Paris in 1746. His French translations of Cicero's Letters to Atticus, 1738, and of Herodian, 1745, both illustrated by numerous valuable notes, are still regarded as amongst the best in the language.—W. J. P.
MONGE, Gaspard, one of the greatest of mathematicians, was born at Beaune in 1746, and died in Paris on the 28th of July, 1818. He was educated at the college of his native town, and at that of Lyons. Having during a vacation employed himself in making, with instruments of his own construction, a survey of the town of Beaune, which he presented to the municipal authorities, his work came under the notice of an officer of engineers, who, being struck with its accuracy and good execution, obtained for him employment as a draughtsman at the military engineering school of Mézières. In that capacity he soon found an opportunity of giving proof of abilities of so high an order that, at the age of nineteen, he was appointed assistant to Bossut, professor of mathematics, and Nollet, professor of physics. During this period it is said that he discovered, independently, the composition of water by the combination of oxygen and hydrogen; not being aware that the same discovery had been previously made by Watt and Cavendish. At the same time he devised and perfected that new branch of mathematics which has made his name famous—the science of descriptive geometry—which with some difficulty he got leave to teach to the pupils of the engineering school, but was prohibited from otherwise publishing. In 1780 he was appointed a member of the Academy of Sciences, and joint-professor of hydrodynamics with Bossut at the Louvre. In 1783 he succeeded Bezout as naval examiner; with which office he afterwards combined that of professor of physics at the Lyceum of Paris. In 1792 he became a member of the revolutionary government as minister of marine, a post in which he showed great energy and capacity for business under very difficult circumstances; but he resigned it in 1793. Soon afterwards he was called upon by the committee of public safety to superintend the manufacture of arms and gunpowder, then urgently wanted for the defence of France against invasion; and it is thought that the necessity of his services to the state in that capacity alone saved his life during the Reign of Terror. At its close he published his famous work on descriptive geometry, containing the exposition of those principles which he had so long been compelled to conceal. He was one of the first founders of the polytechnic school. He was one of a commission who were sent to Italy by the directory to collect works of art. In 1798 he was one of the body of scientific men who accompanied the expedition of Bonaparte to Egypt, and was appointed president of the Institute of Cairo. On his return from Egypt he again became a professor in the polytechnic school; and in that capacity he long opposed, but without success, certain arbitrary ideas of Bonaparte as to its management. On the foundation of the empire, Napoleon appointed him a member of the senate, a grand-officer of the legion of honour, and count of Pelusium, in honour of his scientific services in Egypt. On the restoration of the Bourbons, Monge, as having been a member of the government which put to death Louis XVI., was removed from the Institute and from the polytechnic school. It is said that grief at these unworthy proceedings hastened his death, which took place about two years afterwards by apoplexy. Besides his great work on descriptive geometry he wrote a treatise of the highest order on the application of algebra to geometry, and a long series of memoirs on various mathematical and physical subjects.—W. J. M. R.
MONGEZ, Marie-Josephine-Angelique (by birth Levol), a French historical painter, was born in the neighbourhood of Paris, May 1, 1775, and died in that city, February 20, 1855. She was a pupil of Regnauld and David; obtained several medals; and took the highest rank among the female painters of France when the "classic" manner of her master David was the received type. Her earlier works were chiefly classic in subject as well as manner—as Mars and Venus; an Orpheus, with thirteen figures of life-size; death of Astyanax, and the like. Later she painted ecclesiastical subjects and some portraits, as Napoleon I. for the city of Avignon, and Louis XVIII. for Toulouse. Madame Mongez drew the figures, three hundred in number, for her husband's Dictionnaire d'Antiquités.—J. T—e.
