There was, however, nothing very surprising either in Pelisson dying like a sinner, or La Fontaine like a saint. The former, from being a huguenot, became a convert, and a maker of converts, a pensioned abbe, a courtier, an author of "Prayers at Mass," "Amatory Verses to Olympia," "a Treatise on the Eucharist;" there was nothing extraordinary or inconsistent in such a man dying, as he did, "unsacramented." It was equally within the range of probability that La Fontaine, never an infidel, always tractable and simple, and now beset on his bed of sickness by learned and skilful disputants, should make so devout and edifying an end. It should not be omitted that his conversion made the fortune of father Poujet: he immediately became a fashionable confessor, or spiritual director, and obtained church preferment.

The epigrammatist was mistaken in La Fontaine's death. He lived about two years more, in the house of madame d'Hervart; and, in spite of his vow, is supposed to have written some more tales; among them the tale entitled "La Clochette." This relapse is said to be alluded to in the prologue cited by Moreri:—

His mind, however, seems to have been deeply tinged with devotion, from his illness, in 1693, to his death, in 1695. He began to translate the church hymns; and read, at the first meeting of the academy which he attended after his illness, a translation of the "Dies Iræ," with more advantage to his reputation as a catholic than as a poet. His talent seems now to have given way to age, infirmity, and the penances which he appears to have imposed upon himself.

Lulli, who died a few years before, did public penance, like La Fontaine, but with an after-thought worthy of the cunning Florentine. He burned, at the request of his confessor, the music of a new unperformed opera. A prince having asked him, a few days after, how he could be so silly as to destroy charming music at the desire of a drivelling jansenist, he replied, "Hush, hush, monseigneur; I knew what I did; I have another copy." He, however, had a relapse, did penance in sackcloth and ashes, and died, with a halter round his neck, singing the hymn, "Sinner, thou must die," with tears of remorse and agony.

La Fontaine died in 1695, and in the seventy-fourth year of his age. Upon undressing his body, after death, it was found that he mortified himself in a shirt of sackcloth. The apartment in which he lived and died, at the house of madame d'Hervart, was visited as an interesting object for several years after.

The chief fault of La Fontaine is that he had but one tone. Madame de Sévigné, who judged men of genius with the presumption of a court lady dictating to her coterie, pronounces him wretched when he is anything but a fabulist. "I should like," said she, in one of her letters, "to attempt a fable, for the express purpose of showing La Fontaine the misery of forcing one's talent out of its sphere; and what bad music is produced by the foolish wish to sing in every tone."

La Fontaine had one tone in which he was pre-eminent; but sang in more than one without producing bad music. The poem of "Adonis" has great beauty. It should be regarded, he says, only as an idyl; and it will, undoubtedly, be found one of the most beautiful of that class. But it had the further merit of being the first accomplished specimen of heroic verse in France; for Boileau had not yet given his "Lutrin." The mythological tale of "Psyche and Cupid," in which prose and verse alternate and relieve each other, continues to be read, notwithstanding the modern unpopularity of the divinities of the Pantheon. He is indebted to Apuleius, but only for the fable and main incident: the episodes, description, and manner of narrating ("manière de conter," as he calls it), are his own. The celebrated and forgotten romance of "Astrea" was one of the books which La Fontaine read with pleasure; and he is said to have derived from it that tone of pastoral sentiment and imagery which is one of the charms of "Psyche" and of some of his other pieces. It is probable, however, that he is under lighter obligations both to Apuleius and the "Astrea" than to the duchess of Bouillon, to whom he dedicated his tale. Living at the time in her intimate society, it was composed by him, under her inspiration, in that style of gaiety, tenderness, gallantry, and refinement, which he has combined with so much of simplicity and fancy. The faults of this mythological, or, according to some, allegorical tale, as it is treated by La Fontaine, are its description of Versailles, some fatiguing digressions, and a certain indolent voluptuary languor. The result is, occasionally, that most fatal of all wants—the want of interest.

La Fontaine's dramatic pieces have a manifest affinity to his genius, but none whatever to the genius of the drama. Some of his elegies, compliments, anacreontics, and other lesser pieces, are worthy of him; others so indifferent as to render their genuineness doubtful. His poem on St. Malch was approved by the lyric poet Rousseau; and this is its highest distinction. His poem on Jesuit's Bark is universally condemned.

It is only in his fables and tales that one is to look for the supremacy of La Fontaine. As a fabulist he has surpassed all who preceded him, and has never been approached by his successors. It is charged upon him that he invented nothing; that he but translated, imitated, or versified Æsop, Phædrus, Petronius, Rabelais, Boccaccio, Ariosto, Machiavelli, the hundred novels of Cinthio, the Heptameron of the queen of Navarre, &c.; but it is justly replied, that this proceeded only from his humble estimate of himself, joined with his indolence. "His considering himself," says Fontenelle, "inferior to Æsop and Phædrus was only another instance of his anomalous stupidity." "It is untrue," says La Harpe, "that La Fontaine invented nothing; he invented his style." The question could not be placed in a happier and truer light. La Fontaine, from humility and indolence, took the materials which others had supplied to his hand; but by his manner of using them, by the magic of his original and unrivalled style, made them his own. So complete is his mastery over them, and so entirely is the merit his, that the palpable difference, in the original, between the genuine tales of Æsop and the forgeries of the Greek monk Planudes, vanish beneath his touch.

France has produced a host of writers of fables and apologues since his time, but none worthy of being named with him. England has produced much fewer fabulists, yet is justly proud of Gay. He had a striking resemblance to La Fontaine in personal character. Pope's verse, in the epitaph on him,

would seem to have been expressly written for La Fontaine. As poets or fabulists they differ widely and essentially. Gay's fables are the nearest in merit; but, instead of resemblance, they present the opposition of wit, satire, and party spirit, in a neat and pointed style, to La Fontaine's universal and ingenious moral, picturesque simplicity, and easy graceful negligence.

An anonymous volume of English fables, imitated from La Fontaine, appeared in 1820. It is attributed to a practised and distinguished writer both in prose and verse[51]; and might pass for a most successful version, if the original were not directly and unluckily contrasted with it in the opposite page. The reader will be more informed by comparing a short extract from each than by pages of dissertation.

This citation is made, not to censure the English version, but to prove the unattainable charm of La Fontaine's manner,—that manner or style which he invented; his close adherence to truth and nature; the art with which he veils the wildest improbabilities under a probable, consistent, or humorous air; his power of combining levity of tone with depth of observation, and the utmost simplicity with the utmost finesse. It is known that La Fontaine observed the characters, habits, attitudes, and expression of the brute creation with a view to his fables. Whilst he endows his brute heroes with speech and thought, one never loses the image of their kind;—whilst the flatterer gulls his dupe, and even when he concludes with giving him the moral by way of compensation, one never loses sight of the fox and raven: but under the touch of the translator, and indeed of all other fabulists but La Fontaine, they receive the human form with the human attributes.

