433 



'SGRAVESANDE, WILLIAM JACOB. 



SHAFEI. 



434 



who were in tbe opposite army, he was defeated and taken prisoner, 

 and sent to France, where he was imprisoned in the castle of Loches 

 till 1508, when he died. 



Ludovico had several good qualities ; he was generous, fond of the 

 arts and of learned men ; he was the friend of Bramante and Leonardo 

 da Vinci, with whose assistance he embellished Milan, built the 

 lazaretto, instituted tho public schools, protected Merula, Calchon- 

 dylas, and other distinguished scholars, and founded chairs of Greek, 

 geometry, and astronomy. Ludovico's policy was artful and crooked ; 

 he had obtained the ducal throne by unfair means, but it was un- 

 fortunate for Milan that he lost it to make room for strangers. After 

 many years of war in Italy between French, Germans, and Spaniards, 

 during which his 'two sons Maximilian and Francis Sforza wero for 

 short periods seated on the ducal chair, being puppets in the hands of 

 their Swiss or German auxiliaries, Lombardy became finally an 

 Austrian dependency, and the house of Sforza became extinct. 



'SGRAVESANDE, WILLIAM JACOB, a Dutch mathematician and 

 philosopher, whose family name was Storm van 's Gravesande, was born 

 at Hertogenbosch (Bois-le-Duc), September 27, 1688. On the side of 

 his grandmother he was descended from the celebrated physician Jean 

 Heurnius, and some of his ancestors had been magistrates of Delft in 

 the beginning of the 15th century. 



He received his earliest education in his father's house, and while 

 very young he showed a decided predilection for scientific researches. 

 When sixteen years old he was sent to the University of Leyden to 

 study the law, and before the end of 1707 he took the degree of doctor. 

 His legal studies did not however prevent him from applying himself 

 to mathematical subjects, and before he was nineteen years of age he 

 published his ' Essai sur la Perspective ; ' a work which was favourably 

 noticed by John Bernoulli, and contains a development of the inge- 

 nious idea, that if a horizontal or an equatorial dial be viewed through 

 a plane inclined in any manner, by an eye at the extremity of the 

 gnomon, the perspective representation of the dial on that plane will 

 constitute a dial for the same plane. (Montucla, ' Hist, des Mathe"- 

 matiques,' torn, i., p. 733.) 'SGravesande, on his return to the Hague, 

 followed for a time the profession of a barrister ; but in 1713, a society 

 of young men of talent having undertaken a work entitled ' Le Journal 

 Litteraire,' he became one of its most zealous contributors, and fur- 

 nished for it numerous extracts from works relating to mathematics 

 and natural philosophy. He also published in the journal a paper 

 on the construction of the air-pump (in which machine he had made 

 some improvements), one on the theory of the collision of bodies, and 

 several other original dissertations. The work was afterwards carried 

 on at Leyden under the title of ' Journal de la Republique des Lettres,' 

 and it terminated in the year 1733. 



'SGravesande accompanied as secretary the deputies of the States- 

 General when they came to London in 1715, in order to congratulate 

 George I. on his accession to the throne of England. Here he became 

 acquainted with Dr. Burnet, bishop of Salisbury, and was made a 

 Fellow of the Royal Society ; and after his return to the Hague he 

 was made in 1717 professor of mathematics and astronomy in the 

 University of Leyden. During the vacations of the years 1721 and 

 1722 he made two journeys to Cassel, in consequence of invitations 

 from the Landgrave of Hesse, who wished to have the benefit of his 

 advice respecting a machine which was supposed to be capable of per- 

 petual motion, and who besides had manifested an enlightened taste 

 for experimental philosophy. 



In 1724 'SGravesande, on quitting the chair of mathematics at 

 Leyden, delivered an oration which, under the title ' De Evidentia,' he 

 afterwards printed at the head of the third edition of his 'Ele'mens 

 de Physique.' In this he ascribes the pre-eminence to mathematical 

 evidence, considering it as the only criterion of truth; and he makes 

 the sanction of moral evidence consist in the will of the Deity, by 

 whose law he supposes that man believes the testimony of his senses, 

 and trusts in the conclusions drawn from analogy. 



In 1730 'SGravesande added civil and military architecture to the 

 subjects which he taught, and four years afterwards he undertook to 

 give instructions in a course which comprehended logic, metaphysics, 

 and moral philosophy. From attachment to his country, 'SGravesande 

 declined in 1724 an invitation from Peter the Great, who wished him 

 to become a member of the Royal Academy, then recently formed at 

 St. Petersburg; and in 1740 a similar invitation from the King of 

 Prussia. He was occasionally employed as an engineer in superintending 

 the hydraulic operations which were executed in Holland. He was also 

 consulted by the ministers of the States when measures relating to 

 finance were in contemplation; and haviug a great facility in discovering 

 the key to secret writing, he was of great service during the war of the 

 Succession in deciphering such of the enemy's despatches as happened 

 to be intercepted. 



