he durft not leave, contributed not a little to fhorten his life. His remains were carried to Oxford, and buried in St. Mary's church in that city. RAMEAU, (JOHN PHILIP) a famous musician, whom the French ftyled the Newton of Harmony, was born at Dijon, September 25, 1683. After having been taught the rudiments of mufic, he left his native country, and ftrolled with a company of opera play.. ers. At eighteen, he compofed a mufical divertifement which was reprefented at Avignon. He, afterwards, travelled through part of France and Italy, and improved his ideas of mufic by practifing upon the harpsichord. He then went to Paris, where he. made ftill farther improvements under John Lewis Marchand, a noted organift. He himself became organift of the cathedral church of Clermont in Auverg ne, where, fecluded from the world, he ftudied the theory of his art with the utmost perfeverance. Here he wrote his "Traite de l'Harmonie, Paris 1722;" and his "Nouveau Syfteme de Mufique Theorique, Paris 1726." But his beft work is his " Demonftration du Principe de l'Harmonie, Paris, 1750." It would have been a national reproach, if Rameau, with his extraordinary talents for execution, and his exquifite tafte in musical compofition, had been fuffered to remain organist of a country cathedral. He was invited to Paris, and appointed manager of the opera. His mufic was of an original ftyle, and the performers complained at firft that it could not be executed. But he afferted the contrary, and proved it by experiments. By practice he acquired fuch a facility in compofing, that he was never puzzled to fuit founds to fentiments. The king, in confideration of his uncommon merit, conferred upon him the ribband of the order of St. Michael, and a little previous to his death, raised him to the rank of nobleffe. He was a man of excellent moral character, and he enjoyed much domeftic happiness with a wife whom he tenderly loved, and who deferved all his love. He died at Paris on the 12th September, 1764, and his funeral rites were performed with great pomp and mufical folemnity. ގ · RAMUS, (PETER) a noted French profeffor of philofophy and mathematics, was born in the year 1515, at a village of Vermandois in Picardy. His ancestors belonged to a good family, but, having lost all their property in the commotions of their country, were compelled to have recourse to manual labour for a fuftenance. His grandfather turned collier, and his father became a husbandman. Peter, in his youth, was much afflicted with ficknefs. While yet an infant, he fuftained two fevere attacks from the plague. When he was eight years old, he went to Paris, to gratify his thirst for learning; but he was foon obliged to leave the city on account of his poverty. He returned to it again, but the fame caufe foon compelled him tơquit it a fecond time. His literary ardour would not fuffer him to remain quiet in the country, and he vifited the capital the third time. One of his uncles pleased with the bent of his mind, undertook to maintain him there; but after a few months finding it too expensive, withdrew his fupport, and young Ramus, honorably facrificing the confiderations of pride to the acquifition of knowlenge, became a fervant in the college of Navarre. Having run through the claffics, he commenced a course of philofophy, which employed him threeyears and an half in the fchools. When he took the degree of Mafter of Arts, he compofed a thefis which gave univerfal offence to the philofophers of that day, for afferting that" all which Ariftotle has advanced is falfe." He answered the objections of the philofophers with great acuicnefs, and with full fatisfaction to him- ! felf. The fuccefs of a first attempt prompted him to scrutinize the doctrine of Ariftotle, particularly his logic, with more attention; and as he difcovered errors in it, he determined if poffible, to destroy, or at least to diminish the veneration which it was customary for his cotemporary philofophers to pay, without examination, to whatever had been advanced by that writer. For this purpose, he published two books, one entitled "Inftitutiones Dialecticae ;" and the other, "Aristotelicae Animadverfiones." Thefe books gave great uncafinefs to the literati, particularly in the university of Paris. The profeffors of that feminary worshipped Ariftotle, and held it as a crime next to blafphemy, even to doubt the truth of his, precepts. Such an outcry was raised against Ramus, that the caufe was carried before the Parliament. But apprchending that it would be examined impartially, and without the weight of ancient prejudice in its favor,. they withdrew it,, and carried it before the king's