EULENSPJEGEL EULER. 



107 



the piincipal traits of his character. Wise in the I tations, 

 council, undaunted in the field, and moderate in the 

 exercise of power, he never appeared greater than in 

 the midst of reverses ; as the events of 1813 1814 

 prove. He was inaccessible to the spirit of party, 

 benevolent and beneficent, and more devoted to the 

 good of others than his own. He died of an organic 

 disorder of the brain. (See Fie politique et militain 

 d Engine Beauharnais, Vice-roi d'Jtalie, by Aubriet, 

 second edition, Paris, 1825.) His sister is the duchesi 

 of Saint-Leu, Hortensia Eugenia, wife of Louis Bona- 

 parte, former king of Holland, but lives separate 

 from her husband. His son, the duke Augustus, who 

 succeeded him, was born Oct. 10, 1810. His eldest 

 daughter, Josephine, was married 23d of March, 

 1823, to Oscar, crown-prince of Sweden, son ol 

 Charles XIV.; his second daughter, Hortensia Euge- 

 nia, was married to the prince of Hohenzollern- 

 Ilechingen, in 1826. Amelia Eugenia married the 

 late Don Pedro, when emperor of Brazil, in 1829. 



EULENSPIEGEL, TYLL, was born at Kneitlingen, 

 a village of Wolfeributtel, not far from Schoppenstadt, 

 and died, about 1350, in the little town of Mollen, 

 about eighteen miles from Lubec, where his grave- 

 stone, with a looking-glass (spiegel) and an owl (eule) 

 upon it, in allusion to his name, yet stands. His name 

 has become proverbial in Germany for all sorts of 

 wild, whimsical frolics, which are committed from 

 pure love of fun ; for Tyll was continually engaged 

 in such, as he roved about through Lower Saxony and 

 Westphalia^ and even as far as Poland and Rome. 

 Accounts of them are still preserved in the popular 

 traditions of Germany. At what time and in what 

 language they were first committed to writing can 

 hardly be determined. From the title of the old 

 popular editions, it would seem to have been in Low- 

 German, and it has been supposed, without sufficient 

 evidence, that Thomas Murner, the Franciscan, doctor 

 of theology and law, and an antagonist of Luther, 

 known by his Fool's Complaint, ana other writings of 

 a similar stamp, translated them into High-German. 

 Indecencies are frequently to be found in the book, 

 but they belong to the age. It has been a favourite 

 book, not only with the German, but many other 

 nations, has been translated into English, French, 

 Latin, Dutch, and Polish, has been often imitated, 

 and has passed through editions without number. 

 (See Reichard's Bibliothek der Romane, vols. 2 and 4 ; 

 Flogel's Geschichte der Hofnarren, and Gorres' Ueber 

 die Volksbucher.) The earliest printed edition, as far 

 as can be ascertained, is the High-German, Strasburg, 

 1519, 4to. A very rare engraving by Luke of Ley- 

 den is called the Eulenspiegel (I'Espiftgle) . 



EULER, LEONARD, one of the most distinguished 

 mathematicians of the last century, was born at Bale, 

 in 1707. He learned from liis father, a clergyman, 

 the first rudiments of the science in which he was 

 afterwards so distinguished. At the university of 

 Bale he enjoyed the instructions of John Bernouilli, 

 and the friendship of Daniel and Nicholas Bernouilli, 

 who successfully emulated their father's fame. In 

 his 19th year, he gained the accessit of the prize 

 offered by the Paris academy of sciences for the best 

 treatise on the masting of vessels. Catherine I., 

 desirous of completing the establishment of the aca- 

 demy of Petersburg, invited Daniel and Nicholas 

 Bernouilli thither. Nicholas died, and Daniel soon 

 returned to his native country, after having procured 

 a place in the academy for his friend Euler. Euler 

 now constituted the whole mathematical department 

 in the academy, and laboured with astonishing indus- 

 try ; he composed more than half of the treatises in 

 this branch of science contained in the forty-six quarto 

 volumes published by the academy from 1727 to 1783; 