This distinguished professor was the first who on the Continent 

 publicly taught the philosophy of Newton, and he thus contributed to 

 bring about a revolution in the physical sciences ; but he is said to 

 have been more skilful in making observations and experiments than 

 in conducting transcendental researches; and falling into an error 

 respecting the nature of force, by confounding what is called living or 

 active force, which is represented by the product of a body's mass 

 multiplied into the square of its velocity, with simple force, which is 

 proportional to the velocity merely, he was led to adopt the opinion 



BIOG. DIV. VOL. V. 



of Leibnitz on this subject, in opposition to that of Newton. * It is 

 further observed that 'SGravesande, whose philosophical lectures are 

 distinguished by a simplicity which is the true language of science, was 

 not always consistent in the development of his ideas. His ' Intro- 

 duction to Philosophy ' is the work of a disciple of Locke, yet he neither 

 adopted the particular doctrines of that writer, nor did he propose any 

 system of his own, but he borrowed by turns the principles assumed 

 by different philosophers. 



He married in 1720, and had two sons, whom he had the misfortune 

 to lose within eight days of each other, when the eldest was fourteen 

 and the other thirteen years of age. He supported this heavy affliction 

 with the fortitude of a Christian philosopher ; and after a long sickness 

 he died, February 28, 1742, being then in the fifty-fourth year of 

 his age. 



The principal works of 'SGravesande are the ' Essai de Perspective/ 

 1711 ; ' Physices Elementa Mathematica,' &c., of which the first edition 

 was published at the Hague in 1720, and the sixth, which ia in English, 

 by Dr. Desaguliers in 1747; 'Philosophise Newtoniac Institution es in 

 usus Academisos,' an abridgment of the preceding work, Leyden, 1723; 

 'Matheseos Universalis Elementa,' &c., Leyden, 1727 ; ' Introductio ad 

 Philosophiam,' &c. : of this the first edition was published in 1736, 

 and the last in 1756. He also edited a collection of the works of 

 Huygens, and the * Arithmetica Universalis' of Newton. 



SHADWELL, THOMAS, a dramatic author, well known as the 

 hero of Dryden's satire of ' MacFlecknoe,' was born in Norfolk in 1610 

 of an ancient Staffordshire family. He was bred to the law, but dis- 

 liking the drudgery of an office, he quitted it and travelled abroad. 

 On his return to England he became intimate with the reigning wits, 

 and particularly with Rochester, Otway, and Dryden. He shortly after 

 produced his first comedy of ' The Sullen Lovers,' which was so well 

 received that he continued in this dramatic career, and became so 

 notable a man as to be set up by the Whigs as a rival of Dryden. la 

 1688, on the secession of Dryden from the poet-laureateship, Rochester 

 recommended Shadwell to the place. He died in 1692, it is said in 

 consequence of too large a dose of opium, which he was in the habit 

 of taking. 



Shad well's dramatic works are: 'The Sullen Lovers,' 1668; 'The 

 Royal Shepherdess,' 1669; 'The Humourist,' 1671; 'The Miser,' 

 1672; 'Epsom Wells,' 1673; 'Psyche,' 1675; 'The Libertine,' 1676; 

 'The Virtuoso,' 1676; 'Timon of Athens,' 1678; 'A True Widow,' 

 1679 ; ' The Woman Captain,' 1680 ; ' The Lancashire Witches,' 1682 ; 

 'The Squire of Alsatia,' 1688; 'Bury Fair,' 1689; 'The Amorous 

 Bigot,' 1690; ' The Scowerers,' 1691 ; 'The Volunteers,' 1693. A 

 complete edition was published in 1720 in 4 vols. 12mo. 



Thomas Shadwell owes his immortality to ridicule. Dryden, his 

 former friend, impaled him on the point of the keenest satire, and 

 there he remains for the laughter of ages. And yet nothing could be 

 more unjust than this satire, for of all Shad well's faults dulness 

 certainly was the least, and it was absurd to make him. 



" Through all the realms of dulness absolute ; " 



or to say 



" Mature in dulness from his tender years, 

 Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he 

 Who stands confirmed in full stupidity. 

 The rest to some faint meaning make pretence, 

 But Shadwell never deviates into sense." 



This is exquisite writing, but very untrue. Shadwell was a man of 

 much tact, observation, and liveliness, whose extreme negligence and 

 haste in writing alone seem to have been the cause of the short-coming 

 of his comedies. Rochester, who certainly was a good judge of wit 

 and vivacity, said 



" Of all our modern wits none seem to me 

 Once to have touched upon true comedy 

 But hasty Shadwell and slow Wycherley. 

 Shadwell's unfinished works do yet impart 

 Great proofs of nature's force, though none of art ; " 



and no one who looks into his plays (which few of his critics and 

 biographers have done) can fail being struck with the truth of this 

 remark. The world, on Dryden's authority, laugh and vow he " never 

 deviates into sense." He often wrote a play in a month, and thus all 

 his works betray carelessness. It is remarkable that Pope's ' Dunciad,' 

 which was an imitation of 'Mac Flecknoe,' also commits the very 

 serious mistake of making a very lively pert man like Cibber the hero 

 of dulness. 



Shadwell set Ben Jonson before him as his model, and he followed 

 him at a considerable distance both in his writings and in his personal 

 behaviour. Sensual, given to excesses, and loose in his conversation, 

 he had the faults of that great man, with little of his " immortal 

 substance." 



SHA'FEI is the patronymic of a celebrated Mohammedan doctor, 

 named MOHAMMED IBN IDRIS AL SHAFEI, who was the founder of 

 one of the four sects which are considered orthodox by the Moslems. 

 ShaTei was born at Qazah, in Syria, in the year 150 of the Hejra (A.D. 

 767), the same year in which Abu Hanifah, the founder of the sect of 

 Hanefis or Hanefites, died. At the age of two he was taken to Mecca 

 by his parents, and there educated. He applied himself early to the 



