Joseph Jerome Lefrançois de, a most zealous and accomplished astronomer, born at Bourg en Bresse, on the 11th of July 1723, was the son of Peter Lefrançois, and Marianne Mouchinet, his wife.

His parents were in easy circumstances, and his education being somewhat too indulgent, the natural quickness and impetuosity of his temper was too little restrained. His earliest taste, like that of most other children, seems to have been for romantic tales; and he was fond of making little stories with such materials as he possessed, but their subject was chiefly religious. He was in the habit of living much with the Jesuits, and he imbibed from them a predilection for the pulpit. At the age of ten he used to amuse himself with making sermons, and preaching them to a select congregation. The comet of 1744, however, with its long tail, took more forcible possession of his imagination, and he watched it with the most unremitting attention. Having been sent to Lyons to continue his studies under the Jesuits there, he acquired a taste for poetry and eloquence, and was then inclined to devote himself to literature and to the bar, but an eclipse of the sun recalled his attention to astronomy. His parents wished him to follow the profession of the law, and with that view sent him to Paris, but he accidentally lodged in a hotel where Delisle had established an observatory, and this circumstance led him to become acquainted with that professor, and to attend his lectures. These lectures were by no means popular; and the want of a more numerous audience made it easy for the professor to accommodate his instructions to the fixed attention and rapid progress of his new pupil, who became singularly attached to his master, and to all the methods which he employed. Lalande attended, however, at the same time, the physico-mathematical lectures of Lemonnier, who was more in credit as a teacher, and who also took great pains for his improvement.

In the mean time he had completed his legal studies, and at the age of eighteen he was called to the bar as an advocate. His family was anxious for his return to Bourg, but just at that time Lemonnier obtained leave to nominate him as a substitute for himself on an astronomical mission to Berlin, where he was to make observations on the lunar parallax, corresponding with those which Lacaille was sent to the Cape to obtain. He was favourably received by Maupertuis, who introduced him to Frederick and his court; and was made a member of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin when he was about nineteen.

He remained a year in that city, observing at night, and passing his mornings in the study of the integral calculus, under Euler's directions, and his evenings in the society of Voltaire, Maupertuis, D'Argens, and other men of talents. It was not likely that his intercourse with such persons would confirm the principles which he had imbibed from the Jesuits; his moral conduct, however, does not appear to have been influenced by his change of sentiments. After his return to Bourg, he pleaded a few causes to oblige his friends, but the success of his operations at Berlin obtained him speedily a place in the Academy of Sciences at Paris; for, in 1753, before he was twenty-one, he was chosen to fill up a vacancy in the department of astronomy, which had been open for some years. He soon afterwards offended his friend Lemonnier, by rejecting too harshly an unfounded objection of that astronomer to his method of computing the effect of the earth's ellipticity on the lunar parallax, which differed from Euler's formula. Lacaille, who drew up the report of a committee appointed on the occasion, decided in Lalande's favour; but Lemonnier remained dissatisfied, and would not see him for twenty years. He had some similar discussions, at a later period, with Dasejour, who was a little too severe in criticizing some of his approximations, as if they had been intended to be rigidly accurate, but their personal friendship remained unaltered.

For more than fifty years he continued to be a constant and voluminous contributor to the Memoirs of the Parisian Academy, as well as to other scientific collections. His investigations were always judiciously directed to the advancement of astronomy, but they can scarcely ever be said to have exhibited any marked features of talent, or of address, beyond what might be expected from the industry of a man of good ordinary abilities, confining himself almost entirely to one subject. He was always anxious to call the public attention to astronomy as a science and to himself as an individual. Thus, on occasion of the transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769, he addressed a circular letter to most of the governments of Europe, on the importance of obtaining a multiplicity of collateral observations, and he received in reply several invitations from sovereigns whose countries were more favourably situated for the purpose than France, to come and make the observations in person. He thought it unnecessary, however, to leave Paris on the occasion. He contented himself with being the first to announce to the public the result of the most satisfactory comparisons, and his countrymen seemed to give him almost the whole credit of everything that had been done by others in conformity with his suggestions. He was much mortified, however, in not receiving from Father Hell an account of the observations made at Wardhusa; and he was afterwards greatly inclined to dispute their accuracy, because Hell made the parallax smaller than he did by 1/10 of a second, whilst the mean of both results, which is 8°6', agrees extremely well with the most modern computations; but, in the end, he did justice to the importance of Hell's observations.

He was constantly in the habit of passing a few months every year with his family in the country, and he occasionally amused himself, in the course of these visits, with mineralogical excursions, and with chemical studies. He delivered, about the year 1758, an oration before a public assembly at Lyons, on the advantage of monarchy above every other form of government; he even adhered to a similar opinion, and expressed it openly, in times when nothing but his celebrity as a man devoted exclusively to science, could have made it safe for him to declare it.