La Fontaine's fables are reputed perfect in every sense, poetical and moral. Two faults are imputed to his tales; the one venial and even questionable, the other most serious, and past all doubt. His narration, it is said, is sometimes careless and diffuse. This has offended the fastidious technical taste of some of his countrymen; but to others his easy, indolent, copious, rambling effusion is an additional charm. The second fault of his tales, their licentiousness, is unpardonable. He imbibed it, most probably, from the perusal and imitation of Rabelais, Clement Marot, Boccaccio, and Ariosto, and confounded it with their gaiety. But, in adopting the freedom of their pleasantries, he has discarded their grossness. His indecorous allusions are conveyed with infinite finesse and ingenuity of expression, and he must be acquitted of all intention to corrupt—of the consciousness even of a corrupting tendency. No inference unfavourable to him is to be drawn from their condemnation and prohibition at the request of the sorbonne. The sin of his tales, and that which he was called on to expiate, was not their immorality, but the liberties which, like his models, he took occasionally with monks, nuns, and confessors. It is but justice to him to state his own vindication. He urged the example of the ancients; and the necessity of a certain tone of gaiety and freedom in familiar tales, without which they would want their essential grace and charm. "He who would reduce," says he, "Ariosto and Boccaccio to the modesty of Virgil would assuredly not be thanked for his pains—(ne ferait assurément rien qui vaille)." An enervating tender melancholy is, he says, much more injurious. His only object, he protests, was to procure the reader a passing smile; and, for his part, he could not comprehend how the reading of his tales should have a bad effect upon others when the composition had none upon him."

But can it be true, or possible, that this enchanting fabulist was not merely subject to absences and musings, but the dullest of mortals in conversation;—his thoughts and expressions alike clumsy and confused? Two, the most positive testimonies, will suffice, out of many. The daughter of Racine, who had seen him frequently at her father's table, described him as "slovenly, stupid, and talking of nothing but Plato." La Bruyère obviously meant the following character for him:—"A man appears—clumsy, heavy, stupid. He cannot talk, or even tell what he has just seen. If he sits down to write, he produces the model of tales. He endows with speech brutes, trees, stones,—all to which nature has denied speech; and all is levity, elegance, beauty, nature, in his works."[52] These testimonies, though so positive, are far from conclusive. The lady had no taste for Plato, and La Bruyère's style of portraiture, always overcharged, seems particularly so in this instance, where his object was contrast and effect. La Fontaine may have fallen into reveries and solecisms in the company of his friends; he may have been silent and dull at the table of a financier, where he was among strangers to be stared at; but his society would not have been sought and prized, not only by the Molières, Boileaus, and Racines, but by the Condés, Contis, and Villars, and in the distinguished circles of mesdames de Bouillon, Mazarin, and La Sablière were the charm of his writings wholly wanting in his conversation. His writings would have been admired, and their author neglected, as in the case of Corneille, were his conversation equally common-place and uninteresting. La Fontaine probably was dull to those who neither understood nor were understood by him. He was La Fontaine, the charming fabulist, only when the subjects and the society interested him; and those around him could, by mutual intelligence, bring his genius into play. Goldsmith, in the same manner, was depreciated by persons who did not understand him. Topham Beauclerk, a man of wit and fashion about town, thought his conversation absurd and dull; but Edmund Burke found in it the poet and observer of mankind. The admiration of Horace and Varus, and the society of Mæcenas and Augustus, did not protect Virgil's simplicity of character from being sneered at by the court satirists and petits-maîtres of his time. The well-known description of him by Horace is not without resemblance to La Fontaine's character.

La Fontaine was buried in the cemetery of St. Joseph, at Paris, by the side of Molière, who had died many years before. Boileau and Racine survived him. His best epitaph is the following, written by himself: it records his character with equal fidelity and humour.

PASCAL

1623-1662

Bayle commences his life of Pascal, by declaring him to be one of the sublimest geniuses that the world ever produced; and every word we read confirms this judgment. He was as singular as he was great. He is, perhaps, the only instance of a man born with a natural genius for the exact sciences, who applied the subtlety and acuteness of his understanding to religious subjects, combining with close logical reasoning the utmost elegance and purity of style, and crowning all with so severe an adherence to what he considered the duties of a Christian as materially shortened his days. His life reads as one miracle: our admiration is perpetually excited,—may we own it?—our pity also. It is hard to say whether this be a just feeling. When we read of the simplicity and singleness of his character, of his sublime powers of self-denial, of his charity, his humility, and his patience, we feel that he as nearly approached his divine Master, as any man on record has ever done. But when we reflect on divine goodness, on the mission of the Redeemer, on the blessings with which God has gifted us—we cannot believe that we are sent here for the mere purpose of mortifying all our natural inclinations, or of spending our whole thoughts in preparation for a future life, except as virtue and piety are preparations. Man was born to be happy through the affections—to enjoy the beauty and harmony of the visible creation—to find delight in the exercise of his faculties, and the fulfilment of his social duties; and when to this is added a spirit of pious resignation, and a wish to be acceptable to God—we may rest satisfied: this state of mind not being so easy to attain, and not exaggerate our duties, till life becomes the prison and burden that Pascal represents it to be. Still it is with reverence that we venture to criticise a virtue that transcends the common nature of man. Pascal stands an example of the catholic principles of morality, and shows the extent to which self-denial can be carried by an upholder of that faith. Added to this, is the interest we take in the history of one who, from his birth, gave token of talents of a very uncommon order. The wonders recorded of his childhood are too well authenticated to admit of a doubt, while certainly they are not exceeded by any other prodigy, the achievements of whose premature genius have been handed down.

