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The earl of Rochester was a graceful and well -shaped person, tall, and well-made, if not a little too slender, as Burnet observes. “He was,” says Johnson, "eminent for the vigour of his colloquial wit, and remarkable for many wild pranks and sallies of extravagance. The glare of his general character diffused itself upon his writings; the compositions of a man whose name was heard so often were certain of attention, and from many readers certain of applause. This blaze of reputation is not yet quite extinguished; and his poetry still retains some splendour beyond that which genius has bestowed.

“Wood and Burnet give us reason to believe, that much was imputed to him which he did not write. It is not known by whom the original collection was made, or by what authority its genuineness was ascertained. The first edition was published. in the year of his death, with an air of concealment, professing in the title-page to be printed at Antwerp. Of some of the pieces, however, there is no doubt. The Imitation of Horace’s Satire, the Verses to lord Mulgrave, the Satire against Man, the verses upon Nothing, and perhaps some others, are I believe genuine, and perhaps most of those which the collection exhibits. As he cannot be supposed to have found leisure for any course of continued study, his pieces are commonly short, such as one fit of resolution would produce. His songs have no particular character; they tell, like other &ongs, in smooth and easy language, of scorn and kindness, dismission and desertion, absence, and inconstancy, with the common-places of artificial courtship. They are commonly smooth and easy; but have little nature, and little sentiment. His imitation of Horace on Lucilius is not inelegant or unhappy. In the reign of Charles the Second began that adaptation, which has since been very frequent, of ancient poetry to present times; and perhaps few will be found where the parallelism is better preserved than in this. The versification is indeed sometimes careless, but it is sometimes vigorous and weighty. The strongest effort of his muse is his poem upon” Nothing.“Another of his most vigorous pieces is his lampoon upon sir Carr Scrope. Of the satire against Man, Rochester can only claim what remains when all Boileau’s part is taken away. In all his works there is sprightliness and vigour, and every where may be found tokens of a mind which study might have carried to excellence. What more can be expected from a life spent in ostentatious contempt of regularity, and ended before the abilities of many other men began to be displayed?” The late George Steevens, esq. made the selection of Rochester’s poems which appears in Dr. Johnson’s edition; but Mr. Malone observes, that the same task had been performed in the early part of the last century by Jacob Tonson.

, a learned lawyer, and lord chief justice of the court of common pleas, was the second son of Robert Wilmot, of Osmaston in the county of Derby, esq. and of Ursula, one of the daughters and coheiresses of sir Samuel Marow, of Berkswell, in the county of Warwick, bart.He was born Aug. 16, 1709, at Derby, where his father then lived, and after having acquired the rudiments of learning at the free-school in that town, under the Ker, Mr. Blackwell, was placed with the Rev. Mr. Hunter at Lichfield, where he was contemporary with Johnson and Garrick. At an after period of his life it could be remarked that there were then five judges upon the bench who had been 'educated at Lichfield school, viz. Willes, Parker, Noel, Lloyd, and Wilmot. In Jan. 1724, he was removed to Westminster-school, and placed under Dr. Freind; and here, and at Trinity-hall, Cambridge, where he resided until Jan. 1728, he laid the foundation of many friendships, which he preserved through a long life. At the university he contracted a passion for study and retirement that never quitted him, and he was often heard to say, that at this time the height of his ambition was to become a fellow of Trinity- hall, and to pass his life in that learned society. His natural disposition had induced him to give the preference to the church; but his father, who was a man of sagacity as well as of reading, had destined him to the study of the law, which he accordingly prosecuted with much diligence at the Inner Temple, and was called to the fear in June 1732. In 1743 he married Sarah, daughter of Thomas Rivett, of Derby, esq.

