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As Dr. Watson lived in intimacy with the most illustrious and learned fellows of the royal society, so he was himself one of its most active members, and ever zealous in promoting the ends of that institution. For many years he was a frequent member of the council; and, during the presidentship of sir John Pringle, was elected one of the vice-presidents; which honourable office he continued to fill to the end of his days. He was a most constant attendant on the public meetings of the society; and on the private associations of its members, especially on that formerly held every Thursday, at the Mitre in Fleet-street, and afterwards at the Crown and Anchor tavern in the Strand. In 1784, Dr. Watson was chosen a fellow of the Royal-college of Physicians; and made one of the elects and, in 1786, he had the honour of knighthood conferred upon him; being one of the body deputed by the college to congratulate his majesty on his escape from assassination.

In general sir William Watson enjoyed a firm state of health. It was sometimes interrupted by fits of the gout; but these seldom confined him long to the house. In 1786, the decline of his health was very visible to his friends, and his strength was greatly diminished, together with much of that vivacity which so strongly marked his character. He died May 10, 1787.

Sir William Watson had a natural activity both of mind and body that never allowed him to be indolent in the slightest degree. He was a most exact oeconomist of his time, and throughout life a very early riser, being up usually in summer at six o‘clock, and frequently sooner; thus securing to himself daily two or three uninterrupted hours for study. In his younger days, these early hours were frequently given up to the purposes of simpling; but, in riper years, they were devoted to study. He read much and carefully; and his ardent and unremitting desire to be acquainted with the progress or’ all those sciences which were his objects, joined to a vigorous and retentive memory, enabled him to treasure up a vast stock of knowledge. What he thus acquired he freely dispensed. His mode of conveying information was clear, forcible, and energetic. His attention, however, was by no means confined to the subjects of his own profession, or those of philosophy at large. He was a careful observer of men, and of the manners of the age; and the extraordinary endowment of his memory had furnished him with a great variety of interesting and entertaining anecdotes concerning the characters and circumstances of his time. On all subjects, his liberal and communicative disposition, and his courteous behaviour, encouraged inquiry; and those who sought for information from him, seldom departed without it. In his epistolary correspondence he was copious and precise; and such as enjoyed the privilege and pleasure of it experienced in his punctuality another qualification which greatly enhanced its value. It appears by the character his biographer has given of him, of which the preceding is a part, that he was not less estimable in private than in public life.

, a French painter, was born at Valenciennes in 1684, of mean parents, who were ill al^le to cultivate his genius as it v deserved. He was placed at first under an ordinary master in the country; but his ambition led him to Paris, where he was employed in the theatre by a scene painter. Here his genius began to distinguish itself, and aspired to a prize in the academy, which he gained. He found means afterwards to obtain the king’s pension, which enabled him to see Rome, on which his heart had long been set. Here he was much taken notice of; as he was afterwards in England, where he spent a full year. His health declining, he returned into his own country with a view to establish it; but the experiment failed, and he died in the flower of his age in 1721, a martyr, as is commonly supposed, to industry, Watteau was a painter of great merit, considering his age and disadvantages. Every thing he gained was from himself. He had not only his own talents to form; but he had bad habits, contracted from bad masters, to overcome. In spite of all his difficulties, he became a very eminent painter; and his works are thought worthy of a place in the most curious cabinets. Vandyck and Rubens were the masters he copied after his studies became liberal. He painted chiefly conversation-pieces, in which the airs of his heads are much admired. It is thought he would have excelled in history if he had studied it. He left behind him a great number of drawings; some of which are done in red, others in black, chalk; and many there are in which both are mixed.

Lord Orford, who has included Watteau among his painters, allows that England has but very slight pretensions to him, he having come hither only to consult Dr. Mead, for whom he painted two pictures, that were sold in the doctor’s collection. He objects to Watteau, and it is a very serious objection, that in his landscapes, he did not copy his trees from nature, but from those of theTuilleries and villas near Paris, where they are trimmed into fantastical shapes.

, a very celebrated dissenter, Was born at Southampton, July 17, 1674. His father was the master of a boarding-school in that town, of very considerable reputation. He was a sufferer for non-conformity in the time of Charles II. and when at one time in prison, his wife, it is said, was seen sitting on a stone, near the prison-door, suckling her son Isaac.

This son, the eldest of nine children, was a remarkable instance of early attention to books. He began to learn Latin at the age of four, probably at home, and was afterwards taught Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, by the Rev. John Pinhorne, master of the free-school at Southampton, rector of All-Saints in the same place, prebendary of Leekford, and vicar of Eling in the New Forest. To this gentleman Mr. Watts afterwards inscribed an elegant Latin ode, which is inserted among his “Lyric Poems.” The proficiency he made at this school induced some persons of property to raise a sum sufficient to maintain him at one of the universities; but his determination was soon fixed to remain among the dissenters, with whom his ancestors had long been connected. In 1690, he went to an academy superintended by the Rev. Thomas Rowe, where he had for his companions Hughes the poet, and Horte, afterwards archbishop of Tuam, Mr. Samuel Say, afterwards an eminent preacher among the dissenters, and other persons of literary eminence. It is well known that Dr. Watts strove to wean Hughes from his attachment to the stage. In 1693, he joined the congregation which was under the care of Mr. Rowe, as a communicant.

His application at this academy was very intense, and perhaps few young men have laid in a larger stock of various knowledge. The late Dr. Gibbons was in -possession of a large volume in his hand- writing, containing twenty-two Latin dissertations upon curious and important subjects, which were evidently written when at this academy, and, says Dr. Johnson, “shew a degree of knowledge, both philosophical and theological, such as very few attain by a much longer course of study.” His leisure hours seem to have been very early occupied in poetical efforts. He was, as he hints in his miscellanies, a maker of verses from fifteen to fifty, and in his youth he appears to have paid attention to Latin poetry. His verses to his brother, in the gtyconick measure, written when he was seventeen, are remarkably easy and elegant. Some of his other odes, says Dr. Johnson, are deformed by the Pindaric folly then prevailing, and are written with such neglect of all metrical rules, as is without example among the ancients; but his diction, though perhaps not always exactly pure, has such copiousness and splendour, as shows that he was but a very little distance from excellence. The same biographer informs us, that “his method of study was, to impress the contents of his books upon his memory by abridging them, and by interleaving them to amplify one system with supplements from another.” To this Mr. Palmer adds, that it was his custom to make remarks in the margin of his books, and in the blank leaves, to write an account of what was most distinguishing in them, to insert his opinion of the whole, to state his objections to what he thought exceptionable, and to illustrate and confirm what appeared to him just and important.

At the age of twenty he left the academy, and spent two years in study and devotion at the house of his father, who treated him with great tenderness; and had the happiness indulged to few parents, of living to see his son eminent for literature, and venerable for piety.

At the end of this time, he was invited by sir John Hartopp, to reside in his family, at Stoke Newington, near London, as tutor to his son. Here he remained about four or five years, and on his birth-day that completed his twenty-fourth year, in 1698, preached his first sermon, and was chosen assistant to Dr. Chauncy, minister of the congregation in Mark- lane. About three years after, he was appointed to succeed Dr. Chauncy but had scarce entered on this charge when he was so interrupted by illness, as to render an assistant necessary; and after an interval of health he was again seized by a fever which left a weakness that never wholly abated, and, in a great measure checked the usefulness of his public labours.

While in this afflictigg situation, he was received into the house of sir Thomas Abney, of Newington, knight, and alderman of London, where he was entertained with the utmost tenderness, friendship, and liberality, for the space of thirty-six years. Sir Thomas died about eight years after Dr. Watts became an inmate in his family: but he continued with lady Abney, and her daughters, to the end of his life. Lady Abney died about a year after him; and the last of the family, Mrs. Elizabeth Abney, in 1782. “A coalition like this,” says Dr. Johnson, “a state in which the notions of patronage and dependence were overpowered by the perception of reciprocal benefits, deserves a particular memorial; and I will not withhold from the reader Dr. Gibbons’s representation, to which regard is to be paid, as to the narrative of one who writes what he knows, and what is known likewise to multitudes besides.”

The passage thus elegantly alluded to is as follows “Our next observation shall be made upon that remarkably kind providence which brought the doctor into sir Thomas Abney’s family, and continued him there till his death, a period of no less than thirty-six years. In the midst of his sacred labours for the glory of God, and good of his generation, he is seized with a most violent and threatening fever, which leaves him oppressed with great weakness, and puts a stop at least to his public services for four years. In this distressing season, doubly so to his active and pious spirit, he is invited to sir Thomas Abney’s family, nor ever removes from it till he had finished his days. Here he enjoyed the uninterrupted demonstrations of the truest friendship. Here, without any care of his own, he had every thing which could contribute to the enjoyment of life, and favour the unwearied pursuits of his studies. Here he dwelt in a family, which for piety, order, harmony, and every virtue, was an house of God. Here he had the privilege of a country recess, the fragrant bower, the spreading lawn, the flowery garden, and other advantages, to sooth his mind and aid his restoration to health; to yield him, whenever he chose them, most grateful intervals from his laborious studies, and enable him to return to them with redoubled vigour and delight. Had it not been for this most happy event, he might, as to outward view, have feebly, it may be painfully, dragged on through many more years of languor, and inability for public service, and even for profitable study, or perhaps might have sunk into his grave under the overwhelming load of infirmities in the midst of his days; and thus the church and world would have been deprived of those many excellent sermons and works, which he drew up and published during his long residence in this family. In a few years after his coming thither, sir Thomas Abney dies: but his amiable consort survives, who shews the doctor the same respect and friendship as before, and most happily for him, and great numbers besides, for, as her riches were great, her generosity and munificence were in full proportion: her thread of life was drawn out to a great age, even beyond that of the doctor’s, and thus this excellent man, through her kindness, and that of her daughter,-the present (1780) Mrs. Elizabeth Abney, who in a like degree esteemed and honoured him, enjoyed all the benefits and felicities he experienced at his first entrance into this family, till his days were numbered and finished, and, like a shock of corn in its season, he ascended into the regions of perfect and immortal life and joy.”

In this retreat, he wrote the whole or nearly the whole of those works which have immortalized his name as a divine, poet, and philosopher. He occasionally preached, and in the pulpit, says Dr. Johnson, though his low stature, which very little exceeded five feet, graced him with no advantages of appearance, yet the gravity and propriety of his utterance made his discourses very efficacious. Such was his flow of thoughts, and such his promptitude of language, that in the latter part of his life he did not precompose his cursory sermons; but having adjusted the heads, and sketched out some particulars, trusted for success to his extemporary powers.

He continued many years to study and to preach, and to do good by his instruction and example, till at last the infirmities of age disabled him from the more laborious part of his ministerial functions, and being no longer capable of public duty, he offered to remit the salary appendant to it, but his congregation would not accept the resignation. His income did not exceed one hundred pounds, of which he allowed one third to the poor.

His death was distinguished by steady faith and composure, and deprived the world of his useful labours and example, Nov. 25, 1748, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. He expired in that house where his life had been prolonged and made comfortable by a long continuance of kind and tender attentions, of which there are few examples.

Dr. Johnson’s character of him, in that admirable life he wrote for the English poets, may be received with confidence. Few men have left such purity of character, or such monuments of laborious piety. He has provided instruction for all ages, from those who are lisping their first lessons, to the enlightened readers of Malbranche and Locke he has left neither corporeal nor spiritual nature unexamined; he has taught the art of reasoning, and the science of the stars. His character, therefore, must be formed from the multiplicity and diversity of his attainments, rather than from any single performance, for it would not be safe to claim for him the highest rank in any single denomination of literary dignity; yet perhaps there was nothing in which he would not have excelled, if he had not divided his powers to different pursuits.

His entire works have been published in six volumes quarto, and more recently in octavo; but some pieces published under the title of his “Posthumous works,” are considered as spurious, with the exception of his letters to his friends, which probably are genuine. Of his philosophical compositions, those most likely to perpetuate his name, are his “Logic,” and “Improvement of the Mind.” In point of popularity, his “Psalms and Hymns” far exceed all publications of the last century, and it is said that for many years past, communibus annis, nearly fifty thousand copies have been printed of these in Great Britain, Ireland, and America.

Of late years a Very important part of Dr. Watts’ s character has been called in question. It has been confidently asserted by some anti-trinitarians, that before his death he was come over to their party, and that he left some papers behind him, containing a recantation of his former sentiments, which his executors thought it most prudent to suppress. But against this charge he has been defended by the late rev. Samuel Palmer of Hackney, who published, in J 785, “The Life of Dr. Watts,” &c. with, among other additions, “An authentic account of his last sentiments on the Trinity.” In this account Mr. Palmer endeavours to demonstrate that Dr. Watts never gave up the orthodox faith in the doctrine of the Trinity, but that he had somewhat altered his judgment with respect to the manner of expressing and maintaining it. Upon a careful perusal of the whole, we are inclined to think that Mr. Palmer has riot removed all the difficulties attending the question; although on the other hand he has ably and fully vindicated Dr. Watts from the last evidence to be produced from his own pen; and all that remains to affect the character of the doctor rests on an anonymous accusation in a literary journal, (Month. Rev. vol. LXVI. p. 170,) the author of which we suspect to be Dr. Kippis, who is no longer to be called upon for the proofs of his assertion. With respect to the reports propagated by some Arian and Socinian writers, that the author revised his Hymns and Psalms, a little before his death, in order to render them, as they say, “wholly unexceptionable to every Christian professor,” they are generally discredited. Yet in reliance on this report, editions have been published, in which his sentiments have been mutilated, with no sparing hand, to accommodate them to Socinian principles.

, a learned sufferer during the usurpation, was born near Lynn in Norfolk, about the end of the sixteenth century, and was educated at Caius college, Cambridge, where he took his degree of A. B. in 1610, and that of A. M. in 1614, in which last he was incorporated at Oxford in 1618. After leaving college, he travelled abroad and became master of various languages. On his return he was made chaplain in ordinary to king Charles I. In 1639 he took his degree of D.D. at Oxford, and had the living of St. Alban’s, Wood-street, but the time of his admission does not appear. He was afterwards chaplain under the earl of Arundel, general of the forces in the. Scotch expedition in 1639, and prebendary of Wells. About 1642, his living in London was sequestered, his wife and family turned out of doors, and himself compelled to fly. Some small pittance is said to have been afterwards given to his family out of the sale of his goods. He now joined the king, who appointed him to attend as chaplain upon prince Rupert, and he was present with his highpess in all his engagements. He also served under the prince on board of ship, and was with him when he was blocked up in the harbour at Kingsale in Ireland. While here, Dr. Watts was “taken with a distemper which no physic could cure,” and of which he died in 1649. Dr. Watts is often mentioned by Vossius, as one of the most learned men of his time. He had a principal hand in Spelman’s Glossary, and was the editor of Matthew Paris, a fine edition printed at London in 1640, fol. In the preface he acknowledges his obligations to sir Henry Spelman. He also published in 1631, a translation of “St. Augustine’s Confessions,” with marginal notes, &c. 12mo. Wood mentions some other treatises from his pen, but it seems doubtful if they were printed. Wood adds that he published, before the civil wars of England began, “several numbers of newsbooks,” which appear to be the newspapers called “The German Intelligencer,” 1630, and the “Swedish Intelligencer,” 1631; but he was educated for other and more important labours, had the unhappy circumstances of the times permitted him the quiet use and enjoyment of his time and talents.

, the illustrious founder of Magdalen college, Oxford, was the eldest son of Richard Patten, or Harbour, of Waynflete in Lincolnshire, by Margery, daughter of sir William Brereton, knight; and had for his brother John Patten, dean of Chichester, but the precise time of his birth is no where ascertained. According to the custom of his day, he took the surname of Waynflete from his native place. He was educated at Winchester school, and studied afterwards at Oxford, but in what college is uncertain. The historian of Winchester is inclined to prefer New college, which is most consistent with the progress of education at Wykeham’s school. Wood acknowledges that although his name does not occur among the fellows of New college, nor among those of Merton, where Holinshed places him, unless he was a chaplain or postmaster, yet “the general vogue is for the college of William of Wykehasn.” Wherever he studied, his proficiency in the literature of the times, and in philosophy and divinity, in which last he took the degree of bachelor, is said to have been great, and the fame he acquired as schoolmaster at Winchester, with the classical library he formed, is a proof that he surpassed in such learning as was then attainable.

Of his preferments in the church, we have no account, that is not liable to suspicion. Wood says that he was rector of Wraxall in 1433, which is barely possible, although at this time he was master of Winchester school; and that he was rector of Chedsey in 1469, which is highly improbable, because he had then been twenty years bishop of Winchester. It is, however, more clearly ascertained that about 1429 he was appointed head master of Winchester school, where he displayed great abilities as a teacher. In 1438, he was master of St. Mary Magdalen hospital near Winchester, which is supposed to have suggested to him the name and patroness of his foundation at Oxford.

In 1440, when Henry VI. visited Winchester for the purpose of inspecting the discipline, constitution, and progress of Wykeham’s-school, on the model of which he had begun to found one at Eton, he procured the consent of Waynflete to remove thither, with thirty- five of his scholars and five fellows, whose education our founder superintended until December 21, 1442, when he was appointed provost of that celebrated seminary. On the death of cardinal Beaufort in 1447, he was advanced to the see of Winchester, which he held for the long space of thirty-nine years, during which he amply justified the recommendation of the king, being distinguished “for piety, learning, and prudence.” His highness honoured with his presence the ceremony of his enthronement.

His acknowledged talents and political sagacity procured him the unreserved confidence of his royal master, who appears to have treated him with condescending familiarity, employed him in some affairs of critical importance, and received throughout the whole of his turbulent reign abundant proofs of his invariable loyalty and attachment. In 1450, when the rebellion of Jack Cade burst forth, Waynflete, who had retired to the nunnery of Holywell, was sent for by the king to Canterbury, and advised the issuing a proclamation offering pardon to all concerned in the rebellion, except Cade himself; in consequence of which the rebels dispersed, and left their leader to his fate. Soon after, when Richard, duke of York, took up arms, the king sent our prelate, with the bishop of Ely, to inquire his reasons for so alarming a step. The duke replied, that his only view was to remove evil counsellors from his highness, and particularly the duke of Somerset. Waynflete and his colleague having made this report, the king ordered the duke of Somerset to be imprisoned, and received the duke of York with kindness, who on his part took a solemn oath of future allegiance and fidelity; which, however, he violated at the battle of Northampton in 1460. In October 1453, Waynflete baptised the young prince of Wales by the name of Edward, afterwards "Edward IV. In October 1456, he was appointed lord high chancellor in the room of Bourchier, archbishop of Canterbury; and the following year he sat in judgment with the archbishop and other prelates, upon Dr. Reginald Pecocke, bishop of Chichester, who had advanced some doctrines contrary to the prevailing religious opinions. On this occasion the court was unanimous in enjoining Pecocke to a solemn recantation, and confinement to his house; his writings also were ordered to be burnt; but the archbishop, according to Mr. Lewis’s account, took a far more active share in this business than the chancellor.

Waynflete resigned the office of chancellor in the month of July 1460, about which time he accompanied the king to Northampton, and was with him a few days before the fatal battle near that place, in which the royal army was defeated. Waynflete’s attachment to Henry’s cause had been uniform and decided, yet his high character and talents appear to have protected him. Edward IV. treated him not only with respect, but with some degree of magnanimity, as he twice issued a special pardon in his favour, and condescended to visit his newly-founded college at Oxford, a favour which to Waynflete, embarked in a work which required royal patronage, must have been highly gratifying. The remainder of his life appears to have been free from political interference or danger, and he lived to see the quiet union of the houses of York and Lancaster, in the marriage of Henry VII. with Elizabeth of York. Besides his other preferments, he is said to have been chancellor of the university of Oxford; but his name no where occurs in Wood’s copious and accurate account of the persons who filled that office.

He died of a short but violent illness in the afternoon of Aug. 11, 1486, and was interred, with great funeral pomp, in Winchester cathedral, in a magnificent sepulchral chapel, which is kept in the finest preservation by the society of Magdalen-college. In his will he bequeathed legacies to all his servants, to all the religious of both sexes in Winchester, to all the clergy in that city, and to every fellow and scholar in Wykeham’s two colleges and his own.

His biographers have celebrated his piety, temper, and humanity. Besides the foundation of Magdalen-college, of which an ample detail is given in our authorities, he astablished a free-school in his native town, and was a benefactor to Eton college, Winchester cathedral, and other places. In these labours, while his munificent spirit induced him to hire the ablest artists, he displayed himself very considerable talents as an architect. Leland was informed that the greatest part of the buildings of Eton college were raised under his direction, and at his expence. In 1478 we find him overseer of the buildings at Windsor, an office formerly held by his great predecessor Wykeham, and it was from that place he sent workmen to complete the Divinity-school of Oxford.

, a distinguished antiquary, born in 1700, was regularly bred to the profession of the law: and was admitted an attorney before Mr. Justice Price, June 20, 1724: he lived then in the Old Jewry, but afterwards removed to Budge-row, and thence to Great Queen-street, Lincoln’s-Inn fields. He was peculiarly learned in the records of this kingdom, and particularly able as a parliamentary and constitutional lawyer. In 1747, he published “Observations on the Course of Proceedings in (he Admiralty-courts,” 8vo. In 1751. he assisted materially in obtaining the charter of incorporation for the Society of Antiquaries, remitting in that business the customary fees which were due to him as a solicitor; and on many other occasions proved himself a very useful member of that learned body. Purchasing a house and estate at Busbridge, Surrey, where he resided in the summer, it ga?e him 'an influence in the borough of Haslemere, for which he was chosen member in 1754, and again in 1761. He became, under the patronage of lord chancellor Hardwicke, secretary of bankrupts in the Court of Chancery, and was appointed one of the joint solicitors of the treasury in 1756. In July 1758, he obtained a silver medal from the Society of Arts for having planted a large quantity of acorns for timber. In 1760 he had the honour of presenting the famous Heraclean table to the king of Spain, by the hands of the Neapolitan minister, from whom he received in return (in November that year) a diamond-ring, worth 300l. In April 17G3, the period of Mr. Wilkes’ s being apprehended for writing “The North Briton,” No. 45, Mr. Webb became officially a principal actor in that memorable prosecution, but did not altogether approve of the severity with which it was carried on; and printed, on that occasion, “A Collection of Records about General Warrants;” and also “Observations upon discharging Mr. Wilkes from the Tower.” He held the office of solicitor to the Treasury till June 1765, and continued secretary of bankrupts till lord Northington quitted the seals in 1766. He died at Busbridge, June 22, 1770, aged seventy; and his Library (including that of John Godfrey *, esq. which he had purchased entire) was sold, with his Mss. on vellum, Feb. 25, and the sixteen following days, 1771. A little before his death he sold to the House of Peers thirty ms volumes of the rolls of parliament. His ms& on paper were sold, by his widow and executrix, to the late marquis of Lansdowne, and are now in the British Museum, The coins and medals were sold by auction the same year, three days sale; in which were all the coins and medals found in his collection at the time of his decease; but he had disposed of the most valuable part to different persons. The series of large brass had been picked by a nobleman. The noble series of Roman gold (among which were Pompey, Lepidus, &c.) and the collection of Greek kings and towns, had been sold to Mr. Duane, and afterwards formed part of the valuable museum collected by the late Dr. Hunter. The ancient marble busts, bronzes, Roman earthen-ware, gems, seals, &c. of which there were 96 lots, were sold in the above year. On the death of the late Mrs. Webb, the remainder of the curiosities was sold by Mr. Langford, Mr. Webb’s publications were, 1. “A Letter to the Rev. Mr. William Warburton, M. A. occasioned by some passages in his book, entitled ‘The Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated.’ By a gentleman of Lincoln’s Inn,” 1742, 8vo. 2. “Remarks on the Pretender’s Declaration and Commission,” 1745, 8vo. 3. “Remarks on the Pretender’s eldest Son’s second Declaration, dated the 10th of October 1745, by the author of the Remarks on his first Declaration,” 1745, 8vo. Of these

* Son of Benjamin Godfrey, esq, of aatiquities; and also of coins and

indolence or inactivity, and a great bought for about 100J. by T. Osborne,

1741. Mr. Godfrey (who was related before it wag unpacked. Of Mr. John to sir Edmondbury) was a person of Godfrey and hi* lady, good portraits

learning, and had a good collection are in the possession of Mr. Nichols. “Remark^' a second edition was published the same year. 4.” Excerpta ex Instruments publicis de Juda;is,“consisting of seven pages small 4to. 5.” Short, but true, tate of facts relative to the Jew-Bill, submitted to the consideration of the Public,“three pages small 4to. 6.” Five plates of Records relating to the Jews, engraven at the expence of Philip Carteret Webb, esq.“7.” The Question whether a Jew born within the British dominions was, before the making the late Act of Parliament, a Person capable by Law to purchase and hold Lands to him and his heirs, fairly stated and considered. To which is annexed an Appendix, containing copies of public records relating to the Jews, and to the plates of Records, by a gentleman of Lincoln’s Inn,“1753, 4to. Printed for Roberts, price 2s. 6d.” A Reply“to this, in the same size and at the same price, written, as it is supposed, by Mr. Grove, author of the Life of cardinal Wolsey, was printed for Robinson, Woodyer, and Swan. 8.” A short Account of some particulars concerning Domesday- Book, with a view to promote its being published,“1756, 4to. 9.” A short Account of Danegeld, with some farther particulars relating to William the Conqueror’s Survey,“1758, 4to. 10.” A State of Facts, in defence of his Majesty’s right to certain Fee-farm rents in the county of Norfolk,“1758, 4to. 11.” Ah Account of a Copper Table, containing two inscriptions in the Greek and Latin tongues; discovered in the year 1732, near Heraclea, in the Bay of Tarentum, in Magna Grecia. By Philip Carteret Webb, Esq. Read at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries the 13th of December, 1759, and ordered to be printed,“1760, 4to. 12.” Some Observations on the late determination for discharging Mr. Wilkes from his commitment to the Tower of London, for being the author and publisher of a seditious libel called ‘ The North Briton, No. 45.’ By a member of the House of Commons," 1763, 4to. He also printed a quarto pamphlet, containing a number of general warrants issued from the time of the Revolution; and some other political tracts, particularly at the time of the rebellion in 1745, on the close of which his abilities, as solicitor on the trials in Scotland, proved of eminent service lo the public. Mr. Webb was twice married; and by his first lady (who died in 'March 12, 1756) left one son of his own name. His second wife was Rhoda, daughter of John Cotes, esq. of Dodiogton, in Cheshire, by Khoda, one of the daughters and coheirs of sir John Huborn, barr. of Warwickshire; but by her he had no issue.

, a pious prelate, the son of a clergyman at Bromham in Wiltshire, was born there in 1581, and was entered first of University-college, Oxford, in 1598; but became the same year a scholar of Corpus-college. Here he took his degrees in arts r entered into holy orders, and was made minister of Steeple Aston in Wiltshire, where he also kept a grammar-school, as he afterwards did at Bath. In 1621 he was inducted to the rectory of St. Peter and St. Paul in Bath, being then bachelor in divinity. In 1624 he proceeded D. D. On the accession of Charles I. he was made one of his chaplains in ordinary, and in 1629 baptised his majesty’s first child, which died immediately after. He was consecrated bishop of Limerick, in Ireland, in December 1634. Before his death he was confined by the rebels in Limerick castle, where he died in the latter end of 1641, and was permitted by them to be buried in St. Munchin’s church-yard in Limerick. “He was a person of a strict life and conversation,” and esteemed the best preacher at the court of king Charles; and his published compositions are in a more pure and elegant style than those of most of his contemporaries. His principal work ishis “Practice of Quietness, directing a Christian to live quietly in this troublesome world.” We have not discovered when this was first published, but it had reached a third edition in 1631, and was afterwards often reprinted. The best edition is that of 1705, cr. 8vo, with his portrait and an engraved title-page. It is a work which gives a high idea of the author’s placid temper and pious resignation, amidst the confusions he lived to witness. His other publications are, 1. “A brief exposition of the principles of the Christian religion,” Loud. 1612, 8vo. 2. <c Arraignment of an unruly tongue, wherein the faults of an evil tongue are opened, the danger discovered, and remedies prescribed, &c.“ibid. 1619, 12mo. 3.” Agur’s prayer, or the Christian choice, &c.“ibid. 1621, 12mo. 4.” Catalogue protestantium: or the Protestant’s Calendar; containing a survey of the protestant religion long before Luther’s days,“ibid. 1624, 4to. 5.” Lessons and exercises out of Cicero ad Atticum," 1627, 4to. He published also some other books for grammar-schools, a Latin and English edition of two of Terence’s comedies; and several sermons, which appeared from 1609 to 1619.

