522 BIOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNT 



experiments were ingenious, as well as original, and afforded 

 an approximation to the result which the great skill and the 

 excellent apparatus of Coulomb have since exactly ascertain- 

 ed. In the Supplement is also contained a very full account 

 of the Theory of Boscovich ; a subject with which he was 

 much delighted, and which he used to explain in his lectures, 

 with great spirit and elegance. 



These articles, if collected, would form a quarto volume of 

 more than a thousand pages. 1 am persuaded, that when 

 brought together, and arranged by themselves, they will make 

 an acceptable present to the public ; and I have the satisfac- 

 tion to state, that such a work is now preparing, under the di- 

 rection of an Editor whose remarks or corrections cannot but 

 add greatly to its value. Notwithstanding the merit which the 

 separate articles possess, they are not entirely free from the 

 faults incident to whatever is composed for a work already 

 in the press. The condensation and arrangement, to which 

 time is such an essential condition, even with men of the 

 first talents, must be often wanting, in such circumstances ; 

 and there are, accordingly, in the articles now referred to, a 

 diffuseness, and sometimes a want of order, that may easily be 

 corrected, without injuring the authenticity of the work. 



Though the Encyclopaedia employed Professor Robison very 

 much during the whole of the seven years that it continued, he 

 nevertheless found leisure for some researches of a very different 

 nature. At the period of which I now speak, the French Re- 

 volution had arrested the attention, and excited the astonish- 

 ment of all Europe ; and the satisfaction with which the first 

 efforts of a nation to assert its liberties, had been hailed from 

 all quarters, was, by the crimes and excesses which followed, 

 quickly converted into grief and indignation. A body was 

 put in motion sufficient to crush whole nations under its 



weight ; 



