PRINGLE PHONY. 



763 



niittee published his translation of " An Account 

 of the Siege and Reduction of Chaitur, from the 

 Akber Nameh of Abal Fazl." To the transac 

 tions of the royal Asiatic society, he contributed, 

 " An Extract from the Mualijati Dara Shekohi." 

 The MS. of the valuable work from which this 

 translation was made, was included in major Price's 

 munificent bequest to the Society of his collection 

 of oriental manuscripts. The collection, here and 

 before mentioned, extended to nearly ninety vol- 

 umes. Major Price died on the 16th of December, 

 1835, aged seventy-three. 



PRINGLE, THOMAS, a highly esteemed poet 

 and miscellaneous writer, was born in Tiviotdale, 

 a romantic pastoral district in the south of Scot- 

 land, of which he has left some pleasing remem- 

 brances, in the poetry which from time to time he 

 gave to the public. He applied himself early in 

 life to literature, as a profession ; and was con- 

 cerned in the establishment and early management 

 of " Blackwood's Magazine;" shortly after, how- 

 ever, he chose to follow the fortunes of his family, 

 who became settlers in South Africa. There, 

 after a time, Mr Pringle entered into some literary 

 speculations in Cape Town, which, however, he 

 was speedily forced to relinquish, by the govern- 

 ment, at a pecuniary loss of little less than 1000. 

 Upon the failure of these speculations, he returned 

 to England ; and his services were soon after en- 

 gaged by the Anti- Slavery Society, as secretary to 

 that body, a situation which he continued to hold 

 until the object of the society was accomplished ; 

 and the duties of which responsible office, he dis- 

 charged, not merely as one expected to labour for 

 hire, but as one whose heart was in the cause of 

 humanity and justice. As a poet, Mr Pringle's 

 " Ephemerides " abound in graphic pictures of 

 African scenery ; and are rich in evidences of the 

 kind and Christian spirit which accompanied the 

 writer, in all that he did or wrote. As the editor 

 of " Friendship's Offering," too, he brought to his 

 task a sound judgment and a refined taste. The 

 last work in which he was engaged, and which he 

 finished only a month or two before his death, was 

 the revision of his volume entitled " African 

 Sketches," with a view to a second edition. 

 Early in 1834, the rupture of a blood-vessel con- 

 fined him to a sick bed, and greatly reduced the 

 energies of a naturally strong constitution ; and 

 towards the autumn it became apparent, that, for 

 the preservation of life, a removal to a warmer 

 climate was indispensable. Mr Pringle's circum- 

 stances not permitting a trial of the south of 

 Europe, he again turned his thoughts towards the 

 Cape ; the necessary preparations were hastily 

 completed ; the passage money was paid ; and it 

 wanted but three days of the time appointed for 

 sailing, when a diarrhoea began to show itself 

 under which the powers of nature, already en- 

 feebled by confinement, speedily sank. He died 

 Dec. 5, 1834, exhibiting to the end that moral 

 courage for which he had ever been remarkable, 

 and supported by the recollection of a well spent 

 life, and by the hopes that spring from religion. 

 Few men were richer in friends than Mr Pringle; 

 among their number we might enumerate most of 

 the literary men of the day, and very many of those 

 public men, who have made philanthropy the bea- 

 con of their political career : and although he dis- 

 charged, during many years, with a fearless and 

 honest zeal, the duties of an office which exposed 

 him to the bitterness of party spirit, no man, per- 



haps, ever had fewer enemies, or descended into 

 the grave with fewer animosities. 



P R O N Y, GASPARD-CLAIR-FHANCOIS-MARIE 

 RICHE DE, was born 22nd July, 1755, at Chamelet, 

 in the present department of the Rhone. At the 

 age of twenty-one he was admitted into the Ecole 

 des Ponts et Chaussees, and soon distinguished 

 himself by his successful application to the severer 

 mathematical pursuits of that establishment. Per- 

 ronet, at that time chief of the school, took consid- 

 erable notice of him, and, in 1783, recommended 

 him to the minister as a fit person to second him- 

 self in the important works on which he was then 

 engaged, and which, from his advanced age, he 

 found it too arduous to perform without help. 

 The celebrated Monge also discovered his worth, 

 and became his teacher in the higher branches of 

 analysis. In 1785 M. de Prony went with Per- 

 ronet to Dunkirk, to undertake the restoration of 

 the port ; and ultimately went with him to Eng- 

 land, where they stopped some time. In 1786 M. 

 de Prony was ordered to draw up a plan for the 

 erection of the Pont Louis XVI. at Paris ; and 

 after being admitted, as an honorary exception, to 

 a discussion on the subject before the council of 

 Ponts et Chaussees, was appointed director of the 

 works. The government discontinued, in 1791, 

 the appointment of M. de Prony as assistant to M. 

 Perronet; but, with an honourable feeling, he con- 

 tinued to discharge his duties as before without 

 salary, until the death of that gentleman in 1793. 

 During this period he had enjoyed opportunities of 

 studying practically the greatest operations thus 

 carried on by the state, and the amount of engineer- 

 ing knowledge which he had acquired was very 

 considerable. The first volume of a work on hy- 

 draulic architecture was published by him in 1790, 

 but he subsequently relinquished the idea of finish- 

 ing the work. Towards the end of 1791 he had 

 been named engineer in chief at Perpignan ; but a 

 few months after, on the government deciding to 

 draw up the Cadastre, or great territorial and nu- 

 merical survey of France, he was charged with the 

 superintendence of that immense undertaking. 

 The political events that succeeded each other so 

 rapidly at that period in France did not permit of 

 his taking much part in the practical survey; but 

 his time was fully occupied with the direction of 

 the matter, and several other important operations 

 were successively entrusted to his care. 



One of these arose from the new metrical sys- 

 tem just then adopted, requiring that fresh trigo- 

 nometrical should be calculated, adapted to all as- 

 tronomical and geodesical calculations. The go- 

 vernment of the day, which, in some of its decisions, 

 was guided by ideas of no small grandeur, applied 

 to M. de Prony for the calculation of tables on the 

 centesimal scale ; and, in its instructions delivered 

 on this occasion, desired him to take care that, 

 " while the tables should be as exact as possible, 

 he should make them the greatest and most im- 

 posing monument, of calculation that had ever been 

 executed or even thought of." M. de Prony, fully 

 competent to the gigantic task, and worthy of 

 the confidence of the state, set himself to work 

 with the most indefatigable industry, summoning 

 to his aid, at the same time, a large body of ex- 

 perienced calculators. The story goes that, wish- 

 ing to find a large number of ordinary arithmeti- 

 cians for the subordinate parts of the work, he 

 took into his employment all the perruquiers of the 

 capital whom he could find, and who, by the re- 