, a royal academician, and a man of *ery considerable talents, was the son of a sculptor, a native of Berne in Switzerland, but was born in London in 1751. Part of his education as an artist he received at Paris, but afterwards entered the Royal Academy of London. He was elected an associate Nov. 5, 1785, and a royal academician in February 1791. In the last voyage which captain Cook made to the South-Seas, Mr. Webber was appointed draughtsman to the expedition, and when the two ships, the Discovery and the Resolution, arrived at St. Peter and St. Paul, Kamtschatka, Webber was obliged to act as interpreter between captain Gower and major Behm, he being the only person on board of ei her ships who understood German. From this voyage he returned in 1780, when he was employed by the lot (is of the admiralty to superintend the engraving of the prints (by Bartolozzi and other eminent artists) executed after the drawings which he had made, representing the different events and scenes that occurred in the voyage, the accuracy of which has been confirmed by subsequent experience. When this work was concluded, he published, on his own account, a set of views of the different places he had visited in the voyage. They were etched and aquatinted by himself, afterwards coloured, and produced a very pleasing effect. This work was in part completed, when his health declined, and, after lingering for some months, he died April 29, 1793, in the forty-second year of his age.

His works consisted of paintings and drawings; the former were chiefly landscapes, though he painted some figures representing the inhabitants of the South-Sea islands, but they were deficient in the drawing. His landscapes were pleasing, and carefully finished, but with rather too much attention to the minutiae, and the colouring frequently too gaudy. There is a picture painted by him in the council-chamber of the Royal Academy; but the best production of his hand is a small view, in the possession of Mr. Farington, R. A.

, ar learned and laborious divine, grandson to bishop Sparrow, was born in December 1689,. and having been admitted a student of Caius-college, Cambridge, there took his degrees of B. A. 1711, M. A. 1716, and D. D. 1752. In 1715 he was made curate of St. Dunstan in the West, London; and in 1725, edited the “Life of General Monk,” from the original manuscript of Dr. Skinner. This volume he Dedicated to the countess Granville, and to John lord Gower, who were descended from the family of Monk. His next production was, “The Clergy’s Right of Maintenance vindicated,” 8vo, which is also inscribed to lord Gower, who was afterwards his patron.

In 1729 he published “Two discourses; the first concerning the nature of error in doctrines merely speculative, shewing that the belief of such doctrines may be required of us as necessary terms of salvation; wherein also the case of positive institutions is considered: the second, shewing that the doctrine of the Trinity is not merely speculative. In answer to the arguments of Mr. Sykes and Mr. Chubb; with a preface, containing some remarks on the present times, particularly in relation to the Clergy.” In 1730 he published a translation of father Simon’s “New Testament,” with notes, &c. 2 vols. 4to and in the same year, “The duty of keeping the whole Law a discourse on St. James ii. 10, wherein are some seasonable remarks on the deists,” 8vo.

In 1731 he was removed from his curacy at St. Dunstan’s, and published in that year “The fitness of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Christ considered; in answer to the principal objections against them,” 8vo; and also two pamphlets and a letter in a newspaper, in defence of bishop Hare, who had been attacked by Gordon, the translator of Tacitus, on account of some passages in a 30th of January sermon. Being now out of employment, his eldest brother was at the expence of obtaining for him his doctor’s degree in divinity; but in August of the same year, 1732, bishop Gooch gave him the curacy of St. Clement Eastcheap, with a salary of 70l. and in February following he was presented by a relation to the rectory of Deptden in Suffolk, worth 102l. a year.

In 1733 Mr. Bowyer printed for him “A vindication of Eustace Budgeli,” probably in the affair of Dr. TindalPs will; and in that year he began “The Weekly Miscellany,” a periodical paper, under the name of “Richard Hooker, esq. of the Inner Temple,” but it was not much relished, nor of long continuance. In 1740 he was editor of a pamphlet concerning the woollen manufactory, the materials for which were furnished by one of the trade, and above 8000 of them were sold. During the remainder of his life, at least until 1757, he published a number of temporary pamphlets, and occasional sermons, with so little advantage to himself, that in the last mentioned year we find him soliciting the archbishops and bishops for charity. This was not altogether unsuccessful, although it does not appear to have satisfied his wants. In 1741 he had resigned his rectory and curacy for the vicarages of Ware and Thundridge, which, he informs us, were not very productive. His last publication was “A plain narrative of facts, or the author’s case fairly and candidly stated.” This he survived but a few months, dying Dec. 4, 1758.

Dr. Webster does not appear to have been entitled to much more respect than he received. He was undoubtedly a man of learning and acuteness, but so eager for profit and promotion, as seldom to regard the means by which they were acquired. One instance may suffice to give an idea of his character in this respect. In his “Plain narrative of Facts,” he informs us that he wrote a pamphlet (on the woollen trade) which had such great reputation all over the kingdom, that, without knowing who was the author of it, it was said that “he deserved to have his statue set up in every trading town in England.” Yet, when the demand for this pamphlet subsided, he actually published an answer to it, under the title of “The Draper’s Reply,” of which two or three editions were sold!

, a celebrated printer in Paris, began to print Greek authors in 1530, and flourished for more than twenty years. His editions were so extremely correct, that not above two faults were sometimes found in a folio volume, which was probably owing to his having had Sylburgius, one of the best scholars and critics then in Germany, for the corrector of his press. He was brought into trouble in 1534 for having sold a book of Erasmus, “De esu interdicto carniuui,” which had been censured by the faculty of divinity and, according to father Garasse, he fell into poverty for his impiety, in printing an anonymous book, in favour of the salvation of infants dying before baptism. However, from the flourishing circumstances of his son, Bayle infers that he was not reduced to poverty. The time of his death is not known; but we are not able to trace him beyond 1552.

, son of the preceding, was likewise a very able printer. Being a protestant, he went to Frankfort, about 1573; having left Paris, after the massacre on St. Bartholomew’s day, the year before. He himself relates the great danger to which he was exposed on the night of that massacre; and in what manner he was saved by the learned Hubert Languet, who lived in his house. He expresses his gratitude for it in the dedication of Albert Krantz’s “Vandalia,” printed at Frankfort in 1575; in which place he continued to print many great and important works. He died in 1581. It was at his house where our celebrated sir Philip Sidney lodged when at Frankfort, and where he became acquainted with Languet, then a resident from the elector of Saxony.

A catalogue of the books, which came from the presses of Christian and Andrew Wechel, was printed at Frankfort in 1590, 8vo. They are supposed to have had toe greatest part of Henry Stephens’s types.

, earl of Rosslyn, and lord high chancellor of England, the descendant of an ancient Scotch family, was the eldest son of Peter Wedderburn, of Chesterhail, esq. one of the senators of the college of justice, in Scotland. He was born Feb. 13, 1733, and bred to the law, in which profession some of his ancestors had made a very distinguished figure. He is said to have been called to the bar when scarcely twenty years of age, and was making some progress in practice when an insult, or what he conceived to be such, from the bench, determined him to give up the farther pursuit of the profession in that country, and remove to England. Accordingly he came to London, and enrolled himself as a member of the Inner Temple in May 1753, and after the necessary preparatory studies, was called to the bar in November 1757. One of his main objects during his studies here, was to divest himself as much as possible of his national accent, and to acquire the English pronunciation and manner, in both which he was eminently successful under the instructions of Messrs. Sheridan and Macklin.

He appears to have soon acquired a name at the bar, and to have formed valuable connections, particularly with lord Bute and lord Mansfield, for in 1763 he was made king’s counsel, and at the same time became a bencher of Lincoin’s Inn. He also obtained a seat in parliament, and soon had an opportunity of greatly improving his finances as well as his fame, by being the successful advocate for lord Clive. During his first years of sitting in parliament, he supported some of the measures of what were then termed the popular party; but had either seen his error, or his interest in another point of view, for in January 1771 he accepted the office of solicitor general, and from that time became a strenuous advocate for the administration who conducted the American war. In July 1778 he was appointed attorney-general, art office which even his enemies allow that he held with great mildness and moderation. It often happened to this distinguished lawyer, that his single advice had great influence with the party to which he belonged, and it is said that his opinion only was the means of saving the metropolis from total destruction by the mob of 1780. When his majesty held a privycouncil to determine on the means of putting a stop to these outrages, Mr. Wedderburn was ordered by the king to deliver his official opinion. He stated in the. most precise terms, that any such assemblage of depredators might be dispersed by military force, without waiting for forms, or reading the riot act. tf Is that yCur declaration of the Jaw, as attorney-general?“said the king; Mr. Wedderburn answering distinctly in the affirmative;” Then let it so be done," rejoined the king; and the attorney-general drew up the order immediately, by which the riots were suppressed in a few hours, and the metropolis saved.

Immediately after this commotion he was appointed chief justice of the common pleas, and called to the house of peers by the name, style, and title of lord Loughborough, baron of Loughborough, in the county of Leicester. In 1783 his lordship was appointed first commissioner for keeping the great seal; but as soon as the memorable coalition between loVd North and Mr. Fox look place, his lordship joined his old friend lord North, and remained in opposition to the administration of Mr. Pitt. It has been said that it was by his advice that Mr. Fox was led to act the unpopular part which lost him so many friends during his majesty’s indisposition in 1788-9. In 1793, when many members both of the house of lords and commons, formerly in opposition, thought it their duty to rally round the throne, endangered by the example of Fiance, lord Loughborough joined Mr. Pitt, and on Jan. 27th of that year, was appointed lord high chancellor of England, which ' office he held until 1801, when he was succeeded by thfe present lord Eldon. In Oct. 1795 his lordship obtained a new patent of a barony, by the title of lord Loughborough, of Loughborough in the county of Surrey, with remainder severally aud successively to his nephews, sir James Sinclair Erskine, bart. and John Erskine, esq. and by patent, April 21, 1801, was created earl of Rosslyn, in the county of Mid Lothian, with the same remainders.

His lordship, feeling the infirmities of age coming fast upon him, retired from the post of chancellor at this time, and lived chiefly in the country, sometimes at his seat, near Windsor, and also occasionally at Weymouth, when the royal family, at whose parties both he and his countess were frequent guests, happened to be there. By sobriety, regularity, and temperance, he doubtless prolonged a feeble existence, but at length died suddenly, at Baileys, between Slough and Salt Hill, on Thursday, January 3, 1S05, about one o'clock in the morning, in the seventysecond year of his age, of an apoplectic fit. He was interred a few days after in St. Paul’s cathedral.

His lordship was first married Dec. 31, 17G7, to BettyAnne, daughter and heir of John Dawson, of Morley, in the county of York, esq. but her ladyship dying, Feb. J5th, 1781, without issue, his lordship married, July 1782, Charlotte, daughter of William the first and sister to the late William, viscount Courtenay, but had no issue by her.

Lord Rosslyn never published but one. work, to which his name was affixed; this made its appearance in 1793, and was entitled “Observations on the state of the English Prisons, and the means of improving them; communicated to the rev. Henry Zou'ch, a justice of the peace, by the right hon. lord Loughborough, now lord high chan-, cellor of Great Britain.” For some tyme, Mr. Wraxall informs us, he was almost convinced that his lordship was the author of Junins’s letters, notwithstanding the severity with which he is treated in those celebrated invectives; but in this opinion few perhaps will now coincide.

It is difficult, says the most candid of his biographers, to speak of public men, so lately deceased, free from prejudices created by individual feelings. Lord Rosslyn appeared to be a man of subtle and plausible, rather than of solid talents. His ambition was great, and his desire of office unlimited. He could argue with great ingenuity on either side, so that it was difficult to anticipate his future by his past opinions. These qualities made him a valuable partizan and a useful and efficient member of any administration. Early in his public career he incurred the powerful satire of Churchill in a couplet which adhered to him for the remainder of his life. He had been destined for the Scotch bar; a fortunate resolve brought him to the wealthier harvest of English jurisprudence. His success was regular and constant; and in the character of solicitorgeneral he was long a powerful support to the parliamentary conduct of lord North’s ministry. When the alarm of the French revolution, which separated the heterogeneous opposition formed by the whigs under Fox, and the tories under lord North, obtained him a seat on the woolsack, he filled that important station during the eight years he occupied it, not, perhaps, in a manner perfectly satisfactory to the suitors of his court, nor always with the highest degree of dignity as speaker of the upper house; but always with that pliancy, readiness, ingenuity, and knowledge, of which political leaders must have felt the convenience, and the public duly appreciated the talent. Yet his slender and flexible eloquence, his minuter person, and the comparative feebleness of his bodily organs, were by no means a match for the direct, sonorous, and energetic oratory, the powerful voice, dignified figure, and bold manner of Thurlow; of whom he always seemed to stand in awe, and to whose superior judgment he often bowed against his will.

, an ingenious improver of the English pottery manufacture, was born in July 1730, and was the younger son of a potter, whose property consisting chiefly of a small entailed estate, that descended to the eldest son, Josiah was left, at an early period of life, to lay the foundation of his own fortune. This he did most substantially by applying his attention to the pottery business, which, it is not too much to say, he brought to the highest perfection, and established a manufacture that has opened a new scene of extensive commerce, before unknown to this or any other country. His many discoveries of new species of earthen wares and porcelains, his studied forms and chaste style of decorations, and the correctness and judgment with which all his works were executed under his own eye, and by artists for the most part of his own forming, have turned the current in this branch of commerce; for, before his time, England imported the finer earthen wares; but for more than twenty years past, she has exported them to a very great annual amount, the whole of which is drawn from the earth, and from the industry of the inhabitants; while the national taste has been improved, and its reputation raised in foreign countries.

It was about 1760 that he began his improvements in the Staffordshire potteries, and not only improved the composition, forms, and colours of the old wares, but likewise invented, in 1763, a new species of ware, for which he obtained a patent, and which being honoured by her majesty’s approbation and patronage, received the name of queen’s ware. Continuing his experimental researches, Mr. Wedgwood afterwards invented several other species of earthen-ware and porcelain, of which the principal are: 1. A terra cotta; resembling porphyry, granite, Egyptian pebble, and other beautiful stones of the siliceous or crystalline order. 2. Basaltes, or black ware; a black porcelain biscuit of nearly the same properties with the natural stone, receiving a high polish, resisting all the acids, and bearing without injury a very strong fire. 3. White porcelain biscuit; of a smooth wax-like appearance, of similar properties with the preceding. 4. Jasper; a white porcelain of exquisite beauty, possessing the general properties of basaltes; together with the singular one of receiving through its whole substance, from the admixture of metallic calces, the same colours which those calces give to glass or enamels in fusion; a property possessed by no porcelain of ancient or 1 modern composition. 5. Bamboo, or cane-coloured biscuit porcelain, of the same nature as the white porcelain biscuit. And 6. A porcelain biscuit remarkable for great hardness, little inferior to that of agate; a property which, together with its resistance to the strongest acids, and its impenetrability to every known liquid, renders it well adapted for the formation of mortars, and many different kinds of chemical vessels. The above six distinct species of ware, together with the queen’s ware first noticed, have increased by the industry and ingenuity of different manufacturers, and particularly by Mr. Wedgwood and his son, into an almost endless variety of forms for ornament and use. These, variously painted and embellished, constitute nearly the whole of the present fine earthen-wares and porcelains of English manufacture.

Such inventions have prodigiously increased the number of persons employed in the potteries, and in the traffic and transport of their materials from distant parts of the kingdom: and this class of manufacturers is also indebted to him for much mechanical contrivance and arrangement in their operations; his private manufactory having had, for thirty years and upward, all the efficacy of a public work of experiment. Neither was he unknown in the walks of philosophy. His communications to the royal society shew a mind enlightened by science, and contributed to procure him the esteem of scientific men at home and throughout Europe. His invention of a thermometer for measuring the higher degrees of heat employed in the various arts, is of the greatest importance to their promotion, and will add celebrity to his name.

At an early period of his life, seeing the impossibility of extending considerably the manufactory he was engaged in on the spot which gave him birth, without the advantages of inland navigation, he was the proposer of the Grand Trunk canal, and the chief agent in obtaining the act of parliament for making it, against the prejudices of the landed interest, which at that time were very strong. The Grand Trunk canal is ninety miles in length, uniting the rivers Trent and Mersey; and branches have been since made from it to the Severn, to Oxford, and to many other parts; with also a communication with the grand junction canal from Braunston to Brentford. In the execution of this vast scheme, he was assisted by the late ingenious Mr. Brindley, whom he never mentioned but with respect. By it he enabled the manufacturers of the inland part of Staffordshire and its neighbourhood, to obtain from the distant shores of Devonshire, Dorsetshire, and Kent, those materials of which the Staffordshire ware is composed affording, at the same time, a ready conveyance of the manufacture to distant countries, and thus not only to rival, but undersell, at foreign markets, a commodity which has proved, and must continue to prove of infinite advantage to these kingdoms; as the ware, when formed, owes its value almost wholly to the labour of the honest and industrious poor. Still farther to promote the interest and benefit of his neighbourhood, Mr. Wedgwood planned and carried into execution, a turnpike-road, ten miles in length, through that part of Staffordshire, called the pottery, thus opening another source t of traffic, if, by frost or other impediment, the carriage by water should be interrupted. His pottery was near Newcastle-under-Lyne, in Staffordshire, where he built a village called Etruria, from the resemblance which the clay there dug up bears to the ancient Etruscan earth.

On one occasion he stept forward in favour of general trade, when, in his opinion, Mr. Pitt’s propositions for adjusting the commercial intercourse between Great Britain and Ireland, threatened to be of very pernicious consequence to the British manufacturers. He was, therefore, in 1786, the founder and chief promoter of an association in London, called “The General Chamber of the Manufacturers of Great Britain.” Mr. Wedgwood was very assiduous in writing and printing upon this great national subject, and in consequence of so firm an opposition dje propositions were abandoned.

Mr. Wedgwood closed a life of useful labour, on January 3, 1795, in his sixty-fourth year. Having acquired a large fortune, his purse was always open to the calls of charity, and to the support of every institution for the public good. To the poor he was a benefactor in the most enlarged sense of the word, and by the learned he was highly respected for his original genius and persevering industry in plans of the greatest national importance. He had been for many years a fellow of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies.

, an industrious antiquary, is supposed to have been born in Lancashire in 1576; but the exact place of his birth does not appear to have been ascertained by his biographers. He was educated at Queen’s college, Cambridge, where he was admitted April 30, 1594, under doctor Robert Pearson, archdeacon of Suffolk, and shortly after went abroad in search of antiquities, a study to which he was peculiarly attached. He appears to have been at Liege and at Rome. At his return to England he travelled over most parts of that country, and of Scotland, under the protection and encouragement of sir Robert Cotton and the learned Selden. In 1631 he published his “Funeral Monuments,” and the next year died at his house in Clerkenwell-close, aged fifty-six. He was buried in St. James’s, Clerkenwell, with an inscription, In Strype’s Survey. The following epitaph is of his own composition:

And Cambridge education;

And this Church my humation;

And Christ to me hath given

Wood states him to have been a man of very diminutive size, and accuses him of being “too credulous in many matters.”

Weaver’s “Funeral Monuments” is a work of great information. It contains a variety of the most useful and entertaining matter, which must have cost the author much labour, but which he has not, as some say, executed with the greatest fidelity and diligence, being indeed very deficient in point of accuracy, especially in the numeral letters and figures. The title of the work is, “Ancient Fvnerall Monvments within the Vnited Monarchie of Great Britaine, Ireland, and the islands adiacent, with the dissolued monasteries therein contained: their founders, and what eminent persons haue beene in the same interred, etc. Intermixed and illustrated with variety of historicall observations, annotations, and briefe notes, extracted out of approued authors, infallible records, lieger bookes, charters, rolls, old manuscripts, and the collections of iudicious antiquaries, etc.: composed by the studie and trauels of John Weever. Spe labor levis. London, printed by Thomas Harper, 1631. And are to be sold by Lawrence Sadler, at the signe of the Golden Lion in Little Britaine.” Prefixed is an engraved title by Cecill: it contains pp. 871, exclusive of the dedication to king Charles, epistle to the reader, and index; and is illustrated with wood-cuts. The author dates his epistle “from my house in Clerkenwell-close, this 28th of May, 1631.” It appears that, had he lived, he intended to have published Modern Monumental Inscriptions, as a companion to his former work, of which a second edition appeared 1661, Lond. folio, with a head of Weever, and a third in 1766, 4to, with some improvements, by the rev. William Tooke, F.R.S. There are many of his original Mss. in the library of the Society of Antiquaries, and he is supposed to have been the author of a “History of Christ in verse,” noticed in the Censura Literaria.

, a modern German poet and miscellaneous writer of great fame in his country, was a native of Saxony, where he was born in 1726. He appears to have devoted the principal part of his life to literary pursuits, particularly poetry, the drama, and the principles of education. He obtained the place of electoral receiver for the circle of Upper Saxony, which probably made his circumstances easy, while it did not interrupt his numerous dramatic and other compositions. He died at Leipsic, Dec. 15, 1804, in the seventy-ninth year of his age. He wrote a great many tragedies and comedies, the former of which are esteemed by his countrymen equal to those of Racine, and his comedies had great success, although the German critics give the preference to his comic operas. They also speak in the highest terms of his Anacreontic odes, his Amazonian songs, and his translation of Tyrtaeus. He was a long time editor of the “Library of the Belles Lettres,” a much esteemed German literary journal. He published also a periodical work from 1776 to 1782, called the “Friend of Children,” collected afterwards into volumes, and consisting of many interesting articles calculated to promote a love of virtue and of instruction in young minds. In this he has had several imitators; and Berquin’s “Ami des enfans” is said to be little more than a translation or imitation of Weisse’s work. He published also “The correspondence of the family of the Friend of children,” in a periodical form, but which is said to be a new edition, in a more convenient shape, of his preceding work.

, a learned English divine, was the sbn of John Welchman of Banbury in Oxfordshire. He was born about 1665, and became a commoner of Magdalen hall in 1679. He took his degree of bachelor of arts in April 1683, was admitted probationer fellow of Merton college in 1684, and master of arts in June 1688. After entering into holy orders, he was presented by the society of Merton college to the rectory of Lapworth, with which he held that of Solihull in Warwickshire. He became also archdeacon of Cardigan. He died May 28, 1739. One of his sons was afterwards reduced to keep an inn at Stratford on Avon.

Mr. archdeacon Welchman’s chief publication was his illustration of the thirty-nine articles, written originally in Latin, but afterwards translated from the sixth edition, under the title of “The Thirty- nine articles of the Church of England, illustrated with notes, &c.” 8vo. Of this there have been many editions. He published also, 1. “A defence of the Church of England from the charge of schism and heresy, as laid against it by the vindicator of the deprived bishops (Mr. Henry Dodwell),” Loncl. 1692, 4 to. 2. “The Husbandman’s Manual: directing him how to improve the several actions of his calling, and the most usual occurrences of his life, to the glory of God, and benefit of his soul,” ibid. 1695, 8vo, written for the use of his. parishioners in Lapworth. 3. “Dr. Clarke’s Scripture doctrine of the Trinity examined,” Oxon. 1714, 8vo. 4, “A conference with an Arian,” &c. without his name, ibid. 1721, 8vo. Besides three occasional sermons, enumerated by Cooke, we may add an edition of Novatiaif s works, carefully corrected by our author, and published at Oxford in 1724, 8vo.

, a learned English divine, of whom we are sorry our materials are so scanty, was admitted a scholar at Westminster school in 1680, and was thence elected to Christ-church, Oxford, in 1686, where he proceeded M.A. in 1693, and B. and D. D, in 1704. He was a tutor in his college, and among others had under his care, the celebrated antiquary Browne Willis, who presented him to the rectory of Blechley in Buckinghamshire, where his nephew, Edward Wells, was his curate. Dr. Wells also obtained the rectory of Cottesbach in Leicestershire in 1717, and died in August 1727. Among Dr. Wells’s useful publications are, l.'“An historical Geography of the Old and New Testament, illustrated xvith maps and chronological tables,” 4 vols. 8vo. 2. “The young gentleman’s course of Mathematics,” 3 vols. 8vo. 3. “An historical Geography of the New Testament,” 8vo. 4. “Arithmetic and Geometry,” 3 vols. 8vo. 5. “A paraphrase, with annotations on all the books of the Old and New Testament,” 6 vols. 4to. 6. “An help for the right understanding of the several divine laws and covenants,” 8vo. 7. “Controversial Treatises against the Dissenters.” 8. “An Exposition of 'the Church Catechism.” 9. “Prayers on common occasions,” a sequel to the preceding. 10. “Harmonia Grammaticalis or a view of the agreement between the Latin and Greek tongues, as to the declining of words,” &c. 11. “A Letter to a friend concerning the great sin of taking God’s name in vain.” 12. “Elementa Arithmetics numerosoe et speciosae.” He published also some other tracts on subjects of practical religion, particularly specified in our authority; and was the editor of a good edition of “Dionysius’s Geography,” Gr. and Lat. Oxford, 1706. He was esteemed one of the most accurate geographers of his time.

, a nonconformist divine, the son of Mr. William Wells, of St. Peter’s East, in Oxford, was born there August 18, 16 J 4, and brought up in Magdalen college, but is not mentioned by Wood. He commenced M. A. in 1636; married Mrs. Dorothy Doyley, of Auborn in Wilts, 1637, being the twenty-second year of his age. He was ordained Dec. 23, 1638, at which time he kept a school in Wandsworth. He was assistant to Dr. Temple,* at Battersea, in 1639. In the war-time, for their security, he removed his family into Fetter-lane, London, about 1644; and about that time was in the army, chaplain to Col. Essex. He was fixed minister at Remnam, in Berks, 1647, where his income is said to be 200l. per annum, but not above twenty families in the parish. He was invited to Banbury in Oxfordshire; accepted the offer, and settled there in 1649, though a place of less profit, namely, about 100l. per annum. His reason for leaving Remnam was, that he might do good to more souls. When the troubles were over, he had the presentation of Brinkworth, said to be about 300l. per annum, but declined it for the former reason. When the Bartholomew-Act displaced him, he remitted 100l. due from Banbury; and afterwards would cheerfully profess, “that he had not one carking thought about the support of his family, though he had then ten children, and his wife big with another.” The Five-Mile act removed him to Dedington, about five miles distant from Banbury, but as soon as the times would permit, he returned to Banbury, and there continued till his death. There Mr. (afterwards Dr.) White, of Kidderminster, the church minister, was very friendly and familiar with him, frequently paying each other visits; and one speech of his, when at Mr. Weils’s, is still remembered. “Mr. Wells,” said he, “I wonder how you do to live so comfortably. Methinks you, with your numerous family, live more plentifully on the providence of God than I can with the benefits of the parish.” Mr Wells was of a cheerful disposition, and of a large and liberal heart to all, but especially to good uses. It was the expression of one who had often heard him preach, “That his auditory’s ears were chained to his lips.” As he used to hear Mr. White in public, so Mr. White, though secretly, went to hear him in private; and once, upon his taking leave, he was heard to say, “Well, I pray God to bless your labours in private, and mine in public.” There is a small piece of Mr. Weils’s printed; the title, “A Spirituall Remembrancer,” sold by Cockrell. >

, a minor poet and miscellaneous writer, born at Abington in Northamptonshire in 1689, received the rudiments of his education in Westminsterschool, where he wrote the celebrated little poem called “Apple-Pie,” which was universally attributed to Dr. King, and as such had been incorporated in his works. Very early inlife Mr. Welsted obtained a place in the office of ordnance, by the interest of his friend the earl of Clare, to whom, in 1715, he addressed a small poem (which Jacob calls “a very good one”) on his being created duke of Newcastle; and to whom, in 1724, he dedicated an octavo volume, under the title of “Epistles, Odes, &c. written on several subjects; with a translation of Longinus’s Treatise on the Sublime.” In 1717 he wrote “The Genius, on occasion of the duke of Marlborough’s Apoplexy;” an ode much commended by Steele, and so generally admired as to be attributed to Addison; and afterwards ' An Epistle to Dr. Garth, on the Duke’s death.“He addressed a poem to the countess of Warwick, on her marriage with Mr Addison; a poetical epistle to the duke of Chandos; and an ode to earl Cadogan, which was highly extolled by Dean Smedley. Sir Richard Steele was indebted to him for boih the prologue and epilogue to” The Conscious Lovers;“and Mr. Philips, for a complimentary poem on his tragedy of” Humfrey duke of Gloucester.“In 1718, he wrote” The Triumvirate, or a letter in verse from Palemon to Celia, from Bath,“which was considered as a satire against Mr. Pope. He wrote several other occasional pieces against this gentleman, who, in recompence for his enmity, thus mentioned him in his” Dunciad:"

“Flow, Welsted, flow like thine inspirer, beer; Though stale, riot ripe though thin, yet never clear; So sweetly mawkish, and so smoothly dull; Heady, not strong; o'ertlowing, though not full.”