The family of Pascal was of Auvergne: it had been ennobled by Louis XI. in 1478, in the person of a maître des requêtes; and, since that epoch, various members of it had filled distinguished situations in Auvergne, and were respected for their virtues as much as for their birth. Étienne Pascal was first president to the court of aids of Clermont-Ferrand. He married a lady named Antoinette Bégon; of the four children born to him by her, three survived—two were daughters: the son, Blaise, was born at Clermont on the 19th of June, 1623. Étienne was left a widower while his children were yet infants; and from that time devoted himself to their education. 1626.
Ætat.
3. The extraordinary and premature talents of Blaise soon displayed themselves. From the moment he could speak, his repartees excited admiration, and still more, his eager questionings on the causes of all things, which displayed acuteness as well as curiosity. His excellent father, perceiving these early marks of talent, was eager to dedicate his whole time to his education, so that he resolved to be his only master in the learned languages and the sciences. 1631.
Ætat.
9. He accordingly gave up his public situation to his brother, and removed to Paris. His daughters shared his paternal cares; he taught them Latin, and caused them to apply themselves to the acquirement of knowledge; believing that, by inciting them to bestow their attention early on subjects worthy their inquiry, he should develope their talents, and give them habits of intellectual industry, which he considered equally desirable in woman as man. With all this, he had no idea of making a prodigy of his son, or developing his talents prematurely. On the contrary, it was his maxim to keep the boy above his work; and he did not teach him Latin till he was twelve years old. But, while he refrained from exercising his memory by the routine of lessons, he enlarged his mind by conversation; and taught him the meaning and aim of grammar before he placed a grammar in his hands. This was a safe proceeding with a boy of Pascal's eminent capacity—it had probably rendered one less gifted indolent and forgetful.

The world at this time, awakening from a long state of barbarism, was seized by a sort of idolatry and hunger for knowledge, and learning was the fashion of the day. Men of talent devoted their whole lives to science, with an abnegation of every other pursuit unknown in the present age, and were honoured by the great and followed by their disciples with a reverence merited by their enthusiasm and diligence, as well as by the benefits they conferred on their fellow creatures, in enlarging their sphere of knowledge, and bringing from the chaos of ignorance, truth, or the image of truth, to the light of day. Descartes was one of the most celebrated of the Frenchmen of genius of that time. He was not content with being the most eminent mathematician of his age, but he combined a system of philosophy, which, though false, obtained vogue, and secured to him a greater temporary reputation than if he had merely enounced truths, independent of the magic of a theory. The war of his partisans and their antagonists spread his fame: geometry and mathematics obtained more attention than they had ever done; and discoveries were made that excited the ambition of every fresh student to penetrate further than his predecessors into the secrets of the system of the universe. Étienne Pascal found men in Paris, with whom he allied himself in friendship, deeply versed in physics and mathematics, and he also applied himself to these sciences. He associated with Roberval, Carcavi, Le Pailleur, and other scientific men of high reputation—they met at each other's house, and discussed the objects of their labours; they detailed their new observations and discoveries; they read the letters received from other learned men, either foreigners, or residing in the provinces: the ambition of their lives was centred in the progress of science; and the enthusiasm and eagerness with which they prosecuted their researches gave an interest to their conversations that awoke to intensity the curiosity of Pascal's almost infant son. Adding youthful fervour to abilities already competent to the formation of scientific combinations and accuracy, the young Blaise desired to make discoveries himself in causes and effects. A common phenomenon in sound obtained his earliest attention. He observed that a plate, if struck by a knife, gave forth a ringing sound, which he stilled by putting his hand on the plate. 1635.
Ætat.
12. At the age of twelve he wrote a little treatise to account for this phenomenon, which was argued with acuteness and precision. His father wished, however, to turn his mind from the pursuits of science, considering the study of languages as better suited to his age; and he resolved that the boy should no longer be present at the philosophical meetings. Blaise was in despair: to console him, he was told that he should be taught geometry when he had acquired Latin and Greek: he asked, eagerly, what geometry was? His father informed him, generally, that it was the science which teaches the method of making exact figures, and of finding out the proportions between them. He commanded him at the same time neither to speak nor think on the subject more. But Blaise was too inquiring and too earnest to submit to this rule. He spent every moment of leisure in meditation upon the properties of mathematical figures. He drew triangles and circles with charcoal on the walls of his playroom, giving them such names as occurred to him as proper, and thus began to teach himself geometry, seeking to discover, without previous instruction, all the combinations of lines and curves, making definitions and axioms for himself, and then proceeding to demonstration: and thus, alone and untaught, he compared the properties of figures and the relative position of lines with mathematical precision.

One day his father came by chance into the room, and found his son busy drawing triangles, parallelograms, and circles: the boy was so intent on his work that he did not hear his father enter; and the latter observed him for some time in silence: when at last he spoke, Blaise felt a sort of terror at being discovered at this forbidden occupation, which equalled his father's wonder at perceiving the objects of his attention. But the surprise of the latter increased, when, asking him what he was about, Blaise explained in language invented by himself, but which showed that he was employed in solving the thirty-second proposition of Euclid. His father asked him, how he came to think of such a question: Blaise replied, that it arose from another he had proposed to himself; and so going back step by step as to the figures that had excited his inquiry, he showed that he had established a chain of propositions deduced from axioms and definitions of his own adoption, which conducted him to the proposition in question (that the three angles of every possible triangle are equal to two right angles). The father was struck almost with fear at this exhibition of inborn genius; and, without speaking to the boy, hurried off to his intimate friend M. le Pailleur; but when he reached his house he was unable to utter a single word, and he stood with tears in his eyes, till his friend, fancying some misfortune had occurred, questioned him anxiously, and at length the happy parent found tongue to declare that he wept for joy, not sorrow. M. le Pailleur was not less astonished when the circumstances narrated were explained to him, and of course advised the father to give every facility for the acquirement of knowledge to one so richly gifted by nature. Euclid, accordingly, was put into the boy's hands as an amusement for his leisure hours. Blaise went through it by himself, and understood it without any explanation from others.[53] From this time he was allowed to be present at all the scientific meetings, and was behind none of the learned men present in bringing new discoveries and solutions, and in enouncing satisfactory explanations of any doubtful and knotty point. Truth was the passion of his soul; and, added to this, was a love of the positive, and a perception of it, which in the exact sciences led to the most useful results. At the age of sixteen he wrote an "Essay on Conic Sections," which was regarded as a work that would bestow reputation on an accomplished mathematician; so that Descartes, when he saw it, was inclined rather to believe that Pascal, the father, had written it himself, and passed it off as his son's, than that a mere child should have shown himself capable of such strength and accuracy of reasoning. The happy father, however, was innocent of any such deceit; and the boy, proceeding to investigate yet more deeply the science of numbers and proportions, soon gave proof that he was fully capable of having written the work in question.

Étienne Pascal was rewarded for all his self-devotion by the genius of his son. His daughters also profited by his care, and became distinguished at once by their mental accomplishments and their personal beauty. A disaster that occurred, which at first disturbed the happiness of the family, tended in the end to establish it, and to bring into greater notice the talents and virtues of the individuals of which it was composed.

1638.
Ætat.
15.

