1011 



FRISI, PAOLO. 



FRITH, WILLIAM POWELL, R.A. 



1042 



of the B.irnabites, of whose order he became a member. At this time 

 apparently the cultivation of the sciences formed no part of the dis- 

 cipline of the institution ; Frisi acquired however some notion of 

 geography from a number of old maps which lined the walls of the 

 corridors, and he made considerable progress in the study of mathe- 

 matics, with almost no other aid than that of a few books of which he 

 obtained possession. 



From Milan he was sent to the University of Pavia, where he studied 

 theology ; and at intervals of leisure he greatly extended his knowledge 

 of mathematics. He was afterwards appointed to give instruction in 

 philosophy at Lodi ; and while at this place he composed a treatise 

 entitled 'Disquisitio Mathematica in Caussam Physicam Figurae et 

 Magnitudinis Telluris nostra,' which his friend Donate Silva, at his 

 own expense, caused to be published at Milan in 1751. In this work 

 proof is given, agreeably to the Newtonian system, that the earth has 

 the form of an oblate spheroid ; and its merit procured for the author 

 an invitation from the king of Sardinia to deliver lectures in philosophy 

 at Casal. Frisi accepted the invitation ; but the Acaddmie des Sciences 

 of Paris having in 1753 nominated him one of its foreign correspondents, 

 the honour thus conferred upon him seems to have induced the prin- 

 cipal)) of his order at Milan to give him the appointment of professor 

 of philosophy in the college of St. Alexander in that city. His 

 dissertation on the figure of the earth was about that time criticised 

 by an ill-informed person, a Jesuit, who asserted that the arguments 

 were inconclusive, and who reproached the author with attempting to 

 obscure the glory of Italian science by the adoption of English ideas. 

 Such an adversary was easily silenced, but the attack produced in the 

 mind of Frisi a rooted dislike to the Jesuits in general. In answer 

 to the objections made to some of the propositions he wrote a work 

 called ' Eatratto del Capo Quarto del Quinto Volume della Storia 

 Literaria d'ltalia,' &c., which was published at Milan in 1755. 



In the same year he published at Lugano a tract entitled ' Saggio 

 della Morale Filosofia,' &c. ; and, at Milan, his work ' De Existentia 

 et Motu yKtheris, seu de Theoria Electricitatis,' &c. About the same 

 time he took occasion to oppose in public the belief in witchcraft 

 and magic, which then existed in Italy ; and this boldness, together 

 with a certain freedom in his manner of living, appears to have raised 

 up against him many enemies : fearing their machinations, he wished 

 to withdraw from Milan, and he gladly accepted an appointment in 

 the University of Pisa, which was conferred upon him in 1756 by the 

 gruud-duke Leopold. While holding this post hn published, in Latin 

 (Lucca, 1757), select dissertations on the subject of electricity, which 

 two years before had been written by Euler, Resaud, and himself, for 

 the prize proposed by the Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg ; and 

 a tract entitled ' De Motu Diurno Terra)' (Pisa, 1758), which had 

 obtained the prize proposed by the Royal Academy of Berlin. He also 

 published ' Dissertationes Varia)' in two volumes; of which the first 

 (Lucca, 1760) contains a tract entitled ' De Atmosphajra Coelestium 

 Corporum,' nnd the second (Lucca, 1761) two others, entitled ' Do 

 luueqiinlitatibus Motus Planetarum omnium in Orbitis Circularibus 

 atque Ellipticis' (in two books), and ' De Methodo Fluxionum 

 Geometricaram.' 



In 1760 Frisi made a journey to Home and Naples in consequence 

 of a commission which he received from the pope, Clement XIII., to 

 examine and report upon a subject in dispute between the people of 

 Ferrara and Bologna respecting tho navigation of certain rivers : he 

 also assisted with his advice the commissioners appointed by the 

 Venetians to repair tho damages caused by the overflowing of the 

 Brunta; and for these services, though he appears to have excited the 

 jealousy of the engineers of the country, and to have made enemies of 

 many persons whose estates were affected by the measures which were 

 taken in consequence of his reports, he was liberally remunerated 

 both by the pope and the Venetians. In 1761 he published, at Lucca, 

 a tract entitled ' Piano de' Lavori da farsi per liberare e assicurare 

 dalle Acque le Provincie di Bologna, di Ferrara, di Ravenna,' &c. ; and, 

 in the following year, one in three books, entitled ' Del Modo di rego- 

 lure i Fiumi e Torrent! principalmente del Bolognese e della Ilomagna.' 

 Of this there have been four editions. He returned to Milan in 1764, 

 having been appointed professor of mathematics in that city, and, 

 except occasional absences, he continued to reside there till his death. 

 In the year 1766 he made a visit to France, and thence he camo 

 to London, where, as well as in Paris, he received great attentions from 

 the learned : the Portuguese ambassador in the latter city proposed to 

 him an appointment in Lisbon, but this he declined, being unwilling 

 entirely to leave his country. Two years afterwards he went to Vienna, 

 where aUo he was well received, and where he was consulted on the 

 subject of the disputes between the pope and the emperor. 



Soon after his return, the pope (Pius VI.) gave him a dispensation 

 from his monastic engagements, and he lived subsequently as a secular 

 priest. In 1778 he made a journey to Switzerland, where he con- 

 ceived the idea of writing a tract on subterranean rivers ; and this, 

 with dissertations on the meteorological influence of the moon, on 

 conductors of electricity, and on the heat of the earth, he published 



ilan, in 1781, under the title of ' Opuscoli Filosofici.' 



