tive assurance that he was in earnest, left no doubt in the mind of the poor agent of the other's character. He determined, however, not to comply with the rascal's request, without an effort to save his money for loans more profitable. With the pretence of producing the desired funds, he seized one of his pistols from his pocket, and snapped it at the head of the robber. It flashed, but did not explode. The quondam Morris laughed, and mockingly remarked, as the other grasped at the remaining weapon, that he was obliged to him, but he was sufficiently helped, and that the contents of his pocket would be equally acceptable, and much more effective, than those of his pistols, inasmuch as the last were empty; which was not the case with the pocket, it being well charged with gold. He explained the failure of the weapons to discharge, by saying that lest accident should befal the esteemed friend, whom he had the pleasure of addressing, he had availed himself of the information given him on the evening previous, and drawn the charges from both of the pocket pistols. In effecting this friendly measure, he had noticed, with great satisfaction, that his friend had the wherewithal to make him the loan, which he now desired receiving without delay. As his fingers, he said, were rather tremulous, and the persuader, into the muzzle of which his esteemed friend did him the honor to blink, had a hair-trigger, he begged leave respectfully to suggest the expediency of a speedy delivery of all his funds. Mr. D- cursed the other's impudence, and with an ill grace gave up his money. He also handed his watch to the robber, but it was returned to him, with a petition that he would keep it in remembrance of the "tame bird." The poor, plucked agent, remembered his boasting of the previous evening, and ground his teeth with vexation. After he had alighted from the chaise, he was asked by his eccentric acquaintance, whether or not he thought it would be necessary to find referees to decide which was the better highwayman of the two. Before he could answer, the robber was driving at a rapid rate towards the London road, and he was left to pursue his journey on foot. It is needless to state, that poor D. never again sought to rival a freebooter.

ART. V. NATHANIEL BOWDITCH.*

Of all the various branches of intellectual pursuit, that science which explains the system of the universe, and reveals the mechanism of the heavens, must always take the lead as the most sublime and marvellous; and the foremost and most successful cultivators of this science will always be classed among the greatest of men. What, indeed, can be more astonishing, than that a being like one of us, endowed apparently with no higher or different powers, should be able to obtain so minute and accurate a knowledge of those distant planets, and be as well acquainted with their constitution, elements, and laws, as the geologist, the chemist, the botanist, with the appropriate objects of their sciences? Nothing gives us so exalted an idea of the power of man, and the extent and reach of his capacities, as his ability to calculate, with unerring precision, the distances of those twinkling orbs, to determine their figures, magnitudes, and velocities, to measure their weight, estimate

*This brief sketch has been condensed from the Rev. ALEXANDER YOUNG'S excellent Discourse, on the Life and Character of Dr. Bowditch.

their relative attractions and disturbing forces, delineate their orbits, register their laws of motion, fix the times of their revolution, and predict the periods of their return. To a common mind, uninstructed in the science, here is nothing that appears so much like divine wisdom. A Galileo, a Kepler, a Newton, seem to him to belong to another race, a higher order of beings. They appear to possess some additional faculties."

Nothing can be more certain than the doctrines of astronomy. They rest on impregnable foundations, on the demonstrations of mathematical evidence, than which nothing, except the evidence of consciousness, can be more satisfactory and conclusive. It was a science that early engaged the notice of men, and, to its honor be it spoken, it has always exerted a purifying and elevating influence on its votaries. Indeed, how could it be otherwise? Who can look upon those brilliant points, and not fancy them the spangled pavement of a divine abode? There is virtue as well as poetry and philosophy in them. They shed down a healing and restorative influence upon their worshippers. They are the symbols of endurance and perpetuity.

Death has recently deprived our country of one of its noblest ornaments. One who confessedly stood at the head of the scientific men of this western continent. His position as a public man, the various posts and offices he filled, and especially the value of his works to the advancement of science, the improvement of navigation, and the security of commercial enterprises, justify the notice which we now propose to take of his life and character. There was much in that life instructive and encouraging, particularly to the young, the friendless, the poor. There was much in that character worthy of eulogy and imitation.

NATHANIEL BOWDITCH was born at Salem, Massachusetts, on the 26th day of March, 1773. He was the fourth child of Habakkuk and Mary Ingersoll Bowditch. His ancestors, for three generations, had been shipmasters, and his father, on retiring from that perilous mode of hard industry, resumed his original trade of a cooper, by which he gained a scanty and precarious subsistence for a family of seven children.

When Nathaniel was two or three years old, his father's family removed to the neighboring town of Danvers, where he attended a dame's school, and acquired the first simple elements of learning. Even at this early period, he was observed to manifest those peculiar powers and traits of character, by which, in after life, he was distinguished. The sisters of his schoolmistress, who are still living, speak of him as "a likely, clever, thoughtful boy, who learnt amazing fast, because his mind was fully given to it; learning came natural to him."