We are not acquainted with any interesting particulars of Mr. Wilmot’s life between the period of his leaving the university and his being in a considerable degree of practice as a barrister: but as duty and filial piety, more than inclination, had induced him to embrace the profession of the law, his pursuit after its emoluments was not eager, though his study of it was unremitted. He was regular in his attendance on the terms, but his practice was at this, time chiefly confined to jhe county of Derby, where he was much respected. In town his business was not great; jet in those causes in which he was engaged, his merit, learning, and eloquence, were universally acknowledged, and gained him the esteem and approbation of some of the greatest ornaments of the profession, among whom were sir Dudley Ryder, then attorney-general, and the lord chancellor Hardwicke. In 1753, the chancellor proposed to make him one of his majesty’s counsel, and afterwards king’s serjeant: but both these he declined, chiefly from a disinclination to London business, and a wish, that never left him, of retiring altogether into the country. On this he was so determined that in 1754, he actually made what he called his farewell speech in the court of exchequer, which he had of late years attended more than any other. Perhaps his disposition was not calculated for forensic disputation, though his profound knowledge and indefatigable labour, as well as ability and penetration, had made him, in the opinion of those who knew him, one of the best lawyers of his time. He had more than one offer of a seat in the House of Commons about this period, bat he uniformly djeclined every temptation of this kind. He had not however long enjoyed his retirement in Derbyshire before he received a summons to town to succeed sir Martin Wright, as judge of the court of King’s Bench. With much persuasion, aided perhaps by the increase of his family, consisting now of five children, he was induced to accept this preferment in February 1755, which was accompanied, as usual, with the honour of knighthood. It is not known to what interest he owed this promotion, and it seems most fair to conclude that a sense of his merit only must have induced his patrons to send to the country for one so resolute on retirement, when so many, at hand, would have been glad to accept the office.

In the autumn of 1756, lord Hardwicke resigned the great seal, which continued for about a year in the hands of three lords commissioners, chief justice Willes, sir S. S. Smythe, and sir John Eardley VVihnot. In March 1757, sir Eardley had a most providential escape from being destroyed at Worcester by the fall of a stack of chimneys through the roof into court. His first clerk was killed at his feet, also the attorney in the cause then trying, two of the jurymen, and some others. Sir Eardley was beginning to sum up the evidence when the catastrophe happened. Sir Eardley continued about nine years longer, as one of the puisne judges of the court of King’s Bench. The King’s Bench was at this time filled with men of distinguished talents, and ic is no small honour to sir Eardley Wilmot that he sat for a long period as the worthy colleague of Mansfield, Dennison, and Foster. Though the part be took was not a very conspicuous one, from his situation on the bench, and from his native modesty, yet his brethren, and those who were acquainted with Westminster-hall at that period, bore testimony that his active mind was always engaged, either in or out of court, in elucidating some obscure point, iii nicely weighing questions of the greatest difficulty, and in contributing his share towards expediting and deciding the important suits then under discussion nor was he less eminent in that important branch of his judicial office, the administration of the criminal justice 6f the kingdom; and while his pervading mind suffered few crimes to escape detection and punishment, his humanity and compassion were often put to the severest trials.

Among many other parts of this laborious profession, to which sir Eardley had given unremitting attention, is that of taking notes, to which he had invariably accustomed himself both before and after he was called to the bar. These notes were transcribed by his clerk, and he thus by degrees became possessed of many volumes of ms. notes, both in law and equity. The same practice he continued after he was raised to the bench, till he heard that Mr. (afterwards sir James) Burrow intended to publish his notes from the time of lord Mansfields being appointed chief justice; but he uniformly lent Mr. Burrow his papers from this period, and with such short notes as he took himself. We may here mention that the “Notes of Opinions delivered in different courts,” by sir John Eardley Wilmot, vrere published in 1802, 4to, by his son, with a memoir of his life, from which we have extracted the present account.