In 1726 he published a comedy called “The Dissembled Wanton.” In the notes on the “Dunciad,” II. 207, it is invidiously said, “he wrote other things which we cannot remember.” Smedley, in his Metamorphosis of Scriblerus, mentions one, the hymn of a gentleman to his Creator: and there was another in praise either of a cellar or a garret. L. W. characterised in the “Bathos, or the Art of Sinking,” as a didapper, and after as an eel, is said to be this person, by Dennis, Daily Journal of May 1 ], 1728. He was also characterised under the title of another animal, a mole, by the author of a simile, which was handed about at the same time, and which is preserved in the notes on the Dunciad.

In another note, it is maliciously recorded that he received at one time the sum of five hundred pounds for secret service, among the other excellent authors hired to write anonymously for the ministry. That sum did certainly pass through his hands; but it is now well known that it was for the use of sir Richard Steele. And in a piece, said, but falsely, to have been written by Mr. Welsted, called “The Characters of the Times,” printed in 1728, 8vo, he is made to say of himself, that “he had, in his youth, raised so great expectations of his future genius, that there was a kind of struggle between the two universities, which should have the honour of his education; to compound this, he civilly became a member of both, and, after having passed some time at the one, he removed to the other. Thence he returned to town, where he became the darling expectation of all the polite writers, whose encouragement he acknowledged, in his occasional poems, in a manner that will make no small part of the fame of his protectors. It also appears from his works, that he was happy in the patronage of the most illustrious characters of the present age Encouraged by such a combination in his favour, he published a book of poems, some in the Ovidian, some in the Horatian, manner in both which the most exquisite judges pronounced he even rivalled his masters. His love- verses have rescued that way of writing from contempt. In translations he has given us the very soul and spirit of his authors. His odes, his epistles, his verses, his love-tales, all are the most perfect things in all poetry.” If this pleasant representation of our author’s abilities were just, it would seem no wonder, if the two universities should strive with each other for the honour of his education. Our author, however^ does not appear to have been a mean poet; he had certainly, from nature, a good genius; but, after he came to town, he became a votary to pleasure; and the applauses of his friends, which taught him to overvalue his talents, perhaps slackened his diligence; and, by making him trust solely to nature, slight the assistance of art. Prefixed to the collection of his poems is “A Dissertation concerning the Perfection of the English language, the State of Poetry,” &c.

Mr. Welsted married a daughter of Mr. Henry Purcell, who died in 1724; and by whom he had one daughter, who died at the age of eighteen, unmarried. His second wife, who survived him, was sister to sir Hoveden Walker, and to Mr. Walker, the defender of Londonderry. He had an official house in the Tower of London, where he died in 1747. His works were regularly collected in one octavo volume, and his fair fame as a man completely vindicated, by Mr. Nichols, in 1787.

, a Scotch physician and historian, was born near Edinburgh 1652, and educated at Glasgow; whence he went over to Holland with his parents, who were driven from Scotland in consequence of having been suspected as accessary to the murder of archbishop Sharp, in 1679. Having spent some years at Ley den, he took his degrees in physic, and came over with king William at the revolution. He was then appointed one of the king’s physicians for Scotland, and settled at Edinburgh, and became very eminent in his profession, acquiring a considerable fortune. Strongly attached to republican notions of civil government, he wrote a volume of “Memoirs of England from 1588 to 1688,” which although extremely well writien, yet betray plain marks of a party-spirit. He died at Edinburgh 1716, aged sixty-four.

, an eminent, but unfortunate statesman, of an ancient family, the son of sir William Wentworth of Yorkshire, was born April 13, 1593, in Chancery-lane, London, at the house of his maternal grandfather, a barrister of Lincoln’s-inn. Being the eldest of twelve children, and destined to inherit the honours and estate of the family, he was early initiated in those accomplishments which suited his rank; and completed his literary education at St. John’s college, Cambridge; but of the plan or progress of his early studies, no particulars have been preserved. His proficiency at the university seems, however, to have impressed his friends with a favourable opinion of his talents, and at a future period of his life, we find him patronising the cause of his university with much earnestness, and receiving their acknowledgments of his favours. Having occasion to represent some misconduct of a church dignitary who had been educated at Oxford, he could not help adding that such a divine was never produced at Cambridge. Notwithstanding this, somewhat illiberal, sentiment, it was not from his own university that he was destined to receive a tutor, when he commenced his travels. That office fell upon Mr. John Greenwood, fellow of University college, Oxford, of whom he long after spoke in the highest terms, and while he could retain him in his family, uniformly consulted him in all matters of importance. With this gentleman he spent upwards of a year in France.

The characteristic ardour of Wentworth’s affections began to be very early remarked; and as he was devoted to the interests of his friends, he proved no less decided in the prosecution of his enemies. Habituated to the indulgencies of a plentiful fortune, and unaccustomed to opposition, he was choleric in the extreme, and the sudden violence of his resentment was apt to transport him beyond all bounds of discretion. Yet this defect was in a great measure atoned for by the manliness and candour with which it was acknowledged. When his friends, who perceived how detrimental it must prove to his future welfare, frequently admonished him of it, their remonstrances were always taken in good part. He endeavoured, by watching still more anxiously his infirmity, to convince them of his earnest desire to amend: and his attachment was increased towards those who advised him with sincerity and freedom. Sir George Radcliffe, the most intimate of his friends, informs us, that he never gained more upon his trust and affection than when he told him of his weaknesses. On his return from abroad Wentworth appeared at court, and was knighted by king James, and about the same time married Margaret Clifford, the eldest daughter of the earl of Cumherland. In the following year (1614) he succeeded, by the death of his father, to a baronetcy, and an estate of 6000l. a year. His time was now occupied with the pleasures and cares which naturally attend a country gentleman of distinction, but he seems to have quickly attracted the notice of his county and of government; for he had not above a year enjoyed his inheritance when he was sworn into the commission of the peace, and nominated by sir John Savile to succeed him as custos rotulorum, or keeper of the archives, for the West Riding of Yorkshire, an office bestowed only on gentlemen of the first consideration. The resignation of Savile, although apparently voluntary, proceeded from some violent quarrels with his neighbours, the result of his restless and turbulent disposition; and even Wentworth soon became the object of his decided enmity. Having found means to interest in his favour the duke of Buckingham, who at that period governed the councils of king James, Savile meditated a restoration to his former office. At his instance the duke wrote to Wentworth, informing him that the king, having again taken sir John Savile into his favour, had resolved to employ him in his service; and requesting that he would freely return the office of custos rotulorum to the man who had voluntarily consigned it to his hands. Wentworth, instead of complying, exposed the misrepresentations of his antagonist; shewed that his resignation had been wnaog from him by necessity, and indicated his intention of coming to London to make good his assertion. The duke, though very regardless of giving offence in the pursuit of his purposes, did not, however, judge this a sufficient occasion to risk the displeasure of the Yorkshire gentlemen. He therefore replied with much seeming cordiality, assuring Wentworth that his former letter proceeded entirely from misinformation, and that the king had only consented to dispense with his service from the idea that he himself desired an opportunity to resign. This incident is chiefly remarkable as it laid the first foundation of that animosity with Buckingham which was the cause of many questionable circumstances in the conduct of Wentworth. The duke was not of a disposition to forget even the slightest opposition to his will; and Wentworth was not a man to be in*­jured with impunity.

A parliament having been summoned to meet in 1621, Wentworth was returned for the county of York, and appeared in the House of Commons at a period when an unusual combination of circumstances drew forth a singular display of address, intrepidity, and eloquence. The part which Wentwortb acted during the two sessions of this parliament, was circumspect and moderate. We indeed find him active in promoting the expulsion of a member who had spoken with much irreverence of a bill for repressing those licentious sports on the sabbath, which the royal proclamation had authorised; and when the king hazarded the assertion that the privileges of the commons were enjoyed by his permission, and their deliberations controulable by his authority, Wentworth urged the House to declare explicitly that their privileges were their right and inheritance, and the direction of their proceedings subject solely to their own cognizance. The abrupt dissolution of the parliament, he followed with expressions of regret and apprehension. Yet his language towards the court was always respectful, and his eloquence more frequently employed to moderate than to excite the zeal of his colleagues. Two years after, in 1624, another parliament was called, in which Wentworth, again returned, appears to have refrained from any particular activity. On the accession, however, of Charles I. he took his station among the most conspicuous of the party in opposition to the measures of the court. But this did not last long. Buckingham found means to conciliate him by expressions of esteem, and promises of future favour. These overtures were not unacceptable to Wentworth. To the request for his good offices, he replied “that he honoured the duke’s person, and was ready to serve him in the quality of an honest man and a gentleman.” The duke replied by cordial acknowledgments; and during the short remainder of the session Wentworth exerted himself to moderate the resentment of his party. This, however, did not remove the apprehensions of Buckingham, and therefore, when in 1625 another parliament was called, he took care that Wentworth should be nominated sheriff of the county, which office then included a disability to serve in parliament. Wentworth did all he could to avert this blow, but in vain; and he was flattering himself that he bore it with great composure and resignation, when Buckingham made him new overtures. Alarmed at the accusations preparing in parliament, and fearful of the general indignation bursting around him, Buckingham deemed it high time to conciliate some of those angry spirits whom his former insolence had exasperated. To Wentworth, whose vigour and influence were objects of dread, he forgot not to apply his arts; and, having called him to a personal interview, assured him that his nomination as sheriff had taken place without his knowledge, and during his absence; and begged thai all former mistakes should be buried in a contract of permanent friendship. The protestations of his grace were evidently false, his proffer of amity probably insincere; yet Wentworth met his advances with cordiality; and having again waited upon the duke, and experienced the most obliging reception he departed in full satisfaction for Yorkshire, to await, amidst his private and official avocations, the result of these favourable appearances.

These appearances, however, were delusive, and Wentworth either did not know Buckingham, or was blinded by his own ambition. Within a few days he received his majesty’s order to resign the office of custos rotulorum to his old antagonist sir John Savile, accompanied with circumstances which he felt as an insult. Yet we are told that he did not allow his passion to silence the voice of discretion, but took precautions that his quarrel with Buckingham should not prejudice him with the king, whom he might hope hereafter to serve in a superior capacity; and his intimacy with sir Richard Weston, chancellor of the Exchequer, furnished him with the means of executing these intentions. He particularly solicits his friend, at some favourable opportunity, to represent to his majesty the estimation in which he was held by the late king, his ardent attachment to his present sovereign, his unfeigned grief at the apprehension of his displeasure, and his eager desire to shew his affection and zeal by future services. To those friends who were acquainted with all this, it seemed strange and incomprehensible, when they saw Wentworth, not many months afterwards, boldly stand forward as the assertor of the popular rights, and resist the crown in its most favourite exertions of power. But this measure, says his late biographer, whom we principally follow, though to them it might bear the aspect of imprudence and temerity, was dictated by a profound appreciation of the intervening circumstances. Whatever may be in this, it is certain that when the king endeavoured to raise a loan without the aid of parliament, Wentworth, whether, as his biographer says, animated by patriotism, or led by a skilful ambition, refused to pay the demanded contribution; and having, before the privy council, persisted in justifying his conduct, he was first thrown into prison, and afterwards, as a mitigated punishment, sent to Dartford, in Kent, with a prohibition logo above two miles from the town. This confinement did not last long, for on the calling of a new parliament in 1628, he was released, and re-elected for the county of York.

In this parliament Wentworth condemned the arbitrary measures that had been adopted since they last met, and maintained that they were alike pernicious to the sovereign and the subject. He also was a strenuous advocate for that memorable declaration which was called a petition of right, and prevailed on the House to resolve, “that grievances and supply should go hand in hand, and the latter, in no case, precede the former.” When some proposed to rest satisfied with the king’s assurances of future adherence to law, without pressing the petition of right, he strenuously opposed this dangerous remission. “There hath been,” said he, “a public violation of the laws bj his majesty’s ministers; and nothing shall satisfy me but a public amends. Our desire to vindicate the subject’s rights exceeds not what is laid down in former laws, with some modest provision for instruction and performances.” When the lords proposed to add to the petition a saving clause, importing that all their pretensions for liberty still left entire the claims of royal authority, and using the new term “sovereign power,” instead of “prerogative,” Wentworth exclaimed against the evasion. “If we do admit of this addition,” said he, “we shall leave the subject in a worse state than we found him. Let us leave all power to his majesty to bring malefactors to legal punishment; but our laws are not acquainted with e sovereign power. We desire no new thing, nor do we offer to trench on his majesty’s prerogative; but we may not recede from this petition, either in whole or in part.”

Such were the sentiments which Wentworth was soon to abandon for the support of and a share in the measures of the court. Jt has already been seen that Wentworth, though violent, was not inflexible, and the ministers calculated right when they supposed he might be detached from his party. Possessed of an uncommon influence with that party, which had been evinced by their ready acquiescence in his suggestions, he had formerly shewn a willingness to engage in the service of the court, and had repaid its neglect by a bold, keen, and successful opposition. These and other considerations in favour of Wentworth were strengthened by the good offices of his friend Weston, who had lately been promoted to the office of lord high treasurer, and who now repaid his former confidence by a zealous patronage. But it was not by empty overtures, or some flattering professions of Buckingham, that Wenbworth, often deceived, and repeatedly insulted, was to be won from a party that yielded him honour by its esteem, and authority by its support. To an immediate place in the peerage, with the title of baron, was added the assurance of speedy promotion to a higher rank, and to the presidency of the council of York.

It will be difficult to vindicate lord Wentworth in this proceeding, although the attempt has been made by some of his biographers. Hume speaks of it with mildness and impartiality, and most readers will concur in his opinion. !< His fidelity to the king,“says this historian,” was unshaken; but as he now employed all his counsels to support the prerogative, which he had formerly bent all his powers to diminish, his virtue seems not to have been entirely pure, but to have been susceptible of strong impressions from private interest and ambition."

That his genius was better adapted to his present than his former situation, and that, in fact, he had hitherto been only acting a part ^ soon appeared from his conduct as president of the council of York. The council of York, or of the North, was peculiarly suited to the genius of an absolute monarchy. The same forms of administering justice' had prevailed in the four northern counties, as in other parts of England, till the thirty-first year of Henry VIII.; when an insurrection, attended with much bloodshed and disorder, induced that monarch to grant a commission of oyer and terminer to the archbishop of York, with some lawyers and gentlemen of that county, for the purpose of investigating the grounds of those outrages, and bringing the malefactors to punishment according to the laws of the land. The good effects of the commission in restoring tranquillity, caused its duration to be prolonged; and, on the re-appearance of commotions in those quarters, it was, in succeeding times, frequently renewed. An abuse gradually arose out of a simple expedient. Elizabeth, and after her, James, found it convenient to alter the tenour of the commission, to increase the sphere of its jurisdiction, and to augment its circumscribed legal authority by certain discretionary powers. And to such an ascendancy was this court raised, by the enlarged instructions granted to Wentworth, that the council of York now engrossed the whole jurisdiction of the four northern counties, and embraced the powers of the courts of common law, the chancery, and even the exorbitant authority of the star-chamber. Convinced that the monarch would in vain aspire to an independent supremacy, without imparting his unlimited powers to his subordinate officers, Wentworth still felt his extensive authority too circumscribed, and twice applied for an enlargement of its boundaries. His commission, says Clarendon, “placed the northern counties entirely beyond the protection of the common law; it included fifty-eight instructions, of which scarcely one did not exceed or directly violate the common law; and by its natural operation, it had almost overwhelmed the country under the sea of arbitrary power, and involved the people in a labyrinth of distemper, oppression, and poverty.” It is allowed also that the office had a bad effect on his temper, which, although naturally warm, had been long corrected by a sound and vigorous judgment; but now his passions often burst forth with a violence, neither demanded by the importance of the occasion, nor consistent with the former moderation of his character. In 1631 he was appointed lord-deputy of Ireland; and the following year, after burying his second wife and marrying a third, he went over to his new government, invested with more ample powers than had been granted to his predecessors. This, however, did not prevent him from soliciting a farther extension of those powers; and which accordingly he obtained. He found the revenue of Ireland under great anticipations, and loaded with a debt of 106,000l. This occasioned the army to be both ill clothed and ill paid, and the excesses of the soldiers were great. He set himself, however, in a short time, to remedy these inconveniences; and having procured the continuance of the voluntary contribution of the nobility, gentry, and freeholders, he was very punctual in the payment of the soldiers, which put a stop to many of their'disorders; and he was very successful in restoring military discipline. In July 1634, he assembled a parliament at Dublin, which granted six subsidies, payable out of lands and goods, each subsidy consisting of about 45, Ooo/. to be raised in four years; the greatest sum ever known to be granted to the crown in that kingdom. The disposal of this money being entirely left to lord Wentworth, he judiciously employed it in paying the army, in reducing the incumbrances upon the public, and in all branches of government. These services greatly recommended lord Wentworth to the king, who testified his satisfaction in what he had done; but it has been complained that his government was not equally acceptable to the people. He had greater abilities than policy, and by a haQghty behaviour irritated some of the most considerable persons in the kingdom.

Before he had been many months in Ireland, he solicited the king to raise him to the dignity of an earl, but had the mortification to meet with a repulse. The king seems to have been unwilling to bestow this honour on one who had incurred a considerable share of popular odium, and whose misconduct his majesty would have been thought to approve had he given such a decided proof of royal favour. About two years after, he made the same application to the king, who again declined the request, but now in a manner so pointed and decisive as seemed to bar all hopes of compliance. He assured Wentworth that the cause of his request, namely, to refute the malicious insinuations of his enemies, and prove that his majesty disbelieved their calumnies, would, if known, rather encourage than silence his enemies, who would become more bold and dangerous when they found that they were feared. But this did not reconcile Wentworth to the disappointment, which he continued to feel bitterly, until the king sending for him in September 1639, he was in January following raised to his long-desired dignity, the earldom of Stratford. At the same time he was raised from the title of deputy to that of lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and was likewise made a knight of the garter.

On his return to Ireland, where he remained about a fortnight, he sat in parliament, had four subsidies granted, appointed a council of war, and gave orders to levy 8000 men, which with 200O foot, and 1000 horse, which was the standing army in Ireland, and 5000 horse to be joined with them, were to be sent into Scotland, under his lordship’s command, to reduce that country to obedience.

He then embarked for England, although at that time labouring under serious indisposition. On his recovery, he was made lieutenant-general of the English forces in the North, but the king having agreed to a truce with the Scots, his lordship had business of a more serious nature to attend to. On Nov. 3, 1640, the parliament, called afterwards the long parliament, met, and was composed of men who were determined to redress what they called abuses, by their own authority. In this design, the only dangerous obstacle which they feared to encounter, was the vigour and talents of Strafford. While the popular leaders detested him as a traitor to their cause, and the Scots as the implacable enemy of their nation, all equally dreaded those abilities which had laid Ireland prostrate at his feet, and which had almost inspired the royal counsels with decision. While he continued at the head of an army, there was no security that he might not, by some sudden movement, confound and crush their projects; and nothing seemed, therefore, possible to be achieved, till his destruction was first accomplished.

The apprehensions of the king soon brought their dreaded adversary into their power. When he compared the management of an Irish parliament by Strafford, with his own abortive attempts in England, Charles, without duly weighing the difference of circumstances, was led to expect from this minister’s assistance, an issue no longer possible. Strafford hesitated to incur certain dangers in so hopeless a struggle. To the royal summons for his attendance in parliament, he replied by an earnest request that he might be permitted to retire to his government in Ireland, or to some other place whjere he might promote the service of his majesty; and not deliver himself into the hands of his enraged enemies. But to these representations Charles refused to listen; and, with too much confidence in a firmness which had so often failed him, he encouraged his minister by a solemn promise, that “not a hair of his head should be touched by the parliament.”

Strafford at length prepared to obey these repeated mandates; and having discovered a traitorous correspondence, in which his enemy Savile and some other lords had invited the Scots to invade England, he resolved to anticipate and confound his adversaries by an accusation of these popular leaders. But no sooner were the Commons informed that he had taken his seat among the peers, than they ordered their doors to be shut; and after they had continued several hours in deliberation, Pyrn appeared at the bar of the House of Lords; and in the name of the Commons of England, impeached the earl of Strafford of high treason. This charge was accompanied by a desire that he should be sequestered from parliament, and forthwith committed to prison; a request which, after a short deliberation, was granted. A committee of thirteen was chosen by the lower House, to prepare a charge against him. The articles of impeachment, produced at his trial, were twentyeight in number, and regarded his conduct, as president of the council of York, as lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and as counsellor or commander in England. It would be impossible to detail all the circumstances of his trial, which was conducted with great solemnity; but though four months were employed by the managers in framing the accusation, and all Strafford’s answers were extemporary, it appears from comparison, not only that he was free from the crime of treason, of which there is not the least appearance, but that his conduct, making allowance for human infirmities, exposed to such severe scrutiny, was innocent, and even laudable. The masterly and eloquent speech he made on his trial has always been admired as one of the first compositions of the kind in that age. “Certainly,” say Whitlocke, who was chairman of the impeaching committee, “never any man acted such a part, on such a theatre, with more wisdom, constancy, and eloquence, with greater reason, judgment, and temper, and with a better grace in all his words and actions, than did this great and excellent person; and he moved the hearts of all his auditors, some few excepted, to remorse and pity.” But his fate was determined upon. His enemies resolved to hasten it, at the expence of justice, by adopting a proceeding, which overstepped the established forms and maxims of law, and against which innocence could form no protection. Dreading the decision of the lords, if the charges and evidence were to be weighed by the received rules, they resolved to proceed by a bill of attainder: and to enact that Strafford was guilty of high treason, and had incurred its punishment. The commons endeavoured to veil the infamy of this proceeding, by an attempt, not less infamous, and still more absurd, to satisfy the legal rules of evidence. The advice of Strafford about the employment of the Irish army, and which, by a forced interpretation, was construed into a design to subdue England by that force, had hitherto been attested by the solitary evidence of sir Henry Vane; but an attempt was now made to maintain the charge by two witnesses, as the laws of treason required. The younger Vane, on inspecting some of jiis father’s papers, discovered a minute, as it appeared, of the consultation at which the words imputed to Strafford were alleged to have been spoken; and this minute was recognised by the elder Vane, as taken down by him at the time, in his quality of secretary. In reporting this discovery to the House, Pym maintained, in a solemn argument, that the written evidence of sir Henry Vane, at the period of the transaction, and his oral evidence at present, ought to be considered as equivalent to the testimony of two witnesses; and this extravagant position was actually sanctioned by the House, and adopted as a ground of their proceedings.

Several members, even among the personal enemies of Strafford, remonstrated against this complicated injustice, but in vain; and no obstacle could restrain the commons from pursuing their victim to death, nor were they without means to accelerate the progress of the bill of attainder in the upper House. As a warning to the lords, the namts of the fifty- nine commoners who had voted against it, were posted up in conspicuous places, with this superscription, “The Straffordians, the men who to save a traitor would betray their country.” The populace, indeed, were excited to every species of outrage, in order to intimidate the House of Lords as well as his Majesty, and they succeeded too well in both cases. Out of eighty lords who had been present during the whole trial, only forty-six now ventured to attend; and when the bill came to a vote, it was carried with eleven dissenting voices. The king, who dreaded that himself and family might fall victims to the vindictive rioters, summoned his privy-council to devise means for his safety, and they declared no other could be found but his assent to the death of Strafford; he represented the violence which he should thus impose on his conscience; and they referred him to the prelates, who, trembling under their own apprehensions, earnestly concurred in the advice of the privy-counsellors. Juxon alone, whose courage was not inferior to his other virtues, ventured to advise him, if in his conscience he. did not approve of the bill, by no means to assent to it,

Strafford, hearing of the king’s irresolution and anxiety, wrote a letter, in which he entreated his majesty, for the sake of public peace, to put an end to his unfortunate, however innocent life, and to quiet the tumultuous people by granting them the request for which they were so importunate. The magnanimity of this letter made little impression on the courtiers who surrounded the king; they now urged, that the full consent of Strafford to his own death absolved his majesty from every scruple of conscience; and after much anxiety and doubt, the king granted a commission to four noblemen to give the royal assent, in his name, to the bill, a measure ultimately as pernicious to Charles as it was now to Strafford, for with it was coupled his assent to the bill which rendered, this parliament perpetual. But so much was his majesty at this time under the presence of terror, or regard for Strafford, that he did not perceive that this last billwas of fatal consequence to himself. In fact, in comparison with the bill f attainder, this concession, made no figure in his eyes. A circumstance, says Hume, which, if it lessen our idea of his resolution or penetration, serves to prove the integrity of his heart, and the goodness of his disposition. It is indeed certain, that strong compunction for his consent to Strafford’s execution attended this, unfortunate prince during the remainder of his life; and even at his own fatal end, the memory ojf this guilt, with great sorrow and remorse, recurred upon him.

Strafford, notwithstanding his voluntary surrender of his life, in the letter he wrote to the king, was not quite prepared to expect so sudden a dereliction by his sovereign* When secretary Carleton waited on him with the intelligence, and stated his own consent as the circumstance that had chiefly moved the king, the astonished prisoner inquired it' his majesty had indeed sanctioned the bill? and when assured of the fatal truth, he exclaimed: “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the sons of men; for in them there is no salvation.” Resuming, however, his accustomed fortitude, he began now to prepare for his fate, and employed the short interval of three days, which was allowed him, in the concerns of his friends and his family. He humbly petitioned the House of Lords to have compassion on his innocent children. He wrote his last instructions to his eldest son, exhorting him to be obedient and grateful to those entrusted with his education; to be sincere and faiiliful towards his sovereign, if he should ever be called into public service; and, as he foresaw that the revenues of the church would be despoiled, he charged him to take no part in a sacrilege which would certainly be followed by the cnrse of Heaven. He shed tears over the untimely fate of Wandesford, whom he had entrusted with the care of his government, and the protection ofhis family, and who, on learning the dangers of his friend and patron, had fallen a victim to grief and despair. In a parking letter to his wife, he endeavoured to support her courage; and expressed a hope, that his successor, lord Dillofy would behave with tenderness to her and her orphans. On being refused an interview with sir George Radcliffe and archbishop Laud, his fellow-prisoners in the Tower, he conveyed a tender adieu to the one, and to the other an earnest request for his prayers and his parting blessing.