The finances of the government being at a low ebb, through mismanagement and long wars, the minister, cardinal de Richelieu, sought to improve them by diminishing the rate of interest towards the public creditor. Of course this act excited considerable discontent among holders of public stock; riots ensued, and some men, in consequence, were imprisoned in the Bastille. Among these was a friend of Étienne Pascal, who openly and warmly defended him, while he cast considerable blame on several government functionaries, and in particular the chancellor Séguier. This imprudence endangered his own liberty; he heard that he was threatened with arrest, and to avoid it left Paris, and for several months hid himself in Auvergne. He had many friends however among noble patrons of learning, and the duchess d'Aiguillon, in particular, interested herself in his favour. Richelieu, as is well known, was very fond of theatrical representations, and a tragi-comedy by Scuderi, was got up for his amusement. Jaqueline Pascal, then only fourteen years old, was selected to fill one of the parts: she at first refused, saying that the cardinal gave them too little pleasure for her to try to contribute to his; but the duchess saw hopes for the father's recall in the daughter's exertions, and persuaded Jaqueline to undertake the part. She acted charmingly, and at the end of the piece approached the cardinal, and recited some verses written for the occasion, asserting the innocence of her father, and entreating the cessation of his exile. The cardinal delighted, took her in his arms, and kissing her again and again, said, "Yes, my child, I grant your request; write to your father, that he may safely return." 1639.
Ætat.
16. The duchess followed up the impression by an eulogium on Pascal, and by introducing Blaise; "He is but sixteen," she said, "but he is already a great mathematician." Jaqueline saw that the cardinal was favourably inclined; and with ready tact, added, that she had another request to prefer. "Ask what you will, my child," said the minister, "I can refuse you nothing." She begged that her father, on his return, might be permitted personally to thank the cardinal. This also was granted; and the family reaped the benefit. The cardinal received the exile graciously; and, two years after, named him intendant of Normandy at Rouen. Étienne removed with his family, in consequence, to that city. He filled the situation for seven years, enjoying the highest reputation for integrity and ability. About the same time, his daughter, Gilberte, formed an advantageous marriage with M. Périer, who had distinguished himself in a commission entrusted to him by the government in Normandy, and who afterwards bought the situation of counsellor to the court of aids of Clermont-Ferrand.

1641.
Ætat.
18.

Blaise, meanwhile, was absorbed in scientific pursuits. To the acquisition of Latin and Greek was added the study of logic and physics; every moment of his time was occupied—and even during meals the work of study went on. Charmed with the progress his son made, and his apparent facility in learning, the father was blind to the ill-effects that such constant application had on his health: at the age of eighteen, Pascal began to droop; the indisposition he suffered was slight, and he did not permit it to interfere with his studies; but neglected, and indeed increased, it at last entirely disorganised his fragile being. From that hour he never passed a single day free from pain. Repose, taken at intervals, mitigated his sufferings; but when better he eagerly returned to study—and with study illness recurred.

1642.
Ætat.
19.

His application was of the most arduous and intense description. At the age of nineteen he invented his arithmetical machine, considered one of the most wonderful discoveries yet put into practice. A machine capable of automatic combinations of numbers has always been a desideratum; and Pascal's was sufficiently well arranged to produce exact results—but it was very complex, expensive, and easily put out of order, and therefore of no general utility, though hailed by mathematicians as a most ingenious and successful invention. It cost him intense application, both for the mental combinations required, and the mechanical part of the execution:—his earnest and persevering study, and the great efforts of attention to which he put his brain, increased his ill health so much that he was obliged for a time to suspend his labours.

Soon after this, a question, involving very important consequences in physics, agitated the scientific world, and the position of the two Pascals was such, that their attention could not fail to be drawn to the consideration of it. The mechanical properties of the atmosphere had previously been inquired into by Galileo, who recognised in it the quality of weight. This philosopher, however, notwithstanding the wonderful sagacity which his numerous physical discoveries evince, failed to perceive that the weight of the atmosphere, combined with its fluidity and elasticity, opposed a definite force to any agent by which the removal of the atmosphere from any space was attempted. This resistance to the production of a vacuum had long been recognised, and was in fact expressed, but not accounted for, by the phrase, "nature's abhorrence of a vacuum." Whatever meaning he may have attached to it, Galileo retained this phrase, but limited its application, in order to embrace the phenomenon, then well known, that suction-pumps would not raise water more than about thirty-five feet high; and although "nature's abhorrence of a vacuum" raises the water thirty-five feet, to fill the space deserted by the air, which had been drawn out by the piston, yet above that height a vacuum still remained; which fact Galileo expressed by saying, that "thirty-five feet was the limit of nature's abhorrence of a vacuum."

That Galileo should have missed a discovery as important as it was obvious, is the more remarkable from the circumstance of its having been actually suggested to him by one of his own pupils. A letter from Baliani to Galileo is extant, dated in 1630, in which the writer says that Galileo, in one of his letters to him, having taught him that air has sensible weight, and shown him how that weight might be measured, he argued from thence that the force necessary to produce a vacuum, was nothing more than the force necessary to remove the weight of the mass of atmosphere which presses round every object, just as water would press on any thing at the bottom of the sea.[54]

Torricelli, the pupil of Galileo, next took up the problem. He argued, that if the weight of the atmosphere were the direct agent by which the column of water is sustained in a pump, the same agent must needs exert the same amount of force in sustaining a column of any other liquid; and, therefore, that if a heavier liquid were used, the column sustained would be less in height exactly in the same proportion as the weight of the liquid forming the column was greater. Mercury, the heaviest known liquid, appeared the fittest for this purpose. The experiment was eminently successful. The weight, bulk for bulk, of mercury was fourteen times greater than that of water; and it was found that, instead of a column of thirty-five feet being supported, the column was only thirty inches, the latter being exactly the fourteenth part of thirty-five feet.

Various ways of further testing the evident inferences to be drawn from this beautiful experiment, were so obvious, that it is impossible to suppose the illustrious philosopher to whom we are indebted for it, would not have pursued the inquiry further, had not death, almost immediately after this, prematurely removed him. The experiment became known, and excited much interest in every part of Europe; and Mersenne, who had an extensive scientific correspondence, having received an account of Torricelli's investigation, communicated the particulars to Pascal. Always reluctant to surrender long established maxims, the philosophers of that day rejected the solution of the problem given by Torricelli, and still clung to the maxim that "nature abhors a vacuum." The sagacity of Pascal, however, could not be so enslaved by received notions; and he accordingly, assisted by M. Petit, applied himself to the discovery of some experimental test, of a nature so unanswerable as to set the question at rest. The result was the celebrated experiment on the Puy de Dôme, the first and most beautiful example of an "experimentum crucis" recorded in the history of physics.

