Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/410

* HUYDECOPEB. 35-1 HUYSMANS. his edition of the chronicle of ilclis Stoke (1772). He was tlie most notable of those who attempted to purify the Dutch IniigUiiKe, and to rendiT it more llexiblc. His collected poems were published in 1788. As a dramatist he was not so successful. Among his plays are a translation of Corneille's UJdipv, and Achilles (171'J), an oriainal drama, for some time very popular, lie also made a verse translation of the iSatires and Epistles of Horace (1737). HUYGENS, hl'gCnz, Dutch pron. hoi'oSns, t'liliisriA.N (1629-95). A celebrated Dutch mathe- nialician, physicist, and astronomer. He was born at The Hague, the second son of Constan- tijn Iluy^'ons van Zuylichem. a poet and .secre- tary and counselor to the Princes of Orange. He studied at Leyden and Breda, devoting hinis<'lf at first to law, and then pursuing the study of mathematics. At the invitation of Minister Soll)crt of France, he settled in Paris, being given rooms in the Royal I^ibrary and made a member of the Academy. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes he returned to Holland, where he lived the rest of his life. His early work, Thcoremata de Quadralura Hi/pi iholis. fUlipsis, et Circuli, ex Data I'lirtianum UrurHalia Vcntro (1051), is an example of the talent which lay at the foundation of all his scientific achieve- ments. This was followed by his De Cirruli Mafiiiitudine Invcnta ( I*yden, 1654), reprinted in Rudio. Archimedes, fliiygens. Litmhert, he- gcndre (Leipzig. 1892). the object of each work being to expose the fallacies of Gregoire de Saint- Vineent. He also worked on the doctrine of prob- abilities already founded by Pascal and Fermat and published De Ratiocinatinne in lAido Alew ( KioU). Hiiygcns was the first to apply the |>en- duluin to clocks and to use the device to deter- mine the acceleration of gravity. A complete description of Huygens's apparatus is contained in his great work, florolofliiim Oscillatorium, sive de Motii J'endvlonim (1073). He also de- veloped and gave precision to the investigations of Galileo upon accelerated motion under the action of gravity, and there is no doubt that to his studies and discoveries his great successor, Newton, in preparing his ma-rnificont develop- ment of the principle of accelerating force, was largely indebted. Newton was a student and ad- mirer of his works, and assigns to him, along with Sir Christopher Wren and Wallis, the di.stin- guishcd epithet of hujtis (rtatis gcometrarum facile priitcipes. Iluygens was the first to construct powerfiil telescopes, and in 1055 discovered the ring of Saturn and the fourth satellite of that planet. In 1059 he ])ublisbed an account of these dis- coveries in a work entitled l^nstema fintiirnium. In the end of this work is described an invention of great importance in astronomy; namely, the micrometer (q.v.), by which small angles between objects viewed by a telescope are accurately measured. In 1660 Huygens visited England, where he was admitted a member of the Royal Society. Huygens was the originator of the wave theory of light: and this theory, now accepted, was first stated by him in 1678, in his TraiK de la hi- mi&re (first printed in 1690; modem German translation in Ostwald's Klansiker No. 20. I>eip- zig). In this theory light is conceived to be a form of motion in the medium through which it passes. (See Light.) Later (1690) he was able to explain both reflection and refraction by wave- motion in the ether, and was also able to account lor double refraction. To Huygens is due the dis covery of |ivlarization, a phenomenon which could not then be explained by the undulalory theory, and led Newton to adopt the emission theory. Huygens was in error, however, in believing that the vibrations were longitudinal rather than transverse. The undulalory theory, however, did not gain general accejilancc until the nineteenth century, when the ex|)eriments of Voung and Frcsnel pla<ed it on a iirm basis. A new edition of Huygens's collected works has been published by the Hollanil Academy ^f Sciences in six volumes (The Haj'ue. 1888-95). For his biography, consult Bos'^cTia Christian lluygnis, German translation by Engelmann (Leipzig, 1895). HUYGENS, CON-STANTIJN (1596-1687). One of the greatest writers in Dutch literary history. He was born at The Hague. His father was secretary to the State Council, an21-23). Meantime he had published Batata Ttmpe, a versified series of local leg- ends and scenes, and a volume of satires, Cos- lelick Mai. Then followed (H;25) a large volume of miscellaneous poems, Otia, Ledighe uren. That year he was made private sei-retary to the Stadt- holder, and in 10;i{) member <if the Privy <'ounoil. wherein he long used political power with vigor and wisdom. In lO.'U he translated Donne's poems, and on the death of his wife (l(i:t7) com- posed Dafficerch, a sort of didactic elegy suggest- ing the manner of Tennyson's In Memoriam. Hofwijck, a poem on moral life, ajjpeared in 1054. - collected edition of his poems appeared as Korenhlormcn in 158; his solitary drama, Trijntje Cnrnrlis, in 1059, Although ILiygens was not the greatest of Dutch piK-ts or of Dutch statesmen, he was, in the coml)ination of his qualities, one of the most dignified and brilliant talents of the days of Holland's greatness. As a poet he had more feeling for form and mastery of language, more e.ase and facility, than any other in his language. Consult .Torissen, Con- slantijn Utiygcns (.Amsterdam, 1871). HUYGENS'S PRINCIPLE. See LicnT. HUYSMANS, u'fs'm-iN', Jobi.s-Karl (1848 — ). A French novelist, born in Paris, of a Flemish family, some members of which had achieved distinction as painters at Antwerp in the seventeenth century. He began literary life as a disciple of the crassest realism, as one may see by the fact of his contribution to Les Soirifs de ijedaii. His novels present every stagi' of an evolution from seii-ual materiali-im. through spiritualism and Satanism to Christian mysti- cism, in which there is indeed a curious strain of the sensual and material still. Mnrthe (1877) is a study of sordid prostitution, coinciding signifi- cantly in date with Goneourl's Fille KU~n and Zola's h'assommoir. In Lcs sceurs Tatard (1879) Huysmans shows himself still a dilet- tante of moral anguish, sordid wretchedness, and contemptible vice. En mrnaqe (ISSl) is a cvni- cal commendation of marriage and A vau-l'eau