UO Biographical Memoir of Sir John Leslie. 



recent discoveries on the Polarity of Light have confirmed. 

 Even Laplace has, in consequence of some observations of 

 mine, silently omitted a passage in the last edition of his »SV/i- 

 tcvie du Monde. 1 paid a visit the other day at Arcueil. 

 BerthoUet has a fine chateau seated on a bank amidst gardens, 

 vineyards, he. ; and Laplace has another, little inferior, and 

 adjoining to the grounds. I dine with Laplace next Sunday. 

 Some person had informed him that I was the author of a cri- 

 tique in the Edinburgh Review on a paper of his, and he had 

 sent an answer to me, which, however, I never received." * 

 The following extract from another letter, written at Bor- 

 deaux, in the beginning of September, gives a rapid and hvely 

 sketch of his journey to that place : — " My tour has furnished 

 what I wanted — a number of images of the milder and hotter 

 regions of the Continent. From Paris I proceeded to Macon, 

 over a rich and well cultivated country, covered with wheat and 

 vineyards, the crop for the most part already gathered in. 

 Thence I descended the Somme, a fine, clear river, to Lyons ; 

 the banks covered with luxuriant vineyards stretching to a 

 range of hills, and the waved surface sprinkled with trees, in- 

 termixed with frequent villages, and lively villas, all of white 

 limestone. At Lyons I met with the celebrated Baron Zach, 

 and was conducted by him in his carriage to the fountain of 

 Vaucluse, Avignon, and thence to Marseilles. His society was 

 particularly entertaining and instructive. We now passed 

 through the country of the mulberry, the fig, and the olive ; but 

 I confess that Provence did not come up to my expectation. I 

 have seen, what I had much longed to see, the awful fountain of 

 Vaucluse, and the blue expanse of the Mediterranean ; but the 

 shores at Marseilles are terminated liy gray, naked rocks, shoot- 

 ing fantastically to great heights. I staid some days at Mai- 

 seilles, and spent most of my time at a country house occupied 

 by the old Duchess of Saxe-Gotha, with whom Baron Zach 

 lives in quality of Chamberlain. I found her very kind and 

 affable, and extremely glad to hear any news of the Royal Fa- 



* This must allude to a paper by Laplace Oti the Motion of Light in Diapha- 

 nous Media, published in the Manoires de la Societe d' Arcueil. These Memoirs 

 ■were reviewed bj Professor Leslie, in two articles, in the fifteenth volume of 

 the Edinburgh Review. They formed his first contributions to that Journal. 