His latest biographer remarks, that the day of Stratford’s execution tnrew a brighter lustre over his name, than his most memorable transactions. As he.passed along to Towel Hill, on which the scaffold was erected, the populace, who eagerly thronged to the spectacle, beheld his noble deportment with admiration. His tall and stately figure, the grave, cigmfied symmetry of his features, corresponded with the general impression of his character: and the mildness-, which had taken place of the usual severity of his forehead, expressed repentance enlivened by hope, and fortitude tempered by resignation. In his address to the people from the scaffold, he assured them that he submilled to his sentence with perfect resignation; that freely and from his heart he forgave all the world. “I speak,” said he, “in the presence of Almighty God, before whom I stand: there is not a displeasing thought that ariseth iw me to any man.” He declared that, however his actions might have been misinterpreted, his intentions had always b^en upright: that he loved parliaments, that he was devoted to the constitution and to the church of England: that he ever considered the interests of the king and people as inseparably united; and that, living or dying, the prosperity of his country was his fondest wish. But he expressed his fears, “that the omen was bad for the intended reformation of the state, that it commenced with the shedding of innocent blood.” Having bid a last adieu to his brother and friends who attended him, and having sent a blessing to his nearer relations who were absent, “And now/' said he,” I have nigh done! -One stroke will make my wife a widow, and my dear children fatherless, deprive my poor servants of their indulgent master, and separate me from my affectionate brother and all my friends. But let God be to you and them all in all. 11 Going to disrobe, and prepare himself for the block, “I thank God,” said he, “that I am no wise afraid of death, nor am daunted with any terrors but do as cheerfully lay down my head at this time, as ever I did when going to repose.” He then stretched oat his hands as a signal to the executioner; and at one blow his head was severed from his body.

His execution took place May 12, 1641, in the fortyninth year of his age. Though his death, says Hume, wa loudly demanded as a satisfaction to justice, and an atonement for the many violations of the constitution, it may be safely affirmed, that the sentence by which he fell was an enormity greater than the worst of those which his implacable enemies prosecuted with so much cruel industry. The people in their rage had totally mistaken the proper object of their resentment. All the necessities, or, more properly speaking, the difficulties with which the king had been induced to use violent expedients for raising supply, were the result of measures previous to Stafford’s favour: and if they arose from ill conduct, he at least was entirely innocent. Even those violent expedients themselves which occasioned the complaint that the constitution was subverted, had been, all of them, conducted, so far as appeared, without his counsel or assistance. And whatever his private advice might be, this salutary maxim he failed not, often, and publicly, to inculcate in the king’s presence, that, if any inevitable necessity ever obliged the sovereign to violate the laws, this license ought to be practised with extreme reserve, and as soon as possible a just atonement be made to the constitution for any injury that it might sustain from such dangerous precedents. The first parliament after the Restoration reversed the bill of attainder; and even a few weeks after Stafford’s execution, this very parliament remitted to his children the more severe consequences of his sentence, as if conscious of the violence with which the prosecution had been conducted.

Stratford’s general character may be collected from the preceding sketch; but is more fully illustrated in his “Letters,” published in 1739, 2 vols. folio; and in an interesting sequel, published lately by Dr. Whitaker, in the “Life and Correspondence of Sir George Radcliffe,” 1810, 4to. A few particulars yet remain, gleaned by Dr. Birch from various authorities. Lord Strafford was extremely temperate in his diet, drinking, and recreations; but naturally very choleric, an infirmity which he endeavoured to controul, though upon sudden occasions it broke through all restraints. He was sincere and zealous in his friendships. Whitelocke assures us, that, “for natural parts and abilities, and for improvement of knowledge by experience in the greatest affairs, for wisdom, faithfulness, and gallantry of mind, he left few behind him, that might be ranked equal with him.” Lord Clarendon acknowledges, indeed, that the earl, in his government of Ireland, had been compelled, by reason of state, to exercise many acts of power, and had indulged some to his own appetite and passion; and as he was a man of too high and severe a deportment, and too great a contemner of ceremony, to have many friends at court, so he could not but have enemies enough. But he was a man, continues that noble historian, of great parts and extraordinary endowments of nature, not unadorned with some addition of art and learning, though that again was more improved and illustrated by the other; for he had a readiness of conception, and sharpness of expression, which made his learning thought more than in truth it was. He was, no doubt, of great observation, and a piercing judgment, both in things and persons; but his too great skill in persons made him judge the worse of things; for it was his misfortune to live in i time wherein very few wise men were equally employed with him, and scarce any but the lord Coventry (whose trust was more confined) whose faculties and abilities were equal to his. So that, upon the matter, hr relied wholly upon himself; and discerning many defects in most men, he too much neglected what they s.id or did. Of all his passions pride was most predominant; whkh a moderate exercise of ill fortune might have corrected and reformed, and which the hand of heaven strangeU punished by bringing his destriK tion upon him by two things that he most despised, the people, and sir Harry Vane. In a word, the epitaph, which Plutarch records, that Sylla wrote for himself, may not unfitly be applied to him, “that no man did ever exceed him, eitner in doing goo<l to his friends, or in doing misch ef to his enemies;” for his acts of both kinds were most notorious.

, the supposed author of a law work of great reputation and authority, was born in 1567, in Oxfordshire, of the family of the Wentworths, of Northamptonshire. He was entered of University college, Oxford, in 1584, and after remaining three years there> removed to Lincoln’s Tnn, studied law, and was admitted to the bar. In September 1607 he was elected recorder of Oxford, and in 1611 was Lent reader at Lincoln’s Inn. He also sat in several parliaments in the reigns of James I. and Charles I. for the city of Oxford. Wood says that in parliament he shewed himself “a troublesome and factious person,” and was more than once imprisoned. According to the same writer, he behaved so turbulently at Oxford, that he was discommoned with disgrace, but was afterwards restored. His restless spirit, however, returning, his friends advised him to retire, which he did to Henley. Some time after he went to London, and died in or near Lincoln’s Inn, in Sept. 1627. Such is Wood’s account. The work attributed to him is entitled “The office and duty of Executors,” &c. which, according to Wood> was published in 1612, 8vo, and has been often reprinted; the last edition in 1774, revised, with additions by the late serjeant Wilson. But there seems reason to doubt whether Wentworth was the original writer, for it has been ascribed by several authors to judge Dodderidge.

, a celebrated physician, was born at Schaft'hausen, Dec. 23, 1620. He studied at Strasburgh and Basle for eight years, and after having attended some of the learned medical professors of Italy for two more years, returned to Basle, and took his doctor’s degree in July 1647. In practice he was so successful, that his advice was in great demand, not only through Swisserland, but in the German courts, In 1675 the duke of Wirtemberg appointed him his physician, and some time afterwards the marquis of Dourlach, and the elector Palatine, bestowed the same title on him. His care and anxiety, in attending upon the duke of Wirtemberg in 1691, and upon the soldiers of i the imperial army commanded by the duke, was of great prejudice to his own health, which was at last fatally injured by his attendance on the army of the emperor Leopold, in which an epidemic fever prevailed. He contracted an asthmatic disorder, ending in a dropsy, of which he died January 28, 1695 His works, most of which have been often reprinted, are highly valued for practical utility, abounding in accurate and judicious observation. Among these we may enumerate his, 1. “Observationes anatomicae ex cadaveribus eorum quos sustulit Apoplexia; 1f this, after going through three editions, was published, at least twice, under the title of” Historia Apoplecticorum,“Amst. 1710, 1724, 8vo. 2.” Observations Medico-practice de affectibus capitis internis et externis," 1727, 4to, published by his grandsons, with his life, and a history of the disorder of which he died. This work was the result of fifty years observation.

, an eminent protestant divine, was the grandson of John James Werenfels, a clergyman at Basil, who died November 17, 1655, leaving ' Sermons“in German, and” Homilies on Ecclesiastes“in Latin. He was the son of Peter Werenfels, likewise an eminent protestant divine, born 1627, at Leichtal; wtio, after having been pastor of different churches, was appointed archdeacon of Basil in 1654, where he gave striking proofs of his piety and zeal during the pestilence which desolated the city of Basil in 1667 and 1668. His sermons, preached at that time from Psalm xci. have been printed. He was appointed professor of divinity in 1675, and died May 23, 1703, aged seventy-six, leaving a great number of valuable ”Dissertations,“some” Sermons,“and other works. His son, the immediate subject of the present article, was born March I, 1657, at Basil. He obtained a professorship of logic in 1684, and of Greek in the year following, and soon after set out on a literary journey through Holland and Germany, and then into France, with Burnet, afterwards bishop of Salisbury, and Frederick Battier. At his return to Basil he was appointed professor of rhetoric, and filled the different divinity chairs successively. He died in that city, June 1, 1740. His works have all been collected and printed in 2 vols. 4to; the most complete edition of them is that of Geneva and of Lausanne, 1739. They treat of philology, philosophy, and divinity, and are universally esteemed, particularly the tract” De Logomachiis Eruditorum.“In the same collection are several poems, which show the author to have been a good poet as well as an able philosopher and learned divine. We have also a vol. 8vo, of his” Sermons," which are much admired.

, an English divine, of whom some account may be acceptable, preparatory to that of his more celebrated son, was the son of a nonconformist minister, ejected in 1662. He was born about 1662. He was educated in nonconformist sentiments, which he soon relinquished, owing to the violent prejudices of some of his sect in favour of the murder of Charles I. He spent some time at a private academy, and at the age of sixteen walked to Oxford, and entered himself of Exeter college, as a servitor. He had at this time no mure than two pounds sixteen shillings, nor any prospect of 'future supply but from his own exertions. But by industry, and probably by assisting his fellow students, he supported himself until he took his bachelor’s degree, without any preferment or assistance from ^his friends, except five shillings. He now came to London, having increased his little stock to 10l. 15s. Here he was ordained deacon, and obtained a curacy, which he held one year, when he was appointed chaplain of the Fleet. In this situation he remained but a year, and returned to London, where he again served a curacy for two years, during which time he married and had a son. He now wrote several pieces which brought him into notice and esteem, and a small living was given him in the country, that, if we mistake not, of South Ormesby, in the county of Lincoln. He was strongly solicited by the friends of James II. to support the measures of the court in favour of popery, with promises of preferment if he would comply with the king’s desire. But he absolutely refused to read the king’s declaration; and though surrounded with courtiers, soldiers, and informers, he preached a bold and pointed discourse against it, from Daniel iii. 17, 18. “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.” When the revolution took place he wrote a work in defence of it, dedicated to queen Mary, who, in consequence of it, gave him the living of Epworth, in Lincolnshire, about 1693; and in 1723 he was presented to the living of Wroote, in the same county, in addition to Epworth, which last he held upwards of forty years.

In the beginning of 1705 he printed a poem on the battle of Blenheim, with which the duke of Marlborough was so well pleased, that he made him chaplain to colonel Lepelle’s regiment, which was to remain in England some time. In consequence of the same poem, a noble lord sent for him to London, promising to procure him a prebend; but unhappily he was at this time engaged in a controversy with the dissenters, who being in favour at queen Anne’s court, and in parliament, had influence enough to obstruct his promotion, and even to procure his removal from the chaplaincy of the regiment.

As a parish priest he was very exemplary in the discharge of his duties, which did not, however, divert him from literary pursuits, the most serious of which was the study of the scriptures in the original languages. One consequence of this was his Latin commentary on the Book of Job, “Dissertationes in librum Jobi.” This, which did not appear until after his death, was printed by Mr. Bowyer in a beautiful type, illustrated with cuts, and supported by a respectable list of subscribers. It appears to have been the most laboured of its author’s works. He collated all the copies he could meet with of the original, and the Greek and otjier versions and editions; and, after his labours and his library had been burnt with his house (which had suffered the like fate once before, about 1707), he resumed the task in the decline of life, opprest with gout and palsy through long habit of study. Among other assistances, he particularly acknowledges that of his three sons, and his friend Maurice Johnson.

As he had received much applause, and even promotion for his poetical efforts, we are not to wonder that he exercised this talent rather frequently, producing “The Life of Christ, an heroic poem,” 1693, folio, dedicated to the queen, and reprinted with large additions and corrections in 1697; “The History of the Old and New Testament attempted in verse, and adorned with three hundred and thirty sculptures, engraved by J. Sturt,” 1704) 3 vols. 12mo, addressed to queen Anne in a poetical dedication; “Maggots, or Poems on several subjects,” 1685, 8vo; and “Elegies on Q. Mary and Abp. Tillotson,” 1695, folio. His poetry, which is far from excellent, has been censured by Garth and others, but all concur in the excellence of his private character. His last moments, says Dr. Whitehead, were as conspicuous for resignation and Christian fortitude, as his life had been for zeal and diligence. He died April 30, 1735, leaving a numerous family of children, among whom were his sons Samuel, John, and Charles, and a daughter Mehetabel, a young lady of considerable literary talents and poetical fancy, who was unfortunately married to a Mr. Wright, a low man, who broke her heart. Some of her poems are printed in the sixth volume of the " Poetical Calendar.

, son of the preceding, was born about 1692, and sent to Westminster-school in 1704, and admitted a king’s scholar in 1707, whence he was elected to Christ- church, Oxford, in 1711. Here, as well as at Westminster, he acquired the character of an excellent classical scholar. He was the author of two poems of considerable merit, “The Battle of the Sexes,” and “The Prisons opened;” and of another called “The Parish-Priest, a Poem, upon a clergyman lately deceased,” a very dutiful and striking eulogy on his wife’s father; which are all printed among his poems, and several humorous tales, in 1736, 4to, and after his death in 1743, 12mo. He gave to the Spalding society an annulet that had touched the heads of the three kings of Cologne, whose names were in black letters within. When he took his master’s degree, he was appointed to officiate as usher at Westminster-school; and soon after he took orders, under the patronage of bishop Atterbury, to whom he was ever greatly attached, and the banishment of that celebrated prelate made no change in his friendship for him, as he was Fully convinced of his innocence. This attachment, and his opposition to sir Robert Walpole, barred all hopes of preferment at Westminster, but in 1732 he was appointed mas* ter of Tiverton-school in Devonshire, over which he presided till his death. Samuel Wesley was unquestionably the best poet of his family, but he was a very high-rhurchman, and totally disapproved of the conduct of his brothers, John and Charles, when they became itinerant preachers, being afraid that they would make a separation from the church of England. He died at Tiverton Nov. 6, 1739, and was buried in the church-yard there, with a long epitaph.

, the most celebrated of the family, and the founder of the society of Methodists, was the second son of the rev. Samuel Wesley, and was born at Epworth in Lincolnshire, June 17, 1703, O. S. His mother was the youngest daughter of Dr. Samuel Annesley, an eminent nonconformist, and appears to have been a woman of uncommon mental acquirements, and a very early student of religious controversies. At the age of thirteen she became attached to the church of England, from an examination of the points in dispute betwixt it and the dissenters; but when her husband was detained from his charge at Epworth by his attendance on the convocation in London, she used to admit as many of his flock as his house could hold, and read a sermon, prayed, &c. with them. Her husband, who thought this not quite regular, objected to it, and she repelled his objections with considerable ingenuity. It is not surprising, therefore, that she afterwards approved of her sons’ extraordinary services in the cause of religion.

In his sixth year John almost miraculously escaped the flames which consumed his father’s house, a circumstance which was alluded to afterwards in an engraving made of him, with the inscription “Is not this a brand plucked out of the burning?” After receiving the first rudiments of education from his mother, who also carefully instilled into her children the principles of religion, he was, in 1714, placed at the Charter-house, and became distinguished for his diligence and progress in learning. In his seventeenth year he was elected to Christ-church, Oxford, where he pursued his siudies with great advantage; his natural temper, however, was gay and sprightly, and he betrayed a consid. rahle turn for wit and humour He amused himself occasionally with writing verses, mostly imitations or translations from the Latin. When he conceived the purpose of entering into holy orders, he appears to have been sensibly struck with the importance of the office, and became more serious than usual, and applied himself with great diligence to the study of divinity; and as the character of his future life was in a great measure formed by his early studies, it may not be superfluous to mention that two of his most favourite books were Thomas a Kempisand bishop Taylor’s “Holy Living and Dying;” and, although he differed from the latter on some points, it was from reading him that he adopted his opinion of universal redemption, which he afterwards uniformly maintained. He now began to alter the whole form of his conversation, and endeavoured to reduce the bishop’s advice on purity of intention, aad holiness of heart, into practice. After his father had removed some scruples from his mind respecting the damnatory clause in the Athanasian creed, he prepared himself for ordination, and received deacon’s orders Sept. 19, 1725, from Dr. Potter, then bishop of Oxford. And such was his general good character for learning and diligence, that on March 17, 1726, he was elected fellow of Lincolncollege, though not without encountering some ridicule on account of his particularly serious turn. In April he left Oxford, and resided the whole summer at Epworth and Wroote, where he frequently filled his father’s pulpit.

On his return to the university in Sept. following he was chosen Greek lecturer, and moderator of the classes, Nov. 7, although he had only been elected fellow of the college in March, was little more than twenty-three years of age, and had not yet proceeded master of arts. Such honourable distinction appears to have increased his diligence; besides his theological studies, he studied the classics critically, and his occasional attempts in English poetry had beauty and excellence enough to be approved by the best judges of his time. On Feb. 14, 1727, he proceeded M.A. and acquired considerable credit by his disputation for that degree. He began about this time to separate himself from soci-ety, that he might not be diverted from those religious inquiries which now pressed upon his mind. His religious sentiments were not yet fixed; he had read much, perhaps as much as was necessary to be acquainted with the most common distinctions between Christians, but the principles on which he afterwards acted, were not yet settled. He appears to have had some thoughts of accepting the offer of a school in Yorkshire, and his chief inducement was its being represented as seated in a frightful, wild, and almost inaccessible situation, where he could run no risk of many visits. The school, however, was otherwise disposed of. yin the interim he laid down the following plan of study, from which, for some time, he never suffered any deviation: Mondays and Tuesdays were devoted to the Greek and Roman classics, historians, and poets. Wednesdays to logic and ethics. Thursdays to Hebrew and Arabic. Fridays to metaphysics and natural philosophy. Saturdays to oratory and poetry, chiefly composing. Sundays to divinity. Mathematics, optics, and the French language, appear likewise to have occupied his leisure hours.

In the month of August T?27, he left Oxford to become his father’s curate at Wroote, where he found time to pursue the above plan of study. In July 1728 he returned to Oxford with a view to obtain priest’s orders, and was accordingly ordained Sept, 22, by Dr. Potter. He immediately set out for Lincolnshire, and did not again visit Oxford tillJune 1729, where he found that his brother Charles, Mr. -Morgan, and one or two more, had just formed a little society, chiefly to assist each other in their studies, and to consult on the best method of employing their time to advantage. He joined them every evening until his return to Wroote, where he remained until Dr. Morley, rector of his college, induced him to quit his curacy and reside at Oxford, where he might get pupils, or a curacy near the city. His presence, however, being required by the statute, was Mr. Wesley’s principal inducement for leaving the situation, however humble, which he enjoyed under his father.

At Oxford he resided from Nov. 172y to Oct. 1735, and it was during this period that the first Methodist society was established, or rather begun. In the mean time he obtained pupils, and became a tutor in Lincoln college; he also presided in the hall a* moderator in the disputations, beld six times a week, and had the chief direction of the religious society, which, as we have already observed, had at first no other view than their own benefit. By the advice of one f the number, Mr. Morgan, a commoner of Christ Church, they began to visit some prisoners in the jail, and thence extended their visits to the sick poor in the city. In this they first 'met with some degree of encouragement, but afterwards had to encounter considerable opposition and much ridicule; and, among other names, were called Saoramentarians, because they partook of the sacrament once a week. But their principal name was Methodists^ alluding to a sect of ancient physicians so called, who were the disciples of Themison, and boasted that they found out a more easy method of teaching and practising the art of physic. In the mean time the society, which consisted only of John and Charles Wesley, Mr. Morgan before-mentioned, Mr. Kirkman of Merton college, Mr. Ingham of Queen’s, Mr. Broughton of Exeter, Mr. Clayton of Brasenose, Mr. James Hervey, and George Whitfield, continued to visit the prisoners, and some poor families in the town when they were sick; and that they might have wherewith to relieve their distress, they abridged themselves of all the superfluities and of many of the conveniences of life. They also took every opportunity of conversing with their acquaintance, to awaken them to a sense of religion; and by argument defended themselves as well as they could against their opponents, who attacked them principally because they thought all this superfluous, mere works of supererogation. But it does not appear that either they or the society itself had fear or hope of the important consequences that would follow.

In 1732 we find Mr. Wesley at London, whence he went to Putney, on a visit to the celebrated William Law, with whose writings he was greatly captivated. From this time also he began to read the “Theologia Germanica,” and other mystic writers, with whose opinions he coincided, as making religion to consist chiefly in contemplation, and inward attention to our own mind; but, says his biographer, it does not appear that he was less diligent in the instituted means of grace, nor less active in doing good to others than before. He was now known to many pious and respectable persons in London, who began to take notice of him. He heartily approved of the conduct of those welldispoaed persons who associated together to carry on a plan. for the suppression of vice, and spreading religion and virtue among the people; and in August 1732 was admitted into the society for the propagation of Christian knowledge.

By reading Law’s “Christian Perfection,” and his “Serious Call to a holy Life,” Mr. Wesley was confirmed in the views he before had of the effects which the gospel is intended to produce on the minds of those who sincerely embrace it; and was fully convinced of the absurdity and danger of being an half Christian. On Jan. 1,1733, he preached at St. Mary’s, Oxford, before the university, on the “circumcision of the heart.” His biographer says, that in this sermon “he has explained with great clearness, and energy of language, his views of the Christian salvation to be attained in this life; in which he never varied, in any material point, to the day of his death.” In this month he set out for Epworth; and the declining state of his father’s health occasioned his parents to speculate on the possibility of obtaining the living of Epworth for him, in case of his father’s demise. But to this he seems to have been indifferent, if not reluctant; he still wished to go back to Oxford, where in his absence there had been a great falling-off in his society; and when in the following year his. father wrote to him, requesting him to apply for the next presentation, he answered he was determined not to accept the living if he could obtain it, and gave the preference to Oxford, as the place where he could improve himself more than elsewhere, and consequently contribute rnotst to the improvement of others. It was in vain that his father and brother Samuel engaged in a controversy with him on the subject. His father died in April 1735, and the living was given away in, May, so that he now considered himself as settled at Oxford, without any wish of being further molested in his quiet retreat.

But a new scene of action was soon proposed to him,- of which he had not before the least conception. The trustees of the new colony of Georgia were greatly in want of proper persons to send thither to preach the gospel, not only to the colony, but to the Indians. They fixed their eyes on Wesley and some of his friends, as the most proper persons, on account of the regularity of their behaviour, their abstemious way of living, and their readiness to endure hardships. In August 1735, being in London, he was introduced to Mr. Oglethorpe, and the matter proposed to him. For some time he hesitated, in order to consider it, and take the advice of his friends, and then consented, and began td prepare for his voyage, along with his brother Charles, Mr. Ingham, and Mr. Delamotte, the son of a merchant in London. But his expedition was unsuccessful. The Indians were the intended objects of his ministry, but he found no opportunity of going among them, for general Oglethorpe wished to detain him at Savannah, Where the English had formed their settlement. Even here, however, be became frequently involved in disputes with the colonists. High-church principles, says one of his biographers, continually influenced his conduct; “an instance f which was his refusing to admit one of the holiest men In the province to the Lord’s Supper, though he earnestly desired it, because he was a dissenter, unless he would submit to be re-baptized.” He also refused the communion to a married lady, whom he had himself courted for a wife, which excited a powerful hostility against him, and occasioned his return to England, after a ministry in Georgia of about a year and nine months. He allows himself that all he learned was, what he least of all expected, that he “who went to America to convert others, was never himself converted to God.”

During his voyage to Georgia he had met with a company of Moravians, with whose behaviour he was greatly delighted; and on his return to England he met with a new company who had just arrived from Germany. From them he seems to have learned some of his peculiar doctrines, particularly instantaneous conversion, and assurance of pardon for sin. These discoveries made him desirous to go to the fountain-head of such, and accordingly he went to Germany, and visited the settlements of the Moravians. In 1738 he returned to London, and began with great diligence to preach the doctrine which he had just learned. His “Journals,” in which he records the whole progress of his ministry, discover a surprising state of mind, which it is difficult to characterize: considerable attention to the sacred Scriptures, with an almost total abandonment to impressions of mind, which would go to make the Scriptures useless: some appearance of scrupulous regard to the real sense of scripture, while an enthusiastic interpretation is put upon passages, according as they happen first to strike the eye on opening the Bible. Great success, we are told, attended his preaching, and yet some are said to have been “born again” in a higher sense, and some only in a lower. But in this anomalous spirit he was called to assist Mr. Whitfield, who had begun his career of field-preaching at Bristol, and was now about to return to Georgia. Mr. Wesley trod in Whitrield’s irregular steps at Bristol; though he confesses that he had been so tenacious of decency and order, that he should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin, if not done in a church. The multitudes which attended the preaching of Wesley were great, though not so great as those which had flocked to Whitfield;' but the sudden impressions, loud cries, and groans of the hearers, were far greater than any thing we find recorded in the life of Whitfield. It was in the neighbourhood of Bristol that the first regular society of methodists was formed, in May 1739, and laid the foundation of that unlimited power which Wesley afterwards exercised over the whole sect. The direction of the building at Kingswood was first committed by him to eleven feoffees of his own nomination. But for various reasons, urged by his friends, this arrangement was changed. One of those reasons, he says himself, “was enough, viz. that such feoffees would always have it in their power to controul me, and if I preached not as they liked, to turn me out of the room I had built.” He therefore took the whole management into his own hands: and this precedent he ever after followed, so that from time to time the whole of the numerous meeting-houses belonging to the methodists were either vested in him, or in trustees who were bound to admit him, and such other preachers as he should appoint, into the pulpits. Whitfield was one of those who advised this plan in the case of the Kingswood meeting, and was himself afterwards excluded from this very pulpit. Whitfield and Wesley had run their course together in amity, but on the return of the former from America, in 1741, a breach took place between them, both of them having now become more decided in their principles. Whitfield was a Calvinist, and Wesley an Arminian. “You and I,” said Whitfield, “preach a different gospel;” and after some unavailing struggles, principally on the part of their friends, to bring about a reconciliation, they finally parted, and from this time formed two sects, different in their form as well as principles, for Whitfield seems to have trusted entirely to the power of his doctrines to bring congregations and make converts,- while Wesley had already begun and soon perfected a gigantic system of connf:ction^ of which his personal influence was the sole mover. Although it is not our intention, and would indeed be impracticable, within any reasonable bounds, to give an account of the progress of the Wesley an method ism, we may mention a few links of that curious chain which binds the whole body. The first division of the society is a class. All those hearers who wish to be considered as members, must join a class. This is composed of such as profess to be seeking their salvation. About twelve form a class, at the head of which is the most experienced person, called a class-leader, whose business Mr. Wesley thus defines: “to see each person in his class once a week, at least, in order to inquire how their souls prosper; to advise, reprove, comfort, or exhort, as occasion may require: to receive what they may be willing to give to the poor; to meet the minister and the stewards of the society, to inform the minister of any that are sick, or disorderly, and will not be reproved, and to pay to the stewards what they have received of the several classes in the week preceding.” These classes, according to the present custom, meet together once a week, usually in the place of worship, when each one tells his experience, as it is called, giv*s a penny a week towards the funds of the society, and the leader concludes the meeting- with prayer. The next step is to gain admission into the bands, the business of which seems to be much the same with the other, but there is more ample confession of secret sins here, and consequently admission into these bands implies the members having gone through a higher degree of probation. They have also watch-nights, and love-feasts, which are merely meetings for prayer, exhortation, and singing, and are more general, as to admission, than the preceding. Against the classes and the bands, as far as confession of secret sins and temptations to sin are concerned, very serious objections have been urged, but they are too obvious to be specified. Wesley had always great difficulty in preventing this from being considered as equivalent to popish confession. Besides these subordinate societies, the methodists have a kind of parliamentary session, under the name of a conference, in which the affairs of the whole body are investigated, funds provided, and abuses corrected. The origin of the conference is said to have been this. When the preachers at first went out to exhort and preach, it was by Mr. Wesley’s permission and direction; some from one part of the kingdom, and some from another > and though frequently strangers to each other, and to those to whom they were senkj yet on his credit and sanction alone they were received and provided for as friends, by the societies wherever they came. But having little or no communication or intercourse with one another, nor any subordination among themselves, they must have been under the necessity of recurring to Mr. Wesley for directions how and where they were to officiate. To remedy this inconvenience, he conceived a design of calling them together to an annual confercnce: by this means he brought them into closer union with each other, and made them sensible of the utility of acting in concert and harmony. He soon found it necessary also to bring their itinerancy under certain regulations, and reduce it to some fixed order, both to prevent confusion and for his own ease. He therefore took fifteen or twenty societies, more or less, which lay round some principal society in those parts, and which were so situated, that the greatest distance from the one to the other was not much more than twenty miles, and united them into what was called a circuit. At the yearly conference he appointed two, three, or four preachers to one of those circuits, according to its extent, which at first was very often considerable; and here, and here only, they were to labour for one year, that is, until the next conference. One of the preachers on every circuit was called the assistant, because he assisted Mr. Wesley in superintending the societies and other preachers: he took charge of the societies within the limits assigned him: he enforced the rules every where, and directed the labours of the preachers associated with him, pointing out the day when each should be at the place fixed for him, to begin a progressive motion round it, according to a plan which he gave them. There are few parts of Mr. Wesley’s system that have been more admired, as a trick of human policy, than his perpetually changing the situations of his preachers, that they might neither, by a longer stay, become more agreeable, or disagreeable to their flock, than the great mover of all wished. The people felt this as a gratification of their love of variety; but it had a more important object, in perpetuating the power of the founder. The first of these conferences was held in 1744, and Mr. Wesley lived to preside at fortyseven of them.