Pascal argued, that if the weight of the incumbent atmosphere were the real agent which sustained the mercury in Torricelli's tube, as it was inferred to be by that philosopher, any thing which would diminish that weight, ought to diminish in the same proportion the height of the mercurial column. To test this, he first conceived the idea of producing over the surface of the mercury in the cistern in which the end of the tube was immersed, a partial vacuum, so as to diminish the pressure of the air upon it. But, apprehending that this experiment would hardly he sufficiently glaring to overcome the prejudices of the scientific world, he proposed to carry the tube containing the mercurial column upwards in the atmosphere, so as gradually to leave more and more of the incumbent weight below it, and to ascertain whether the diminution of the column would be equal to the weight of the air which it had surmounted. No sufficient height being attainable in Paris, the experiment was conducted, under Pascal's direction, by his brother-in-law, M. Périer, at Clermont, on the Puy de Dôme, a hill of considerable height, near that place. The experiment was completely successful. The mercurial column gradually fell until the tube arrived at the summit, and as gradually rose again in descending. Bigotry and prejudice could not withstand the force of this, and immediately gave way. The maxim of nature's abhorrence of a vacuum was henceforth expunged from the code of natural science; and, what was still more conducive to the advancement of all true science, philosophers were taught how much more potent agents of discovery, observation and experiment, guided by reason, are, than the vain speculations in which the ancients had indulged, and from the baneful influence of which scientific inquirers had not yet been emancipated.

1647.
Ætat.
24.

Pascal had hardly escaped from boyhood at this time; his invention, his patience, the admirable system he pursued of causing all his opinions to be supported by facts and actual experiment, deserved the highest praise and honour. It is mortifying to have to record that his discovery was disputed. The jesuits accused him of plagiarism from the Italians; and Descartes declared, that he had first discovered the effects produced by the weight of the atmosphere, and suggested to Pascal the experiment made on the Puy de Dôme. 1651.
Ætat.
28. Pascal treated these attacks the contempt which his innocence taught him that they deserved; and published an account of his experiments without making the slightest allusion to them. Descartes was a man of eminent genius—his industry and penetration often led him to make the happiest conjectures; but, more intent on employing his bold and often fortunate imagination in the fabrication of ingenious theories than on applying himself with patience and perseverance to the discovering the secrets of nature, he sometimes threw out a happy idea, which he did not take the pains to establish as a truth and a law. The honour of invention is due to those who seize the scattered threads of knowledge which former discoverers have left, and weave it into a continuous and irrefragable web. 1653.
Ætat.
30. Pascal followed up his experiments with the utmost hesitation and care, only deciding when decision became self-evident. Two Treatises, one "On the Equilibrium of Liquids," another "On the Weight of the Atmosphere," which he subsequently wrote, though they were not published till after his death, display his admirable powers of observation, and the patient zeal with which he followed up his discoveries. At the time that he wrote these treatises he was engaged on others, on geometrical subjects: he did not publish them; and some have been irrecoverably lost. Every subject then interesting to men of science employed his active mind. His name had become well known: he was consulted by all the philosophers and mathematicians of the day, who proposed questions to him; and his thoughts were sedulously dedicated to the solution of the most difficult problems. But a change meanwhile had come over his mind, and he began to turn his thoughts to other subjects, and to resolve to quit his mathematical pursuits, and to dedicate himself wholly to the practice and study of religion.

This was no sudden resolve on his part—piety had always deep root in his heart. He had never, in the most inquisitive days of his youth, applied his eager questionings and doubts to matters of faith. His father had carefully instilled principles of belief; and gave him for a maxim, that the objects of faith are not the objects of reason, much less the subject of it. This principle became deeply engraven in his heart. Logical and penetrating as his mind was, with an understanding open to conjecture with regard to natural causes, he never applied the arts of reasoning to the principles of Christianity, but was as submissive as a child to all the dicta of the church. But though the so to call it metaphysical part of religion was admitted without a doubt or a question, its moral truths met with an attention—always lively, and at last wholly absorbing; so that he spent the latter portion of his life in meditating, day and night, the law of God.

This change began first to operate at the age of four-and-twenty. His zeal overflowed to, and was imbibed by, all near him. His father was not ashamed to listen to his son's exhortations, and to regulate his life hereafter by severer rules. His unmarried sister, Jaqueline—the heroine of the tale previously narrated, who possessed singular talents—listened to her brother with still greater docility and effect: an effect rather to be deplored than rejoiced in, since it caused her to renounce the cultivation of her talents, and the exercise of active duties, and to dedicate herself to the ascetic practices of Catholicism.

Meanwhile the health of Pascal suffered severer attacks, and his frail body wasted away; so that before he attained the prime of life he fell into the physical debility of age. He resided at this time in Paris, with his father and his sister Jaqueline. To benefit his health, he was recommended to suspend his labours, to enjoy the recreations of society, and to take more exercise: accordingly, he made several tours in Auvergne and other provinces. 1651.
Ætat.
28. The death of his father broke up the little family circle. Jaqueline Pascal had long entertained the desire of becoming a nun: on the death of her father she put her resolve in execution, and took the vows in the abbey of Port Royal aux Champs. 1653.
Ætat.
30. The other sister resided with her husband at Clermont. Pascal, left to himself, devoted his time more earnestly than ever to studious pursuits, till the powers of nature failed; and he was forced, through utter inability, to abandon his studies. He took gentle exercise, and frequented society. Though serious even to melancholy, his conversation pleased by the depth of understanding and great knowledge that it displayed. Pascal himself felt the softening influence of sympathy: he began to take pleasure in society—he even contemplated marrying. Happy had it been for him if this healthy and sound view of human duties had continued: but an accident happened which confirmed him as a visionary—if we may apply that term to a man who in the very excess of religious zeal preserved the entire use of his profound arts of reasoning, and an absolute command over his will: yet when the circumstances of his exclusive dedication of himself to pious exercises are known, and we find that a vision forms one of them, that word cannot be considered unjust—nor is it possible to help lamenting that his admirable understanding had not carried him one step further, and taught him that asceticism has no real foundation in the beneficent plan of the Creator.

1654.
Ætat.
31.

One day, in the month of October, he was taking an airing in a carriage-and-four towards the Pont de Neuilli, when the leaders took the bit in their teeth, at a spot where there is no parapet, and precipitated themselves into the Seine: fortunately the shock broke the traces, and the carriage remained on the brink of the precipice. Pascal, a feeble, half-paralytic, trembling being, was overwhelmed by the shock. He fell into a succession of fainting fits, followed by a nervous agitation that prevented sleep, and brought on a state resembling delirium. In this he experienced a sort of vision, or extatic trance; in commemoration of which he wrote a singular sort of memorandum, which, though incoherent to us, doubtless brought to his memory the circumstances of his vision. This paper he always kept sewn up in his dress. The effect of the circumstance was to make him look on his accident as a call from Heaven to give in all worldly thoughts, and to devote himself to God. The pious exhortations of his sister, the nun, had before given him some notion of such a course; and he determined to renounce the world, and to dedicate himself exclusively to religious practices.

