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The fourth period of this great man’s lift* terminates likewise the career of his art. Lionardo appears to have bid farewell to painting about his sixty-third year. When in 1515 Francis I. had failed in the attempt of having the picture of the last supper sawed from the walls of the refectory, for its transportation to France, he attempted to possess’himself of the author. He invited him to his court, and Vinci accepted the invitation without much regret at leaving Florence, where, since his return from Rome, he had met in young Buonarroti with a rival already preferred to him in the disposal of commissions; because, if we believe Vasari, he gave works where Lionardo gave often only words. It is known that there was anger between them, and Vjnci, consulting his own quiet, passed over to France, where, before he had touched pencil, he died in the arms of Francis I.

Lionardo da Vinci broke forth with a splendour which eclipsed all his predecessors: made up of all the elements of genius, favoured by form, education, and circumstances, all ear, all eye, all grasp painter, poet, sculptor, anatomist, architect, engineer,chemist, machinist, musician, philosopher, and sometimes empiric he laid hold of every beauty in the enchanted circle, but, without exclusive attachment to one, dismissed in her turn each. Fitter to scatter hints than to teach by example, he wasted life insatiate in experiment. To a capacity which at once penetrated the principle and real aim of the art, he joined an inequality of fancy that at one moment lent him wings for the pursuit of beauty, and the next flung him on the ground to crawl after deformity. We owe to him chiaroscuro with all its magic, but character was his favourite study; character he has often raised from an individual to a species, and as often depressed to a monster from an individual. His notion of the most elaborate finish, and his want of perseverance, were at least equal. Want of perseverance alone could make him abandon his cartoon designed for the great council-chamber at Florence, of which the celebrated contest of horsemen was but one group; for to him who could organize that composition, Michael Angelo himself might be an object of emulation, but could not be one of fear. His line was free from meagreness, and his forms presented beauties; but he appears not to have been very much acquainted with the antique. The strength of his conception lay in the delineation of male heads; those of his females owe nearly all their charms to chiaroscuro; they are seldom more discriminated than the children they follow; they are sisters of one family.

Da Vinci composed a great number of discourses upon several curious subjects, among whichwere, “A Treatise of the Nature, Equilibrium, and Motion, of Water” “A Treatise of Anatomy” “The Anatomy of a Horse” “A Treatise of Perspective” “A Treatise of Light and Shadows” and, “A Treatiseof Painting.” None of these have found their way to the press, but the “Treatise of the Art of Painting;” a noble edition of which was published by R. du Fresne at Paris in 1651, with figures by Nicholas Poussin. It was also published in English in 1721, 8vo, and reprinted in 1796, with a life of the author prefixed; from which we have extracted chiefly this account of him.

, an eminent benefactor to the study of law, is introduced here in that character, although we have scarcely any memorials of his personal history. He died at his house at Aldershot, Hampshire, June 5, 1756, at what age we are not told, nor have we heard of any particulars of his life having been then or since collected, or published. That he was of the profession of the law may be supposed from his having dedicated a considerable portion of his life to the Herculean labour, which will long preserve his name, and which he executed at his house at Aldershot, under the title of “A general and complete Abridgment of Law and Equity,” 1741—1751, 24 vols. fol. It was not only printed under his own inspection (by agreement with the law patentees) at his house, but the paper also was manufactured under his direction, as appears by a peculiar water-mark, describing the number of the volume or the initials of C. V. He began at the title Factor, where D'Anvers left off, and published to the end of the alphabet; he then proceeded to the title Abatement, but by his Index he directed the volumes to be placed in alphabetical order.

This work, on which, Blackstone informs us, he employed above half a century, is styled by Mr. Hargrave an immense body of law and equity, and that learned gentleman recommends it, notwithstanding all its defects and inaccuracies, as a necessary part of every lawyer’s library. He further says, it is indeed a most useful compilation, and would have been infinitely more so, if the author had been less singular and more nice in his arrangement and method, and more studious to avoid repetition; faults which proceeded in a great measure from the author’s error in judgment, in attempting to engraft his own very extensive judgment on that of Mr. Sergeant Rolle. This stupendous work vras reprinted in 1792 and 1794, 24 vols. royal 8vo; it was followed by six supplemental volumes, undertaken by James Edward Watson, Samuel Corny n, James Sedgwick, Henry Alcock, John Wyatt, James Humphreys, Alexander Anstruther, and Michael Nolan, esqrs. who laid them before the public in 1799, 1800, 1801, 1805, and 1806, each gentleman having taken up his own apportioned burthen of the task.

But this was not the only* obligation Mr. Viner conferred on the profession. Having resolved to dedicate his learned labours, to use his own words, “to the benefit of posterity, and the perpetual service of his country,” he bequeathed by his will (dated Dec. 29, 1755) about 12,000l. to the university of Oxford, to establish a professorship, and endow such fellowships and scholarships of the common law in that university as should be adequate to the produce of his estate. Dr. Blackstone was appointed the first professor, and it is a sufficient praise of this foundation that it produced his celebrated “Commentaries.” The excellent management of the estate has since enabled the university to increase the number of the scholarships and fellowships. Mr. Viner was afterwards, by decree of convocation, enrolled among the public benefactors of the university. The sense, says Blackstone, which the university entertained of this ample and most useful benefaction, must appear beyond a doubt, from their alacrity and unexampled dispatch in carrying it into execution, and above all, from the laws and constitutions by which they have effectually guarded it from the neglect and abuse, to which such institutions are liable.

, a learned and excellent divine, a popular and laborious preacher, and a most industrious and useful man in his college, was born at Blaston in Leicestershire, and educated in Magdalen college, Cambridge, where he commenced M. A. and was remarkable for his sober and grave behaviour, not being chargeable even with the venial levities of youth. From the university he was elected (most probably at the recommendation of his contemporary Thomas Cleiveland) school-master at Hinckley; where he entered into holy orders, and (as appears by an extract from the register of that parish) married, and had at least one child. After remaining some time in the faithful discharge of his office at Hinckleyschool, he obtained the rectory of Weddington, in Warwickshire; and, at the beginning of the civil war, was driven from his parish, and forced to take shelter in Coventry. When the assembly of divines which established the presbyterian government in 164 1 was called, Mr. Vines, who was a good speaker, was unanimously chosen of their number; and, as Fuller says, was the champion of the party. While he was at London he became the minister of St. Clement Danes, and vicar of St. Lawrence Jewry; afterwards he removed to Watton, in Hertfordshire; and was appointed master of Pembroke Hall, in Cambridge, in 1645, by the earl of Manchester, on the ejection of Dr. Benjamin Lavey; but resigned that and his living of St. Lawrence Jewry in 1650, on account of the engagement. He joined in a letter from the principal ministers of the city of London (presented Jan. 1, 1645, to the assembly of divines sitting at Westminster by authority of parliament), complaining against the independents. He was a son of thunder, and therefore compared to Luther; yet moderate and charitable to them that differed from him in judgment. The parliament employed him in all their treaties with the king; and his majesty, though of a different judgment, valued him for his ingenuity, seldom speaking to him without touching his hat, which Mr. Vines returned with most respectful language and gestures. This particular was the more remarkable, as no other of the parliament commissioners ever met with the same token of attention. Dr. Grey, in his answer to Neal, relates that when Mr. Vines returned from this treaty, he addressed one Mr. Walden, saying, “Brother, how hath this nation been fooled We have been told that our king is a child, and A foot- but if I understand any thing by my converse with him, which I have had with great liberty, he is as much of a Christian prince as ever I read or heard of since onr Saviour’s time. He is a very precious prince, and is able of himself to argue with the ablest divines we have. And among all the kings of Israel and Jndah, there was none like him.”

When sentence of death was pronounced on this unhappy sovereign, Mr. Vines came with the other London ministers to offer their services to pray with his majesty the morning before his execution. The king thanked them, but declined their services. Vines was an admirable scholar; holy and pious in his conversation, and indefatigable in his labours, which wasted his strength, and brought him into a consumption when he had lived but about fifty -six years. He was a very painful and laborious minister, and spent his time principally amongst his parishioners, in piously endeavouring “to make them all of one piece, though they were of different colours, and unite them in judgment who dissented in affection.” In 1654 he was joined in a commission to eject scandalous and ignorant ministers and schoolmasters in London. He died in 1655, and was buried Feb. 7, in the parish-church of St. Lawrence Jewry, which having been consumed in the general conflagration of 1666, no memorial of him is there to be traced. His funeral-sermon was preached Feb. 7, by Dr. Jacomb, who gave him his just commendation. He was a perfect master of the Greek tongue, a good philologist, and an admirable disputant. He was a thorough Calvinist, and a bold honest man, without pride or flattery. Mr. Newcomen calls him “Disputator acutissimus, Concionator felicissimus, Theologus eximius.” Many funeral poems and elegies were made upon his death.

Mr. Vines was frequently called forth to preach on public solemnities; particularly before the House of Commons, at a public fast, Nov. 30, 1642; on a thanksgiving, before both Houses, July 13, 1644; at another fast, before the Commons, March 10, 1646; and before the House of Peers, at the funeral of the earl of Essex, Oct. 22, 1646. Thirtytwo of his “Sermons” were published in 1662.

, a classical editor, translator, and critic, was born at Vinets, a small village in Saintonge, in 1507. He studied first at Barbesieux, where Thuanus, by mistake, says he was born, and went thence to Poitiers, where he took his degree of master of arts. On his return to Barbesieux, he employed himself for some time in teaching, that he might acquire enough to bear his expences at Paris, where he wished to acquire a greater knowledge of the belles lettres and mathematics, to both of which he had already in some measure applied. In 1541, however, Andrew Govea, principal of the college of Bourdeaux, hearing a very advantageous character of him, invited him thither to a professorship, which he held about six years, and then accompanied Govea to Portugal to assist in founding the college of Coimbra on the model of that of Eourdeaux. In the following year, 1548, on the death of Govea, he returned to Bourdeaux, and continued to teach belles lettres and mathematics, until the death of Gelida, the principal, in 1558, whom he was chosen to succeed. He filled this office with great assiduity and reputation for twenty-five years, at the end of which his infirmities obliged him to resign the active part, and he was permitted to retire upon his salary, holding also the title of principal. He died at Bourdeaux May 14, 1587, in the eightieth year of his age, according to Saxius; but Niceron gives 1519 as the date of his birth, and 1587 as that of his death, and yet says that he died aged seventy-eight.

Vinet was a man of indefatigable literary labour, and of great learning. Scaliger says he never knew a more learned man, “Nullum novi doctiorem Vineto;” and it appears the practice of many laborious scholars was also his, “nulla dies sine linea.” He always read with his pen in his hand. We have a list of twenty-eight publications by him, most of them editions of the classics, or ancient authors. Among them are editions of Theognis, Sidonius Apollinaris, Julius Solinus, Proclus, Eutropius, Persius, Florus, Censorinus, Pomponius Mela, and some historical and mathematical works, translations, &c.

, an able assistant in the reformation, was born at Orbe, a little town in the canton of Berne, in 1511. He studied at Paris, and became acquainted there with Farel, whose fellow-labourer he afterwards was in establishing the reformation in some towns of Swisserland. He went with him to Geneva in 1534, and seconded him with great vigour in every thing necessary to be done for the abolition of popery. The city of Lausanne having embraced the reformation in 1536, it was thought proper that Peter Viret should exercise the ministerial function there, and he soon gained the affection and esteem of the inhabitants. This appears from the reluctance, with which they were brought to consent that he should go to the church of Geneva for six months, during Calvin’s absence at the conference at Worms in 1541, and afterwards at Ratisbon. During that time Viret became so useful and popular, that Calvin, being restored to his flock, was extremely desirous of having him for his colleague; but could not prevail on him, as he was determined to return to Lausanne, where he remained until the French reformed churches overcame his repugnance, and prevailed with him to go to the church at Lyons, where in the midst of the civil wars, and the plague which followed, he and his colleagues continued to preach and to propagate the doctrines of the reformation with equal courage, prudence, and success.

Their tranquillity was at length disturbed by an edict of Charles IX. artfully procured by the Jesuits, which forbad the French churches from having any preachers who were not natives of France. Viret then, in 1563, retired to Orange, whence the pious Jeanne D'Albret, queen of Navarre, invited him to Beam. He preached also some time at Ortez, and died in that country in 1571, in the sixtieth year of his age. He had always been of a weakly constitution, and his health had been much injured by two attempts on his life by the enemies of the reformation, once when he was nearly poisoned at Geneva, and a second time when he received a stab from a knife, and was left for dead. He was a man of a meek and gentle disposition^ but of such winning eloquence, that many of his hearers conceived a kind of attachment to him, although they did not subscribe to his doctrines. Of the three great contemporaries in the church of Geneva, Calvin, Farel, and Viret, it was said that Calvin was admired for his profound erudition, Farel for his zeal and warmth, and Viret for his persuasive eloquence. Viret also, in his writings at least, had a happy talent in turning the superstitions he opposed into ridicule, and this he did with such effect that Dupin and other catholic biographers of later date cannot forgive him.

His works are very numerous, and regard principally the points in dispute between the reformed and the Romish church. They are written, some in French and some in Latin, and the form of dialogue seems to have been a favourite with him. During queen Elizabeth’s time, the most popular writings of the foreign reformers were translated into English, and this compliment we find paid to nine of Viret’s publications, the titles of which may be seen in Ames. From the list of his whole works given by Niceron, we may notice, 1. “De origine, continuatione, usu, auctohtate, atque prasstantia ministerii verbi Dei et Sacramentorum; et de controversiis ea de re in Christiano orbe, hoc praesertim sasculo excitatis, ac de eorum componendorum ratione, libri octodecini,” Geneva, 1554, folio. 2. “Instruction Chretienne en la doctrine de la loi et de l'evangile, &c.” ibid. 1564, folio.

the most excellent of all the ancient Roman poets, was born Oct. 15, U. C. 684, B. C. 70, in the consulship of Pompey and Crassus, at a village called Andes, not far from Mantua. His father was undoubtedly a man of low birth and mean circumstances; but by his industry so much recommended himself to his master, that he gave him his daughter, named Maia, in marriage, as a reward of his fidelity. Our poet, discovering early marks of a very fine genius, was sent at twelve years old to study at Cremona, where he continued till his seventeenth year. He was then removed to Milan, and from thence to Naples, then the residence of several teachers in philosophy and polite learning; and applied himself heartily to the study of the best Greek and Roman writers. But physic and mathematics were his favourite sciences, which he cultivated with much care; and to this early tincture of geometrical learning were owing probably that regularity of thought, propriety of expression, and exactness in conducting all subjects, for which he is so remarkable. He learned the Epicurean philosophy under the celebrated Syro, of whom Cicero speaks twice with the greatest encomiums both of his learning and virtue: his acquaintance with Varus, his first patron, commenced by his being fellow-student with him under this philosopher. After Virgil had completed his studies at Naples, Donatus affirms, that he made a journey to Rome; and relates some marvellous circumstances concerning his being made known to Augustus, which, like many other particulars in his account of this poet, breathe very much the air of fable. The truth is, we have no certain knowledge of the time and occasion of Virgil’s going to Rome, how his connexions with the wits and men of quality began, nor how he was introduced to the court of Augustus.

We cannot however imagine, that such an extraordinary gemus could lie long inactive and unexerted. It is related that, in the warmth of early youth, he formed a noble design of writing an heroic poem, “On the wars of Rome;” but, after some attempts, was discouraged from proceeding by the roughness and asperity of the old Roman names, which not only disgusted his delicate ear, but, as Horace expresses it, “quse versu dicere non est.” He turned himself, therefore, to pastoral; and, being captivated with the beauty and sweetness of Theocritus, was ambitious to introduce this new species of poetry among the Romans. His first performance in this way is supposed to have been written the year before the death of Julius Caesar, when the poet was in his twenty-fifth year: it is entitled “Alexis.” Possibly “Palaemon” was his second, which is a close imitation of the fourth and fifth Idylls of Theocritus. Dr. Warton places “Silenus” next: which is said to have been publicly recited on the stage by Cytheris, a celebrated comedian. Cicero, having heard this eclogue, cried out in an extasy of admiration, that the author of it was “magna3 spes altera Romae;” esteeming himself, say the commentators, to be the first. But the words may be understood in a very different sense, and more honourable to Cicero. The subject of this eclogue, we should remember, was an account of the Epicurean philosophy, both natural and moral, which had been but lately illustrated by Lucretius, an author, of whom Cicero was so eminently fond, as to revise and publish his work. Upon hearing therefore the beautiful verses of Virgil upon the same subject, Cicero exclaimed to this purpose: “Behold another great genius rising up among us, who will prove a second Lucretius.” Dr. Warton at least has suggested this very ingenious and natural interpretation. Virgil’s fifth eclogue is composed in allusion to the death and deification of Cassar. The battle of Philippi, in the year 7 12, having put an end to the Roman liberty, the veteran soldiers began to murmur for their pay; and Augustus, to reward them, distributed among them the lands of Mantua and Cremona. Virgil was involved in this common calamity, and applied to Varus and Pollio, who warmly recommended him to Augustus, and procured for him his patrimony again. Full of gratitude to Augustus, he composed the “Tityrus,” in which he introduces two shepherds; one of them complaining of the distraction of the times, and of the h.avock the soldiers made among the Mantuan farmers; the other, rejoicing for the recovery of his estate, and promising to honour the person who restored it to him as a god. But our poet’s joy was not of long continuance: for we are told, that, when he returned to take possession of his farm, he was violently assaulted by the intruder, and would certainly have been killed by him, if he had not escaped by swimming hastily over the Mincio. Upon this unexpected disappointment, melancholy and dejected, he returned to Rome, to renew his petition; and, during his journey, seems to have composed his ninth eclogue. The celebrated eclogue, entitled “Pollio,” was composed in the year 714, upon the following occasion. The consul Pollio on the part of Antony, and Maecenas on the part of Caesar, iiad made up the differences between them; by agreeing, that Octavia, half sister to Caesar, should be given in marriage to Antony. This agreement caused an universal joy; and Virgil, in this eclogue, testified his. Octavia was with child by her late husband Marcellus at the time of this marriage; and, as the Sibylline oracles had foretold, that a child was to be born about this time who should rule the world and establish perpetual peace, the poet ingeniously supposes the child in Octavia’s womb to be the glorious infant, under whose reign mankind was to be happy, the golden age to return from heaven, and fraud and violence to be no more. In this celebrated poem, the author with great delicacy at the same time pays his court to both the chiefs, to his patron Pollio, to Octavia, and to the unborn infant. It is dedicated to Pollio by name, who was at that time consul, and therefore we are sure of the date of this eclogue, as it is known he enjoyed that high office in the year 714. In the year 715, Pollio was sent against the Parthini, a people of Illyricum; and during this expedition Virgil addressed to him a beautiful eclogue, called “Pharmaceutria.” His tentti and last eclogue is addressed to Gallus. These were our poet’s first productions; and we have been the more circumstantial in our account of some of them, as many particulars of his life are intimately connected with them.

Being in his thirty-fourth year, he retired to Naples, and laid the plan of his inimitable “Georgics,” which he undertook at the entreaties of Maecenas, to whom he dedicated them; not to rival and excel Hesiod, as he had lately done Theocritus, but on a noble and political motive, and to promote the welfare of his country. Great was the desolation occasioned by the civil wars: Italy was almost depopulated: the lands were uncultivated and unstocked: a famine and Insurrection ensued; and Augustus himself hardly escaped being stoned by the people, who attributed this calamity to ambition. His wise and able minister therefore resolved, if possible, to revive the decayed spirit of husbandry, to introduce a taste for agriculture, even among the great; and could not think of a better method to effect this, than to recommend it by the insinuating charms of poetry. Virgil fully answered the expectations of his polite patron; for the “Genroics” contain all those masterly beauties that might be expected from an exalted genius, whose judgment and imagination were in full maturity and vigour, and who had leisure to give the last polish and perfection to his incomparable workmanship. They are divided into four books; and the subjects of them are particularly specified in the first lour lines of the first book. Corn and ploughing are the subject of the first book, vines of the second, cattle of the third, and bees of the fourth.

He is supposed to have been in his forty-fifth- year when he began to write the “Æneid;” the design of which is thus explained by an able master in classical literature. Augustus being freed from his rival Antony, the government of the Roman empire was to be wholly in him; and though he* chose to be called their father, he was, in every thing but the name, their king. But the monarchical form of government must naturally displease the Romans: and therefore Virgil, like a good courtier, seems to have laid the plan of his poem to reconcile them to it. He takes advantage of their religious turn, and of some old prophecies that must have been very flattering to the Roman people, as promising them the empire of the whole world. He weaves these in with the most probable account of their origin, that of being descended from the Trojans. He shews, that ^neas was called into their country by the express order of the gods; that there was an uninterrupted succession of kings from him to Romulus; that Julius Ca;sar was of this royal race, and that Augustus was his sole heir. The result of which was, that the promises made to the Roman people in and through this race, terminating in Augustus, the Romans, if they would obey the gods, and be masters of the world, were to yield obedience to the new establishment under that prince. The poem, therefore, may very well be considered as a political work: Pope used to say, “it was evidently as much a party-piece, as Absalom and Achitophel:” and, if so, Virgil was not highly encouraged by Augustus and Maecenas for nothing. The truth is, he wrote in defence of the new usurpation of the state; and all that can be offered in his vindication, which however seems enough, is, that the Roman government could no longer be kept from falling into a single hand, and that the usurper he wrote for was as good a one as they could have. But, whatever may be said of his motives for writing it, the poem has in all ages been highly applauded. Augustus was eager to peruse it before it was finished; and entreated him by letters to communicate it. Macrobius has preserved to us part of one of Virgil’s answers to the emperor, in which the poet excuses himself; who, however, at length complied, and read himself the sixth book to the emperor, when Octavia, who had just lost her son Marcellus, the darling of Rome, and adopted son of Augustus, made one of the audience. Virgil had artfully inserted that beautiful lamentation for the death of young Marcellus, beginning with “O nate, ingentem luctum ne quaere tuorum” but suppressed his name till he came to the line “Tu Marcellus eris:” upon hearing which Octavia could bear no more, but fainted away, overcome with surprise and sorrow. When she recovered, shfc made the poet a present of ten sesterces for every line, which amounted in the whole to above 2OOO/.

The “Æneid” being brought to a conclusion, but not to the perfection our author intended to give it, he resolved to travel into Greece, to correct and polish it at leisure. It was probably on this occasion, that Horace addressed that affectionate ode to him “Sic te Diva potens Cypri,” &c. Augustus, returning victorious from the East, met with Virgil at Athens, who thought himself obliged to attend the emperor to Italy: but the poet was suddenly seized with a fatal distemper, which, being increased by the agitation of the vessel, put an end to his life as soon as he landed at Brundusium. He died Sept. the 22d, in his fifty-second year. He had ordered in his will, that the “Æneid” should be burnt, as an unfinished poem; but Augustus forbade it, and had it delivered to Varius and Tucca, with the strictest charge to make no additions, but only to publish it correctly. He died with such steadiness and tranquillity, as to be able to dictate his own epitaph, in the following words:

Parthenope cecini Pascua, Kura, Duces." His bones were carried to Naples, according to his earnest request; and a monument was erected at a small distance from the city. He was of a swarthy complexion, tall, of a sickly constitution, afflicted with frequent head-aches and spitting of blood, very temperate, sober, and chaste, whatever may have been surmised to the contrary. That he wrote in his youth some indecent verses is not to he doubted, since the younger Pliny, who had done the same, justifies himself by his example; and, in his “Bucolics,” he relates very criminal passions; but it does not thence follow that he was tainted with them. On the contrary, it is delivered down to us as a certain truth, that the inhabitants of Naples gave him the name of Parthenias, on account of the purity of his words and manners. He was so very bashful, that he frequently ran into the shops, to prevent being gazed at in the streets; yet so honoured by the Roman people, that once, coming into the theatre, the whole audience rose, out of respect to him. He was of a thoughtful and melancholy temper, spoke little, loved retirement and contemplation. His fortune was not only easy, but affluent: he had a delightful villa in Sicily, and a fine house and well furnished library near Maecenas’s gardens on the Esquiline-hill at Rome. He revised his verses with prodigious severity, and used to compare himself to a she-bear, which licks her cubs into shape. He was so benevolent and inoffensive, that most of his contemporary poets, though they envied each other, agreed in loving and esteeming him. Among Caligula’s follies we may undoubtedly reckon his contempt and hatred of Virgil; who, he had the confidence to say, had neither wit nor learning, and whose writings and effigy he endeavoured to remove out of all libraries. The emperor Alexander Severus, on the contrary, called him the Plato of the poets, and placed his picture with that of Cicero in the temple in which he had placed Achilles and other great men. So did Silius Italicus the poet, when he kept Virgil’s birthday, as Pliny relates, with greater solemnity than his own; and so did our sir William Temple, who did “not wonder that the famous Dr. Harvey, when he was reading Virgil, should sometimes throw him down upon the table, and say, `He had a devil'.” With regard to the characteristical difference between Virgil and Homer, so much disputed, it may with truth be affirmed, that the former excelled all other poets in judgment, and the latter in invention; the former is the greater genius, the latter the most correct writer. “Methinks the two poets,” says Mr. Pope, “resemble the heroes they celebrate. Homer, boundless and irresistible as Achilles, bears all before him, and shines more and more, as the tumult increases Virgil, calmly daring, like Æneas, appears undisturbed in the midst of the action, disperses all about him, and conquers with tranquillity. Or, when we look on their machines, Homer seems like his own Jupiter in his terrors, shaking Olympus, scattering the lightnings, and firing the heavens: Virgil, like the same power in his benevolence, counselling with the gods, Jaying plans for empires, and regularly ordering his whole creation.”

The genuine and undisputed works of this poet are, ten “Eclogues, or Bucolics,” four books of “Georgics,” and the “Æneid,” in twelve books. The “Culex,” the “Ciris,” and some smaller pieces, called “Catalecta,” are subjoined to some editions of his works; particularly to that of Masvicius, with the notes of Servius, at JLeewarden, 1717, in 2 vols. 4to; which is, perhaps, the best edition of Virgil, although that of Burman, at Amsterdam, 1746, in 4 vols. 4 to., bears a higher price. There are, besides these 4 several good ones; as the “Elzevir” in 1636, 12mo; “Da la Cerdu’s” in 1642, folio; that “in Usum Delphini a Ruæo, 1675,” 4to; the “Variorum” edition at Leyden, 1680, 3 vols. 8vo and the edition of Heyne, republished in London in 1793. The versions of, and commentaries upon, his works are innumerable; those into our own lair* guage by Ogilby, Dryden, and Trapp, are well known: but Dr. Warton’s edition in Latin and English, referred to above, is preferable to any of these, not on account of th translation only, but because the Latin text is correctly printed with it. The “Bucolics” and “Georgics” have also been published by Dr. John Martyn, F. R. S. professor of botany in Cambridge, with an English version in prose, and with useful and curious notes.

, an ancient English historian, was born in 1075, and was the son of Odelinus, chief counsellor of Roger de Montgomery, earl of Shrewsbury. He was first educated at Shrewsbury, and at the age of ten was sent over to Normandy to the monastery of St. Ercole’s and in his eleventh year became a member of the order of that society. In his thirty-third year he was admitted into the priesthood. His history is entitled “Histories ecclesiasticae libri XIII in tres partes divisi, quarum postremae duae res per Normannos in Francia, Anglia, Sicilia, Apulia, Calabria, Palestina, pie streneque gestas, ab adventu Rollonis usque ad annum Christi 1124 complectuntur.? Nicolson, in his Historical Library, gives but an inclifferent opinion of the merits of this historian; but baron Maseres, who has lately republished a part of Vitalis, along with other historical collections of ancient times, 4to, from Duchesne’s” Scriptores Normanni," estimates him more highly, and recommends the publication of the whole. There is no other book, he thinks, that gives so full and authentic an account of the transactions of the reign of William the Conqueror. Orderic was living in 1143, but how much longer is uncertain.

, or Vitello, a Polish mathematician of the 13th century, flourished about 1254. We have of his a large “Treatise on Optics,” the best edition of which is that of 1572, fol. Vitello was the first optical writer of any consequence among the modern Europeans. He collected all that was given by Euclid, Archimedes, Ptolomy, and Alhazen; though his work is but of little use now.

, an eminent and learned protestant divine, was born May 16, 1659, at Leuwarden, in Friesland. He took a doctor’s degree in divinity at Leyden, July 9, 1679, and was successively professor of oriental languages, divinity, and sacred history at Franeker, in which city he married, 1681, and died March 3, 1722, of an apoplexy. His works are, 1. an excellent “Commentary on Isaiah,” 2 vols. fol. in Latin. 2. “Apocalypseos anachrisis,” 1719, 4to. 3. “Typus Theologiae Practices,” 8vo, 4. “Hypotyposis Historiae et Chronologies sacra,” 8vo. 5. “Synagoga vetus,” 4to. 6. “Archisynagogus, 4to. 7.” De Decemviris otiosis Synagoga?,“4io. 8.” Observationes sacrae,“17U,4to, &c. Campegius Vitringa, one of his sons, born March 23, 1693, was also professor of divinity at Franeker, and died nine months after his father, January 11, 1723, aged thirty-one, leaving an ”Abridgment of natural Theology,“1720, 4to, and” Sacred Dissertations," which do him honour.

, was a celebrated Roman architect, of whom however nothing is known but what is to be collected from his ten books “Do Ardiitectura,” still extant. In the preface to the sixth book he informs us that he was carefully educated by his parents, and instructed in the whole circle of arts and sciences; a circumstance which he speaks of with much gratitude, laying it down as certain, that no man can be a complete arr chitect, without some knowledge and skill in everyone of" them. And in the preface to the first book he informs us that he was known to Julius Cicsar that he was afterwards recommended by Octavia to her brother Augustus Cæsar, and that he was so favoured and provided for by this emperor, as to be out of all fear of poverty as long as he might live.

It is supposed that Vitruvius was born either at Rome or Verona; but it is not known which. His books of architecture are addressed to Augustus Csesar, and not only shew consummate skill in that particular science, but also very uncommon genius and natural abilities. Cardan, in his 16th book “De Subtilitate,” ranks Vitruvius as one of the twelve persons, whom he supposes to have excelled all men in the force of genius and invention; and would not have scrupled to have given him the first place, if it could be imagined that he had delivered nothing but his own discoveries. These twelve persons were, Euclid, Archimedes, Apollonius Pergaeus, Aristotle, Archytas of Tarentum, Vitruvius, Achindus, Mahomet Ibn Moses the inventor or improver of Algebra, Duns Scotus, John Suisset surnamed the Calculator, Galen, and Heber of Spain.

The Architecture of Vitruvius has been often printed: first at Rome, about 1486. There is a very excellent edition of Amsterdam in 1649, and of late there have been two very fine ones, that by Augustus Rode, Berlin, 1800, 4to, and 'that by Schneider, at Leipsic, 1808, 4 vols. 8vo. The finest manuscript of Vitruvius is in the library at Franeker. Perrault also, the celebrated French architect, gave an excellent French translation of the same, and added notes and figures: the first edition of which was published at Paris in 1673, and the second, much improved, in 1684. There are also various Italian translations. Mr. William Newton, an ingenious architect, and late surveyor to the works at Greenwich hospital, published in 1780 1791, 2 vols. fol. curious commentaries on Vitruvius, illustrated with figures; to which is added a description, with figures, of the military machines used by the ancients.