MONK, George, Duke of Albemarle, was descended from an ancient but decayed Devonshire family, and was born at Potheridge, the family seat, in 1608. He was the second son of Sir Thomas Monk, who died when George was only two years of age. His education seems to have been but imperfect, and in his seventeenth year he joined, as a volunteer, the unsuccessful expedition against Spain under Lord Wimbledon. In the following year he served under Sir John Burroughs in the equally unfortunate affair of the Isle of Rhé. In 1629 he went to the Low Countries with an ensign's commission, and fought under the earl of Oxford, and afterwards under Lord Goring, by whom he was promoted to the rank of captain. After spending nearly ten years in the Netherlands, during which he saw much service and acquired great experience in military affairs, he returned to his own country, at the commencement of the conflict between Charles I. and the Scots. His high reputation, and the recommendation of his kinsman, the earl of Leicester, obtained for him the commission of lieutenant-colonel in Lord Newport's regiment, and he accordingly took part in the king's inglorious expedition to the north. His next service was in Ireland, to which he was sent by Leicester, with the rank of colonel, on the breaking out of the Irish rebellion. The lords justices appointed him governor of Dublin; but the parliament distrusted him and caused his office to be transferred to another. On his return to England with his regiment he was arrested by the king's orders, on a suspicion that he intended to join the parliament. He was allowed, however, to repair to the court it Oxford, and succeeded in satisfying the king of his innocence. His offer of his services was in consequence accepted, and he was appointed major-general in the Irish brigade then engaged in the siege of Nantwich under the command of Lord Byron. He had scarcely joined this brigade when the whole were taken prisoners by Fairfax. Monk was sent first to Hull, and then was transferred to the Tower, where he remained in close confinement till November, 1646, when, through the intercession of his friend. Lord Lisle, he obtained his release. He now abandoned the royal cause, took the covenant, and embarked, in the beginning of 1647, with Lisle for Ireland, where, however, they did not long remain. Monk had scarcely reached England, when he was sent back to take the command of the parliamentary forces in the north of Ireland. He had to contend with numerous difficulties, and in the end had to conclude a treaty with the Irish chieftain O'Neil, and to surrender Dundalk to the royalist general. Lord Inchiquin. The parliament expressed their disapprobation of the former of these measures, but declared "that he should not be questioned for the same in time to come." After this censure Monk remained for some time unemployed; but when war broke out between the parliament and the Scots, he accompanied Cromwell on his Scottish expedition as lieutenant-general of the artillery, and rendered good service by his bravery and skill at the battle of Dunbar in 1650. He was subsequently employed in putting down the "moss-troopers," who gave the republican army a great deal of annoyance; and when Cromwell marched into England in pursuit of Charles II., Monk was left in command of the forces which remained in the north. He besieged and took Stirling castle, in which the public archives were deposited, and carried Dundee by storm, but tarnished his laurels by the cruelties which he inflicted on the inhabitants. The garrison were put to the sword; the town was set on fire and pillaged; the citizens, without distinction of sex or age, were given up to an indiscriminate massacre; and Sir R. Lumsden the governor, after receiving quarter, was basely put to death in cold blood by Monk's orders. The clergy of the town were treated with brutal insolence and sent prisoners to England. Montrose, Aberdeen, and other towns, intimidated by the atrocities perpetrated at Dundee, surrendered to Monk at discretion. In 1652 war broke out between Holland and England, and Monk was joined with Blake and Dean in the command of the English fleet, and by his courage and activity contributed largely to the splendid victories gained over the Dutch. On the termination of the war Monk was despatched by the Protector, with additional forces, to suppress an insurrection which had broken out in Scotland. He accomplished this so effectually that the last embers of resistance to Cromwell's authority were completely trodden out. He was appointed a member of the council of state to which the administration of public affairs was committed, and seems to have assumed supreme authority in the country. He steadily supported the government of the Protector, executed all his orders with the utmost punctuality, and disclosed to Oliver both the plots of the royalists and a letter sent to himself by Charles II., who was then at Cologne. On the death of Cromwell Monk promptly gave in his adherence to the government of his son, Richard, who had indeed been enjoined by his