The account that his sister, madame Périer, gives of the rules of life to which he adhered is most deeply interesting, as appertaining to a man of such transcendent genius; and yet deeply painful, since we cannot see that God could be pleased or served by his cutting himself off from the enjoyment of all the natural and innocent affections, or by a system of self-denial, that undermined his health and shortened his life. To follow up the new rules he had laid down for his conduct, he removed to another part of Paris; and showed so determined a resolve to renounce the world that, at last, the world renounced him. In this retreat he disciplined his life by certain principles, the chief of which was to abstain from all pleasures or superfluity; in accordance with this system, he allowed himself nothing but what was absolutely necessary; he unfurnished his apartment of all carpets and hangings, reserving only a table and chairs, of the coarsest manufacture: he also, as much as possible, denied himself the service of domestics: he made his bed himself; and went to the kitchen to fetch his dinner, and carried it into his own room, and took back the remains when he had finished: in short, his servant merely cooked and went to market for him. His time was otherwise spent in acts of charity, in prayer, and in reading the scriptures. At first the regularity and quiet of a life of retreat recruited somewhat his shattered frame: but this did not last. His mind could not be idle, nor his reasoning powers remain inactive; and he soon found cause to study as deeply matters connected with religion as before he had applied himself to the investigation of mathematical truths.

The abbey of Port Royal had not many years before been reformed, and acquired a high reputation. M. Arnaud (a noble of Auvergne, and a celebrated advocate,) was the father of a numerous family of children, and among them a daughter, who, at eleven years of age, was named abbess of Port Royal. Instead of following the old track of indulgence and indolence, her young heart became inflamed with pious zeal; and, at the age of seventeen, she undertook the arduous task of reforming the habits and lives of the nuns under her jurisdiction. By degrees she imparted a large portion of her piety to them, and succeeded in her undertaking: watching, fasting, humility, and labour, became the inmates of her convent; and its reputation for sanctity and purity increased daily. The abbey of Port Royal aux Champs was situated at the distance of only six leagues from Paris; the situation in itself was desolate, but some private houses appertained to it. Several men of eminent learning and piety were attracted, by the high reputation that the abbey enjoyed, to take up their abode in one of these dwellings. They fled the world to enjoy Christian peace in solitude: but indolence was not a part of their practice. Besides the works of piety of which they were the authors, they received pupils, they compiled books of instruction; and their system of education became celebrated, both for the classical knowledge they imparted, and the sentiments of religion they inspired. Among these reverend and illustrious recluses were numbered two brothers of mother Angelica, the abbess, Arnaud d'Andilli, and Antoine Arnaud, and two of her nephews; in addition may be named Saci, Nicole, and others, well known as French theologians, and controversialists. Pascal's attention being drawn to this retreat by the circumstance of his sister's having taken her vows in the abbey, he was desirous to become acquainted with men so illustrious: without taking up his abode absolutely among them, he cultivated their society, often paid visits of several weeks' duration to their retreat, and was admitted to their intimacy. They soon discovered and appreciated his transcendent genius, while he was led by them to apply his talents to religious subjects. The vigour and justness of his thoughts inspired them with admiration. Saci was, in particular, his friend; and the famous Arnaud regarded him with wonder for his youth, and esteem for his learning and penetration. These became in the end most useful to the recluses; and from the pen of their young friend they derived, not only their best defence against their enemies, but a glory for their cause, founded on the admirable "Lettres Provinciales," which have survived, for the purity of their style, vigour of expression, and closeness of argument; for their wit, and their sublime eloquence, long after the object for which they were written, is remembered only as casting at once ridicule and disgrace upon the cause of religion in France.

It is indeed a melancholy and degrading picture of human nature, to find men of exalted piety and profound learning, waste their powers on controversies, which can now only be regarded with contempt, though the same sentiment cannot follow the virtues which these men displayed—their constancy, their courage, and noble contempt of all selfish considerations.

The foundation of the dispute, which called forth at once these virtues and this vain exertion of intellect, still subsists between different sects of Christianity. The Christian religion is founded on the idea of the free will of man, and the belief that he can forsake sin; and that, according as he does forsake or cling to it, he deserves happiness or reprobation in the other world. But to this is added, with some, the belief that sanctification springs from the especial interference of God; that man cannot even seek salvation without a call; that faith and grace is an immediate and gratuitous gift of God to each individual whom the Holy Ghost inspires with a vocation. How far man was born with the innate power of belief and faith, or how far he needed a particular and immediate gift of grace to seek these from God, divided the Christian world into sects at various times, and was the foundation of the dispute between the molinists and jansenists. The first name was derived from Molina, a jesuit, who endeavoured to establish a sort of accord between the Almighty's prescience and man's free will, which gave the latter power to choose, and sufficing grace to choose well. The jesuits were zealous in supporting the doctrine of one of their order. They discussed the points in question with so much acrimony that they laid themselves open to as violent attacks; they were opposed in particular by the dominicans; the dispute was carried on in Rome, before assemblies instituted to decide upon it, but which took care to decide nothing; and the pope ended, by ordering the two parties to live in peace. Meanwhile Cornelius Jansen, bishop of Ypres, wrote a book on saint Augustin, which was not published till after his death: this book, which supported the notion of election by God, was taken up by the adversaries of the jesuits (hereafter called jansenists, the name of the bishop being latinised into Jansenius), and they called attention to it. The jesuits selected five propositions, which they said they found in it, on the subject of grace and election; and these were condemned as heretical. Antoine Arnaud rose as their advocate. The jesuits detested him for his father's sake, who had pleaded the cause of the university of Paris against them, and gained it. Arnaud declared that he had read the work of Jansenius, and could not find the five condemned propositions in it, but acknowledged that, if they were there, they deserved condemnation. The Sorbonne exclaimed against this declaration as "rash;" for, as the pope had condemned these propositions as being enounced by Jansenius, of course they were contained in his book.[55] It was considered necessary that Arnaud should reply to this attack; but, though a learned man, an eloquent writer, and a great theologian, his defence was addressed to the studious rather than the public, and it gained no partisans. 1656.
Ætat.
33. It was far otherwise when Pascal took up his pen, and, under the name of Louis de Montalte, published his first letter à un Provincial; it was written in a popular, yet clear and conclusive manner, and in a style at once so elegant, perspicuous, and pure, that a child might read and understand, while a scholar would study the pages as a model for imitation. The success of this letter was prodigious: it did not however change the proceedings of the Sorbonne; it assembled—its sittings were crowded with monks and mendicant friars, ignorant men whose opinions were despicable, but whose votes counted. Arnaud's work was condemned, and he himself expelled the Sorbonne. This sentence roused Pascal to continue his labours. He wrote another letter, which met with equal approbation; but the success only served to irritate Arnaud's enemies; they obtained another censure of the five propositions from the pope, and insisted on all suspected persons signing a formula in which they were renounced. The nuns of Port Royal were called on to put their names, and, on their resistance, they were threatened with the destruction of their house, and dispersion.