After leaving the dame's school, the only other instruction he ever received, was obtained at the common schools of his native town, which were wholly inadequate to furnish even the ground work of a respectable educa ion. We have heard it stated, on the authority of one of his schoolfellows, tha the master of one of these schools, gave young Bowditch, when he was about seven or eight years old, a very difficult sum in arithmetic to perform. His scholar went to his desk, and soon afterwards brought up his slate with the question solved. The master, surprised at the suddenness of his return, asked him who had been doing the sum for him; and on his answering, "nobody- I did it myself," he was disposed to give him a severe chastisement for lying, not believing it possible that he could, of himself, without any assistance, perform so difficult a question. This indignity, however, he escaped, by the interposition of his elder brother.

But the advantages of school, such as they were, he was obliged to forego at the early age of ten years, "his poverty and not his will consenting," that he might go into his father's shop and help to support the family. He was soon, however, transferred as an apprentice to a ship-chandler, and afterwards became a clerk in a large establishment of the same kind, where he continued until he went to sea, first as clerk, afterwards as supercargo, and finally as master and supercargo jointly. It was whilst he was an apprentice in the ship chandler's shop, that he first manifested that strong bent, or what is commonly called an original genius, for mathematical pursuits. Every moment that he could snatch from the counter, was given to the slate. An old gentleman, who used frequently to visit the shop, said to his wife, one day, on returning home, "I never go into that shop but I sce that boy ciphering and figuring away on his slate, as if his very life depended upon it; and if he goes on at this rate, as he has begun, I should not at all wonder if, at last, in the course of time, he should get to be an almanac-maker!" this being, in his view, the summit of mathematical attainment. This expectation was speedily fulfilled; for in the year 1788, when he was only fifteen years old, he actually made an almanac for the year 1790, containing all the usual tables, calculations of the eclipses, and even the customary predictions of the weather.

From his earliest years, he seems to have had an ardent love of reading, and he has been heard to say that, even when quite young, he read through the whole of Chambers's Encyclopedia, in two large folio volumes, without omitting a single article.

It was my good fortune, says Mr. Young, some years since, in one of those familiar interviews with him in his own house, with which I was favored, to hear him narrate, in detail, a history of his early life; and I remember, very distinctly, his relating the circumstance which led him to take an interest in the higher branches of mathematical science. He told me, that in the year 1787, when he was fourteen years old, his elder brother, who followed the sea, and was attending an evening school, for the purpose of learning navigation, on returning home one evening, informed him that the master had got a new way of doing sums and working questions; for, instead of the figures commonly used in arithmetic, he employed the letters of the alphabet. This novelty excited his curiosity, and he questioned his brother very closely about the matter; who, however, did not seem to understand much about the process, and could not tell how the thing was done. But the master, he said, had a book, which told all about it. This served to inflame his curiosity; and he asked his brother whether he could not borrow the book of the master and bring it home, so that he might get a sight at it. (It should be remembered that, at this time, mathematical books of all sorts were scarce in this country. In the present multitude of elementary works on the subject, we can hardly conceive of the dearth that then prevailed.) The book was obtained. It was the first glance he had ever had at algebra. "And that night," said he, "I did not close my eyes." He read it, and read it again, and mastered its contents, and copied it out from beginning to end. Subsequently he got hold of a volume of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, which he treated pretty much in the same summary way, making a very full and minute abstract of all the mathematical papers contained in it; and this course he pursued with the whole of that voluminous work. He was too poor at this time to purchase books, and this was the only mode of getting

at their results, and having them constantly at hand for consultation. These manuscripts, written in his small, neat hand, and filling several folio and quarto volumes, are now in his library, and, in my opinion, are the most curious and precious part of that large and valuable collection.

He began the study of the Latin language, by himself, Jan. 4, 1790, when he was seventeen years old. The first Latin book that he undertook to read, was Euclid's Geometry. He afterwards read, and made a complete translation, of Newton's Principia; and subsequently acquired the French, Spanish, German, and Italian languages.

