144 HISTORY OF PHYSICAL ASTRONOMY. 



Descartes. He was a man of high claims in every 

 department of speculation, and, in pure mathe- 

 matics, a genuine inventor of great eminence ; a 

 man of family and a soldier ; an inoffensive philo- 

 sopher, attacked and persecuted for his opinions 

 with great bigotry and fury, by a Dutch divine, 

 Voet; the favourite and teacher of two distin- 

 guished princesses, and, it is said, the lover of one 

 of them. This was Elizabeth, the daughter of the 

 Elector Frederick, and consequently grand-daughter 

 of our James the First. His other royal disciple, 

 the celebrated Christina of Sweden, showed her zeal 

 for his instructions by appointing the hour of five 

 in the morning for their interviews. This, in the 

 climate of Sweden, and in the winter, was too severe 

 a trial for the constitution of the philosopher, born 

 in the sunny valley of the Loire ; and, after a short 

 residence at Stockholm, he died of an inflammation 

 of the chest in 1650. He always kept up an active 

 correspondence with his friend Mersenne, who was 

 called, by some of the Parisians, " the Resident of 

 Descartes at Paris;" and who informed him of all that 

 was done in the world of science. It is said that he 

 at first sent to Mersenne an account of a system of 

 the universe which he had devised, which went on 

 the assumption of a vacuum ; Mersenne informed 

 him that the vacuum was no longer the fashion at 

 Paris; upon which he proceeded to remodel his 

 system, and to reestablish it on the principle of a 

 plenum. Undoubtedly he tried to avoid promulga- 



