HAL ~~ 609 HAL 
Meia‘not 1 ort. On his return to Vi he pla: found : ; 4 Ag ee 
teflon bo es of wine of uncommon aoshe ce, goad ror + ee i ae were lively, 
with a quantity of the best bark ; but Haller, before he 
= in his power to set the due value on this simple 
te of private fri ip from that monarch, had 
paid the debt of nature, e emperor received the 
‘news of his death with unfeigned grief ; and afterwards, 
in order to secure an honourable relict, and a useful 
memorial of the studies of this great man, he purchased 
his library, and had it conveyed to Milan. 
- His disease wa’ a form of retrocedent gout, affectin 
the region of the bladder, and was accompanied wit 
so much inconvenience tha _he was obliged to confine 
himself at home. He published among the memoirs 
Society of Gottingen, an account of its progress, 
nd of his personal experience of the effects of opium 
other remedies. In the midst of this distressin 
illness, he published a second edition of his great wor 
on iology. 
“M. Rosselet, his physician, told him at his own de- 
sire, his opinion of the exact time at which he was 
likely to die. In his last moments he was perfectly 
collected, and, with his hand on his pulse, coolly re- 
marked to M. Rosselet that it had now ceased to beat, 
- He had eleven children, eight of whom he lived to 
see established, 20 grandchildren, and before his death 
two great-grandchildren. His eldest son, Gottlieb 
; , Was an eminent citizen of Berne, 
distinguished for his historical learning. 
Haller was of the Protestant religion, and sincerely 
attached to his religious principles. La Mettrie, in 
dedicating to him a work in support of’ materialism, 
created in him the utmost horror and distress, by affect- 
ing to re t his discoveries as the most valuable 
roofs of doctrine. His mode of life was rigidly 
er. His only beverage was water, and he delighted 
) fepresent the unfitness of the climate of Berne for 
the culture of the , as a signal advantage confer. 
ed by nature on his country. 
~’Haller was exceeded by none of his contemporaries 
in the extent of his generalinformation. He was well 
equainted with most of the 1 es of Europe, and 
ps ame Be with the utmost fait ~ the ogo 
of France, England h ly, Ho , Denmark, an 
Sweden, in their ive native 1 Beg t 
A more industrious literary life than of Haller 
cannot be ry ieee moment of his time was 
vied. e reading of new books, and the com- 
positon of the lighter species of memoirs, and articles 
x reviews, were his on i During a long 
state of delicate health a a his li , where 
he so es months without ever going out. 
Wlbee be eat Mi oocate and with the society of his fa- 
nily and his books, he concentrated within this narrow 
e all that he ‘held most dear on earth. He com- 
nunicated to those around him a taste for scientific 
pursuits- His house was a sort of sanctuary of the 
sciences. He was assisted by his pupils, who had the 
range of his library and his theatre. His wife ac. 
quired the art of drawing and painting for baci 2 
of rendering herself useful to him. His children, 
friends, and fellow citizens, all regarded it as their du- 
ty to gregh i So ri 
bility subjected him to alternations an 
: : He rarely fonet nis Socal parties 
Then he did, he often rendered himself extremely 
reeable ; his conyersation, however, was always that 
a man of learning ; even on trifling subjects, ‘he dis- 
"VOL. X. PART II. a yee 
BB} 
—and his countenance noble and expressive, 
He was probably the most voluminous writer after 
Galen. His Latin style is sometimes dry, complicated, 
and not readily understood ‘by persons unaccustomed 
to it: but the profundity of views, the well connected 
strain of reflection, and the great erudition with which 
his works are replete, never fail to reward the reader. 
Various as the subjects were which occupied his pen, 
he shews a consistency of doctrine, and a unity of 
views and of method, which characterise solidity of 
judgment, and announce a commanding genius. “His 
works on medical science will long continue to be read 
with profit, when the labours of many others, which 
haye attracted the notice of the day, are reduced, by 
the cool decision of ity, to their just rank,—that of 
being regarded as the errors of exuberant fancy, impo- 
sing on the age in which they appeared, by laying pre- 
mature and peremptory claim to the cheat of regular 
scientific ry See Vicq d’Azyr's Eloges ; Henry’s 
Life of Haller ; and Haller’s Bibliotheca Anatomic. (4.D.) 
HALLEY, Epmunp, a celebrated astronomer and na- 
tural philosopher, was born at Haggerston, in the parish 
of St is, Shoreditch, London, on the 8th Novem- 
ber 1656. His father, who was an opulent citizen and 
soapboiler, sent: him to St Paul’s school, where, under 
the care of the learned Dr Gale, he made rapid ad- 
vances in his classical studies, and acquired such a 
taste for elementary astronomy, that he amused him- 
self in makin Sow and observed the change in the 
variation of the needle at London in the year 1672, 
the year before he left school. From this seminary, 
which he left in 1673, he went to Queen’s College, 
Oxford, where he was entered s gentleman commoner, 
and where, with the aid ofa good collection of instru- 
ments which his father had purchased for him, he de- 
voted himself almost exclusively to the study of mathe- 
matics and astronomy. In the year 1676, he published his 
first in the Philosophical Transactions, entitled, 
« A Direct and Geometrical Method of investigating the 
Aphelia, the Eccentricities, and the Proportions of the 
Orbits of the Primary Planets, without supposing the equa- 
lity of the Angle of Molion at the other focus of the Pla- 
net's Ellipsis ;? and he continued to employ himself in 
astronomical observations. Although he had long en- 
tertained a plan of forming a complete catalogue of the 
fixed stars, yet he abandoned this scheme upon heari 
that Flamstead and Hevelius were occupied in the same 
pursuit. He resolved, however, to form a catal of 
the stars of the southern hemi ; and, by the in- 
fluence of Joseph Williamson, of State, and 
Sir Jonas Moore, Surveyor of the ance, Charles 
Tl. was prevailed upon to send Halley to St Helena, 
im order to accomplish this desirable object. He arriv- 
ed on the island in photon 1677, after a voyage 
of three months ; and though he was much in’ 
ed by the frequent fogs which hover over it, yet, by 
most unremitting in aa he at last executed his - 
which he published in 1679, under the title of Cata- 
logus Stellarum Australium. This work was presented, 
on his return from St Helena, in November’ 1678, to 
Charles 11. who gave hitn a mandamus to the Univer- 
sity of Oxford forthe degree of A‘M, Halley had re- 
warded.the kindness of his patron by forming a new 
constellation under the name of Robur Carolinum. Du- 
ring his stay at St Helena, he had’the good fortune to 
observe the transit of Mercury over the sun’s disc. 
an 
