In 1700 he induced the Elector of Brandenburg to found the Academy of Berlin, of which he was appointed perpetual president. He contributed many valuable papers to its memoirs. His patron, the Duke of Brunswick-Lunenberg, died in 1678, and was succeeded by Ernest-Augustus, first Elector of Hanover, on whose issue by the Electress Sophia the crown of England was settled. Leibnitz continued in the Elector’s service till his death. This took place from gout, November 14, 1716, at Hanover. The real life of such a man is in his character and writings. With regard to the first, the account of Fontenelle is as follows. He had a strong constitution, ate a good deal, drank little, and never undiluted liquors. When alone, he always took his meals as his studies permitted. His chair was frequently his only bed, and in this way he is said to have sometimes passed whole months. He made notes of all he read, not to preserve them, but to fix the contents on his memory; for when once written, they were finally laid aside. He communicated freely with all classes of men, and could entirely divest himself of his character of a philosopher. His correspondence was immense; he answered every one who wrote, however small the pretext for addressing him. He was of a gay humour, easily excited to anger, and easily appeased. He lived at great expense, but had preserved and hid two years’ amount of his salary. The securing of this treasure gave him great uneasiness; and upon this slight ground he has been charged with avarice. He was never married: it is said that he contemplated such a connexion at the age of fifty, but that the lady desired time to consider. “This,” says his biographer, “gave M. Leibnitz the same opportunity, and he continued unmarried.” The number and variety of characters in which Leibnitz is known will not permit us to say much upon each subject. His public life was that of a jurist. His ‘History of Brunswick’ was continued by M. Echard; who supplied Fontenelle with the necessary information for his _éloge_. In youth he was a poet; and he is said in one day to have made three hundred Latin verses without a single elision. But the Leibnitz of our day is either the mathematician or the metaphysician. In the first of these two characters he is coupled in the mind of the reader with Newton, as the co-inventor of what was called by himself the Differential Calculus, and by Newton the Method of Fluxions. Much might be instanced which was done by him for the pure sciences in other respects; but this one service, from its magnitude as a discovery, and its notoriety as the cause of a great controversy, has swallowed up all the rest.