Although sir Eardley persevered unremittingly in the discharge of his duty, it was not without a frequent sigh for a more quiet and retired station than that of the court of King’s Bench. In 1765, a serious treaty was set on foot by him, to exchange his present office for one, not less honourable indeed, but undoubtedly at that time less lucrative and less conspicuous, that of chief justice of Chester, which was then held by Mr. Morton; but the treaty was at length broken off, and when in the summer of 1766, lord Camden, who had been chief justice of the common pleas about four years, was appointed lord chancellor, sir Eardley was promoted to the chief justiceship in his room. Here, however, as in former instances, his friends had no little trouble in overcoming his repugnance to a more elevated situation. It is believed, that next to his character for learning and integrity, he was indebted for this preferment, to the high opinion and esteem of both the old and new chancellor, and also to the friendship of lord Shelburne, appointed at that time one of the secretaries of state. His lordship, though a much younger man, had ever since his first acquaintance with him, several years before, conceived so great an admiration of his talents; and esteem for his virtues, that he had Jong lived with him in habits of the greatest intimacy and friendship. In the evening of the day that sir Eardley kissed hands on being appointed chief justice, one of his sons, a youth of seventeen, attended him at his bed-side. “Mow,” said he, “my son, I will tell you a secret worth your knowing and remembering; the elevation I have met with in life, particularly this last instance of it, has not been owing to any superior merit or abilities, but to my humility, to my not having set up myself above others, and to an uniform endeavour to pass through life, void of offence towards God and man.” Sir Eardley was now called to preside in a court where he had many seniors on the bench; but the appointment gave general satisfaction, and his acknowledged abilities, his unaffected modesty and courtesy, soon made him as much esteemed and beloved in his new court, as he had been before in his old one.

In 1768, bishop Warburton, who had the highest opnion of sir Eardley, requested him to become one of the first trustees of his lectureship at Lincoln’s-inn chapel, along with lord Mansfield and Mr. Yorke; and this being complied with, in 1769, sir Eardley requested his assistance and advice on the occasion of one of his sons preparing himself for the church. The bishop complied, and sent him the first part of some “Directions for the study of Theology,” which have since been printed in Warburton’s works, being given to his editor, Dr. Hurd, by the son to whom they were addressed, the late John Eardley Wilmot, esq. Circumstances afterwards induced this son to go into the profession of the law, on which sir Eardley, in 1771, made the following indorsement on the bishop’s paper. “These directions were given me by Dr. Warburton, bishop of Gloucester, for the use of my son, when he proposed to go into orders; but, in the year 1771, he unfortunately preferred the bar to the pulpit, and, instead of lying upon a bed of roses, ambitioned a crown of thorns. Digne puer meliore flamma /” This shews how uniform sir Eardley was, from his earliest youth, in his predilection for the church, a predilection which probably influenced, more or less, every act of his life. It was about this time, viz. 1769, that sir Eardley presided in the memorable cause of Mr. Wilkes against lord Halifax and others, a period of great heat and violence, both in parliament and in the nation; but he was so entirely free from all political bias, that his conduct gave universal satisfaction. It was an action of trespass for false imprisonment, damages laid at 20,000l.; Mr. Wilkes having been taken up and confined in the Tower, and his papers seized and taken away, by virtue of a general warrant from lord Halifax, one of his majesty’s secretaries of state. Sir Eardley’s speech is published in his Life, and does great credit to his impartiality. The jury gave 4000l. damages.