, one of the revivers of literature, was born at Valentia, in Spain, in 1492. He learned grammar and classical learning in his own country, and went to Paris to study logic and scholastic philosophy, the subtleties and futility of which he had soon the good sense to discover, and when he removed from Paris to Louvain, he there published a book against them, entitled “Contra Pseudo-Dialecticos.” At Louvain he undertook the office of a preceptor, and exerted himself with great ability and success in correcting barbarism, chastising the corruptors of learning, and reviving a taste for true science and elegant letters. This so raised his reputation that he was chosen to be preceptor to William de Croy, afterwards archbishop of Toledo, and cardinal, who died in 1521. In July 1517 he was made, though then at Louvain, one of the first fellows of Corpus Christi college, in Oxford, by the founder; his fame being spread over England, as well on account of his great parts and learning as for the peculiar respect and favour with which queen Catherine of Spain honoured him. In 1522 he dedicated his “Commentary upon St. Augustin de Civitate Dei” to HenryVlII; which, says Wood, was so acceptable to that prince, that cardinal Wolsey, by his order, invited him over to England; but this must be a mistake, for in a letter of the cardinal’s to the university in 1519, mention is made of his being then reader of rhetoric, and that by the cardinal’s appointment. He was also employed to teach the princess Mary polite literature and the Latin tongue: it was for her use that he wrote “De Ratione studii puerilis,” which he addressed to his patroness queen Catharine, in 1523; as he did the same year “De institutione fceminae Christiance,” written by her command. During his stay in England he resided a good deal at Oxford, where he was admitted doctor of law, and read lectures in that and the belles lettres. King Henry conceived such an esteem for him, that iie accompanied his queen to Oxford, in order to be present at the lectures which he read to the princess Mary, who resided there: yet, when Vives afterwards presumed to speak and write against the divorce of Catherine, Henry considered his conduct as criminal, and confined him six months in prison. Having obtained his liberty, he returned to the Netherlands, and resided at Bruges, where he married, and taught the belles lettres as long as he lived. He died in 1537, or, according toThuanus, 1541.

Vives was one of the most learned men of his age; and with Budaeus and Erasmus, formed a triumvirate which did honour to the republic of letters. Their admirers have ascribed to each those peculiar qualities in which they supposed him to exceed the other; as, wit to Budaeus, eloquence to Erasmus, judgment to Vives, and learning to them all. Dupin’s opinion is somewhat different: Erasmus, he says, was doubtless a man of finer wit, more extensive learning, and of a more solid judgment than Vives; Budaeus had more skill in the languages and in profane learning than either of them; and Vives excelled in grammar, in rhetoric, and in logic. But although Dupin may seecn to degrade Vives, in comparison with Erasmus and Buda?us, yet he has not been backward in doing justice to his merit. “Vives,” says he, “was not only excellent in polite letters, a judicious critic, and an eminent philosopher; but he applied himself also to divinity, and was successful in it. If the critics admire his books ‘ de causiscorruptarum artium,’ and * de tradendis disciplinis,‘ on account of the profane learning that appears in them, and the solidity of his judgment in those matters; the divines ought no less to esteem his books * de Veritate Eidei Christiana;,’ and his commentary upon St. Augustin f de Civitate Dei,' in which he shews, that he understood his religion thoroughly.”

His writings were printed at Basil, 1555, in 2 vols. folio; his commentary upon St. Austin is not included, but has been published separately. It discovers an extensive acquaintance with ancient philosophy. Among his works are “De Prima Philosophia,” “De Explanatione Essentiarum,” “De Censura Veri,” “De Initiis, Sectis, et Laudibus Philosophise,” and “De corruptis Artibus et tradendis Disciplinis.” These writings, says Brutker, of which the two last are the most valuable, discover great strength or judgment, an extensive knowledge of philosophy, much enlargement of conception, uncommon sagacity in detecting the errors of ancient and modern philosophers, particularly of Aristotle and his followers, and, in fine, a capable of attempting things beyond the standard of the age in which he lived. To all this he added great perspicuity and elegance of style, not unworthy of the friend of Erasmus. Morhoff calls the writings of Vives, golden remains, which are worthy to be carefully perused by all learned men.

, a celebrated Italian mathematician, was born at Florence in 1621, or, according to some, in 1622. He was a disciple of the illustrious Galileo, and lived with him from the seventeenth to the twentieth year of his age. After the death of his great master he passed two or three years more in prosecuting geometrical studies without interruption, and in this time it was that he formed the design of his Restoration of Aristeus. This ancient geometrician, who was contemporary with Euclid, had composed five books of problems “De Locis Solidis,” the bare propositions of which were collected by Pappus, but the books are entirely lost; which Viviani undertook to restore by the force of his genius. He discontinued his labour, however, in order to apply himself to another of the same kind, which was, to restore the fifth book of Apollonius’s Conic Sections. While he was engaged in this, the famous Borelli found, in the library of the grand duke of Tuscany, an Arabic manuscript, with a Latin inscription, which imported, that it contained the eight books of Apollonius’s Conic Sections; of which the eighth however was not found to be there. He carried this manuscript to Rome, in order to translate it, with the assistance of a professor of the Oriental languages. Viviani, very unwilling to lose the fruits of his labours, procured a certificate that he did not understand the Arabic language, and knew nothing of that manuscript: he was so jealous on this head, that he would not even suffer Borelli to send him an account of any thing relating to it. At length he finished his book, and published it 1659, in folio, with this title, “De Maximis et Minimis Geometrica Divinatio in quintum Conicorum Apollonii Fergsei.” It was found that he had more than divined; as he seemed superior to Apollonius himself. After this he was obliged to interrupt his studies for the service of his prince, in an affair of great importance, which was, to prevent the inundations of the Tiber, in which Cassini and he were employed for some time, though nothing was entirely executed.

In 1664, he had the honour of a pension from LouisXIV. a prince to whom he was not subject, nor could be useful. In consequence, he resolved to finish his Divination upon Aristeus, with a view to dedicate it to that prince; but he was interrupted in this task again by public works, and some negotiations which his master entrusted to him. In 1666, he was honoured by the grand duke with the title of his first mathematician. He resolved three problems, which had been proposed to all the mathematicians of Europe, and dedicated the work to the memory of Mr. Chapelain, under the title of “Enodatio Problematum,” c. He proposed the problem of the quadrable arc, of which Leibnitz and l'Hospital gave solutions by the Calculus Differentialis. In 1669, he was chosen to fill, in the Royal Academy of Sciences, a place among the eight foreign associates. This new favour reanimated his zeal; and he published three books of his Divination upon Aristeus, at Florence in 1701, which he dedicated to the king of France. It is a thin folio, entitled “De Locis Solidis secunda Divinatio Geometrica,” &c. This was a second edition enlarged; the first having been printed at Florence in 1673. Viviani laid out the fortune which he had raised by the bounties of his prince, in building a magnificent house at Florence; in which he placed a bust of Galileo, with several inscriptions in honour of that great man; and died in 1703, at eighty-one years of age.

Viviani had, says P'ontenelle, that innocence and simplicity of manners which persons commonly preserve, who have less commerce with men than with books; without that roughness and a certain savage fierceness which those often acquire who have only to deal with books, not with men. He was affable, modest, a fast and faithful friend, and, what includes many virtues in one, he was grateful in the highest degree for favours.

, an eminent Dutch divine, and the founder of a sect, if it may be so called, who were in opposition to the Cartesian philosophy, was born at Heusden, March 3, 1589, of an ancient and considerable family. His education commenced in the schools of his native place, and was greatly promoted by a memory of more than common retention, which he displayed to the astonishment of his teachers and friends, while he was learning Greek and Latin, rhetoric, arithmetic, and logic. It is said that he could repeat without book three entire comedies of Terence, as many of Plautus, the first book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the first book of Horace’s Odes, &c. and many other extensive parts of the authors he read. After finishing his classical course, he was sent in 1604 to Leyden, where he passed seven years, increasing his knowledge of the Greek language, but particularly employed on the study of the belles lettres, philosophy, and theology. In general science he had made such progress, as to be able to give lectures on logic, during his divinity course, and had among other pupils the celebrated Burgersdicius, afterwards professor of philosophy at Leyden. Voetius was also solicited to take the degree of doctor, but some particular reasons prevented him at this time. Having completed his academical studies in 1611, he returned to Heusden, and became a candidate for the ministry. He had also a design to have visited Germany, France, and England, but was long confined by an illness; and on his recovery was appointed to officiate in the church of Vlymen, a village between Heusden and Bois-le-Duc. He preached also occasionally at Engelen, about a league from Vlymen, and in both places with great ability and reputation, for about six years. In 1617 he accepted a call to Heusden, where he settled for seventeen years, although repeatedly invited to superior situations in Rotterdam and other parts of the United Provinces. In 1619, he assisted for six months at the synod of Dort, and during this time, along with three of his brethren, preached at Gouda against the Arminians or Remonstrants, to whom he was always a decided enemy, and was as zealous a friend to the doctrines of Calvin. While at Heusden, he preached occasionally at other places, and in 1629 to the army which besieged Bois-le-duc, and after the capture of that city he officiated there for about nine months alone with three other ministers. During his residence here, he and his brethren published a sort of manifesto, inviting all the inhabitants, and particularly the clergy, to a conference, either public or private, on the points in dispute between the reformed and the Romish church. Jansenius answered this manifesto in a work entitled '“Alexipharmacum civibus Sylvsc-ducensibus propinatum ad versus mi nistrorum suorum fascinum,” Brussels, 1630, This produced a controversy, of whicu we have already given an account. (See Jansen, p. 470——471).

In 1634, Voetius was invited to Utrecht, where an intention was to found a school for divinity and the oriental languages, and he was at the same time appointed one of the ministers of the city. Two years afterwards, when this school was made an university, Voetius thought proper now to take the degree of doctor of divinity, and for that purpose went to Groningen, where Gomarus, his old master, was professor. In 1637, during the vacation he paid a visit to England, became acquainted with many of the literati, and inspected the public libraries. During three years, after his return, he executed the office of divinity professor at Utrecht, giving eight public lectures a week, besides private ones, and taught also Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic. He was always indefatigable in his studies and duties, and when a preacher, long before he came to Utrecht, he used to preach eight times in a week.

It was in 1639 that he began to attack Des Cartes, and although upon this account Mosheim chooses to accuse him of want of a philosophical spirit, it may be seen from our account of Des Cartes, that men of acknowledged philosophical spirit had much reason to suspect that if impiety was not expressed, it might be inferred from some of the principles of Des Cartes. All that can be said against Voetius, if according to the dogmas of modern liberality he must be blamed, is, that he evinced a degree of zeal and warmth which was proportioned to the serious conse^­quences he expected from the spread of Cartesianisrn. Several works were published on both sides, the titles of which may be found in any of our authorities. Des Cartes defended his principles, and the disciples and followers of Voetius being obliged to assist their master, the controversy became extensive. Mosheim allows that Voetius was not only seconded by those Belgic divines who were the most eminent at this time for their learning, and the soundness of their theology, such as Rivet, Des Marets, and Maestricht, but was also followed and applauded by th greatest part of the Dutch clergy. The controversy was also augmented by the proceedings of certain doctors, who applied the principles and tenets of Des Cartes to the illustration of theological truth. The followers of Voetius were called Vyetians, and the division between them and the Cartesians long subsisted in Holland, and was the cause of much tlisnnion, petty animosity, and controversy.

Notwithstanding the controversies and writings which occupied a considerable part of the life of Voetius, and his academical and pastoral duties, he lived to a very advancvd age, dying Nov. 1, 1676, in his eighty-eighth year. The most valuable of the works he left, not of the controversial kind, is his “Select Disputationes Theolegicce,” or Theses, 1648, &c. 5 vols. 4to. Voetius had two sons, Daniel and Paul, who also left several works the former died in 1660, the latter in 1667. John Voet, son of Paul, was doctor and professor of law at Herborn, and died 1714, leaving a “Commentary on the Pandects,” Hagse, 1734-, 2 vols. fol. which is valued, and some other works on law.

, an ingenious doctor, and one of the most learned men of the seventeenth century, in Hebrew and the Oriental languages, was a native of Bourdeaux, descended from a respectable family of distinction in the law. He at first held the office of counsellor to the parliament in his native city; but having afterwards chosen the ecclesiastical profession, was raised to the priesthood, and became preacher and almoner to Armand de Bourbon, prince of Conti. M. de Voisin was extremely well skilled in rabbinical learning, and the ecclesiastical authors. He died 1685. His principal works are, a “System of Jewish Theology,” 1647, 4to, in Latin; a treatise “On the Divine Law,” 8vo another “On the Jubilee of the Jews,” 8vo, both in Latin learned notes on Raymond Martin’s “Pugio Fidei” 1651; “Defense du Traite de M. le Prince de Conti centre la Comédie et les Spectacles,” 1672, 4to a French " Translation of the Roman Missal, 4 vols. 12mo, which made much noise, and was suppressed, yet it has nevertheless been printed and sold since, &c. His enemies accused him of intending to have mass said in French, but L'Avocat maintains that he never had such an idea.

, once celebrated as an elegant French writer, was the son of a wine-merchant, and born at Amiens in 1598. His talents and taste for the Belles Lettres gave him considerable celebrity, and easily introduced him to the polite world. He was the first in France distinguished for what is called a bel esprit; and, though this is all the merit of his writings, yet this merit was then great, because it was uncommon. His reputation opened his way to court, and procured him pensions and honourable employments. He was sent to Spain about some affairs, whence out of curiosity he passed over to Africa. He was mightily caressed at Madrid, where he composed verses in such pure and natural Spanish, that every body ascribed them to Lopez de Veo;a. It appears by his “Letters,” that he was in England in 1633. He made two journeys to Rome, where in 1633 he was admitted a member of the academy of Humoristi; as he had been of the French academy in 1634. He was the person employed to carry the news of the birth of Lewis XIV. to Florence; and had a place in the household of that monarch. He had several considerable pensions from the court; but the love of play and women kept him from being rich. He died in 1648. He wrote verses in French, Spanish, and Italian; and there are some very fine lines written by him, but they are but few. His letters make the bulk of his works; and have been often printed in 2 vols. 12mo. They are elegant, polite, and easy; but, like the genius of the writer, without nerves or strength. Boileau praises Voiture excessively; and doubtless, considered as a polisher and refiner in a barbarous age, he was a writer to be valued; yet his letters would not now be thought models, and are indeed seldom read. Voiture, ( says Voltaire, gave some idea “of the superficial graces of that epistolary style, which is by no means the best, because it aims at nothing higher than pleasantry and amusement. His two volumes of letters are the mere pastime of a wanton imagination, in which we meet not with one that is instructive, not one that flows from the heart, that paints the manners of the times, or the characters of men: they are rather an abuse than an exercise of wit.” With all this insignificance, Voiture’s letters cost him much labour: a single one took nearly a fortnight, a proof that his wit came slower in writing than in conversation, otherwise he would never have been the delight of every company. Pope appears to have had a good opinion of these letters, as he thought them a suitable present for Miss Blount, and never seems to have suspected that this was not paying that lady’s delicacy any great compliment.

, the Garrick of Russia, whose talents for the stage were as great as those of Snmorokof for dramatic composition, was a tradesman’s son at Yaroslaf. This surprising genius, who was born in 1729, having discovered very early proofs of great abilities, was sent for his education to Moscow, where he learnt the German tongue, music, and drawing. His father dying, and his mother marrying a second husband, who had established a manufacture of saltpetre and sulphur, he applied himself to that trade; and, going upon the business of his fatherin-law to Petersburg!) about 1741, his natural inclination for the stage led him to frequent the German plays, and to form an intimate acquaintance with some of the actors. Upon his return to Yaroslaf, he constructed a stage in a large apartment at his father-in-law’s house; painted the scenes himself; and, with the assistance of his four brothers, acted several times before a large assembly. Their first performances were the scriptural histories composed by the archbishop of Rostof; these were succeeded by the tragedies of Lomonozof and Sumorokof; and sometimes satirical farces of their own composition against the inhabitants of Yaroslaf. As the spectators were admitted gratis at every representation, his father-in-law objected to the cxpence. Accordingly Volkof constructed in 1750, after his own plan, a large theatre, partly by subscription, and partly at his own risk: having supplied it with scenes which he painted himself, and dresses which he assisted in making, and having procured an additional number of actors, whom he regularly instructed, he and his troop performed with great applause before crowded audiences, who cheerfully paid for their admission. In 1752 the empress Elizabeth, informed of their success, summoned them to Petersburg, where they represented in the theatre of the court the tragedies of Sumorokof. In order to form the new troop to a greater degree of perfection, the four principal actors were placed in the seminary of the cadets, where they remained four years. At the conclusion of that period a regular Russian theatre was established at the court, three actresses were admitted, Sumorokof was appointed director, and 1000l. was allowed for the actors. Beside this salary, they were permitted to perform once a week to the public, and the admission-money was distributed among them without deduction, as the lights, music, and dresses, were provided at the expeoce of the empress. The chief performances were the tragedies and comedies of Sumorokof, and translations from Moliere and other French writers. The company continued to flourish under the patronage of Catharine II.; and the salaries of the actors were gradually increased to 2200l. per annum. Volkof and his brother were ennobled, and received from their imperial mistress estates in land: he performed, for the last time, at Moscow, in the tragedy of Zemira, a short time before his death, which happened in 1763, in the thirty-fifth year of his age. He equally excelled in tragedy and comedy; and his principal merit consisted in characters of madness. He was tolerably versed in music, and was no indifferent poet.

, the greatest literary character which France produced in the last century, was born at Paris, February 20, 1694. His father, Francis Arouet, was “ancien notaire du Chatelet,” and treasurer of the chamber of accounts; his mother, MaryMargaret Daumart. At the birth of this extraordinary man, who lived to the age of eighty-five years and some months, there was little probability of his being ‘reared, and for a considerable time he continued remarkably feeble. In his earliest years he displayed a ready wit and a sprightly imagination: and, as he said of himself, made verses before he was out of his cradle. He was educated under Father Por6, in the college of Louis the Great; and such was his proficiency, that many of his essays are now existing, which, though written when he was between twelve and fourteen, shew no marks of infancy. The famous Ninon de l’Enclos, to whom this ingenious boy was introduced, left him a legacy of 2000 livres to buy him a library. Having been sent to the equity-schools on his quitting college, he was so disgusted with the dryness of the law, that he devoted himself entirely to the Muses. He was admitted into the company of the abb< Chaulieu, the marquis de la Fare, the duke de Sully, the grand prior of Vendo;ne, marshal Villars, and the chevalier du Bouillon; and caught from them that easy taste and delicate humour which distinguished the court of Louis XIV. Voltaire had early imbibed a turn for satire; and, for some philippics against the government, was imprisoned almost a year in the Bastile. He had before this period produced the tragedy of “Oedipus,” which was represented in 1718 with great success; and the duke of Orleans, happening to see it performed, was so delighted, that he obtained his release from prison. The poet waiting on the duke to return thanks: “Be wise,” said the duke, “and I will take care of you.” “I am infinitely obliged,” replied the young man; “but I intreat your royal highness not to trouble yourself any farther about my lodging or board.” His father, whose ardent wish it was that the son should have been an advocate, was present at one of the representations of the new tragedy: he was affected, even to tears, embraced his son amidst the felicitations of the ladies of the court, and never more, from that time, expressed a wish that he should become a lawyer. About 1720, he went to Brussels with Madam de Rupelmonde. The celebrated Rousseau being then in that city, the two poets met, and soon conceived an unconquerable aversion for each other. Voltaire said one day to Rousseau, who was shewing him “An Ode to Posterity,” “This is a letter which will never reach the place of its address.” Another time, Voltaire, having read a satire which Rousseau thought very indifferent, was advised to suppress it, lest it should be imagined that he “had lost his abilities, and preserved only his virulence.” Such mutual reproaches soon inflamed two hearts already sufficiently estranged. Voltaire, on his return to Paris, produced, in 1722, his tragedy of “Mariamne,” without success. His “Artemira” had experienced the same fate in 1720, though it had charmed the discerning by the excellence of the poetry. These mortifications, joined to those which were occasioned by his principles of imprudence, his sentiments on religion, and the warmth of his temper, induced him to visit England, where he printed his “Henriade.” King George I. and particularly the princess of Wales (afterwards queen Caroline) distinguished him by their protection, and obtained for him a great number of subscriptions. This laid the foundation of a fortune, which was afterwards considerably increased by the sale of his writings, by the munificence of princes, by commerce, by a habit of regularity, and by an ceconomy bordering on avarice, which he did not shake off till near the end of his life. On his return to France, in 1728, he placed the money he carried with him from England into a lottery established by M. Desforts, comptroller-general of the finances; he engaged deeply, and was successful. The speculations of finance, however, did not check his attachment to the belles lettres, his darling passion. In 1730, he published “Brutus,” the most nervous of all his tragedies, which was more applauded by the judges of good writing than by the spectators. The first wits of the time, Fontenelle, La Motte, and others, advised him to give up the drama, as not being his proper forte. He answered them by publishing “Zara,” the most affecting, perhaps, of all his tragedies. His “Lettres Philosophiques,” abounding in bold expressions and indecent witticisms against religion, having been burnt by a decree of the parliament of Paris, and a warrant being issued for apprehending the author in 1733, Voltaire very prudently withdrew; and was sheltered by the marchioness du Chatelet, in her castle of Cirey, on the borders of Champagne and Lorraine, who entered with him on the study of the “System” of Leibnitz, and the “Principia” of Newton. A gallery was built, in which Voltaire formed a good collection of natural history, and made a great many experiments on light and electricity. He laboured in the mean time on his “Elements of the Newtonian Philosophy,” then totally unknown in France, and which the numerous admirers of Des Cartes were very little desirous should be known. In the midst of these philosophic pursuits, he produced the tragedy of “Alzira.” He was now in the meridian of his age and genius, as was evident from the tragedy of “Mahomet,” first acted in, 174-1 but it was represented to the “procureur general” as a performance offensive to religion and the author, by order of cardinal Fleury, withdrew it from the stage. “Merope,” played two years after, 1743, gave an idea of a species of tragedy, of which few models have existed. It was at the representation of this tragedy that the pit and boxes were clamorous for a sight of the author; yet it was severely criticised when it came from the press. He now became a favourite at court, through the interest of madam d'Etoile, afterwards marchioness of Pompadour. Being employed in preparing the festivities that were celebrated on the marriage of the dauphin, he attained additional honours by composing “The Princess of Navarre.” He was appointed a gentleman of the bed-chamber in ordinary, and historiographer of France. The latter office had, till his time, been almost a sinecure; but Voltaire, who had written, under the direction of the count d'Argenson, the “History of the War of 1741,” was employed by that minister in many important negociations from 1745 to 1747; the project of invading England in 1746 was attributed to him and he drew up the king ofFrance’s manifesto in favour of the pretender. He had frequently attempted to gain admittance into the academy of sciences, but could not obtain his wish till 1746 , when he was the first who broke through the absurd custom of filling an inaugural speech with the fulsome adulation of Richelieu; an example soon followed by other academicians. From, the satires occasioned by this innovation he felt so much uneasiness, that he was glad to retire with the marchioness du Chateletto Luneville, in the neighbourhood of king Stanislaus. The marchioness dying in 1749, Voltaire returned to Paris, where his stay was but short* Though he had many admirers, he was perpetually complaining of a cabal combined to filch from him that glory of which he was insatiable. “The jealousy and manoeuvres of a court,” he would say, “are the subject of conversation; there is more of them among the literati.” His friends and relations endeavoured in vain to relieve his anxiety, by lavishing commendations on him, and by exaggerating his success. He imagined he should find in a foreign country a greater degree of applause, tranquillity, and reward, and augment at the same time both his fortune and reputation, which were already very considerable. The king of Prussia, who had repeatedly invited him to his court, and who would have given any thing to have got him away from Silesia, attached him at last to his person by a pension of 22,000 livres, and the hope of farther favour. From the particular respect that was paid to him, his time was now spent in the most agreeable manner; his apartments were under those of the king, whom he was allowed to visit at stated hours, to read with him the best works of either ancient or modern authors, and to assist his majesty in the literary productions by which he relieved the cares of government. But this happiness was soon at an end; and Voltaire saw, to his mortification, when it was too late, that, where a man is sufficiently rich to be master of himself, neither his liberty, his family, nor his country, should be sacrificed for a pension. A dispute which our poet had with Manpertuis, the president of the academy at Berlin, was followed by disgrace . It has been said that the king of Prussia dismissed him with this reproof: “I do not drive you away, because I called you hither; I do not take away your pension, because I have given it to you; I only forbid you my presence.” Not a word of this is true; the fact is, that he sent to the king the key of his office as chamberlain, and the cross of the order of merit, with these verses:

But the king returned him the key and the ribbon. Things assumed a different aspect when he took shelter with the duchess of Saxe Gotha. Maupertuis, as Voltaire himself related, took the advantage of misrepresenting him in his absence; and he was detained by the king’s order, at Francfort on the Maine, till he had given up a volume of“Royal Verses.” Having regained his liberty, be endeavoured to negociate a return to Paris; but this he was not able to accomplish, since one of his poems, the “Pucelle D' Orleans,” which was both impious and obscene, had begun to make a noise. He was resident for about a year at Colwar, whence retiring to Geneva, he purchased a beautiful villa near that city, where he enjoyed the homages of the Genevans, and of occasional travellers; and for a short time was charmed with his agreeable retirement, which the quarrels that agitated the little republic of Geneva compelled him soon to quit. He was accused of privately fomenting the disputes, of leaning towards the prevailing party, and laughing at both. Compelled to abandon Les Delices (which was the name of his countryhouse), he fixed himself in France, within a league of Geneva, in Le Pays de Gex, an almost savage desert, which he had the satisfaction of fertilizing. The village of Ferney, which contained not above 50 inhabitants, became by his means a colony of 1200 persons, successfully employed for themselves and for the state. Numbers of artists, particularly watchmakers, established their manufactures under the auspices of Voltaire, and exported their wares to Russia, Spain, Germany, Holland, and Italy. He rendered his solitude still more illustrious by inviting thither the great niece of the famous Corneille, and by preserving from ignominy and oppression Sirven and the family of Calas, whose memory he caused to be restored. In this retirement Voltaire erected a tribunal, at which he arraigned almost all the human race. Men in power, dreading the force of his pen, endeavoured to secure his esteem. Aretin, in the sixteenth century, received as many insults as rewards. Voltaire, with far more wit and address, obtained implicit homage. This homage, and some generous actions, which he himself occasionally took care to proclaim, either with a view that they should reach posterity, or to please the curious, contributed as much to extend his reputation as the marks of esteem and bounty he had received from sovereign princes. The king of Prussia, with whom he still maintained an uninterrupted correspondence, had his statue made in porcelain, and sent to him, with the word Immortali engraven on its base. The empress of Russia sent him a present of some magnificent furs, and a. box turned by her own hands, and adorned with hi& portrait and 20 diamonds. These distinctions did not prevent his sighs for Paris. Overloaded with glory and wealth, he was not happy, because he never could content himself with what he possessed. At length, in the beginning of 1778, he determined to exchange the tranquillity of Ferney for the incense and bustle of the capital, where he met with the most flattering reception. Such honours were decreed him by the academies as till then had been unknown; he was crowned in a full theatre, and distinguished by the public with the strongest enthusiasm. But the philosopher of fourscore soon fell a victim to thi* indiscreet officiousness: the fatigue of visits and attendance at theatrical representations, the change of regimen and mode of living, inflamed his blood, already too much disordered. On his arrival, he had a violent haemorrhage, which greatly impaired him. Some days before his last illness, the idea of approaching death tormented him. Sitting at table with the marchioness de Villette, at whose house he had taken up his abode, after a solemn reverie, he said, “You are like the kings of Egypt, who, when they were at meat, had a death’s head beTore them.” On his arrival at Paris, he said, “he was come to seek glory and death;” and to an artist, who presented him the picture of his triumph, replied, “A tomb would be fitter for me than a triumph.” At last, not being able to obtain sleep, he took a large dose of opium, which deprived him of his senses. He died May 30, 1778; and was buried at Sellices, a Benedictine abbey between Nogent and Troyes; Many accounts have been published respecting his behaviour when in the nearer view of death. Some of these are so contradictory, that it is difficult to attain the exact truth. His infidel friends, Diderot, D'Alembert, and others, took every pains to represent that he died as he had lived, a hardened infidel, and a blasphemer; but they have not been credited, and it is more generally believed that he was visited on this awful occasion with the remorse of a man, whose whole life had been a continued attempt to erect vice and immorality on the ruins of revealed religion. The mareschal cle Richelieu is said to have fled from the bed-side, declaring it to be a sight too terrible to be sustained; andTronchin, the physician, asserted that the furies of Orestes could give but*a faint idea of those of Voltaire.

While he had the vomiting of blood, he confessed himself, and even made a sort of profession of faith: this was supposed to be policy and illusion, and served only to shew the suppleness of this singular man; who was a freethinker at London, a Cartesian at Versailles, a Christian at Nancy, and an infidel at Berlin. In society, he was alternately an Aristippus and a Diogenes. He made pleasure the object of his researches: he enjoyed it, and made it the object of his praise; he grew weary of it, and turned it into ridicule. By the natural progress of such a character, he passed from a moralist to a buffoon, from a philosopher to an enthusiast, from mildness to passion, from flattery to satire, from the love of money to the love of luxury, from the modesty of a wise man to the vanity of an impious wit. It has been said, that by his familiarity with the great, he indemnified himself for the constraint he was sometimes under among his equals; that he had sensibility without affection; that he was voluptuous without passions, open without sincerity, and liberal without generosity. It has been said, that, with persons who were jealous of his acquaintance, he began by politeness, went on with coldness, and usually ended by disgust, unless perchance they were writers who had acquired reputation, or men in power, whom he had adroitness enough to attach to his interests. It has been said that he was steadfast to nothing by choice, but to every thing by irregular starts of fancy. “These singular contrasts,” says M. Pelisson, “are not less evident in his physical than in his moral character. It has been remarkable, that his physiognomy partook of those of an eagle and an ape: and who can say that this contrast was not the principle of his predominant taste for antithesis? What an uncommon and perpetual change from greatness to meanness, from glory to contempt! How frequently has he combined the gravity of Plato with the legerdemain of Harlequin!” Hence the name of Micromegas, the title of one of his own crudities, which was given him by La Beaumelle, has been confirmed by the public voice. This is the portrait of an extraordinary personage; and such was Voltaire, who, like all other extraordinary men, has occasioned some strong enthusiasts and eccentric critics. Leader of a new sect, having survived many of his rivals, and eclipsed, towards the end of his career, the poets his contemporaries; he possessed the most unbounded influence, and has brought about a melancholy revolution in wit and morals. Though he has often availed himself of his amazing talents to promote the cause of reason and humanity, to inspire princes with toleration, and with a horror for war; yet he was more delighted, more in his element, and we are sorry to add more successful, when he exerted himself in extending the principles of irreligion and anarchy. The lively sensibility which animates his writings pervaded his whole conduct; and it was seldom that he resisted the impressions of his ready and overflowing wit, or the first feelings of his heart. Voltaire stands at the head of those writers who in France are called Beaux Esprits; and for brilliancy of imagination, for astonishing ease, exquisite taste, versatility of talents, and extent of knowledge, he had no superior, scarcely an equal among his countrymen. But, if genius be restricted to invention, Voltaire was deficient. His most original pieces are, his “Candide,” a tissue of ridiculous extravagancies, which may be traced to Swift; and his infamous poem, the “Pucelle,” for which he was indebted to Chapelain and Ariosto. His “Henriade” is the finest epic poem the French have; but it wants the sublimity of Homeric or Miltonic invention. The subject, indeed, could not admit supernatural machinery. It is, as lord Chesterfield said (who did not mean to depreciate it) “all good sense from beginning to end.” It is an excellent history in verse, and the versification is as harmonious as French versification can be, and some of his portraits are admirably touched; but as a whole, as an epic, it sinks before the epics of Greece and Rome, of Italy and England.

