such as should make Christians in earnest to promote the intellectual cultivation of woman's mind.
This lady is a native of Scotland, and dates her birth a few years before the close of the last century. She passed the earlier period of her life, at a schoool at Musselburgh near Edinburgh, where we are told "she was distinguished only for the gentleness and unpretending character of her manners, giving no indications of those talents which have rendered her so eminent." The latent powers of her mind appear to have been developed by her first husband, a naval officer, who is said to have "taken great delight in initiating her into the mysteries of mathematics and general science."
The first work of Mrs. Somerville was undertaken by the counsel and encouragement of Lord Brougham. This was a summary of "The Méchanique Céleste" of Laplace, which she prepared for the Library of Useful Knowledge, under the title of "Mechanism of the Heavens." The work was found too voluminous for the society's publications, and therefore it was issued separately in 1831. It is a volume over 600 pages, large octavo. Its merits were acknowledged at once, and her reputation as an accomplished scientific writer established. It is said that soon after this book appeared its author met Laplace in Paris; during their conversation upon scientific subjects he remarked to her that she was the only person he knew of who seemed to take the trouble to understand his "Méchanique Céleste," except an English lady, who had translated it. Mrs Somerville must have been gratified to witness his pleasure when learning that she was the lady translator.
Mrs. Somerville's genius was highly appreciated by the Duchess of Kent and the Princess Victoria: and to the latter, when Queen of Great Britain, the second work of this illustrious author is inscribed. The dedication marks the admirable good sense and noble views of both. The work was "The Connexion of the Physical Sciences," published in 1834: of this the "Quarterly Review" observes:—"To the 'Mechanism of the Heavens' succeeded her volume on 'The Connexion of the Physical Sciences;' unassuming in form and pretensions, but so original in design and perfect in execution as well to merit the success of eight editions, each carefully embodying all of augmentation that science had intermediately received. Though rich in works on particular sciences, and richer still in those eminent discoveries which establish the relations amongst them, yet had we not before in English a book professedly undertaking to expound these connexions, which form the greatest attainment of present science and the most assured augury of higher knowledge beyond. Mrs. Somerville held this conception steadily before her, and admirably fulfilled it. Her work, indeed, though small in size, is a true Cosmos in the nature of its design, and in the multitude of materials collected and condensed into the history it affords of the physical phenomena of the universe. In some respects her scheme of treating these topics so far resembles that since adopted by Humboldt, that we may give Mrs. Somerville credit for partial priority of design, while believing that she would be the last person to assert it for herself."
This original and extraordinary work, which learned masculine critics thus allow to exceed anything of the kind at that time extant, Mrs. Somerville claims only to have devised for the especial