On the resignation of lord Camden, and the subsequent death of Mr. Yorke, in January 1770, the great seal, with other honours, was offered to sir Eardley by the duke of Graf ton, and was again pressed upon him in the course of that year by lord North, the duke’s successor, but in vain. He was at this time too fixed in his resolution of retiring altogether from public business, and it seemed to him a good opportunity to urge the same reason for resigning the office he held, as for declining the one that was offered him, namely, ill health, which had prevented him occasionally from attending his court. His intention was to have resigned without receiving any pension from the crown; but when his resignation was accepted in 1771, he was much surprised and disconcerted to find, that he was to receive a pension for life. This he withstood in two several interviews with the first lord of the treasury; but his majesty having desired to see him at Buckingham house, was pleased to declare, that he could not suffer so faithful a servant to the public to retire, without receiving this mark of approbation and reward for his exemplary services. After this, sir Eardley thought it would be vanity and affectation to contend any longer; and certainly his private fortune would not have enabled him to live in the manner to which he had been accustomed. But as he was thus liberally provided for by his majesty’s bounty, he thought the least he could do was to make every return in his power; and having the honour of being one of his majesty’s privy council, he, in conjunction with the venerable sir Thomas Parker, who had been chief baron of the exchequer, uniformly attended the appeals to the king in council till 1782, when his increasing infirmities obliged him to give up this last part of what he thought his public duty. Of his infirmities he gives a most affecting proof in a short letter to earl Gower, dated Jan. 12 of that year. “My sight and hearing are extremely impaired; but my memory is so shook, that if I could read a case over twenty times, I could, neither understand nor remember it; and as my attendance at council would only expose ray infirmities, without being of any service to the public, I cannot think of ever putting my self into such a disagreeable situation.”

He now retired totally from public business, and saw very little company during the remainder of his life, except a few friends, whom time had hitherto spared. His retreat from business not only procured him ease and health, but probably lengthened his life. He died Feb. 5, 1792, aged eighty- two. He left his eldest surviving son his sole executor, with express directions, in his own hand-writing, for a plain marble tablet to be put up in the church of Berkswell, in the county of Warwick, with an inscription, containing an account of his birth, death, the dates of his appointments,- 1 and names of his children, “without any other addition whatever.”

Sir Eardley’s person was of the middle size: his countenance commanding and dignified; his eye lively, tempered with sweetness and benignity; his knowledge extensive and profound; and perhaps nothing but invincible modesty prevented him from equalling the greatest of his predecessors, and fettered his abilities and learning. Though not fond of the law as a profession, he always declared his partiality for the study of it, and he was also well versed in the civil law; a general scholar, but particularly conversant with those branches which had a near connexion with his legal pursuits, such as history and antiquities, and he was one of the first fellows of the Society of Antiquaries, incorporated in 1750. Tn private life he excelled in all those qualities which render a man respected and beloved.

Genuine and uniform humility was one of his most characterstic virtues.

, second son of the preceding, was born in 1748, and received the first rudiments of education at Derby and at Westminster schools, at both which places he remained but a very short time. From thence he was placed at the academy at Brunswick; and having remained there till he was seventeen, he went to University college, Oxford, where he was contemporary with many men who have since distinguished themselves in public and private life. He was at first intended for the church, as we have seen in our account of his father; but, upon the death of his elder brother in the East Indies, and upon the elevation of his father to one of the highest judicial situations, his intended pursuits were changed, and the profession of the law was ultimately fixed upon. From All Soujs college, of which he had been elected a fellow, he removed to the Temple, and studied the law under the superintendance of sir Eardley. He was at the usual time called to the bar, and went the Midland circuit. He soon after married the only daughter of S. Sainthill, esq. by whom he had four daughters and one son, all of whom survived him.

In 1783, he was made a master in chancery, having been chosen for Tiverton, in Devonshire, in the two preceding parliaments. Though seldom taking an active part in the debates of those times, he was always attentive to the important duties of a member of parliament, and constant in his attendance in the House. He uniformly opposed the American war, and though at the termination of that coatest, when the claims of the American loyalists were to be inquired into, and satisfied, it was most natural to suppose that some gentleman on the other side of the House would have been appointed commissioner for that purpose, yet Mr. Wilmot’s known abilities, integrity, and benevolence, were so universally acknowledged, that his nomination to that arduous office gave perfect satisfaction. How far the labours of himself and colleagues were crowned with success, the universal approbation of this country, and of America, sufficiently testify.

In 1784 he was elected, with lord Eardley, his brotherin-law, member for Coventry, in opposition to lord Sheffield and Mr. Conway, now marquis of Hertford, whither they had gone to add to the triumphant majority which ultimately secured Mr. Pitt in his situation as prime minister.

