theory-for here, instead of the heat and light coming from the gas being reduced to a solid state, a gaseous body is formed two or three hundred times the bulk of the solid exploded. Thirdly. There are many acids which have no oxygen in their composition, and there are many bodies containing oxygen which have none of the qualities of acids. The first part of this proposition was not certainly known to Lavoisier, and he assumed that the acids which had not yet been decomposed would be found to contain oxygen. The second part of the proposition was known to him, and ought to have checked his generalization. We now know many acids which contain no oxygen at all. Muriatic acid, a compound of chlorine and hydrogen; prussic acid, a compound of hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon; hydro-bromic; fluoric acid; ferro-cyanic acid; sulpho-cyanic; hydro-selenic; hydriodic; xanthic. Even if fluoric be omitted, here are nine undeniable acids, and all without a particle of oxygen in their composition. Again, the mere fact of calcination should have prevented him from so generalizing, for all calces contain oxygen, and many of them have no acid qualities. Indeed, his own conjecture, since fully confirmed by experiment, that the fixed alkalies are oxides, is a still more striking disproof of his theory; for it appears that he might just as well have called oxygen the alkalizing principle as the acidifying, or rather much better, since all the alkalies save one contain it and the alkaline earths to boot. But he also should have recollected that no acid of them all contains so much oxygen as water, and yet nothing less like an acid can well be imagined. We now have still further instances of the same kind against this theory, and which might justify us in calling hydrogen the acidifying principle as well as oxygen. Upwards of two hundred acids contain hydrogen either with or without oxygen present. Hence he might really have reckoned hydrogen the acidifying principle upon fully better grounds than support his choice of oxygen; and the truth appears to be, that there is no one substance which deserves the name. It is, then, quite clear that M. Lavoisier committed a great error in his induction, and that he framed a theory which was in the extent to which he pressed it wholly without foundation-not merely without sufficient proof from the facts, but contrary to the facts. Newton gives it as a fundamental rule of philosophizing, that we are to state the inferences from phenomena with the exceptions which occur, and if a first induction should be made from imperfect views of the phenomena, then to correct it by exceptions afterwards found to exist. But from this rule Lavoisier has departed entirely: because, though subsequent experiments have greatly increased the number of the exceptions, yet there were many striking ones at the time he formed his system, and these were left out of view in its formation. After all the deductions, however, which can fairly be made from his merits, these stand high indeed, and leave his renown as brilliant as that of any one who has ever cultivated physical science. The overthrow of the Phlogiston Theory, and the happy generalizations upon the combinations of bodies, which we owe to his genius for philosophical research, are sufficient to place him among the first, perhaps to make him be regarded as the first reformer of chemical science, the principal founder of that magnificent fabric which now fills so ample a space in the eye of every student of nature. APPENDIX. Acids known to contain no Oxygen. Muriatic acid (Hydro chloric; Chlorine and Hydrogen.) Bromine. Hydro-Bromic acid, (Bromine and Hydrogen.) Fluoric acid, (Fluorine and Hydrogen) Ferro-cyanic acid, (Iron, Azote, Carbon, and Hydrogen.) Hydro-selenic, (Selenium and Hydrogen.) Acids known to contain Hydrogen with or without Oxygen. And at least 150 more; as oxalic is perhaps the only vegetable acid which has no hydrogen. 167 GIBBON. THE biography of illustrious inen, men whose history is intimately connected either with the political events of their times, or with the progress of science or of learning, has ever been deemed one of the most useful as well as delightful departments of literature; nor does it yield to any in the capacity of conveying the most important instruction in every department of knowledge. It has accordingly been cultivated in all ages by the most eminent men. Invaluable contributions to it have been offered by the individuals themselves whose lives were to be recorded. Their correspondence with familiar friends is one source of our knowledge regarding them; nay, it may almost be termed a branch of autobiography. Who does not value Cicero's letters above most of his works? Who does not lament that those of Demosthenes are not more numerous and better authenticated? But some have been in form, as well as in substance, their own biographers. Nor does any one accuse Ilume and Gibbon of an undue regard to their own fame, or of assuming arrogantly a rank above their real importance, when they left us the precious histories of their lives. On the contrary, their accounts of other men contain few pages more valuable to the cause of truth than those which they have left of their own studies. Ác plerique suam ipsi vitam narrare, fiduciam potius morum quam arrogantiam arbitrati sunt: nec id Rutilio et Scauro citra fidem aut obtrectationi fuit. Adeo virtutes iisdem temporibus optime æstimantur quibus facillimè gignuntur.” (Tacit. “Vit. Ag.” cap. i.) Guided in part by the light of his own description, in part by that which his correspondence sheds, we have traced the history of one of these great historians. We are now to follow that of the other with similar advantages from the lights of his own pen. Edward Gibbon was descended from a considerable and ancient family settled in the county of Kent, and land-owners there as early as the beginning of the fourteenth century. Their respectability may be judged from the circumstance that in Edward III.'s reign John Gibbon, the head of the house, was king's architect, and received the grant of a hereditary toll in Stonar Passage, as a reward for the construction of Queenborough Castle. One of the family, in Henry the Sixth's reign, married Fiennes, Lord Say and Sele, the Lord High Treasurer; and from him the historian descended in the eleventh generation, belonging to a younger branch of the Gibbons who settled in London in the reign of James 1., and engaged in commerce. His grandfather acquired in these pursuits considerable wealth, and