Voltaire was a voluminous writer, and there is in his works, as perhaps in those of all voluminous writers, a very strange mixture of good, bad, and indifferent. Whether many of them will long survive his living reputation, may be doubted. Of late, we understand, that few of his separate pieces have been called for, except the Henriade, which will always be considered as a national work, and his plays. There have been lately some splendid editions of his whole works, for libraries and men of fortune and now we hear that the French editors and booksellers find their interest in offering the public only his “CEuvres choisies.” When the misery he so largely contributed to bring on his country shall be more accurately estimated, and a reverence for revealed religion is revived, Voltaire will probably be remembered chiefly, as a terrifying example of the prostitution of the finest talents to the worst of purposes.

We shall conclude with the titles of his principal poetical performances: 1. “The Henriade, in ten cantos.” 2. A great number of tragedies, of which the first was “Oedipus,” in 1718, the last “Irene,” in 1778. 3. Several comedies of which the best are, “L'Indiscret,” “L'Enfant Prodigue,” and “Nanine.” 4. Several operas, in which he did not particularly excel. 5. An endless variety of fugitive pieces in verse. His principal prose works are, 1. “Essai sur l'Histoire General,” which with “Les Siecles de Louis XIV. et de Louis XV.” make 10 vols. 8vo. 2. “L'Histoire de Charles XII.” 3. “L'Histoire de Czar Pierre I.” 4. “Melanges de Litterature,” in many volumes. 5. “Dictionnaire Philosophique,” “Philosophic de l'Histoire,” and several other works of the same impious tendency. 6. “Theatre de Pierre et Thomas Corneille, avec des mor^eaux interessans,” 8 vols. 4to. 7. *‘ Commentaire Historique sur les Oeuvres de l’Auteur de la Henriade, avec les Pieces originates et les preuves;“a monument raised by Voltaire to his own vanity. He had indeed before this placed himself at the head of all the French writers in his” Connoissance des beautes et des defauts de la Poesie et de P Eloquence," 1749.

, whose family name was Ricciarelli, but who is better known by the name of his birth-place, Volterra, where he was born in 1509, was the reputed pupil of Peruzzi and Razzi at Siena, and the assistant of Perino del Vaga at Rome. He acquired the best part of his celebrity from a decided adherence to the principles, style, and subsequent patronage and assistance, of Michael Angelo, who accelerated his progress, enriched him with designs, and made him his substitute in the works of the Vatican. For proofs of actual assistance we need not recur to his frequent attendance on Daniele whilst he painted in the Farnesina, and the tale of the colossal head which he is said to have drawn with a coal on the wall during his absence, and which is still left to exhibit its questionable lines; the best evidence of that assistance was the fresco of the Trinita del Monte, now a ruin of the revolution: if that wonderful performance, the first of the three that were considered as the master- pieces of the art in Rome, evinced in composition and style the supenntendance, advice, and corrections, of Michael Angelo, its principal parts could only be considered as the work of his own hand; that master-hand alone could embody the weight of death in the sinking figure of the Saviour, and point the darts of woe that pierced the mother’s breast in the face and dereliction of the Madonna, without destroying the superhuman beauty of either. The remainder emulates, but arrives not at the same degree of perfection. The male assistants have more labour than energy, and, though with propriety subordinate, proportions scarcely equal to the task. In the female group, so beautifully contrasted, gesture seems to prevail over sentiment; even the figure of St. John, with all its characteristic excellence, by the fear it expresses, rather interrupts than assists the sublime pathos and sacred silence of the scene.

Under this picture, which with the completion of some inferior ones in the same chapel had cost him seven years, Daniele placed two basso-relievos, to express nis gratitude to Michael Angelo and his contempt of public cavil. One represented Michael Angelo contemplating himself in a mirror, to indicate that the picture was a reflection of his powers; the other shewed a group of satyrs weighing the detached figures of the picture in a balance, and chasing away an inimical group of other satyrs; with the addition of some Greek words, implying that those wiio had laughed at the slowness of his progress, were now become a laughingstock themselves.

Under the pontificates of Paolo and Pio IV. Daniele was employed to cover the nudities of some of the figures in the last judgment of Michael Angelo, and, according to a tradition sufficiently authentic, with the master’s own consent. An invidious task, more of necessity than choice, and perhaps merely complied with to save the work from a more sacrilegious hand, but for which he was ever afterwards branded by the ludicrous appellation of Braghettuue. Volterra died in Rome in 1566, at the age of fifty -seven.

, a very celebrated Dutch poet, was born Nov. 17, 1587. He was bred an anabaptist; afterwards joined the Arminians, for whose defence he employed his pen with great zeal; and in his old age turned Roman Catholic. His verses, it is said, would have equalled those of the greatest poets, had he been acquainted with the ancients; but he had no other master than his own genius, and did not begin to learn Latin till he was near thirty. Vondel married Mary de Wolf in 1610, and opened a hosier’s shop at Amsterdam, leaving however all the care of it to his wife, while he was wholly occupied with poetry. The profligacy of his son having at length deranged his affairs, he obtained a place worth 650 livres yearly, but discharged the business of it so negligently, that in compassion to his situation he was permitted to keep the place as a sinecure. He died February 5, 1679, in his ninety-second year. Vondel’s poems have been collected in 9 vols. 4to. The most celebrated are, “The Park of Animals;” “The Heroes of God;” “The Destruction of Jerusalem,” a tragedy; “The Grandeur of Solomon;” Jl1 Palamede, or Innocence oppressed,“a celebrated tragedy, which he wrote while an Arminian. By Palamede he meant the famous Barneveldt, who was condemned to death by prince Maurice. Vondel exclaims in this piece against both the prince and the synod of Dort, in terms which sufficiently point them out, and was near being carried to the Hague, and tried in consequence of it; but some magistrates saved him, and he escaped by paying a fine of 300 florins. He wrote also satires against the protestant ministers, full of passion and invective; and a poem in favour of the catholic church, entitled” The Mysteries, or Secrets of the Altar," &c. He translated one of Grotius’s tragedies into Dutch, on which that celebrated writer expressed a high sense of Venders friendship, in condescending to translate his works, when he could write much better of his own.

, one of those Latin historians who are usually denominated “Historiae Augustas Scriptores,” flourished as the others did in the time of Dioclesian and Constantine, about the beginning of the fourth century. He was a native of Syracuse, and a believer in Apollonius Tyanacus, whose life he intended to write. He is reckoned superior to the rest of the Hist. Aug. Scriptores in the elegance of his style and in the perspicuity of his manner; though far inferior in both to the writers of the Augustan age. He wrote the life of Aurelian, Tacitus, Florianus, and others.

, an eminent divine of the Arminian persuasion, was born at Cologn, July 19, 1569. His father, who was a dyer, had not yet renounced popery, and caused him to be baptised in the forms of that religion, but he afterwards secretly joined the protestants. He had ten children, and designing Conrade for a learned profession, had him taught grammar at a school in the village of Bedberdyk, whence he sent him, in 1583, to Dusseldorp, and there he continued his classical studies till 1586. He afterwards removed to St. Lawrence’s college in Cologn, but was prevented from taking his degrees in philosophy by two impediments, which are so dissimilar that it is difficult to say which predominated. The one was because he could not conscientiously take an oath to submit to the decisions of the council of Trent; the other, because on account of the declining state of his father’s affairs, it became necessary for him to give up his studies, and go into trade. Whether he would have refused the oaths, if this had not been the case, is left to conjecture, but he now employed two years in acquiring arithmetic, the French and Italian languages, and such other knowledge as might be useful in trade. He was soon after, however, enabled by some circumstances, not related in our authority, to resume his more learned studies, and going to Herborn in 1589, studied divinity under Piscator, who from a Calvinist had become an Armiriian. Vorstius also, probably for a maintenance, took pupils, and accompanied some of them to Heidelberg in 1593, where the following year he was admitted to the degree of D. D. In 1595 he paid a visit to the universities of Switzerland, and that of Geneva. At Basil, he twice maintained two theses, the one on the Sacraments, the other on the causes of Salvation. He was preparing a third dispute against Socinus* “De Christo servatore” (concerning Christ the saviour); but being desirous of concluding his journey, he did not finish this

piece; and leaving the original with Grynaeus, took it back when he returned to Basil. The first work ascribed to him is, a collection of theses, containing upwards of twenty maintained at various times, beginning at 1594. He prefixed to this collection the theses concerning the Holy Trinity, that is, concerning God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and the theses concerning the person and office of Christ, which he pleaded some time after as an apology to such as charged him with shewing a tendency to Socinianism in those two articles; but this was a suspicion he never could eradicate, and was the foundation of all the hostility he had afterwards to encounter. While at Geneva, however, no suspicion of the kind existed, otherwise we may be certain that Beza would not have requested him to lecture on divinity, which he did with so much ability, that the professorship was offered to him, but to this he preferred the offer of the same chair at Steinfurt, which was made to him, by letter, while at Geneva.

Having accepted this office, he acquired so much reputation in discharging the duties of it, that other universities became desirous of obtaining such a teacher, but he declined a change for the present. While here, however, his principles became again suspected, and this reaching the ears of count de Bentheim, his great patron, in 1599, he ordered Vorstius to clear himself immediately, by going to the university where he had received his doctor’s degree, and convincing them of his being orthodox. Accordingly Vorstius went to Heidelberg, where he gave an. account of his faith; and returned, cleared, to his abode. The faculty of divines admitted him to the kiss of peace, and gave him tesseram hospitalitatis (the mark or token of hospitality) after signifying to him, that he had been in the wrong to advance certain particulars which favoured the Socinians, and making him promise that he would thenceforward refrain from employing such phrases as might give occasion for suspicion. He also was forced to make a protestation that he abhorred Socinus’s opinions; and was very sorry the fire of youth had made him employ certain expressions, which seemed to favour that heretic, and clash with the doctrine of the protestant churches.

In 1605, he was appointed minister at Steinfurt, and he was also made president of the court for trying matrimonial causes, and was principal examiner of young candidates for the ministry. In consideration of these various employments, an extraordinary stipend was allowed. In 1610, he was invited to Leyden, to succeed the celebrated Arminius. This invitation was of the most flattering kind, being approved both by the States of Holland and by prince Maurice; yet his biographer is of opinion, that had he not been most strongly solicited by the chiefs of the Arminians he would never have embarked on so stormy a sea. He was beloved and honoured in Steinfurt; there he enjoyed the utmost tranquillity, and was in the highest reputation; and he doubtless foresaw that, in the state in which the controversies of Arminius and Gomarus were at that time, he should meet with great opposition in Holland. But he was tempted by the glory he should gain in supporting a party which was weakened by Arminius’s death. To this were added motives pretended to be drawn from conscience; for they represented to him, that he would one day be accountable for the ill use he should make of his talents, in case too great a fondness for ease should make him neglect so happy an opportunity of establishing the truth, in a country where it had already taken root. However this be, he was induced to leave count de Bentheim, and go to Holland, where he found, or made innumerable enemies.

In 1611, he went to Leyden, with his family, and, although he brought with him the most authentic testimonials of his being orthodox, and prudent in his conduct and manner of life, the Calvinistic clergy became alarmed at having the divinity professorship filled by one who promised to perpetuate the errors of Arminius; and therefore represented, in the strongest terms, the danger that might accrue from the appointment of Vorstius. They even called to their aid the opinions of foreign universities and potentates. Among the latter, our king James I. who had caused Vorstius’s book “De Deo” to be burnt at London and the two universities, and now had drawn up a catalogue of the several heresies he had found in that work, commanded his resident at the Hague to notify to the States, that he greatly detested those heresies, and those who should tolerate them. The States answered, that, if Vorstius maintained the errors laid to his charge, they would not surfer him to live among them. Tin’s answer not being satisfactory, he again pressed them with greater earnesiness to banish Vorstius, though he should deny the errors laid to his charge; but, if he should own and persist in them, he was firmly of opinion, that burning was too miiJ a punishment for him. He declared, that, if they did not use their utmost endeavours to extirpate this rising heresy, he should publicly protest against such abominations; in quality of defender of the faith, should exhort all Protestant churches to join in one general resolution to extinguish these abominable newly-broached heresies; and, with regard to himself, would forbid all his subjects to frequent so pestilential a place as the university of Leyden. To his menaces he added the terrors of his pen, and published a book against Vorstius; who replied in the most respectful terms but at fast, through the influence of the king’s deputies, was declared unworthy of the professorship, divested of his employment, and sentenced to perpetual banishment by the synod of Dort. He lay concealed two years, until at length he found an asylum in the dominions of the duke of Holstein, who took the remains of the Artninians under his protection, and assigned them a spot of ground for building a city. He died atToningen, Sept. 29, 1622. His body was carried to Fredericstadt, the newly-raised city of the Arminians, where he was buried with considerable splendour. He wrote many things against the Roman Catholics, as well as his own particular adversaries.

The quarrels, says Bayle, into which he was drawn were doubtless mixed with a greaf deal of passion; but after all, the suspicion of his having a great tendency towards Sociniaiiism is not very unjustly grounded; and he possibly might have professed it openly, had he not followed the maxim which the Roman Catholics object to the Reformers, viz. that when a person is persuaded that the church stands in need of being reformed, he ought to continue in communion with it, to labour more effectually to cure it. The same author adds, that he did great prejudice to the Arminian party. “The prevailing so far as to get Vorstius to succeed Arminius in the professorship of Leyden, was thought to be a master-stroke, and yet nothing could be more advantageous to the adversaries of the Remonstrants. Vorstius furnished them with so many pleas, by his new manner of dogmatizing on the attributes of God, and it was so easy to raise the suspicions of the people against him, that it was no difficult matter to make him become odious.” Sandius, the biographer of the Socinians, after perusing the confession of faith which Vorstius signed on his death-bed, had no scruple as to admitting him among that sect. His son, William Henry Vorstius, is also recorded in the same class in Sandius’s “Bibliotheca Antitrinitariorum.” His principal works were on Rabbinical literature.

, a Flemish painter of the sixteenth century, was born at Antwerp in 1520, and was first entered in his profession under his father. Having made himself somewhat eminent in Flanders, he travelled to Venice, Home, and Florence, where he made a collection of curious drawings of several sorts of vases made use of by the old Greeks and Romans at their entertainments, funerals, and sacrifices. At his return into Flanders he painted some of these old festival-solemnities, in which the disposition and lively representation of these vases were very ornamental to his performance. He excelled in most branches of the art, but his drawings in particular, were reckoned some of the best and most serviceable for beginners. His colouring was strong and lively; his design natural and free, and his disposition judicious. He had so much fame in his profession, that, when the prince of Parma made himself master of Antwerp, he made De Vos a visit, and sat to him. He died at Antwerp in 1604, being eighty-four years of age.

There was a Simon de Vos, born at Antwerp in 1603, who painted history equally well in large and in small sizes, with a free pencil, and a touch light and firm; his colouring being in general lively and agreeable, produced a good effect. His figures were well designed, although sometimes a little too much constrained in the attitudes; and he often wanted elegance and dignity in his ideas, as well as grace in the airs of his figures. But he shewed extraordinary force and nature in his pictures of the chase; and one of his compositions in that style is in the cabinet of the Elector Palatine. Houbraken says that Simon de Vos was alive in. 1662. At Antwerp, there is a picture by him of St. Norbert receiving the sacrament, in v.hich are introduced a great number of portraits extremely well painted. De Vos, sir Joshua Reynolds remarks, particularly excelled in portraits. In the poor-house at Antwerp, there was, when sir Joshua visited it, his own portrait by himself, in black, leaning on the back of a chair, with a scroll of blue paper in his hand, so highly finished, in the broad manner of Corregio, that nothing could exceed it.

, a very learned writer, was born in Germany, at a town in the neighbourhood of Heidelberg, in 1577. His father was a native of Ruremond; but, upon embracing the reformed religion, left that place, and went into the Palatinate, where he studied divinity, and became a minister in 1575. He removed to Leyden the year after this son was born, and was admitted a member of the university there, but finally settled at Dort; where he buried his first wife, married a second, and died about three months after. Gerard John Vossius was only in his eighth year when he lost his father; and the circumstances in which he was left not being sufficient to procure an education suitable to his very promising talents, he endeavoured to make up for this defect by assiduity and unwearied application. He began his studies at Dort, and had Erycius Puteanus for his school-fellow; with whom he ever afterwards lived in the closest intimacy and friendship. Here he learned Latin, Greek, and philosophy; and in 1595, went to Leyden, where he joined mathematics to these studies, and was made master of arts and doctor in philosophy in 1598. He then applied himself to divinity and the Hebrew tongue; and, his father having left him a library well furnished with books of ecclesiastical history and theology, he early acquired an extensive knowledge in these branches. The curators of the academy were upon the point of choosing him professor of physic, when he was invited to be director of the college at Dort; which would have been thought a place of too much importance for so young a man, if there had not been something very extraordinary in his character.

In Feb. 1602, he married a minister’s daughter of Dort, who died in 1607, having brought him three children. He married a second wife six months after, by whom he had five sons and two daughters. This fertility in Vossius, which was at the same time attended with a wonderful fertility in his pen, made Grotius say, with some pleasantry, that he did not know whether Vossius had a better knack at producing children or books; “scriberetne accuratius, an gigneret felicius.?” These children were educated with the utmost care, so that his house was called the habitation of Apollo and the Muses; but he had the misfortune to survive them all, except Isaac Vossius. One of his daughters, a very accomplished young lady, was drowned while sliding, according to the custom of the country, upon the canals near Leyden. In 1614, an attempt was made to draw him to Steinfurt, to be divinity-professor there; but the university of Leyden having named him at the same time to be director of the theological college which the States of Holland had just founded in that town, he preferred the latter situation; and his office of professor of eloquence and chronology, which was conferred upon him four years after, was peculiarly agreeable to his taste. Though he took all imaginable care to keep himself clear from the disputes about grace and predestination, which then ran high among the ministers of that country, yet his precautions did not avail, for he was entangled in spite of them. He had rendered himself suspected and obnoxious to the Gomarists, who had prevailed in the synod of Dort held in 1612, because he had openly favoured the toleration of the Remonstrants, and because, in his history of the Pelagian controversy, printed in 1618, he had affirmed, that the sentiments of St. Augustin upon grace and predestination were not the most ancient, and that those of the Remonstrants were different from those of the Semi-Pelagians. And although he did not separate himself from the communion of the Anti-Remonstrants, yet they, knowing well that he neither approved their doctrines nor their conduct, procured him to be ejected from his professorship at the synod of Tergou, held in 1620. The year after, another synod was held at Rotterdam; where it was ordered, that he should be received again, provided he would promise neither to do nor say any thing against the synod of Dort, and would also retract the errors advanced in his history of Pelagianism. It was with great reluctance that he consented to these terms, but the loss which he would suffer by resistance, induced him in 1624 to make such promises as appeared satisfactory.

But of whatever detriment his Pelagian history might be to him in Holland, it procured him both honour and profit from England, where it was by some exceedingly well received. Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, whose great object was to establish Arminianism, admired Vossius’s work so much, that he procured him a prebend in the church of Canterbury, while he resided at Leyden; but he afterwards, in 1629, came over to be installed, took a doctor of law’s degree at Oxford, and then returned. While at Oxford he discovered and encouraged the talents of Dr. Pocock, as we have already noticed in our account of that celebrated orientalist. In 1630, the town of Amsterdam having projected the foundation of an university, cast their eyes upon Vossius, as one likely to promote its reputation and credit. The literati, magistrates, and inhabitants of Leyden, complained loudly of this design, as injurious to their own university; which, they said, 'had had the preference assigned to it above all the other towns of Holland, because Leyden had sustained in 1574 a long siege against the Spaniards; and they were still more averse to it, on account of their being likely to lose so great an ornament as Vossius. Amsterdam, however, carried its purpose into execution; and Vossius went thither, in 1633, to be professor of history. He died there in 1649, aged seventy-two years; after having written and published as many works as, when they came to be collected and printed at Amsterdam in 1695 and the five following years, amounted to 6 vols. in folio. The principal of them are, “Etymologicon Linguae Latinae;” “De Origine & Progressu Idololatriae;” “De Historicis Græcis;” “De Historicis Latinis;” “De Arte Grammatica;” “De vitiis sermonis & glossematis Latino-Barbaris;” “Institutiones Oratoriae;” “Institutiones Poetica;” “Ars Historica,” the first book of the kind ever published; “De quatuor artibus popularibus, Grammatice, Gymnastice, Musice, & Graphice;” “De Philologia;” “De universa Matheseos natura & constitutione;” “De Philosophia;” “De Philosophorum sectis;” “De veterum Poetarum temporibus.” Most of these, particularly his account of the Greek and Latin historians, poets, have always been considered as works of authority and accuracy. He was an indefatigable student, and wrote with considerable rapidity. Granger, in an anecdote perhaps not worth repeating, says that our wonder at the number of Vossius’s works will be somewhat abated when we consider the following circumstance in a ms. of Mr. Ashmole, in his own museum. He says he had it from Dr. John Pell. “Gerard Vossius wrote his Adversaria on one side of a sheet of paper, and joined them together, and would so send them to the press, without transcribing.” Our wonder may be more rationally abated by considering that he employed the greater part of the day and even of the night in study, and was a most scrupulous ceconomist of time. When his friends came to pay him visits, he never allowed any of them more than a quarter of an hour. On one occasion, when Christopher Schrader, who knew his custom, had staid out his quarter, and was about to leave him, Vossius kept him another quarter, after which he pointed to the hour-glass which was always before him, and said, “You see how much time I have given you.”

, a man of great parts and learning, was the son of Gerard John Vossius, and born of his second wife at Leyden, in 1618. The particulars of his life will be comprised in a short compass: he had no master but his father in any thing; and his whole life was spent in studying. His merit having recommended him to the notice of Christina of Sweden, the queen submitted to correspond with him by letters, and employed him in some literary commissions. He even made several journeys into Sweden by her order, and had the honour of teaching her majesty the Greek language: but, being there in 1662 with M. Huet and Bochart, she refused to see him, because she had heard that he intended to write against Salmasius, for whom she had at that time a particular regard. In 1663, he received a handsome present of money from Lewis XIV. of France, and at the same time the following obliging letter from Mons. Colbert. “Sir, Though the king be not your sovereign, he is willing nevertheless to be your benefactor; and has commanded me to send you the bill of exchange, hereunto annexed, as a mark of his esteem, and as a pledge of his protection. Every one knows, that you worthily follow the example of the famous Vossius your father; and that, having received from him a name which hath rendered him illustrious by his writings, you will preserve the glory of it by yours. These things being known to his majesty, it is with pleasure that he makes this acknowledgment of your merit,” &c. After the death of his father, he was offered the history-professorship, but refused it; preferring a studious retirement to any honours. In 1670 he came over to England, and was that year created doctor of laws at Oxford; “after he had been,” says Wood, “with great humanity and friendship entertained by some of the chief heads of colleges, as his father had been before in 1629.” In 1673, Charles II. made him canon of Windsor, assigning him lodgings in the castle, where he died Feb. the 10th, 1638. He left behind him the best private library, as it was then supposed, in the world; which, to the shame and reproach of England, was suffered to be purchased and carried away by the university of Leyden.

M. des Maizeaux, in his life of St. Evremond, has recorded several particulars relative to the life and character of Isaac Vossius, which are certainly not of a very favourable cast. St. Evremond, he tells us, used to spend the summers with the court at Windsor, and there often saw Vossius; who, as St. Evremond described him, understood almost all the languages in Europe, without being able to speak one of them well; who knew to the very bottom the genius and customs of antiquity, yet was an utter stranger to the manners of his own times. He expressed himself in conversation as a man would have done in a commentary upon Juvenal or Petronius. He published books to prove, that the Septuagint version was divinely inspired; yet discovered, in private conversation, that he believed no revelation at all: and his manner of dying, which was far from being exemplary, shewed that he did not. Yet, to see the frailty of the human understanding, he was in other respects the weakest and most credulous man alive, and ready to swallow, without chewing, any extraordinary and wonderful thing, though ever so fabulous and impossible. This is the idea which St. Evremond, who knew him well, has given of him. If any more proofs of his unbelief are wanting, Des Maizeaux has given us them, in a note upon the foregoing account of St. Evremond. He relates, that Dr. Hascard, dean of Windsor, with one of the canons, visited Vossius upon his death-bed, and pressed him to receive the sacrament; but could not prevail, though they begged of him at last, that, “if he would not do it for the love of God, he would at least do it for the honour of the chapter.” Des Maizeaux relates another fact concerning Vossius, which he received from good authority; namely, that, when Dr. Hascard pressed him to take the sacrament, he replied, “I wish you would instruct me how to oblige the farmers to pay me what they owe me: this is what I would have you do for me at present.” Such sort of replies are said to have been common with him; and that once, when a brother of his mother was sick, and a minister was for giving him the communion, he opposed it, saying, “this is a pretty custom enough for sinners; but my uncle, far from being a sinner, is a man without vices.” As to his credulity and propensity to believe in the most implicit manner any thing singular and extraordinary, Mons. Renaudot, in his dissertations added to “Anciennes Relations des Indes & de la Chine,” relates, that Vossius, having had frequent conferences with the father Martini, during that Jesuit’s residence in Holland for the printing his “Atlas Chinois,” made no scruple of believing all which he told him concerning the wonderful things in China; and that he even went farther than Martini, and maintained as a certain fact the antiquity of the Chinese accounts above that of the books of Moses. Charles II. who knew his character well, used to call him the strangest man in the world for “there is nothing,” the king would say, “which he refuses to believe, except the Bible;” and it is probable, that the noble author of the “Characteristics” had him in his eye while he was writing the following paragraph. “It must certainly be something else than incredulity, which fashions the taste and judgment of many gentlemen, whom we hear censured as Atheists, for attempting to philosophize after a newer manner than any known of late. I have ever thought this sort of men to be in general more credulous, though after another manner, than the mere vulgar. Besides what I have observed in conversation with the men of this character, I can produce many anathematized authors, who, if they want a true Israelitish faith, can make amends by a Chinese or Indian, one. If they are short in Syria or the Palestine, they have their full measure in America or Japan. Histories of Incas or Iroquois, written by friers and missionaries, pirates and renegadoes, sea-captains and trusty travellers, pass for authentic records, and are canonical with the virtuosos of this sort. Though Christian miracles may not so well satisfy them, they dwell with the greatest contentment on the prodigies of Moorish and Pagan countries.” This perfectly corresponds with the nature and character of Isaac Vossius, although lord Shaftesbury might have more than one in his eye when he wrote it.

His works, though very numerous, are yet neither so numerous nor so useful as his father’s. His first publication was “Periplus Scylacis Caryandensis & Anonymi Periplus Ponti Euxini, Græce & Latinæ, cum notis.” Amst. 1639, 4to. Although he was only a youth of twenty-one when he published this, James Gronovius judged his notes worth inserting in the new augmented edition which he gave of these authors at Leyden 1697, under the title of “Geographia antiqua,” in 4to. The year after, 1640, he published “Justin,” with notes, at Leyden, in 12mo, also a juvenile production, but of no particular value. “Ignatii Epistolæ, & Barnabæ Epistola, Græce & Latinæ, cum notis,” Amst. 1646, in 4to. He was the first who published the genuine epistles of Ignatius, from a Greek manuscript in the library at Florence, which was found to agree exactly with the ancient Latin version which archbishop Usher had published two years before. His notes have been inserted in Le Clerc’s edition of the “Patres Apostolici.” “Pomponius Mela de situ orbis, cum observationibus,” Hagse Com. 1648, 4to. Salmasius is the subject of his animadversion in these notes. “Dissertatio de vera estate mundi, &c.” Hagae Com. 1659, 4to. This dissertation, in which it is attempted to establish the chronology of the Septuagint upon the ruin of that of the Hebrew text, was attacked by many authors, and particularly by Hornius, to whom Vossius replied in “Castigationes ad Scriptum Hornii de ætate Mundi,” Hagse Com. 1659, 4to. Hornius defended what he had written, the same year; and Vossius, the same year, replied to him again in “Auctarium Castigationum, &c.” 4to. Hornius was not however to be silenced, but published another piece, still in the same year; and then father Pezron adopted and maintained the opinion of Vossius, in his book, entitled “L'Antiquite de temps retablie,” 1661. Vossius published “De Septuaginta Interpretibus, eorumque translatione & chronologia Dissertationes;” and, in 1663, “Appendix ad hunc librum, seu Responsiones ad objecta variorum Theologorum:” both in 4to. His next publications were upon philosophical subjects, as “Deluce,” “De motu marium & ventorum,” “De Nili & aliorum fluminum origine;” which are not thought of much consequence. "De Poematum Cantu et Viribus Rythmi, Oxon. 1673,“in 8vo, in which are some curious remarks.” De Sibyllinis aliisque, quae Christi natalem præcessere, Oraculis,“Oxon. 1679: reprinted in” Variarum Observationum Liber.“”Catullus, & in eum Isaaci Vossii Observationes,“Lond. 1684, 4to, and Leyden, 1691. There is a great deal of erudition in these notes of Vossius, mixed with gross indelicacies. The greatest part of a treatise by Adrian Beverland,” De prostibulis veterum,“the printing of which had been prohibited, was inserted in them; but this being discovered, the press was stopped from proceeding any farther; and the edition, the first of those mentioned above, though begun and carried on in Holland, was brought over to England to be finished; as may appear from the different characters of the end, the title, and the preface. In 1685, he published a thin quarto volume at London, entitled,” Variarum Observationum Liber,“in which are contained the following dissertations:” De Antiquae Romae & aliarum quarundam urbitnn magnitudine; De Artibus & Scientiis Sinarum; De Originæ & Progressu Pulveris Bellici apud Europaeos; De Triremium & Libnrnicarum constructione; De emendatione Longitudinum; De patefacienda per Septentrionem ad Japonenses & Indos navigatione; De apparentibus in Luna circulis; Diurna Telluris coriversione omnia gravia ad medium tendere;“to which are subjoined,” De Sibyllinis Oraculis, Responsio ad Objecta nupera: Criticae Sacræ,“and” Ad iteratas P. Simonii objectiones altera Responsio.“Vossius’s propensity to the marvellous, and his prejudices for antiquity, appear from the first page of this book of various observations; where he tells us, that ancient Rome was twenty times as large as Paris and London put together are at present; and assigns it fourteen millions of inhabitants; which however is nothing in comparison of the single town of Hanchou in China, whose inhabitants, he assures us, amount to twenty millions, besides the suburbs. This” Variarum Observationum Liber,“however, as well as Isaac Vossius’s works in general, all shew ingenuity and learning, and there are in them some singular and striking observations; but yet very little knowledge is to be drawn from, and very little use to be made of them. Thirlby says very justly of him, that he was a man of great learning, had excellent parts, and sufficient judgment, but never troubled his head about what was the truth in any question whatever. If criticism, or philosophy, or theology, was the subject, it was, says Thirlby,” quite enough for him to cast about for and invent things new, out of the way, and wonderful; but whether these strange and newly-discovered things were true or false, was a point which he left to be examined by those who might think it worth their while.“The last of his works we shall notice is,” Observationum ad Pomponium Melam appendix: accedit ad tertias P. Simonii objectiones Responsio, c.“Lond. 1686, 4to. James Gronovius, having used Vossius ill in his edition of” Mela,“at Leyden, 1685, in 8vo, is in this appendix paid in kind; Humphrey Hody is also answered, in a short piece contained in this publication; who had advanced something against Vossius’s notions of the Septuagint version, in his” Dissertatio contra Historiam Aristeae de LXX. Interpretibus,“printed at Oxford,” 1685.