On the 11th of January, 1795, at the age of twenty-two, he sailed on his first voyage as captain's clerk, though nominally second mate of the ship; and continued to follow the sea for nine years, in the capacity of supercargo and captain, till December 25, 1803; making, in all, five voyages, four of which were to the East Indies. On his second voyage, the ship touched at Madeira, where the captain and supercargo were very politely received by Mr. Pintard, the American consul there, to whose house the ship was consigned, and were frequently invited to dine with his family. Mrs. Pintard had heard from another American shipmaster that the young supercargo was "a great calculator," and she felt a curiosity to test his capacities. Accordingly, she said to him one day at dinner, "Mr. Bowditch, I have a question which I should like to have you answer. Some years since," naming the time, "I received a legacy in Ireland. The money was there invested, and remained some time on interest; the amount was subsequently remitted to England, where the interest likewise accumulated; and lately the whole amount has been remitted to me here. What sum ought I to receive?" She of course mentioned the precise dates of the several remittances, as she went along. Mr. Bowditch laid down his knife and fork, said it was a little difficult, on account of the difference of currency and the number of the remittances; but squeezing the tips of his fingers, he said, in about two minutes, "The sum you should receive is £843 15s. 61⁄4d.” "Well, Mr. Clerk," said Mrs. Pintard to the head clerk of the house, an elderly person, who was esteemed a very skilful accountant, "you have been figuring it out for me on paper; has he got it right?" "Yes, Madam," said the clerk, taking his long calculation out of his pocket, "he has got it exactly. And I venture to say, that there is not another man on the island that can do it in two hours."

In the course of these voyages, it was Mr. Bowditch's practice to interest himself in all the sailors on board, and to take pains to instruct all who could read and write, in the principles of navigation; and he never appeared so happy as when he could inspire the sailor with a proper sense of his individual importance, and of the talents he possessed, and might call into action. In this he was remarkably successful; and at Salem, it was considered the highest recommendation of a seaman, that he had sailed in the same ship with Mr. Bowditch, and this fact alone was often sufficient to procure for him an officer's berth.

The quiet and leisure of the long East India voyages, when the ship was lazily sweeping along under the steady impulse of the trade-winds, afforded him fine opportunities for pursuing his mathematical studies, as well as for indulging his taste for general literature. What he once learned he ever afterwards remembered, and it may be mentioned as an instance of the singular tenacity of his memory, that on reading Mr. Prescott's splendid History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, he remarked, that many of

the incidents in it were quite familiar to him, he having once read the great work of Mariana on the History of Spain, in the original language, in the course of one of his voyages. The French mathematician, Lacroix, acknowledged to a young American, that he was indebted to Mr. Bowditch for communicating many errors in his works, which he had discovered in these same long India voyages.

On the day previous to his sailing on his fourth voyage in 1799, he was called on by Mr. Edward M. Blunt, then a noted publisher of charts and nautical books at Newburyport, and was requested by him to continue the corrections which he had previously commenced on John Hamilton Moore's book on navigation, then in common use on board our vessels. This he consented to do; and in performance of his promise he detected such a multitude of errors, that it lead to the construction of " The New American Practical Navigator," the first edition of which he issued in the year 1807; a work abounding with the actual results of his own experience, and containing simpler and more expeditious formulas for working the nautical problems. This work has been of immense service to the nautical and commercial interests of this country. Had Dr. Bowditch never done any thing else, he would still, by this single act, have conferred a lasting obligation upon his native land. Just consider the simple fact, that every vessel that sails from the ports of the United States, from Eastport to New Orleans, is navigated by the rules and tables of his book. And this has been the case nearly ever since its publication, thirty-seven years ago. It is, we are informed, extensively used in the British and French navies. Notwithstanding the competition of other English and American works on the subject, the "Practical Navigator" has never been superseded. It has kept pace with the progress of nautical science, and incorporated all its successive discoveries and results; and the last edition, published in 1837, contains new tables and other improvements, which will probably secure its undivided use by our scamen for years to come.

The extraordinary mathematical attainments of the young sailor soon became known, and secured to him the notice of our most distinguished men, and likewise the deserved, yet wholly unexpected, honors of the first literary institution in the land. In the summer of 1802, his ship lying wind-bound in Boston harbor, he went out to Cambridge to attend the exercises of Commencement Day; and whilst standing in one of the aisles of the Church, as the President was announcing the honorary degrees conferred that day, his attention was aroused by hearing his own name called out as a Master of Arts. The annunciation took him wholly by surprise. He has been heard to say, that that was the proudest day of his life; and that of all the distinctions which he subsequently received from numerous learned and scientific bodies, at home and abroad, (among which may be mentioned his election as a Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London,) there was not one which afforded him half the pleasure, or which he prized half so highly, as this degree from Harvard. It was, indeed, his first honor, his earliest distinction; it was not only kindly meant, but timely done; and it no doubt stimulated him to perseverance in his scientific pursuits.

In the year 1806, Mr. Bowditch published his accurate and beautiful chart of the harbors of Salem, Beverly, Marblehead, and Manchester, the survey of which had occupied him during the summers of the three preceding years. So minutely accurate was this chart, that the old pilots said he