1827.] 



Biographical Memoirs of Eminent Persons. 



443 



lative Body, but retired from that Assembly 

 in 1812, and was appointed Prefect of tbe 

 Lower Seine. In 1814, he acted viith the 

 Royalists, in opposition to Buonaparte ; and 

 Louis XVIII. made him a Knight of the 

 Order of St. Louis. It would not appear, 

 however, that, as a public character, he ever 

 possessed tbe confidence of tbe King. When 

 Buonaparte returned from Elba, Girardin 

 was elected a member of the Chamber of 

 Deputies. The King:, when re-instated, re- 

 stored to him the Prefectship of the Lower 

 Seine, but soou afterwards dismissed him. 

 In 1819, be was again employed for a short 

 time in the Cote d'Or, and again dismissed. 

 He has since distinguished himself in the 

 Chamber of Deputies, as a strenuous sup- 

 porter of the rights of the people. 



THE MARQUIS DE LA PLACE. 

 France has experienced a serious loss in 

 the death of the Marquis de la Place, a ma- 

 thematician and astronomer of the first rank. 

 This distinguished ornament of science was 

 the son of a husbandman, resident at Beau- 

 mont-en Auge, near Pont L'eveque. He was 

 born in the year 1749. For some time he 

 taught the mathematics at the school in his 

 native town ; but he was induced to regard 

 Paris as the only proper sphere for his talents. 

 There, by his skill in analysis, and in the 

 higher geometry, he soon acquired reputa- 

 tion. At the expense, and under the imme- 

 diate patronage of the president, De Saron, 

 he published his first work : this, we believe, 

 was his Theory of the Motion and Elliptical 

 Figure of the Planets. M. La Place was the 

 successor of Bezout, as examiner of the Royal 

 Corps of Artillery ; and he became, succes- 

 sively, member of the Academy of Sciences, 

 of the National Institute, and of the Board 

 of Longitude. In the year 1796, he dedi- 

 cated, to the counsel of five hundred, his 

 work, entitled The Exposition of the System 

 of tbe World. In the same year, he ap- 

 peared before the bar 'of that Assembly, at 

 the head of a deputation, to present the an- 

 nual report of the proceedings of the National 

 Institute ; and, in an appropriate address, 

 devoted to the memory of men of talents and 

 learning, he paid an affecting tribute to the 

 worth of his generous benefactor, De Saron. 

 Some time afterwards, he was, under the 

 Consular government, appointed Minister of 

 the Interior ; from which office he was, in 

 December, 1799, transferred to the Conser- 

 vative Senate, to make room for Lucien 

 Buonaparte. In July, 1803, he was elected 

 President of the Conservative Senate ; and, 

 in September, he became Chancellor of that 

 body, with the title of Grand Cordon of the 

 Legion of Honour. In September, 1805, he 

 made a report to the Senate, on the neces- 

 sity of resuming the Gregorian calendar, and 

 discarding that of the revolution a piece of 

 mummery which, with all its absurdities, had 

 been stolen from the Dutch colonists, at the 

 Cape of Good Hope. M. La Place was, in 

 181], named counsellor to the Maternal 



society; and, in 1813, Grand Cordon of the 

 Re-union. In April, 1814, he voted for a 

 provisional government, and the dethrone- 

 ment of Buonaparte ; services for which 

 Louis XVIII. rewarded him with the dig- 

 nity of a peer. He was nominated a member 

 of tbe French Academy, in 1816, and Presi- 

 dent of the Commission for the Re-organiza- 

 tion of the Polytechnic School. 



Besides numerous articles in the collections 

 of the National Institute, the Academy of 

 Sciences, and the Polytechnic School, the 

 principal works of La Place were as follow : 

 Theory of the Motion and Elliptical Figure 

 of the Planets, 1784 ; Theory of the Attrac- 

 tions of Spheroids, and the Figure of the 

 Planets, 1785 ; Exposition of the System of 

 the World, 2 vols. 1796 ; Treatise on Celes- 

 tial Mechanism, 4 vols. 1799, 1803, 180<5 ; 

 Analytical Theory of Probabilities, 1812; 

 Philosophical Essay on Probabilities, 1814. 



The Marquis de la Place was, if we mis- 

 take not, the first who analytically proved 

 the existence and extent of the lunar atmos- 

 phere, and verified its secular equation. He 

 also determined the reciprocal perturbations 

 of all the principal planets; and he for- 

 warded, by important discoveries, a similar 

 work on the Satellites of Jupiter, com- 

 menced by Lagrange, and completed by 

 Delambre. 



This nobleman's studies, however, were 

 not confined to the mathematics, geometry, 

 and astronomy : he devoted himself, with 

 considerable ardour, to chemistry; in con- 

 junction with Lavoisier, he invented the 

 calorimiter; and he repeated the experiments 

 of Monge and Cavendish, on the decomposi- 

 tion of water. 



The Marquis died, much regretted, on the 

 5th of March, in the present year. 



DR. EVANS. 



The Rev. John Evans, LL.D. was born at 

 Usk, in Monmouthshire, in the year 1767. 

 He was educated at the Dissenting Academy, 

 Bristol, whence he removed, in 1787, to 

 King's College, Aberdeen. In 1791, he 

 settled in London ; and has ever since offi- 

 ciated, with great credit to himself, and satis- 

 faction to his congregation, at the Baptist 

 Meeting-house in Worship Street. 



Dr. Evans had an establishment for youth 

 at Islington ; his political principles were 

 remarkable for soundness and loyalty; he 

 was the author and editor of numerous re- 

 ligious, moral, and literary publications ; 

 and, without the remotest pretension to 

 genius, or high talent, he was a very useful 

 man in his day. 



Dr. Evans's best known work is his Brief 

 Sketch of the Denominations into which the 

 Christian World is Divided ; the first edition 

 of which was published in 1793, and it has 

 since gone through many large editions. Its 

 plan, and the liberality of its tone, are its 

 chief recommendations. A work of the same 

 nature, but infinitely superior, might, and 

 ought to be produced. 



3L2 