The journalists of Trevoux have contrasted the different merits of Gerard and Isaac Vossius, by drawing a parallel between them, which very well illustrates the character of each, and may form a proper conclusion to this article. Nothing,“say they,” can be more opposite than the characters of this father and son; nothing more different than the make of their understandings. In the father, judgment prevails; in the son, imagination: the father labours slowly; the son goes on with ease: the father distrusts the bestfounded conjectures; the son loves nothing but conjectures, and those bold and daring: the father forms his opinions upon what he reads; the son conceives an opinion, and then reads: the father endeavours to penetrate the sense of the author he cites, and pays a proper deference to their authority, as to masters; the son imposes his own sense on these authors, and regards them as slaves, who ought to give testimony as he would have them: the father’s aim was to instruct; the son’s to parade and make a noise: truth was the father’s darling object; novelty the son’s. In the father, we admire vast erudition, orderly arranged and clearly expressed; in the son, a dazzling turn of style, singular thoughts, and a vivacity, which even pleases in a bad cause: the father has written good books; the son has written curious books. Their hearts also were as unlike and different as their heads. The father was a man of probity and regular in his manners; was unhappily born a Calvinist, yet had the service of religion always in his view, and approached as nearly to the true faith as mere reason could enable him. The son was a libertine both in principle and practice, made religion the object of his insults, and only studied to find out the weak sides of it: his indelicate and shameful notes upon Catullus, printed at the close of his life, shew also plainly enough what kind of man he was.“Of Gerard John Vossius’s other sons, who did not survive him, we may notice Dionysius Vossius, who was born at Dort, and became learned in the Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldee, Arabic, French, Italian, and Spanish languages. He wrote, among other small things,” Maimonides de Idololatria, cum Latina versione et notis,“printed at the end of his father’s work” de origine et progressu Idololatrire;“and some notes upon Cæsar’s Commentaries, to be found in the edition of Graevius, at Amsterdam, in 1697. Francis Vossius, another son, published a Latin poem in 1640, upon a naval victory gained by Van Tromp. Gerard, a third son, was the editor of Paterculus, the Elzevir of 1639, 12mo: and Matthew, a fourth son, published at Amsterdam, in 1635,” Annalium Hollandise Zelandiseque libri quinque," 4to.

, a very learned man, whom some have confounded with John Gerard Vossius, was born in the diocese of Liege, some say at Berchloon, and others at Hasselt, but he does not appear to have been related to the family of Gerard. He was an ecclesiastic of the church of Rome, employed in some considerable offices under the popes, and died at Liege in 1609. He published a Latin commentary upon “Cicero in Somnium Scipionis,” at Rome, 1575; and all the works of Gregory Thaumaturgus, Ephrem Syrus, and some pieces of John Chrysostom and Theodoret, with Latin versions and notes.

, a French painter, very celebrated in his day, was born at Paris in 1582, and bred up under his father, who was a painter also. He knew so much of his art, and was in such repute at twenty years of age, that Mons. de Saucy, who was going ambassador to Constantinople, took him with him as his painter. There he drew the picture of the grand signer; and, though it was impossible to do it otherwise than by the strength of memory, and from a view of him at the ambassador’s audience, yet it proved a great likeness. Thence he went to Venice; and afterwards, settling himself in Rome, became so illustrious* in his profession, that, besides the favours which he received from pope Urban VIII. and the cardinal his nephew, he was chosen prince of the Roman academy of St. Luke. He staid fourteen years in Italy; and then, in 1627, Lewis XIII. who, in consideration of his capacity, hatl allowed him a pension all the while he was abroad, sent for him borne to work in his palaces. He practised both in portrait and history; and furnished some of the apartments of the Louvre, the palaces of Luxemburg and iSt. Germains, the galleries of cardinal Richelieu, and other public places, with his works. His greatest perfection lay in his colouring, and his brisk and lively pencil; otherwise he was but tery indifferently qualified. He had no genius for grand compositions, was unhappy in his invention, unacquainted with the rules of perspective, and understood but little of the union of colours, or the doctrine of lights and shadows. Yet France was indebted to him for destroying the insipid and barbarous manner which then reigned, and for beginning to introduce a better taste. The novelty of Vouet’s manner, and the kind reception he gave all who came to him, made the French painters, his contemporaries, follow it, and brought him disciples from all parts. Most of the succeeding painters, who were famous in their profession, were bred up under him, as Le Brun, Perrier, Mignard, Le Sueur, Dorigny, Du Fresnoy, and several others, whom he employed as assistants in a great number of pictures he drew, and from his instructions they well knew how to execute his designs. He had the honour also to instruct the king himself in the art of designing.

He died, rather worn out with labour than years, in 1641, aged fifty-nine. Dorigny, who was his son-in-law, as well as his pupil, engraved the greatest part of his works. He bad a brother, whose name was Auhin Vouet, who painted after his manner, and was a tolerable performer.

, a distinguished French statesman, of a very ancient and honourable family, was born at Venice in 1652, where his father then resided as ambassador from France, and was so much respected that the senate gave him and his descendants permission to add the arms of the republic <o his own, with the lion of St. Mark as his crest. The senate also, as sponsor for his son, gave him the additional name of Mark. He was brought up to the law, and after filling the place of master of the requests, was promoted by the king to the place of lieutenant-general of the police of Paris, and conducted himself in this office with so much ability and propriety, that it is said that city never enjoyed more plenty, quiet, and security, than under his administration. In times of scarcity or commotion on any other account, and during fires or other calamities, he displayed the talents of a humane and enlightened magistrate, and by address only, and sharing in every danger, and listening to all reasonable complaints, he succeeded, in preventing or allaying popular tumults, without having recourse to extremities. His ability in this office recommended him to a superior rank in the administration, and accordingly, after being made a counsellor of state, he was in 1718 promoted to be keeper of the seals, president of the council of finance, and in 172() minister of state; but of these offices he was almost immediately deprived, we are not told why, and died May 8, 1721. He was attached to literature, and was a member of the French academy and of that of sciences. His character has been variously represented. We have given the most favourable account, but it must not be concealed that he was accounted by many as a friend to despotic authority, and as meanly subservient to the tyranny of the court or its ministers. He is said to have obliged the Jesuits by persecuting the Jansenists, but neither ioved or hated the one or the other, unless as they might promote or obstruct his ambition. In private life he was a more amiable character. Some of his descendants made a considerable figure in the latter French history.

, a Dutch painter, was born at Haerlem in 1566. In a voyage to Spain, he was shipwrecked on the coast of Portugal. Relating at Lisbon the danger he had escaped, a portrait-painter there engaged him to draw the storm he described, in which he succeeded so happily, that it was sold to a nobleman for a considerable price. Vroon continued to be employed; and improved so much in sea-pieces, that having got money, and returning home, he applied himself entirely to that style oi: painting. At this period, the great earl of Nottingham, lord high admiral of England, whose defeat of the Spanish armada had established the throne of his mistress, being desirous of preserving the detail of that illustrious event, had bespoken a suit of tapestry, describing the particulars of each day’s engagement. Vrobn was engaged to draw the designs, and came to England to receive instructions. The excellence of the performance, obvious to the public eye, makes encomiums unnecessary. It was chiring the republic that this noble trophy was placed in a temple worthy of it, the House of Lords, which was then used for committees of the Commons. Mr. Walpole, from whom the above extract is taken, has not certified the date of Vroon’s death.

, an extraordinary artist, was born at Schafhausen, in May 1650. He travelled and resided long at Rome and Venice. On his return he married Elizabeth Ott, and died in April 1717. This is nearly all the information which the attention and the taste of his country has preserved of a man, who, on the evidence of his few remaining works, commands a place among the best artists of his time. Some anecdotes indeed are told, relative to his circumstances, which were as ludicrously penurious as Brauwer’s. At Berne and Basle, they still shew his Adieu and death of Adonis, and the Adultress in the Temple. Schafhausen possesses the Rape of the Sabines, the judgment of Paris, Scipio and the Celtiberian princess, the death of Cleopatra, and that of Cato; and at Geneva there are yet some subjects painted by him from the Metamorphoses of Ovid. Veyth’s style of design is an imitation of the forms of Michael Angelo, but not a compilation from his figures. His method of drawing is wild and great: seldom he makes use of the pen; dashes of white on stained paper mark the lights, the paper the middle tints, and a little black the shade. In composition he sometimes sacrificed the main subject to the episodic part, if it happened to invite by picturesque allurements. In~ colour, though he followed the Venetian principle, especially Bassan, he had a characteristic and varied tone drawn from the nature of the subjects.

, an Anglo-Norman poet, whose works are esteemed the most ancient monuments of French literature, was born in the isle of Jersey, in the early part of the twelfth century. Huet, bishop of Avranches, assures us that his Christian name was Robert, and this opinion has generally prevailed, although Ducange calls him Mathew. From the poet himself, nothing can be determined, for in none of his works does he once mention his Christian name, calling himself generally Maitre Wace, Clerc-lisant, or Clerc de Caen. Wace commenced his studies at Caen, a city which at that time had many celebrated schools, and afterwards travelled in France to complete his education, hut under what tutors, or in what places, does not appear. Whether however from being dissatisfied with his situation, or from the natural predilection of his countrymen in favour of the English government, it is certain that he returned to Caen, and there made his first essay.

It is difficult to ascertain the first specimen he exhibited of the literature of his time. We know that he had composed many works, that he translated others into the language of his country, and that he particularly applied himself to the composition of light poetry and romances, in which last he excelled. He assures us that he composed a great number of romances; and, as most of them have been preserved, it is natural to conclude that they were held in the same estimation by his contemporaries as they have been by posterity. But it is proper to remark in this place, that the word romance is not always to be understood as applicable to those chimerical tales which have no other basis than the imagination of the inventor. During the twelfth, thirteenth, and even the fourteenth centuries, every thing that was written in French or Romance, or that was translated into that language, was generally termed a romance. Philip de Than, the most ancient of the Norman poets, and William, another poet of the same country, composed in verse a work upon the natural history of animals, and each of them called his works a romance. Richard d'Annebaut, likewise a Norman poet, translated into verse the institutes of Justinian, which he says he has romanced. Samson de Nanteuil versified the proverbs of Solomon; Helie de Winchester, Cato’s distichs; and both of them call their translations a romance.

We are not then to consider the romances of Wace as the offspring of a fertile imagination which has created events for the purpose of embellishing them with the charms of poetry; on the contrary, they are monuments of antiquity of the most respectable nature, inasmuch as they form for the most part a precious repository of the Norman and Anglo-Saxon history When this poet wrote the history of events which preceded him, he drew his materials from memoirs which then existed. He often cites the authors upon whose faith he advances his facts, and of whom many have not been preserved to us. When he wrote the history of his own times, he always relied upon the testimony of eye-witnesses, or related what he himself had seen. In general he is very candid in his narrations, and though he may sometimes appear to deal a little in the marvellous, he takes care to observe that he has found what he advances so written, and that he gives it in the same manner.

That work of Wace’s which his learned biographer places first, was composed in 1155. It is his translation in verse of the famous “Brut of England,” so called from Brutus the great grandson of Æneas, and first king of the Britons. It contains the history of the kings of Great Britain, almost from the destruction of Troy to the year 689 of the common sera. Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, had imported the original from Armoric Britain, Geoffroy of Monmouth translated it into Latin, and Wace into French verse. Several copies of this work are in the British Museum, one at Bene't college, Cambridge, and one, at least, a very superb one, in the royal library at Paris, supposed to be coeval with the author. The verses of this poem are always masculine of eight syllables, and feminine of nine; by which circumstance the error of attributing this work, as Fauchet has done, to a Huistace, or Wistace, is detected; for, by substituting Wace, as is found in the ancient ms. the verses acquire their necessary measure. Warton has fallen into this mistake by depending upon Fauchet; and the same error is repeated by several French writers. The learned Tyrwhitt was the first person who attempted to clear up a subject which from time to time became more involved in darkness, and to vindicate our author from the errors or injustice of modern writers. By means of sound criticism, the authority of the manuscripts in the British Museum, and the testimony of Layamon and Robert de Brunne, he proved, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that Wace was the author of the translation of the “Brut” into French verse. Lastly, Dr. Burney, in, his < c History of Music," by means of the rules of French poetry alone, demonstrated the want of fidelity in the manuscripts which had misled Fauchet and all other writers, who, as he had done, drew their materials from faulty and imperfect copies.

The second production of Wace is the history of the irruptions into England and the northern provinces of France, written in verses of eight syllables. His third work is the famous Roman du Rou, composed in 1160, in verses of twelve syllables. Raoul, or Rollo, is the hero of this poem. His fourth piece is the romance of William Longsword, the son of Rollo, written in verses of twelve syllables. It is to be found in the royal library at Paris, at the end of the Roman du Rou; and his fifth work, or the romance of Richard I. duke of Normandy, composed in the same measure, may be seen in the same repository. His sixth work contains, in 12,000 lines, the history of the Norman dukes, from the time of duke Richard I. to the sixth year of Henry I. and was composed after 1170. A copy is in the British Museum, Bib. Reg. iv. c. xi. His seventh performance is an abridged chronicle of the history of the dukes of Normandy, beginning with Henry II. and going upwards to Rollo.

The eighth is a history of the origin of the feast of the conception of the Holy Virgin. The ninth is a life of St. Nicolas, one copy of which is in the Bodleian library, and another in that of Trinity college, Cambridge. The tenth is the Roman du Chevalier an Lion. It is also probable that our poet composed several branches of the romance of Alexander; and the conjecture qf Tyrwhitt, that he is the Robert Guasco, author of the Martyrdom of St. George, mentioned by the abhe le Boeuf (Mem. de PAcad. des Inscr. xvii. p. 729.) is not without foundation. The lighter poetry of Wace has not reached the present times.

Such a multitude of works from the pen of the same author engaged the attention of Henry II. who, to reward his merit, bestowed on him a canonry in the cathedral of Bayeux. Monsieur Lancelot, in his explanation of the tapestry of queen Matilda, preserved in the treasury of that cathedral, has contended that Wace borrowed several facts which he could not have found elsewhere from that valuable monument, but for this there seems very slight foundation. Dumoutier in his.“Nenstria pia” says that Wace was canon of Caen, but it is certain there was no chapter established in that city. That of St. Sepulchre, which still remains, was not founded till 1219. It is true, that in March 1152, Philip de Harcourt, bishop of Bayeux, founded three new canonries in his cathedral church, and to endow them, annexed the parish churches of Notre Dame, St. John, and St. Peter, belonging to the city of Caen; perhaps Wace being afterwards provided with one of these benefices, might have been called canon of Caen, because the chief place of his prebend was situated in that city; this conjecture acquires the greater probability on account of a practice still existing in Normandy of describing every canon by the name of the place appropriated to his canonry.

Huet, and almost every one of those who have spoken of our poet, have maintained that he had been clerk of the chapel to king Henry II. Wace, however, mentions nothing concerning this dignity, although he minutely describes all the favours which that monarch conferred upon him; he is even so attentive upon this subject, that he assures us the king gave him many things, but had promised him more. Besides, as the title of clerk of the King’s chapel was a very honourable one, which generally led the way to a bishopric, we may presume from his silence that he was not invested with it. Monsieur Huet has certainly been misled by the description of clerk, which Wace often assumes; but he should have remarked, that he never calls himself clerc du roi, but always clerc de Caen, or clerc lisant, a title which then signified nothing more than a learned man, and which was even given to laymen, since Henry I. was surnamed Beauclerc.

Of Wace’s personal history we have no farther account, but with regard to the advantages attending the perusal of the productions of Wace, his biographer says very truly, that “The antiquary will at first remark with astonishment, that their language (that of the Normans) has been preserved even to our own days in the countries of Lower Normandy. He will perceive their progress in the various arts; their attainments in that of war; their arms and their military customs their method of attacking castles and strong holds the state of their marine and their commerce; the height to which they have carried architecture and other sciences, together with the monuments they have left us. The genealogist will find many curious and interesting facts relating to ancient families; he will feel himself rewarded in the perusal of the names of the knights who were present at the battle of Hastings; and of the noble actions by which each of them signalized his valour. In a word, the historian will learn with pleasure many circumstances and details which are not to be found in any other writer.”

, an eminent Irish Roman catholic, and reckoned a great ornament to his country, was born at Waterford, Oct. 16, 1588. His first studies were begun at home under the tuition of his brother Matthew, who took him to Portugal in the fifteenth year of his age, and placed him in a seminary established for the Irish at Lisbon, where he applied to philosophy for six months under the direction of the Jesuits. In 1605, after having passed his noviciate, he was admitted among the Franciscans, and afterwards continued his studies at their convents at Liria, at Lisbon, and afterwards at Coimbra, in all which places he was admired for the diligence and success of his application. After being admitted into priest’s orders he removed to Salamanca, where he continued some time, and was made superintendant of the students, and lecturer in divinity, in both which offices he gave great satisfaction. In 1618, when Anthony a Trejo, vicar-general of the Franciscans, was advanced to the bishopric of Carthagena, in Spain, and appointed legate extraordinary to pope Paul V. upon one of those disputes which frequently agitated the Romish church, respecting the immaculate conception, the bishop, although he had the choice of many men of the Spanish nation, eminent for learning and talents in business, yet preferred Wadding to be chaplain of this embassy, although then but thirty years old, and a foreigner.

Accordingly, having introduced our divine at court, the bishop took him with him to Rome, where they were lodged in the palace of cardinal Gabriel a Trejo, the bishop’s brother, who employed Wadding in compiling or composing from the libraries and archives of Rome such arguments and proofs as related to the question before them; and he even visited Assisi, Perugia, Naples, and many other places fr the same purpose. Besides this, at the request of some who had perused what he had brought together with great satisfaction, he was induced to write a history of that legation, not indeed with a view to publication, but having intrusted the ms to some who were of opinion it ought not to be concealed, it was at last published by Maximilian de Bouchorne, at Louvaine, under the title “Legatio Philippi III. et IV. Hispaniae regum, ad sanctissimos D. D. Paulum V- et Gregorium XV. et Urbanum VIII. pro definienda controversia conceptions B. Mariae Virginia; per illustrissimum, &c. Anthonium a Trejo,” &c. Lonvain, 1624, folio.

But while this legation was going on, he removed from the cardinal’s palace, as enjoying there a course of life which he thought incompatible with his profession of Franciscan, and took up his residence at the Franciscan-convent of St. Peter, where he was honoured with the respect of many of the dignified ecclesiastics of Rome; and on the departure of the bishop to Spain, when the care of the legation was entrusted to the duke of Albuquerque, the Spanish ambassador at Rome, Wadding was appointed his assistant, and was, says his biographer, the life of the whole negotiation. He wrote three pamphlets on the subject of the immaculate conception, the titles of which we may be excused from giving. During the time he could spare from the business of this legation, he published an edition of some works of St. Francis, from Mss. in the public libraries, under the title of “Opusculorum St. Francisci Libri tres,” Antwerp, 1623. Before this time he performed what will probably be thought a more acceptable service to theological studies, in undertaking to print Calasio’s Concordance (see Calasio). Calasio died at Rome, wliile Wadding was there, leaving this large work in manuscript. Wadding, who saw its merits, regretted that it should be lost; and being unable of himself to defray the expence of printing, applied to pope Paul V. and to Benignus a Genua, the general of the Franciscans, by whose encouragement the whole was published at Rome in 1621, 4 vols, folio, under the inspection of Wadding, who prefixed to it a learned treatise “De Hebraic lingoos origine, praestaiitia et militate.” Pope Paul dying while the work was in the press, he dedicated it to his successor, Gregory XV. He published also, from original Mss. the works of some other Spanish divines, and wrote a life of Thomasius, patriarch of Constantinople, “Vita B. Petri Thomce Aquitani Carmelitse,” &c. Lyons, 1637, 8vo. But the most labourius effort of editorship was his rescuing from obscurity all the manuscript copies of Duns Scotus’s works, transcribing, collating, and correcting, and afterwards publishing the whole, in twelve folio volumes, at Lyons, in 1639.

In the mean time, his reputation had so much increased that in 1630, he was appointed procurator for the Franciscans at Rome, which he held until 1634. In 1645, he was appointed vice-commissary of his order, which it appears he resigned in 1648. He was also, in 1625, the founder of the college of St. Isidore, for the education of Irish students of the Franciscan order, of which he was the first guardian or head. The expenses of this college, the chapel, library, &c. were defrayed by contributions from the people of Rome, out of regard to the founder. He also persuaded cardinal Ludovisius to found a secular college there for six Irish students; and this, and some other institutions, suggested and promoted by him, he lived to see well endowed. His influence, from whatever cause, appears to have been very great; but the worst, and, as his biographers say, the only stain on his character, is the encouragement he gave to the Irish rebellion and massacre in 1641. He died Nov. 18, 1657, and was buried in the chapel of St. Isidore. Not long before his death he had refused the promotion to the rank of cardinal.

Wadding published some other treatises than we have mentioned, and left many in manuscript; but he lived to finish what had b.een the employment of many years, a history of his order, and the eminent men it has produced. This he completed in eight volumes, folio, at Lyons, 1625 1654. A new and enlarged edition has been since published at Rome, under the title of “Waddingi Lucse Annales Minorum, seu historia trium ordinum a S. Francisco institutorurn, editio secunda, studio Jos. Mar. Fonseca,” 1731—45, 19vols. fol.

, esq. of Edge and Merrifield, in Somersetshire, in which county he was born, the founder of Waclham-college, Oxford, was a descendant of the ancient family of YVadhams of Devonshire; but the period of his birth is not known, nor have we many particulars of his personal history. According to Wood, he was a gentleman-commoner either of Christ-church, or CorpusChrist! college, where he is supposed to have been admitted about 1548. He inherited an estate which he increased to more than 3000l. a-year, and accumulated about 14,000^. in money. A large portion of this property he resolved to devote to some foundation of public utility. His first intention is said to have been to found a college at Venice for such Englishmen of the Roman catholic persuasion as might wish to enjoy their education and religion, now no longer tolerated in England. From this it may be inferred, that he was himself attached to popery; but his adherence could not be inflexible, as he was soon persuaded by his friend Mr. Grange to erect a college in Oxford, in imitation of the others, where the established religion was now cultivated with zeal. His, or rather his wife’s, appointing, that the warden should not be married, may be thought a part of the old persuasion; but it must be remembered, that the marriage of the clergy was one of the last changes of opinion to which the nation was completely reconciled. Queen Elizabeth was always against it; and it was prohibited by the statutes of Jesus-college. A more ridiculous reason has been traditionally assigned for Mrs. Dorothy Wadham’s injunction against marriage; she is said to have been refused by the first warden; but she was at this time seventy-five years old, and he considerably advanced, which renders this story highly improbable. As Mr. Wadham died before this design could be carried into execution, he bequeathed the management of it to his wife, the daughter of siv William Petre, secretary of state, who so often occurs as a benefactor to the university of Oxford. This lady, assisted by trustees, and with a zeal proportioned to her husband’s spirited design, completed the necessary purchases, buildings, and endowment. She survived her husdand nine years, died May 16, 1618, aged eighty-four, and was buried with her husband in the north transept of the church of Ilminster in Somersetshire, under a stately monument of alabaster, on which are their figures on brass plates; but the whole is considerably decayed.

Mrs. Wadham first endeavoured to purchase the site of Gloucester-hall, now Worcester-college, but Dr. Hawley, then principal, refusing to give up his interest in that property, unless she would appoint him her first governor or warden, she declined the condition, and made proposals to the city of Oxford, for the site of the priory of Austin Friars.

This was once a place of great fame in the university, and may be traced to very high antiquity. In 1251, pope Innocent IV. granted a power to the friars eremites of St. Austin, to travel into any countries, build monasteries, and celebrate divine service. With this permission, they first established a house in London, but deputed some of their number to go to Oxford, where they hired an obscure bouse near the public schools. Acquiring some reputation for their skill in philosophy and divinity, or at least what were then so called, they attracted the attention of sir John Handlove, or Handlow, of Burstall in Buckinghamshire, a very opulent gentleman, who purchased for them a piece of ground, enlarged afterwards by a gift from Henry III. On this tney built a house and chapel in a sumptuous form, and held schools for divinity and philosophy of such reputation, that, before the divinity school was built, the university acts were kept, and the exercises in arts were performed in this place. It was in particular enjoined that every bachelor of arts should once in ea^h year dispute, and once answer, at this house, and this continued until the dissolution, when the disputations were removed to St. Mary’s, and afterwaids to the schools. Alter the dissolution, the premises were let, on a lease of twenty-one years, at 3l. yearly, to Thomas Carwarden, or Carclon, esq. who appears to have demolished the whole, and carried off the materials. In 1552, king Edward VI. sold the site to Henry duke of Suffolk, and Thomas Duport, gentleman, who almost immediately conveyed it to Henry Baylie, M. D. formerly a fellow of New college, for forty-five shillings yearly. In 1553, Baylie sold it to his father-in-law, Edward Freere, of Oxford, who left it to his son William, by whom, in 1587, it was again sold to the mayor, bailiffs, and commonalty of Oxford lor the principal sum of 450l.

In 1609, Mrs. Wadham made proposals to the city for the purchase of this site, which, after many consultations, was agreed to, with this condition, that they might have the first nomination of one fellow, and two scholars of the new college. This being agreed to, the site was conveyed to Mrs. Wadham, May 29, 1610, for the sum of 600l. Of the old priory, nothing at this time remained except parts of the walls, which were immediately removed, and the foundation stone of the college laid July 31. On this occasion, the vice-chancellor, doctors, proctors, &c. came in procession from St. Mary’s church, and met the mayor and aldermen on the spot. Dr. Ryves, warden of New college, delivered an oration in praise of the founders, and the first stone was then laid on the east part where the chapel now stands.

The king’s licence, bearing date Dec. 20, 1611, empowered Mrs. Wadham to found a college for the studies of divinity, canon and civil law, physic, the arts and sciences, and classical languages; the society to consist of a warden, sixteen fellows, and thirty scholars, graduate or not graduate, or more or less, as the statutes might prescribe. The act of parliament for the confirmation of Wadham college was passed on the 16th of August, 1612. The statutes of the foundress, thus confirmed, specified the college to be for a warden, fifteen fellows, fifteen scholars, two chaplains, two clerks, with college servants. The warden was to be a native of Great Britain, master of arts at least, and be incapacitated from holding his situation, either if he married, or was promoted to a bishopric; but the condition respecting marriage was annulled by act of parliament, July 1806. The fellows, after completing eighteen years from the expiration of their regency, are to resign their fellowships. The scholars, from whom the fellows are to be chosen, are to be, three of the county of Somerset, three of Essex, and the rest of any other county in Great Britain.

, an eminent nonconformist, was born in St. Saviour’s, Southwark, in 1630, and educated in Christ’s college, Cambridge, where he was under the tuition of Dr. Owtram, a tutor of eminence. In 1652 he was appointed minister of Newington Butts, where he not only spent his time, but a great part of his fortune in works of piety and charity. He distributed Bibles among the poor, and constantly visited his parishioners, and instructed them from house to house. There was a singular circumstance, very creditable to him in this appointment to St. Mary’s Newington. Our readers perhaps need not be told that at this- time the elections to churches were popular; and it so happened that the parishioners were divided into two parties, each of which, unknown to the other, presented its petition at Westminster to the committee who determined church preferments; and when these petitions were opened, they were found to be both in favour of Mr. Wadsworth. He also lectured occasionally in various city churches, and at last was chosen to the living of St. Lawrence Pountney, whence he was ejected at the restoration. He afterwards preached privately at Newington, Theobalds, and Southwark. He received nothing Tor his labours, but was content to spend and be spent in his great master’s service. His diary, printed at the end of his life, contains the strongest proofs of his being an excellent Christian; and it is no less evident, says Granger, from his practical works, that he strove to make others as good Christians as himself. He died of the stone, the 29th of October, 1676, aged forty-six. His funeral sermon was preached by Mr. Bragge. He published various pious treatises, enumerated by Calamy, few of which have descended to our times.

, a Dutch historian, and historiographer to the city of Amsterdam, was born there in 1709, and died in 1773. His principal work is a “History of Holland,” from the earliest times to 1751, in 21 vols. 8vo, the first two of which appeared in 1749. There was a second edition published at Amsterdam in 1752—1759, with many engravings, maps, and portraits by Houbraken. It appears to have been the merit of this work which occasioned his being honoured with the title of historiographer to the city of Amsterdam in 1758. In it he is said to display profound research, sound political principles, and elegance and precision of style; and the Dutch esteem it one of the greatest ornaments to their literature. Wagenaar wrote many other works: 1. “The present state of the United Provinces,” Amst. 1739, 12 vols. 8vo. 2. “Description of the city of Amsterdam,” ibid. 1760, 3 vols. fol. 3. “The character of John de Witt placed in its true light.” He published also some tracts on topics of divinity.

, a very learned German, was the son of a reputable tradesman, and born at Nuremberg in 1633. He was sent early to a school at Stockholm; whence he was taken at thirteen, and placed in the university of Altorf. The distinction, to which he there raised himself by his abilities and learning, recommended him to some nobility as a proper tutor to their children; and, after continuing five years at Altorf, he was taken into the family of the count de Traun. He not only performed the office of an instructor to the sons of this nobleman, but accompanied them in their travels to France, Spain, England, Holland, several parts of Germany, and Italy. He contracted an acquaintance with the learned wherever he went, and received honours from several universities: those of Turin and Padua admitted him into their body. In France, he experienced the liberality of Lewis XIV. and was received doctor of law, at Orleans, in June 1665. Several places would have detained him, but the love of his native country prevailed; and, after travelling for six years, he arrived at Nuremberg in 1667. He was immediately made professor of law and history in the university of Altorf; but, about eight years after, changed his professorship of history for that of the Oriental tongues. In 1676, Adolphus John, count Palatine of the Rhine, committed two sons to his care, and at the same time honoured him with the title of counsellor. The princes of Germany held him in high esteem; and the emperor himself admitted him to private conferences, in 1691, when he was at Vienna about business. In 1697, the town of Nuremberg gave him marks of their esteem, by adding to his titles that of doctor of canon law, and by committing the university-library to his care. He was twice married; the first time in 1667, the second in 1701. He died in 1706, aged seventy-two.

He wrote and published near twenty works, some in French, the others in Latin. The first came out at Nuremberg in 1667, the design of which is to shew the spuriousness of the pretended fragment of Petronius. In another, printed in the first volume of “Amcenitates Literarise,” he endeavours to prove the real existence of Pope Joan, which has been so much questioned. His principal work is entitled “Tela Ignea Satanae,” Altorf, 1681, in 2 vols. 4to. This is a collection of pieces written by the Jews against the Christian religion; with a Latin version, and long notes in the way of refutation.

, a learned nonjuring divine and able writer, was of a gentleman’s family in Warwickshire, and was born February 15, 1645. He was educated at the Charterhouse school under Mr. Wood. In Lent-­term 1660, he was admitted commoner of New-Inn at Oxford, where he took the degree of bachelor of arts October 15, 1664, and that of master June 20, 1G67. He was ordained deacon by Dr. John Hacket, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, June 6, 1669; and priest by Dr. Joseph Henshaw, bishop of Peterborough, November 19, 1669. He was instituted to the rectory of Martins-Thorpe in the county of Rutland, by Joseph, bishop of Peterborough, November 19, 1669. After that he lived in the family of sir Richard Temple at Stow, in the county of Bucks, and entered upon the curacy of that church April 12, 1676. In December 1684, he was presented by king Charles II. and instituted by William, archbishop of Canterbury, to the chancellorship of the cathedral church of Lichfield, together with the prebendary of Alderwas in the same church. In March 1684 he was presented by Henry, bishop of London, to the rectory of St. Margaret Pattens in London. Upon the revolution, being deprived of his preferments for not taking the new oaths, he practised physic for many years afterwards in the City of London with good success, and wore his gown all the while. In February 1693 he vvas consecrated bishop by Dr. William Lloyd, bishop of Norwich, Dr. Francis Turner, bishop of Ely, and Dr. Thomas White, bishop of Peterborough, at the bishop of Peterborough’s lodgings, at the reverend Mr. Giffard’s house at Southgate, at which solemnity Henry earl of Clarendon was present Mr. Wagstaffe was consecrated suffragan of Ipswich, and Dr. Hickes at the same time suffragan of Thetford. Mr. Wagstaffe died October 17, 1712, in the sixty- seventh year of his age. He published few sermons, but wrote many pieces in defence of the constitution both in Church and State, with great strength of reason and perspicuity.

