1813.] M. Lavoisier. 83 



combination of chlorine with combustible bodies, as well as 

 oxygen. Indeed, it seems established that combustion takes 

 place in all cases of very rapid combination, whenever one of 

 the combining substances changes its state, and from being 

 gaseous or liquid becomes solid ; so that the Lavoisierian theory 

 of combustion is now, we believe, universally abandoned ; but 

 this does not detract from the merit of Lavoisier, nor diminish 

 the value of his discoveries. 



In the year 1 789 M. Lavoisier published an exposition of his 

 theory in a work to which he gave the title of Elements of Che- 

 mistry, a work which cannot be praised too highly, whether we 

 consider the arrangement or the matter. 



M. Lavoisier under the old French Government was one of 

 the farmers-general of the revenue, a situation usually attended 

 with much unpopularity. About the commencement of the 

 French revolution, he was appointed to superintend the salt- 

 petre works, which exist in considerable numbers in France. 

 As long as the management of affairs continued in the hands of 

 men of respectability and education, neither his income nor his 

 situation in life was injured ; but after the destruction of the 

 Brissotin faction, when Robespierre and his vandals assumed the 

 supreme power, all the institutions of education, all literature 

 and science, were immediately proscribed, and the object of the 

 ruling faction seemed to be to bring back France to a state of 

 absolute barbarism. During this dreadful period Lavoisier 

 became apprehensive that he would be stripped of his property, 

 and he informed Lalande that if such an event took place he 

 would support himself by commencing apothecary ; but his days 

 were cut short by the bloody policy of the ruling faction. He 

 was accused of defrauding the public revenue ; and in those 

 dreadful days accusation and condemnation were scarcely ever 

 separated. He was thrown into prison, and suffered on the 

 scaffold on the 8th of May, 1794, in the fiftv-first year of his 

 age. He was employed at the time in a set of experiments on 

 respiration, and requested a delay of a few days in order to finish 

 his observations ; but he was answered, that the Republic had 

 no occasion for chemists, and hurried out to immediate execu- 

 tion. 



Let us now take a view of the numerous writings of Lavoi- 

 sier ; by which he secured to himself so high a reputation, and 

 produced so great a change in the science of chcmistiy. 



1. His first work, as far as I am acquainted with his writings, 

 was a volume of essays, physical and chemical, published in the 

 year 1 77 i- This volume, which was translated into English by 

 Mr. Henry, of Manchester, and into German by Mr Wfeigei 

 is divided into two parts. I„ ,| 1( . first part he gives a minute 

 and pretty accurate historical detail of the discoveries made in 



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