At this moment, a singular circumstance occurred, which to this day is, by many, considered a miracle. A sacred relic, one of the thorns of our Saviour's crown of thorns, had been lately brought to Paris. To a protestant the pretence of the existence of such a relic is ridiculous, but the catholic church has always upheld a belief in the miraculous preservation of these instruments of our Saviour's passion and death. The holy thorn was carried to many convents, and among others to Port Royal, and all the inhabitants went in procession, and kissed it. Among them was a niece of Pascal, daughter of madame Périer. She had been long ill of a fistula in an eye: she touched the wound with the relic, and it healed at once.[56] The news of this miracle was spread abroad; it was believed, and all Paris flocked to the convent. A religious house, the scene of an actual miracle, was considered too highly favoured by God to be persecuted; the nuns and the jansenists triumphed; the jesuits were, for the time, silent and abashed. To add to their defeat, Pascal continued to write his Letters to a Provincial, attacking the society with the arms of wit and eloquence. The Jesuitical system of morality, full of mental reservation and ambiguity—its truckling to vice, and contradiction to the simple but sublime principles of the gospel, afforded him a wide field for censure. He wrote not a mere controversial work, interesting to theologians only, but a book addressed to all classes. It gained immediate attention; and its eloquence and beauty have secured its immortality.[57]

The success of this book, the activity of his mind, and his sedulous study of theology, naturally led Pascal to conceive the project of other works. The scope of that which principally engaged his attention was, a refutation of atheists. He meditated continually on this subject, and put down all the thoughts that occurred to his mind. Illness prevented him from giving them subsequently a more connected form, but they exist as his "Pensées," and many of them deserve attention and veneration; while others, founded on exaggerated and false views of human duties, are interesting as displaying the nature of his mind. The acuteness and severity of thought which in early life led him to mathematical discoveries, he now applied to the truths of Christianity; and he followed out all the consequences of the doctrine of the church of Rome with an uncompromising and severe spirit. Want of imagination, perhaps, caused his mistakes; for mistakes he certainly made. He is sublime in his charity, in his love and care for the poor, in his gentleness and humility; but when we learn that he, a suffering, dying man, wore a girdle armed with sharp points as a punishment for transient and involuntary emotions of vanity—when we find him reprehending his sister for caressing her children, and denouncing as sinful the most justifiable, and indeed virtuous departure from ascetic discipline, we feel that the mathematical precision with which he treated subjects of morals is totally at war with the system of the Creator, madame Périer relates, that she was often mortified and hurt by his cold manner, and the apparent distaste with which he repulsed her sisterly attentions. She complained to their sister, the nun; but she understood better his motives, and explained how he considered it a virtue to love without attaching himself, and also deemed it sin to excite attachment; and proved that notwithstanding his apparent coldness his heart was warm, by mentioning the earnestness with which he served her on any occasion when she needed his assistance. His most active feeling was charity to the poor; he never refused alms, and would borrow money on interest for the sake of bestowing them; and when cautioned that he might ruin himself, replied, that he never found that any one who had property ever died so poor but he had something to leave. It was a hard life to which he condemned himself; a careful avoidance of all attachment—a continual mortification of his senses, and the labour and sadness of perpetual association with the suffering; added to this, he aimed at such a state of abstraction as not to receive pleasure from food; and aware of an emotion of satisfied vanity when consulted by the learned men of the day, he, as has been said, wore a girdle armed with sharp points, which he struck into himself, so to recall his wandering thoughts. A sense of duty—love of God,—perhaps something of pride, kept him up long; but he sunk under it at last. He spent five years in a rigid adherence to all his rules and duties; then his fragile body gave way, and he fell into a series of sufferings so great, that, though existence was prolonged for four years, they were years of perpetual pain.

1658.
Ætat.
35.

His illness began by violent toothache; he was kept awake night after night: during these painful vigils, his thoughts recurred to the studies of his youth. He revolved in his head problems proposed by the scientific men of the day.

His attention was now chiefly engaged with the solution of various questions in the higher departments of geometry, especially those connected with the properties of cycloids. He succeeded in solving many problems of great difficulty relating to the quadrature and rectification of segments and arcs of cycloids, and the volumes of solids formed by their revolutions round their axes and ordinates. Except so far as they form part of the history of mathematical science, and illustrate the powers of great minds, such as that of the subject of this memoir, these problems have now lost all their interest. The powerful instruments of investigation supplied by the differential and integral calculus, have reduced their solution to the mere elements of transcendental mathematics. At the epoch when they engaged the attention of Pascal, before the invention of the modern methods, they were questions presenting the most formidable difficulties. To Pascal, however, they were mere matters of mental relaxation, resorted to with a view to divert his attention from his acute bodily sufferings. He entertained, himself, no intention of making them public. It was, however, the wish of several of his companions in religious retirement that they should be made public, were it only to afford a proof that the highest mathematical genius is not incompatible with the deepest and most sincere Christian faith. 1658.
Ætat.
35. Pascal yielded, and, according to a custom which was then usual, however puerile it may now appear, he, in the first instance, proposed the several questions which he solved as subjects for a prize to the scientific world. Many competitors presented themselves; and others, who, though not competing for the prize, offered partial solutions. Among these were several who have since attained great celebrity, such as Wallis, Huygens, Fermat, and sir Christopher Wren.

The prize, however, was not gained, nor the problems solved. In the beginning of the year 1659, Pascal published his complete solutions of the problems of the cycloid, with some other mathematical tracts. These admirable investigations cannot fail to excite in every mind a deep regret, that a morbid state of moral and religious feeling should ever have diverted Pascal from mathematical and physical research.

