controversial production did less to establish the fame of this extraordinary man than a work which he wrote about the same period, of a devotional and moral nature, but which was not given to the world till after his decease. The manner in which this work was written is curious. While living in ascetic retirement from the world, he was in the habit of writing down stray thoughts on religious and moral subjects on the first piece of paper which he could find. After his death these bits of paper were found filed upon different pieces of string without any order or connection; and being exactly copied as they were written, they were afterwards arranged and published under the title of Pensées de M. Pascal, &c. (Thoughts of M. Pascal upon Religion and some other Subjects). These Pensées, or thoughts, have been translated from the French into the English and various other languages, and exhibit striking traits of his sublimity of genius, beautiful turn of sentiment, as well as force and elegance of expression.

Pascal was little more than thirty years of age when he was engaged in framing these controversial and devotional productions. As a result both of his wonderful precocity of intellect, and of the treatment to which he subjected himself, he declined both in body and mind much earlier than is the ordinary lot of mankind. At thirty-six years of age he had the infirmity of a man of fourscore. His health from this time rapidly declined, and his disorders so enfeebled his brain that his reason became in some measure affected. In these circumstances he met with an accident which produced an unfavourable impression upon his imagination, not to be effaced, excepting during short intervals, by the soothing persuasions of his friends and of his confessor. In

the year 1654, the state of weakness to which he was reduced having alarmed his physicians, they prescribed to him taking the air and gentle exercise. As he was one day crossing the Seine at the bridge of Neuilly, in a coach-and-four, the two leading horses became unmanageable at a part where the parapet was down, and plunged over the side into the river. Happily, their weight broke the traces, by which means the other horses and the carriage were extricated on the brink of the precipice. The effect on the feeble and languishing frame of M. Pascal may easily be conceived. It was with great difficulty that he was recovered at all from a long swoon; and he was never reinstated in the calm possession of his mental faculties. He always imagined that he saw a deep abyss on the left side of him, and he would never sit down till a chair was placed there, to secure him from danger. He also persuaded himself that he had a kind of vision, the particulars of which he preserved in a memorandum on a piece of paper, which he always carried about him between the cloth and lining of his coat. After languishing for some years in this imbecile state of body and mind, Pascal died at Paris in 1662, when about thirty-nine years of age.

The moral which may be drawn from the life of Pascal is so obvious that it hardly requires to be pointed out. We find here a man who inherited from nature all the powers of a versatile genius; a geometrician of the first rank; a profound reasoner; an elegant writer, whose collected works extend to many large volumes; and a person who was remarkable for the amiableness of his disposition: yet we find also a man who, it will be acknowledged, forsook the clear path of his duty, as a responsible being, and who, with whatever

conscientiousness of feeling, followed a course of life which doubtless assisted greatly to derange his faculties, and brought him to a premature grave.

LINNE US.

CHARLES LINNÉ, better known by his Latinised name, LINNÆUS, was the son of a poor village pastor, and was born at Rashult, in the province of Smaland, in Sweden, in the year 1707. To great originality of genius, were joined an enthusiastic disposition, and a steadiness of perseverance, which enabled him to make his way through poverty and obscurity to a distinguished preeminence as a man of science and learning. An ardent love for the study of nature, especially for botanical knowledge, early took possession of him. While yet a boy, he seems to have been fonder of rambling about the fields, and perusing the great book of nature, than the folios of the schools; for so little satisfaction does he seem to have given his first teachers, that his father, dissatisfied with the reports of his progress, contemplated binding him to the trade of a shoemaker. The intervention of friends, and his own earnest entreaties, however, at last persuaded his parent to permit him to study. the profession of medicine. At the university we find him rising into distinction, even in the midst of extreme poverty--in want of books-in want of clothes-in want of bread to eat—and even patching up old shoes with the bark of trees, to enable him to wander into the fields in prosecution of his favourite study of botany.

While yet a mere youth, he was selected, by the

Academy of Sciences of Upsal, to explore the dreary regions of Lapland, and to ascertain what natural productions they contained; and we find him embracing with ardour this laborious and solitary undertaking, with a pittance barely sufficient to defray the expenses of his journey. After his return from this scientific expedition, he commenced a course of public lectures on botany and mineralogy in the University of Upsal; he was full of the subject, and the novelty and originality of his discourses immediately drew around him a crowded audience but envy, which too often is the malignant concomitant of rising talent, soon blasted his fair prosperity. It was discovered that, by a law of the university, no person was entitled to give public lectures unless he had previously taken a degree. Linnæus, unfortunately, had obtained no academical honours, a circumstance which involved him in a violent quarrel with Dr Rosen, the Professor of Medicine. Fortunately, his friends interposed to soothe his resentment; and he forthwith departed from Upsal, along with some of his pupils, and made a mineralogical and botanical excursion into the province of Dalecarlia. At Fahlun, the capital of this province, he became acquainted with Dr Moräus, the chief physician. The doctor was a kind and learned man, and had plants and flowers which excited the admiration of the young botanist; but he had a fairer flower than any which Linnæus had ever yet beheld in garden or meadow. In short, for the eldest daughter of Dr Moräus our botanist conceived an ardent affection; his admiration was met by the young lady with a grateful attachment; and, in accordance with the ardour and enthusiasm of his disposition, Linnæus solicited of the father the young lady's hand in

marriage. The good doctor had conceived a liking for the young, learned, and eloquent stranger-he loved him and his pursuits, and his ingenuous bearing; but he tenderly loved his daughter also, and, more cool and considerate than the young and fond lovers, foresaw that a poor friendless young man, without any fixed profession or employment, was not likely to improve his own. or his daughter's happiness by such a rash step. He therefore persuaded him to delay the match for three years; that his daughter should remain unmarried in the meantime; and if, at the end of that period, he (by the study of medicine, which he strongly recommended) was in a condition to marry, his sanction to the nuptials would be readily given.

Nothing could be more reasonable than this proposal. Linnæus summoned his philosophy to his aid. It was resolved that he should forthwith depart for Leyden, in order to obtain a degree. Before his departure, Miss Moräus brought forth her accumulated saving of pocketmoney, amounting to a purse of one hundred dollars, and laid it at his feet as a love-offering and unequivocal proof of her attachment. He pressed her fair hand, kissed her fervently, and, with a heart glowing with the most unbounded attachment and admiration of her generosity, he bade her farewell.

Many a poetical lover would have gone forth dreaming in reverie, writing sonnets alternately to his mistress and the moon, and ever and anon bewailing his hard fate at the awful and interminable separation. Not so our philosopher; he went forth cheered and stimulated with the thought that there was one who loved him and his pursuits, and to merit whose attachment he was resolved to strain every nerve in the path of learning