HOMBERG, WILLIAM, a celebrated phyſician, chemiſt, and philoſopher, was the ſon of a Saxon gentleman, and born in Batavia, in the Eaſt Indies, in 1652. His father afterwards ſettling at Amſterdam, William there proſecuted his ſtudies; and from thence removed to Jena, and afterwards to Leipſic, where he ſtudied the law. In 1642, he was made advocate at Magdeburg, and there applied himſelf to the ſtudy of experimental philoſophy. Some time after he travelled into Italy; and applied himſelf to the ſtudy of medicine, anatomy, and botany, at Padua. He afterwards ſtudied at Bologna; and at Rome learned optics, painting, ſculpture, and muſic. He at length travelled into France, England, and Holland; obtained the degree of doctor of phyſic at Wirtemberg; travelled into Germany and the North; viſited the mines of Saxony, Bohemia, Hungary, and Sweden; and returned to France, where he acquired the eſteem of the learned. He was on the point of returning into Germany, when M. Colbert being informed of his merit, made him ſuch advantageous offers, as induced him to fix his reſidence at Paris. M. Homberg, who was already well known for his phoſphorus, for a pneumatic machine of his own invention more perfect than that of Guericke, for his microſcopes, for his diſcoveries in chemiſtry, and for the great number and variety of his curious obſervations, was received into the academy of ſciences in 1691, and had the laboratory of that academy, of which he was one of the principal ornaments. The duke of Orleans, afterwards regent of the kingdom, at length made him his chemiſt, ſettled upon him a penſion, gave him the moſt ſuperb laboratory that was ever in the poſſeſſion of a chemiſt, and in 1704 made him his firſt phyſician. He had abjured the Proteſtant religion in 1682, and died in 1715. There are a great number of learned and curious pieces of his writing, in the memoirs of the academy of ſciences, and in ſeveral journals. He had begun to give the elements of chemiſtry in the memoirs of the academy, and the reſt were found among his papers fit for printing.