Among these are, 1. “A Letter to the author of the late Letter out of the country, occasioned by a former Letter to a member of the House of Commons, concerning the bishops lately in the Tower, and now under suspension.” 2. “An Answer to a late pamphlet entitled Obedience and Submission to the present Government demonstrated from bishop Overall’s Convocation Book: with a postscript in answer to Dr. Sherlock’s Case of Allegiance,” London, 1690. 3. “An Answer to Dr. Sherlock’s Vindication of the Case of allegiance due to sovereign powers, which he made in reply to an Answer to a late pamphlet entitled Obedience and Submission to the present government demonstrated from bishop Overall’s Convocation book, with a postscript in answer to Dr. Sherlock’s Case of Allegiance, &c,” London, 1692. 4. “An Answer to a Letter to Dr. Sherlock written in vindication of that part of Josephus’s History, wtiicb gives the account of Jaddas’s submission to Alexander, against the Answer to the piece entitled Obedience and Submission to the present Government,” Lond. 1692. 5. “A Letter out of Suffolk to a friend in London, giving some account of the late sickness and death of Dr. William Sancroft late lord archbishop of Canterbury,” London, 1694. 6. “A Letter out of Lancashire to a friend in London, giving some account of the tryals there. Together with some seasonable and proper remarks upon it; recommended to the wisdom of the Lords and Commons assembled in parliament,” London, 1694. 7. “A Letter to a gentleman elected a knight of the shire to serve in the present parliament,” London, 1694. 8. “Remarks on some late Sermons, and in particular on Dr. Sherlock’s sermon at the Temple December the 30th, 1694, in a letter to a friend. The second edition, with additions. Together with a letter to the author of a pamphlet entitled A Defence of the archbishop’s Sermon, &c. and several other Sermons, &c.” London, 1695. 9. “An account of the proceedings in the House of Commons, in relation to the recoining the clipped money, and falling the price of guineas. Together with a particular list of the names of the members consenting and dissenting; in answer to a Letter out of the country,” London, 1696. 10. “A Vindication of king Charles the Martyr; proving that his majesty was the author of ' Eixav BawiAjw, against a memorandum said to be written by the earl of Anglesey, and against the exceptions of Dr. Walker and others. To which is added a preface, wherein the bold and insolent assertions published in a passage of Mr.JBayle’s Dictionary relating to the present controversy are examined and confuted. The third edition, with large additions together with some original letters of king Charles the First, &c.” Lond. 1711, in 4to. The two former editions were in 8vo, the first printed in 1693, and the second in 1697. 11. “A Defence of the Vindication of king Charles the Martyr; justifying his majesty’s title to Efxcuv 'BacriMw, in answer to a late pamphlet entitled Amyntor,” London, 1699. Mr. Wagstaffe also wrote prefaces before, I. “Symmons’s Restitutus: containing two epistles, four whole sections or chapters, together with a postscript, and some marginal observations, &c. which were perfectly omitted in the first edition of Mr Symmons’s book, entitled” A Vindication of king Charles I. and republished by Dr Hollingworth,“London, 1693. 2.” The devout Christian’s Manual, by Mr. Jones,“London, 1703. 3.” A Treatise of God’s Government, and of the justice of his present dispensations in this world. By the pious, learned, and most eloquent Sulvian, a priest of Marseilles, who lived in the fifth century. Translated from the Latin by R. T. presbyter of the church of England,“London, 1700. These two pamphlets are also of Mr. Wagstaffe’s writing, 1.” The present state of Jacobitism in England,“ibid. 1700;” A second part in answer to the first“which was written by the bishop of Salisbury, &c. &c. Wagstaflfe derived most credit from his endeavours to prove the” Eikon Basilike“to be the genuine production of king Charles; but on this subject we must refer our readers to the life of bishop Gauden, and especially the authorities there quoted. Mr. Wagstaffe had a son who resided at Oxford in the early part of his life, but afterwards went abroad, and resided at Rome many years in the character of protestant chaplain to the chevalier St. George, and afterwards to his son. He was there esteemed a man of very extensive learning. Dr. Townson was acquainted with him at Rome, both on his first and second tour in 1743 and 1768. He lived in a court near a carpenter’s shop, and upon Dr. Townson’s inquiring for him, the carpenter knew of no such person.” He did live somewhere in this yard some years ago.“” I have lived here these thirty years, and no person of such a name has lived here in that time.“But on farther explanation, the carpenter exclaimed,” Oh, you mean // Predicatore; he lives there,“pointing to the place. This Mr. Wagstaffe died at Rome, Dec. 3, 1770, aged seventy-eight. Mr. Nichols has preserved some jeux d‘esprits, and some epitaphs written by him, and there is a letter of his to Tom Hearne, in the ’.' Letters written by Eminent Persons,” lately published at Oxford, 1813, 3 vols. 8vo.

, a physician, whose writings, as well as his indolent habits of life, seem to have very strongly resembled those of the facetious Dr. William King of the Commons, was related to the preceding Wagstaffes, and descended from a very ancient family, who were lords of the manor of Knightcote in Warwickshire. He was born in 1685, and being the only son of his father the rector of Cublington in Buckinghamshire, he was educated with great care, and sent early to school at Northampton. In his sixteenth year he was removed to Lincoln college, Oxford, where he was soon distinguished, not only for talents and learning, but for a facetious humour which made his conversation very acceptable to persons of superior rank and standing in the university. After taking his degree of B. A. in 1703, he had some, thoughts of entering into the church, from no better motive, however, than the hopes of being preferred by a relation; but after taking his degree of A. M. in 1707, he left the university, and coming up to London, visited another relation, the rev. Thomas Wagstaffe, who then was a physician; and marrying this gentleman’s daughter some time afterwards, resolved on medicine as a profession, in which his wife’s relations did their utmost to assist him. After her death, he formed a second eligible union with the daughter of Charles Bernard, esq. sergeant-surgeon to queen Anne. Not long after this marriage, he completed his degrees in physic, in 1714, and returning to town was admitted fellow both of the college of physicians, and in 1717 of the Royal Society. Business gradually increasing, he was chosen one of the physicians of St. Bartholomew’s hospital, which trust he discharged with great reputation, as to skill and humanity. He appears, however, to have been a man of indolence, and of some irregular habits, which brought on lowness of spirits, and decay of health. In hopes of recovery he went to Bath in March 1724-5, but died there May 5, in the fortieth year of his age. His works were the same year collected under the title of “The Miscellaneous Works of Dr. William Wagstaffe, physician to St. Bartholomew’s hospital,” &c. 8vo. Their contents are characteristic of the author’s peculiar humour, and his opinions of his contemporaries. 1. “A comment upon the History of Tom Thumb,” in ridicule of Addison’s papers on “Chevy Chase.” 2. “Crispin the Cobler’s confutation of Ben H(oadly), in an. epistle 10 him.” 3. “The Story of the St. A(lba)n’s ghost,” &c. 4. “The testimonies of the citizens of Fickleborough, concerning the life and character of Robert Huish, commonly called Bob, &c.” 5. “The representation of the loyal subjects of Albinia.” 6. “The character of Richard St(ee)le, esq.:” not a very just one. 7. “The state and condition of our Taxes considered.” 8. “The Plain Dealer,” 16 numbers. 9. “Preface to the complete history of the treaty of Utrecht.” 10. “A Letter from the facetious Dr. Andrew Tripe, at Bath, to his loving brother the profound Greshamite, &c.” Most of these tracts were written in his early years, and without his name. He was also the author of two scarce little volumes, called “Annotations on the Tatler,” frequently quoted in the variorum editions of that periodical paper.

, a learned politician, was the son of Arthur Wake, rector of Billing, in Northamptonshire, master of the hospital of St. John at Northampton, and canon of Christ Church; and was born, it is supposed, at Billing, about 1575. He became a member of the university of Oxford in 1593, and in 1598 was elected probationer-fellow of Merton college. In 1604 he was chosen public orator, and in that capacity had frequent opportunities, sometimes before the king and court at their visits to the university, of delivering speeches in a pure and eloquent style. In 1609 he travelled in France and Italy, and after his return was made private secretary to sir Dudley Carleton, one of the chief secretaries of state, and discovering, in this situation, talents which might qualify him for diplomatic commissions, his majesty (James I.) employed him as ambassador to Venice, Savoy, and other courts. Previous to his setting out for Savoy in 1619, he received the order of knighthood. In 1625 he sat as member of parliament for the university of Oxford, and his speeches added considerably to his reputation. His accomplishments likewise, both as a scholar and a gentleman, were greatly admired. He died in 1632, while at Paris, in the service of Charles I. and his body being brought to England, was interred in the chapel at Dover castle. His funeral, which was very magnificent, was expressly at the charge of the king, who had intended him for the place of secretary of state had he lived.

His most celebrated work was his “Rex Platonicus, sive de potentiss. principis Jacobi regis ad Acad. Oxon. adventu, anno 1605,” Oxon. 1607, 4to, of which courtly publication there were at least six editions. There is a passage in this work from which Shakspeare is conjectured to have derived the plot of his “Macbeth.” Sir Isaac’s other works are, 1. “Oratio funebris habita in Templo B. Mariae Oxon. quum mo2sti Oxonienses, piis manibus Johannis Rainoldi parentarent,” Oxon. 1608, 12mo, translated by Fuller in his “Abel Redivivus.” 2. Another on sir Thomas Bodley, priated by Bates in his “Vitse selectorum aliquot virorum,” &c. 3. “Discourse of the Thirteen Cantons of the Helvetical league,” Lond. 1655, 8vo, with two others on Italy and Sweden, under the general title of a “Threefold help to political observations.” He left some Mss. and there are several of his letters in the “Cabala,” and in the Harleian collection.

, an eminent English prelate, descended from an ancient family, was born in 1657, at Blandford, in Dorsetshire, where his father, of the same names, was a gentleman of considerable property. He was probably educated at first at home, whence his father carried him to Oxford, with a view to place him in Trinity college, but an accidental interview with Dr. Fell, dean of Christ Church, determined him in favour of that college, of which he was accordingly admitted a student in 1672. Having taken his degree of A. B. in 1676, and that of A. M. in 1679, he fixed his choice on divinity as a profession, rather against the intention of his father, who wished to provide for him in the clothing business. He then entered into holy orders, and in 1682 accompanied, in quality of chaplain, lord viscount Preston, also of Christ Church, who was appointed envoy extraordinary to the court of France.

While in France he is said to have made a considerable figure in the learned world, and was applied to by Dr., now bishop Fell, to procure the collation of some valuable Greek Mss. of the New Testament at Paris, for the use of Dr. Mill, whose edition Dr. Fell patronised. In the beginning of the reign of James II. he returned home with lord Preston, and was soon after chosen preacher to the honourable society of Gray’s Inn. This, it would appear, was against the wish of the king, who, on the death of his predecessor, Dr. Claget, sent a message to the society, desiring them not to proceed to an election until they heard from him, but they returned an answer that they bad already chosen Dr. Wake. During his residence in France an incident occurred which occasioned his first appearance as an author, and his being known as an able writer both at home and abroad. Bossuet, the bishop of Meaux (See Bossuet) had now published his very artful “Exposition of the Roman Catholic Faith,” a copy of which came into the hands of Mr. Wake, who, in the preface to his Answer, gives a very curious account of the different alterations the work had undergone, in order to answer the real purposes for which it was written. He observes, that “the first design of monsieur de Meaux’s book was either to satisfy or to seduce the late mareschal de Turenne. How far it contributed thereunto I am not able to say, but am willing to believe that the change that honourable person made of his religion was upon somewhat better grounds than the bare Exposition of a few articles of the Roman faith; and that the author supplied either in his personal conferences with him, or by some other papers to us unknown, what was wanting to the first draught, which we have seen of this. The manuscript copy which then appeared, and for about four years together passed up and down in private hands with great applause, wanted all those chapters of the Eucharist, Tradition, the Authority of the Church and Pope, which now make up the most considerable part of it; and in the other points which it handled, seemed so loosely and favourably to propose the opinions of the church of Rome, that not only many undesigning persons of that communion were offended at it, but the protestants, who saw it, generally believed that monsieur de Meaux durst not publicly own what in his Exposition he privately pretended to be their doctrine. And the event shewed that they were not altogether mistaken. For in the beginning of 1671 the Exposition being with great care, and after the consideration of many years, reduced into the form in which we now see it, and to secure all, fortified with the approbation of the archbishop of Rheims, and nine otheV bishops, who profess that ‘ having examined it with all the care which the importance of the matter required, they found it conformable to the doctrine of the church, and as such recommended it to the people which God had committed to their conduct,’ it was sent to the press. The impression being finished and just ready to come abroad, the author, who desired to appear with all advantage to himself and his cause that was possible, sent it to some of the doctors of the Sorbonne for their approbation to he joined to that of the bishops, that so no authority, ordinary or extraordinary, might be wanting to assert the* doctrine contained in it to be so far from the suspicion the Protestants had conceived of it, that it was truly and without disguise Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman. But, to the great surprise of monsieur de Meaux, and those who had so much cried up his treatise before, the doctors of the Sorbonne, to whom it was communicated, instead of the approbation that was expected, confirmed what the Protestants had said of it; and, as became their faculty, marked several of the most considerable parts of it, wherein the Exposition by the too great desire of palliating had absolutely perverted the doctrine of their church. To prevent the open scandal, which such a censure might have caused, with great industry and all the secrecy possible the whole edition was suppressed, and the several places, which the doctors had marked, changed; and the copy so speedily sent back to the press again, that in the end of the same year another much altered was publicly exposed, as the first impression that had at all been made of it. Yet this could not be so privately carried on, but that it soon came to a public knowledge; insomuch that one of the first answers that was made to it, charged monsieur de Meaux with this change. I do not hear, that he has ever yet thought fit to deny the relation, either in the advertisement prefixed to the later editions of his book, wherein yet he replies to some other passages of the same treatise, or in any other vindication: whether it be that such an imputation was not considerable enough to be taken notice of, or that it was too true to be denied, let the reader judge. But certainly it appears to us not only to give a clear account of the design and genius of the whole book, but to be a plain demonstration, how improbable soever monsieur de Meaux would represent it, * that it is not impossible for a bishop of the Church of Rome, either not to be sufficiently instructed in his religion to know what is the doctrine of it; or not sufficiently sincere, as without disguise to represent it.' And since a copy of that very book so marked, as has been said, by the doctors of the Sorbonne, is fallen into my hands, I shall gratify the reader’s curiosity with a particular view of the changes that have been made, that so he may judge whether of the two was the cause of those great advances which the author in that first edition had thought fit to make towards us.” Such was part of the preface to Mr. Wake’s “Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England,” 1686, 4to, which he was induced to undertake, by having observed that the French catholics with whom he had conversed, had, from ignorance, or the misrepresentations of their instructors, entertained very false notions of the points in controversy between the Churches of Rome and England.

This tract, which is generally called Wake’s “Catechism,” was answered in “A Vindication of the bishop of Condom’s Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church, in answer to a book entitled, An Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England, &c. With a Letter from the said bishop,” 1686, 4to. To this our author replied in a book entitled, “A Defence of the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England against the exceptions of Monsieur de Meaux, late bishop of Condom, and his Vindicator,” London, 1686, 4to. This occasioned, “A Reply to the Defence of the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England; being a farther Vindication of the Bishop of Condom’s Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church. With a second Letter from the Bishop of Meaux,” 1687, 4to. In answer to which Mr. Wake published “A second Defence of the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England, against the new Exceptions of Monsieur de Meaux and his Vindicator. Part I. in which the Account, which hath been given of the Bishop of Meaux’s Exposition, is fully vindicated; the distinction of old and new Popery historically asserted; and the doctrine of the Church of Rome in point of image-worship more particularly considered. Part II. in which the Romish doctrines concerning the nature and object of religious worship, of the Invocation of Saints, and worship of images are considered, and the charge of Idolatry made good against those of the Church of Rome upon the account of them,” Loudon, 1638, 4to. While the second part of this treatise was writing, there was published “A full Answer to the second Defence of the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England. In a Letter to the Defender.”

Mr. Wake afterwards wrote several tracts in the controversy against popery, which was carried on with great zeal during the latter part of tbie reign of James II. Among these we may mention, 1. “A Discourse of the Holy Eucharist, in the two gretu points of the Real Presence and the Adoration of the Host,” 1687, 4to. 2. “A Discourse concerning the nature of Idolatry, in which a late author’s true and only notion of Idolatry is considered and confuted,” 1688, 4to. This was written against the “Reasons for abrogating the Test,” by Samuel Parker, bishop of Oxford. 3. “Sure and honest means for the conversion of all Heretics,” &c. 1688, 4to. This is a translation from the French, with a preface by our author. 4. “An historical treatise of Transubstantiation, wherein is made appear, that, according to the principles of that Church, this doctrine cannot be an article of Faith,” 1687, 4to. This was written by a member of the Church of Rome, and published by our author. 5. “Two Discourses of Purgatory and Prayer for the Dead,” 1688, 4to. 6. “A Continuation of the present State of the Controversy between the Church of England and the Church of Rome; being a full account of the books published on both sides,” 1688, 4to.

In Oct. 1688, he married Miss Ethelred Hovel, daughter and coheiress of sir William Hovel, of Illington, in the county of Norfolk, knight. As he was a favourer of the revolution, he was, after that event, appointed deputy clerk of the closet to king William. In July 168.9, according to Wood, he accumulated his degrees in divinity at Oxford, but another account says that he was created D. D. having been the preceding month preferred to a canonry of Christ-church, in the room of Dr. Aldrich, appointed dean. With a view to contribute to a defence of the doctrine and government of the church of England, against the adversaries of its hierarchy, be published in 1693, “An English Version of the genuine Epistles of the Apostolical Fathers, with a preliminary discourse concerning the use of those Fathers.” Of this excellent volume he published a new edition in 1710, with so many improvements, as almost to make it a new work, and a fourth edition appears about the time of his death, in 1737. The reasons why he lays great stress on the authority of these fathers are; “that they were contemporary with the apostles, and instructed by them that they were men of an eminent character in the church, and therefore could not be ignorant of what was taught in it; that they were careful to preserve the doctrine of Christ in its purity, and to oppose such as went about to corrupt it: that they were men not only of a perfect piety, but of great courage and constancy, and therefore such as cannot be suspected to have had any design to prevaricate in this matter; that they were endued with a large portion of the Holy Spirit, and as such could hardly err in what they delivered as the gospel of Christ; and that their writings were approved by the church in these days, which could not be mistaken in its approbation of them.” In July of the same year, he was preferred to the rectory of St. James’s Westminster.

He took a very active part in that memorable controversy with regard to the Convocation, which we shall only notice so far as he was concerned, something having been already said upon it under the article of Atterbury. In 16i>7, there was published an anonymous pamphlet, entitled, “A Letter to a Convocation man, concerning the Rights, Powers, and Privileges, of that Body:” to which an answer was published the same year, by Dr. Wake, under this title, “The Authority of Christian Princes over their ecclesiastical Synods asserted, with particular respect to the Convocations of the Clergy of the realm and Church of England,” 8vo: and, this being attacked, the doctor vindicated himself in “An appeal to all the true members of the church of England, in behalf of the king’s ecclesiastical supremacy, as by law established; by our convocations approved; and by our most eminent bishops and clergymen stated and defended, against both the popish and fanatical opposers of it, 1698,” 8vo. In 1700, the celebrated Atterbury entered into this dispute with great vigour and resolution, and published an answer to Dr. Wake’s book, entitled, “The Rights, Powers, and Privileges, of an English Convocation, stated and defended,” 8vo: reprinted in 1701, with additions. The controversy novr grew warm, and several writers of considerable note engaged in it. Burnet, bishop of Salisbury, and Kennet, afterwards bishop of Peterborough, wrote animadversions upon Atterbury’s work; and Kennet’s piece against it was a particular reply to it, written under the countenance of archbishop Tenison. Hody, Gibson, Hooper, were concerned in it: Hooper was on the side of Atterhury; Hody and Gibson against him. But the most considerable and decisive answer to Atterbury was Dr. Wake’s large work, entitled, “The State of the Church and Clergy of England, in their Councils, Synods, Convocations, Conventions, and other public assemblies, historically deduced from the conversion of the Saxons to the present times, 1703,” in folio. This work was esteemed not only a full and sufficient answer to Atterbury, but decisive with regard to the controversy in general.

In 1701, two years before the publication of the lastmentioned work, he was installed dean of Exeter, whence in 1705, he was promoted to the bishopric of Lincoln. In the House of Peers he first distinguished himself by a long and learned speech in favour of a comprehension with the dissenters, a measure which other well-meaning divines of the church had fondly adopted; and expressed himself with equal zeal against the intemperate writings of Sacheverell. In Jan. 1715-16, on the death of archbishop Tenison, he was translated to the metropolitan see, and as he had lived to see the folly of giving way to the enemies of the hierarchy by way of reconciling them to it, he both voted and spoke in the House of Lords against the repeal of the schism and conformity bill in 1718. Among other things, he remarked, that “the acts, which by this bill were to be repealed, were the main bulwark and supporters of the established church; that he had all imaginable tenderness for all the well-meaning conscientious dissenters; but he could not forbear saying, that some amongst them made a wrong use of the favour and indulgence that was shewn them upon the revolution, though they had the least share in that event.” From the same experience he was led to oppose the design entered into by some very powerful persons, the year following, to repeal the corporation and test acts. It was well known that Hoadly was at the bottom of this design, and that his famous sermon on “The nature of Christ’s kingdom” was a preparatory step. The archbishop therefore thought it proper to declare his dislike of the measure, as Hoadly had proposed it, in an indirect way, and wrote a Latin letter addressed to the superintendant of Zurich, which was published there under the title of “Oratio historica de beneficiis in ecclesiam Tigurinum collatis.” In this he took occasion to remark, that “The church of England, broken in pieces with divisions, and rent with schisms, is distracted with so many and such various sorts of separatists from her communion, that they want proper names to distinguish themselves from one another, and to describe themselves to other men. And I wish this was our greatest matter of complaint. But that which the spirit of God foretold should come to pass, must be fulfilled,” Even among ourselves men have arisen, speaking perverse things,“But why do I say men? Even pastors and bishops themselves pull down with their own hands the church, in which they minister, and to whose doctrine they have more than once subscribed. They, to whom the preservation of the church is committed, and whose duty it is to watch against her enemies, and to reprove, restrain, and punish them according to their demerits; even these endeavour to overthrow the authority of that church, for which they ought not only to contend, but upon occasion even to lay down their lives. What the pleas and tenets of these innovators are, you may in some measure know from two pamphlets lately written in the French tongue. Let it here suffice to s.ay in a word, that these men are highly displeased with all confessions of faith, and with all subscriptions to articles; and would have a liberty, or rather a license granted for all men, not only to believe^ but to speak, write, and preach, whatsoever they think fit, though the grace of the holy spirit, the divinity of Christ, and all other fundamental articles of our religion should thereby be overturned. What Christian is not amazed, that those things should be said of any men that bear but the name of Christians? Who can but lament, that those grievous wolves are not only not driven away from the sheepfold, but received even within the walls of the church, and admitted to her honours, offices, and government? But so it is, that while we regard only the things of this world, we wholly forget those that concern another. And because by the toleration and advancement of such men, some (who have nothing more at heart than to keep themselves in their places and power) hope to ingratiate themselves with the populace, they are not at all solicitous what becomes of the church, of the faith, of religion, or in short of Jesus Christ himself and his truth. Pardon me, most worthy sir, that giving way to a just grief, I express rny resentment against these enemies of our religion more sharply than my manner is. 1 should think myself guilty of betraying the faith, if I did not, whenever occasion serves, anathematize these heretics.”

This letter gave occasion to two ironical pamphlets by the wits of the party, entitled, 1. “A short Vindication of the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury from the imputation of being the author of a Letter lately printed at Zurich concerning the state of Religion in England,” London, 1719, in 8vo. 2. “A letter to the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, proving that his grace cannot be the author of thj Letter to an eminent Presbyterian clergyman in Swisses land, in which the present state of Religion in England is blackened and exposed, and the present ministry are misrepresented and traduced,” London, 1719, 8vo. This last piece is supposed to have been written by Mr. Thomas Gordon, the translator of Tacitus. Both were satisfactorily answered in another, entitled “A Vindication of the Orthodox Clergy, in answer to two scurrilous libels, pretending to be a Vindication of the Lordship of Canterbury, but scandalously reflecting upon his Grace and our most orthodox Clergy,” London, 1720, 8vo.

In the same spirit archbishop Wake joined the earl of Nottingham in bringing a bill into parliament in 1721, levelled at the Arian heresy, and entitled “A Bill for the more effectual suppression of blasphemy and profaneness,” which, however, was rejected in the House of Lords, and brought on the archbishop the charge of inconsistency, because in the cases of Whiston and Clarke, in 1711 and 1712, he had spoken with moderation of their Arianism. Whiston wrote a very angry letter to the archbishop on this occasion, which is printed in his life, but to which the archbishop thought, and probably most of those who read it will think, no answer necessary.

That for which archbishop Wake appears to have been most blamed, was the share he had in a scheme of union between the English and Gallican churches; but in this, as in other parts of his conduct, the blame seems to have arisen principally from misrepresentation, at the same time that we are willing to allow that the scheme itself was a weak one, and never likely to produce any good. The outline of the affair, which is related more at large in the Appendix to the last edition of Mosheim’s History, No IV. is this. In 1717 some mutual civilities had passed between the archbishop and the celebrated ecclesiastical historian Dupin, as men of letters, by means of the rev. Mr. Beauvoir, then chaplain to lord Stair, the English ambassador at Paris. In the course of these civilities, Dupin wrote to the archbishop a Latin letter in Jan. 1718, in which, having congratulated the church of England on the enjoyment of so eminent a prelate for its metropolitan, he took occasion to express his desire for an union between the two churches of England and France, and wished to enter into a correspodence with his grace with that view. The archbishop, in return, after thanking him for his compliment, observed, that it was full time both for himself (Dupin) and the rest of his brethren of the Sorbonne, to declare openly their true sentiments of the superstition and ambition of the court of Rome; that it was the interest of all Christians to unmask that court, and thereby reduce it to those primitive limits and honours which it enjoyed in the first ages of the church. In some farther correspondence, the archbishop explained the belief, tenets, and doctrine of the chuch of England, the manner of its beginning to reform and shake off all foreign power and superstition both in church and state, and its acknowledgment that our Lord Jesus Christ is the only founder, source, and head of the church. In all his letters both to Dupin and others, he insisted constantly on this article, and always maintained the justice and orthodoxy of every individual article of the church of England, without making the least concession towards any approbation of the ambitious pretensions of the church of Rome. Some of the doctors of the Sorbonne readily concurred in this scheme, and Dupin drew up an essay towards an union, which was to be submitted for approbation to the cardinal de Noailles, and then to be transmitted to his grace. This essay, which was called a “Commonitorium,” was read by, and had the approbation of the Sorbonne, and in it was ceded the administration of the sacrament in both kinds, the performing of divine service in the vulgar tongue, and the marriage of the protestant clergy; and the invocation of saints was given up as unnecessary. The project engrossed the whole conversation of the city of Paris, and the Engiish ambassador was congratulated upon it by some great personages at court. The regent duke of Orleans himself, and the abbe Du Bois, minister of foreign affairs, and De Fleury, the attorney general, at iirst seemed to acquiesce, or at least not to interfere; but, after all, no considerate person could expect much from the scheme, which was entirely prevented by the Jesuits, who sounded the alarm, and represented the cardinal de Noailles and his friends the Jansenists as about to make a coalition with the heretics.

The court being now sufficiently roused, Piers de Gerardin, a doctor of the Sorbonne, and one of the archbishop’s correspondents, was sent for, and ordered to give up all the letters he had received from the archbishop of Canterbury, and a copy of all his own. Having complied, these letters were immediately sent to Rome, where it is said pope Clement XI. so admired those of our archbishop, that he declared it was a pity the author of such profound letters was not a member of their church.

The author of No. IV. of Mosheim’s Appendix deduces from the whole of this transaction, and particularly from the entire correspondence given in that Appendix, that Wake was invited to this correspondence by Dupin, the most moderate of all the Roman jcatholic divines; that he entered into it with a view to improve one of the most favourable opportunities that could be offered, of withdrawing the church of France from the jurisdiction of the pope; a circumstance which must have immediately weakened the power of the court of Rome, and, in its consequences, offered a fair prospect of a farther reformation in doctrine and worship, as the case happened in the church of England, when it happily threw off the papal yoke; that he did not give any of the doctors of the Sorbonne the smallest reason to hope that the church of England wpuld give up any one point of belief or practice to the church of France; but insisted, on the contrary, that the latter should make alterations and concessions, in order to be reconciled to the former; that he never specified the particular alterations which would be requisite to satisfy the rulers and doctors of the church of England; but only expressed a general desire of an union between the two churches, if that were possible, or at least of a mutual toleration: that he never flattered himself that this union could be perfectly accomplished, or that the doctors of the Gallican church, would be entirely brought over to the church of England; but thought that every advance made by them, and every concession, must have proved really advantageous to the. protestant cause.

Thus much it has been thought necessary to advance, in vindication of the character of Dr. Wake, which, after long enjoying the good opinion of mankind, was at last, with equal fury and falsehood, attacked by the author of the “Confessional,” who does not scruple to say, speaking of the archbishop, that “this pretended champion of the Protestant religion had set on foot a project for union with a Popish church, and that with concessions in favour of the grossest superstition and idolatry.” Nothing could be farther from Wake’s purpose, and nothing more at variance with the whole tenour of his public life or private sentiments; and, in truth, the whole of the above correspondence with the popish doctors was a matter of private sentiment, and neither party appears to have been authorized by, or to have consulted the church to which they respectively belonged. Had that been done, it is not quite clear that the plan, even as far as it has been divulged, would have been more acceptable in England than in France. The best part of it, the best object at which it aimed, was the separation of the church of France from the jurisdiction of the pope.

Wake was of a pacific spirit: this appears in all his correspondence; and his correspondence appears to have extended to the leading men of every ecclesiastical community in Europe. He shewed a great regard to the foreign protestant churches, notwithstanding the difference of their discipline and government from that of the church of England; and blames those who would not allow their religious assemblies the denomination of churches, and who deny the validity of their sacraments. He declared, on the contrary, those churches to be true Christian churches, and expresses a warm desire of their union with the church of England. We must particularly notice his correspondence in 1719 with Mr. Jablonski of Poland, be-' cause it has a direct reference to that part of his character which the author of the “Confessional” has so unwarrantably misrepresented. Jablonski, from a persuasion of Dr. Wake’s great wisdom, discernment, and moderation, had consulted him as to a proposed union between the Lutherans and the church of Rome. In his answer, the archbishop gives the strongest cautions to the Polish Lutherans against entering into any treaty of union with the Roman catholics, except on a footing of perfect equality, and in consequence of a previous renunciation, on the part of the latter, of the tyranny, and even of the superiority and jurisdiction of the church of Rome and its pontiff; and as to what concerns points of doctrine, he exhorts them not to sacrifice truth to temporal advantages, or even to a desire of peace.