Meanwhile his debility and sufferings increased; but he did not, on that account, yield, but held fast by his system of self-denial, practising himself in turning his thoughts resolutely to another subject when any agreeable sensation was produced, so that he might be true to his resolve to renounce pleasure, while he bore his pains with inconceivable fortitude and patience; yet they were sufficient to interrupt his studies. As the only duty he was capable of performing, he spent his time in visiting churches where any relics were exposed or some solemnity observed; and for this end he had a spiritual almanack, which informed him of the places where there were particular devotions. "And this he did," says his sister, "with so much devotion and simplicity, that those who saw him were surprised at it; which caused men of great virtue and ability to remark, that the grace of God shows itself in great minds by little things, and in common ones by large." Nor did his sufferings interrupt his works of charity, and the services he rendered to the poor. This last duty grew into the passion of his heart. He counselled his sister to consecrate all her time, and that of her children, to the assistance of those in want; he declared this to be the true vocation of Christians, and that without an adherence to it there was no salvation. Nor did he consider that the rich performed their duty by contributing only to public charities, but that each person was held to bestow particular and unremitted attention to individual cases. "I love poverty," he wrote down, "because Christ loved it. I love property, because it affords the means of aiding the needy. I keep faith with every one, and wish no ill to those who do ill to me. I endeavour to be true, sincere, and faithful to all men. I have a tenderness of heart for those with whom God has most bound me; and, whether I am alone or in the view of men, I have the thought of God as the aim of all my actions, who will judge them, and to whom they are consecrated." Such were the sentiments of Pascal; and no man ever carried them out with equal humility, patience, zeal, and fortitude. His simplicity and singleness of heart were admirable; all who conversed with him were astounded by his childlike innocence and purity; he used no tergiversation, no deceit with himself; all was open, submissive, and humble: if he felt himself guilty of a fault, he was eager to repair it: he attached himself to the very letter and inner spirit of the gospel, and obeyed it with all the powers of his nature. His memory was prodigious, yet he never appeared to recollect any offence done to himself; he declared, indeed, that he practised no virtue in this, since he really forgot injuries; yet he allowed that he had so perfect a memory that he never forgot any thing that he wished to remember.

1661.
Ætat.
38.

Meanwhile his peace of mind was disturbed by a fresh persecution of the jansenists, which caused the dispersion of the nuns of Port Royal, and proved fatal to his beloved sister. The jesuits rose from the overthrow, caused by the miracle, with redoubled force, and, if possible, redoubled malice; they got the parliament of Provence to condemn the "Lettres Provinciales" to be burned by the common hangman: they insisted that the nuns of Port Royal should sign the formula, and on their refusal they were taken violently from the abbey, and dispersed in various convents. Jaqueline Pascal was at this time sub-prioress; her piety was extreme, her conscience tender. She could not persuade herself of the propriety of signing the formula; but the anticipation of the misery that the unfortunate nuns would endure through their refusal broke her heart: she fell ill, and died, as she called herself, "the first victim of the formula," at the age of thirty-six. Before her profession as a nun, she had displayed great talents; and had even gained the prize for poetry at Rouen, when only fourteen: her sensibility was great; her piety extreme. Pascal loved her more than any other creature in the world; but he betrayed no grief when he heard of her death. "God grant us grace to die like her," he exclaimed; and reproved his sister for the affliction she displayed. It was this question of the signature of the formula that caused his temporary dissension with the recluses of Port Royal. They wished the nuns to temporise, and to sign the formula, with a reservation; but Pascal saw that the jesuits would not submit to be thus balked, and that they were bent on the destruction of their enemies. Instead therefore of approving the moderation of the jansenists, he said, "You wish to save Port Royal—you may betray the truth, but you cannot save it." He himself became more jansenist than the jansenists themselves; instead of arguing, as M. Arnaud had done, that the five propositions were not to be found in Jansenius's work, he declared that they were in accordance with St. Paul and the fathers; and inferred that the popes were deceived when they condemned them. He accused the recluses of Port Royal of weakness: they defended themselves; and, the dispute becoming known, it was reported that Pascal was converted; for no one could believe, as was the fact, that he was more tenacious of their doctrines than they were themselves. His confessor aided, at first, this mistake, by misconceiving the tendency of some of his expressions on his death bed; and it was not till three years after Pascal's death that the truth became known.

At the time we now mention, the period of his sister's death, his own end was near: decrepid and feeble, his life had become one course of pain, and each day increased his physical sufferings. He became at last so ill as to need the constant attentions of madame Périer. He had given shelter in his house to a poor family, and at this juncture one of the sons had fallen ill of the small-pox. Fearful that, if his sister visited him, she might carry this illness to her children, he consented to remove to her house. But her cares availed nothing; he was attacked by colics, which continued till his death, but which the physicians did not believe to be attended with danger. He bore his sufferings with patience; and, true to his principles, received no attendance with which he could at all dispense; and, unsoftened by pain, he continued to admit the sedulous attentions of his sister with such apparent repulsion and indifference, that she often feared that they were displeasing to him. Strange that he should see virtue in checking both his own and her sympathy—that diviner portion of our nature which takes us out of ourselves, and turns our most painful and arduous duties into pleasures.[58] In the same spirit, when his sister lamented his sufferings, he observed, that, on the contrary, he rejoiced in them: he bade her not pity him, for that sickness was the natural state of a Christian; as thus they are, as they always ought to be, suffering sorrow, and the privation of all the blessings of life—exempt from passion, from ambition, and avarice—ever in expectation of death. "Is it not thus," he said, "that a Christian should pass his life?—and is it not a happiness to find one's self in the state in which one ought to place one's self, so that all one need do is to submit humbly and serenely?" Self-denial thus became a passion with this wonderful man; and no doubt he derived pleasure from the excess to which he carried it.

There was one other passion in which he indulged, that was far more laudable. We compassionate his mistake when he looks on the uselessness and helplessness of sickness as a good, but we admire him when we contemplate his sublime charity. In his last hours he lamented that he had not done more for the poor; more wholly devoted time and means to their relief. He made his will, in which he bestowed all that he could, with any justice, leave away from his family; and as he was forced, through the excess of his sufferings, to accept more of comfort and attention than he thought consonant with virtue, he desired either to be removed to an hospital, where he might die among the poor, or that a sick mendicant should be brought to his house, and receive the same attention as himself. He was with difficulty diverted from these designs, and only gave in submission to the dictates of his confessor.

He felt himself dying—his pains a little decreased, when a weakness and giddiness of the head succeeded, precursors of death: his physicians did not perceive his imminent danger, and his last days were troubled by their opposition to his wish to take the sacrament. His sister, however, perceived that his illness was greater than was supposed, and prepared for the last hour, which came more suddenly even than she expected. 1662.
Ætat.
39. He was one night seized with convulsions, which intermitted only while he roused himself to communicate, and, then recurring, they ended only with his life. He died on the 19th August, 1662, at the age of thirty-nine.