After having published the astronomical tables of Halley, he felt the necessity of a new collection, and determined to begin with those of Mercury, which he found the most imperfect. He pursued, for this purpose, a regular course of observations at the Palais Royal, where he used to go before sunrise in the winter mornings to see the planet in the twilight. Having occasion to refer to the observations recorded by Ptolemy, he found it necessary to refresh his acquaintance with the Greek language, which he had in some measure neglected. But, with all his labour and diligence, his tables of Mercury exhibited, in 1786, an error of forty minutes in the time of a transit. The circumstance mortified him extremely, but it led to a revision of the tables, and he afterwards succeeded in making them much more perfect. It must be recollected that, in the time of Hevelius, a transit was anxiously expected for four whole days before it occurred.

He next undertook to improve the tables of Mars and Lalande. Venus. His tables of these planets were, on the whole, less accurate than those of Mercury, though more exempt from great occasional errors. He had computed their perturbations in the Memoirs of the Academy, but he never thought it worth while to compare his formulas with observation. The irregularities of Jupiter and Saturn were much more discouraging; he was obliged to confine himself, in discussing them, to the most modern observations, and he did not appear sufficiently to appreciate the empirical equations of Lambert, though they greatly diminished the errors of Halley's tables.

When Maraldi had given up the management of the Connaissance des Temps, Lalande and Pingré were candidates for the appointment. Lalande succeeded in obtaining it, but he had the modesty to confess that the work would have been more accurately performed by Pingré, if his connection with the church had not, according to the rules of the Academy, incapacitated him for the situation. He made the work, however, much more popular, as a miscellaneous publication, than Pingré was likely to have done; and he was less prejudiced than Pingré in the choice of his tables. He remained editor of the work from 1760 to 1775; it was conducted by Jeaurat from 1776 to 1787, and from 1788 to 1793 by Méchain. Lalande then undertook it once more, Méchain being engaged in some measurements with Delambre, and the Academy having been abolished, and its members dispersed.

Lalande had been disposed to call in question the assertion of Newton and Voltaire, that no comet could possibly come in contact with the earth, and he had proved that the effect of perturbations at least rendered their reasonings somewhat inconclusive. A short memoir on the subject, which was to have been read at a public sitting of the Academy, was accidentally omitted, as not very important, from the pressure of other business. This circumstance alarmed the sensibility of the public of Paris, who fancied that Lalande had foretold some dreadful catastrophe which the government was afraid to announce; and when the memoir was published, they insisted that its contents had been modified, to lessen the alarm. Duséjour made some objections to the author's reasoning, but the whole affair was soon forgotten.

A memoir on the length of the year was honoured with a prize by the academy at Copenhagen. Delambre, however, thinks the determination not so good as the earlier one of Lacaille, though much better than Mayer's, which was more commonly adopted. Lalande took great pains also with the subject of the sun's rotation, employing in his computations of the places of the spots an easy approximation, instead of Duséjour's more laborious methods; but being careful to compare with each other the most distant observations of the same spot. From the existence of this rotation he thought it reasonable to infer that the sun had also most probably a progressive motion, which would naturally be produced by any single impulse capable of occasioning a rotation. He had some discussions with Dr Maskelyne respecting the mode of computing the equation of time, in which Maskelyne appears to have had the advantage.

In the year 1762, Delisle resigned in his favour the professorship of astronomy in the Collège de France, which he kept for nearly forty-six years. He allowed the most attentive of his pupils to board with him at a cheap rate, doing his utmost on all occasions to promote their success in their studies and in life. Thus he brought forward Méchain and Dagelet, and afterwards his own nephew, who completed, with so much diligence and accuracy, the Description of the Heavens, which he had himself projected, and which had been begun by Dagelet before his unfortunate expedition. He was made a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1763.

His health was generally good, though his constitution was delicate. He had an attack of jaundice in 1767, which was attributed to intense application, but he completely recovered from its effects by an attention to diet, and by the use of horse exercise. He then intended to leave all his property to the Academy, but he afterwards gave up his family estates to his relations, and lived on his appointments only, refraining from all kinds of luxuries, in order to be the more able to do acts of liberality to his friends, whom he always sought to oblige in the most delicate manner, and often without making his services known. He had a pension from Russia in the time of the Empress Catherine; it was suspended by Paul, but restored in 1805 by Alexander.

He was not particularly successful as an observer, but used to refer to the works of his contemporaries, Bradley and Lacaille, though not exactly, according to the expression of one of his biographers, "as Ptolemy had done to those of Hipparchus;" for Hipparchus must have been dead two centuries before Ptolemy was born. On the occasion of the disappearance of the ring of Saturn in 1774, he went to Béziers, in order to profit by the superior serenity of the air there, the climate of that country being supposed to be the best in France; but his observations were less valuable than others made at Paris and in London.