In order to form the numerous societies of which the Methodists consist, Mr. Wesley’s labours as a preacher are without precedent. During the fifty years which compose his itinerant life, he travelled about 4500 miles every year, one year with another, which amount, in the above space of time, to 225,000 miles. It had been impossible for him to perform this almost incredible degree of labour, without great punctuality and care in the management of his time. He had stated hours for every purpose, and his only relaxation was a change of employment. For fifty-two years, or upwards, he generally delivered two, frequently three or four, sermons in a day. But calculating at two sermons a day, and allowing, as one of his biographers has done, fifty annually for extraordinary occasions, the N whole number during this period will be 40,560. To these may be added, an infinite number of exhortations to the societies after preaching, and in other occasional meetings at which he assisted.

At first it has been supposed that Mr. Wesley’s intention was to revive a religious spirit with the aid of regular clergymen; but he soon found it impossible to find a number sufficient for the extensive design he had formed. He therefore, although at first with some reluctance, employed laymen to preach, who soon became numerous enough to carry on his purpose. Ordination he long hesitated to grant, but at length the importunities of his coadjutors overcame his scruples, and he consented to give orders in imitation of the church of England, which, we believe, is now the practice with his successors. There were, however, but few things in which he gave way during what may be termed his reign. His most elaborate and impartial biographer, Dr. Whitehead, allows, that “During the time that Mr. Wesley, strictly and properly speaking, governed the societies; his power was absolute. There were np rights, no privileges, no offices of power or influence, but what were created or sanctioned by him; nor could any persons hold them except during his pleasure. The whole system of methodism, like a great and complicated machine, was formed under his direction, and his will gave motion to all its parts, and turned it this way or that, as he thought proper.” To Mr. Wesley’s other labours we may add his many controversial tracts against the bishops Lavington and Warburton, Drs. Middleton, Free, and Taylor, Hall, Toplady, &c. and his other works, on various subjects of divinity, ecclesiastical history, sermons, biography, &c. which were printed together in 1774, in 32 vols. 8vo, These and his other labours he continued to almost the last of a very long life. He died at his house near the chapel in the City-road, March 2, 1791, in the eighty, eighth year of his age.

His public, and much of his private character, have been appreciated according to the views of the parties who were interested in his success. He was unquestionably a good scholar, and as a writer was entitled to considerable reputation. His talents for the pulpit have also been praised, and it is certain they were successfully employed. He is said to have succeeded best in his studied compositions, but his many engagements seldom afforded him time for such. He has been praised for his placability, but some of those in controversy with him reluctantly subscribe to this. That he was extremely charitable and disinterested has never been denied. He died comparatively poor, after having had in a principal degree the management of the whole funds of the society. He lived upon little himself, and his allowance to his preachers was very moderate. On the past or future effects of the vast society he formed, we shall not hazard an opinion. That he originally did good, great good, to the lower classes, is incontestable. He certainly contributed to meliorate that important part of society, and to produce a moral effect that had never before been so evident, or so extensive. In his system, however, his great machine, we see too much of human policy acting on the imperfections of human nature, to admire it much.

John Wesley has had no successor. Even at the time of his decease dissentions existed and an interval of six: years produced an actual separation of the society. The liberties of their church, and the rights of the people, formed the grounds of dispute. On pretence of giving due support to the plan of itinerancy, some leading ministers had endeavoured to obtain an exorbitant degree of power over the community and junior preachers; and they managed the conference in a way which tended to secure this power. Disgusted at these arbitrary proceedings, a Mr. Kilham, and other members of the sect, applied to the general assembly for a redress of grievances, and for an admission of the laity to a proper share in the general government of the society. Repeated applications and remonstrances being wholly fruitless, and Mr. Kilham being expelled from the fraternity by the ruling party, about 5000 discontented members seceded from the connection in 1797, and formed independent arrangements on a popular basis. Dr. Whitehead allows that at present (1796) the preachers of the old society “claim unlimited powers, both to make laws and execute them, by themselves or their deputies, without any intermediate authority existing to act as a check in favour of the people. But what is still much worse than all the rest, is, that the present system of government among the methodists, requires such arts of human policy and chicanery to carry it on, as, in my opinion, are totally inconsistent with the openness of gospel simplicity. It is happy that the great body of the preachers do not enter into the spirit of it, and indeed know little about it: being content with doing their duty on the circuits to which they are appointed, and promoting the spiritual welfare of the people.” This bad form of government, however, has probably been changed, as we understand that the society is now harmonious and increasing.

Mr. Wesley’s brother and coadjutor, Charles, was born atEpworth, Dec, 18, 1708. He was first educated at home, under the care of his mother; but, in 1716, was sent to Westminster-school. In 1721 he was admitted a scholar on the foundation and at length became captain of the school. In 1726 he was elected to Christ-Church, Oxford at which time his brother John was fellow of Lincoln. Here he pursued his studies with remarkable diligence, and became more and more of a religious turn of mind. He proceeded master of arts in the usual course; and, in 1735, was pr/evailed upon by his brother John to accompany him in his mission to Georgia. Charles accordingly engaged himself as secretary to general Oglethorpe, in which character he left England; but he was first of all ordained both deacon and priest. After preaching to the Indians, and undergoing various difficulties and hardships, he returned to England in 1736. In England he officiated as a public minister among those of the Methodist persuasion with great popularity; sometimes residing in the metropolis, but generally as an itinerant preacher. In some points of discipline he differed much with his brother John. He died in 1788, in the 79th year of his age. He was of a warm and lively character, well acquainted with all texts of scripture; and his discourses were greatly admired. He was also respectable as a scholar and a poet, and was the author of the Hymns now used in the society. He left two sons, of great reputation in the musical world.

, one of the most learned men of the fifteenth century, was born at Groningen about 1419, and having lost his friends in his infancy, was sent by a benevolent lady, along with her only son, to be educated at a college at Swoll, which at that time happened to be in greater estimation than that of Groningen. This college was superintended by a community of monks, and Wesselus had at one time an inclination to have embraced the order, but was disgusted by some superstitious practices. After having studied here with great diligence, he removed to Cologne, where he was much admired for his proficiency, but already betrayed a dislike to the sentiments of the schoolmen. Being invited to teach theology at Heidelberg, it was objected that he had not received his doctor’s degree; and when he offered to be examined for that degree, he was told that the canons did not permit that it should be bestowed on a layman. Having therefore a repugnance to take orders, he confined his services to the reading of some lectures in philosophy; after which he returned to Cologne; and afterwards visited Louvain and Paris. The philosophical disputes being carried on then with great warmth between the realists, the formalists, and the nominalists, he endeavoured to bring over the principal champions of the formalists to the sect of the realists, but at lasthimself sided with the nominalists. He appears, however, to have set little value on any of the sects into which philosophy was at that time divided; and to a young man who consulted him concerning the best method of prosecuting his studies, he said, “You, young man, will live to see the day when the doctrines of Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and other modern disputants of the same stamp, will be exploded by all true Christian ditines, and when the irrefragable doctors themselves will be little regarded.” A prediction, says Brucker, which discovers so much good sense and liberality, that Wessel ought to be immortalized under the appellation of the Wise Doctor. Brucker admits him in his History of Philosophy, from the penetration which, in the midst of the scholastic phrenzy of his age, enabled him to discover the futility of the controversies which agitated the followers of Thomas, Scotus, and Occam. Some say that Wesseltis travelled into Greece, to acquire a more perfect acquaintance with the Greek and Hebrew languages than was then to be found in Europe. It is certain that he gained the esteem and patronage of Francis della Rovera, afterwards pope Sixtus IV. who, in an interview at Rome, offered him preferment. Wesselus desired only a copy of the Bible in Hebrew and Greek; and when the pope asked why he did not solicit for a bishopric, our philosopher replied, “Because I do not want one,” On his return he taught philosophy and philology at Groningen with great approbation, and died here Oct. 4, 1489. On his death-bed he was perplexed with doubts, which were soon relieved. His biographer says, that, “Being visited, in the sickness which brought him to his end, by a friend, who inquired after his health, he replied, that ‘he was pretty well, considering his advanced age, and the nature of his indisposition but that one thing made him very uneasy, viz. that being greatly perplexed with various thoughts and arguments, he began to entertain some little doubts with respect to the truth of the Christian religion.’ His friend was much surprised, and immediately exhorted him to direct all his thoughts to Christ the only Saviour; but, finding that such an admonition was displeasing, he went away deeply afflicted. But an hour or two after, Wesselus seeing his friend come back to him, he said, with an air of as much satisfaction and joy as one in his weak condition cpuld discover, < God be praised all those vain doubts are fled and now, all I know is Jesus Christ, and Rim crucified' after which confession he resigned his soul to God.” It appears that his religious sentiments were in many respects contrary to those of the Romish church, and some even called him the forerunner of Luther. Many of his Mss. were burnrd after his death by the contrivance of the monks, but what his friends saved were published at Groningen in 1614, consisting of “Tractatus de Oratione -r- de cohibendis cogitationibus de causis incarnationis de sacramento euchanstiae Farrago rerum Theologicarum epistolsp,” &c. Foppens, however, mentions an edition prior to this, published by Luther in 1525, and another at Marpurg in 1617, 4to.

, a very estimable writer, was the son of Dr. West, the editor of “Pindar” in 1^697, who died in 1716, and his mother was sister to sir Richard Temple, afterwards lord Cobham. His father, purposing to educate him for the church, sent him first to Eton, and afterwards to Oxford; but he was seduced to a more airy mode of life by a commission in a troop of horse, procured him by his uncle. He continued some time in the army, but probably never lost the love, or neglected the pursuit of learning; and afterwards, finding himself more inclined to civil employment, he laid down his commission, and engaged in business under lord Townshend, then secretary of state, with whom he attended the king to Hanover. His adherence to lord Townshend ended in nothing but a nominatioin (May 1729) to be clerk-extraordinary of the Privy. Council, which produced no immediate profit; for it only placed him in a state of expectation and ri^ht of succession, and it was very long before a vacancy admitted him to profit.

Soon afterwards he married, and settled himself in a very pleasant house at Wickham in Kent, where he devoted himself to learning and to piety. Of his learning his works exhibit evidence, and particularly the dissertations which accompany his version of Pindar. Of his piety the influence has probably been extended far by his “Observations on the Resurrection,” published in 1747, for which the university of Oxford created him a doctor of laws by diploma, March 30, 174S, and would doubtless have reached yet further had he lived to complete what he had for some time meditated, the Evidences of the Truth of the New Testament. Perhaps it may not be without effect to tell, that he read the prayers of the public liturgy every morning to his family, and that on Sunday evening he called his servants into the parlour, and read to them first a sermon, and then prayers. Crashaw is now not the only maker of verses to whom may be given the two venerable names of poet and saint.

He was very often visited by Lyttelton and Pitt, who, when they were weary of faction and debates, used at Wickham to find books and quiet, a decent table, and literary conversation. There is at Wickham a walk made by Pitt; and, what is of far more importance, at Wickham Lyttelton received that conviction which produced his "Dissertation on St. Paul. 7 ' These two illustrious friends had for a while listened to the blandishments of infidelity; and when West’s book was published, it was bought by some who did not know his change of opinion, in expectation of new objections against Christianity; and, as infidels do not want malignity, they revenged the disappointment by calling him a methodist.

West’s income was not large; and his friends endeavoured, but without success, to obtain an augmentation. It is reported, that the education of the young prince, now George III. was offered to him, but that he required a more extensive power of superintendance than it was thought proper to allow him. In time, however, his revenue was improved. He lived to have one of the lucrative clerkships of the privy-council in 1752, and Mr. Pitt afterwards made him treasurer of Chelsea-hospital. He was now sufficiently rich, but wealth came too late to be long enjoyed, nor could it secure him from the calamities of life. In 1755 he lost his only son; and on March 26, of the year following, a stroke of the palsy brought to the grave, says Dr. Johnson, “one of the few poets to whom the grave might be without its terrors.”

Of his poetical works, his version of Pindar, although it discovers many imperfections, appears to be the product of great labour and great abilities. His “Institution of the Garter” is written with sufficient knowledge of the manners that prevailed in the age to which it is referred, and with great elegance of diction; but, for want of a process of events, neither knowledge nor elegance preserve the reader from weariness. His “Imitations of Spenser” are very successfully performed, both with respect to the metre, the language, and the fiction; and being engaged at once by the excellence of the sentiments, and the artifice of the copy, the mind has two amusements together. But such compositions, says Johnson, are not to be reckoned among the great atchievements of intellect, because their effect is local and temporary they appeal not to reason or passion, but to memory, and pre-suppose an accidental or artificial state of mind. An imitation of Spenser is nothing to a reader, however acute, by whom Spenser has never been perused. Works of this Idnd may deserve praise, as proofs of great industry, and great nicety of observation; but the highest praise, the praise of genius, they cannot claim. The noblest beauties of art ar x e those of which the effect is co-extended with rational nature, or at least with the whole circle of polished life; what is less than this can be only pretty, the plaything of fashion, and the amusement of a day.

The private character of Mr. West was truly amiable and excellent. In him the Christian, the scholar, and the gentleman were happily united. His private virtues and social qualities were such, as justly endeared him to his friends and acquaintances. In his manner of life he was very regular and exemplary. He corresponded on very intimate and friendly terms with Dr. Doddridge, whose “Family Expositor” was ushered into the world by a recommendation from him; and he also wrote the doctor’s epitaph.

, a gentleman of literary talents, and long known for his fine library and museum, was the son of Richard West, esq. of Alscott, in Warwickshire, said to be descended, according to family tradition, frona Leonard, a younger son of Thomas West, lord De la Warr, who died in 1525. He was educated at Baliol college, Oxford, where he took his degree of M. A. in 1726. He had an early attachment to the study of antiquities, and was elected F. S. A. in 1726, and was afterwards one of the vice-presidents. Of the Royal Society likewise he became a fellow in the same year, and was first treasurer, from Nov. 1736 to Nov. 1768, when he was elected president, and held that honourable office until his death, July 2, 1772. In 1741 he was chosen one of the representatives in parliament for St. Alban’s, and, being appointed one of the joint secretaries of the treasury, he continued in that office until 1762. His old patron, the duke of Newcastle, afterwards procured him a pension of 2000l. For what services so large a sum was granted, we are not told.

Mr. West married the daughter and heiress of sir Thomas Stephens, timber-merchant in Southwark, who brought him a valuable estate in Rotherhithe; and by her he had a son, James, who was auditor of the land-tax for the counties of Lincoln, Nottingham, Chester, and Derby, and sometime member of parliament for Borouijhbridge in Yorkshire; and two daughters, one of whom, Sarah, married the late lord Archer, and died his widow a few years ago. The other is still living in London. Mr. West’s curious collection of Mss. were sold to the late marquis of Lansviowne, and were lately purchased by parliament, with the rest of his lordship’s collection, for the British Museum. Among them is much of his correspondence with the antiquaries of his time; and in the first volume of the “Restituta,” some curious extracts are given of letters to and from Hearne. His valuable library of printed books, including many with copious ms notes by bishop Kennet, was sold by auction, from an excellently digested catalogue by Sain. Paterson, in 1773; and the same year were disposed of, his prints, drawings, coins, pictures, &c. Mr. West’s catalogue is still in demand as one of the richest in literary curiosities.

, lord-chancellor of Ireland, a lawyer of whom we have very little information, studied his profession in one of the Temples. He married Elizabeth, one of the two daughters of bishop Burnet. He was appointed king’s counsel the 24th of October, 1717; and in 1725, advanced to the office of lord-chancellor of Ireland. This high post he did not long enjoy, but died the 3d of December, 1726, in circumstances not adequate to the dignity which he had possessed. He left one son, a very promising young gentleman, who is sufficiently known to the public by his friendship with Mr. Walpole, afterwards lord Orford, in whose works is his correspondence, and with the celebrated poet Gray. Our author, the chancellor, wrote, “A Discourse concerning Treasons and Bills of Attainder,” 1714. He also compiled, chiefly from the Petyt Mss. in the Inner-Temple library, entitled “De Creatione Nobilium,” 2 vols. fol. a work called “An Inquiry into the Manner cf creating Peers/ 7 1719. He wrote some papers in the” Freethinker,“a periodical essay; and Whincop says, he was supposed to have written,” Hecuba," a tragedy, 1726, 4to,

Of his son, we are informed that he was educated at Eton, and went thence to Oxford about the same time that Gray removed to Cambridge. Each of them carried with him the reputation of an excellent classical scholar; and Mr. Mason was told, what he seems unwilling to allow, that Mr. West’s genius was reckoned the more brilliant of the two. In April 1738, Mr. West left Christchurch for the Inner Temple; but, according to his own account, in a letter to Walpole, he had no great relish for the study of the law, and had some thoughts of exchanging that profession for the army. When Gray returned from his Travels ui 1741, he found his friend West oppressed by sickness, and a load of family misfortunes, which had already too far affected a body originally weak and delicate. West died June i, 1742, in the twenty-sixth year of his age What remains to give an idea of his talents, may be found in lord Orford’s Works, and Mason’s Life of Gray.

, the ingenious author of “The History of Furness,” published in 1774, 4to, and the “Guide to the Lakes,” is supposed to have had the chief part of his education in the Roman catholic religion on the continent, where he afterwards presided as a professor in some of the branches of natural philosophy. He belonged to the society of the Jesuits at the time of their suppression, and afterwards officiated as a secular priest. He bad seen many parts of Europe, and considered what was extraordinary in them with a curious eye. Having, in the latter part of his life, much leisure-time, he frequently accompanied genteel parties on the tour of the lakes; and after he had formed the design of drawing up his guide, whi^h is said to have been suggested to him by Dr. Brownrigg (See Brownrigg), besides consulting the most esteemed authors on the subject (as Messrs. Gray, Young, Pennant, &c.) he took several journeys on purpose to examine the lakes, and to collect such information concerning them from the neighbouring gentlemen, as he thought necessary to complete the work, and make it truly deserving the title. He resided at Ulverston, where he was respected as a worthy and ingenious man; and died July 10, 1779, at the ancient seat of the Stricklands, at Sizergh, in Westmorland, in the sixty-third year of his age; and, according to his own request, was interred in the vault of the Stricklands, in Kendal church. Among Cole’s Mss. in the British Museum is a letter from him to col. Townley, giving an account of some bodies found buried at Gogmagog hills, near Cambridge. In the “Archseologia, vol. V. is by him” An account of Antiquities discovered at Lancaster."

, a native of Ely, was educated in Jesus-college, in Cambridge, where he was scholar and fellow some time; but, appearing in public, was, first, assistant to Dr. Nicolas Felton, at St. Mary-le-bow, London, and then presented to this church; and soon after to St. Bartholomew’s, London; made archdeacon of St. Alban’s; and at length advanced to the see of Bristol, as one of those persons whom his majesty found best qualified for so great a place, for soundness of judgment and unblameableness of conversation, for which he had before preferred Dr. Prideaux to the see of Worcester, Dr. Winniff to Lincoln, Dr. Brownrig to Exeter, and Dr. King to London. He was offered the same see in 1616, as a maintenance, but he then refused it; but, having now gotten some wealth, he accepted it, that he might adorn it with hospitality out of his own estate. He was much reverenced and respected by the earl of Holland, and other noblemen, before the troubles came on; but was as much contemned, when the bishops grew out of favour; being disturbed in his devotion, wronged of his dues, and looked upon now as a formalist, though he was esteemed not long before one of the most devout and powerful preachers in the kingdom; but this we may suppose not to be done by the parliament’s authority; because we find an order of theirs, dated May 13, 1643, commanding his tenants, as bishop of Bristol, to pay him the rents, and suffer him to pass safely with his family to Bristol, being himself of great age, and a person of great learning and merit. He was afterwards ejected, and died June 25, 1644. He preached the first Latin sermon at the erection of Sion-college; and, though he printed nothing in his life-time, yet two little volumes of his sermons were published after his death, entitled, ;< England’s Face with Israel’s Glass;“containing eight sermons upon Psalm cvi. 19, 20, &c. and” The white robe or Surplice vindicated, in several Sermons;" the first printed in 1646, the other in 1660. He was buried in Bristol cathedral near Dr. Paul Bush, the first bishop, and has a stone with an epitaph over him.

, a learned lady of the sixteenth century, was born about the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, and is supposed by Dr. Fuller to have been a branch of the ancient family of the Westons, of Sutton, in Surrey. She appears to have left England at an early age, and to have settled at Prague, in Bohemia, where she married one John Leon, who is said to have resided there in the emperor’s service. She was skilled in the languages, particularly in the Latin, in which she wrote with elegance and correctness. She was greatly esteemed by learned foreigners. She is commended by Scaliger, and complimented by Nicholas May in a Latin epigram. She is placed by Mr. Evelyn, in his “Numisnma,” among learned women; and by Philips among female poets. She is ranked by Farnaby with sir Thomas More, and the best Latin poets of the sixteenth century. She translated several of the fables of Æsop into Latin verse. She also wrote a Latin poem in praise of typography, with many poems and epistles, on different subjects, in the same language, which were collected and published. She was living in 1605, as appears from an epistle written by her, and dated Prague, in that year. The only work we can point out of hers, as published, is, “Parthenico Elizabeth Joannae Westonise, virginis nobilissimae, poetriae fiorentissimae, linguarum plurimarum peritissimae, libri tres, opera et studio G. Mart, a Baldhoven, Sil. collectus, et mine denuo amicis desiderantibus commuoicatus,” Pragse, typis Pauli Sissii, 12iiio, without date, but probably about 1606.

, bishop of Exeter, was born at Farnborough, in Berkshire, in 1665, and educated at Eton, where he was admitted into King’s college, Cambridge, in 1682. There he took his degrees of B. A. in 1686, and of M. A, in 1690, and was elected a fellow both of his college, and of Eton. He was for some time an assistant, and then under-master of Eton school. He was afterwards vicar of Maple-Durham, in Oxfordshire, and collated to a stall in Ely in 1715. He was also archdeacon of Cornwall. Having been at school and college with sir Robert Walpole, and, as some say, his tutor at one or other, he was supposed to have owed his farther preferment to that minister, and his conduct did honour to his patronage. He was consecrated bishop of Exeter, Dec. 28, 1724, and dying Jan. 16, 1741-2, aged seventy-seven, was buried in his own cathedral. Bishop Sherlock published, in 1749, 2 volumes of Ms sermons, several of which the author had himself prepared for the press. “The style of these discourses,” says the editor, “is strong and expressive; but the best Greek and Roman writers were so familiar to the author, that it leads him frequently into their manner of construction and expression, which will require, sometimes, the attention of the English reader.”

The son of bishop Weston, styled from his being a privy counsellor, the Right Hon. Edward Weston, was born and educated at Eton, and afterwards studied and took his degrees at King’s college, Cambridge. His destination was to public life, at the commencement of which be became secretary to lord Townshend at Hanover during the king’s residence there in 1729, and continued several years in the office of lore! Harrington, as his secretary. He was also transmitter of the state papers, and one of the clerks of the signet. In 1741 he was appointed gazetteer; and in 1746, when he was secretary to lord Harrington, lord lieutenant of Ireland, he became a privy-counsellor of that kingdom. Our authorities do not give the date of his death, but it happened in the early part of the present reign. In 1753 he published a pamphlet on the memorable Jew bill; in 1755, “The Country Gentleman’s advice to his Son;” and in 1756, “A Letter to the right rev. the lord bishop of London,” on the earthquake at Lisbon, and the character of the times. He published also “Family Discourses, by a country gentleman,” re-published in 1776 by his son, Charles, under the title of “Family Discourses, by the late right hon. Edward Weston,” a name, we are properly told, “very eminently distinguished for abilities and virtue, and most highly honoured throughout the whole course of life, by the friendship and esteem of the best and greatest men of his time.” He left two sons, Charles, a clergyman, who died in Oct. 1801, and the rev. Stephen Weston, now living, well known as one of the most profound scholars, and what seldom can be said of men of that character, one of the first wits of the age.

, a learned and pious prelate, was born at Lichfield, Oct. 7, 1636. He was educated at, Westminster school under the celebrated Dr. Busby, and was admitted a king’s scholar in 1651, and went to Trinity college, Cambridge, on being elected a scholar on the foundation. In 1660 he removed from Cambridge to Oxford, and was made chaplain of Lincoln college, and afterwards became minister of Longcomb, in Oxfordshire, and then canon residentiary of Exeter, to which he was collated June 11, 1667, being then only master of arts. While here he was appointed master of a public school.

In 1672 he was invited into Ireland by Michael Boyle, then archbishop of Dublin, took his degree of D. D. in Dublin university, became master of a great school, curate of St. Werburgh’s parish, and afterwards chanter of Christ Church. In 1678 he was promoted to the bishopric of Cork and Ross, and in April 1699 was translated to the see of Kilmore and Ardagh. While bishop of Cork and Ross he suffered much by the tyranny of the Irish, from 1688 until the settlement under king William. He repaired at his own expence the ruinous episcopal houses both of Cork and Kilmore, and rebuilt the cathedral church of Ardagh, which was quite demolished. He died in London, Nov. 12, 1713, and was buried in Westminster-abbey, where is an inscription to his memory.

Bishop Wetenhall appears to have been a zealous, but irot a bigotted supporter of the church. He says in his will that “he dies a protestant, of the church of England and Ireland, which he judges to be the purest church in the world, and to come nearest to the apostolical institutionalthough he declares his belief that there are divers points which might be altered for the better, both in her articles, liturgy, and discipline; but especially in the conditions of clerical communion.” Besides various single sermons on important topics suited to the state of the times in which he lived, he wrote, 1. “A method and order for Private Devotion,” Lond. 1666, 12mo. 2. “The Catechism of the Church of England, with marginal notes,” ibid. 1678, 8vq. 3. “Of Gifts and Offices in the public worship of God,” ibid, and Dublin, 1678, 8vo. 4. “The Protestant Peacemaker,” ibid. 1682, 4to, with a postscript, and notes on Mr. Baxter’s, and some other late writings for peace. Baxter answered what related to himself in this postscript. 5. “A judgment of the Comet, which became first generally visible at Dublin, Dec. 13, 1680,” ibid. 1682, 8vo. 6. “Hexapla Jacobaea a specimen of loyalty towards his present majesty James II. in six pieces,” Dublin, 1686, 8vo. 7. “An earnest and compassionate suit for forbearance to the learned Writers of some Controversies at present,” Loud. 1691, 4to. This tract was occasioned by Stillrngfieet’s publishing his vindication of the doctrine of the Trinity. Stiliingfleet having afterwards published his < Apology for writing against the Socinians,“our author animadverted upon it in, 8.” The Anti-apology of the melancholy stander-by, in answer to the dean of St. Paul’s Apology for writing against the Socinians,“Lond. 1693, 4to. 9.” A brief and modest reply to Mr. Penn’s tedious, scurrilous, and unchristian defence against the bishop of Cork,“Dublin, 1699, 4to. He published also a Greek and a Latin grammar, the latter often reprinted; and a translation of the tenth satire of Juvenal, in Pindaric verse,” by a person sometime fellow of Trinity college, Dublin/' but his name is signed to the dedication.

