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attorney, his restless disposition would not allow him to remain at his desk; and after wandering for some time about the country, he enlisted in the army, where, however, they did not keep him long, finding him quite unfit for service. Indeed, it was by this time become pretty evident that his mind was not a little deranged,—a matter which he shortly after put beyond doubt by renouncing Christianity, and making a formal profession of paganism. Although he published several works, however, in support of his peculiar theology, and in other respects conducted himself with great eccentricity, he contrived to maintain himself by teaching mathematics, in which occu pation he is said to have displayed very considerable ability. He resided and took pupils for some years in London. Somewhat similar to Fransham's history is that of Mr. JOHN OSWALD, who is said to have taught himself Greek, Latin, and Arabic, while holding a lieutenant's commission in a regiment of infantry in India. He afterwards returned to England, where he published a succession of poetical and political pamphlets, making himself remarkable at the same time by various singularities of behaviour and opinions, and especially by a rigid abstinence from animal food, and a professed predilection for the religious doctrines of the Brahmins. When the revolution broke out in France, Oswald went over to that country, and entered the service of the republic, in which he obtained the rank of colonel. He was at length killed in battle.

COLUMBUS himself, one of the greatest men that ever lived, if it be grand ideas grandly realized that constitute greatness, while leading the life of a seaman, not only pursued assiduously the studies more particularly relating to his profession, rendering himself the most accomplished geographer and astronomer of his time, but kept up that acquaintance

which he had begun at school with the different branches of elegant literature. We are told that he was even wont to amuse himself by the composition of Latin verses. It was at sea, too, that our own Cook acquired for himself those high scientific, and we may even add literary accomplishments, of which he showed himself to be possessed. The parents of this celebrated navigator were poor peasants, and all the school education he ever had was a little reading, writing, and arithmetic, for which he was indebted to the liberality of a gentleman in the neighbourhood. He was apprenticed, at the age of thirteen, to a shopkeeper in the small town of Snaith, near Newcastle, and it was while in this situation that he was first seized with a passion for the sea. After some time, he prevailed upon his master to give up his indentures, and entered as one of the crew of a coasting vessel engaged in the coal trade. He continued in this service till he had reached his twenty-seventh year, when he exchanged it for that of the navy, in which he soon distinguished himself so greatly that he was three or four years after appointed master of the Mercury, which belonged to a squadron then proceeding to attack Quebec. Here he first showed the proficiency he had already made in the scientific part of his profession, by an admirable chart which he constructed and published of the River St. Lawrence. He felt, however, the disadvantages of his ignorance of mathematics; and, while still assisting in the hostile operations carrying on against the French, on the coast of North America, he applied himself to the study of Euclid's Elements, which he soon mastered, and then began that of astronomy. A year or two after this, while again stationed in the same quarter. he communicated to the Royal Society an account of a solar eclipse which took place on the 5th of August, 1766; deducing from

it, with great exactness and skill, the longitude of the place of observation; and his paper was printed in the Philosophical Transactions. He had now completely established his reputation as an able and scientific seaman; and it having been determined by Government, at the request of the Royal Society, to send out qualified persons to the South Sea to observe the approaching transit of the planet Venus over the sun's disc-a phenomenon which promised several interesting results to astronomy,-Cook was appointed to the command of the Endeavour, the vessel fitted out for that purpose. He conducted this expedition, which, in addition to the accomplishment of its principal purpose, was productive of a large accession of important geographical discoveries, with the most consummate skill and ability; and was, the year after he returned home, appointed to the command of a second vessel destined for the same regions, but having in view more particularly the determination of the question as to the existence of a southern polar continent. He was nearly three years absent upon this voyage; but so admirable were the methods he adopted for preserving the health of his seamen, that he reached home with the loss of only one man from his whole crew. Having addressed a paper to the Royal Society upon this subject, he was not only chosen a member of that learned body, but was farther rewarded by having the Copley gold medal voted to him for his experiments. Of this second voyage he drew up the account himself, and it has been universally esteemed a model in that species of writing.

All our readers know the termination of Cook's distinguished career. His third voyage, undertaken for the discovery of a passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific along the north coast of America, although unsuccessful in reference to this object,

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