32 Ehge of Alexander Volta, 



his intercourse with the scientific world ceased. He scarcely 

 admitted a few of the many strangers who came to pay their re- 

 spects to him, attracted by his wide-spread reputation. In 

 1823, a shght attack of apoplexy brought on some alarming 

 symptoms, but the prompt application of medicine succeeded in 

 removing them. Four years afterwards, in 1827, about the be- 

 ginning of March, the venerable old man was seized with a fever, 

 which in a few days subdued his remaining strength. He died 

 on the 5th of the same month without pain. He was then aged 

 eighty-two years and fifteen days. 



Como celebrated the obsequies of Volta with great pomp. 

 The professors and students of the Lyceum, the friends of science, 

 and all the enlightened inhabitants of the town and neighbour- 

 hood, hastened to accompany to their final resting-place the mor- 

 tal remains of the illustrious philosopher, the virtuous father of 

 a family, and the charitable citizen. The handsome monument 

 which they have erected to his memory, near the picturesque 

 village of Camnago, from which Volta's family Originated, testi- 

 fies, in the most conspicuous manner, the sincerity of their grief. 

 AH; Italy participated in the sorrow of Milan ; but on this side 

 the Alps, a still more poignant sorrow prevailed. Such as are 

 surprised at this assertion, have not observed that, on the same 

 day, and almost at the same hour, France lost the author of the 

 Mecanique Celeste. For six preceding years, Volta was dead to 

 all but his own family. The"names of the electrometer, conden- 

 sator, and even of the pile itself, no longer retained the power 

 of making his heart beat quicker ! Laplace, on the contrary, 

 preserved to the last that ardour and vivacity of mind, and im- 

 passioned zeal for scientific discoveries, which rendered him du- 

 ring half a century the heart of our meetings. When death 

 surprised him at the age of seventy-eight years, he was publish- - 

 ing a continuation of the fifth volume of his great work. On re- 

 flecting on the greatness of this loss, it will be acknowledged, I 

 doubt not, that it would be doing the Academy injustice to re- 

 proach her for having concentrated all her thoughts on the dis- 

 mal loss she had sustained. — With regard to myself, gentlemen, 

 my only apprehension is, that I have not succeeded to your wishes 

 in evincing the immense services rendered to science by the il- 

 lustrious Professor of Pavia. I flatter myself, at all events, that 



