he had been preparing to write, but of which, alas! only the plan has been published; the unfinished manuscript still Ïying 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 completed 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.

Having thus settled the state of Germany as it was before the creation of man, he was to proceed to a copious account of what it was after that era, but still long before the dawn of authentic history;-to trace the migrations and settlements of the remote tribes and nations which have successively occupied it— treating, by the way, of their languages and dialects;-topics of which it may be difficult for any body but Leibnitz to see the connexion with the history of Brunswick, but which were doubtless infinitely more to his taste.

Having thus, as it may be thought, laid a moderately solid foundation for the pyramid of his projected work, Leibnitz was to set about the history 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 collateral disquisitions on various points of heraldry, genealogy, and especially chronology; all which subjects were to be illustrated by an ample appendix of suitable engravings of medals, arms, ancient monuments, and so forth. In short, the work would doubtless have been publishing in successive volumes to this day, if Leibnitz and his patron had lived as long and subscribers or their heirs would still have been able only to predict the appearance of the last volume. We have been more minute than the generality of the biographers of Leibnitz on this subject; because the mode in which he prosecuted his task, the immense gyrations of thought in which he indulged, the number of subjects which were successively taken up, the eagerness with which he pursued each,

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

the gigantic scale on which he framed his plan, and not least of all, the scanty fragments he left of the whole, are so remarkably characteristic of his genius and his habits.

Let us now resume the sketch of his history. In 1699 he was chosen Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris ; and in the following year he induced the Elector of Brandenburg, afterwards King of Prussia, to found an Academy of Sciences at Berlin, of which he was made perpetual President. The publications of this society he afterwards enriched with various valuable contributions.

A communication from Bouvet on the Chinese characters, suggested to Leibnitz another of his life-long projects, doomed like so many others, to be left incomplete,-that of a Universal Language. On this project, more than one able man had toiled before Leibnitz, and more than one has toiled since, but all fruitlessly. It seems in truth to be one of the most hopeless of human schemes. But its very difficulty had charms for Leibnitz; and he expresses himself in many parts of his writings with a confidence of success which is as characteristic as his boldness. He did not think that the great men who had preceded him had been on the right tack. He contemplated the invention of a totally novel system, of which the characters should resemble as much as possible those of algebra.' He seems in truth to have expended immense thought upon this subject; yet nothing was found in his papers after his death, except some trifling hints.

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He had, it is true, directed a young man to devise and arrange exact definitions of all sorts of ideas-in itself not one of the least difficulties of the projected enterprise, and which Leibnitz had better have reserved for his own shoulders. Though he 'applied himself,' says M. Jaucourt, to this investigation as early as 1703, his life, dissipated by a hundred different occupations, was not long enough for the execution of this design.' That man would in truth have a long lease of life who should live till he had invented a Universal Language.

Its

In the year 1710, Leibnitz published his Theodiceé-properly speaking, his only complete work; certainly the only one which gives us a just image of the whole intellect of the man. principal object is to refute the sceptical views which Bayle had inserted in his Dictionary, touching the goodness of God, the liberty of man, and the origin of evil.

We shall make a few remarks on this work in a future page. In the mean time, we may observe that such doubts were entertained of the orthodoxy of Leibnitz, that several able menamongst the rest, Piaff and Le Clerc were persuaded he was of the opinions of Bayle himself, and that the Theodicée was but a

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jeu d'esprit. Never was there a more extravagant charge preferred against any man; it is contradicted alike by the whole internal evidence of the book, by the circumstances which had elicited it, and by the general tone in which he refers to it throughout his correspondence. The accusation could have been founded only on some misconceived ironical expressions, and on the very courteous and charitable tone adopted towards opponents.

In 1711, he was invited to a conference with Peter the Great at Torgau, whither the Russian monarch had come, to be present at the celebration of the marriage between his son Alexis and the Princess of Wolfenbüttel. Leibnitz was highly gratified, and with some reason. In addition to honours and a pension conferred, there was held out the flattering prospect of being associated in the formation of the future Code of that great Empire, which the Czar was meditating creating, and on the provisions of which that Prince consulted him.

In 1714, Queen Anne died. Leibnitz was at Vienna when the King left Hanover for his new dominions, but had an opportunity of paying his homage in 1715, when George I. again visited the Electorate.

From this period the health of Leibnitz, already shattered by frequent attacks of gout, which had grievously tormented him for many years, rapidly declined. As he knew much of most things, and something of every thing, so he had not entirely neglected Medicine, and was a little inclined, as many such men are, to play the doctor in his own case. It is said by some, that the immediate cause of his death was an unhappy experiment with an untried remedy. This event took place, on the 14th of November 1716, in the seventieth year of his age.

