Cæsar, Julius

, a learned civilian, was born near Tottenham, in Middlesex, in 1557. His father was Cæsar Adelmar, physician to queen Mary and queen Elizabeth lineally descended from Adelmar count of Genoa, and admiral of France, in the year 806, in the reign of Charles the Great. This Cæsar Adelmar’s mother was daughter to the duke de Cesarini, from whom he had the name of Cæsar which name Mary I. queen of England, ordered to be continued to his posterity and his father was Peter Maria Dalmarius, of the city of Trevigio in Italy, LL. D. sprung from those of his name living at Cividad del Friuli. Julius, who is the subject of this article, had his education in the university of Oxford, where he took the degree of B. A. May 17, 1575, as a member of Magdalen hall. Afterwards he went and studied in the university of Paris where, in | the beginning of 1581, he was created D. C. L. and had letters testimonial for it, under the seal of that university, dated the 22d of April, 1531. He was admitted to the same degree at Oxford, March the 5th, 1583; and also became doctor of the canon law. In the reign of queen Elizabeth, he was master of requests, judge of the high court of admiralty, and master of St. Catherine’s hospital near the Tower. On the 22d of January, 1595, he was present at the confirmation of Richard Vaughan, bishop of Bangor, in the church of St. Mary-le-Bow, London. Upon kingJames’s accession to the throne, having before distinguished himself by his merit and abilities, he was knighted by that prince, at Greenwich, May 20, 1603. He was also constituted chancellor and under- treasurer of the exchequer and on the 5th of July, 1607, sworn of his majesty’s privy council. January 16th, in the eighth of king James I. he obtained a reversionary grant of the office of master of the rolls after sir Edward Phillips, knight; who, departing this life September 11, 1614, was succeeded accordingly by sir Julius, on the 1st of October following; and then he resigned his place of chancellor of the exchequer. In 1613 he was one of the commissioners, or delegates employed in the business of the divorce between the earl of Essex and his countess; and gave sentence for that divorce. About the same time, he built a chapel at his house, <on the north side of the Strand, in London, which was consecrated, May 8, 1614. As he had been privy-counsellor to king James I. so was he also to his son king Charles I.; and appears to have been custos rotulorum of the county of Hertford. We are likewise informed by one author, that he was chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. After having thus passed through many honourable employments, and continued in particular, master of the rolls for above twenty years, he departed this life April 28, 1636, in the seventy-ninth year of his age. He lies buried in the church of Great St. Helen’s within Bishopgate, London, under a fair, but uncommon monument, designed by himself; being in form of a deed, and made to resemble a ruffled parchment, in allusion to his office as master of the rolls. With regard to his character, he was a man of great gravity and integrity, and remarkable for his extensive bounty and charity to all persons of worth, or that were in want: so that he might seem to be almoner-general of the nation. Fuller gives the following instance of his uncommon charity “A gentleman once borrowing his coach (which was as | well known to poor people as any hospital in England) was so rendezvouzed about with beggars in London, that it cost him all the money in his purse to satisfy their importunity, so that he might have hired twenty coaches on the same terms.” He entertained for some time in hisr house the most illustrious Francis lord Bacon, viscount St. Alban’s. He made his grants to all persons double kindnesses by expedition, and cloathed (as one expresses it) his very denials in such robes of courtship, that it was not obviously discernible, whether the request or denial were most decent. He had also this peculiar to himself, that he was very cautious of promises, lest falling to an incapacity of performance he might forfeit his reputation, and multiply his certain enemies, by hisoiesign of creating uncertain friends. Besides, he observed a sure principle of rising, namely, that great persons esteem better of such they have done great courtesies to, than those they have received great civilities from; looking upon this as their disparagement, the other as their glory.

Besides sir Julius, Cæsar Adelmar had two sons that were eminent in their way. His second son, sir Thomas Cæsar, was one of the barons of the exchequer. And his third son, Henry Cæsar, educated in Baliol college, and St Edmund Hall, Oxon, became prebendary of Westminster in the second stall, in September 1609, which he resigned the latter end of 1625; and dean of Ely in 1614. He died at Ely the 27th of June, 1636, aged seventytwo, and was buried on the north side of the presbytery of the cathedral. He founded two scholarships and two fellowships in Jesus college, Cambridge, to be elected from the king’s free-school at Ely, and gave a noble benefaction to the choir. &c. of Ely cathedral, but his nephew and executor having been prevailed upon to lend the principal money of these benefactions, the whole was lost both to the cathedral and the college.

In December 1757, sir Julius Cæsar’s collection of manuscripts, which had long been preserved in the family, was sold by public auction by Sam. Paterson. By the lapse of time and the decay of the family, they had fallen into the hands of some uninformed persons, and were on the point of being sold by weight to a cheesemonger, as waste-paper, for the sum often pounds; but some of them happened to be shewn to Mr. Paterson, who instantly discovered their value. He then digested a masterly | catalogue of the whole collection, and distributing it in several thousands of the most singular and interesting heads, caused them to be sold by auction, which produced 356l. Many of them were in the library of the late marquis of Lansdowne, and are now, consequently, in the British museum. ¹