 and, at his death, left about 100 unpublished disser- 



whicli were successively printed by the 

 society. To the Paris academy of sciences he also 

 presented several treatises (among the rest his dis- 

 sertation Inquisitio phys. in Causam Fluxus ac Reflux- 

 us Marts, which gained the prize, though Bernouilli 

 and Maclaurin were among his competitors), and 

 carried oft' or divided ten prizes. In 1741, he accepted 

 an invitation from Frederic the Great to become pro- 

 fessor of mathematics in the Berlin academy, but, in 

 1766, returned to Petersburg, where he died in 1783, 

 in the office of director of the mathematical class of 

 the academy. 



Euler received from all parts of Europe flattering 

 marks of respect. The academy of sciences in France 

 chose him, in 1775, one of its foreign members, though 

 none of those places, then so much an object of am- 

 bition, was vacant. He also received considerable 

 presents for the assistance which he rendered to Tob. 

 Mayer (q. v.1 in preparing his lunar tables, and 300 

 sterling, as his share of the prize offered by the Bri- 

 tish parliament for the best method of determining 

 the longitude at sea. He distinguished himself, par- 

 ticularly, by his endeavours to perfect the analytic 

 method, according to the system of Bernouilli, and 

 the Leibnitzian school, and to complete its separation 

 from pure geometry, which Newton's disciples prin- 

 cipally employed in their investigations. He first 

 gave the example of those long processes, in which 

 the conditions of the problem are first expressed by 

 algebraic symbols, and then pure calculation resolves 

 all the difficulties. 'In this, Euler displayed extraor- 

 dinary acuteness, and a profound as well as inventive 

 genius. He gave a new form to the science. He 

 applied the analytic method to mechanics, and en- 

 larged the boundaries of this science. He greatly 

 improved the integral and differential calculus, of 

 which he afterwards published a complete course, 

 which surpassed everything then extant on this sub- 

 ject. His first essay, on the Masting of Vessels, and 

 still more his residence at Petersburg, undoubtedly 

 led him to the application of mathematics to the 

 building and management of vessels ; and he com- 

 posed his Theorie compl. de la Construct, et de la 

 Manoeuvre des Faiss., which has been introduced 

 into the French naval school, and translated into 

 English, Italian, and Russian. The great questions 

 on the system of the universe, which Newton left to 

 his successors to resolve, were the constant object of 

 Euler's inquiries, and constitute the subjects of most 

 of his prize essays. An extensive dioptric treatise, 

 Sur la Perfection des Ferres ob,ect. des Lunettes, in 

 the Memoires de Berlin, 1747, was the result of his 

 inquiries into the means of improving spectacles. 

 The share which he contributed, by this work, towards 

 the discovery of achromatic telescopes, is sufficient 

 to distinguish his name in this department also. 

 But, in his treatises on physics, he often proposes 

 untenable hypotheses, and appears only to be seeking 

 opportunities for calculation. He also employed 

 himself in metaphysical and philosophical specula- 

 tions. He attempted to prove the immateriality of 

 the soul, and to defend revelation against free thinkers. 

 In his well known Lettres a une Princesse d 'Alle- 

 magne, sur divers Sujets de Phys. et de Philos. (Ber- 

 lin, 1763, 3 vols., since republished several times ; 

 also in German, Petersburg, 1773), he attacks the 

 J-eibnitzian system of monads, and pre-established 

 liarmony ; but it is evident that this was not the field 

 for him to shine in. Meusel lias given a catalogue 

 of his numerous writings, which have not appeared 

 n collections. We will only mention here his The- 

 oria Motvum Planetarum et Cometarum (Berlin, 1744 , 

 4to) ; his Introductio in Analysin Infinitorum (Lau- 

 sanne, 1748, 2 vols.) ; his work already mentioned 

 which lias always been regarded as his greatest pro- 



