IGNATIUS GASTON, an ingenious and learned French Jesuit, was born at Paris in 1636. He taught polite literature for several years, during which he composed, with peculiar delicacy of thought and style, small pieces both in prose and verse. At length he devoted himself entirely to mathematics and natural philosophy, and read all authors, ancient as well as modern, in those branches of knowledge. He died in the year 1673, of an infectious disorder contracted by confessing and preaching to the prisoners in the Bicêtre during the Easter holidays. Pardies published several works; but his Elements of Geometry are best known in this country, where a translation of them has gone through several editions. In 1672 he had a dispute with Sir Isaac Newton respecting the theory of light and colours, of which an account may be seen in the Philosophical Transactions for that year.