120 EULOGY ON AMPERE. 



and the higlier kinds of poetry. Take for example a letter handed to 

 me recently, by oiu- learned colleague M. Isidore Geoffroy, from Boui-g, 

 and read by him, the 26th germinal, year XI, before the Emulation 

 Society of Ain, beginning thus: 



Vons voulez, done, belle Emilie, 

 Que de Gresset on dllamilton 

 Devobaut le leger crayou, 

 J'aille cherclier daus ma folie, 

 Siu" les rosiers de I'Helicon, 

 S'il reste encor quelqiie boiiton 

 De taut de lleurs qu'ils ont cueillies; 

 Souveut mes teudi'es reveries, etc. 



Then, TTOuldst thou, fairest Emily, 



Have me steal the pencil free 

 Of Gresset or of Hamilton; 



And wend my way to Helicon, 

 To see if on the rose trees there 

 Some buds remain, they well could spare 



From all the flowers they have culled 

 To glean some bud they well could spare 



To be for thy soft bosom pulled. 



I am not sure that the beautiful Emily was not one of those imagi- 

 nary beings so lavishlj) invested by poets with perfections of their own 

 ci-eation ; but the friends of Ampere will remember that the eminently 

 good, beautiful and distinguished woman, who had united her destiny 

 with his, had often inspired his muse; many will recall some lines, 

 whose first appearance excited no little sensation ; 



Que j'aime h m¥,garer dans ces routes flenries, 

 Oil je t 'ai vue errer sous uu dais de lilas; 

 Que j'aime a rep6ter aux nymphos attendries, 

 Siir I'herbe oil tu t'assis, les vers que tu chantas. 



Les voila ces jasmins dont je t'avais parde, 



Ce bouquet de troene a touch6 tes cheveux, etc. 



'Tis sweet my wandering steps to lose 



Along the path of flowers, 

 Where lighter feet were wont to choose, 



Their way mid lilac bowers: 

 And on the turf that thou hast prest, 



To breathe forth once again. 

 The song that made the wood nymphs blest, 



Thine own enchanting strain. 



They lie around, those jasmins fair 



With which I deck'd thy brow ; 

 That privet, it hath touched thy hair, 



To me 'tis sacred now. 



A certain mathematician once made the sad mistake of publishing 

 some verses, faultless as to measure and rhyme, but without other 

 merit. A witty lady, hearing them read, remarked. that the author 

 of the lines, after the exami^le of M. Jourdain, wrote prose tvithoiit 

 hioioing it. Many writers, called poets, though never having passed 

 through a course of geometry, have fallen into the same error. A 

 satirical remark, however, cannot revive the so often silenced question 

 of the chilling influences of scientific studies. Such names as those of 



