native of treatise entitled, "A New Method of Learning Modena, so early as 1553, to which our author and Teaching Jurisprudence." * This early work adds a letter to Thomasius, a preface and notes! displays all his principal characteristics-his vast In 1672, Leibnitz went on a political mission to reading, the acuteness, originality, and compre- Paris, where he spent a considerable time, and in hensiveness of his mind, and his propensity to a very different way from the generality of foreign form projects too vast for fulfilment, and to make visitors of that gay metropolis. He pursued his promises which sound something like presumption. studies with his usual intensity, but particularly This little treatise was in the press when the applied himself to mathematics, in which he Baron de Boineburg summoned him to the service frankly represents himself as up to that time, comof the Elector of Mentz; and the young author, paratively uninitiated. At Paris, in 1672, he bewith the new developed instinct of a courtier, came acquainted with Huygens; and the perusal dedicated his work to his patron. In 1668, he of some of his writings, together with the study followed up his Nova Methodus, by his Ratio of those of Galileo and Descartes, and the MatheCorporis Juris reconcinnandi—a "beautiful pro-matical Fragments of Pascal, inspired him with a ject," as M. Jaucourt calls it-" un beau projet" -nothing less in fact than a new digest of Universal Law.

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But the author we have just cited might well ask, can we believe that Leibnitz (then little more than twenty-two years of age) had sufficient light for a reform of this gigantic kind?" A faire un bon livre, as M. Jaucourt says, is all that could be expected of the splendid talents of any young philosopher-even of a Leibnitz-engaged on such a subject.

zeal in his new pursuit, which, combined with his great inventive talents, soon put him not only in possession of all that had been hitherto discovered, but prompted him to make discoveries for himself.

On the all but exhausted controversy of the Dif ferential Calculus, and of Leibnitz's claims to be considered an inventor, we have little to say in addition to what has been already often repeated; and that little has been suggested solely by the observations which Dr. Guhrauer has, in his recent biography, thought proper to make. Our remarks on his statements will occur farther on.

attempting all things difficult, he conceived the idea of improving and perfecting it. To this task he devoted considerable time, thought, and money; and he has left a brief account of his success in the third volume of his works.* But he was at length obliged to abandon it; and it thus forms one of the huge pile of projects which he has left incomplete, and which serve only to show the activity and universality of his genius.

In the same year, he also published his treatise De Arte Combinatoriû; in which, though he ad- Whilst prosecuting his mathematical studies, vances many things which he afterwards saw Leibnitz noted certain imperfections in the Arithcause to reject, he displays much of the analytical metical Machine which Pascal had endeavored to skill, and originality of conception, which after-construct; and with his characteristic ambition of wards made him so famous in the field of pure mathematics. The abdication of John Casimir, King of Poland, in 1668, when the elective throne was besieged by a crowd of aspirants, afforded Leibnitz his first opportunity of signalizing his talents in political discussion. Amongst the claimants was the Prince of Neuburg, and Boineburg engaged Leibnitz to support his pretensions. In this, as in one or two other cases, our author was perhaps too easily led to accept the office of advocate, before exercising that of philosopher; to accept a thesis and then examine how it could be supported. Once engaged, however, his philosophic habits of mind soon appear in this as in similar instances; and, rising above the transitory and limited subjects proposed, he expatiates on the condition of Poland, its principles of government, and the qualities it should seek in the monarchs of its choice. Though this brochure did not attain its end, Leibnitz was not without his reward. At the instigation of Boineburg he was made a member of the Council of the Elector, a

*Nova Methodus discendæ docendæque Jurisprudentiæ.

In the year 1673 Baron de Boineburg died; and as official duties no longer confined Leibnitz to Paris, he took the opportunity of visiting England, and there became acquainted with Boyle, Oldenburgh, Gregory, Wallis, Newton, and others. Several of the literary and scientific acquaintances he here made, were added to the contributors to his already vast correspondence.

Shortly after his arrival in England, his patron, the Elector of Mentz died, (1674,) and Leibnitz resolved to return to Germany, and to push his fortunes in some other direction. Previous to his leaving England, the Royal Society honored him,

* Duten's edition, vol. iii., p. 413.

and did themselves honor, by enrolling him which he calls Codex Juris Gentium Diplomaticus. amongst their members. As soon as he arrived in It is in fact a collection of treaties, declarations, Paris, he wrote a letter to John Federic, Duke of manifestoes, contracts of royal marriages, and pubBrunswick-Lunenburg, to inform him of his situa-lic documents of a similar nature. It extended to

tion; and that prince immediately offered him a place at his court, a pension, and, what was as much prized, the liberty of remaining in foreign countries as long as he pleased. Availing himself of this permission, Leibnitz remained at Paris five months, chiefly engaged in the prosecution of his mathematical studies. He then returned for a brief interval to England, thence paid a visit to Holland, and took his place at the court of his sovereign at Hanover, in 1676; and with this prince and his successors he spent the remainder of his life.

two folio volumes, the first of which appeared in 1693; the second volume, enriched by communications from Oxenstiern, not till 1700. To the first volume is prefixed a preface, indicating as usual the activity and diffusiveness of his genius, his power of eliciting general truths from the most unpromising facts, and of throwing unexpected light on subjects but little connected with one another.

