The Gallery of Portraits (All 7 Volumes). Arthur Thomas Malkin
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the government of which belonged to the see of Rome, and could not lawfully be assumed by any temporal prince. The Lord Chancellor, however, and the other Commissioners gave judgment against him.
He remained in the Tower a week after his sentence, and during that time he was uniformly firm and composed, and even his peculiar vein of cheerfulness remained unimpaired. It accompanied him even to the scaffold, on going up to which, he said to the Lieutenant of the Tower, “I pray you, Master Lieutenant, see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself.” After his prayers were ended he turned to the executioner and said, with a cheerful countenance, “Pluck up thy spirits, man, and be not afraid to do thine office. My neck is very short, take heed, therefore, thou strike not awry for thine own credit’s sake.” Then laying his head upon the block, he bid the executioner stay till he had removed his beard, saying, “My beard has never committed any treason;” and immediately the fatal blow was given. These witticisms have so repeatedly run the gauntlet through all the jest-books that it would hardly have been worth while to repeat them here, were it not for the purpose of introducing the comment of Mr. Addison on Sir Thomas’s behaviour on this solemn occasion. “What was only philosophy in this extraordinary man would be frenzy in one who does not resemble him as well in the cheerfulness of his temper as in the sanctity of his manners.”
He was executed on St. Thomas’s eve in the year 1555. The barbarous part of the sentence, so disgraceful to the Statute-book, was remitted. Lest serious-minded persons should suppose that his conduct on the scaffold was mere levity, it should be added that he addressed the people, desiring them to pray for him, and to bear witness that he was going to suffer death in and for the faith of the holy Catholic Church. The Emperor Charles V. said, on hearing of his execution, “Had we been master of such a servant, we would rather have lost the best city of our dominions than such a worthy councillor.”
No one was more capable of appreciating the character of Sir Thomas More than Erasmus, who represents him as more pure and white than the whitest snow, with such wit as England never had before, and was never likely to have again. He also says, that in theological discussions the most eminent divines were not unfrequently worsted by him; but he adds a wish that he had never meddled with the subject. Sir Thomas More was peculiarly happy in extempore speaking, the result of a well-stored and ready memory, suggesting without delay whatever the occasion required. Thuanus also mentions him with much respect, as a man of strict integrity and profound learning.
His life has been written by his son-in-law, Roper, and is the principal source whence this narrative is taken. Erasmus has also been consulted, through whose epistolary works there is much information about his friend. There is also a life of him by Ferdinando Warner, LL.D., with a translation of his Utopia, in an octavo volume, published in 1758.
Engraved by J. Posselwhite. LA PLACE. From an original Picture by Nedeone, in the possession of the Marchioness De la Place. Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. London, Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East.
LAPLACE.
Pierre Simon Laplace was born at Beaumont en Auge, a small town of Normandy, not far from Honfleur, in March, 1749. His father was a small farmer of sufficient substance to give him the benefit of a learned education, for we are told[4] that the future philosopher gained his first distinctions in theology. It does not appear by what means his attention was turned to mathematical science, but he must have commenced that study when very young, as, on visiting Paris at the age of about eighteen, he attracted the notice of D’Alembert by his knowledge of the subject. He had previously taught mathematics in his native place; and, on visiting the metropolis, was furnished with letters of recommendation to several of the most distinguished men of the day. Finding, however, that D’Alembert took no notice of him on this account, he wrote that geometer a letter on the first principles of mechanics, which produced an immediate effect. D’Alembert sent for him the same day, and said, “You see, sir, how little I care for introductions, but you have no need of any. You have a better way of making yourself known, and you have a right to my assistance.” Through the recommendation of D’Alembert, Laplace was in a few days named Professor of Mathematics in the Military School of Paris. From this moment he applied himself to the one great object of his life. It was not till the year 1799 that he was called to assume a public character. Bonaparte, then First Consul, who was himself a tolerable mathematician, and always cultivated the friendship of men of science, made him Minister of the Interior; but very soon found his mistake in supposing that talents for philosophical investigation were necessarily accompanied by those of a statesman. He is reported to have expressed himself of Laplace in the following way:—“Géometre du premier rang, il ne tarda pas a se montrer administrateur plus que médiocre. Dés son premier travail, les consuls s’aperçurent qu’ils s’étoient trompés. Laplace ne saisissait aucune question sous son vrai point de vue. Il cherchait des subtilités partout, n’avait que des idées problématiques et portait aufin l’esprit des infiniments petits dans l’administration.” Bonaparte removed him accordingly to the Sénat Conservateur, of which he was successively Vice-President and Chancellor. The latter office he received in 1813, about which time he was created Count. In 1814 he voted for the deposition of Napoleon, for which he has been charged with ingratitude and meanness. This is yet a party question; and the present generation need not be hasty in forming a decision which posterity may see reason to reverse. After the first restoration Laplace received the title of Marquis, and did not appear at the Court of Napoleon during the hundred days. He continued his usual pursuits until the year 1827, when he was seized with the disorder which terminated his life on the 5th of May, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. His last words were, “Ce que nous connoissons est peu de chose; ce que nous ignorons est immense.” He has left a successor to his name and title, but none to his transcendent powers of investigation.
The name of Laplace is spread to the utmost limits of civilization, as the successor, almost the equal, of Newton. No one, however, who is acquainted with the discoveries of the two, will think there is so much common ground for comparison as is generally supposed. Those of Laplace are all essentially mathematical: whatever could be done by analysis he was sure to achieve. The labours of Newton, on the other hand, show a sagacity in conjecturing which would almost lead us to think that he laid the mathematics on one side, and used some faculty of perception denied to other men, to deduce these results which he afterwards condescended to put into a geometrical form, for the information of more common minds. In the Principia of Newton, the mathematics are not the instruments of discovery but of demonstration; and, though that work contains much which is new in a mathematical point of view, its principal merit is of quite another character. The mind of Laplace was cast in a different mould; and this perhaps is fortunate for science, for while we may safely assert that Laplace would never have been Newton had he been placed in similar circumstances, there is also reason to doubt whether a second Newton would have been better qualified to follow that particular path which was so successfully traversed by Laplace. We shall proceed to give such an idea of the labours of the latter as our limits will allow.
The solution of every mechanical problem, in which the acting forces were known, as in the motions of the solar system, had been reduced by D’Alembert and Lagrange to such a state that the difficulties were only mathematical; that is, no farther advances could be made, except in pure analysis. We cannot expect the general reader to know what is meant by the words, solution of a Differential Equation; but he may be made aware that there is a process so called, which, if it could be successfully and exactly performed in all cases, would give the key to every motion of the solar system, and render the determination of its present, and the prediction of its future state, a matter of mathematical certainty. Unfortunately, in the present state of