In tho year 1770, having previously enjoyed excellent health, he 



firt felt the symptoms of a painful disease ; these gradually increased 



in violence, and eight years afterwards, in the hope of obtaining relief, 



ha underwent an operation: a mortification however ensued, and 



terminated his life at Milan, November 22, 1784, in his sixty-seventh 

 year. He was buried in the church of St. Alexander in that city, 

 and the Barnabites honoured his tomb with an epitaph in Latin. 



In 1757 Frisi was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London : 

 he was also a member of the Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg, 

 of the Academies of Berlin, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Berne, and 

 of the Institute of Bologna. He received a golden medal in 1759 from 

 the archduke Joseph, afterwards emperor j and the empress Maria 

 Theresa granted him a pension for life. 



Besides the works which have been mentioned Frisi published 

 many others; and of these the following are the principal: 'Pre- 

 lectio habita llediolani,' viii. idus Maii, (1764;) 'Saggio sopra 1'Archi- 

 tettura Gotica ' (Leghorn, 1766) ; ' De Gravitate Uuiveraali libri tri 



Commeutarii" (Parma, 1769); ' Coamographia; Physicae et Mathe- 

 uiaticEe,' 2 torn. 4to. (Milan, 1774, 1775) this is considered his prin- 

 cipal work; 'Del' Architettura, Statica, e Idraulica' (Milan, 1777) 

 ' 1'auli Frisii Operuru : ' torn. 1, Algebram et Geometriam Aualyticam 

 contineus (Milan, 17S2) ; torn. 2, Mechanicam Uuiversam et Mechanicie 

 Applicationem ad Aquarum Fluentium Theoriam (ibid, 1783). The 

 third volume, which treats of Cosmography, was published by two of 

 his brothers after his death. He published, at various times, notices 

 of the lives of Galileo Galilei and Bonaventura Cavalieri, of Sir Isaac 

 Newton, Douato Silva, and Titus Pomponius Atticus : he wrote a 

 notice of the empress Maria Theresa, which was published at Pisa in 

 1783, without his name ; and one of D'Alembert, which was published 

 after his death. He also left several works in manuscript. 



* FRITH, WILLIAM POWELL, R.A., a native of Yorkshire, was 

 born in 1819. Having shown a decided predilection for art, he was 

 about 1835 placed in Sass's school, Charlotte-street, Bloomsbury, and 

 thence proceeded to the schools of the Royal Academy. After a trial 

 with an unimportant picture at the British Institution in 1839, he 

 the following year sent to the exhibition of the Royal Academy a very 

 promising painting of ' Malvolio before the Countess Olivia.' In suc- 

 ceeding years he contributed pictures of the same order from Shakspere 

 Scott, Sterne, Goldsmith, and Moliere, making his way steadily as a 

 clever and careful artist, remarkable however more for skill and taste 

 in execution than for originality of conception or intellectual power. 

 In 1844 he made indeed a somewhat more ambitious effort than he 

 had previously essayed, in an ' Interview between John Knox and 

 Mary Queen of Scots, respecting her Marriage with Darnley ;' but it 

 was not very successful, and he returned to his more homely range of 

 subjects in the ' Village Pastor,' from Goldsmith, which appeared at 

 the exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1845, and obtained his election 

 as an associate of that institution. The next year he furnished one of 

 his' best pictures, 'Madame Jourdain discovering her Husband at the 

 Dinner which he gave to the Belle Marquise and the Count Dorante,' 

 in which Mr. Frith has perhaps made as near an approach to humour 

 as in any picture he has yet painted. The next year however, 

 stimulated by his newly-acquired honours, he put forth his powers in 

 a larger and more elaborate work, ' An English Merry-Making a 

 Hundred Years ago,' which attracted general attention, and, though 

 it was a year of great pictures, Mr. Frith's not only kept its place, but 

 proved indeed one of the most popular pictures of the year. Tho next 

 season saw from his pencil three pictures of a somewhat different 

 character' An Old Woman, accused of having Bewitched a Peasant, 

 brought before a Country Justice,' in which the mingling of mirth 

 and sentiment was not very happy ; ' A Stage-Coach Adventure in 

 1750 ;' and a ' Scene from the Bourgeois Gentilhomme.' In 1849 

 appea -ed his ' Coming of Age," so well known from Mr. Holl's engraving. 

 It is only necessary to mention the most marked of his subsequent 

 pictures. In the exhibition of 1851 he had a very clever work, 

 ' Hogarth brought before the Governor of Calais as a Spy.' ' Pope 

 making love to Lady Mary Wortley Montague' (1852), though a 

 pretentious was an unpleasant rendering of a subject essentially 

 unadapted for anything better than a coarse wood-cut. A far better 

 picture was ' Life at the Sea-Side ' (1853), a view of Ramsgato beach 

 in the height of the ' season,' depicted with much quaint grace and 

 some humour like a sketch of Leech's worked up into a well-painted 

 picture. This picture caught the general fancy more perhaps than 

 any other of Mr. Frith's works, and had the honour of being purchased 

 by her Majesty : an engraving from it is now in course of execution 

 by Mr. Sharpe. ' Maria tricks Malvolio,' was the title of his principal 

 contribution in 1855 ; and ' Many happy Returns of the Day,' that in 

 1856. Mr. Frith was elected R.A. in 1S53. 



Mr. Frith is on tho whole one of the most equal of our established 

 painters. His failures are chiefly such as arise from mischoice of 

 subject ; the technical part is always carefully executed, and seldom 

 exhibits any very palpable mistake or shortcoming. But if there is 

 never any great failure there is never any distinguished success. Hia 

 pictures are literally level to every capacity. His ladies are always 

 plump and pretty and well-dressed. Whatever their part, they carry 

 all the dainty drawing-room gracefulnesses and proprieties into it. They 

 are evidently playing their part with a full consciousness that they are 

 being looked at and admired while playing it. The men are equally 

 plump, smooth-faced, and well-dressed, and even more artificial. The 