Another work which originated in the task imposed upon him by the elector, consisted of his Accessiones Historice, published in 1698. It is in fact a mass of the odds and ends of his multifarious collections; many of them rare documents, which had been buried in public libraries, and had escaped the vigilance of previous inquirers. In order to finish here all notice of the series of publications which had their origin in the request of the elector, we may remark, that it was not till 1707, nearly twenty years after he set out on his travels, that the

The second and third volumes appeared in 1710 and 1711. This extensive work was to have been succeeded by a work on the History of Brunswick itself and its illustrious house; that is, by the work which for twenty years he had been preparing to write, but of which, alas! only the plan has been published; the unfinished manuscript still lying in the dust of the royal library of Hanover.†

In truth, his plan was so whimsically extensive, that it would have taken his life fully to have conpleted it. The work was to have commenced by a dissertation on the possible state of Germany some thousands of years before the creation; in other words, on its geology. He has recorded his general opinions in an essay entitled Protogea, which appeared after his death, and an abstract of which was inserted in the Journal of Leipzig, 1693.

The tastes of the duke so happily coincided with those of Leibnitz, that he must have been here perfectly in his element. He commenced his duties with the agreeable task of enriching the ducal library with important works and inanuscripts. His patron often joined him in his physical and chemical studies; and thus Leibnitz doubtless found it less tedious to play the courtier, than a philosopher in that situation may be supposed apt | first portion of any work exclusively bearing on his to find it. subject saw the light; and that consisted only of a The prince died in 1679, but Leibnitz lost no-collection of the writers on the affairs of Brunswick. thing by his death; as his successor, Prince Ernest Augustus, then Bishop of Osnaburg, cherished towards him the same sentiments, and retained him in the same employments. He engaged him, however, in one new task, which, had it not been for the eccentric manner in which Leibnitz most characteristically performed it, would have involved a mere waste of time, and, as it was, must have grievously interrupted studies far more important and congenial. It was that of writing the History of the House of Brunswick. Here, as in all like cases, he broke away from the comparatively narrow limits assigned to him; and in the course of his very comprehensive researches, in which he amassed an enormous quantity of materials, (some of them very remotely connected with his proposed subject,) his active mind suggested many novel and sometimes brilliant speculations, in various Having thus settled the state of Germany as it branches of science; more especially in relation to was before the creation of man, he was to proceed geology, (of which he may, in virtue of his Proto-to a copious account of what it was after that era, gea, be called the founder,) comparative philology, but still long before the dawn of authentic history; and the whole philosophy of history and antiqui- -to trace the migrations and settlements of the ties. For an ample collection of materials he trav- remote tribes and nations which have successively elled during the years 1687, 88, 89;-visiting occupied it-treating, by the way, of their lanFranconia, Bavaria, Suabia, Austria, and subse- guages and dialects;-topics of which it may be quently Italy. Libraries, monasteries, convents, difficult for anybody but Leibnitz to see the connexabbeys, tombs, public documents, manuscripts, rare ion with the history of Brunswick, but which were books, were all laid under contribution. On his re-doubtless infinitely more to his taste. turn in 1690, he reviewed the treasures thus ac- Having thus, as it may be thought, laid a modquired, and was surprised to find he was so rich. erately solid foundation for the pyramid of his proIn collecting materials for the history of Bruns-jected work, Leibnitz was to set about the history wick, his huge drag had brought up all sorts of fragments of antiquity, many of them highly curious. From these accumulations, and from the treasures in Wolfenbuttel, recently committed to his care, he selected the materials of a great work,

It was during these travels that a curious incident happened to him. He was once overtaken in a small Vessel on the coast of Italy by a furious tempest, which the sage skipper attributed to the presence of the heretical German. Presuming him ignorant of the language, he and his crew began to deliberate on the propriety of throwing the "Lutheran Jonas" (as M. Jaucourt expresses it) overboard. Leibnitz, with much presence of inind, took out a rosary, which he happened to have with him, and began to tell his beads with vehement devotion. The Tuse succeeded.

of Brunswick in earnest; of course commencing with the very remotest times, gathering materials from the obscurest sources, gently deviating to the right and left as occasion might or might not require, to take in the history of the various branches of the house of Brunswick, as well as that of all the houses with which they might have formed alliances, and pleasingly diversifying the matter with callateral disquisitions on various points of heraldry, genealogy, and especially chronology; all which subjects were to be illustrated by an ample *Scriptores Rerum Brunsvicensium illustrationi inscrvientes.

+ Dr. Guhrauer gives us reason to expect that this Fragment will soon see the light.

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