, a very learned divine of Germany, was descended from an ancient and distinguished family, and born at Basil in 1693. He was trained with great care, and had early made such a progress in the Greek and Latin tongues as to be thought fit for higher pursuits. At fourteen he applied himself to divinity under his uncle John Rodolph Wetstein, a professor at Basil, and learned Hebrew and the Oriental languages from Buxtorf. At sixteen, he took the degree of doctor in philosophy, and four years after was admitted into the ministry; on which occasion he publicly defended a thesis, " De variis Novi Testament! Leetionibus,' in which he demonstrated that the vast variety of readings in the New Testament are no argument against the genuineness and authenticity of the text. These various readings he had for some time made the object of his attention and, while he was studying the ancient Greek authors, as well sacred as profane, kept this point constantly in view. He was also very desirous of examining all the manuscripts he could come at; and his curiosity in this particular was the chief motive of his travelling to foreign countries. In 1714 he went to Geneva, and, after some stay there, to Paris; thence to England; in which last place he had many conferences with Dr. Bentley relating to the prime object of his journey. Passing through Holland, he arrived at Basil in July 1717, and applied himself to the business of the ministry for several years. Still he went on with his critical disquisitions and animadversions upon the various readings of the New Testament; and kept a constant correspondence with Dr. Befntley, who was at the same time busy in preparing an edition of it, yet did not propose to make use of any manuscripts less than a thousand years old, which are not easy to be met with.

In 1730 Wetstein published, in 4to, “Prolegomena ad Novi Testamenti Grseci editionem accuratissimam e vetustissimis Codd. Mss. denuo procurandam.” Before the publication of these- “Prolegomena,” some divines, from a dread of having the present text unsettled, had procured a decree from the senate of Basil, that Mr. Wetstein’s “undertaking was both trifling and unnecessary, and also dangerous;” they added too, but it does not appear upon what foundation, that his “New Testament savoured of Socinianism.” They now proceeded farther, and, by various means procured his being prohibited from officiating as a minister. Upon this, he went into Holland, being invited by the booksellers Wetsteins, who were his relations; and had not been long at Amsterdam before the remonstrants, or Arminians, named him to succeed Le Clerc, now superannuated and incapable, in the professorship of philosophy and history. But though they were perfectly satisfied of his innocence, yet they thought it necessary that he should clear himself in form before they admitted him and for this purpose he went to Basil, made a public apology, got the decree against him reversed, and returned to Amsterdam in May 1733. Here he went ardently on with his edition of the New Testament, sparing nothing to bring it to perfection, neither labour, nor expence, nor even journeys; for he came over a second time to England in 1746, when Mr. Gloster Ridley accommodated him with his manuscript of the Syriac version of the New Testament. At last he published it; the first volume in 1751, the second in 1752, folio. The text he left entirely as he found it; the various readings, of whwch he had collected more than any one before him, or all of them ^together, he placed under the text. Under these various readings he subjoined a critical commentary, containing observations which he had collected from an infinite number of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, writers. At the end of his New Testament he published two epistles of Clemens Romanus, with a Latin version and preface, in which he endeavours to establish their genuineness. These epistles were never published before, nor even known to the learned, but were discovered by him in a Syriac manuscript of the New Testament.

This work established his reputation over all Europe; and he received marks of honour and distinction from several illustrious bodies of men. He was elected into the royal academy of Prussia in June 1752; into the English society for propagating the gospel in foreign parts, in Feb. 1752-3, and into the royal society of London in April following. He died at Amsterdam, of a mortification, March 24, 1754. Besides his edition of the New Testament, he published some things of a small kind; among the rest, a funeral oration upon Mr. Le Clerc. He is represented not only as having been an universal scholar, and of consummate skill in all languages, but as a man abounding in good and amiable qualities.

, mentioned above as one of the tutors to John James Wetstein, was born September 1, 1647, at Basil, and was grandson of John Rodolphus Wetstein, burgomaster of that city, a man of great merit, who rendered important services to his country at the peace of Munster, in the Imperial court, and in his native place. John Rodolphus, the subject of this article, succeeded his father as professor of Greek, and afterwards of divinity, and died at Basil April 21, 1711, leaving two sons, one of whom, Rodolphus, was professor of divinity at Basil, and the other, John Henry, a bookseller at Amsterdam. He had published, in 1673, with notes, Origen’s “Dialogue against the Marcionites,” with the “Exhortation to Martyrdom,” and the letter to Africanus concerning the “History of-Susanna,” which he first took from the Greek Mss. We have several other valuable discourses or dissertations of his. Henry Wetstein, one of his brothers, also well acquainted with Greek and Latin, settled in Holland, where he followed the business of a bookseller, became a celebrated printer, and died April 4, 1726. His descendants long remained in Holland.

, an English divine and critic, the son of Richard Whalley, of an ancient Northamptonshire family, was born at Rugby, in the county of Warwick, Sept. 2, 1722. He was admitted at Merchant-Taylor’s-school, London, Jan. 10, 1731, whence, in June 1740, he was elected scholar of St. John’s-college, Oxford, and, in 1743, was admitted Fellow. On quitting the university, he became vicar of St. Sepulchre’s, Northamptonshire. It was here that he probably laid the foundation of that topographical knowledge which, in 1755, induced a committee of gentlemen of that county to elect him as the proper person to prepare for the press Bridges’s and other Mss. for a History of Northamptonshire.

In 1766, he applied to the corporation of London to succeed Dr. Birch in the rectory of St. Margaret Pattens; and in his address to them said, “I have neither curacy nor lectureship, but a small country vicarage, whose clear annual income is under seventy pounds; and which, if I merit your indulgence, will be necessarily void.” He obtained this rectory, to which was afterwards added the vicarage -of Horley in Surrey, by the governors of Christ’shospital. In January 1768 he took the degree of bachelor of laws, and in October following was chosen master of the grammar-school of Christ’s- hospital, which he resigned in 1776 but afterwards accepted that of Saint Olave’s, Southwark, and acted as a justice of peace there. It was chiefly at Horley that he employed himself on the History of Northamptonshire; but an unfortunate derangement in his affairs, and the inattention of the gentlemen of the county, delayed the completion of the publication from 1779, when it was announced to appear, till 1791, in which year, June 12, he died at Ostend, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. Before he went abroad, he received subscriptions, at a guinea each, for a quarto History of the several Royal Hospitals of London. His previous publications were, 1. “An Essay on the method of writing History,” London, 1746. 2. “An Inquiry into the learning of Shakspeare, with remarks on several passages of his plays,” 1748, 8vo. 3. “A Vindication of the Evidences and Authenticity of the Gospels, from the objections of the late lord Bolingbroke, in his letters on the study of history,” 1753, 8vo. 4. “An edition of the Works of Ben. Jonson, with notes,” 1756, 7 vols. 8vo. This was long esteemed the best, probably because the most commodious edition; but will now be superseded by that of Mr. Gifford. Mr. Whalley published also a few occasional sermons.

, was eld* est son of Philip lord Wharton, who distinguished himself on the side of the parliament during the civil wars, by his second wife, Jane, daughter and heiress of Arthur Goodwyn, of Upper Winchendon, in Buckinghamshire, esq. He was born about 1640, and sat in several parliaments during the reigns of Charles II. and James II. in which he appeared in opposition to the court. In 1688, he is supposed to have drawn up the first sketch of the invitation of the prince of Orange to come to England, which, being approved and subscribed by several peers and commoners, was carried over to Holland by the earl, afterwards duke, of Shrewsbury: and joined that prince at Exeter soon after his landing at Torbay. On the advancement of William and Mary to the throne, Mr. Wharton was made comptroller of the household, and sworn of the privy-council Feb. 20, 1689. On the death of his father, he succeeded to the title of lord Wharton, and in April 1697 was made chief justice in Eyre ' on this side of the Trent, and lord* lieutenant of Oxfordshire. In the beginning of 1701, upon the debate in the House of Peers about the address relative to the partition-treaty, his lordship moved an addition to it, to this purpose, that as the French king had broke that treaty, they should advise his majesty to treat no more with bin), or rely on his word without further security. And this, though much opposed by all who were against engaging in a new war, was agreed to by the majority of the House.

On the accession of queen Anne, his lordship was removed from his employments, and in December 1702 he was one of the managers for the lords in the conference with the House of Commons relating to the bill against occasional conformity, which he opposed on all occasions with great vigour and address. In April 1705 he attended the queen at Cambridge, when her majesty visited that university, and was admitted, among other persons of r.ank, to x the honorary degree of doctor of laws. In the latter end of that year, his lordship opened the debate in the House of Lords for a regency, in case of the queers demise, in a manner which was very much admired. He had not been present at the former debate relating to the invitation of the princess Sophia to come over and live in England; but, he said, he was much delighted with what he heard concerning it; since he had ever looked upon the securing a Protestant succession to the crown, as that which secured the nation’s happiness. His proposition for the regency contained these particulars, that the regents should be empowered to act in the name of the successor, till he should send over orders: that, besides those whom the parliament should name, the next successor should send over a nomination, sealed up, and to be opened when that accident should happen, of persons who should act in the same capacity with the persons named by parliament. This motion being supported by all the Whig lords, a bill was ordered to be brought into the House upon it.

In 1706, he was appointed one of the commissioners for the union with Scotland; which being concluded, he was one of the most zealous advocates for passing the bill enacting it; and in December the same year, he was created earl of Wharton in the county of Westmorland. Upon the meeting of the parliament in Oct. 1707, the earl supported the petition of the merchants against the conduct of the admiralty, which produced an address to the queen on that subject. In the latter end of 1708, his lordship was appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland, where he arrived April 2, 1709, and opened a session of parliament there, with a speech reminding them of the inequality with respect to numbers, between the protestants and papists of that kingdom, and of the necessity of considering, whether any new bills were wanting to inforce or explain those good laws already in being, for preventing the growth of popery and of inculcating and preserving a good understanding amongst all protestants there. He shewed likewise his tenderness for the dissenters, in the speech which he made to both Houses at the close of the session Aug. 30, in which he told them, that he did not question, but that they understood too well the true interest of the protestant religion in that kingdom, not to endeavour to make all such protestants as easy as they could, who were willing to. contribute what they could to defend the whole against the common enemy; and that it was not the law then past to “prevent the growth of popery,” nor any other law that the wit of man could frame, which would secure them from popery, while they continued divided among themselves; it being demonstrable, that, unless there be a firm friendship and confidence amongst the protestants of Ireland, it was impossible for them either to be happy, or to be safe. And he concluded with declaring to them the queen’s fixed resolution, that as her majesty would always maintain and support the church, as by law established, so it was her royal will and intention, that dissenters should not be persecuted or molested in the exercise of their religion. His lordship’s conduct was such, as lord lieutenant of Ireland, that the Irish House of Peers, in their address to the queen, returned their thanks to her majesty for sending a person of “so great wisdom and experience” to be their chief governor. His lordship returned thither on May 7. 1710, but in Oct. following, delivered up his commission of lord lieutenant, which was given to the duke of Ormond.

Soon after this event, Wharton was severely attacked in “The Examiner,” and other political papers, on account of his administration of that kingdom; and by no writer with more asperity than Swift *, who endeavoured to expose him under the character of Verres, although he had, not long before, solicited in very abject terms to be admitted his lordship’s chaplain. Swift’s character of him in vol. V. of his Works, is perhaps the bitterest satire ever written on any man, but it may be observed that it relates in some measure to his morals, and those have been generally represented as very bad. On the other hand, the author of the Spectator, who dedicated the fifth volume of that work to him, affords a very favourable idea of his conduct in public life. He (probably Addison) observes that it was his lordship’s particular distinction, that he was master of the whole compass of business, and had signalized himself in the different scenes of it; that some are admired for the dignity, others for the popularity of their behaviour; some for their clearness of judgment, others for their happiness of expression; some for laying of schemes, and others for putting them in execution; but that it was his lordship only, who enjoyed these several talents united, and that too in as great perfection, as others possessed them singly; that his lordship’s enemies acknowledged this great extent

r' quest to lord Wharton, but without we have not character enough our­>iccess and the answer Wharton is selves.“*aid to have given, which was never in his character, at the same time that they used their utmost industry and invention to derogate from it; but that it was for his honour, that those who were then his enemies, were always so; and that he had acted in so much consistency with himself, and promoted the interests of his country in so uniform a manner, that even those who. would misrepresent his generous designs for the public good, could not but approve the steadiness and intrepidity with which he pursued them. The annotator on this character quotes an eminent historian as saying that lord Wharton” had as many friends as the constitution, and that only its enemies were his that he made no merit of his zeal for his country and that he expended above 80,000l. for its service," &c.

The earl continued in a vigorous opposition to the measures of the court during the last four years of queen Anne’s reign, and particularly against the schism bill; and in June 1713, moved the address in the House of Lords, that her majesty should use her most pressing instances with the duke of Lorrain, and with all the princes and states in amity and correspondence with her majesty, that they would not receive the Pretender, or suffer him to continue within their dominions. In Sept. 1714, soon after the arrival of king George I. in England, his lordship was made lord privy seal, and in the beginning of January following, was created marquis of Wharton and Malmsbury in England, and earl of Rathfarnham and marquis of Catherlough, in Ireland. But he did not long enjoy these distinctions, as he died at his house in Dover-street, April 12, 1715, in the seventy-sixth year of his age.

Dr. Percy attributes to the raarquis, the famous Irish ballad of “Lilliburlero,” which is said to have had a more powerful effect than the Philippics of Demosthenes or Cicero, and contributed not a little towards tho revolution in 1688. He is also said to have been the author of a pretended letter of Machiavel to Zenobius Buondelmontius, in vindication of himself and his writings, printed at the end of the English translation of MachiaveTs works, 1680, fol.

The marquis of Wharton was twice married, and both his wives had literary pretensions. The first was Anne, daughter and coheiress of sir Henry Lee, of Ditchly in Oxfordshire, by whom his lordship had no issue. She wrote some poetical essays of considerable merit, and was a pleasing letter-writer. His second lady was Lucy, daughter of lord Lisburne, by whom he bad his celebrated son, the subject of our next article, and two daughters. This marchioness wrote some verses, inserted in Mr. Nichols’s collection. Swift, in his scandalous character of the marquis, has not hesitated to blacken the character of this lady in a most infamous manner, if unfounded.

, son to the preceding, was born about 1699. He was educated at home; and, as what was calculated to distinguish him most, his father’s prime object was to form him a complete orator. The first prelude to his innumerable misfortunes may justly be reckoned his falling in love with, and privately marrying at the Fleet, when he was scarcely sixteen years old, a young lady, the daughter of major-general Holmes; a match by no means suited to his birth and fortune, and far less to the ambitious views his father had entertained for him. However, the amiable lady deserved infinitely more happiness than she met with by an alliance with his family; and the young lord was not so unhappy through any misconduct of hers as by the death of his father, which this precipitate marriage is thought to have occasioned about a year after. The duke, being so early free from paternal restraints, and possessed of a fortune of 16,000l. a year, plunged into those numberless excesses which became at last fatal to him; and proved, as Pope expresses it,

In 1716 he indulged his desire of travelling and finishing his education abroad; and, as he was designed to be brought up in the strictest Whig principles, Geneva was judged a proper place for his residence. He took the route of Holland, and visited several courts of Germany, that of Hanover in particular. Being arrived at Geneva, he conceived so great a disgust to the austere and dogmatical precepts of his governor, that he soon decamped, and set out for Lyons, where he arrived in Oct. 1716. His lordship somewhere or other had picked up a bear’s cub, of which he was very fond, and carried it about with him. But, when he determined to abandon his tutor, he left the cub behind him, with the following address to him: “Being no longer able to bear with your ill usage, I think proper to be gone from you; however, that you may not want company, I have left you the bear, as the most suitahle companion in the world that could he picked out for you.”

When the marquis was at Lyons, he took a very strange step, little expected from him. He wrote a letter to the chevalier de St. George, then residing at Avignon, to whom he presented a very fine stone-horse. Upon receiving this present, the chevalier sent a man of quality to the marquis, who carried him privately to his court, where he was received with the greatest marks of esteem, and had the title of duke of Northumberland conferred upon him. He remained there, however, but one day; and then returned post to Lyons, whence he set out for Paris. He likewise made a visit to the queen-dowager of England, consort to James II. then residing at St. Germain*, to whom he paid his court, pursuing the same rash measures as at Avignon. It was reported that he told the queen he was resolved to atone by his own services for the faults of his family, and would exert all his endeavours to subvert the Hanover suecession, and promote the interest of the exiled prince; but as he complained that being underage, and kept out of his estate, he wanted money to carry on the design, the dowager-queen, though poor, pawned her jewels to raise him 2000l. We shall afterwards find that the chevalier accommodated him with the same sum long after the dowager’s death.

During his stay at Paris, his winning address and astonishing parts gained him the esteem and admiration of all the British subjects of both parties who happened to be there. The earl of Stair, then the English ambassador there, notwithstanding all the reports to the marquis’s disadvantage, thought proper to shew some respect to the representative of so great a family. His excellency never failed to lay hold of every opportunity to give some admonitions, which were not always agreeable to the vivacity of his temper, and sometimes provoked him to great indiscretions. Once in particular, the ambassador, extolling the merit and noble behaviour of the marquis’s father, added, that he hoped he would follow so illustrious an example of fidelity to his prince and love to his country: on which the marquis immediately answered, that “he thanked his excellency for his good advice, and, as his excellency had also a worthy and deserving father, he hoped he would likewise copy so bright an original, and tread in his steps.” This was a severe sarcasm, as the ambassador’s father had betrayed his master in a manner that was not very creditable. Before he left France, an English gentleman expostulating with him for swerving so much from the principles of his father and whole family, his lordship answered, that “he had pawned his principles to Gordon, the Pretender’s banker, for a considerable sum, and, till he could repay him, he must be a Jacobite; but, when that was done, he would again return to the Whigs.”

In Dec. 1716, the marquis arrived in England, where he did not remain long till he set out for Ireland; in which kingdom, on account of his extraordinary qualities, he had' the honour of being admitted, though under age, to take his seat in the House of Peers as earl of Rathfarnham and marquis Catherlough. He made use of this indulgence to take possession of his estate, and receive his rents, asking his tenants “if they durst doubt of his being of age, after the parliament had allowed him to be so?” In the Irish parliament he espoused a very different interest from that which he had so lately embraced. He distinguished himself, in this situation, as a violent partizan for the ministry; and acted in all other respects, as well in his private as public capacity, with the warmest zeal for government . In consequence of this zeal, shewn at a time when they stood much in need of men of abilities, and so little was expected from him, the king created him duke of Wharton; and, as soon as he came of age, he was introduced into the House of Lords in England, with the like blaze of reputation. Yet a little before the death of lord Stanhope, his grace again changed sides, opposed the court, and endeavoured to defeat the schemes of the ministry. He was one of the roost forward and vigorous in the defence of the bishop of Rochester, and in opposing the bill for inflicting pains and penalties on that prelate; and, as if this opposition was not sufficient, he published, twice a week, a paper called “The True Briton,” several thousands of which were dispersed weekly. In the mean time his boundless profusion had so burthened his estate, that a decree of chancery vested it in the hands of trustees fur the payment of his debts, allowing a provision of 1200l. per annum for his subsistence. This not being sufficient to support his title with dignity at home, he resolved to go abroad till his estate should be clear. But in this he only meant, as it should seem, to deceive by an appearance; for he went to Vienna, to execute a private commission, not in favour of the English ministry; nor did he ever shine to greater advantage as to his personal character than at the Imperial court. From Vienna he made a tour to Spain, where his arrival alarmed the English minister so much, that two expresses were sent from Madrid to London, upon an apprehension that his grace was received there in the character of an ambassador; upon which the duke received a summons under the privy seal to return home. His behaviour on this occasion was a sufficient indication that he never designed to return to England whilst affairs remained in the same state. This he had often declared, from his going abroad the second time; which, no doubt, was the occasion of his treating that solemn order with so much indignity, and endeavouring to inflame the Spanish court, not only against the person who delivered the summons, but also against the court of Great Britain itself, for exercising an act of power, as he was pleased to call it, within the jurisdiction of his Catholic majesty. After this he acted openly in the service of the Pretender, and appeared at his court, where he was received with the greatest marks of favour.

While thus employed abroad, his duchess, who had been neglected by him, died in England, April 14, 1726, and left no issue behind her. Soon after this, he fell vio-r lently in love with madam Obyrne, then one of the maids of honour to the queen of Spain. She was daughter of an Irish colonel in that service, who being dead, her mother lived upon a pension the king allowed her; so that this lady’s fortune consisted chiefly in her personal accomplishments. Many arguments were used, by their friends on both sides, to dissuade them from the marriage. The queen of Spain, when the duke asked her consent, represented to him, in the most lively terms, that the consequence of the match would be misery to them both; and absolutely refused her consent. Having now no hopes of obtaining her, he fell into a deep melancholy, which brought on a lingering fever. This circumstance reached her majesty’s ear: she was moved with his distress, and sent him word to endeavour the recovery of his health; and, as soon as he was ahle to appear abroad, she would speak to him in a more favourable manner than at their last interview. The duke, upon receiving this news, ima-> gined it the best way to take advantage of the kind disposition her majesty was then in; and summoning to his assistance his little remaining strength, threw himself at her majesty’s feet, and begged of her either to give him M. Obyrne, or order him not to live. The queen consented,' but told him he would soon repent it. After the solemnization of his marriage, he passed some time at Rome; where he accepted of a blue ribband, affected to appear with the title of duke of Northumberland, and for a while enjoyed the confidence of the exiled prince. But, as he could not always keep himself within the bounds of Italian gravity, and having no employment to amuse his active temper, he soon ran into his Usual excesses; which giving offence, it was thought proper for him to remove from that city for the present, lest he should at last fall into actual disgrace.

Accordingly, he quitted Rome, and went by sea to Barcelona; and then resolved upon a new scene of life, which few expected he would ever have engaged in. He wrote a letter to the king of Spain, acquainting him, that he would assist at the siege of Gibraltar as a volunteer. The king thanked him for the honour, and accepted his service: but he soon grew weary of this, and set his heart on Rome. In consequence of this resolution, he wrote a letter to the chevalier de St. George, full of respect and submission, expressing a desire of visiting his court; but the chevalier returned for answer, that he thought it more advisable for his grace to draw near England. The duke seemed resolved to follow his advice, set out for France in company with his duchess, and, attended by two or three servants, arrived at Paris in May 1728. Here he made little stay, but proceeded to Rouen, in his way, as some imagined, for England; but he stopped, and took up his residence at Rouen, without reflecting the least on the business that brought him to France. He was so far from making any concession to the government, in order to make his peace, that he did not give himself the least trouble about his personal estate, or any other concern in England. The duke had about 600l. in his possession when he arrived at Rouen, where more of his servants joined him from Spain. A bill of indictment was about this time preferred against him in England for high treason. The chevalier soon after sent him 2000l. for his support, of which he was no sooner in possession than he squandered it away. Asa long journey did not well suit with his grace’s finances, he went for Orleans; thence fell down the river Loire to Nantz, in Britany; and there he stopt some time, till he got a remittance from Paris, which was dispersed almost as soon as received. At Nantz some of his ragged servants rejoined him, and he took shipping with them for Bilboa, as if he had been carrying recruits to the Spanish regiments. PYorn Biiboa he wrote a humorous letter to a friend at Paris, giving a whimsical account of his voyage, and his manner of passing his time. The queen of Spain took the duchess to attend her person.

In Jan. 1731, the duke declined so fast, being in his quarters at Lerida, that he had not the use of his limbs so as to move without assistance; but, as he was free from pain, did not lose all his gaiety. He continued in this ill state of health for two months, when he gained a little strength, and found benefit from a certain mineral water in the mountains of Catalonia; but he was too much exhausted to recover. He relapsed the May following at Tarragona, whither he removed with his regiment: and, going to the above-mentioned waters, he fell into one of those faintingfits, to which he had been for some time subject, in a small village; and was utterly destitute of all the necessaries of life, till some charitable fathers of a Bernardine convent offered him what assistance their house afforded. The duke accepted their kind proposal; upon which they removed tmn to their convent, and administered all the relief in their power. Under this hospitable roof, after languishing a week, the duke of Wharton died May 31, 1731, without one friend or acquaintance to close his eyes. His funeral was performed in the same manner which the fathers observed to those of their own fraternity. Dying without issue, his titles became extinct. His widow survived to a very advanced age, and died in Feb 1777, and was buried in St. Pancras church-yard.

"Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days,

Women and fools must like him or he dies;

He'll shine a Tully, and a Wilmot too.

Then turns repentant, and his God adores,

With the same spirit that he drinks and whores?

And now the punk applaud, and now the fryer.

Thus with each gift of nature and of art,

And wanting nothing but an honest heart;

And most contemptible, to shun contempt;

He dies, sad outcast of each church and state,

And, harder still! flagitious, yet not great.

Like Buckingham and Rochester* says lord Orford, he <c comforted all the grave and dull by throwing away the. brightest profusion of parts on witty fooleries, debaucheries, and scrapes, which may mix graces with a great character, but can never compose one.“It is difficult to understand a sentence composed of such incoherent materials, but his lordship is more intelligible when he tells us that” with attachment to no party, though with talents to govern any party, this lively man exchanged the free air of Westminster for the gloom of the Escurial; the prospect of king George’s garter for the Pretender’s; and with indifference to all religion, the frolic lord who had written the ballad on the archbishop of Canterbury, died in the habit of a capuchin.“For this last particular, however, there appears no foundation. Lord Orford proceeds to mention that there are two volumes in 8-vo, called his” Life and Writings,“but containing of the latter nothing but seventyfour papers of the True Briton, and his celebrated speech in the House of Lords, in defence of Atterbury. But there are two other volumes 12mo, without date and with the same life as in the 2 vols. 8vo. (1731) th title of which is” The Poetical Works of Philip late Duke of Wharton aid others of the Wharton family, and of the duke’s intimate acquaintance, &c. with original letters, novels, &c.“In this farrago are some few poetical pieces which have generally been attributed to the duke, but the greater part are by other hands, and the whole given without any apparent authority. The late Mr. Ritson had formed the design of publishing Wharton’s genuine poetry, with a life. What he prepared is now before us, but does not amount to much. He probably began the collection in his latter days. Wharton appears to have been at one time a patron of men of letters. He certainly was such to Dr. Young, who dedicated the tragedy of the” Revenge" to him, in a style of flattery which must excite surprise in all who observe the date, 1722, and know that long before that period Wharton’s character was decided and notorious. Young might perhaps blush now, and it is certain that be lived afterwards to be completely ashamed, and to suppress his dedication.