Of archbishop Wake’s kindness to father Courayer we have taken some notice in our account of that divine. His grace towards the end of his life became so much disabled by age and infirmities, that some part of the care of the church was transferred to Dr. Gibson, bishop of London. The archbishop lingered on in a very enfeebled state for a considerable time, and at length expired at Larnbeth palace, Jan. 24, 1737, and was interred in a private manner at Croydon. He was in the seventy-ninth year of his age, but the inscription on his tomb erroneously fixes his death in 1733.

Archbishop Wake was a man of a pacific, gentle, and benevolent spirit, and an enemy to feuds, animosities, and party-prejudices, which divide the professors of religion, and by which Christianity is exposed to the assaults of its virulent enemies, and wounded in the house of its pretended friends. Dr. Richardson says justly of him, that his accurate and superior knowledge of the Romish hierarchy, and of the constitution of the church of England, furnished him with victorious arms, both for the subversion of error, and the defence of truth. He was a man of great liberality, and munificent in his charities and expences. Of the latter Exeter, Bugden, Lambeth, and Croydon can bear testimony. He is said to have expended about 11,000l. in the repairs of the two palaces of Lambeth and Croydon. He bequeathed his excellent and copious library of printed books and Mss. with his coins, the whole valued at 10,000l. to Christ Church, Oxford. His lady died in 1731; by her he had six daughters, who all survived him, and were married into families of note.

Besides the works already mentioned, Dr. Wake published “A preparation for death, being a letter to a young gentlewoman in France,” the fourth edition of which was published in 1688; and three volumes of his “Sermons and Charges” have since appeared.

, a distinguished classical scholar and critic, was born at Nottingham, Feb. 22, 1756, in the parsonage-house of St. Nicholas, of which church his father, the rev. George Wakefield, was then rector. An uncommon solidity and seriousness of disposition marked him from infancy, together with a power of application, and thirst after knowledge, which accelerated his progress in juvenile studies. At the age of seven he went to the free school in Nottingham, where the usher, Mr. Beardmore (afterwards master of the Charter-house), threatened upon one occasion to flog him, which Mr. Wakefield speaks of with great indignation. At the age of nine, he exchanged this school for that of Wilford near Nottingham, then under the direction of the rev. Isaac Pickthall, and afterwards was placed under the tuition of his father’s curate at Richmond, whom he characterises with great contempt. At the age of thirteen he was placed under the rev. Richard Woodeson, at Kingston-upon-Thames, to which parish his father was then removed; but we are told he was used to lament that he had not possessed the advantages of an uniform education at one of those public schools which lay a solid foundation for classical erudition in its most exact form. About the age of sixteen he was admitted of Jesus college, Cambridge. Here he resumed his classical studies, but the lectures on algebra and logic were, he tells us, “odious to him beyond conception;” and he is perhaps not far wrong in thinking that “logic and metaphysics are by no means calculated for early years.” Few incidents occurred during the first two years of his residence at college. He pursued his mathematical and philosophical studies with a stated mixture of classical reading, through the whole of this interval, except when interrupted by fastidiousness, which he thus describes: “A strange fastidiousness, for which I could never account, and which has been a great hindrance to my improvement through my whole life, took a bewildering possession of my faculties. This impediment commonly recurred in the spring of the year, when I was so enamoured of rambling in the open air, through solitary fields, or by a river’s side, of cricket and of fishing, that no self-expostulations, no prospect of future vexation, nor even emulation itself, could chain me to my books. Sometimes, for a month together, and even a longer period, have I been disabled from reading a single page, though tormented all the time with the reflection, without extreme restlessness and impatience.”

In the third year of his residence at college he was a candidate for one, or all, of Dr. Browne’s medals. His Latin ode was allowed to possess merit, but was unsuccessful, from partiality, as he insinuates; but he allowed that his Greek and his epigrams were deservedly rejected. In his life he introduces the Latin ode with “variations,” which, although he calls them “trivial,” give a suspicious alteration of character to the production. In 1776 he took his degree, and had the honour of nomination to the second post. About the same time he gained the second of the duke of Newcastle’s classical medals. Dr. Forster gained the first; Mr. Wakefield allows him superior merit, buf still endeavours to insinuate partiality in the allotment of the prizes.

In 1776 he was elected fellow, and continued the prosecution of his classical and theological studies through that and the following year. The first of his publications appeared in 1776, a small collection of Latin poems, with a few notes on Horace. In 1777 he gained the second of the bachelor’s prizes, a gold medal given by the chancellor. On the 22d of March, 1778, he was ordained a deacon by the bishop of Peterborough, and takes occasion from this event to declare that “he was so little satisfied with the requisition of subscription, and the subjects of that subscription themselves, that he afterwards regarded this acquiescence as the most disingenuous action of his whole life.” He then accepted a curacy at Stockport in Cheshire, whence he afterwards removed to a similar situation at Liverpool. Here he complains that the clergy, both conformist and nonconformist, paid little attention to him, and at the same time his dissatisfaction with the doctrine and worship of the church continued to increase. His dislike of the church was indeed now becoming inveterate, and devoid of all candour. Among his anecdotes when at Liverpool, he gives one of a church clergyman, who purloined the sacrament money; this clergyman had once been a dissenter, and Mr. Wakefield imputes his committing this crime to his having left the dissenters and conformed to the church.

In 1779 he vacated his fellowship by marrying Miss Watson, niece of the rector of Stockport. This was soon followed by an invitation to undertake the post of classical tutor at the dissenting academy at Warrington, with which he complied; and he was regarded as a very valuable acquisition to this institution. He was exemplary in the discharge of his duty, and equally gained the attachment of his pupils, and the friendship and esteem of his colleagues; but the academy was at this time on the decline, and Mr. Wakefield, though accused of precipitating its downfall, has assigned sufficient reasons for that event without his agency. While here, he began his career as a theological controversialist, with an acrimony of style which was lamented by his friends, and which laid him open to the reproach of his enemies, or it would be more proper to say, created those enemies. Among his tracts now published were, “A plain and short account of the nature of Baptism according to the New Testament, with a cursory remark on Confirmation and the Lord’s Supper;” “An Essay on Inspiration;” and “A new translation of the first epistle of Paul the apostle to the Thessalon'tans.” This was followed in the next year by “A new translation of St. Matthew, with notes, critical, philological, and explanatory,” 4to; a work which displayed the extent of his reading, and the facility with which his memory called up its reposited stores for the purpose of illustration or parallelism. At this time he likewise augmented his fund for“Scripture interpretation by the acquisition of various oriental dialects. After quitting Warrington, at the dissolution of the academy, he took up his residence successively at Bramcote in Nottinghamshire, at Richmond in Surrey, and at Nottingham, upon the plan of taking a few pupils, and pursuing at his leisure those studies to which he became continually more attached. While in the first of these situations, he published the first volume of” An enquiry into the opinions of the Christian writers of the three first centuries concerning the person of Jesus Christ, 1 * which did not meet with encouragement sufficient to induce him to proceed in the design. A painful disorder in his left shoulder, with which he was attacked in 1786, and which harassed him for two years, interrupted the course of his employments; and he did no more during that period, than to draw up some remarks upon the Georgics of Virgil and the poems of Gray, which he published with editions of those respective works. As his health relumed, his theological pursuits were resumed, and he again engaged in the field of controversy. He also, in 1789, made a commenceaient of a work, which was to exhibit “Au union of theological and classical learning, illustrating the Scriptures by light borrowed from the philology of Greece and Rome.” Under the title of “Silva Critica,” three parts of this performance issued from the university press of Cambridge.

The formation of a dissenting college at Hackney, which, it was hoped, by the powerful aid of the metropolis, would become both more considerable and more permanent than former institutions of a like kind, produced an invitation to Mr.Wakefield to undertake the classical professorship. With this he thought proper to comply; and accordingly, in 1790, he quitted his abode at Nottingham, and removed to Hackney, upon the plan of joining with public tuition the instruction of private pupils; but, as he says, “both of these anchors failed him, and left his little bark again afloat on the ocean of life.” The share which he had in the disunion that finally proved fatal to the academy at Hackney, is thus candidly related by one of his biographers:

"Although Mr. Wakefield’s principles had induced him to renounce his clerical office in the church of England, and he had become a dissenter from her doctrine and worship, yet he was far from uniting with any particular class of those who are usually denominated dissenters. He had an insuperable repugnance to their mode of performing divine service; and he held in no high estimation the theological and philosophical knowledge which it has been the principal object of their seminaries of education to communicate. It has already been observed, that the basis of his own divinity was philology. Classical literature, therefore, as containing the true rudiments of all other science, was that on which he thought the greatest stress should be laid, in a system of liberal education. This point he inculcated with an earnestness which probably appeared somewhat dictatorial to the conductors of the institution.

“Further, in the progress of his speculations, he had been led to form notions concerning the expediency and propriety of public worship, extremely different from those of every body of Christians, whether in sects or establishments; and as he was incapable of thinking one thing and practising another, he had sufficiently made known his sentiments on this subject, as well in conversation, as by abstaining from attendance upon every place of religious assembly. They who were well acquainted with him, knew that in his own breast piety was one of the most predominant affections; but the assembling for social worship had for so many ages been regarded as the most powerful instrument for the support of general religion, that to discourage it was considered as of dangerous example, especially in a person engaged in the education of youth. Notwithstanding, therefore, his classical instructions in the college were received by the students almost with enthusiastical admiration, and conferred high credit on the institution, a dissolution of his connection with it took place in the summer of 1791.”

The subsequent publication of his pamphlet on public worship deprived him (as he says) of the only two private pupils he expected. From that period he continued to reside at Hackney, employing his time partly in the education of his own children, partly in the composition of his works. His “Translation of the New Testament, with notes,” 3 vols. 8vo, appeared towards the close of 1791, and was very respectably patronized. In language it preserves as much as possible of the old version, but along with many bold innovations. He printed also two more parts of his “Silva Critica.” He gave a new edition, much corrected, of his “Translation of the New Testawent;” and besides, enlarged a former work “On the Evidences of the Christian Religion,” and published a reply to Paine’s attack upon it in his “Age of Reason.”

To the works of Pope, our English poet, Mr. Wukefield paid particular attention, and designed to have given an edition of his works; but after he had published the first volume, the scheme was rendered abortive by Dr. Warton’s edition. He printed, however, a second volume, entitled “Notes on Pope,” and also gave a new edition of Pope’s Iliad and Odyssey. As a classical editor he appeared in a selection from the Greek tragedians, in editions of Horace, Virgil, Bion and Moschus, and finally his superb edition of Lucretius, which, after all, must decide his character as a critic. Many eminent scholars, both at home and abroad, have given their opinion of this edition, but their decision is not uniform. We would refer the reader to a vry learned and impartial view of Mr. Wakefield’s critical character by Mr. Elmsley, in one of the numbers of the “Classical Journal.” Among Mr. Wakefield’s publications, prior to this, we omitted to mention the “Memoirs” of his own life, in one volume 8vo, which appeared in 1792, and contained an account of his life nearly to that period. We have followed it partly in the preceding account, as to facts, but upon the whole are inclined to apply to him what he has advanced of a Mr. Mounsey. He is one “on whose abilities his numerous acquaintance will reflect with more pleasure than on his life.”

Entering at length into the dangerous path of politics, he published “Remarks on the General Orders of the Duke of York,” in which he arraigned the justice of the war with France in terms which are supposed to have exercised the utmost forbearance of the ministry. But in his “Reply to some parts of the bishop of Lanclaff’s Address,” he passed those limits, and a prosecution being commenced, he was sentenced, upon conviction, to a two years imprisonment in Dorchester gaol. While here, his sufferings were as much as possible alleviated by the zeal of his friends, who raised a subscription of 5000l., which eased his mind as to a future provision for his family, and probably far exceeded what he could ever have been able to leave them, under any probable circumstances.

During his confinement, he composed several pamphlets, and planned some works of greater magnitude; among the former were a series of “Essays from Dio Chrysostom;” an imitation in English iambic rhyme, of Juvenal’s first satire; and a small volume entitled “Noctes carcerarise” among the latter were an edition of an English and Greek Lexicon, which failed for want of sufficient encouragement; and a series of classical lectures, to be given in London after his liberation, and the first course of which, consisting of observations on the second book of Virgil’s Æneid, he lived to complete. These lectures occupied him almost immediately on his release; but towards the end of August, 1801, he was attacked by a typhus fever, and died Sept. 9, in the forty-sixth year of his age.

Mr. WakefieWs character has been- drawn by various pens some of these portraits which make directly for him may be found in his Life lately published and many just, although sometimes discordant, remarks are interspersed in the literary journals of his time. The following we have selected, as according best with the opinion we have been enabled to form from an attentive perusal of his Life and Letters, but principally because written by a man of learning and candour, on whom we could have relied without previous examination.

"Gilbert Wakefield was a diligent, and, we believe, a sincere inquirer after truth but he was unhappily so framed in temper and habits of mind, as to be nearly certain of missing it, in almost every topic of inquiry. Knowing his own assiduity, and giving himself ample credit for sagacity, he thought that he was equal to the decision of every possible question. Conscious also of integrity, he never suspected that he could be biassed by any prejudices, and, therefore, had no doubt that his conclusions were always right. But unfortunately he had prejudices of the most seductive kinds. He was prejudiced, in the first instance, against every established opinion, merely because it was established; and, very sparingly allowing to others the qualities for which he thought himself distinguished, he was always perfectly ready to believe, that all inquirers, who formed different conclusions, were either weak or dishonest. In this strange error he was invincibly confirmed by the very sacrifices he had made, early in life, to his own opinions. He must be honest, he thought, because he had sacrificed his interest to his judgment: others must be dishonest because their interest happened to coincide with their opinions. He loved a notion the more, for having made himself a martyr to it; and would probably have given it up, if ever it had become the opinion of the majority. He never seems to have suspected that his mind might be biassed to maintain these notions, for which he had once solemnly pledged his sagacity, or sacrificed his advantages; and thus he became bigotted to almost every paradox which had once possessed his very eccentric understanding. This was not only the case in religious questions, but equally so in critical doctrines. He was as violent against Greek accents, as he was against the Trinity; and anathematized the final v, as strongly as Episcopacy; though in these questions he stood in opposition to professou Person, and all the best Greek scholars of modern as well as ancient times; no less than in his faith, or rather lack of faith, he contradicted the majority of the profoundest theologians and wisest men.

“That he was strictly and enthusiastically honest, ought, we think, to be allowed, in the fullest sense of the terms; and his mind, naturally ardent, soon became so enamoured with this consciousness (which is undoubtedly, to a mind capable of relishing it, abundantly delightful) that he seems to have acquired even a passion for privations; as witnessing to himself an integrity which could cheerfully sacrifice inclination to conviction. These feelings, added to his pride of independent thinking, led him, we doubt not, to abstain from wine; to have relinquished in part, and to be tending entirely to give up, the use of animal food; with various other instances of peculiarity. Not even the Creator, who ordained that animals should afford sustenance to each other, could obtain credit with him, against his private opinions: nor would he see even the obvious truth, that if the use of animal food were abandoned, a small number would be produced, to die by miserable decay, while whole classes and genera would gradually become extinct. In all things it was the same with G. W. Whatever coincided not with his ideas of rectitude, justice., elegance, or whatever else it might be, was to give way at once, and be rescinded at his pleasure, on pain of the most violent reprehension to all opponents: whether it were an article of faith, a principle of policy, a doctrine of morality, or a reading in an ancient author, still it was equallycut and slash, away it must go, to the dogs and vultures. These exterminating sentences were also given with such precipitancy, as not to allow even a minute for consideration. To the paper, to the press, to the world, all was given at once, frequently to the incurring of most palpable absurdity. Thus the simple elegance of” O beate Sexti“in Horace, was proposed, in an edition of that author, to be changed to” O bea Te, Sexti," though the alteration, besides being most bald and tasteless, produced a blunder in quantity so gross, that no boy even in the middle part of a public school could have been thought pardonable in committing it. It may easily be judged, whether a man of such precipitance, and so blind a self-confidence, was likely to be successful as an investigator of truth. So very far was he from it, that though no man of common sense perhaps ever literally exemplified the latter part of Dryden’s famous line on Zimri——

“But why, it may be asked, should we thus mark the character of a man, who can no longer offend, and of whom therefore, as a trite maxim of candour pretends, nothing but good should be said. The folly of the maxim has been recognized by many men of sense; because if ever a man’s character can with propriety be scrutinized, it is when any exposure of his faults can no longer injure his interests, or wound his feelings. In the present instance, it becomes necessary, because, in the volumes now before us, (his Life in 2 vols. 8vo), an attempt is made to hold him up to an admiration, which might be hoped to give currency to some of his most pernicious opinions. The admirers oi him and of his notions are complimented as the only lovers of truth and freedom; and he is endeavoured to be represented as a martyr, of which character, if he had much of the constancy, he had proportionably little of the other estimable qualities. Instead of exhibiting him as a model, we should rather lament him as a strong example of human imperfection; in which some great qualities of soul and understanding were rendered pernicious to himself and others, by faults original or habitual, which perverted them in almost every exertion. Thus his sincerity became offensive, his honesty haughty and uncharitable, his intrepidity factious, his acuteness delusive, and his memory, assisted by much diligence, a vast weapon which his judgment was totally unable to wield. In such a picture, notwithstanding some fine features, there is more to humble than to flatter the pride of man; and to hold it up to almost indiscriminate admiration is neither prudent nor useful.”

Since Mr. Wakefield’s death a “Collection of Letters” has been published between him and the celebrated statesman, the hon. Charles Fox, relating chiefly to subjects of Greek literature.

Mr. Wakefield’s brother, the Rev. Thomas Wakefield, appointed minister of Richmond, by his father in 1776, and who died Nov. 26, 1806, was a man peculiarly distinguished by benevolence of disposition, benignity of manners, and liberality of sentiment. A memoir of him, in which his virtues and his benevolent disposition are described much at large by the Rev. Dr. Charles Symmons, wa.s printed and circulated soon after his death. The poignant regret occasioned by his loss caused others of his friends to employ their pens in the delineation of his amiable character, particularly the Rev. Edward Patteson, of Richmond, who preached his funeral sermon, and John May, esq. who inserted a character of him at considerable length in the parish register.

, a learned divine in the reign of Henry VIII. was born in the north of England, and educated at the university of Cambridge, whence, after taking his degrees in arts, he went abroad to study the Oriental languages. In a few years he made a considerable progress in the Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Syriac; and taught those languages both in Paris and in Germany. In 1519 he was Hebrew professor at Louvain, but after holding that office only a few months, he returned home, and became chaplain to Dr. Pace, then dean of St. Paul’s, who recommending him to the king as an able linguist, he was sent to Cambridge, and there honoured with the degree of B. D. which qualified him for ecclesiastical preferments. When the controversy relating to king Henry VIII.'s divorce commenced, Wakefield is said to have been of the queen’s party, and thought the divorce unjustifiable, but was afterwards induced to be of the king’s opinion. Dodd says that the reason he gave for changing sides was the circumstance of prince Arthur’s having consummated the marriage, of which he was not before aware; and Dodd adds, that “as the world is apt to judge the worst of things of this nature, Mr. Wakefield was represented as a mercenary writer, especially by those that maintained the queen’s cause.” We have, however, the evidence of another Roman catholic biographer that the world was not much to blame for its unfavourable opinion. Phillips, in his Life of cardinal Pole, assures us, that a letter is extant, “to Wakefield’s eternal infamy,” addressed by secretary Pace to the king, in which he informs him, that “he had treated with Dr. Wakefield of the divorce, and that the doctor was ready to solve the question, either in the negative or affirmative, just as the king thought proper, and in such a manner as all the divines in England should not be able to make any reply.” This letter is dated 1526. Accordingly he soon after wrote a work in favour of the divorce; and in 1530, the king sent him to Oxford, and made him public professor of Hebrew; by which means he had an opportunity of being more serviceable to his majesty. In 1532, he was made a canon of Wolsey’scollege, and incorporated bachelor of divinity. He appears to have been a lover of learning, and when, in 1536, the lesser monasteries were dissolved, he took care to save from destruction several valuable books and Mss. especially such as were in Greek and Hebrew; and, among others, several curious Mss. in Ramsay-abbey, particularly a Hebrew dictionary, which had been lodged there by Robert Holbeach, a monk of that monastery in the reign of Henry IV. Wakefield died at London, Oct. 8, 1537. He left some learned works, as, 1, “Oratio de laudibus et militate trium linguarum, Arabics, Chaidaicae, et liebraicae, atque id -viaicis qua- ii utfoque Testajnr- io niveniuntur,” 15^4, 4to. Thepmuei w. Wynix lie Worde; and the author complains, that he was obliged to omit his whole third part, because the printer had no Hebrew types. Some few Hebrew and Arabic characters, however, are introduced, but extremely rude, and evidently cut in wood. They are the first of the sort used in England. 2. “Koster Codicis,” &c. the same mentioned by Bale and Pits, with the title “De non ducenda fratria,” and is the book he wrote in favour of king Henry’s -divorce, Lond. 1628, 4to. Tanner and Wood attribute other pieces to him, but they are probably in ms. except “Syntagma de Hebraeorum codicum incorruptione,” 4to, without date; and " Paraphrasis in Hbrum Koheleth (Ecclesiasticen) succincta, clara, et fidelis, 4to.

, a very eminent Protestant divine, was born October 3, 1573, at Ghent, of an ancient family, which has produced many distinguished magistrates. He officiated as pastor at several different places; declared in favour of the Counter-remonstrants, enjoyed the friendship and confidence of prince Maurice, and was one of those who drew up the canons of the famous synod of Dort. Walæus became afterwards professor of divinity at Leyden, and died July 9, 1639, leaving “Compendium EthicaeAristotelicae,” Leyden, 1636, 12mo. The greatest part of the Flemish translation of the Bible, made by order of the States, and which first appeared in 1637, was executed by him, and almost the whole of the New Testament. John Walæus his son, was professor of medicine at Leyden, where he died in 1649. He made some discoveries on the circulation of the blood, and taught Harvey’s system, although not without some attempt to deprive him of the honour of being the original inventor. His principal publication was “Epistolas de motu chyli et sanguinis,” Leyd. 1641.

, a Carmelite monk of great learning in the fourteenth century, was born at Walden in Essex, about 1367. His father’s name was John Netter, but he chose to be denominated, as indeed was very commoil then, from the place of his nativity. He was educated among the Carmelites in London, whence he removed for the farther prosecution of his studies to Oxford. Here he continued some years, and received the degree of doctor in divinity, after which he returned to London, and took the habit of the Carmelites. Being introduced at the court of Henry IV. he became a favourite with the king, and was appointed the principal champion of the church against heretics, and especially those who had adopted the tenets of Wickliff, Huss, or Jerome of Prague. In 1409 he was sent by the king to the grand council at Pisa, where he is said to have been much admired for his eloquence and learning. After his return to England, he was made provincial of his order; and Henry V. admitted him of his privy-council, and appointed him his confessor. In 1415 he was sent to the council of Constance, and about 1419, was employed to negociate peace between Uladislaus, king of Poland, and Michael, general of the Teutonic order. In 1422 the king died in the arms of Waldensis, at Vincennes in France. He became afterwards a favourite with the young king Henry VI. and was appointed his confessor. In 1430 he attended the king to France, and at Roan was seized with an acute disease, of which he died Nov. 2, and was buried in the convent of Carmelites in that city. He appears to have been a man of abilities; Pits says that he was master of the Greek and Hebrew languages, and in general a polite scholar. His principal work, the only one printed, is his “Doctrinale antiquum fidei ecclesias catholicse,” Paris, 1521—1523, 3 vols, folio, and reprinted at Saumur, Venice, and Paris. Mr. archdeacon Churton, in his valuable Lives of the founders of Brasenose-college, informs us, that the bishop of Lincoln, Russel, being harassed and fatigued, as he feelingly complains, with the multitude of heretics at Oxford in 1491, met with this book of Waldensis, and resolved to make extracts from it (vol. III. “de sacramentalibus”), for the more speedy and effectual refutation of the “insane dogmas, with which, he says, so many of his countrymen were infected.” Having framed his compendium with great care, by a written injunction under his own hand he ordered it to be preserved in the registry of the see, for the benefit of his successors in their examinations of “heretical depravity;” pronouncing an anathema at the same time against any one who should obliterate the title, expressive of the design of the performance and the name of the compiler. The original copy of this “touchstone of error,” which was completed at Woburn on the feast of the Epiphany 1491-2, is still extant in the library of University-college, Oxford.

, one of the earliest reformers of the church from Popery, but erroneously said to be the founder of that body of reformed Christians called the Waldenses, was an opulent merchant of Lyons in the twelfth century. The first time when he appears to have opposed the errors of the religion in which he was educated, was about 1160, when the doctrine of transubstantiation was confirmed by pope Innocent III. with the addition that men should fall down before the consecrated wafer and worship it as God. The absurdity of this forcibly struck the mind of Waldo, who opposed it in a very courageous manner. It does not appear, however, that he had any intention of withdrawing himself from the communion of the Romish church, or that in other respects he had any very serious notions of religion. The latter appears to have been produced first by the sudden death of a person with whom he was in company. This^lett very serious impressions on his mind, and he betook himself to reading the scriptures. At that time the Latin vulgate Bible was the only edition of the Scriptures in Europe; but that language was accessible to few. Waldo, however, from his situation in life, had had a good education, and could read this volume. “Being somewhat learned,” says Reinerius, “he taught the people the text of the New Testament.” He was also now disposed to abandon his mercantile pursuits, and distributed his wealth to the poor as occasion required, and while the latter flocked to him to partake of his alms, he also attended to their spiritual instruction, and either translated, or procured to be translated the four gospels into French; and thus the inhabitants of Europe were indebted to him for the first translation of the Bible into a modern tongue, since the time that the Latin had ceased to be a living language.

As Waldo became more acquainted with the scriptures, he discovered that a multiplicity of doctrines, rites, and ceremonies, which had been introduced into the national religion, had not only no foundation, but were most pointedly condemned, in the Bible. On this ground he had no scruple to expose such errors, and to condemn the arrogance of the pope, and the reigning vices of the clergy, while at the same time he endeavoured to demonstrate the great difference there was between the Christianity of the Bible and that of the Church of Rome. Such bold opposition could not long be tolerated. The archbishop of Lyons accordingly prohibited the new reformer from teaching any more on pain of excommunication, and of being proceeded against as a heretic. Waldo replied, that though a layman, he could not be silent in a matter which concerned the salvation of his fellow-creatures. Attempts were next made to apprehend him; but the number and affection of his friends, the respectability and influence of his connections, many of whom were men of rank, the universal regard that was paid to his character for probity and religion, and the conviction that his presence was highly necessary among the people whom he had by this time gathered into a church, and of which he became the head, all operated so strongly in his favour, that he lived concealed at Lyons during the space of three whole years.

But pope Alexander III. had no sooner heard of these proceedings than he anathematized the reformer and his adherents, commanding the archbishop to proceed against them with the utmost rigour. Waldo was now compelled to quit Lyons; his flock, in a great measure, followed their pastor, and hence, say the ecclesiastical historians, a dispersion took place not unlike that which arose in the church of Jerusalem on the occasion of the death of Stephen. The effects were also similar. Waldo himself retired into Dauphiny, where he preached with abundant success; his principles took deep and lasting root, and produced a numerous body of disciples, who were denominated Leonists, Vaudois, Albigenses, or Waldenses; for the very same class of Christians is designated by these various appellations at different times, and according to the different countries, or quarters of the same country in which they appeared. From the name Waldenses, a corruption of Vallenses, or Vaudois, i. e. those xvho inhabited the valleys of Piedmont, occasion was taken to prove that these ancient churches had no existence till the time of Waldo. Waldo appears to have visited Picardy, propagating his doctrines, and finally, according to Thuanus, settled in Bohemia, where de died in 1179.

, a mathematician and astronomer of great talents, was born about 1734, and rose from a low situation, little connected with learning, to some of the first ranks in literary pursuits. His early labours contributed to the “Ladies Diary,” a useful little work which has formed many eminent mathematicians. In 1761) he was deemed a fit person to be sent to Hudson’s Bay to observe the transit of Venus over the sun; and the manner hi which he discharged that trust did honour to his talents.

On his return he communicated to the royal society an excellent paper of observations made at that station, which was inserted in their Transactions; and the year following, his general observations made at Hudson’s Bay were published in a large quarto volume. He next, in the character of astronomer, accompanied capt. Cook in his first voyage. 1772 1774, and again iti his other voyage of 1776 1779. In 1777 appeared his “Observations on a Voyage with captain Cook;” and in 1778, “Remarks on Dr. Fovster’s Account of the Voyage,” in which he showed considerable talents as a controversial writer. Soon after his return from his last voyage he was elected a fellow of the royal society, and proved a very useful member; and on the death of Mr. Daniel Harris he was appointed mathematical master to Christ’s Hospital, London, and some years after, secretary to the board of longitude, both which offices he held till the time of his death, which happened in 1798, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. In 1781 he published an “Enquiry into the state of the Population in England and Wales,” and in 1794 his treatise on the longitude by time-keepers. He published also an ingenious restoration of one of the lost pieces of Apollonius; and it has been said, was author of one of the dissertations on the achronical rising of the Pleiades, annexed to Dr. Vincent’s Voyage of Nearch us. Besides these he wrote some ingenious papers in the Philosophical Transactions, and in various periodical publications, particularly the “Ladies Diary,” sometimes signed with his own name, and sometimes under certain fictitious signatures. T

, author of the “History of Independency,” was born at Clifte in Dorsetshire, and is said to have been educated at Christ’s church, Oxford, in which however, Wood could find no memorial of him. Afterwards leaving the university without a degree, he retired to an estate he had at Charterhouse near Wells in Somersetshire, where he lived in good repute especially for his loyalty and hatred of the puritans, in both which respects he appears soon after to have changed his mind. Before the civil wars, he had been made usher of the exchequer, but, says Wood, when “the puritans or presbyterians were like to carry all before them, he closed with them,” and was elected member of parliament for the city of Wells in 1640. Afterwards he became a zealous covenanter, and had a considerable share in the violent measures of the times, until the independents began to acquire the superiority, whom he resisted as much as lay in his power, especially in his “History” of that sect, which had a very considerable influence, as he was not only a man of abilities, but had acquired a character for disinterestedness. When the second part of this work was published in 1649, he was discovered to be the author, and imprisoned by Cromwell in the Tower. There having allowance of pen, ink, and paper, he wrote the third part of his history, but was never released. He died in the Tower in Oct. 1651, to the great grief, Wood says, of the presbyterian party. He was interred in Allhallows Barking, near the Tower. Walker wrote several temporary pamphlets, enumerated by Wood, arising out of the circumstances of the times, but none of any consequence, unless what he has incorporated in his “History of Independency,” published in three parts, 1648 1651, 4to, to which a fourth part by T. M. was added in 1660. “It is written,” says Warbnrton, “in a rambling vvay, and with a vindictive presbyterian spirit, full of bitterness but it gives an admirable idea of the character of the times, parties, and persons.” Within the last tweitty years, the price of this work, when complete, has risen from shillings to guineas.

, an useful historical writer and herald, was son of Edward Walker, of Roobers, in Neiherstowey in Somersetshire, gent by Barbara, daughter of Edward Salkerid, of Corby-Castle in Cumberland, esq.; and his grandfather, John Walker, was son of Edward, second son of Humphrey Walker, of Staffordshire, esq. He was originally a domestic servant to the earl of Arundel, and was appointed by him secretary at war, in the expedition into Scotland in 1639. There is little doubt but that his father’s being a Roman catholic recommended him to that nobleman’s notice. From this peer’s service it is easy to suppose he went into that of the sovereign, because he had shewn himself equally faithful and dexterous. Charles I. gave him the same post, to which, in June 1644, he added that of clerk extraordinary of the privy council. He steadily adhered to the king in all his misfortunes. After the battle of Cropredy Bridge, in 1644, being desired to wait upon sir William Waller, one of the parliament generals, with a message of grace, he requested that a trumpet might first be sent for a pass, because “the barbarity of that people was notorious, so that they regarded not the law of arms or of nations.” His precaution was not unnecessary, the trumpeter being sent back with the most marked eontempt.

