most powerful friends. His works have been the delight of other nations, as well as of his own; and his translation of Homer may be justly said to have given new beauties to the Prince of poets.

Mr. Pope died in 1744, and was buried at Twickenham, in the same vault with his parents, to whose memory he had erected a monument.

JAMES FERGUSON.

THIS eminent experimental philosopher, mechanic, and astronomer, was born of poor parents at Keith, a small village in Bamffshire, in Scotland, in the year 1710.

His extraordinary genius began to expand itself at a very early age. He

learned to read before any suspicion was entertained of his acquirement, by listening to the instructions which his father gave to his elder brother, and by applying to a neighbouring old woman for assistance, when any difficulties occurred.

When his father had, to his agreeable surprise, discovered the progress, which, by these means, he had made, him such further instructions

he

gave

as were in his

him to write.

for about three

power, and then taught Afterwards he sent him

months to the grammar school at Keith. When James Fer

guson was only about seven or eight years of age, he began to conceive a taste for mechanics, by reflecting on the use which he saw his father make of a lever, in raising the roof of his house, which wanted repairs. He

soon brought himself to understand the principles of that mechanical power; and immediately afterwards his genius suggested to him the advantages which would arise from converting it into the form of a wheel and axle.

By means of a turning lathe, belong. ing to his father, and a little knife, he constructed such machines as answered his purpose in illustrating these advantages; and, imagining that he had made an original discovery, he wrote a short account of them, accompanied with figures, sketched out by his pen, over which he exulted with not a little complacency. But upon showing this account to a gentleman in the neighbourhood, he found that his supposed discovery had been familiar to the world long before he was born, and he was convinced of it by

PART II.

reference to a printed book on mechanics. Notwithstanding that his pleasure received considerable alloy from this information, he had still the satisfaction of finding that his account, as far as he had carried it, agreed perfectly with the principles of mechanics laid down in the printed book. From this time he possessed a strong propensity to improve in his acquaintance with that science. As his father, however, could not afford to maintain him while employed only in such pursuits, he was placed out with a neighbour, to tend his sheep, in which employment he continued some years. During this time he began to study astronomy, devoting a considerable part of the night to the contemplation of the stars, while he amused himself in the daytime with constructing models of spin

ning-wheels, mills, and such other pieces of machinery as he happened

to see.

He was afterwards placed as a servant to a farmer, who treated him with great kindness, and encouraged him to go on with his astronomical studies, often working for him himself in his ordinary business, that the lad might be enabled to make fair copies in the day-time, of the observations which he had made and marked down on paper during the night relative to the apparent distances of particular stars from each other, according to their respective positions.

The observatory of young Ferguson was the open field, in which he lay down on his back, with a blanket wrapped about him; and his only in