, a loyal astrologer of the seventeenth century, was descended from an ancient family in Westmoreland, and born at Kirby-Kendal in that county April 4, 1617. He passed some time at the university of Oxford, but was more studious of mathematics and astronomy than of any other academical pursuits. After this, having some private fortune, he retired from the university, until the breaking out of the rebellion, when he converted his property into money, and raised a troop of horse for his majesty, of which he became captain. After other engagements, he was finally routed at Stow-on-the-Would in Gloucestershire, March 21, 1645, where sir Jacob Astley was taken prisoner, and Wharton received several wounds, the marks of which he carried to his grave. He then joined the king at Oxford, and had an office conferred upon him in the ordnance, but after the decline of the royal cause, he came to London and gained a livelihood by his writings, chiefly by that profitable article, the composing of almanacks, with predictions. In some of his productions he gave offence by his loyal hints and witticisms, and was several times imprisoned, particularly in Windsor-castle, where he found his brother conjuror William Lilly. Lilly showed him much kindness, which Wharton repaid afterwards by saving him from prosecution as a republican prophet. Upon the restoration, Whartori*s loyalty was rewarded by the place of treasurer and paymaster of the ordnance, and he was also created a baronet. He died Aug. 12, 1681. He wrote, besides his Almanacks, Mercuries, astronomical pieces, and chronologies of the events of his time. His works were collected and published by Gadbury in 1683, 8vo.

, an English divine, of most uncommon abilities, was born Nov. 9, 1664, at Worstead in Norfolk; of which parish his father Edmund, who survived him, was vicar. He was educated under his father; and made such a progress in the Greek and Latin tongues, that, from his first entrance into the university, he was thought an extraordinary young man. On Feb. 17, 1679—80, he was admitted into 'Caius-college, Cambridge, of which his father had been fellow, under the tuition of John, afterwards sir John Ellys, one of the senior fellows. Here he prosecuted his studies with the greatest vigour, and was instructed in the mathematics by Mr. (afterwards sir) Isaac Newton, then fellow of Trinity-college and Lucasian professor, amongst a select company, to whom that great man read lectures in his own private chamber. He took a bachelor of arts degree in 1683-4, and resided in the college till 1686, was a scholar on the foundation of his great uncle Stockys, but, observing no probability of a vacancy among the fellowships, he left it, and was recommended by Dr. Barker, afterwards chaplain to archbishop Tillotson, to Dr. Cave, whom he assisted in compiling his “Historia Literaria.” Of the nature of that assistance, and the manner in which he conducted himself, we shall have occasion to speak afterwards. In 1687 he was ordained deacon; and the same year proceeded master of arts by proxy; which favour was indulged him on account of being then dangerously ill of the small-pox at Islington. About this time the reputation he had acquired recommended him to the notice of Dr. Tenison, vicar of St. Martin’s in the Fields, London, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, who employed him to prepare for the press a manuscript on “The incurable Scepticism of the Church of Rome,” written in Latin by Placette of Hamburgh. This Wharton translated into English and epitomized. Tenison also recommended him to lord Arundel of Trerice, as tutor for his son. Soon after being presented to archbishop Sancroft, his grace put into his hands, in April 1788, the manuscript of archbishop Usher’s dogmatical history of the Holy Scriptures, which he published, in 4to, under the title, “J. Usserii, &c. Hist. Dogmatica controversial inter orthodoxos et pon-r tificios de scripturis, &c.” to which he added an “auctarium,” or supplement. He also published before and about this time several treatises against popery, among which are, 1. “The Speculum Ecclesiasticum considered, inits false reasonings and quotations,” Lond. 1687, 4to. The “Speculum Ecclesiasticum” was a production of Thomas. Ward, whom we have noticed already. 2. “A treatise proving Scripture to be the rule of Faith, writ by Reginald Pecock, bishop of Chichester, before the reformation, about 1450,” Lond* 1688, 4to. This, to which Mr. Wharton prefixed a preface on the same subject, is the only production of that learned prelate which has been pub-, lished. 3. “A treatise of the Celibacy of the Clergy, wherein its rise and progress are historically considered, 7 * ibid. 1688, 4to. In this he proves that the celibacy of the clergy was not enjoined either by Christ or his apostles; that it has nothing excellent in itself; that the imposition of it is unjust, and that, in point of fact, it was never universally imposed or practised in the ancient church. 5. A, translation of Dellon’s” History of the Inquisition of Goa. n 6. About the same time he translated some homilies of St. Macarius, the prologue and epilogue of Euronius to his “Apologetic Treatise” (formerly transcribed by him out of a manuscript of Dr. Tenison) with a treatise of “PseudoDorotheus,” found by Mr. Dodwell jn the Bodleian library, out of Greek into Latin, and the famous Bull “in Ccena Domini” out of Latin into English annexing a short preface containing some reflections- upon the Bull, and animadversions on the account of the proceedings of the parliament of Paris. 7. He gave his assistance likewise to a new edition of Dr. Thomas James’s “Corruption of the Scriptures, Councils, and Fathers, by the Prelates of the Church of Rome for the maintenance of Popery;” and at the request of Mr. Watts he revised the version of “Philalethe & Philirene,” fitting it for the press. 8. “A brief declaration of the Lord’s Supper, written by Dr. Nicholas Ridley, bishop of London, during his imprisonment. Witfo some other determinations and disputations concerning the same argument, by the same author. To which is annexed an extract of several passages to the same purpose out of a book entitled * Diallecticon,' written by Dr. John Poynet, bishop of Winton in the reigns of Edward VI. and queen Mary,” 1688, 4to. 9. “The Enthusiasm of the Church of Rome demonstrated in some observations upon the Life of Ignatius Loyola,” 1688, 4to.

In this year (1688) although as yet no more than a deacon, he was honoured by Bancroft with a licence to preach through the whole province of Canterbury; a favour granted to none but him during Sancroft’s continuance in that see. In Sept. following, the archbishop admitted him into the number of his chaplains, and at the same time (a* his custom was) gave him a living; but, institution to it being deferred till he should be of full age, the vicarage of Minster in the Isle of Thanet fell void in the mean time, and afterwards the rectory of Chartham, to both which he was collated in 1689, being ordained priest on his own birth-day, Nov. 9, 1688.

In 1692 he published, in 8vo, “A Defence of Pluralities,” in which the subject is handled with great ingenuity; and the same year was printed, in two volumes folio, his “Anglia Sacra, sive Collectio Historiarum, partim antiquitus, partim recenter, scriptarum, de Archiepiscopis &, Episcopis Anglise, a prima Fidei Christianas susceptione ad annum MDXL.” He has been generally commended for having done great service to the ecclesiastical history of this kingdom by this work yet bishop Burnet, in his “Reflections” on Atterbury’s book of “The Rights, Powers, and Privileges, of an English Convocation,” tells us, that “he had in his hands a whole treatise, which contained only the faults of ten leaves of one of the volumes of the ‘ Anglia Sacra.’ They are, indeed,” adds he, “so many, and so gross.^ that often the faults are as many as the lines: sometimes they are two for one.” This may be perhaps asserting too much, but unquestionably the errors in transcription, from haste, or from employing improper amanuenses, are so considerable as to render it necessary to peruse it with great caution, otherwise it is a truly valuable collection. There is a copy of it in the Bodleian? library, among Mr. Gough’s books, with an immense addition of ms notes by bishop Kennet. Jn 1693, Wharton published, in 4to, “Bedae Venerabilis Opera queedam Theologica, nunc primum edita; nee non Historica antea semel edita:” and the same year, under the name of Anthony Harmer, “A Specimen of some errors and defects in the History of the Reformation of the Church of England, written by Gilbert Burnet, D. D.” 8vo. In the answer to this, addressed by way of letter to Dr. Lloyd bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, Dr. Burnet observes, that “he had not seen any one thing relating to his history which had pleased him so much as this specimen. It is plain,” says he, “that here is a writer, who has considered those times and that matter with much application; and that he is a master of this subject. He has the art of writing skilfully; and how much soever he may be wanting in a Christian temper, and in the decency that one who owns himself of our communion owed to the station I hold in it, yet in other respects he seems to be a very valuable man; so valuable, that I cannot, without a very sensible regret, see such parts and such industry like to be soured and spoiled with so ill a temper.” And afterwards, in his “Reflections’ 1 upon Atterbury’s book just mentioned, he speaks of the specimen in these words” Some years ago, a rude attack was made upon me under the disguised name of Anthony Harmer. His true name is well enough known, as also who was his patron: but I answered that specimen with the firmness that became me; and I charged the writer home to publish the rest of his “Reflections.” He had intimated, that he gave then but the sample, and that he had great store yet in reserve. I told him upon that, I would expect to see him make that good, and bring out all he had to say; otherwise, they must pass for slander and detraction. He did not think fit to write any more upon that, though he was as much solicited to it by some as he was provoked to it by myself.“In 1695 he published, in folio,” The History of the Troubles and Trials of Archbishop Laud;“the second part or volume of which was published after his death by his father, the Rev. Edmund Wharton, in 1700. This is one of the most useful collections of facts illustrative of the times in which Laud lived, that we are in possession of. He published also a new edition of Becatelli’s Life of Cardinal Pole, in Latin, with the confest between the ambassadors of England and France at the council of Constance. He published in 8vo,” Historia deEpiseopis & Decanis Londinensilxus, nee non de Episcopis & Decanis Assavensibus, a prima sedis utriusque fundatione ad annum MDXL.“Besides these works he left several pieces behind him, about which he had taken great pains: and two volumes of his” Sermons“have been printed in 8vo since his death. Among his Mss, are several English historians not yet published, which he had transcribed and collated with the originals, and prepared for the press; viz. 1.” Benedictus Abbas de Gestis Henrici secundi Regis Angliae, A. D. U70.“2.” Chronicon Nicolai Tribettt (vulgo de Trebeth) Dominicani, ab ann. 1136 ad ann, 1307.“3?” Chronicon Petri Ickham, Compilatio de Gestis Britonum & Anglorum.“4.” Stephani Birchington Monachi Cantuariensis Historia de regibus Angliae post conquestum.“5.” Liber nonus de miraculis Anglorum.“In some of these are contained vast collections out of the ancient and modem records relating to church affairs. Among his manuscripts was likewise” An Account of the Mss. in Lambeth Library“in which, besides giving a most exact catalogue of them, he had under every book transcribed all those treatises contained in them which were not yet published. Among the printed books, towards a new and more correct edition of which Wharton had considerably contributed, were the following: 1.” Historia Matt. Parkeri Archiepiscopi Cantuar. de antiquitate Britaonicae Ecclesiae,“&c. enlarged with notes, collections, and additions, partly made by Parker himself, and partly by others, and several by Wharton; together with the Life of the said Archbishop, as also that of St. Austin of Canterbury, written by George Acworth. 2.” Franciscus Godwinus de Praesulibus Angliae," with some notes. 3. Florentius Wigorniensis and Matthew of Westminster, both with many notes, corrections, and additions. He had likewise made notes on several of his own books already published by him; which it is probable were designed for additions to those books whenever they should receive a new impression. All these, which were purchased by archbishop Tenison, are now in the Lambeth Library.

Wharton’s biographer represents him as a man of great natural endowments, a quick apprehension, solid judgment, and faithful memory. As to his person, he was of a middle stature, of a brown complexion, and of a grave and comely countenance. His constitution was vigorous and healthful; but his immoderate application and labours, together with the too violent operation of a medicine which weakened his stomach, so far broke it, that all the skill and art of the most experienced physicians could do nothing for him. The summer before he died he went to Bath, and found some benefit by the waters; but, falling immoderately to his studies on his return to Canterbury, he was presently reduced to extreme weakness, under which he languished for some time, and at last died at Newton in Cambridgeshire, March 5, 1694-5, in his thirty-first year. He was greatly lamented, especially by the clergy, to whom his labours and publications had been very acceptable. As a testimony of their esteem for him, they attended in great numbers at his funeral, with many of the bishops; and, among the rest, archbishop Tenison, and Lloyd bishop of Lichfield, who both visited him in his last sickness. He was interred on the South side of Westminster abbey, towards the West end, where, on the wall, is fixed up a small tablet to his memory.

"I should not presume to give your grace this trouble but that lately I met with an accident that gave me some disturbance. At Mr. Gery’s I chanced to see Mr, Wharton’s book (copy) of the Historia Literaria, wherein I found several notes blotted out, and two or three added, since I saw the book last, which was about a year before he died. The notes that he added are highly injurious to me, and afford one of the most unaccountable instances of unfair and disingenuous dealing that perhaps ever passed among men of letters. I hope therefore that your grace will not be offended if, in as few words as the thing is capable of, I set things in their true light.

"Page 282, there is this note Ab hoc loco omnia nigfo plumbo non notata ejusdem sunta uthoris (sc. H. W.) cujus ilia qua hue usque notata sunt; et mcissim qua linea decussata notantur, juncta utriusque nostrum opera sunt cor$­scripta. This note, if taken in its latitude, as it is obvious to understand it, is so extravagantly untrue, that he might with equal justice challenge the entire work, as in effect he has done the greatest part. Mr. Wharton was with me but seven or eight months (and those winter months) after I had resumed what I had long thrown aside; a time much too short for a work of that bigness, if he had claimed the whole. The four first specula 1 had drawn up, and still have by me under the hand of my then amanuensis some years before Mr. Wharton ever saw an university: to which I added several things afterwards, mostly extracted out of the English lives which I had published long before I ever heard of Mr. Wharton’s name. Nay, there are some passages, and those pretty large, hookt by Mr. Wharton within the compasse of his note, which I particularly remember I drew up several months after he left me, having then got some books which 1 had not before. And for all the rest (more than in the sense wherein things are acknowledged in this paper) I am as sure they were of my own doing, as I am sure of my right hand.

"The whole foundation of any pretence at all was no more than this. Mr. Wharton lived with me as an amanuensis at that time I resumed my design of the Hist. Liter. Besides his writing, as I dictated to him, I employed him to transcribe several things, particularly the titles of the fathers’ works, as they stand before their several editions, adding myself what short notes I thought fit to any of them and sometimes, though not very often> where the opinion of an author concerning an ecclesiastical writer was large, I set him down to draw it into a few lines, but still under my own direction and alteration. This, for instance, was the case of Origen’s works, and of what he pleasantly calls, p. 81, Dissertationem de Origenis operibus proprio martt compositarn, which was no more than thus. J sett him to collect the writings of Origen mentioned in Huetius’s Origeniana adding, what I thought fitt to them, as also the heads of his Dogmata, as they stand in the several sections of Huet’s book, and which accordingly, p. 82, I have acknowledged to have been extracted thence. la Cyprian I set him to take out his works as they are placed according to order of time in the Oxford edition, and to reduce the titles of the last Paris edition to them. In St. Augustine, I sent him to look over three or four volumes, (which were all could then be had) of the New Benedictine edition, and observe what alterations they had made from former editions, and they are mentioned up and down in the account of St. Augustin’s works. In St. Chrysostom, I employed him to transcribe the titles of his works as they stand before the several volumes qf sir H. Savil, and to recluce those of Fr. Ducseus to them, which accordingly are sett down column-wise, p. 255, &c. In reading to me out of bishop Usher’s Bibliotheca Theologica, concerning Chrysostom, (and the like concerning some others), I ordered him to copy out several passages which you have in the bishop’s own words from p. 270, and so on. In Theodoret, I directed him to coliect'his works as they are reckoned up in Garnerius’s dissertation De Vit. et Libns Theodoriti, which I refer to p. 319. Thus I sent him to your grace’s library, St. Martin’s, to collate a new edition of Zonures with the former, and he brought me an account of what was in the new; as also to the library at Lambeth, to run over three or four volumes of Lambecius. His extracts Ihave still by me somewhere, but in my own words and way I made use of.

"These are the chief and most (if not all) that he did, and this he did as my amanuensis, as maintained, employed, and directed by me, and are no more than what (if I had kept no amanuensis) I could easily have had done by the hand of any friend: and shall this be thought sufficient to ground a claim to any part of an author’s book? It would be a wofull case with writers, who are forced to make use of amanuenses, if the transcribing a few passages for the author’s use, or the making a short abridgment of a passage or two, shall he foundation enough to set up a title for copartnership in the work. I hope after so many volumes of church antiquity, published by me long before I saw Mr. Wharton’s face, the, world will not have so mean an opinion of me, as to think that I needed either to be beholden to a young man of twenty-one years, and who by his own confession had never looked into the fathers till he came to me; or that I was so lazy as to sit still, and employ another to do my work; a thing as far from my temper, as light from darkness, and from which all that know my course of studying will sufficiently acquit me. I might add that there is so plain a difference between his style and mine (whether for good or bad it matters not) that it would not be hard for any that would attend to it, to make a near guess which is which, though indeed in the' progress of the work he was ever and anon offering to thrust in his own words- and phrases, so that I was forced very often to reprimand him, and sometimes positively to over-rule him, whereof I then once and again complained to several friends, some whereof are still alive to justify it. This I then thought was only the effect of the heat and forwardness of his temper; and perhaps it was no more. Though, comparing it with what has happened since, it looks oddly. What Mr.Wharton did towards the real benefit of the works proprio marte, as he speaks, viz. transcribing Greek fragments out of Mss. translating them, and the like, is readily acknowledged in their places up and down the book, and more particularly in the Prolegomena, Sect. 3, p. 7, in expressions more comprehensive, than what he did really deserve. My lord, I am ashamed to mention these things, but that necessity enforces it.

"P. 743, ad ann. 1280, there is this note, Omnia de hinc ndfinern usque a me scripta sunt, a Cavo postmodum concinnala. I believe nobody that reads this note but would make this conclusion, that from thence to the end of the sa3culum, and the beginning of the appendix was written by Mr. Wharton, and afterwards only lickt over and revised by me. This obliges me to let your grace into the knowledge how Mr. Wharton came to be concerned in the appendix. When I was come to the year 1280, I fell sick at Windsor, and not knowing whether I might recover, and being unwilling that so much pains as I had taken should be wholly lost, I delivered my papers to Mr. Wharton, and what materials I had prepared for the two following siecula, and desired him out of them, and the Chartophylax, to draw up some kind of continuation agreeable to the rest, adding to it what he could meet with in my books. This I did as a pro tempore provision in case of the worst, designing, if I recovered, to finish it afterwards. Accordingly he parted from me, and went to my house at Islington, where he was maintained for three months at my charge, and his salary duly paid him. At my return he shewed me what he had done, without taking any further notice. Six months after, when the book was in the press, and about twenty sheets printed, he came to me, and in a peremptory manner demanded that the latter part of the book might be published in his name. I was much surprised, and represented to him the unreasonableness of such a demand; that what was done, was done in my service, by my direction, at my cost, and upon my bottom; and that I had thought of taking it in pieces and doing it over again, with some other considerations which I have now forgot. However, because I did not much stand upon it, so the book might be useful to the ends designed, who bad the credit of this or that part of it, and he being a young man, if it might be a means to let him into public notice (upon which account he seemed to insist upon it) I was content he should have the last two ssecula by way of appendix. Whereto he afterwards added several things, making use of the scattered notes I had prepared, and what was before in the Chartophylax, without taking any notice whose they were, nor did I much expect it, or desire he should. And because there were two or three sheets from ann. 1280 to the end of that soeculum, which he said he had done, 1 cut out these leaves (and for any thing I know, they may be among his papers at this hour) and did it entirely over again, wherein there was not one word of Mr. Wharton’s made use of, more than what will necessarily fall in, where two persons make use of the same books in prosecution of the same design. I further told him (for now I began to perceive his humour and what he aimed at) that to the end there might be no, farther dispute about this matter hereafter, if there was any other part to which he could make out a claim, I would strike it out and do it over again, and that I all along designed to own in the preface what real help he had contributed, shewing that part of the Prolegomena wherein I had done it; with which he was satisfied, and never afterwards spoke of it to me, or that I know of to any one else, though he lived more than seven years after.

“Thus, my lord, I have truly and sincerely laid the whole case before you; and I thought myself obliged to do it in order to the doing myself right. For I should have been unpardonably wanting to myself had I suffered myself to be undeservedly transmitted to posterity as one that had published another man’s labours under my own name, a thing from which I was ever most averse, and have commonly erred on the other hand. I know not into whose hands Mr. Wharton’s booke may hereafter fall, or what use may be made of these notes; if therefore your grace shall think fitt to lett these two or three notes stand as they are, I humbly beg the favour and justice, that this paper may be fastened into Mr. Wharton’s book, that so impartial persons may be rightly informed in the state of things. I want not an opportunity at this time of publicly doing myself right, but since the notes are ke*pt private under your grace’s custody, I did not thinke h'tt to make my defence any more public than by this address to your grace. If, when I am dead, any use shall be made of these notes ta my prejudice, I hope this paper will in some measure plead for me, or that some friend will stand up to do me right; however that, there’s a time coming when God will bring forth my righteousness as the Hght, and my integrity as noon-day. Mr. Wharton was one for whose worth I ever had ajust value, and if I have exceeded in any thing it has been upon all occasions in over-lavish commendations of him. But he was subject to one weakness (which all his friends that intimately knew him, could not but take notice of) viz a vanity of magnifying his own performances, and an overweening conceit of himself, join‘d with an unsalable thirst after fame, which ’tis like his reduced age might have corrected, as I remember I once told one of your grace’s predecessors, who was his great patron, when he was pleased to ask my opinion of him. With pardon, humbly begg'd, for the trouble of this tedious account, I am, my lord, &e. &c.”

This letter seems to confirm what Burnet had asserted of Wharton’s temper, and which, indeed, will be found confirmed by other passages in our authorities. But Wharton, upon the whole, is certainly a man to be venerated for his uncommon zeal as an ecclesiastical antiquary, and his incessant labours. Perhaps no man ever applied so diligently, or produced so much in the short space allotted to him, for he was little more than thirty years old. He probably began his researches early, and it is certain that he was a mere youth when Cave employed him, and conceived that high opinion of his talents which he so liberally expressed in the preface to his “Historia Literaria.” The second edition of this work, it must not be forgot, has many additions from Wharton’s Mss. at Lambeth, which have improperly been ascribed to Tenison. Mr. Wharton had some property, and by his will ordered the greatest part of it “to be disposed of to a religious use in the parish of Worstead, in which he was born.” His executors were his father, the rev. Edmund Wharton, the rev. Dr. Thorp, one of the prebendaries of Canterbury, and Mr. Charles Battely. His biographer informs us that “he never undertook any matter of moment without first imploring the divine assistance and blessing thereupon,” and that “in all his journeys, which his learned designs engaged him in, he was ever wont so to order his affairs, as not to omit being present at the monthly sacrament wherever he came.” To such a man some irregularities of temper and displays of conceit may be forgiven.

, an eminent English physician, was descended from an ancient and genteel family of that name in Yorkshire. He was educated in Pembroke college, Cambridge, whence he removed to Trinity college, Oxford, being then tutor to John Scrope, the natural and only son of Emanuel earl of Sunderland. Upon the breaking out of the civil wars he retired to London, where he practised physic under Dr. John Bathurst, a noted physician of that city. After the garrison at Oxford had surrendered to the parliament in 1646, he returned to Trinity college, and as a member of it was actually created doctor of physic May 8, 1647, by virtue of the letters of general Fairfax to the university, which said that “he was sometime a student in that university, and afterwards improved his time in London in the study of all parts of physic.” He then retired to London, and was admitted a candidate of the college of physicians the same year, and fellow in 1650, and for five or six years was chosen censor of the college, he being then a person of great esteem and practice in the city, and one of the lecturers in Gresham college. In 1656 he published at London, in 8vo, his “Adenographia, seu Descriptio Glandular.um totius Corporis,” which was reprinted at Amsterdam, 1659, in 8vo. In this he has given a more accurate description of the glands of the whole body, than had ever been done before; and as former authors had ascribed to them very mean uses (as supporting the divisions by vessels, or imbibing the superfluous humidities of the body) he assigns them more noble uses, as the preparation and depuration of the succus nutritius, with several other uses belonging to different glands, c. Amongst other things, he was the first who discovered the ductus in the glandulac maxillares, by which the saliva is conveyed into the mouth; and he has given an excellent account of morbid glands and their differences, and particularly of strumae and scrophulae, how new glands are often generated, as likewise of the several diseases of the glands of the mesentery, pancreas, &c. Wood tells us that he died at his house in Aldersgate-street in October 1673, and was buried in the church of St. Botolph without Aldersgate; though others say that he died November the 15th, and was buried in Basingshaw church, in a vault. But 3Vlr. Richard Smith, in his Obituary, published by Peck, observes, that he died on Friday November the 14th, at midnight, at his house in Aldersgate-street, and was buried on the 20th in the ruins of the church of St. Michael Basishaw, where he formerly had lived.

, an eminent puritan divine, was born at Banbury in Oxfordshire, in May 1583, where his father, Thomas Whately, was justice of the peace, and had been several times mayor. He was educated at Christ’scollege, Cambridge, under the tuition of Mr. Potman, a man of learning and piety, and was a constant hearer of Dr. Chaderton, Perkins, and other preachers of the Puritan-stamp. It does not appear that he was originally destined for the church, as it was not until after his marriage with the daughter of the Rev. George Hunt that he was persuaded to study for that purpose, at Edmund -hall, Oxford. Here he was incorporated bachelor of arts, and, according to Wood, with the foundation of logic, philosophy, and oratory, that he had brought with him from Cambridge, he became a noted disputant and a ready orator. In 1604, he took his degree of M. A. as a member of Edmund-hall, “being then esteemed a good philosopher and a tolerable mathematician.” He afterwards entered into holy orders, and was chosen lecturer of Banbury, his native place. In 1610, he was presented by king James to the vicarage of Banbury, which he enjoyed until his death. He also, with some of his brethren, delivered a lecture, alternately at Stratford-upon-Avon. In his whole conduct, Mr. Leigh says, he “was blameless, sober, just, holy, temperate, of good behaviour, given to hospitality”,&c. Fuller calls him “a good linguist, philosopher, mathematician, and divine;” and adds, that he “was free from faction?' Wood, who allows that he possessed excellent parts, was a noted disputant, an excellent preacher, a good orator, and well versed in the original text, both Greek and Hebrew, objects, nevertheless, that,” being a zealous Calvinist, a noted puritan, and much frequented by the precise party, for his too frequent preaching, he laid such a foundation of faction at Banbury, as will not easily be removed.“Granger, who seems to have considered all these characters with some attention, says, that” his piety was of a very extraordinary strain; and his reputation as a preacher so great, that numbers of different persuasions went from Oxford, and other distant places, to hear him. As he ever appeared to speak from his heart, his sermons were felt as well as heard, and were attended with suitable effects.“In the life of Mede, we have aa anecdote of him, which gives a very favourable idea of his character. Having, in a sermon, warmly recommended his hearers to put in a purse by itself a certain portion from every pound of the profits of their worldly trades, for works of piety, he observed, that instead of secret grudging, when objects of charity were presented, they would look out for them, and rejoice to find them. A neighbouring clergyman hearing him, and being deeply affected with what he so forcibly recommended, consulted him as to what proportion of his income he ought to give.” As to that,“said Whately,” lam not to prescribe to others; but I will tell you what hath been my own practice. You know, sir, some years ago, I was often beholden to you for the loan of ten pounds at a time; the truth is, I could not bring the year about, though my receipts were not despicable, and I was not at all conscious of any unnecessary expenses. At length, I inquired of my family what relief was given to the poor; and not being satisfied, I instantly resolved to lay aside every tenth shilling of all my receipts for charitable uses; and the Lord has made me so to thrive since I adopted this method, that now, if you have occasion, I can lend you ten times as much as I have formerly been forced to borrow."

Mr. Whately died May 10, 1639, aged fifty-six, and was interred in Banbury church-yard, where is a monument to his memory, with a Latin and English inscription. His works consist of a considerable number of sermons, printed separately, one of which, “The BrideBush, or Wedding-Sermon,” 1617, 4to, brought upon him some censure: in this he maintained, that adultery, or desertion, on the side of either of the married persons, dissolved and annihilated the marriage. For a doctrine so contrary to the laws, and pernicious in itself, he was summoned before the high commission-court, where he acknowledged his error, and was dismissed. Among his. other publications, are, 1. “A pithy, short, and methodical way of opening the Ten Commandments,” Lond. 1622, 8vo, 2. “The Oil of Gladness,” 1637, 8vo. 3. “The poor man’s Advocate,” 1637, 8vo. 4. which seems his greatest work, “Prototypes, or the primarie Precedent out of the book of Genesis,” 1640, fol. with a fine portrait, published by Edward Leigh, esq. To this is prefixed a life of him by the Rev. Henry Scudder.