Whilst he remained at Oxford with his majesty, the university conferred upon him the degree of master of arts, November 1, 1644. He received the honour of knighthood, February 2, 1644-5, in that city. In 1648, he sent a letter to the parliament, during the conference for peace, requesting more persons might be permitted to attend upon the king; but the House declined doing any thing in it, unless his maje’sty, or their commissioners, wrote for that purpose. As he had been true to the father, so he was equally faithful to the son, whoso court he joined at Brussels. He attended his royal master into Scotland, in 1651: but the covenanters refused their permission for him to come near the person of his sovereign. After the unfortunate event of that expedition, and Charles’s subsequeat escape to the continent, he again joined the exiled monarch, serving him in the same capacities he had the late king. He was so odious to the commonwealth and the protectors, that he was accounted, on this side the channel, “a pernicious man.” His abilities, and the office he filled, made him so great an object of jealousy, that he had spies placed over his conduct. From these wretches we learn, that June '26, 1654, he was at Amsterdam, probably upon some public service: in 1656, he was at Bergen, within six leagues of Calais, mustering the king’s little arrny, which did not amount to 700 men. These, however, were with difficulty kept together, mutinies happening every day; nor can it be wondered at, the privates having only four, the gentlemen no more than six stivers a day. As garter king at arms, in which he succeeded sir William Dusfdale, after holding other offices in the heralds’ college, we must suppose he had not much employment during the usurpation; but as the only herald in Charles’s little court, he was sometimes applied to as such. In 1658, he granted an honourable augmentation to the arms of Stephen Fox, esq. afterwards knighted.- Sir Stephen is well known for his distinguished abilities as a statesman, for his longevity, and as progenitor of the Foxes earls of llchester and barons Holland. At the restoration he received the reward of his distinguished loyalty, and was, among other promotions, made one of the clerks of the privy council. He died suddenly, at Whitehall, February 19, 1676-7, deservedly lamented as a man of tried integrity and very considerable abilities. He published “Iter Carolinum, being a succinct account of the necessitated niarches, retreats, and sufferings of his majesty, king Charles I. from January 10, 1641, to the time of his deatli in 1618, collected by a daily attendant upon his sacred majesty during all that time.” Much of this work may be made more useful by comparing it with Oudart’s diary in Peck’s “Desiderata,” which supplies sir Edward’s omissions. His “Military Discoveries” were printed in 1705, in folio. He assisted lord Clarendon in that part of his History of the Rebellion which relates to military transactions. He was buried in the chapel of the blessed Virgin, in Stratford upon Avon church, where is an inscription to his memory.

, an eminent Puritan divine, was born at Hawkshead in Lancashire, in 1581, and was educated at St. John’s-college, Cambridge. After completing his studies there he went to London, and in 1614 became rector of St. John’s the Evangelist in Watling-street, where he continued nearly forty years, refusing every other offer of preferment. About the same time he became chaplain to Dr. Felton, bishop of Ely, who made choice of him the very morning of his consecration. He distinguished himself in the popish controversy; and, in 1623, held a public disputation with a priest of the name of Smith, before a very large assembly, and by consent of both parties, an account of it was afterwards published. He had likewise some encounters with Fisher, the celebrated Jesuit, and others who were deemed the most able disputants on the side of the church of Rome. In 1635 he was brought into trouble, for having preached a sermon in favour of the sacred observance of the Sabbath; archbishop Laud was so unwise as to admonish him for thjs, and afterwards had hitn prosecuted in the Star-chamber, fined and imprisoned. The parliament reversed this sentence, and condemned the whole proceedings against Mr. Walker, and he was restored to his living of St. John’s. In 1643, he was chosen one of the assembly of divines, and was also one of the witnesses against archbishop Laud, and one of those who took upon them to swear that the unfortunate prelate had endeavoured to introduce popery. In his sermons, too, before the parliament, he made use of those expressions, which tended to lessen the king in the eyes of the people; and although he was one of those who afterwards petitioned against his majesty’s death, he was also one of those who did not reflect how much their violent harangues and sermons had contributed to that event. He died in 1651, aged seventy years, and was interred in his own church in Watling-street. Fuller gives him a high character, as a man “well skilled in the Oriental languages, and an excellent logician and divine. He was a man of a holy life, an humble spirit, and a liberal ham!, who well deserved of Zion college library and who, by his example and persuasion, advanced a thousand pounds for the maintenance of preaching ministers in his native country.” He published, 1. “The sum of a Disputation between Mr. Walker, pastor of St. John the Evangelist, and a Popish priest, calling himself Mr. Smith, but indeed Norris,” 1623. 2. “Fisher’s folly unfolded, or the vaunting Jesuit’s challenge answered,” 1624. 3. “Socinianism in the fundamental point of Justification discovered and confuted.” 4. “The doctrine of the Holy Weekly Sabbath,” 1641. 5. “God made visible in all his Works,” 1644; besides several sermons preached before the parliament. We shall have occasion to mention another publication of Mr. Walker’s, when we come to speak of Anthony Wotton.

, an Irish divine, celebrated for his military courage, was born of English parents in the county of Tyrone in Ireland, and educated in the university of Glasgow in Scotland. He became afterwards rector of Donoghmore, not many miles from the city of London* derry. When king James II. after the revolution, landed in Ireland, Mr. Walker, alarmed at the danger of the prctestaut religion, raised a regiment at his own expence to defend the cause he was bound to espouse. Apprehensive that James would visit Londonderry (for he had taken Coleraine and Kilmore), he rode full speed to Lundee, the governor, to apprize him of the danger. That officer at first slighted the information, but was soon convinced h'ow much he was indebted to him. Walker, returning to Lifford, joined colonel Crafton, and by Lunclee’s direction, took post at the Long Causeway, which he defended a whole night; but at length, obliged to give way to a superior force, he retreated to Londonderry, where he endeavoured to inspire the panic-struck governor with -courage to brave the storm, but in vain; he left the place either through fear or treachery. Walker, however, bravely united with major Baker to defend the place, which would have appeared bordering upon rashness, if they had been able generals. James commanded a numerous army in person, which was well supplied with every requisite for a siege. The besieged had no means for a long defence; they were men who, flying from their houses, had taken shelter in this place; they had not more than twenty cannon, nor more than ten days’ provision, and had no engineers, nor horses for foraging parties or sallies. Still resolved to suffer the greatest extremities rather than yield, they did all that desperate men could effect. They sent to king William to inform him of then-determination, imploring speedy relief. Major Baker dying, the command devolved chiefly on Walker, who exercised it with a stoic philosophy that has few parallels. Horses, dogs, cats, rats, and mice, were devoured by the garrison, and even salted hides were used as food. Mr. Walker suffered in common with his men, and even prompted them to make several sallies; and as the Irish constantly fled, the officers suffered dreadfully. Londonderry having a good harbour, he hoped that the king might be enabled to raise the siege that way, for by land there were no hopes of succour. But the fatality which frustrated every attempt of James, prevented him from storming the place, which might at any time have been done; on the contrary he determined on a blockade, and to starve the garrison into a surrender. With this view he had a bar made across the arm of the sea, which, as be supposed, would prevent vessels from entering the town. This succeeded, and all hope to the besieged seemed to be destroyed. Walker, perceiving the danger of a general defection, assembled his wretched garrison in the cathedral, and endeavoured to inspire them with a reliance on Providence. In this he was so successful, that they returned to their labours invigorated, and immediately had the happiness to discover three ships, under the command of major-general Kirk, who had sent a message to Walker before, intimating that when he could hold out no longer, he would raise the siege at the hazard of himself, his men, and his vessels. Whilst both parties were preparing for the dreadful trial, Kirk sailed round the bar, under a heavy discharge from the enemy, and succeeded in crossing it, by which the siege was raised in the night of July 21, 1689.

Resigning now the command of the regiment, he came to England, where he was most graciously received by their majesties, and in Nov. 1689, received the thanks of the House of Commons, having just before published an ac-' count of the siege. He was also created D. D. by the university of Oxford, and was nominated to the bishopric of Derry. But he was induced to return to Ireland with king William, and was killed July 1, 1690, at the battle of the Boyne, having resolved to serve that campaign before iie took possession of his bishopric. “The king,” says Tillotson, in a letter dated April 1689, “besides his first bounty to Mr. Walker, whose modesty is equal to his merit, hath, made him bishop of Londonderry, one of the best bishoprics in Ireland; that so he may receive the reward of that great service in the place where he did it. It is incredible how much every body is pleased with what the king hath done in this matter; and it is no small joy to me to see, that God directs him to do wisely.”

Mr. Walker published “A true Account of the Siege of Londonderry,” London, 1689, 4to; and some attacks being made on it, he published the same year, “A Vindication,” while an anonymous writer produced “An Apology for the failures charged on the rev. G. Walker’s printed account of the late siege of Derry, &c.” same year, 4 to. One John Mackenzie, chaplain to a regiment at Derry during the siege, wrote “A Narrative of the siege, &c. or, the late memorable transactions of that city faithfully represented, to rectify the mistakes, and supply the omissions of Mr. Walker’s account,” Lond. 1690, 4to, which was answered by a friend of Mr. Walker’s, in a pamphlet entitled “Mr. John Mackenzie’s narrative a false libel,” ibid, same year.

, an able mathematician, was born about 1735 at Newcastle upon Tyne, and descended from a family of considerable antiquity. He received the rudiments of his education at the grammar-school of Newcastle under the care of the rev. Dr. Moises, a clergyman of the church of England. At the age of ten he was removed from Newcastle to Durham, that he might be under the immediate direction of his uncle, a dissenting minister; and having decided in favour of the ministry among the dissenters, he was in 1749 sent to one of their academies at Kendal. In 1751 he studied mathematics at Edinburgh under the tuition of Dr. Matthew Stewart, and made a very great progress in that science. In 1752 he studied theology for two years at Glasgow. Returning home, he began to preach, and in 1757 was ordained minister of a congregation of dissenters at Durham. While here he was a frequent contributor to the “Ladies’ Diary,” in which, as we have recently had occasion to notice, most of the mathematicians of the last and present age, tried their skill; and here also he finished his valuable work on the sphere, which was not, however, published until 1775, when it appeared under the title of the “Doctrine of the Sphere,” in 4to. In the end of 1761, or the beginning of 1762, he accepted of an invitation to become pastor at Great Yarmouth, where he carried on his mathematical pursuits, and having contributed some valuable papers to the Royal Society, he was in 1771 elected a fellow of that learned body. In the same year he accepted an invitation from a congregation at Birmingham, but was induced to recede from this engagement, and accept the office of mathematical tutor to the dissenting academy at Warrington, from which he again removed in 1774 to Nottingham, being chosen one of the ministers of a congregation in that town. Here he entered with great zeal into all the political disputes of the times, and always against the measures of government. After a residence of twenty-four years at Nottingham, Mr. Walker went to Manchester, where he undertook the office of theological tutor in the dissenting academy of that town, to which the duties of mathematical and classical tutor being likewise added, he was soon obliged to resign the whole, in consideration of his age and infirmities. He continued after this to reside for nearly two years in the neighbourhood of Manchester, and was for some time president of the Literary and Philosophical Society of that town, a society which has published several volumes of valuable memoirs, some contributed by Mr. Walker. He then removed to the village of Wavertree near Liverpool, and, in the spring of 1S07, died in London, at the age of seventythree. He was a man of very considerable talents, which appeared to most advantage in the departments of philosophy and the belles lettres, as may be seen in his “Essays on Various Subjects,” published in 1809, 2 vols. 8vo, to which a copious life is prefixed. Some volumes of his “Sermons” have also been published, which probably were suited to the congregations over which he presided, but contain but a very small portion of doctrinal matter, and that chiefly of what is called the liberal and rational kind.

, author of some valuable and popular works on the English language, was born March 18, 1732, at Colney-hatch, a hamlet in the parish of Friern-Barnet. Of his parents little is known, and it does not appear that he was enabled to receive a liberal education. He was intended for some trade, but had a reluctance to every effort of that kind, and went when young upon the stage, on which he had some, although no brilliant success. He continued, however, to accept various theatrical engagements until 1768, when he finally quitted the stage; and in January 1767 joined Mr. James Usher (see Usher) in forming a school at Kensington Gravel-pits, but their partnership lasted only about two years, after which Mr. Walker began to give those instructions on elocution, which formed the principal employment of his future life, and procured him a very just fame. About the same time he instituted his inquiries into the structure of language, and the rationale of grammar, and particularly directed his attention to the orthoepy of the English language, in which he endeavoured, by tracing it to its principles, to form a consistent and analogical theory. The unwearied attention he bestowed upon the subject, enabled him to accomplish this end, and to demonstrate the errors, inconsistencies, and affectations which had crept into pronunciation, and which had been propagated, rather than corrected, By many or' those who had hitherto professed to teach it. He therefore resolved to make the public participators in the result of his researches; and in 1772 he published, by way of prospectus, a quarto pamphlet entitled, “A general idea of a Pronouncing Dictionary of the English language,” a work which, though an imperfect attempt had been made by Dr. Kenrick, in his “Rhetorical Dictionary,” might yet be considered as a desideratum. But as he found it impossible to proceed on tiiis without farther encouragement than was then offered, he compiled an English Dictionary on a smaller scale, and on a plan not hitherto attempted, in which the words should be arranged according to their terminations; a mode of arrangement which, though not calculated for general use, possesses many peculiar advantages. This he published in 1775, under the title of “A Dictionary of the English language, answering at once the purposes of rhyming, spelling, and pronouncing;” it has since been republisheu under the shorter title of “A Rhyming Dictionary.”

In the mean time he visited Scotland and Ireland, for the purpose of reading lectures on elocution, and every where met with great respect and success, particularly at Oxford, where the heads of houses inviiecl him. to give private lectures in that university. In 1781 he produced his “Elements of Elocution,” a work which has the merit of beingthe first practical treatise that had yet been composed on the art of speaking, in which its principles are at once unfolded, simplified, and methodized into a system. In 1782 he published a pamphlet, called “Hints for improvement in the Art of Reading,” consisting of a number of observations that had suggested themselves to him, in the course of teaching, thrown together, as the title imports, rather in a detached than a systematical form. The most useful parts of this pamphlet he afterwards introduced into his “Rhetorical Grammar,” which he published in 1785, and which was followed by his “English Classics abridged” “The melody of speaJdng delineated,” and his “Academic Speaker,” all soon introduced into our principal seminaries, and too well known to require any farther notice here. In 1791 he published his “Critical PronouncingDictionary and Expositor of the English language,” the reputation of which was soon fixed, as the statute book of English orthoepy. A work of great utility afterwards came from his pen, under the title of a “Key to the classical pronunciation of Greek, Latin, and Scripture proper names.” To this is prefixed his portrait, a very striking likeness. His last publications were, the “Teacher’s assistant,” and the “Outlines of English grammar,” which was puhlished in May 1805. After this, as age advanced, he became very debilitated; and in July 1807 was attacked by a severe illness, which proved fatal Aug. 1, in the, seventy-sixth year of his age.

Mr. Walker’s private character was amiable and unexceptionable, and his philological knowledge had introduced him to intimacy with many of the most eminent literary characters of his time. He had been educated a presbyterian, but by some means argued himself into the Roman catholic persuasion, and was a strict observer of all its formal rites. In the particular department to which he devoted his life, he was perhaps more profoundly skilled than any man of his time, and his acquisitions in general literature were very considerable. Throughout his whole conduct in life, he evinced the most disinterested integrity. In conversation, with a tolerable portion of anecdote, the gleanings of a long acquaintance with literary men, his bent was rather to enter upon the discussion of important topics; and as he grew older, had outlived his early contemporaries, and knew that he was talking to the young, his manner became a little dictatorial, but mixed with such a kindly propensity to impart information, that it was impossible not to respect him.

, a learned divine, first of the church of England, and then of the Romish church, was born at Worsbrough, near Barnsley, in the west riding of Yorkshire, not in 1615, as is said in the Biographia Britannica, but probably in the following year, as he was baptised Sept. 17, 1616. He was educated at University college, Oxford, under the tuition of Abraham Woodhead, who proved afterwards a great champion for the popish cause. Having taken his degree of bachelor of arts in July 1635, he was in August following chosen fellow of his college. In April 1638, he proceeded master of arts, entered into holy orders, and became a noted tutor. During the rebellion, he was one of the standing extraordinary delegates of the university for public business, and one of the preachers before the court of Charles I. at Oxford. According to Smith, he preached once, probably in his turn, and was requested by his majesty to preach a second time, on which account the convocation granted him his grace for bachelor of divinity, whenever he should think fit to take that degree; but in May 1648 he was ejected from his fellowship by the parliamentary visitors, and then went to the continent, residing principally at Rome, where he is said to have “improved himself in all kinds of polite literature.” He seems also to have confirmed the secret liking he had to the Roman catholic religion, although as yet he thought proper to conceal the circumstances. After the restoration he was reinstated in his fellowship, but went again to Rome as travelling tutor to some young gentlemen. After his return he might have been elected master of his college, on the death of his namesake, but no relation, Dr. Thomas Walker, in 1665. This he declined for the present, but accepted it in 1676, after the death of Dr. Richard Clayton, who had succeeded Dr. Thomas Walker.

While these repeated offers of the mastership show in what estimation he was held by the college on account of his learning, it seems rather singular that the change in his principles should be either not known, or disregarded, for at this time, we are told, ^he was assistant to his tutor Abraham Woodhead, who kept a popish seminary at Hoxton. It was not long, however, before his conduct attracted the notice of parliament, partly on account of his assisting in this popish seminary at Hoxton, and partly on account of the “Life of Alfred,” then published, by which he evidently appeared to be popishly affected. We do not find that any proceedings followed this notice of his conduct, and when king James II. came to the throne, and measures were openly taking for the establishment of popery, Walker thought it no longer necessary to conceal his sentiments, but went to London in July 1685, in order to be consulted, and employed in such changes as it was hoped might be brought about in the university. On his return to college, he absented himself from the chapel^and in the beginning of March following, openly declared himself a Roman catholic, which exposed him to every kind of insult, popery being at this time, as ^lagdalen college soon shewed, the utter aversion of the university. Disregarding this, he had mass privately in his lodgings, until he could fit up a chapel within the limits of the college. Ii 1687, by virtue of letters patent from king James, he set up a press, for the avowed purpose of printing books against die reformed religion. The patent specifies the names of the books (many of which were written by his friend Abraham Woodhead), and exempts him from any penalties to which he might be subject by the statutes against popery. The number of copies to be published of each work is limited to 20,000 within the year. He procured also other letters patent, by which he, and some fellows of his college, were excused from attending the public service of the church. Under this authority he opened his new chapel for mass. This, says Smith, he did by seizing “the lower half of a side of the quadrangle, next adjoining to the college chapel, by which he deprived us of two low rooms, their studies and their bed-chambers: and after all the partitions were removed, it was some way or other consecrated, as we suppose, to divine services: for they had mass there every day, and sermons at least in the afternoon on the Lord’s days.” He also procured a mandate from rhe king to sequester the revenue of a fellowship towards the maintenance of his priest. He put up a statue of James II. over the inside of the gate, and when the king came to Oxford, he entertained him at vespers in this new chapel.

When the revolution took place, all this vanished; the statue was taken down, and the chapel restored to the form of rooms as before; and Walker, conscious that he had gone farther than any person in his situation, and that not only contrary to the laws of the land, but the statutes of the university, both general and particular, meditated his escape. In Dec. 1688, he set out along with Andrew Pulton, a Jesuit, and others, intending to go to France; but hearing that the populace in the county of Kent were collected to seize all the papists that endeavoured to leave the kingdom, he came back, and was apprehended at Feversham, whence he was conveyed to London, and imprisoned in the Tower. In the mean time, in February 1689, his place was declared vacant at Oxford, on account of his being a papist, and was filled op by Mr. Ferrer, the senior fellow.

After lying in prison till 1689, he was brought by habeas corpus to Westminster-hall, and sued for bail, but instead of obtaining it, he was brought to the bar of the House of Commons, and charged with the following offences: 1. For changing his religion. 2. For seducing 1 others to it; and 3. For keeping- a mass-house in the university of Oxford. His defence was more artful than honourable to his candour. “I cannot say that I ever altered my religion, or that my principles do now wholly agree with those of the church of Rome. Mr. Anderson was my governor and director, and from him in my youth I learned those principles which I have since avowed. If they were popish, I have not changed my religion and they will not be found to be wholly agreeable with the doctrine of the Roman catholic church. 2. I never seduced others to the Romish religion. All my books and precepts tend only to make men good moralists and good Christians; nor did I ever interest myself in persuading any body to this or that party. This will be plain to every body that reads my books of” The Life of Christ,“my book” Of Education,* my book of *' Benefits,“&c. &c.” These arguments, if they may be so called, being delivered, he was, in Jan. 1690, brought again from the Tower to the bar of the king’s bench, and having given bail, was set at liberty; but in May following he was excepted out of the act of pardon of William and Mary.

After this he appears to have gone abroad for some time, but returned to England, and lived a retired life, principally snpported by one of his old scholars, the celebrated Dr. Radclifie, who, although averse to his principles, had a sincere regard for him, and took him into his house. He died Jan. 21, 1699, and was buried at Pancras churchyard, at the expence of Dr. Radcliffe, who caused a stone to be placed over his grave, with the initials of his name, O. W. in a cypher, to which are added the words *' per bonam famam atque infatniam," which are the Vulgate reading of a clause in 2 Corinthians vi. 3.

It seems generally acknowledged that Mr. Walker was a roan of very considerable abilin^s and learning, but hi* conduct on the accession of James II. lost him the respect of the university, and of the public at large. By his own confession he had led a long life of conscious hypocrisy for the sake of a very few years of open profession of his principles; and his subserviency to the will of his bigotted monarch, when contrasted with the noble stand made by the president and fellows of the neighbouring college, Magdalen, must have sunk his reputation very much. Among Mr. Walker’s published works, the best is “The Greek and Roman History, illustrated by coins and medals,” Lond. 1692, 8vo. His other works are, 1. “A brief account of ancient Church Government,” ibid. 1662, 4to. 2. '-Of Education, especially of young gentlemen,“Oxford, 1673, 12mo; reprinted a fourth time, 1683. 3.” Artis rationis, libri tres,“ibid. 1673. 4.” A paraphrase and annotations upon the epistles of St. Paul to the Romans, Corintlrans, and Hebrews,“ibid. 1674. This has been attributed to Dr. Fell. 5. The Life of king Alfred, in Latin, from the English of sir John Spelman, 1678, fol. a magnificent publication. 6.” God’s Benefits to Mankind,“ibid. 1680, 4to. 7.” Description of Greenland,“&c. for Pitt’s Atlas. 8.” Some instructions concerning the art of Oratory,“ibid. 1682, 8vo, 2d edit.>.” An historical narration of the Life and Death of Christ,“ibid. 1685, 4to, the sale of which was prohibited by the vice-chancellor of Oxford, on account of many passages in it which savoured of popery. 10.” Some instructions in the Art of Grammar," Lond. 1691, 8vo. I N D E X.

, a learned physician and medical writer, was born at Powick, in Worcestershire, 1708. He was the son of Mr. John Wall, an opulent tradesman of the city of Worcester, who served the office of mayor in 1703. He received the early part of his education at a grammar-school at Leigh-Sinton, and at the college school of Worcester, whence he was elected scholar of Worcester-college, Oxford, in June 1726. In 1735, he was elected fellow of Merton -college, soon after which he took the degree of bachelor of physic, and removed to the city of Worcester, where he was many years settled in practice. In 1759, he took the degree of M. D. Besides an ingenious “Treatise on the virtues of Malvern-waters,” which he brought into reputation, he enriched the repositories of medical knowledge with many valuable tracts, which, since his death, have been collected into an octavo edition, by his son, the present learned Dr. Martin Wall, F. R. S. clinical-professor of. the university, and were printed at Oxford in 1780. He married Catherine youngest daughter of Martin Sandys, esq. of the city of Worcester, barrister at law, and uncle to the first lord Sandys. Dr. Wall was a man of extraordinary genius, which he improved by early and indefatigable industry in the pursuit of science; but he was more particularly eminent in those branches of natural philosophy which have an immediate connexion with the arts, and with medicine. He was distinguished likewise through his whole life by an uncommon sweetness of manners, and cheerfulness of disposition, which, still more than his great abilities, made his acquaintance courted, and his conversation sought, by persons of all ranks and ages. His practice, as a physician, was extended far beyond the common circle of practitioners in the country, and he was particularly eminent for benevolence, courtesy, penetration, and success. His native country still boasts many monuments of the application of his eminent talents to her interests. To his distinguished skill in chemistry, and his assiduous researches (in conjunction with some other chemists) to discover materials proper for the china-ware, the city of Worcester owes the establishment of its porcelain-manufacture. Besides the improvements he suggested and put in execution for the accommodation of visitors at Malvern, it was to his zeal and diligence the county of Worcester is in no small degree indebted for the advantages of the infirmary, which he regularly attended during his whole life. His principal amusement was painting; and it has been said of him, that, if he had not been one of the best physicians, he would have been the best painter of his age. This praise is perhaps too high, yet his designs for the two frontispieces to “Hervey’s Meditations,” that for Cambridge’s “Scribleriad,” and for the East window of the chapel of Oriel-college, Oxford, are very creditable specimens of his talents. He died at Bath, after a lingering disorder, June 27, 1776, and lies buried in the abbey-church. The tracts published by his son, are, 1. “Of the extraordinary effects of Musk in convulsive disorders.” 2. “Of the use of the Peruvian Bark in the small-pox.” 3. “Of the cure of the putrid sore-throat.” 4. “Mr. Oram’s account of the Norfolk-boy.” 5. “Observations on that case, and on the efficacy of oil in wormcases.” 6. “Experiments and Observations on the Mal­* vern- waters.” 7. “Letters to Sir George Baker, &c. on the poison of lead, and the impregnation of cyder with that metal.” 8. “A Letter to Dr. Heberden on the Angina Pectoris.” 9. “Supplement; containing an account of the epidemic fever of 1740, 1741, and 1742.” The editor has enriched this publication with various notes, which discover an extensive acquaintance with the subjects in question, and a candid and liberal turn of mind. To the treatise on Malvern-waters Dr. Martin Wall has also subjoined an appendix of some length, containing an experimental inquiry into their nature; from which it appears, that the Holywell-water at Malvern owes its virtues principally to its extreme purity, assisted by the fixed air which it contains.

, the able defender of infant-baptism, was born in 1646, but where educated, or any further particulars of his early life, are not upon record. He was vicar of Shoreham in Kent, where he died in 1728, at the age of eighty-two, and was considerably advanced when he slept forth as the champion of infant baptism, in opposition to Dr. John Gale, the ablest writer of his time on the baptist side. Mr. Wall published his “History of Infant Baptism” in 1707; and Dr. Gale, in 1711, published “Reflections” on it (See Gale.) In 1719, a friendly conference was held on the subject between him and Mr. Wall, which ended without any change of opinion on either side. Mr. Wall, in the same year, published his “Defence of the History of Infant Baptism,” which was accounted a performance of such ability and so decisive on the question, that the university of Oxford, to mark their high opinion of the book, and of the talents of the author, conferred on him the degree of D. D. in the following year. After his death were published “Critical Notes on the Old Testament, wherein the present Hebrew text is explained, and in many places amended, from the ancient versions, more particularly from that of the LXX. To which is prefixed, a large introduction, adjusting the authority of the Masoretic Bible, and vindicating it from the objections of Mr. Whiston, and the author of the ‘ Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion.’ By the late learned William Wall, D. D. author of the” History of Infant Baptism," 1733, 2 vols. 8vo.

Dr. Wall stands confessedly at the head of those writers who have supported the practice of infant-baptism; and his antagonists Gale, Whiston, and the baptist historian Crosby, all unite in praising his candour and piety. He was vicar of Shorebam for the long space of fifty-two years. He once had an offer of a living of 300l. a year, Chelsfield, three miles from Shoreharn, which his conscience would not allow him to accept; but he afterwards consented to take one of about one fifth the value, at twelve miles distance, that of Milton, near Gravesend. By an only daughter, Mrs. Catherine Waring, of Rochester, he had sixteen grand-children. This lady communicated some anecdotes of her father, printed in Atterbury’s Correspondence, by which it appears that he was a man of a facetious turn, and there are some of his letters to Atterbury in that correspondence. He was such a zealot for this prelate, that he would have lighted up all Whittlebury -forest, in case of his recall, at his own expence.

, a celebrated warrior and patriot, was born, according to the account of his poetical biographer Henry, or Blind Harry, in 127G. He was the younger son of sir Malcolm Wallace of Ellerslie, near Paisley, in the shire of Renfrew, Scotland, and in his sixteenth year was sent to school at Dundee. In 1295, he was insulted by the son of Selby, an Englishman, constable of the port and castle of Dundee, and killed him; on which he fled, and appears to have lived a roving and irregular life, often engaged in skirmishes with the English troops which then bad invaded and kept Scotland under subjection. For his adventures, until he became the subject of history, we must refer to Henry. Most of them appear fictitious, or at least are totally unsupported by any other evidence. Wallace, however, is represented by the Scotch historians as being about this time the model of a perfect hero; superior to the rest of mankind in bodily stature, strength, and activity; in bearing cold and heat, thirst and hunger, watching and fatigue; and no less extraordinary in the qualities of his mind, beirrg equally valiant and prudent, magnanimous and disinterested, undaunted in adversity, modest in prosperity, and animated by the most ardent and inextinguishable love of his county. Having his resentment against the English sharpened by the personal affront abovementioned, and more by the losses his family had sustained, he determined to rise in defence of his country, and being joined by many of his countrymen, their first efforts were crowned with success; but the earl of Surrey, governor of Scotland, collecting an army of 40,000 men, and entering Annandale, and marching through the South-west of Scotland, obliged all the barons of those parts to submit, and renew the oaths of fealty. Wallace, with his followers, uuable to encounter so great a force, retired northward, and was pursued by the governor and his army.

When the English army reached Stirling they discovered the Scots encamped near the abbey of Cambuskeneth, on the opposite banks of the Forth. Cressingham, treasurer of Scotland, whose covetousness and tyranny had been one great cause of this revolt, earnestly pressed the earl of Surrey to pass his army over the bridge of Stirling, and attack the enemy. Wallace, who observed all their motions, allowed as many of the English to pass as he thought be could defeat, when, rushing upon them with an irresistible impetuosity, they were all either killed, drowned, or taken prisoners. li> the heat of the action, the bridge, which was only of wood, broke down, and many perished in the river; and the earl of Surrey, with the other part of his army, were melancholy spectators of the destruction of their countrymen, without being able to afford them any assistance: and this severe check, which the English received on Sept. 11, 1297, obliged them to evacuate Scotland. Wallace, who after this great victory was saluted deliverer and guardian of the kingdom by his followers, pursuing the tide of success, entered England with his army, recovered the town of Berwick, plundered the counties of Cumberland and Northumberland, and returned into his own country loaded with spoils and glory.

The news of these surprising events being carried to king Edward I. who was then in Flanders, accelerated his return, and soon after he raised a vast army of 80,000 foot and 7000 horse, which the Scots were now in no condition to resist. Their country, for several years, had been almost a continued scene of war, in which many of its inhabitants had perished. Some of their nobles were in the English interest, some of them in prison; and those few who had any power or inclination to defend the freedom of their country, were dispirited and divided. In particular, the ancient nobility began to view the power and popularity of William Wallace with a jealous eye: which was productive of very fatal consequences, and contributed to the success of Edward in the battle of Faikirk, fought July 22, 12D8, in which the Scots were defeated with great slaughter.