In the year 1798 he undertook an astronomical expedition to Gotha. He had once meditated an aerostatical voyage there; but his companion took care that their dangers should terminate in the Bois de Boulogne. He was received with much interest at Gotha by an assembly of astronomers that was collected from different parts of Germany. The object of the congress was perhaps not unmixed with personal vanity; but it had no political design to promote, unless the general adoption of the new French measures could be considered as a political object. Lalande was by no means a revolutionary; he was sufficiently free from any prejudices of education; but he openly condemned the political opinions of the day; and, in 1792, he even exposed himself to great personal danger in order to save the life of Dupont de Nemours, after the 10th of August; and he was equally useful to some of the clergy, whom he concealed in the buildings of the Observatory at Mazarin College, making them pass for astronomers. He had also the courage to publish accounts of Lavoisier and Bailly a short time after their deaths.

The attentions of the German astronomers gave him sincere pleasure. He was at all times extremely sensible to compliments, and even to flattery, though very regardless of satire. He used to call himself a sponge for praise and an oil-cloth for censure. He professedly believed himself endowed with all the virtues, modesty not excepted. He was so fond of notoriety, that he once undertook to exhibit the variations of the light of Algol to the public of Paris en le Pont Neuf; but the police interfered, thinking it right to prevent a disorderly assemblage.

Though Lalande can only be classed in the second rank as an inventive astronomer, or a mathematician, he certainly stands in the first as a professor and a popular writer. His methods of calculation have in most instances been already superseded by others more convenient or more exact; those which related to particular phenomena for want of sufficient precision, and those which were more general for want of being readily applicable, without continual repetition, to a sufficient number of concurring observations. It has been observed, that he may perhaps have been often too zealous in the pursuit of his favourite objects; but that, if he had possessed more circumspection, and less vivacity of character, he would have been more exempt from criticism, yet would have rendered less important services to science and to mankind.

His last illness was of a consumptive nature, and he Lalande seems to have accelerated its termination by attempting too much to harden himself. He died on the 4th of April 1807, nearly seventy-five years old, and in the perfect possession of his faculties. His last words, when he dismissed his attendants to rest, were, "I have need of nothing more;" and in a few minutes he was dead. Had he survived a few hours, he would have received a letter from Dr Olbers, announcing the discovery of a new planet, for which that distinguished astronomer afterwards received the fourth prize medal from the institution founded by Lalande in 1802, for the most important astronomical discovery made in the course of the year.

Of his voluminous and diversified publications, a simple enumeration of the subjects will perhaps be thought sufficient. The more important only of them will be criticised:

