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, an Italian lady of great learning, was born at Milan, March 16, 1718. Her inclinations from her earliest youth led her to the study of science, and at an age when young persons of her sex attend only to frivolous pursuits, she had made such astonishing progress in mathematics, that when in 1750 her father, professor in the university at Bologna, was unable to continue his lectures from infirm health, she obtained permission from the pope, Benedict XIV. to fill his chair. Before this, at the early age of nineteen, she had supported one hundred and ninety-one theses, which were published, in 1738, under the title “Propositiones Philosophicæ.” She was also mistress of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, German, and Spanish. At length she gave up her studies, and went into the monastery of the Blue Nuns, at Milan, where she died Jan. 9, 1799. In 1740 she published a discourse tending to prove “that the study of the liberal arts is not incompatible with the understandings of women,” This she had written when scarcely nine years old. Her “Instituzioni analitiche,” 1748, 2 vols. 4to, were translated in part by Antelmy, with the notes of M. Bossut, under the title of “Traites elementaires du Calcul differentiel et du Calcul integral,” 1775, 8vo: but more completely into English by that eminent judge of mathematical learning, the late rev. John Colson, M. A. F. R. S. and Lucasian professor of mathematics in the university of Cambridge. This learned and ingenious man, who had translated sir Isaac Newton’s Fluxions, with a comment, in 1736, and was well acquainted with what appeared on the same subject, in the course of fourteen years afterward, in the writings of Emerson, Maclaurin, and Simpson, found, after all, the analytical institutions of Agnesi to be so excellent, that he learned the Italian language, at an advanced age, for the sole purpose of translating that work into English, and at his death left the manuscript nearly prepared for the press. In this state it remained for some years, until Mr. Baron Maseres, with his usual liberal and active spirit, resolved to defray the whole expence of printing a handsome edition, 2 vols. 4to, 1801, which was superintended in the press by the rev. John Hellins, B. D. F. R. S. vicar of Potter’s-pury, in Northamptonshire. Her eloge was pronounced by Frisi, and translated into French by Boulard.

, Lucasian professor of mathematics in the university of Cambridge, was descended from an ancient family at Mitton, in the parish of Fittes, Shropshire, being the eldest son of John Waring of that place. He was born in 1734, and after being educated at the free school at Shrewsbury, under Mr. Kotchkis, was sent on one of Millington’s exhibitions to Magdalen college, Cambridge, where he applied himself with such assiduity to the study of mathematics, that in 1757, when he proceeded bachelor of arts, he was the senior wrangler, or most distinguished graduate of the year. This honour, for the securing of which he probably postponed his first degree to the late period of his twenty-third year, led to his election, only two years afterwards, to the office of Lucasian professor. The appointment of a young man, scarcely twenty-five years of age, and still only a bachelor of arts, to a chair which had been honoured by the names of Newton, Saunderson, and Barrow, gave great offence to the senior members of the university, by whom the talents and pretensions of the new professor were severely arraigned. The first chapter of his “Miscellanea Analytica,” which Mr. Waring circulated in vindication of his scientific character, gave rise to a controversy of some duration. Dr. Powell, master of St. John’s, commenced the attack by a pamphlet of “Observations” upon this specimen of the professor’s qualifications for his office. Wariug was defended in a very able reply, for which he was indebted to Mr. Wilson, then an under-graduate of Peter House, afterwards sir John Wilson, a judge of the common pleas, and a magistrate justly beloved and revered for his amiable temper, learning, honesty, and independent spirit. In 1760, Dr. Powell wrote a defence of his “Observations,” and here the controversy ended. Mr. Waring’s deficiency of academical honours was supplied in the same year by the degree of M. A. conferred upon him by royal mandate, and he remained in the undisturbed possession of his office. Two years afterwards, his work, a part of which had excited so warm a dispute, was published from the university press, in quarto, under the title of “Miscellanea Analytica de Æquationibus Algebraicis et Curvarum Proprietatibus,” with a dedication to the duke of Newcastle. It appears from the title-page, that Waring was by this time elected a fellow of his college. The book itself, so intricate and abstruse are its subjects, is understood to have been little studied even by expert mathematicians. Indeed, speaking of this and his other works, in a subsequent publication, he says himself, “I never could hear of any reader in England out of Cambridge, who took the pains to read and understand what I have written.”