Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men

The present volume of the series of English translations of M. Arago's works consists of his own autobiography and a selection of some of his memoirs of eminent scientific men, both continental and British. It does not distinctly appear at what period of his life Arago composed the autobiography, but it bears throughout the characteristic stamp of his ardent and energetic disposition.

The reader will, perhaps, hardly suppress a smile at the indications of self-satisfaction with which several of the incidents are brought forward, while the air of romance which invests some of the adventures may possibly give rise to some suspicion of occasional embellishment; on these points, however, we leave each reader to judge for himself. In relation to the history of science, this memoir gives some interesting particulars, which disclose to us much of the interior spirit of the Academy of Sciences, not always of a kind the most creditable to some of Arago's former contemporaries.