1. We find, in the Memoirs of the Parisian Academy of Sciences for 1761, an account of his Observations at Berlin, which also appears in the Memoirs of Berlin for 1749, and a Latin translation in the Acta Eruditorum for August 1752. 2. 3. 1752-53, An Essay on the Lunar Parallax. 4. 1754, A Transit of Mercury. 5. Elements of Mars. 6. 1755, Longitude of Berlin. 7. Lunar Eclipse. 8. 1755, Transit of Mercury. 9. Lunar Parallax continued. 10. 1757, Observations at the Luxembourg. 11. Transit of Venus. 12. Secular Equations and Mean Motions. 13. A Geometrical Problem. 14. Meridian Altitudes. 15. 1758, Perturbations of Mars by Jupiter. 16. Solutions of the Planetary Nodes. 17. Change of Latitude of the Sun. 18. 1759, Comet of 1682 and 1759. 19. 1760, Sun's Diameter. 20. Perturbation of Venus by the Earth. 21. Eclipse of 1760. 22. 1761, Solar Parallax. 23. Interpolation. 24. Transit of Venus Observed. 25. Solar Parallax. 26. Transit Computed. 27. Observed at Tobolsk. 28. In Denmark. 29. Compasses and the Variation. 30. Perturbation of Mars by the Earth. 31. Planetary Nodes. 32. 1762, Equations of Time. 33. Obliquity of the Ecliptic. 34. Hourly Motion in Transits. 35. Nodes of Jupiter's Satellites. 36. Diameter of Venus. 37. Comet of 1762. 38. 1763, Eclipse of Jupiter's Satellites. 39. Solar Eclipse for 1764, computed. 40. The Lunar Lunar and Spherical Parallax. 41. 1764, Transit of 1759. 42. Lunar Liberation. 43. 1765, Motion of Saturn. 44. Eclipse of Jupiter's Satellites. 45. The Third Satellite. 46. 1775, Theory of Mercury. 50. 1768, Opposition of Jupiter. 51. Transit of 1769. 52. Orbit of Saturn. 53. 1769, Lunar Observations. 54. Comet of 1769. 55. Transit of Venus. 56. A Solar Eclipse. 57. Transit of Venus. 58, 59, 60. Comparisons of Observations. 61. 1770, Solar Parallax. 62. Sun's Diameter. 63. Appearances in the Transit. 64. Chappel's Observation. 65. 1771, Theory of Mercury. 66. Astronomical Observations. 67. Solar Parallax. 68. 1772, Transit of Venus. 69. 1773, Comets. 70. Saturn's Rings. 72. 1774, An Opposition of Saturn. 73. Solar Eclipse. 74. Disappearance of the Ring at Bâle. 75. 1775, Opposition of Mars. 76. Elements of Mars. 77. Same Latitudes and Longitudes. 78. Opposition of Jupiter and Saturn. 79. An Eclipse of Saturn. 80. 1776, Spots and Rotation of the Sun. 81. 1777, Observations at Paris and Madrid. 82. An Observation of Mercury. 83. Longitude of Padua. 84. The Solar Spots, continued. 85. 1779, Third Satellite of Jupiter. 85. Theory of Venus. 87. Herschel. 88. 1780, Obliquity of the Ecliptic. 89. Precision of the Equinoxes. 90. Fourth Satellite of Jupiter. 91. 1782, Duration of the Year. 92. Transit of Mercury. 93. 1783, An Eclipse of the Sun. 94. Inclination of the Orbits. 95. 1784, Elements of Jupiter. 96. Ellipticity of the Earth. 97. 1785, Motion of Venus. 98. 1786, Secular Equations of the Sun and Moon. 99. Mass of Venus. 100. Equation of Mars. 101. Mars in Quadrature. 102. Orbit of Saturn. 103. Theory of Mercury, fifth Memoir. 104. Satellites of Jupiter. 105. Fifth of Saturn. 106. 1787, Fernel's Measurement. 107. Herschel's. 108. Jupiter's Third Satellite. 109. Conjunction of Venus. 110. Motion of Saturn. 111. Inclination of Saturn. 112. Answer to Léonard on Lunar Observations. 113. Solar Eclipse of 1787. 114. Eclipse of 1666. 115. Capstan. See 118, 1787, Eclipse of 1765. 117. 1788, Eclipse applied to Longitude. 118. Conjunction of Venus. 119. Lunar Parallax, fourth Memoir. 120. Moon's Diameter. 121. Jupiter's Fourth Satellite. 122. Satellites of Saturn. 123. Light of Algol. 124. Height of the Stars. 125. 1789, Epacts. 126. Observations of 8000 Stars, first Part. 127. Motion of Venus. 128. Astronomical Observations. 129. Observation of Mercury. 130. Tides. 131. Catalogue of Stars, second Part. 132. 1790, Disappearance of Saturn's Ring. 133. Interior of Africa. 134. Mem. Inst. l. 1798, Orbit of Mercury. 135. ii. 1797, Occultations.

Lalande. Of Aldabran. 136. Solar Eclipse of 1706. 137. Solar Eclipse of Lalande. 1748. 138. v.1803, Zodiac at Strasbourg. 139. Eclipse calculated. 140. Opposition of Mars. 141. 142. Motion of Venus. 143. Motion of Mercury. 144. vi. 1805, A Transit of Mercury.

145. The earliest of his separate publications appear to have been two little volumes, intended for provincial circulation only, entitled Étrennes Historiques, 24mo, Par. 1755-56. 146. Another little article of his miscellaneous works was a Discours qui a remporté le Prix de l'Académie des Sciences en 1751, Mars. 1757. The subject was the spirit of justice as tending to the glory and the stability of a government. 147. We have there three Letters co Platina, Jour. des Sav. 1758, Jan. Jun.; 1760, Feb., 148. Letter on a New Sun Dial, Jour. Sav. June 1758, ii. 439; the lines being invisible when the sun does not shine.

149. Tables Astronomiques de Halley, 2 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1759. Containing several new tables, and an elaborate history of the comet of 1759, of which the author had computed the perturbations, according to the theory of Clairaut. 150. Connaissance des Temps, 16 vols. 8vo, Par. 1760-1775; 14 vols. 1794-1807. This work contains besides the Ephemeris, an important selection of the most useful astronomical papers. On one occasion, for temporary reasons, these papers were published in a separate volume. 151. Exposition du Calcul Astronomique, 8vo, Paris, 1762; a companion to the Almanac.

152. Ornament fuseau de Maurice Comte de Saxe, 8vo, Par. 1750. 153. Art du Papetier, fol. Par. 1761. 154. Parcheminier, 1762. 155. Cartonnier, 1764. 156. Chamoiseur, 1764. 157. Tannier, 1764. 158. Magisier, 1765. 159. Maroquinier, 1766. 160. Hengroyeur, 1766. 161. Corroyeur, 1767.