It was in the summer of 1790, that the revolutionary storm, so long collecting in France, suddenly discharged itself; and an immense number of French clergy and laity took refuge in this country. The subject of these memoirs was then in town; and the continual scenes of distress he was daily witnessing in the streets, added to particular instances of misery which came under his own immediate observation, induced him alone, without previous communication with any one, to advertize for a meeting of the gentlemen then in town, at the Freemason’s Tavern, to take into consideration some means of affording relief to their Christian brethren. The meeting was most numerous and respectable; the archbishop of Canterbury, many bishops, and most of the nobility then in London, attending; and Mr. Wilmot being called to the chair, and having stated his object in calling them together, subscriptions to a large amount were immediately entered into; and a fund created, which, with the assistance of parliament, and the 'contributions of every parish in the kingdom, relieved, and continued to relieve until the late prosperous events rendered a continuance unnecessary, those unhappy exiles from theit native country. Mr. Wilmot continued, till he retired into the country a few years before his death, to dispense under government this national bounty; a task well suited to that universal benevolence and kindness of heart which so eminently distinguished him, and in, which he had few equals, and none superior.

In 1793 he married a second wife, Sarah Anne, daughter of col. Haslam; by whom he had a son and a daughter, both of whom died in their infancy.

It was in the spring of 1804, that, finding himself ill able, from bodily infirmity, to continue the various employments he had so long zealously fulfilled, as also from an innate and hereditary love of retirement and study, he resolved to quit London entirely, and live in the country. He accordingly resigned his mastership in chancery, his situation as distributor of relief to the French refugees, and some of the many important trusts which his own kindness and the importunity of friends had induced him to accept. He bought Bruce castle, formerly the seat of the Coleraine family, situated at Tottenham, about five miles from London; near enough to town to continue what remained of the duty of commissioner of American claims, and to discharge several trusts, which were of a family nature. Here he passed a considerable part of his time in reading and study, and prepared his father’s notes and reports for the press, with the Memoirs of his life already mentioned. The “Memoirs” were sold separately, with a fine engraving of sir Eardley, from a painting by Dawe. Soon after, he engaged on the Life and Letters of bishop Hough, which appeared in a very splendid 4to volume in 1812. Besides these, he published in 1779 “A short Defenee of the Opposition,” in answer to a pamphlet entitled “A short History of the Opposition” and in 1780 he collated “A treatise of the Laws and Customs of England,” written by Ranulf Glanvil, in the time of Henry II, with the Mss. in the Harleian, Cottonian, Bodleian, and Dp, 'Mills’ s libraries, and printed it in Latrn, 12mo. His last labour was a “History of the Commission of American Claims,” printed in 1815.

Mr. Wilmot died at Tottenham, June 23, 1815, in the sixty-seventh year of his* age, lamented by all who knew the virtues of his public and private character.

