appeared to himself as only a child picking up pebbles from the shore, while the great ocean of truth lay unexplored before him.'
HUYGENS.
While Newton, in England, was thus enlarging the boundaries of astronomy,
and conferring upon it a degree of accuracy and system hitherto unknown,
a number of continental philosophers were contributing materials,
which, though of an humble character, were not the less necessary to the
future progress of the science. First among these was Christian Hüygens,
Lord of Zeelhem, born at the Hague on the 14th of April 1629, and descended
of a rich and respected family. His father, secretary and counselor
to the Princess of Orange, and distinguished as a scholar and poet, was not
slow in observing the genius of his son, and, full of paternal solicitude for
his improvement, became his first instructor. He early taught him music,
arithmetic, and geography—says a writer in the Encyclopædia, from which
we select the materials of this notice—and initiated him, when about
thirteen, in the knowledge of mechanics, for which the boy had evinced a
surprising aptitude. At fifteen, he received the assistance of a master in
mathematics, under whose tuition he made great progress; and at sixteen,
was sent to Leyden, to study law under the eminent jurisconsult Vinnius.
He did not, however, permit jurisprudence to divert him from his mathematical
studies, which he now prosecuted with success as well as afterwards
at Breda, at the university of which he resided from 1646 to 1648. In
these two cities he had respectively as masters two very able geometers,
Francis Schooten and John Pell; and his first essays were so successful,
that they attracted the notice of Descartes, to whom the author, in his
admiration of that great philosopher, had communicated them. Descartes
predicted his future greatness, but did not live to appreciate his discoveries.
On quitting the university, Hüygens, as was then the custom, made the tour of Europe; and after his travels, settled in his native country, where he commenced that series of inventions which have rendered his name so justly celebrated. Between the years 1650-60, his pursuits were chiefly mathematical, resulting in several publications of acknowledged merit. In 1655 he traveled into France, and took the degree of Doctor of Laws at Angers; and in 1658 made known his invention of the pendulum clock. In the following year he published his discoveries relative to the planet Saturn; discoveries which inseparably associate his name with the science of astronomy. Galileo had endeavored to explain some of the appearances exhibited by that planet. He had at first observed two attendant stars, but some time afterwards was surprised to find that they had disappeared. Hüygens, desirous to account for these changes, labored with his brother Constantine to improve the construction of telescopes; and having at length made an instrument of this kind, possessing greater power than any which had yet been contrived, he proceeded to observe the phases of Saturn, and to record all the different aspects of that planet. The results were of equal interest and importance to the science of astronomy. He discovered a satellite of that planet which had hitherto escaped the notice of astronomers; and after a long course of observation, he showed that the planet is surrounded by a solid and permanent ring, which never changes its sit-