163. Letter on Delisle's Calculations, Jour. Sav. Apr. 1761. 164. 1761. In the 52nd volume of the Philosophical Transactions for 1761 and 1762 we find several papers by Lalande; two on the transit of Venus. 165. One on Newton's Measurement of the Earth; 167. An Account of a Comet; and, 168, An Account of Occultations of the Fixed Stars by the Moon. 169. In the Transactions for 1769, another paper on the Transit of Venus.

170. Discours sur la Douceur, 1763. This essay was intended as a sort of exercise for the author's own moral improvement; and he made it a rule to read it over every year, in order to assist him in commanding his temper. He may possibly have derived some little advantage from the practice, but he never acquired enough of self-command to refrain from wounding the feelings of another by any pointed remark that might suddenly occur to him.

171. Mémoires de l'Acad. des Sciences, 2 vols. 4to, 1761-1763; 3 vols. to 1769; vol. iv. 1780, not reprinted. This compilation is excellent in utility to all former works of the kind, and will always be considered as exhibiting the most perfect picture of the science, such as it existed from 1760 to 1790, with all the details of practice and computation. Léonard called it, with some truth, the great newspaper of astronomy. The Treatise on the Tides, which constitutes the fourth volume, is chiefly a collection of observations, not sufficient even for the basis of a complete theory: an abstract of it may be found in the Mem. Acad. Dijon, ii. 1774. 172. Figure du Passage de Venus de 1769, Paris, 1764; together with an explanatory memoir.

173. On the Equation of Time, Read before les Astronomes, 1765.

174. He used to make mathematical demonstrations of the Journal des Sciences, from 1766. 175. On the Coins of Piedmont, Jour. Sav. Dec. 1767. 176. Voyage d'un Français en Italie, 8 vols. 12mo; a correct guide and faithful repository for travellers, containing some scientific information, besides maps of the principal cities.

177. Dissertation sur la Cause de l'Élevation des Liquides dans les Tubes capillaires, 8vo, Par. 1778. 178. A Dictionary of Astronomy, in the Encyclopédie de l'Yverdon, 56 vols. 4to, 1770-6. 179. Abrégé d'Astronomie, 8vo Par. 1773, 1795; translated into various languages.

180. Notes on the Mondes Primitifs de Fontenelle, 24mo, Paris; often reprinted. 181. Notes on Bouguer's Traité de Navigation. 182. Mémoire sur le Passage de Venus, 4to, Par. 1773; with a life by Dr Bévis. 183. Éditions sur les Comètes, which will be approached in the future, 8vo, Par. 1773. 184. Lettre à Cassini sur l'Anneau de Saturne, 8vo, Toulouse, 1773; a violent attack, which was specially suppressed by the author. 185. Ephemerides, 3 vols., vii. viii. ix. Paris, 1774, 1792. This was a continuation of Lacaille's computations, containing also some detached articles of importance; for instance, Hampstead's Catalogue, in the eighth volume. 186. A Celestial twelve-inch Globe, Paris, 1775.

187. The astronomical articles in the Supplement of the Old Encyclopédie, about 1776; those of D'Alembert, in the body of the work, having been little more than extracts from Lalande. 188. To the Encyclopédie Méthodique, Lalande contributed a Dictionary of Astronomy, making about one-third of the Mathématiques, 3 vols. 4to. They were principally extracted from his own astronomy; and the article Odran, which is very elaborate, was originally intended for a fifth volume of that work.

189. Traité des Canaux de Navigation, fol. Paris, 1778. This Lamarck's volume is principally descriptive, especially of the Canal of Languedoc. 190. Letter on the Variation of the Compass, as connected with the Temperature of the Earth, Joura. Sav. 1780, Sept. 191. Leçons d'Astronomie de Lalande, 8vo, Par. 1780; with some Notes. 192. Astronomie, in Bibliothèque des Sciences, 12mo, Par. 1786, 1795.

193. Letter on the name of the planet Herschel, Joura. Sav. 1789; objecting to "Uranus." 194. Description d'une Machine de M. Lalande, 4to, Paris, 1790; the dividing engine, translated. 195. Account of nine Lalandes, Joura. Sav. Nov. 1791. 196. Journey to Mannheim in 1791, Joura. Sav. 1791. 197. On the Zodiac at Strasbourg, Joura. Sav. 1791.

198. Abrégé de Navigation, 4to, Paris, 1793, with a full catalogue of works relating to the subject, and many useful tables. 199. A Journey to Mount Blanc, performed in 1796, May, Encycl. II. iv., 433. 200. Histoire Céleste Francaise, i. 4. Par. 1801; containing the catalogue of stars begun by Dagelet, and continued by Michel Lefrancq Lalande, the nephew of the editor. 201. Computation of Montucla's Histoire des Mathematiques, 2 vols. 4to, Par. 1806; making the third and fourth volumes shallower work, but materially well digested and improved with the original papers. 202. Tables de Logarithmes, 18mo, Par. 1802. 203. Four Memoirs on Ceres, Joura. Phys. 1802. 204. Some articles in the Necrologe des Hommes Célèbres. He wrote, at different times, Accounts of the Lives of Vloc d'Arzy, Delisle, Commerçon, Verron, Me. Lepautre, and Duboscage; and he had undertaken a life of Bocholz, a short time before he died. Commerçon had complimented him by making a genus Lalandia, transgressing in his favour the classical canon of the botanists, to reserve such honours for the reward of merit in their own department.