, an English historian, was the son of Richard Wilson, of Yarmouth, in the county of Norfolk, gentleman; and was born in that county, 1596. In 1609 he went to France, where he continued almost two years; and upon his return to England was placed with sir Henry Spiller, to be one of his clerks in the exchequer office; in whose family he resided till having written some satirical verses upon one of the maid-servants, he was dismissed at lady Spiller’s instigation. In 1613 he took a lodging in Holborn, where he applied himself to reading and poetry for some time; and, the year after, was taken into the family of Robert earl of Essex, whom he attended into the Palatinate in 1620; to the siege of Dornick, in Holland, in 1621 to that of Rees in 1622 to Arnheim, in 1623 to the siege of Breda in 1624 and in the expedition to Cadiz in 1625. In 1630 he was discharged the earl’s service, at the importunity of his lady, who had conceived an aversion to him, because she had supposed him to have been against the earl’s marrying her. He tells us, in his own life, that this lady’s name, before she marrie,d the earl, was Elizabeth Paulet; that “she appeared to the eye a beauty, full of harmless sweetness; that her conversation was affable and gentle; and, as he was firmly persuaded, that it was not forced, but natural. But the height of her marriage and greatness being an accident, altered her very nature; for,” he says, “she was the true image of Pandora’s box,” nor was he much mistaken, for this lady was divorced for adultery two years after her marriage. In 1631 he retired to Oxford, and became gentlman commoner of Trinity college, where he stayed almost two years, and was punctual in his compliance with the laws of the university. Then he was sent for to be steward to the earl of Warwick, whom he attended in 1637 to the siege of Breda. He died in 1652, at Felstead, in Essex, and his will was proved in October of that year. The earl and countess of Warwick received from him the whole of his library, and 50l. to be laid out in purchasing a piece of gold plate, as a memorial, particularly applying to the Jatter, “in testimony,” as he adds, “of my humble duty and gratitude for all her noble and 1 undeserved favours to me.” Gratitude seems to have been a strong principle with Wilson, as appears from his life, written by himself, and printed in Peck’s “Desiderata.” Wood’s account of him is, that “he had little skill in the Latin tongue, less in the Greek, a good readiness in the French, and some smattering in the Dutch. He was well seen in the mathematics and poetry, and sometimes in the common law of the nation. He had composed some comedies, which were acted at the Black Friars, in London, by the king’s players, and in the act-time at Oxford, with good applause, himself being- present; but whether they are printed I cannot yet tell; sure lam, that I have several specimens of his poetry printed in divers books. His carriage was very courteous and obliging, and such as did become a wellbred gentleman. He also had a great command of the English tongue, as well in writing as speaking; and, had he bestowed his endeavours on any other subject than that of history, they would without doubt have seemed better. For, in those things which he hath done, are wanting the principal matters conducing to the completion of that” faculty, viz. matter from record, exact time, name, and place, which, by his endeavouring too much to set out his bare collections in an affected and bombastic style, are much neglected.“The history here alluded to by Wood, is” The Life and Reign of king James I.“printed in London in 1653, folio; that is, the year after his death and reprinted in the 2d volume of” -The complete History of England,“in 1706, folio. This history has been severely treated by many writers. Mr. William Sanderson says, that,” to give Wilson his due, we may find truth and falsehood finely put together in it.“Heylin, in the-general preface to his” Examen,“styles Wilson’s history” a most famous pasquil of the reign of king James; in which it is not easy to judge whether the matter be more false, or the style more reproachful to all parts thereof.“Mr. Thomas Fuller, in his” Appeal of injured Innocence,“observes, how Robert earl of Warwick told him at Beddington, that, whenWilson’s book in manuscript was brought to him, his lordship expunged more than an hundred offensive passages: to which Mr. Fuller replied,” My lord, you have done well; and you had done better if you had put out a hundred more.“Mr. Wood’s sentence is,” that, in our author’s history, may easily be discerned a partial presbyterian vein, that constantly goes through the whole work: and it being the genius of those people to pry more than they should into the courts and comportments of princes, they do take occasion thereupon to traduce and bespatter them. Further also, our author, having endeavoured in many things to make the world believe that king James and his son after him were inclined to Popery, and to bring that religion into England, hath made him subject to many errors and misrepresentations.“On the other band, archdeacon Echard tells us, that” Wilson’s History of the life and reign of king James, though written not without some prejudices and rancour in respect to some persons, and too much with the air of a romance, is thought to be the best of that kind extant:“and the writer of the notes on the edition of it in the” Complete History of England“remarks, that, as to the style of our author’s history,” it is harsh and broken, the periods often obscure, and sometimes without connection; faults, that were common in most writers of that time. Though he finished that history in the year 1652, a little before his death, when both the monarchy and hierarchy were overturned, it does not appear he was an enemy to either, but only to the corruptions of them; as he intimates in the picture he draws of himself before that hook."