*

Leibnitz has left behind him a sketch in Latin of his principal physical and mental peculiarities, expressed with his usual frankness, and we might say with a characteristic egotism. From this sketch we extract the following traits. After some whimsical remarks on his temperament and that of his family, he tells us that his stature is of the middle height and graceful, his face pale, hands generally cold, &c. &c.; his eyesight keen, his "voice rather shrill than strong; that he had some little difficulty in pronouncing the gutturals, especially k.' He tells us that

his night's rest was uninterrupted,' for which he gives us a curious reason---' Quod sero cubitum it, et lucubrationes studiis

* Dr Guhrauer has given a full account of his last illness, Vol. ii. pp. 328-330.

'matutinis longe præfert.'* There are many students who, with the same habits, have not experienced the same happy results from ' them. His mode of life from childhood was sedentary; from a boy he read much and meditated more, and in most things was self-taught, avrodidanros. The next is certainly a characteristic trait, but would have been as well recorded by somebody else. He was ambitious of more profoundly investigating every thing than is customary with the vulgar, and of inventing new things.' He also tells us he was endowed with a most excellent invention and judgment; and found it no matter of difficulty to apply, in immediate succession, to the most various 'employments; reading, writing, speaking extempore, and investigating any intellectual subject, when necessary, even to the bottom.' He further tells us that he was easily made angry, and easily pacified; that he was neither very sad nor very merry; that his joy and grief were alike moderate, and that he more frequently smiled than laughed. Risus frequentius deducit, quam pectus convertit?

One or two other traits may be amusing to the reader as parts of a great man's portrait of himself. We give them below. ‡

The intellectual character of Leibnitz is very remarkable, and well worthy of careful analysis. He has been called, and with much justice, an universal genius.' His powers were most various and versatile, harmoniously proportioned one to another, and individually vast; each colossal, and all symmetrical. If he failed, and fail he often did, it was not from a deficiency in the powers requisite for the prosecution of science in almost any direction, but from the ambition of universal conquest-of knowing every thing, and achieving every thing. În his desire of gaining new victories, he was too apt to leave behind him provinces but half conquered. Such was his versatility, that, as

*He often did not retire to his couch at all, but sat till a late hour, took two or three hours' sleep in his chair, and then proceeded to his work again at early dawn. This plan he is said sometimes to have pursued night after night for weeks together. No wonder he had gout, and, towards the close of life, ulcerated and oedematous extremities !

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Whence I infer,' says he, cerebrum ei esse siccum et spirituosum,' that his brain is dry and spirituous.'

Conversationis appetentia non multa; major meditationis et lectionis solitariæ. Implicatus autem conversationi satis jucunde eam continuat, sermonibus jocosis et gratis magis delectatus, quam lusu, aut exercitus in motu consistentibus. Timidus est in re aliqua inchoanda,

audax in prosequenda.'

Fontenelle and Jaucourt have observed, he really does not seem to have manifested any predilection for any one branch of science more than another, though it was unquestionably in Mathematics that he was most fitted to excel. His powers of acquisition were astonishing; his memory, like that of most great men, was equally rapid in appropriating, and tenacious in retaining whatever was presented to it. At the age of seventy, he could recite hundreds of lines of Virgil without an error; and such was his knowledge of books and their contents, that George I. was wont to call him his living Dictionary.'

His attainments corresponded with his versatile powers, and his ever active industry. In every department of science and literature-in metaphysics, physics, jurisprudence, theology, philology, history, antiquities, the classics, and polite letters he seems to have been almost equally versed, and in all deeply. Realms of learning even then almost neglected, as the Scholastic Philosophy, or merely professionally studied, as the writings of the Fathers, had charms for him. The ancient languages he knew well, and was tolerably acquainted with more than half a dozen of the modern.*

And this versatility, as it appears in his acquisitions, so does it also in his writings, wherein he successively appears in the character of a philosopher, theologian, mathematician, jurist, historian, antiquary, and even-poet. It is true, that in this last character, he takes no very high rank. His imagination, though sufficiently active to supply apt illustrations to his argumentative prose, wanted the activity and the brilliancy which can alone make the poet. Yet he evidently regarded with some complacency this feature of his mind; and often mentions a certain feat of his early years with considerable satisfaction-the composition of three hundred verses in one day, and without making a single elision. In another sense of the word, we may say with more justice than Ben Jonson said of Shakspeare, 'that it would have been well if he had made a thousand.'

One striking peculiarity in the case of Leibnitz is, that his ceaseless activity in the accumulation of knowledge, and his great powers of original speculation, vast as they both were, seem to have been indulged in almost equal measure. Usually it is not so. A mind distinguished by much inventiveness,

*Cette lecture universelle,' says Fontenelle with his customary elegance, jointe à un grand génie naturel, le fit devenir tout ce qu'il avait Ju pareil en quelque sort aux anciens qui avaient l'addresse de mener jusqu'à huit chevaux attelés de front, il mena de front toutes les sciences.

VOL. LXXXIV. NO. CLXIX.

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