205. Bibliographie Astronomique, 4to, Paris, 1803; with a history of the Progress of Astronomy from 1781 to 1802. This last volume was written at the public expense under the auspices of Francis de Neuchâtel. The author possessed a very extensive collection of astronomical books, and it has been regretted that he did not insert a more complete account of some of the most rare; but the work is already sufficiently voluminous. Some other productions are attributed to him in the Dictionnaire des Anonymes; but they would probably have added little to his fame had they been acknowledged.

(Delambre, Mémoires, viii., 1807, H.P. 30; and Biographie Universelle, xxiii., 8vo, Paris, 1819. Ma. C. de Salin, Nouveau Encyclopédie, 1810, ii., p. 288; including a sketch by himself, written in 1804.)

(LAMARCK, Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monnet, Chevalier de, the celebrated French naturalist, was born of a noble family, at Bazentin, in Picardy, in 1744. Destined by his father for the church, he received the elements of his education in the Jesuits' College at Amiens, where he was distinguished by his abilities and ardent thirst for knowledge; but at the early age of seventeen he relinquished all thoughts of an ecclesiastical career, entered the army, and was attached to the division of the Duke de Broglie, during his contest with Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, in Westphalia. The young Lamarck exhibited great courage, and received a severe wound in battle; but, on account of impaired health, he was soon compelled to retire from the service.

He then commenced the study of medicine at Paris; but the bent of his mind was to the physical sciences, and he made considerable proficiency in natural philosophy and botany. His first publication was entitled Recherches sur les Causes des Principaux Faits Physiques, in which he propounded theories of heat and electricity, which were more fully developed in his subsequent publication, Mémoires de Physique et de l'Histoire Naturelle, but which would have been forgotten had it not contained the germ of his speculations on animal life. In 1778 he sent to the Académie des Sciences some ingenious observations On the Formation of Clouds; and in the same year he was appointed, through the friendship of Buffon, assistant to Danbenon, in the Cabinet du Jardin du Roi, and was sent, with the son of his patron, into Germany and Holland, to collect rare specimens of plants for the royal collection. More fortunate than his companion, Lamarck survived the horrors of the Revolution, in which the young Buffon fell a victim to the butcheries of Robespierre.

In 1780 Lamarck produced his Flore Française, and undertook to furnish the article Botanique for the Encyclopédie Methodique. The first volume of that article appeared in 1783, and a second in 1786; but the Revolution put a stop to his progress in the work, which reached no farther than 606 in the alphabetic arrangement.

It does not appear when he first directed his attention to zoology, but he must have made considerable progress in that science before the Revolution, for in 1793 he was appointed one of the conservators of the superb museum of natural history at Paris, and the care of the invertebrate animals was confided to him. In 1794 he began to give lectures on that branch of zoology, and continued to do so until 1818, when age, and the failure of his sight, rendered him incapable of that duty, and he resigned his office to Latreille, Cuvier's assistant in the entomological department of the Regne Animal.

The first result of Lamarck's researches in his department of the museum appeared in a volume termed Système des Animaux sans Vertèbres, published in 1801, which may be considered as the forerunner of his great work on this subject, one of the most valuable treatises which has ever appeared on this difficult branch of natural history.

In 1809 he produced his Philosophie Zoologique, in two volumes, containing much that is exceedingly valuable; but we here find stated fully the extravagant hypothesis, broached in his Recherches, of the progressive development of animal functions, and the production of new organs, by the exertion of the will of the individual. This opinion is best given in his own words: "La production d'un nouvel organe dans un corps animal, résulte d'un nouveau besoin survenu, qui continue de se faire sentir, et d'un nouveau mouvement que ce besoin fait naître et entretenir." "Tout ce qui a été acquis, tracé ou changé, dans l'organisation des individus pendant le cours de leur vie, est conservé par la génération, et transmis aux nouveaux individus qui proviennent de ceux qui ont éprouvés ces changements."

