The historic gallery of portraits and paintings: and biographical review : containing a brief account of the lives of the moost celebrated men, in every age and country : and graphic imitations of the fines specimens of the arts, ancient and modern : with remarks, critical and explanatory (Band 7) (London: Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe, 1811)

EUCLID.

Euclid of Alexandria, whom we shall not con-
found, as Valerius Maximus has done, with Euclid.
ofMegara, flourished during the time of Ptolemy, the
son of Lagus, about 300 years before J. C. The pe-
riod of his birth is uncertain, and the particulars of
his life almost unknown* All that can be relied upon
is, that he greatly distinguished himself by his know-
ledge of the mathematics, and taught the elements
of the science at Alexandria, in a manner the most
luminous and exact. Ptolemy became his pupil, and
his school was so famous, that Alexandria continued
for ages the great university for mathematicians.
Euclid directed his studies principally, if not solely,
to speculative geometry. He has left us a work en-
titled “ The Elements of Geometry” in fifteen books. It
is, however,doubted,by some writers,whether the last two
books were written by him; they have been attributed to
Hypsicles, another geometrician of Alexandria. These
Elements contain a series of propositions,which are con-
sidered the basis and foundation of all the other parts
of mathematics. They have been generally estimated
as one of the most precious monuments of antiquity
which have reached our hands. Euclid had likewise
written on optics, music, and other scientific subjects.
He was so respected, that Plato himself a mathema-
tician, being asked concerning the building of an altar
at Athens, referred his enquirers to the mathematician
of Alexandria.