was at the end of Queen Anne's reign commissioner of the customs, together with Prior the poet. His family had always been of the Tory party, and his promotion came from the Queen's Tory Ministry. In 1716 he became a director of the South Sea Company, and he was proved to have then been possessed of above a hundred thousand pounds, all of which he lost, except a pittance granted by the authors of the violent proceedings that confiscated the estates of the directors; one of the most flagrant acts of injustice, and ex póst facto legislation, of which history affords any record. All were compelled to disclose their property; exorbitant security for their appearance was exacted; they were restrained from making any mortgage or transfer or exchange. They prayed to be heard against the bill; this prayer was refused; three-and-thirty persons were condemned, absent and unheard; the pittance allotted to each was made the subject of unfeeling jest; motions to give one a pound, another a shilling, were made; the most absurd tales were told, and eagerly believed, resting on no kind of proof, and on these the votes of the House of Commons were passed. The outrages of despots in barbarous countries and dark ages seldom can go beyond this parliamentary proceeding of a popular legislature in a civilized community and an enlightened age, the country of Locke, Newton, Somers, and while yet their immortal names shed a lustre on the eighteenth century of the Christian era. Nor is it possible to contemplate this legislative enormity without reflecting on the infirm title of the very lawgivers who perpetrated it. The act was one passed in 1720 by the first septennial Parliament during the four years which it had added to its lawful existence, having been chosen in 1715 for only three years, and extended its existence to seven. It is a creditable thing to the historian that, believing the Protestant succession to have been saved (as it certainly was) by that measure, he always gave his vote against its repeal. Nor was the spirit of the people more inclined to justice than that of their unchosen representatives. Whatever may have been the unpopularity of the original Septennial Act in those Jacobite times, the violence done to the South Sea Directors was amply justified by the public voice. Complaints were indeed made, and loudly; but it was of the mercy shown to those whom the fury of disappointed speculators called "monsters," "traitors,"" the cannibals of Change Alley." Their blood was called for in a thousand quarters; and the shame of the Parliament was loudly proclaimed to be, that no one had been hanged for the crime of having engaged in an unsuccessful adventure. So regardless of all reason and justice, and even common sense, is the accursed thirst of gold that raises the demon of commercial gambling! When Mr. Gibbon's fortune, amounting to 106,000., was confiscated, two sums being proposed as his allowance, fifteen thousand and ten thousand, the smaller was immediately adopted; but his life being prolonged for sixteen years, his industry was so fruitful that he left nearly as large a fortune as the violence of Parliament had robbed him of. Dying in 1736, he left the historian's father, his son, and two daughters, one of whom married Mr. Elliott of Cornwall, afterwards Lord Elliott. The celebrated author of the "Serious Call," William Law, lived as tutor in the family, and is supposed to have designed the son by the name of Flatus in that popular work. A lady of the family still settled in Kent, married Mr. Yorke Gibbon, the father of Lord Hardwick; and by another, the historian was related to the Actons, who afterwards settled in Naples. 'T'he estates left by the Director were situate at Putney in Surrey, and in Hampshire, near Petersfield, in which he possessed so large an influence that his son represented it in Parliament. Edward the historian was born at Putney, April 27, 1737, his mother being a daughter of Mr. Porten, a merchant in London, who lived near the church of that village. Mr. Gibbon afterwards sat for Southampton, and continued in Parliament until 1747. Edward's infancy was exceedingly delicate, and his life with difficulty preserved. He was treated with unceasing care by his maternal aunt, Mrs. Catharine Porten; and it was not easy to teach him reading, writing, and accounts, though quick enough of capacity. At seven years of age he was placed under John Kirby, a poor Cumberland curate, as private tutor, and author of some popular works; and two years after, he was sent to a private academy, kept by a Dr. Wooddeson, at Kingston. Next year his mother died, and soon after her father became bankrupt; so that his kind aunt was driven from Putney to keep a boarding-house at Westminster School, and his father, inconsolable for his wife's death, left Surrey to bury himself in his Hampshire property. Mrs. Porten took her sickly nephew with her to Westminster, where, in the course of two years, he "painfully ascended into the third form." But his health continued so feeble, that it became necessary to remove him, and he was consigned to the care of a female servant at Bath. As his sixteenth year approached he became much more robust, and he was placed under Mr. Francis, Sir Philip's father, who then taught at Esher in Surrey. Soon, however, his relations found that the ill-principled tutor preferred the pleasures of London to the duties of his school; and they removed his pupil to Oxford, where he was entered as a gentleman-commoner of Magdalen College, 2d April, 1752, a few weeks before he had completed his fifteenth year. Hitherto it may truly be said, that, partly from his feeble health, partly from the neglect of his instructers, he had been taught little, and left to acquire information either by his own efforts or the conversation of his excellent aunt. Fortunately she was a well-read person, of sound judgment, and correct taste; and she delighted to direct, and to form his mind by pointing out the best books, and❤ helping him to understand them. His reading, however, was necessarily desultory, and in the classics he made but an inconsiderable progress, although he had acquired a competent knowledge of the Latin tongue. But the bent of his inclination had already disclosed itself. While he read other books, he devoured histories. The Universal History" was then in the course of publication, and he eagerly pored over the volumes as they successively appeared. In the summer of 1751, he accompanied his father on a visit to Mr. Hoare, in Wiltshire, and finding in the library the con |