The example which he adduces to support this strange doctrine is that of a molluscous gastropod. A snail, for instance, as it draws itself along, he imagines to feel the want of organs for examining the bodies it encounters, and therefore makes efforts with some of its anterior parts to touch those opposing bodies, by which exertion of its will, constantly operating, portions of nervous and other animal fluids may be determined towards its head; such reiterated efforts will in time, he says, cause two or more tentacula to spring from its head; and this, without doubt, has happened to all races of gastropods, in which necessity has induced the habit of touching bodies with some part of their head!" Were this view to be received as the cause of changes in animal organization, the different species and genera, and even classes of animals, would long ago have been undistinguishable by diversity of organs; and the same laws, applied to the higher animals, would lead to the belief that terrestrial creatures may have derived their origin from the desire of aquatic animals to enjoy atmospheric existence; and even man himself might have passed, by long-continued aptitude, from the form of a fish, or may hereafter obtain the wings of a bird!

The work on which the fame of Lamarck justly rests is his admirable Histoire Naturelle des Animaux sans Vertèbres, which successively appeared, in seven volumes 8vo, between the years 1815 and 1822. In this work he has founded his classification more on differences in anatomical structure than any of his predecessors in the same branches of zoology, and has therefore succeeded in a more perfect distribution of invertebrate animals. He divides the whole animal kingdom into three primary groups, which he designates the Apathetic, the Sensible, the Intelligent. In the first he includes the classes—1. Infusoria, 2. Polyparia, 3. Radiaria, 4. Vermes; in the second, 5. Insecta, 6. Arachnida, 7. Crustacea, 8. Annelida, 9. Cirripeda, 10. Mol- Lamb, Charles, an original and delightful English essayist and humourist, was born in London on the 10th of February 1775. His parents were poor, but stamped with nature's nobility. His father filled the situation of servant and humble companion to one of the benchers of the Inner Temple, and he obtained for his son Charles, the youngest of three children, a presentation to Christ's Hospital, or the Blue-Coat School. At this ancient and magnificent endowment, which maintains, in the heart of the metropolis, 1000 boys, clad in the old costume of its founder, Edward VI., Lamb remained from his seventh to his fifteenth year. He had the good fortune to have for a schoolfellow the celebrated Samuel Taylor Coleridge; and the influence of Coleridge on his younger and more timid associate was great and lasting. A close and tender friendship was formed between them; literary enthusiasm was communicated, and an object or example of successful study and lofty ambition was constantly present to Lamb's imagination. On quitting school, Charles was condemned to the labours of the desk. From 1792 to 1825 he officiated as one of the clerks in the accountant's office of the East India Company. His appointment was small at first, but gradually increased in value and importance, and he finally retired with a pension equal to two-thirds of his salary, or with the liberal allowance of L450 per annum. During his thirty-three years of uncongenial toil and confinement Lamb never forgot literature. His evenings were devoted to a few favourite authors—the old dramatists, and other quaint or grave sources of "English undefiled"—to an occasional visit to the theatres, when tragedy was represented by a Kemble, Siddons, or Kean, and the comic muse found joyous expression in Banister, Munden, or Liston; to correspondence with Coleridge; and to efforts, for many years slow and hesitating, at original composition. A sad calamity seemed to blight all his prospects in the very morning of life. There was insanity in his family, and, on the 22nd of September 1796, his sister Mary Lamb, "worn down to a state of extreme nervous misery by attention to needlework by day, and to her mother by night," broke out into frenzy, and with a knife pierced her mother to the heart. Charles was at hand to snatch the knife from her grasp, and the unhappy and unconscious author of the fatal deed was placed in an asylum. Reason was gradually restored; and in a few months after the death of their aged father, Charles engaged to take care of his sister for life, and she took up her abode with him. His income at this time did not exceed L100 a-year; he had to abandon all hopes of marriage, though then only twenty-two years of age; and there was the fearful and constant apprehension of the recurrence of his sister's malady. In fact, the malady did frequently recur throughout her after life. Mary Lamb knew, on each occasion, when the attack was approaching; and Charles, obtaining leave of absence from the office, as if for a day's pleasure, might be seen escorting his sister, both in tears, to the accustomed asylum in the neighbourhood of London. No more melancholy incident, and no nobler sacrifice, is recorded in literary history. To us it is more deeply affecting than the madness of Tasso, or the wild delirium of Scott.

Lamb's first appearance as an author was made in 1797, when he contributed some pieces to a small volume, consisting chiefly of poems, by Coleridge and Lloyd. Next year he published a prose tale, Rosamund Grey; and in 1799 he was associated with Coleridge and Southey in the publication of a volume of fugitive poetry, entitled The Annual Anthology, which was ridiculed by Canning in the Anti-Jacobin Magazine—