We hear little of Wallace after this until 1303-4, when king Eo!ward had made a complete conquest of Scotland, and, appointing John de Segrave governor of that kingdom, returned to England about the end of August. But Wallace, even after this, and although he had been excluded by the jealousy of the nobles from commanding the armies or influencing the councils of his country, still continued to assert her independency, This, together with the remembrance of many mischiefs which he had done to his English subjects, and perhaps some apprehension that he might again rekindle the flames of war, made Edward employ various means to get possession of his person; and at length he was betrayed into his hands by sir John Monteith, his friend, whom he had made acquainted with the place oi his concealment. The king immediately ordered Wallace to be carried in chains to London: to be tried as a rebel and traitor, though he had never made submission, or sworn fealty to England, and to be executed on Towerhill, which was accordingly done, Aug. 23, 1305. This, says Hume, was the unworthy fate of a hero, who, through a course of many years, had, with signal conduct, intrepidity, and perseverance, defended, against a public and oppressive enemy, the liberties of his native country.

, an eminent English poet, was born March 3, at Colshill in Hertfordshire. His father was Robert Waller, esq. of Agrnondesham, in Buckinghamshire, whose family was originally a branch of the Wallers of Spendhurst in Kent; and his mother was the daughter of John Hampden, of Hampden in the same county, and sister to the celebrated patriot Hampden. His father died while he was yet an infant, but left him a yearly income of three thousand five hundred pounds which, rating together the value of money and the customs of life, we may reckon more than equivalent to ten thousand at the present time.

He was educated, by the care of his mother, at Eton; and removed afterwards to King’s college in Cambridge. He was sent to parliament in his eighteenth, if not in his sixteenth year, and frequented the court of James the first. His political and poetical life began nearty together. In his eighteenth year he wrote a poem that appears first in his works, on the prince’s escape at St. Andero; apiece which shewed that he attained, by a felicity like instinct, a style which perhaps will never be obsolete; and that, <c were we to judge only by the wording, we could not know what was wrote at twenty, and what at fourscore." His versification was, in his first essay, such as it appears in his last performance. He had already formed such a system of metrical harmony as he never afterwards much needed, or much endeavoured, to improve.

The next poem is supposed by Fenton to be the address “To the Queen” on her arrival but this is doubtful, and we have no date of any other poetical production before that which the murder of the duke of Buckingham occasioned. Neither of these pieces that seem to carry their own dates could have been the sudden effusion of fancy. In the verses on the prince’s escape, the prediction of his marriage with the princess of France must have been written after the event; in the other, the promises of the king’s kindness to the descendants of Buckingham, which could not be properly praised till it had appeared by its effects:, shew that time was taken fqr revision and improvement. It is not known that they were published till they appeared long afterwards with other poems.

Waller was not one of those idolaters of praise who cultivate their minds at the expence of their fortunes. Rich as he was by inheritance, he took care early to grow richer, by marrying Mrs. Banks, a great heiress in the city, whom the interest of the court was employed to obtain for Mr. Crofts. Having brought him a son, who died young, and a daughter, who was afterwards married to Mr. Dormer of Oxfordshire,* she died in childbed, and left him a widower of about five and twenty, gay and wealthy, to please himself with another marriage.

Being too young to resist beauty, and probably too vain to think himself resistible, he fixed his heart, perhaps half fondly and half ambitiously, upon the lady Dorothea Sidney, eldest daughter of the earl of Leicester, whom he courted by all the poetry in which Sacharissa is celebrated; and describes her as a sublime predominating beauty, of lofty charms, and imperious influence; but she, it is said, rejected his addresses with disdain. She married, in 1639, the earl of Sunderland, who died at Newbury in the royal cause; and, in her old age, meeting somewhere with Waller, aske<l him, when he would again write such verses upon her “When you are as young, madam,” said he, “and as handsome, as you were then.” In this part of his life it was that he was known to Clarendon, among the rest of the men who were eminent in that age for genius and literature. From the verses written at Penshurst, it has been collected that he diverted his rejection by Sacharissa by a voyage; and his biographers, from his poem on the Whales, think it not improbable that he visited the Bermudas; but it seems much more likely that he should amuse himself with forming an imaginary scene, than that so important an incident, as a visit to America, should have been left floating in conjectural probability. Aubrey gives us a report that some time between the age of twenty-three and thirty, “he grew mad,” but did not remain long in this unhappy state; and he seems to think that the above disappointment might have been the cause. It'is remarkable that Clarendon insinuates something of this kind as having happened to him, when taken up for the plot hereafter to be mentioned. The historian’s words are, “After Waller had, with incredible dissimulation, acted such a remorse of conscience, his trial was put off out of Christian compassion, till he might recover his understanding.” Neither of these perhaps is decisive as to the fact, but the coincidence is striking.

From his twenty-eighth to. his thirty-fifth year, he wrote his pieces on the reduction of Sallee on the reparation of St. Paul’s; to the King on his navy the panegyric on the Queen mother; the two poems to the earl of Northumberland; and perhaps others, of which the time cannot be discovered. When he had lost all hopes of Sacharissa, he looked round him for an easier conquest, and gained a lady of the family of Bresse, or Breaux. The time of his marriage is not exactly known. It has not been discovered that his wife was won by his poetry; nor is any thing told of her, but that she brought him many children, He doubtless, says Johnson, praised some whom he would have been afraid to marry, and perhaps married one whom he would have been ashamed to praise. Many qualities contribute to domestic happiness, upon which poetry has no colours to bestow; and many airs and sallies may delight imagination, “which he who flatters them never can approve. There are charms made only for distant admiration. No spectacle is nobler than a blaze. Of this wife, however, his biographers have recorded that she gave him five sons and eight daughters, aud Aubrey says that she was beautiful and very prudent. During the long interval of parliament, he is represented as living among those with whom it was most honourable to converse, and enjoying an exuberant fortune with that independence of liberty of speech and conduct which wealth ought always to produce. Being considered as the kinsman of Hampden, he was therefore supposed by the courtiers not to favour them; and when the parliament was called in 1640, it appeared that, his political character had not been mistaken. The king’s demand of a supply produced from him a speech full” of complaints of national grievances, and very vehement; but while the great position, that grievances ought to be redressed before supplies are 'granted, is agreeable enough to law and reason, Waller, if his biographer may be credited, was not such an enemy to the king, as not to wish his distresses lightened; for he relates, “that the king sent particularly to Waller, to second his demand of some subsidies to pay off the army; and sirHenry Vane objecting against first voting a supply, because the king would not accept unless it came up to his proportion, Mr. Waller spoke earnestly to sir Thomas Jermyn, comptroller of the household, to save his master from the effects of so bold a falsity: c for,‘ he said, ’ I am but a country gentleman, and cannot pretend to know the king’s mind:' but sir Thomas durst not contradict the secretary; and his son, the earl of St. Alban’s r afterwards told Mr. Waller, that his father’s cowardice ruined the king.”

In the Long Parliament, which met Nov. 3, 1640, Waller represented Agrnondesbam the third time; and was considered by the discontented party as a man sufficiently trusty and acrimonious to be employed in managing the prosecution of Judge Crawley, for his opinion in favour of ship-money; and his speech shews that he did not disappoint their expectations. He was probably the more ardent, as his uncle Hampden had been particularly engaged in the dispute, and, by a sentence which seems generally to be thought unconstitutional, particularly injured. He was not however a bigot to his party, nor adopted all their opinions. When the great question, whether episcopacy ought to be abolished, was debated, he spoke against the innovation with great coolness, reason, and firmness; and it is to be lamented that he did not act with spirit and uniformity. When the Commons began to set the royal authority at open defiance, Waller is said to have withdrawn from the House, and to have returned with the king’s permission; and, when the king set up his standard, he sent him a thousand broad-pieces. He continued, however, to sit in parliament; but spoke,“says Clarendon,” with great sharpness and freedom, which, now there was no danger of being out-voted, was not restrained; and therefore used as an argument against those who were gone upon pretence that they were not suffered to deliver their opinion freely in the House, which could not be believed, when all men knew what liberty Mr. Waller took, and spoke every day with impunity against the sense and proceedings of the House."

Waller, as he continued to sit, was one of the commissioners nominated by parliament to treat with the king at Oxford: and when they were presented, the king said to him, “Though you are the last, you are not the lowest, nor the least in my favour.” Whitlock, another of the commissioners, imputes this kind compliment to the king’s knowledge of the plot, in which Waller appears afterwards to have been engaged against the parliament. Fenton, with equal probability, believes that this attempt to promote the royal cause arose from his sensibility of the king’s tenderness. Of Waller’s conduct at Oxford we have no account. The attempt, just mentioned, known by the name of Waller’s plot, was soon afterwards discovered.

Waller had a brother-in-law, Tomkyns, who was clerk of the queen’s council, and had great influence in the city. Waller and he, conversing with great confidence, told both their own secrets and those of their friends: and, surveying the wide extent of their conversation, imagined that they found in the majority of all ranks great disapprobation of the violence of the Commons, and unwillingness to continue the war. They knew that many favoured the king, whose fear concealed their loyalty: and they imagined that, if those who had these good intentions could be informed of their own strength, and enabled by intelligence to act together, they might overpower the fury of sedition, by refusing to comply with the ordinance for the twentieth part, and the other taxes levied for the support of the rebel army, and by uniting great numbers_in a petition for peace. They proceeded with great caution. Three only met in one place, and no man was allowed to impart the plot to more than two others; so that, if any should be suspected or seized, more than three could not be endangered.

Lord Conway joined in the design, and, Clarendon imagines, incidentally mingled, as he was a soldier, some martial hopes or projects, which however were only mentioned, the main design being to bring the loyal inhabitants to the knowledge of each other; for whicn purpose there was to be appointed one in every district, to distinguish the friends of the king, the adherents to the parliament, and the neutrals. How far they proceeded does not appear; theresuit of their inquiry, as Pym declared, was, that within the walls, for one that was for the royalists, there were three against them; but that without the walls, for one that was against them, there were five for them. Whether this was said from knowledge or guess, was perhaps never inquired.

It is the opinion of Clarendon, that in Waller’s plan no violence or sanguinary resistance was comprised; that he intended only to abate the confidence of the rebels by pifblie declarations, and to weaken their power by an opposition to new supplies. This, in calmer times, and more than this, is done without fear; hut such was the acrimony of the Commons, that no method of obstructing them was safe. About the same time another design was formed by sir Nicholas Crispe, an opulent merchant in the city, who gave and procured the king- in his exigencies an hundred thousand pounds, and when he was driven from the royal exchange, raised a regiment and commanded it. His object appears to have been to raise a military force, but his design and Waller’s appear to have been totally distinct.

The discovery of Waller’s design is variously related. In “Clarendon’s History” it is told, that a servant of Tomkyns, lurking behind the hangings when his master was in conference with Waller, heard enough to qualify him for an informer, and carried his intelligence to Pym. A manuscript, quoted in the “Life of Waller,” relates, that “he was betrayed by his sister Price, and her Presbyterian chaplain Mr. Goode, who stole some of his papers and, if he had npt strangely dreamed the night before that his sister had betrayed him, and thereupon burnt the rest of his papers by the fire that was in his chimney, he had certainly lost his life by it.” The question cannot be decided. It is not unreasonable to believe that the men in power, receiving intelligence from the sister, would employ the servant of Tomkyns to listen at the conference, that they might avoid an act so offensive as that of destroying the brother by the sister’s testimony.

The plot was published in the most terrific manner. On the 31st of May (1643), at a solemn fast, when they were listening to the sermon, a messenger entered the church, and communicated his errand to Pym, who whispered it to others that were placed near him, and then went with them out of the church, leaving the rest in solicitude and amazement. They immediately sent guards to proper places, and that night apprehended Tomkyns and Waller; having yet traced nothing but that letters had been intercepted, from which it appeared that the parliament and the city were soon to be delivered into the hands of the cavaliers. They perhaps yt*l knew little themselves, beyond some general and indistinct notices. “But Waller,” says Clarendon, “was so confounded with fear and apprehension, that he confessed whatever he had said, heard, thought, or seen; all that he know of himself, and all that he suspected of others, without concealing any person of what degree or quality soever, or any discourse that he had ever, upon any occasion, entertained with them: what such and such Jadies of great honour, to whom, upon the credit of his wit and great reputation, he had been admitted, had spoken to him in their chambers upon the proceedings in the Houses, and how they had encouraged him to oppose them; what correspondence and intercourse they had with some ministers of state at Oxford, and how they had conveyed all intelligence thither.” He accused the earl of Portland and lord Con way as co-operating in the transaction; and testified that the earl of Northumberland had declared himself disposed in favour of any attempt that might check the violence of the parliament, and reconcile them to the king.

Tomkyns was seized on the same night with Waller, and appears likewise to have partaken of his cowardice; for he gave notice of Crispe’s having obtained from the king a commission of array, of which Clarendon never knew howit was discovered. Tomkyns had buried it in his garden, where, by his direction, it was dug up; and thus the rebels obtained, what Clarendon confesses them to have had, the original copy. It can raise no wonder that they formed one plot out of these two designs, however remote from each other, when they saw the same agent employed in both, and found the commission of array in the hands of him who was employed in collecting the opinions and affections of his people.

Of the plot, thus combined, they took care to make the most. They sent Pym among the citizens, to tell them of their imminent danger, and happy escape; and inform them, that the design was, “to seize the lord mayor and all the committee of militia, and would not spare one of them.” They drew up a vow and covenant, to be taken by every member of either House, by which he declared his detestation of all conspiracies against the parliament, and his resolution to detect and oppose them. They then appointed a day of thanksgiving for this wonderful delivery; which shut out, says Clarendon, all doubts whether there had been such a deliverance, and whether the plot was real or fictitious.

On June 11, the earl of Portland and lord Con way were committed, one to the custody of the mayor, and the other of the sheriff: but their lands and goods were not seized. Waller, however, was still to immerse himself deeper in ignominy. The earl of Portland and lord Conway denied the charge and there was no evidence against them but the confession of Waller, of which undoubtedly many would be inclined to question the veracity. With these doubts he was so much terrified, that he endeavoured to persuade Portland to a declaration like his own, by a letter which is extant in Fenton’s edition of his works; but this had very little effect: Portland sent (June 29) a letter to the Lords, to tell them, that he “is iti custody, as he conceives, without any c.rirge; and that, by what Mr. Waller had threatened him with since he was imprisoned, he doth apprehend a very cruel, long, and ruinous restraint: he therefore prays, that he may not find the effects of Mr. Waller’s threats, a long and close imprisonment; but may be speedily brought to a legal trial, and then he is confident the vanity and falsehood of those informations which have been given against him will appear.”

In consequence of this letter, the Lords ordered Portland and Waller to be confronted; when the one repeated his charge, and the other his denial. The examination of the plot being continued (July 1,) Thinn, usher of the House of Lords, deposed, that Mr. Waller having had a conference with the lord Portland in an upper room, lord Portland said, when he came down, “Do me the favour to tell my lord Northumberland, that Mr. Waller has extremely pressed me to save my own life and his, by throwing the blame upon the lord Conway and the earl of Northumberland.” Waller, in his letter to Portland, tells him of the reasons which he could urge with resistless efficacy in a personal conference; but he overrated his own oratory; his vehemence, whether of persuasion or intreaty, was returned with contempt. One of his arguments with Portland is, that the plot is already known to a woman. This woman was doubtless lady Aubigny, who, upon this occasion, was committed to custody; but who, in reality, when she delivered the commission of array, knew not what it was. The parliament then proceeded against the conspirators, and Tom,kyns*and Chaloner were hanged. The earl of Northumberland, being too great for prosecution, was only once examined before the Lords. The earl of Portland and lord Conway, persisting to deny the charge, and no testimony but Waller’s yet appearing against them, were, after a long imprisonment, admitted to bail. Hassel, the king’s messenger, who carried the letters to Oxford, died the night before his trial. Hampden escaped

served just to save his own life, but meanness of his own escape, and the

not that of his sister’s husband; or his disgrace now inflicted on hi* family. death, perhaps by the interest of his family, but was kept in prison to the end of his life. They whose names were inserted in the commission of array were not capitally punished, as it could not be proved that they had consented to their own nomination: but they were considered as mali^nauts, and their estates were seized.

“Waller,” says Clarendon, whom we have already quoted on this point, “though confessedly the most guilty, with incredible dissimulation, affected such a remorse of conscience, that his trial was put off, out of Christian compassion, till he might recover his understanding.” What use he made of this interval, with what liberality and success he distributed flattery and money, and how, when he was brought (July 4) before the House, he confessed and lamented, and submitted and implored, may be read in the History of the Rebellion (B. vii.). The speech, to which Clarendon ascribes the preservation of his dearbought life, is inserted in his works. The great historian, however, seems to have been mistaken in relating that he prevailed in the principal part of his supplication, not to be tried by a council of war; for, according to Whitlock, he was by expulsion from the House abandoned to the tribunal which he so much dreaded, and, being tried and condemned, was reprieved by Essex; but after a year’s imprisonment, in which time resentment grew less acrimonious, paying a fine of ten thousand pounds, he was permitted to recollect himself in another country. Of his behaviour in this part of his life, Johnson justly says, it is not necessary to direct the reader’s opinion.

For the place of his exile he chose France, and stayed some time at Roan, where his daughter Margaret was born, who was afterwards his favourite, and his amanuensis. He then removed to Paris, where he lived Vith great splendour and hospitality; and from time to time amused himself with poetry, in which he sometimes speaks of the rebels, and their usurpation, in the natural language of an honest man. At last it became necessary for his support, to sell his wife’s jewels, and being thus reduced, he solicited from Cromwell permission to return, and obtained it by the interest of colonel Scroop, to whom his sister was married. Upon the remains of his fortune he lived at Hallbarn, a house built by himself, very near to Beaconsfield, where his mother resided. His mother, though related to Cromwell * and Hampden, was zealous for the royal cause; and when Cromwell visited her used to reproach him; he, in return, would throw a napkin at her, and say he would not dispute with his aunt; but finding in time that she acted for the king as well as talked, he made her a prisoner to her own daughter, in her own house. This daughter was Mrs. Price, who is said to have betrayed her brother*

Cromwell, now protector, received Waller, as his kinsman, to familiar conversation. Waller, as he used to relate, found him sufficiently versed in ancient history; and when any of his enthusiastic friends came to advise or consult him, could sometimes overhear him discoursing in the cant of the times but, when he returned, he would say, “Cousin Waller, I must talk to these men in their own way,” and resumed the common style of conversation. He repaid the Protector for his favours, in 1654, by the famous panegyric, which has been always considered as the first of his poetical productions. His choice of encomiastic topics is very judicious; for he considers Cromwell in his exaltation, without inquiring how he attained it; there is consequently, says Johnson, no mention of the rebel or the regicide. All the former part of his hero’s life is veiled with shades; and nothing is brought to view but the chief, the governor, the defender of England’s honour, and the enlarger of her dominion. The act of violence by which he obtained the supreme power is lightly treated, and decently justified. In the poem on the war with Spain are some passages at least equal to the best parts of the panegyrick; and, in the conclusion, the poet ventures yet a higher flight of flattery, by recommending royalty to Crom^ well and the nation. Cromwell was very desirous, as appears from his conversation, related by Whitlock, of adding the title to trie power of monarchy, and is supposed to have been withheld from it partly by fear of the army, and partly by, fear of the laws, which, when he should govern by the name of king, would have restrained his authority. The poem on the death of the Protector seems to have been

* This seems a mistake. What has of Cromwell. Yet Mr, Noblf states giv‘en rise to the notion that Waller that the patriot Uamp’len was lirsteouwas a relation of Cromwell, was their sin both to Cromwell and to Waller,. always calling cousin t a usual custom and Cromwell therefore used to call at that time, where any family cou- Waller’s mother aunt t and Waller connexions were, though the parties were 'sin. sot actually allied. Noble’s Memoirs dictated by real veneration for his memory, for he had little to expect; he had received nothing but his pardon from Cromwell, and was not likely to ask any thing from those who should succeed him.

Soon afterwards the restoration supplied him with another subject; and he exerted his imagination, his elegance, and his melody, with equal alacrity, for Charles II. It is not possible, says Johnson, to read without some contempt and indignation, poeius of the same author ascribing the highest degree of power and piety to Charles I. then transferring the same power and piety to Oliver Cromwell; now inviting Oliver to take the crown, and then congratulating Charles II. on his recovered right. Neither Cromwell nor Charles could value his testimony as the effect of conviction, or receive his praises as effusions of reverence; they could consider them but as the labour of invention, and the tribute of dependence. The “Congratulation,” however, was considered as inferior in poetical merit to the Panegyrick; and it is reported, that, when the king told Waller of the disparity, he answered, “Poets, sir, succeed better in fiction than in truth.” The Congratulation is, indeed, not inferior to the Panegyrick, either by decay of genius, or for want of diligence but because Cromwell had done much, and Charles had done little. Cromwell wanted nothing to raise him to heroic excellence but virtue and virtue his poet thought himself at liberty to supply. Charles had yet only the merit of struggling without success, and suffering without despair. A life of escapes and indigence could supply poetry with no splendid images.

In the first parliament summoned by Charles the Second (March 8, 1661), Waller sat for Hastings in Sussex, and served for different places in all the parliaments in that reign. In a time when fancy and gaiety were the most powerful recommendations to regard, it is not likely that Waller was forgotten. He passed his time in the company that was highest, both in rank and wit, from which even his obstinate sobriety did not exclude him. Though be drank water*, he was enabled by his fertility of mind to heighten the mirth of Bacchanalian assemblies; and Mr. Saville said, that " no man in England should keep him

* Aubrey says, " He has but a ten- at the water-stayres, he fell downe, and

nable drunke at Somerset House, where, company without drinking but Ned Waller.“The praisegiven him by St. Evremond is a proof of his reputation; for it was only by his reputation that he could be known, as a writer, to a man who, though he lived a great part of a long life upon an English pension, never condescended ta understand the language of the nation that maintained him. In parliament, Burnet says, Waller was the delight of the house, and though old, said the- liveliest things of any among them. 1 * His name as a speaker often occurs in Grey’s” Debates," but Dr. Johnson, who examined them, says he found no extracts that could be more quoted as exhibiting sallies of gaiety than cogency of argument. He was, however, of strch consideration, that his remarks were circulated and recorded; nor did he suffer his reputation to die gradually away, which might easily happen in a long life; but renewed his claim to poetical distinction, as occasions were offered, either by public events, or private incidents; and contenting himself with the influence of his* muse, or loving quiet better than influence, he never accepted any office of magistracy. He was not, however, without some attention to his fortune; for he asked from the king (in 1665) the provostship of Eton college, and obtained it; but Clarendon refused to put the seal to the grant, alleging that it could be held only by a clergyman. It is known that sir Henry Wotton qualified himself for it by deacon’s orders.

To this opposition, the author of his life in the “Biographia Britannica” imputes the violence and acrimony with which Waller joined Buckingham'! faction in the prosecution of Clarendon. If this be true, the motive was illiberal and dishonest, and shewed that more than sixty years had not been able to teach him morality. His accusation of Clarendon is such as conscience can hardly be supposed to dictate without the help of malice. “We were to be governed by janizaries instead of parliaments, and are in danger from a worse plot than that of the fifth of November; then, if the lords and commons had been destroyed, there had been a succession; but here both had been destroyed for ever.” This is the language of a man who is glad of an opportunity to rail, and ready to sacrifice truth to interest at one time, and to anger at another. who, after hearing the question argued by lawyers for tbrae days, determined that the office could be held only by a clergyman, according to the act of uniformity, since the provosts had always received institution as for a parsonage from the bishops of Lincoln. The king then said, he eould not break the law which he had made; and another (Dr. Cradock) was chosen. It is not known whether he asked any thing more, but he continued obsequious to the court through the rest of Charles’s reign.

At the accession of king James, in 1685, he was, in his eightieth year, chosen member for Saltash, in Cornwall, and wrote a “Presage of the downfall of the Turkish Empire,” which he presented to the king on his birth-day. James treated him with kindness and familiarity, of which instances are given by Fenton. One day, taking him into his closet, the king asked him how he liked one of the pictures: “My eyes,” said Waller, “are dim, and I do not know it.” The king said it was the princess of Orange. “She is,” said Waller, “like the greatest woman in the world.” The king asked who that was, and was answered, queen Elizabeth. “I wonder,” said the king, “you should think so but, I must confess, she had a wise council.” “And, sir,” said Waller, “did you ever know a fool chuse a wise one” When the king knew that he was about to marry his daughter to Dr. Birch, a clergyman, he ordered a French gentleman to tell him that “the king wondered he eould think of marrying his daughter to a falling church.” “The king,” said Waller, “does me great honour,in taking notice of my domestic affairs but I have lived long enough to observe that this falling church has got a trick of rising again.” He took notice to his friends of the king’s conduct; and said that “he would be left like a whale upon the strand.” Whether he was privy to any of the transactions which ended in the revolution, is not known. His heir joined the prince of Orange.

Having now attained an age beyond which the laws of nature seldom suffer life to be extended, otherwise than by a future state, he seems to have turned his mind upon preparation for the decisive hour, and therefore consecrated his poetry to devotion. It is pleasing to discoves that his piety was without weakness; that his intellectual powers continued vigorous; and that the lines which he composed when he, for age, could neither read nor write, are not inferior to the effusions of his yooth. Towards the decline of life, he bought a small house, with a little land, at Colesbill; and said, “he should be glad to die, like the stacr where he was roused.” This, however, did not happen.' When he was at Beaconsfield he found his legs swelled, and went to Windsor, where sir Charles Scarborough then attended the king, requesting him, as both a friend and a physician, to tell him what that swelling meant. “Sir,” answered Scarborough, your blood wiil run no longer." Waller repeated some lines of Virgil, and went home to die.

As the disease increased upon him, he composed himself for his departure; and calling upon Dr. Birch to give him the holy sacrament, he desired his children to take it with him, and made an earnest declaration of his faith in Christianity. It now appeared what part of his conversation with the great could be remembered with delight. He related, that being present when the dnke of Buckingham talked profanely before king Charles, he said to him, “My Lord, I am a great deal older than your Grace, and have, I believe, heard more arguments for Atheism than ever your Grace did; but I have lived long enough to see there is nothing in them; and so I hope your Grace will.”

He died October 21, 1687, and was buried at Beaconsfield, with a monument erected by his son’s executors, for which Rymer wrote the inscriptions on* four sides. He left several children by his second wife; of whom, his daughter was married to Dr. Birch. Benjamin, the eldest son^ was disinherited, and sent to New Jersey as wanting common understanding. Edmund, the second son, inherited the estate, and represented Agmondesham in parliament, but at last tufned Quaker. William, the third son, was a merchant in London. Stephen, the fourth, educated at New college, Oxford, was an able civilian, and died Feb. 22, 1707, while the articles for the unio of the British kingdoms, which he had contributed to frajiie and improve, were under parliamentary consideration. There is said to have been a fifth, but we have no account of him. Wai* ler’s descendants still reside at Be-aconsfield, in the greatest affluence.

The character of Waller, both moral and intellectual, has been drawn by Clarendon, to whom he was familiarly known, with nicety, which certainly none to whom he was not known can presume to emulate. “Edmund Waller,” says that excellent historian, “was born to a very fair estate, by the parsimony or frugality of a wise father and mother; and he thought it so commendable an advantage, that he resolved to improve it with the utmost care, upon which in his nature he was too much intent; and, in order to that, he was so much reserved and retired, that he was scarcely ever heard of till by his address and dexterity he had gotten a very rich wife in the city, against all the recommendation, and countenance, and authority, of the court, which was thoroughly engaged on the behalf of Mr. Crofts; and which used to be successful in that age against any opposition. He had the good fortune to have an alliance and friendship with Dr. Morley, who had assisted and instructed him in the reading many good books, to which his natural parts and promptitude inclined him, especially the poets; and, at the age when other men used to give over writing verses (for he was near thirty years of a&Q when he first engaged himself in that exercise, at least that he was known to do so), he surprized the town with two or three pieces of that kind; as if a tenth Muse had been newly born to cherish drooping poetry. The doctor at that time brought him into that company which was most celebrated for good conversation; where he was received and esteemed with great applause and respect. He was a very pleasant discourser, in earnest and in jest; and therefore very grateful to all kind of company, where he was not the less esteemed for being very rich. He had been even nursed iti parliaments, where he sat when he was very young; and so, when they were resumed again (after a long intermission), he appeared in those assemblies with great advantage; having a graceful way of speaking, and by thinking much upon several arguments (which his temper and complection, that had much of melancholic, inclined him to) he seemed often to speak upon the sudden, when the occasion had only administered the opportunity of saying what he had thoroughly considered, which gave a great lustre to all he said, which yet was rather of delight than weight. There needs no more be said to extol the excellence and power of his wit, and pleasantness of his conversation, than that it was of magnitude enough to cover a world of very great faults that is, so to cover them that they were not taken notice of to his reproach viz. a narrowness in his nature to the lowest degree; an abjectness and want of courage to support him in any virtuous undertaking an insinuating and servile flattery, to the height the vainest and most imperious nature could be contented with; that it preserved and won his life from those who were most resolved to take it, and on an occasion in which he ought to have been ambitious to have lost it; and then preserved him again from the reproach and contempt that was due to him for so preserving it, and for vindicating it at such a price, that it had power to reconcile him to those whom he had most offended and provoked; and continued to his old age with that rare felicity, that his company was acceptable when his spirit was odious; and he was at least pitied, where he was most detested.”

Such is the account of Clarendon; on which it may not be improper, says Dr. Johnson, to make some remarks. He was very little known till he had obtained a rich wife in the city.*' He obtained a rich wife about the age of three-and-twenty; an age, before which few men are conspicuous much to their advantage. He was known, however, in parliament and at court; and, if he spent part of his time in privacy, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he endeavoured the improvement of his mind as well as of his fortune. That Clarendon might misjudge the motive of his retirement is the more probable, because he has evidently mistaken the commencement of his poetry, which he supposes him not to have attempted before thirty. As his first pieces were perhaps not printed, the succession of his compositions was not known; and Clarendon, who cannot be imagined to have been very studious of poetry, did not rectify his first opinion by consulting Waller’s book. Clarendon observes also, that he was introduced to the wits of the age by Dr. Morley; but the writer of his Life relates that he was already among them, when, hearing a noise in the street, and inquiring the cause, they found a son of Ben Jonson under an arrest. This was Morley, whom Waller set free at the expence of 100l. took him into the country as director of his studies, and then procured him admission into the company of the friends of literature. But of this fact, says Johnson, Clarendon had a nearer knowledge than the biographer, and is therefore more to be credited.

Of the laxity of his political principles, and the weakness of his resolution, he experienced the natural effect, by losing the esteem of every party. From Cromwell he fiad only his recall; and from Charles the Second, who delighted in his company, he obtained only the pardon of his relation Hampden, and the safety of Hampden’s son. As far as conjecture can be made from the whole of his writing, and his conduct, he was habitually and deliberately a friend to' monarchy. His deviation towards democracy proceeded from his connection with Hampden, for whose sake he prosecuted Crawley with great bitterness; and the invective which he pronounced on that occasion was so popular, that twenty thousand copies are said by his biographer to have been sold in one day. It is confessed that his faults still left him many friends, at least many companions. His convivial power of pleasing is tiniversally acknowledged; but those who conversed with him intimately, found him not only passionate, especially in his old age, but resentful; so that the interposition of friends was sometimes necessary. His wit and his poetry naturally connected him with the polite writers of his time: he was joined with lord Buckhurst in the translation of Corneille’s Pompey; and is said to have added.ins help to that of Cowley in the original draught of the Rehearsal.