, Camdenian professor of history at Oxford, was born at Jacobstow, in Cornwall, 1573, and admitted of Broadgate-hall in that university. He took the degrees in arts, that of master being completed in 1600; and, two years after, was elected fellow of Exeter-college. Leaving that house in 1608, he travelled beyond the seas into several countries; and at his return found a patron in lord Chandois. Upon the death of this nobleman, he retired with his wife to Gloucester-hall in Oxford, where, by the care and friendship of the principal, he was accommodated with lodgings; and there contracted an intimacy with the celebrated mathematician, Thomas Allen, by whose interest Camden made him the first reader of that lecture which he had founded in the university. It was thought no small honour that on this occasion he was preferred to Bryan Twyne, whom Camden named as his successor, if he survived him, but Twyne died first. Soon after, he was made principal of that hall; and this place, with his lecture, he held to the time of -his death, which happened Aug. 1, 1647. He was buried in the chapel of Exetercollege. Wood tells us, that he was esteemed by some a learned and genteel man, and by others suspected to be a Calyinist. He adds, that he left also behind him a widow and children, who soon after became poor.

He published “De Ratione et Methodo legendi Historias Dissertatio,” Oxon. 1625, in 8vo. This was an useful work, and the first regular attempt to investigate the subject on proper principles. It long went through several editions, with the addition of pieces upon the same subject by other hands: but the best is that translated into English, with this title, “The Method and Order of reading both Civil and Ecclesiastical Histories; in which the most excellent historians are reduced into the order in which they are successively to be read; and the judgments of learned men concerning each of them subjoined. By Degory Whestre, Camden reader of history in Oxford. To which is added, an appendix concerning the historians of particular nations, ancient and modern. By Nicolas Horseman. With Mr. Dodwell’s invitation to gentlemen to acquaint themselves with ancient history. Made English, and enlarged by Edmund Bohun, esq.” Loud. 1698, in 8vo.

, the author of an excellent illustration of the Book of Common Prayer, was born Feb. 6, 1686, in Paternoster-rosv, London. His father was a reputable tradesman, and his mother, whose maiden name was White, was a lineal descendant of Ralph, brother to sir Thomas White, founder of St. John’s college, Oxford, where Mr. Wheatley afterwards claimed a fellowship. On Jan. 9, 1699, he was entered at Merchant Taylors school, where for some time he was placed under the care of Dr. Matthew Shorting. In 1706 he was entered a commoner of St. John’s, Oxford, and in the following year was admitted to a fellowship as of founder’s kin. At St. John’s his tutor was Dr. Knight, afterwards vicar of St. Sepulchre’s, London, and of whom it was Mr. Wheatley’s pride to boast, that “he continued his pupil to his dying day.” He used to add; “to this great and good man, under God, I must heartily profess, that, if I have made any knowledge, or have made any progress, it is owing; and, if I have not, upon myself only be all the shame.” This was the friend to whom, with doctors Waterland and Berriman, he submitted his sermons on the Creeds, and from whom he acknowledged having received very useful and instructive hints, when he came to prepare them for the press.

In Jan. 1709, he took the degree of B. A. and proceeded M. A. in March 1713. Soon after taking his master’s degree, he resigned his fellowship, and in August of the same year, married Mary, daughter of Dr. William Findall. Not Jong after his marriage he removed to a curacy in London, and in 1717 was chosen lecturer of St. Mildred’s in the Poultry. He afterwards was presented hy Dr. Astry, treasurer of St. Paul’s, to the vicarages of Brent and Furneaux Pelham, in Hertfordshire, at which last he built at his own expence a vicarage house, and as his livings lay contiguous, he supplied them both himself. Having procured several benefactions for them, he obtained their augmentation from queen Anne’s bounty, and as a farther increment left them at his death 2OO/. He spent the last fourteen years of his life at Furneaux Pelham, and died there of a dropsy and asthma, May 13, 1742. He left some valuable books and Mss. to the library of St. John’s college.

Of his works his “Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer,” 1720, has been the most admired and the most successful, having gone through at least eight editions. Besides which he published, 2. “An Historical vindication of the 85th Canon; shewing that the form of bidding-prayer, before sermon, has been prescribed and enjoined ever since the reformation,” Lond. 1718, 8vo. Among Rawlinson’s Mss. in the Bodleian are “Some remarks” by the rev. Mr. Lewis of Margate, on this work. 3. “Christian exceptions to the plain account of the nature and end of the Lord’s Supper. With a method proposed of corning at the true and apostolic sense of that holy sacrament,” 8vo. 4. “Private devotions at the holy communion, adapted to the public office in the Liturgy,” a single sheet, printed in different forms, adapted to the different editions of the book of Common-prayer. 5. “The Nicene and Athanasian creeds, so far as they are expressive of a co-equal and co-eternal Trinity in Unity, and of perfect Godhead and manhood in one only Christ, explained and confirmed, &c. in eight sermons preached at lady Moyer’s Lecture, in the years 1733 and 1734,” Lond. 1738, 8vo. After his death three volumes of his “Sermons,” 8vo, were published in 1746 by Dr. Berriman.

, a late elegant artist, was born in London in 1747; the only regular instruction which he received was at a drawing-school. He acquired his knowledge of painting without a master; but he had the advantage of seeing much of what was then practised in the art, by the friendship and instructions of Mortimer, whom he assisted in painting the ceiling at Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire, the seat of lord Melbourne. He also associated much with young men who were or had been under the tuition of the most eminent artists of that period. His inclination appeared to lead him equally to figures and to landscape; but the profit likely to be derived from the former, caused him to make that his particular pursuit. In the early part of his life, he had considerable employment in painting some whole-length portraits. After practising several years in London, he was induced to remove to Ireland, and was much employed in Dublin, where he painted a large picture representing the Irish House of Commons assembled, in which portraits of many of the most remarkable political characters were introduced. From Dublin he returned to London, where he painted a picture of the riots in 1780, from which Heath engraved a very excellent print for Boydell. This picture was unfortunately burnt in the house of Mr. Heath, who then resided in Lislestreet, Leicester-square, it being too large to be moved. Mr. Wheatley continued to paint portraits, but he was chiefly engaged in painting rural and domestic scenes, for which he appeared to have a peculiar talent, and his works of that kind became very popular, although ia his females he adopted too much of the French costume. At an early period of life, he was attacked by the gout, which gradually deprived him of the use of his limbs, and of which he died, June 28, 1801, at fifty-four years of age.

Mr. Wheatley was elected associate of the Royal Academy, Nov.- 17 90, and Royal Academician, Feb. 10, 1791. He was a handsome man, of elegant manners, and generally a favourite in genteel company. He understood his art, and spoke with great taste and precision on every branch of it. His greatest efforts were the pictures he painted for the Shakspeare and Historic galleries.

, a learned orientalist, and first professor of the Arabic and Saxon tongues in the University of Cambridge, was born at Loppington, in Shropshire (of which county likewise was his patron and founder, sir Thomas Adorns) and admitted of Trinity cpllege, Cambridge. There he became B. A. in 1614, M. A. in 1618, and %vas admitted fellow of Clare-hall the year following. In- 1623 he was appointed one of the university preachers, and in 1625 commenced bachelor of divinity. In 1622 he was: made minister of St. Sepulchre’s church, which he held until 1642. About the same time (1622) he read the Arabio lecture ipr Mr. (afterwards sir Thomas) Adams, though it &as not then settled, but he received for the same forty pounds a year, remitted to him by quarterly payments. Hte read also the Saxon lecture for sir Henry Spelman, for which he received an annual stipend, not settled, but voluntary: together with this, sir Henry gave Mr. Wheelocke the vicarage of Middleton, in Norfolk, worth fifty pounds a year, which was intended to be augmented out of the appropriate parsonage, and to be the ground of his intended foundation, if sir Henry’s death, which happened in 1641, had not prevented it. Multiplicity of literary business, and severity of application, probably shortened Wheelocke’s clays:' for he died at London whilst he was printing his Persian gospels, in the month of September 1653. He is said to have been sixty years old. He was buried at St. Botolph’s Aldersgate. His funeral sermon was preached and published by William Sclater, D. D. 1654, 4to. Wheelocke’s was a great loss to the gentlemen concerned in the celebrated Polyglot, who knew how to value his services. His province was to have corrected the Syriac and Arabic at the press.

His “Quatuor Evangelia Dom. nost. Jesu Christi, Persice,” appeared at Lond. 1652, fol. For this work, which was intended to have been introduced into Persia, as the foundation of a missionary scheme, the celebrated Pocock lent him a ms. so good, that Wheelocke, in a letter to him, professes, that had it not been for his fear of oppressing his amanuensis, he would have begun his work again. He also published in 1644, fol. Bede’s “Historise Ecclesiasticse gentis Anglorum libri quinque,” &c. and with it “Larabardi Archaionomia, sive de priscis Anglorum legibus,” with a learned preface.

, a learned traveller, was the son of colonel Wheler of Charing in Kent, and born in 1650 at Breda in Holland, his parents being then exiles there for having espoused the cause of Charles I. In 1667 he became a commoner of Lincolncollege in Oxford, under the tuition of the learned Dr. Hi kes, the deprived dean of Worcester,; but, before he had a degree conferred upon him. went tq travel; and, in the company of Dr. James Spon of -Lyonsj tpok a voyage from Venice to Constantinople, through the Lesser Asia, and from Zante through several parts of Greece tg Athens, and thence to Attica, Corinth, &c. They made great use of Pausanias as they journeyed through- the >; $jpumries of Greece and corrected and explained several traditions by means of this author. The primary object of these leaned travellers was to copy the inscriptions, and describe the antiquities and coins of Greece and Asia Minor, and particularly of Athens, where they sojourned a month. Some time after his return, he presented to Lincoln college, Oxford, a valuable collection of Greek and Latin Mss. which he had collected in his travels; upon which, in 1683, the degree of master of arts was conferred upon him, he being then a knight. He then took orders; and, in 1634, was installed into a prebend of the church of Durham. He was also made vicar of Basingstoke, and afterwards presented to the rich rectory of Houghton-le-Spring by bishop Crew his patron. He was created doctor of divinity by diploma, May 18, 1702; and died, Feb. 18, 1723-4.“He was interred at the west end of the nave of Durham cathedral, and by his own desire, as near as possible to the tomb of the venerable Bede, for whom he had an enthusiastic veneration In 1682, he published an account of his” Journey into Greece, in the company of Dr. Spoil of Lyons, in six books," folio. These travels are highly valued for their authenticity, and are replete with sound and instructive erudition to the medallist and antiquary. Sir George also appears, on all occasions, to have been attentive to the natural history of Greece, and particularly to the plants, of which he enumerates several hundreds in this volume, and gives the engravings of some. These catalogues sufficiently evince his knowledge of the botany of his time. He brought fVom the East several plants which had not been cultivated in Britain before. Among these, the Hypericum-Olympicum, (St. John’s Wort of Olympus) is a well-known plant, introduced by this learned traveller. Ray, JVJorison, and Plukenet, all acknowledge their obligations for curious plants received from him.

After sir George Wheler entered into the church, he published, in 1689, “An Account of the Churches and Places of Assembly of the primitive Christians, from the Churches of Tyre, Jerusalem, and Constantinople, described by Eusebius; and ocular observations upon several very antient edifices of churches yet extant in those parts; with a seasonable application.” We have also a third piece of his, entitled, “The Protestant Monastery, or Christian Oeconomics,” which contains directions for the religious conduct of a family, and shews him to have been a remarkably pious and devout man.

Sir George married a daughter of sir Thomas Higgohs of Grewell in Hampshire, who died in 1703, and left a numerous issue. The rev. Granville Wheler, of Otterdenplace, Kent, and rector of Leak in Nottinghamshire, who died in 1770, was his third son, and became his heir. He likewise distinguished himself as a gentleman of science, and a polite scholar. He was the friend and patron of Mr, Stephen Gray, who, jointly with him, contributed to revive the study of electricity in England. Sir George Wheler’s name is preserved in London, from his having built a chapel on his estate in Spital-fields, known by the name of sir George Wheler’s chapel, which has lately been repaired and refitted for public worship.

, a learned abbot of St. Albans, was ordained a priest in 1382, and died in 1464, when he had been eighty-two years in priest’s orders, and above an hundred years old. He wrote a chronicle of twenty years of this period, beginning in 1441 and ending in 1461. It contains many original papers, and gives a very full account of some events, particularly of the two battles of St. Alban’s. More than one half of his chronicle is filled with the affairs of his own abbey, to which he was a great benefactor, particularly to the altar of the patron saint, which he adorned with much magnificence. About 1430 he employed Lydgate to translate the Latin legend of St. Alban’s life into English rhymes, for the purpose of familiarising the history of that saint to the monks of his convent. He enriched the library by procuring transcripts of useful books, and was on account of such pursuits in high favour with duke Humphrey, who, when about to found his library at Oxford, often visited St. Alban’s, and employed Whethamstede to collect valuable books for him.

, is an author of whom very little is known. From the circumstance of his being a kinsman to serjeant Fleetwood, recorder of London, it is probable that he was of a good family. It appears that he first tried his fortune at court, where he consumed his patrimony in fruitless expectation of preferment. Being now destitute of subsistence, he commenced soldier, and served abroad, though in what capacity is unknown. Such, however, was his gallant behaviour, that his services were rewarded with additional pay. He returned from the wars with honour, but with little profit; and his prospect of advancement was so small, that he determined to turn farmer, but being unsuccessful in that undertaking, was under the necessity of applying to the generosity of his friends. This he found to be “a broken reed, and worse than common beggary of charity from strangers. Now craft accosted him in his sleep, and tempted him with the proposals of several professions; but for the knavery or slavery of them, he rejected all: his munificence constrained him to love money, and his magnanimity to hate all the ways of getting it.” At last he resolved to seek his fortune at sea, and accordingly embarked with sir Humphrey Gilbert in the expedition to Newfoundland, which was rendered unsuccessful by an engagement with the Spanish fleet. From this period, Mr. Whetstone seems to have depended entirely on his pen for subsistence. Where or when he died has not been ascertained. He is entitled to some notice as a writer whose works are in request as literary curiosities, but of little intrinsic value. Mr. Steevens pronounced him “the most quaint and contemptible writer, both in prose and verse, he ever met with.” He wrote, 1. “The Rock of Regard,” a poem in four parts. 2. “The Life of George Gascoigne,” 1577, 4to. A reprint of this may be seen in the late edition of the “English Poets,” 1810, 21 vols. 8vo. The only original copy known of late years, was purchased by Mr. Maione for forty guineas! 3. “Promus and Cassandra,” a comedy, 1578, 4to, on this play Shakspeare founded his “Measure for Measure.” 4. “Heptameron of civil discourses,” 1582, 4to. 5. “The remembrance of the life and death of Thomas, late earl of Sussex,” 1583, 4to. 6. “A mirrour of true honour, &c. in the life and death, &c, of Francis earl of Bedford,” &c. 1,585, 4to. 7. “The English mirror, wherein all estates may behold the conquest of error,” 1586. This contains much of the state history of the times. 8. “Censure of a dutiful subject of certain noted speech and behaviour of those fourteen noted traytors at the place of execution on the 20th and 21st of Sept.” no date. 9. A poem “on the life and death of sir Philip Sidney” by him, and supposed unique, a very few leaves only, was lately sold at Messrs. King and Lochee’s to Mr. Harding for 261. 5s. An account of some of these curiosities may be seen in our authorities.

, an English divine of great name, was descended of an ancient and good family in the county of Salop, and was the sixth son of Christopher Whichcote, esq. at Whichcote-hall in the parish of Stoke, where he was born March 11, 1609-10. He was admitted of Emanuel-college, Cambridge, in 1626, and took the degrees in arts: that of bachelor in 1629; and that of master in 1633. The same year, 1633, he was elected fellow of the college, and became a most excellent tutor; many of his pupils, as Wallis, Smith, Worthington, Cra,­dock, &c. becoming afterwards men of great eminence. Jn 1636 he was ordained both deacon and priest at Buckden by Williams bishop of Lincoln; and soon after set up an afternoon-lecture on Sundays in Trinity church at Cambridge, which, archbishop Tillotson says, he served near twenty years. He was also appointed one of the university-preachers; and, in 1643, was presented by the master and fellows of his college to the living of North-Cadbury in Somersetshire. This vacated his fellowship; and upon this, it is presumed, he married, and went to his living; but was soon called back to Cambridge, being appointed to succeed the ejected provost of King’s-college, Dr. Samuel Collins, who had been in that office thirty years, and was also regius professor of divinity. This choice was perfectly agreeable to Dr. Collins himself; though not so to Dr. Whichcote, who had scruples about Accepting what was thus irregularly offered him: however, after some demurring, he complied, and was admitted pro-r vost, March 16, 1644. He had taken his bachelor of divinity’s degree in 1640; and he took his doctor’s in 1649. He now resigned his Somersetshire living, and was presented by his college to the rectory of Milton in Cambridgeshire, which was void by the death of Dr. Collins. Jt must be remembered, to Dr. Whichcote’s honour, that, during the life of Dr. Collins, one of the two shares out of the common dividend allotted to the provost was, not only with Dr. Whichcote’s consent, but at his motion, paid punctually to him, as if he had still been provost. Dr. Whichcote held Milton as long as he lived; though, after the Restoration, he thought proper to resign, and resume it by a fresh presentation from the college. He still continued to attend his lecture at Trinity, church with the same view that he had at first set it up; which was, to preserve and propagate a spirit of sober piety and rational religion in the university of Cambridge, in opposition to the style of preaching, and doctrines then in vogue: and he may be said to have founded the school at which many eminent (divines after the Restoration, and Tillotson among them, who had received their education at Cambridge, were formed, and were afterwards distinguished from the more orthodox by the epithet latitudinarian. In 1658 he wrote verses upon the death of Oliver Cromwell, which, his biographer supposes, were done entirely out of form, and not put of any regard to the person of the protector. Nor had Dr. Whichcote ever concurred with the violent measures of those times by signing the covenant, or by any injurious sayings or actions to the prejudice of any man. At the Restoration, however, he was removed from his provostship by especial order from the king; but yet he was not disgraced or frowned upon. On the contrary, he went to London, and in 1662 was chosen minister of St. Anne’s, Blackfriars, where he continued till his church was burned down in the dreadful fire of 1666. He then retired to Milton for a while; but was again called up, and presented by the crown to the vicarage of St. Lawrence Jewry, vacant by the promotion of Dr. VVilkins to the see of Chester. During the building of this church, upon invitation of the court of aldermen, in the mayoralty of sir William Turner, he preached before the corporation at Guildhall chapel, with great approbation, for about seven years. When St. Lawrence’s was rebuilt, he preached there twice a week, and had the general love and respect of his parish, and a very considerable audience, though not numerous, owing to the weakness of his voice in his declining age. A little before Easter in 1683, he went down to Cambridge; where, upon taking cold, he fell into a distemper, which in a few days put an end to his life. He died at the house of his ancient and learned friend Dr. Cuclworth, master of Christ’s-college, in May 1683 and was interred in the church of St. Lawrence Jewry. Dr. Tillotson, then lecturer there, preached his funeral-sermon, where his character is drawn to great advantage. Burnet speaks of him in the following terms: “He was a man of a rare temper; very mild and obliging. He had credit with somewhat had been eminent in the late times; but made all the use he could of it to protect good men of all persuasions. He was much for liberty of conscience; and, being disgusted with the dry systematical way of those times, he studied to raise those who conversed with him to a nobler set of thoughts, and to consider religion as a seed of a deiform nature (to use one of his own phrases). In order to this, he set young students much on reading the ancient philosophers, chiefly Plato, Tully, and Piotin; and on considering the Christian religion as a doctrine sent from God, both to elevate and sweeten human nature, in which he was a great example as well as a wise and kind instructor. Cudworth carried this on with a great strength of genius, as well as a vast compass of learning.” Baxter numbers him with “the best and ablest of the conformists.”

But his character is drawn most at length by Tillotson in his funeral sermon. “I shall not,” says Tillotson, “insist upon his exemplary piety and devotion towards God, of which his whole life was one continued testimony. Nor will I praise his profound learning, for which he was justly had in so great reputation. The moral improvements of his mind, a god-like temper and disposition' (as he was wont to call it), he chiefly valued and aspired after; that universal charity and goodness, which he did continually preach and practise. His conversation was exceeding kind and affable, grave and winning, prudent and profitable. He was slow to declare his judgment, and modest in delivering it. Never passionate, never peremptory; so Car from imposing upon others, that he was rather apt to yield. And though he had a most profound and well-poised judgment, yet he was of all men I ever knew the most patient to hear others differ from him, and the most easy to be convinced, when good reason was offered; and, which is seldom seen, more apt to be favourable to another man’s reason than his own. Studious and inquisitive men commonly at such an age (at forty or fifty at the utmost) have fixed and settled their judgments in most points, and as it were made their last understanding; supposing that they have thought, or read, or heard what can be said on all sides of things; and after that they grow positive and impatient of contradiction, thinking it a disparagement to them to alter their judgment. But our deceased friend was so wise, as to be willing to learn to the last, knowing that no man can grow wiser without some change of his mind, without gaining some knowledge which he had not, or correcting some error which he had before. He had attained so perfect a mastery of his passions, that for the latter and greatest part of his life he was hardly ever seen to be transported with anger; and as he was extremely careful not to provoke any man, so not to be provoked by any, using to say `If I provoke a man, he is the worse for my company; and if I suffer myself to be provoked by hira, I shall be the worse for his.‘ He very seldom reproved any person in company otherwise than by silence, or some sign of uneasiness, or some very soft and gentle word; which yet from the respect men generally bore to him did often prove effectual. For he unr derstood human nature very well, and how to apply himself to it in the most easy and effectual ways. He was a great encourager and kind director of young divines, and one of the most candid hearers of sermons, I think, that ever was; so that though all men did mightily reverence his judgment, yet no man had reason to fear his censure. He never spake of himself, nor ill of others, making good that saying of Pansa in Tully, ’ Netninem alterius, qui suae confideret virtuti, invidere,' that no man is apt to envy the worth and virtues of another, that hath any of his own to trust to. In a word, he had all those virtues, and in a high degree, which an excellent temper, great condescension, long care and watchfulness over himself, together with the assistance of God’s grace (which he continually implored and mightily relied upon) are apt to produce. Particularly he excelled in the virtues of conversation, humanity, and gentleness, and humility, a prudent and peaceable and reconciling temper.” Tillotson likewise informs us that as he had a plentiful estate, so he was of a very charitable disposition; which yet was not so - well known to many, because in the disposal of his charity he very much affected secrecy. He frequently bestowed his alms on poor house-keepers, disabled by age or sickness to support themselves, thinking those to bethe most proper objects of it. He was rather frugal in expence upon himself, that so he might have wherewithal to relieve the necessities of others. And he was not only charitable in his life, but in a very bountiful manner at his death, bequeathing in pious and charitable legacies to the value of a thousand pounds: to the library of the university of Cambridge fifty pounds, and of King’s college one hundred pounds, and of Emanuel college twenty pounds; to which college he had been a considerable benefactor before, having founded three several scholarships there to the value of a thousand pounds, out of a chanty with the disposal whereof he was intrusted, and which not without great difficulty and pains he at last received. To the poor of the several places, where his estate lay, and where he had been minister, he gave above one hundre4 pounds. Among those, who had been his servants, or were so at his death, he disposed in annuities and legacies in money to tlje value of above three hundred pounds. To other charitable uses, and among his poor relations, above three hundred pounds. To every one of his tenants he left a legacy according to the proportion of the estate they held by way of remembrance of him; and to one of them, who was gone much behind, he remitted in his will seventy pounds. And as became his great goodness, he was ever a remarkably kind landlord, forgiving his tenants, and always making abatements to them for hard years or any other accidental losses that happened to them. He made likewise a wise provision in his will to prevent lawsuits among the legatees, by appointing two or three persons of the greatest prudence and authority among his relations final arbitrators of all differences that should arise.

The fate of his “Sermons,*' which have been so much admired, was somewhat singular. They were first ushered into the world by one who could not be supposed very eager to propagate the doctrines of Christianity, the celebrated earl of Shaftesbury, author of the” Characteristics,' 7 &c. In 1698 his lordship published “Select Sermons of Dr. Whichcote, in two parts,” 8vo. He employed on this occasion the rev. William Stephens, rector of Sutton, in Surrey, to revise, and probably superintend the press; but the long preface is unquestionably from his lordship. In addition to every other proof we may add the evidence of the late Mr. Harris of Salisbury, who informed a friend that his mother, lady Betty Harris, (who was sister to the earl of Shaftesbury) mentioned her having written the preface from her brother’s dictation, he being at that time too ill to write himself. That his lordship should become the voluntary editor and recommender of the sermons of any divine, has been accounted for by one of Dr. Whichcote’s biographers in this way: that his lordship found in these sermons some countenance given to his own peculiar sentiments concerning religion, as sufficiently practicable by our natural strength or goodness, exclusive of future rewards or punishments. To this purpose lord Shaftesbury has selected some passages of the sermons, and adds, “Thus speaks our excellent divine and truly Christian philosopher, whom for his appearing thus in defence of natural goodness, we may call the preacher of good nature. This is what he insists on everywhere, and to, make this evident is in a manner the scope of all his discourses. And in conclusion it is hoped, that what has been here suggested, may be sufficient to justify the printing of these sermons.” Whatever may be in this, it is rather singular that the same collection was republished at Edinburgh in 1742, 12mo, with a recommendatory epistle by a presby* terian divine, the rev. Dr. William Wish art, principal of the college of Edinburgh.

Three more volumes of Dr. Whichcote’s sermons were published by Dr. Jeffery, archdeacon of Norwich, in 1701—3, and a fourth by Dr. Samuel Clarke in 1707. The best edition of the whole was published in 1751, at Aberdeen, in 4 vols. 8vo, under the superintendence of Drs. Campbell and Gerard, two well-known names in the literary history of Scotland. Dr. Jeffery also published in 1703, “Moral and religious Aphorisms” collected from Dr. Whichcote’s manuscript papers. Of these an elegant edition was reprinted in 1753 by Dr. Samuel Salter, with large additions, and a correspondence with Dr. Tuckney which we have already noticed in our account of that divine. Long before this, in 1688, some " Observations and Apophthegms’ 7 of Dr. Whichcote’s, taken from his own mouth by one of his pupils, were published in 8vo, and passed through two editions, if not more. Whichcote excelled in moral aphorisms, and many might be collected from his sermons.

, an English divine of very uncommon parts and more uncommon learning, but of a singular and extraordinary character, was born Dec. 9, 1667, at Norton near Twycrosse, in the county of Leicester; of which place his father Josiah Whiston, a learned and pious man, was rector. He was kept at home till he was seventeen, and trained under his father; and this on two accounts: first, because he was himself a valetudinarian, being greatly subject to the flatus hypocondriaciis in various shapes all his life long; secondly, that he might serve his father, who had lost his eye-sight, in the quality of an amanuensis. In 1684, he was sent to Tamvvorth school, and two years after admitted of Clare-hall in Cambridge, where he pursued his studies, and particularly the mathematics, eight hours a day, till 1693. During this time, and while he was under-graduate, an accident happened to him, which he relates for a caution and benefit to others in the like circumstances. He observed one summer, that his eyes did not see as usual, biU dazzled after an aukward manner. Upon which, imagining it arose fro'm too much application, he remitted for a fortnight, and tried to recover his usual sight, by walking much in green fields; but found himself no better. At that time he met with an account of Mr. Boyle’s having known a person, who, having new-whited the wall of his chamber on which the sun shone, and having accustomed himself to read in that glaring light, thereby lost his sight for some time; till, upon hanging the place with green, he recovered it again: and this, he says, was exactly his own case, in a less degree, both as to the cause and the remedy.