"And ye five other wandering bands, that move In sweet accord of harmony and love, Coleridge and Southey, Lloyd, and Lamb, & Co., Tune all your mystic harps to praise Lepaun!" Of the French democrat Lepaux, Lamb had not even heard the name before, and he was the least mystic of writers, either in prose or verse. But he was associated with Coleridge and Southey; and the youthful Canning, in his witty malice and anti-Jacobin zeal, was not disposed to make nice distinctions. Lamb's next literary venture fired no better, though the assault was this time made by a Whig critic. In 1801 appeared his *John Woodvil*, a slight dramatic piece, written in the style of the elder Elizabethan dramatists, and containing some genuine poetry and happy delineation of the gentler passions, but deficient alike in vigour, in plot, and character. The play was seized upon by Jeffrey in the *Edinburgh Review*, and held up, in a strain of ridicule, as a specimen of the rudest condition of the drama, the work of "a man of the age of Thespis." The dramatic spirit, however, was not quenched in Lamb. His next effort was a farce, named *Mr H.*, the point of which consisted in the hero's anxiety to conceal his name, "Hogsflesh,"—a plot so trivial, and so disappointing to the audience, who had yawned through the first act, imagining some great or witty disclosure was to follow, that the piece was sealed with instant and irrevocable condemnation. Lamb made no farther attempt in the difficult walk of the drama, in which many greater spirits have failed, but he bore the disaster with rare equanimity and good humour. He laughed it off among his friends, corresponded largely with a few choice early associates, instituted Wednesday evening suppers, at which shone many bright and subtle intellects, and at length struck into new and successful fields of literary exertion. In 1807 appeared *Tales founded on the Plays of Shakespeare*, written by Charles and Mary Lamb; and in 1808 two volumes of *Specimens of the Dramatic Poets*, with short but felicitous notes. Mary Lamb, in 1809, published a little tale, *Mrs Leicester's School*, and *Poetry for Children*. The establishment of the *London Magazine*, in 1820, formed a great era in the history of Charles Lamb. Many of his friends were connected with the new periodical, and he was stimulated to the production of a series of essays, signed *Elia*, which rose into instant popularity, and may be said to form the chief corner-stone in the small but classic temple of his fame. His curious reading and research—the shrewd observation, fancies, and conceptions of his whole life—were poured into these monthly essays, with many scenes drawn from his past career—its mirthful and mournful experiences. The style is quaintly elaborated, cut into short sentences, the grotesque mingling with the pathetic, and much practical wisdom with a dash of antic folly. In some of the essays, topics of humble and domestic life are set off with lively illustrations, fine satire, or graceful description; others are devoted to criticism, and remarks are thrown out at once original and profound. Perhaps nothing so suggestive or striking in this department of literature had appeared since the days of Steele and Addison. Lamb wrought on a limited canvas, but his combinations and colouring were unique and exquisite. In adding, from time to time, to the number of these essays, gratifying his friends occasionally with a fragment of prose, a letter, or a copy of album verses, Lamb's future days were spent. He was easy—nay, opulent—in his circumstances, and his reputation was daily extending. The unfortunate malady of his sister, however, broke in painfully on his lettered ease and comfort. It continued to increase, with shorter intervals of relief, and Lamb removed to the quiet of the country, residing successively at Islington, Enfield, and Edmonton. He had little enjoyment at any time in such suburban retreats; he would have preferred London to all the charms of Arcadia and the golden age; and he frequently stole in to the Great Babel, to listen to its welcome roar, and pass a festive evening with his friends; this only, however, when Mary was well, and she often accompanied him.

They lived on at Edmonton until Lamb was overtaken by an attack of erysipelas, induced by an accidental fall while walking on the London road, and in a few days the disease proved fatal. He died on the 27th of December 1834. His sister survived till 1847. The sudden death of one so widely known, admired, and beloved as Charles Lamb, fell on the public, as well as on his own attached circle, with all the poignancy of a personal calamity and private grief. His memory wanted no tribute that affection could bestow, and Wordsworth commemorated, in simple and solemn verse, the virtues and genius, and the fraternal devotion, "passing the love of woman," of his early friend. His letters were collected, and his life written, by one of his executors, Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd, and another friend. Mr Edward Moxon, the publisher, has given to the world several complete editions of his works.

Lamb, William, Lord Melbourne, was born in London in 1779. Having received his university education, first at Trinity College, Cambridge, and afterwards at Glasgow, he entered as a student at Lincoln's-Inn in 1797, and was called to the bar in 1804. In the following year he married Lady Caroline Ponsonby, who afterwards became celebrated for her literary talents. In 1805 he entered the House of Commons, and joining the opposition, then led by Fox, he supported that side, without earning any celebrity, during 20 years. On the death of his father in 1828, he succeeded to the title of Viscount Melbourne, entered the House of Lords; and in 1830 became home-secretary, under the administration of Lord Grey. This office he filled till 1834; and in the following year was raised to the Premiership, which he held with great ability till 1841. He died in 1848, in his seventieth year. Possessing no eloquence, and little practical sagacity, Lord Melbourne owed the strength of his government mainly to his personal tact, frankness, and ingenuity; and his premiership is marked by no great event in the political history of the kingdom, the main energies of his party being spent in clinging to office after the reality of its power was gone.