Elements of Algebra

x EULER. vacant professorship in the university of Basil; but having lost the election, he resolved, in consequence of this disappointment, to leave his native country; and in 1727 he set out for Petersburg, where his friends, the young Bernoullis, had settled about two years before, and where he flattered himself with prospects of literary success under the patronage of Catherine I. Those prospects, however, were not immediately realised; nor was it till after he had been frequently and long disappointed, that he obtained any preferment. His first appointment appears to have been to the chair of natural philosophy; and when Daniel Bernoulli removed from Petersburg, Euler succeeded him as professor of mathematics. In this situation he remained for several years, engaged in the most laborious researches, enriching the academical collections of the continent with papers of the highest value, and producing almost daily improvements in the various branches of physical, and, more particularly, analytical science. In 1741, he complied with a very pressing invitation from Frederic the Great, and resided at Berlin till 1766. Throughout this period, he continued the same literary labors, directed by the same wonderful sagacity and comprehension of intellect. As he advanced with his own discoveries and inventions, the field of knowledge seemed to widen before his view, and new subjects still multiplied on him for further speculation. The toils of intense study, with him, seemed only to invigorate his future exertions. Nor did