192 LECTURE XX. 



long pursuing the career which he began so successfully. Bernoulli and 

 Euler continued for many years to vie with each other for the elegance 

 and extent of their researches : Euler appears to have been the more pro- 

 found mathematician, and Bernoulli the more accurate philosopher. 



The latter half of the eighteenth century was in many respects extremely 

 auspicious to the progress of the sciences ; the names of Dalembert, Landen, 

 Waring, Frisi, * Robison, Lagrange, and Laplace, deserve to be enumerated 

 in the first class of mathematicians and theoretical mechanics ; those of 

 Smeaton, Wedgwood, and Watt are no less distinguished for their success 

 in improving the practice of the useful arts and manufactures. The union 

 of all these objects, into one system of knowledge, was effected, on a mag- 

 nificent scale, in the Encyclopedic, a work which does as much honour to 

 the labour and genius of some of its authors, as it reflects disgrace on the 

 principles and politics of others. The Society for the encouragement of 

 arts, manufactures, and commerce, was established in London about the 

 same time that the Encyclopedic began to appear at Paris, and its pre- 

 miums and publications have, without doubt, excited a degree of attention to 

 the subjects of practical mechanics, and agricultural, as well as commercial 

 improvements, which must have been beneficial both to individuals and to 

 the public. The academy of Paris began to print, in 1762, a collection of 

 the descriptions of arts and trades of all kinds, on a still more extended 

 scale than had been attempted in the Encyclopedic ; the work was carried 

 to a very considerable length, but it by no means comprehends all the 

 articles which were intended to compose it. 



The construction of watches has been so much improved by the artists 

 both of this country and of France, that they have been rendered capable 

 of affording very essential service to navigation, especially since the astro- 

 nomical methods of determining a ship's place have been brought to such 

 a degree of perfection, as greatly to facilitate the frequent correction of 

 the accidental errors of the timekeeper. The first artist that constructed 

 watches, sufficiently accurate for the determination of the longitude, was 

 William Harrison, who was indebted to himself alone for his education 

 and his inventions ; in 1765 he received for his labours, from the Board of 

 Longitude, the promised reward of ten thousand pounds. 



There has scarcely been a period, in any age of the world, in which the 

 sciences and literature in general, have been so rapidly promoted and so 

 universally disseminated, as within the last forty years. This advance- 

 ment has partly been the cause, and partly the effect, of the great multi- 

 plication of scientic journals, cyclopaedias, and encyclopaedias, which have 

 been annually increasing since the beginning of the Journal de Physique in 

 1773 ; supported by the interest which they have derived, in great measure, 

 from the new and amusing discoveries and improvements which have been 

 made in chemistry and natural history : some of the most copious of these 

 works have had a sale unprecedented even for books of more moderate 

 extent. 



The charter of the Royal Institution is dated in 1799 ; its foundation 

 will not perhaps make an era in the history of the refinements of science ; 



* Pauli Frisii Opera, 3 vols. 4to, Mediolani, 1782-5. 



