ASTRONOMY.

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of great service to Mr. Boyle, in completing liis improve-ment of Guericke’s invention of the air-pump. Being ap-pointed one of the surveyors for re-building London , heacquired a large fortune. He published several curiousexperiments which he had made, to explain the motion ofthe earth and planets, on the principles afterwards adoptedby Newton . He died in 1702.

Sir Isaac Newton was born at Woolstrope, in Lincoln,December 25,1642 : after due preparation, he was admitteda student in the University of Cambridge . The rapidity ofhis progress in mathematical knowledge, was truly astonish-ing. He is said to have perceived the theory and problemsof Euclid, as it were, by intuition. At the age of twenty-four,he had laid the foundation of the most important mathematicaldiscoveries. He is the first who gave a rational and completeaccount of the laws which regulate planetary motion, on theprinciples of the attraction of gravitation, now almost uni-versally adopted. He is said to have been led into hisspeculations on gravitation, as he sat alone in a garden, fromobserving the falling of some apples. Newton was as re-markable for a modest diffidence of his own abilities, as forthe superiority of his genius. With much difficulty he wasprevailed upon, by the solicitations of Halley, to publishhis Principia, or Mathematical Principles of Natural Philo-sophy , in 1686 ; a work which was considered as the pro-duction of a superior intelligence. In 1704, he publishedhis Optics ; in 1711, his Fluxions, a new mode of arithme-tical calculation, of great use in the superioi branches ofmathematics, the invention of which is however disputedwith him by Leibnitz, the famous German philosopher : andin 1728, his Chronology , which he endeavoured to adjustby calculating the period of eclipses. He received in hislife-time the honour due to his singular merit. In 1703, hewas elected President of the Royal Society . In 1705, hereceived the honour of knighthood, by Queen Anne . Hewas twice Member of Parliament . In 1669, he was madeMaster of the Mint: which, with the presidency of theRoyal Society , he held till his death, in 1726. His funeralwas celebrated with great magnificence; the Chancellor andfive other Peers supporting his pall: he was buried inWestminster Abbey , where is a V very appropriate monumentto his memory.

The principles of Newton were illustrated and confirmedin France by Giraldi, Cassini, La Hire, De Lisle, Louritte,M. de la Lande, Maupertius, Mariart, M. de la Caille, &c.In Britain , by Flamstead, Halley, Whiston, Gregorys Des