Upon the application of chemistry to the arts of life, Chaptal is considered to have been the most distinguished writer of his time. His works are, Conspectus Physiologicus de Fontibus differentiarum relat. ad Scientias, 1777; Analytical Table of a Course of Chemistry delivered at Montpellier, 1783; Elements of Chemistry; Treatise on Saltpetre and Tar; a Table of the principal Earthy Salts and Substances; an Essay on perfectioning the Chemical Art in France; a Theoretical and Practical Treatise on the Cultivation of the Vine; the Art of making Wines, &c.; the Art of Making, Managing, and Perfectioning Wines, a work which has been productive of great improvement in the wines of many districts in France; the Art of Dyeing Cotton Red; Chemistry applied to the Arts; the Chemical Principles of the Arts of Dyeing and Scouring. M. Chaptal has also furnished many excellent articles to the Annals of Chemistry, and the Dictionary of Agriculture. Among his miscellaneous productions, a paper on Geological Changes is entitled to special mention as one of the most beautiful compositions of its class. * * * * * GOETHE [Illustration: GOETHE] John Wolfgang von Goethe was born at Frankfort, August 28, 1749, and died at Weimar, March 22, 1832, aged eighty-two years and seven months. He was a sickly child, and consequently participated but little in children’s pastimes. Youth--melancholy, or early habits of reflection, and an independence on others for amusement or formation of opinions were thus generated, which, operating on his exquisite organization, contributed to make him the master-spirit of his age. Thus, in his autobiography and diary, it is highly instructive to mark the effect of the various circumstances in which he was placed, on his train of thought. Events, which on most children’s minds “are only reflected as on looking-glasses but make no impression,” produced an effect on him of which the influence was never effaced. The coronation of Joseph II. at Frankfort, the annual mass, and the noble old city itself, with its associations of feudalism and German art, are portrayed by him seventy years after the feelings they had excited, with all the vividness of yesterday’s impressions. It is probable that no one ever possessed such acute sensibility as Goethe. He could “hang a thought on every thorn.”