MEMOIR OF DELAMBRE., 
BY JOSEPH FOURIER, PERPETUAL SECRETARY OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES: 
’ 
TRANSLATED FOR THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION BY C. A. ALEXANDER, 
To have acquired, from his early youth, a familiar knowledge of the great 
works of antiquity, and of the languages and literature of modern times; to 
have dedicated himself to the study of the heavens, and identified his name 
with an enterprise of wide renown and eminent utility; to have written with 
ability the history of ancient science, as well as of the most recent discoveries ; 
and with these proofs of mental superiority to have united the noblest qualities 
of the heart—in these sentences may be summed up the entire life of the dis- 
tinguished man whose character and labors I propose to retrace. Few will fail, 
in the traits thus given, to recognize Delambre, or to feel in the review a re- 
newal of the regrets occasioned by his recent loss. 
Delambre was born at Amiens, the 19th of September, 1749. The abbé 
Delille, a distinguished professor of letters in the college of that city, soon re- 
cognized in his youthful pupil a union of the gentlest manners with surprising 
powers of memory and an early familiarity with the ancient languages. In 
developing these first germs of talent and taste, the abbé succeeded in inspiring 
a passion for continued and unremitting application, the indispensable prerequi- 
site of all permanent success. A friendship was thus cemented between these 
two celebrated individuals which continued to the end, with equal disinterested- 
ness and constancy on the part of both. 
To continue in the capital a course of study thus auspiciously commenced 
was beyond the means of Delambre’s family, already burdened with a ‘numerous 
charge. Fortunately, however, a gratuitous scholarship had been founded at 
some former period by one of the members of that family, in the University of 
Paris, and being at the disposal of the city of Amiens, was now conferred on 
the young Delambre. The benefaction thus reverted towards its source, nor 
could a destination more just or worthy have been given it. The recipient, 
already digtinguished in every path of literary study, was destined one day to 
reflect on his country the lustre of imperishable labors. While completing the 
course of studies which bears the name of philosophy, he still recurred, with 
unwearied assiduity, to that ancient literature which had shaped the culture of 
his earlier years, and which the pupil of the abbé Delille could scarcely fail 
to prosecute with brilliant success. 
The time allotted to the appointment he held had passed away, and his 
family, seemingly persuaded that talent ought to suffice for everything, left him 
to provide for his own establishment. More than a year thus elapsed in vague 
expectation, during which time the most extraordinary privations were endured, 
not merely with constancy, but indifference. It would be difficult to believe, 
had we not Delambre’s own word for it, to what an extent this restriction of 
his expenses was carried. Absorbed in literary and historical studies, he 
scarcely regarded as desirable what others would have considered indispensable. 
Silently laying the foundation of his future labors, he engaged at this time in 
extensive translations from the Latin, Greek, Italian, and English, and com- 
menced also the study of mathematics ; the whole not with any view to profit, 