council. Whoever has the curiofity, may fee a very humorous burlesque memorial prefented upon this fubject by the regents and profeffors of the univerfity of Paris, to the lords of Parnaffus, in the fecond volume of Boileau's works, page 137, Paris edition, followed by an arrete iffued in confequence of it by the Parnafhan court. Among other points infifted upon by the memorialifts, they pray that Jupiter fhall be ordered to difmifs his four fatelites, unless he will content himself with one like Saturn; fince Ariftotle afferts that Saturn has but one, and Jupiter has no more, if he has any. That the fun fhall wafh his face, and not appear in public with his dirty spots, which are the figns of corruption, and which go to destroy the quinteffence of Ariftotle's Aftronomy. That Venus fhall never again have the impudence to difturb the Heavens in order to fhew herself before the fun. That the moon fhall leave this earth in quiet poffeffion of mountains, caves and vallies, feas and forests; VOL. III. No. 24. K 3 and that fhe fhall renounce forever her pretenfions to being a real earth, or another world. That the ma- thematicians fhall break all their telescopes, as false and deceitful inventions; and that M. Picard fhall ingenuoufly acknowledge that he was bafely deceived when he imagined he faw, to the great difgrace of the fun, ftars at mid-day; and that the Royal Obfervatory of Fauxburg, St. James, fhall be immediately demolished as a Fortrefs for telescopes, very prejudicial to the pofition of Ariftotle that the fkies are folid. That M. Denis fhall be compelled, at his own expenfe and labour, to repair the breaches and fiffures which have been made in the fkies to give paffage to the comets which appeared in 1664 and 1665, and that Meffrs. Petit, Auzout and Caffini, who declare upon oath, that they faw thofe comets walk naked above the Moon and Sun, without coming in oppofition to them; fhall be declared accomplices in the wicked attempt which has been made in this refpect, against the authority of the venerable Ariftotle, who has placed the comets below the Moon, with an exprefs prohibition of rifing above her. That no pilots or other navigators fhall fail round the earth, under the penalty of becoming antipodes, and confequently of being precipitated to the heavens. That the earth fhall remain quiet, and the fun fhall move round her, upon pain of excommunication. That the most humble fupplications fhall be offered to lord Ariftotle, not to infift upon the eternal duration of the world; * * * *. * That the brain fhall diveft itfelf of the quality which it has wrongfully ufurped from the office of the mufcles, and that that quality fhall be given and restored to the heart, notwithstanding all the affertions of Madame Autopfie made, or that fhall be made to the contrary. That Meffrs. Kerkerin and Stenon fhall caft all their anatomical instruments into the fea, and that they fhall be held and reputed as innovaters and disturbers of the human fyftem, and shall be compelled to erase from their writings the injurious proverb, fo offenfive to the cars of women; Vous faites des œufs, vous etes des poules, nous fommes des coqs. That the blood fhall no longer circulate, and that the heart fhall never again open a paffage whereby it way enter the lungs. That the liver fhall be reinftated in its former right of generating the blood, and that the heart fhall not dare to difpute with it the faid office. That the chyle fhall go to the liver directly through the great artery, without amufing itfelf by rifing towards the jugular veins, notwithstanding alfo the experiments of M. Pecquet, to whom there fhall be new inhibitions and prohibitions never more to diffe&t living dogs to prove the contrary, * * * That Gaffendi, Defcaftes, Rohault, Denis, Cordemoy, de Launoi, and their adherents fhall be carried to Athens, and be condemned to make honorable amends to all Greece, for having compofed books defamatory and injurions to the memory of the deceafed lord Ariftotle, formerly preceptor to Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia, and be fined in the penalty of ten thoufand livres, one half of which fhall belong to the fteward, and the other half be applied to repair the ruined colleges of our university. ་ That Gaffendi himself shall be fined in the like fum of ten thousand livres, for having dared to post up placarts containing the following feditious libels: Quod immerito Ariftotelei libertatem Philofophandi fibi ademerint. Quod rationes nullae fint quibus facta Ariftotelis videatur praeferenda. Quod maxima fit incertitudo librorum doctrinaeque Ariftotelis. Quod apud Ariftotelem innumera deficiunt. |