The plays mentioned by Wood were “The Switzer,” < c The Corporal,“and the” Inconstant Lady,“all which were entered in Stationers’ -hall in 1646 and 1653, but it does not appear that they were printed.” The Inconstant Lady," however, was lately printed at Oxford in 1814, 4to, from a manuscript bequeathed in 1755 to the Bodleian library by Dr. Rawlinson, with curious notes by the editor, and many circumstances of Wilson’s life and character.

, an English divine and writer, was born in 1689, and became a member of Trinity-college, Oxford, where he took his degree of B. A. in 1712, and that of A. M. in 1719. In the following year he was pre^ bendary of Lowtb, and afterwards of Scamblesbey in the church of Lincoln in 1727, about which time he was also vicar of Newark in Nottinghamshire, master of the hospital there, and an alderman. He is thought to have owed his preferments chiefly to bishop Reynolds of Lincoln. From the crown he had a prebend of Worcester, and another of Carborough in LichnVld, where he had a house given him by bishop Chandler. In July 1735, he was presented to Bottesford in Leicestershire, but never took possession of it. In 1737 he took his degree of D. D. He died April 30, 1772, aged eighty-three, and was interred in the church of Newark with an inscription, extolling his extensive benevolence, by his nephew Robert Wilson Cracroft, esq.

Although a man of learning and address, of a very charitable disposition, and enjoying distinguished patronage, he seems frequently to have been involved in disputes which cast some shade on his character. At one time he received a great accession of property, by the will of sir George Markham, but was obliged to publish a defence of himself, in a quarto pamphlet, against the insinuations of sir George’s relations. In 1747 he was prosecuted for breach of promise of marriage by a Miss Davids of Castleyard, Holborn, and the case appeared to the jury in such a light, that they gave 7000l. damages, yet we see that be was at this time fifty-eight years of age. Some pamphlets were also published concerning his disputes with the parish of Newark, to which he left ample benefactions, but these were lost to the poor by the Mortmain act. He translated some parts of Fleury, but his greatest undertaking was a translation of Thuanus, of which he published vol.1, in 1729, and vol. II. in 1730. It is perhaps to be regretted that want of encouragement obliged him to resist, for these are two elegantly printed folios, and the completion would have done credit to the age.

, known in his own time, among scholars, by the name of Florentius Volusenus, was born at Elgin, in Scotland, about the beginning of the sixteenth century, and was educated in his native place, whence he removed for academical studies to the university of Aberdeen. On quitting coHege, he went to England, where his talents recommended him to the notice of cardinal Wols^y, who made him preceptor to his nephew, whom he afterwards accompanied to Paris for education, and remained with him till the death of Wolsey, which for a time; eclipsed his prospects. He was soon afterwards taken under the protection of the learned cardinal du Bellai, archbishop of Paris, but here again the disgrace at court of this second patron proved a severe disappointment. Wilson,' however, adhered to the cardinal, and would have accompanied him to Rome, but he fell sick at Avignon, and the cardinal being obliged to leave him, his finances were too much exhausted to allow any thoughts of his accomplishing the journey alone, and his patron’s change of fortune having probably put the offer of sufficient assistance out of his power, Mr. Wilson found himself compelled to abandon a project, in which both affection and curiosity had so warmly interested his heart.

At this time the cardinal Sadolet was in residence upon his bishopric of Carpentras. His name in the republic of letters was inferior to very few in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; nor was he less celebrated for his liberality towards learned men in circumstances of want and distress. Mr. Wilson, as soon as the re-establishment of his health permitted, took the resolution of paying him a visit. Although it was night at Mr. Wilson’s arrival, the courtesy of the cardinal, then engaged in study, gave him immediate access. He first learned from the stranger, that his visit was occasioned, partly by his desire of seeing a person not less illustrious by his learned writings than the eminence of his station, and partly by his wish to recommend himself, through the cardinal’s interest, to the employment of teaching the Greek and Latin languages to the youth of the city. Mr. Wilson’s eloquent command of the Latin tongue, and the proof which he soon gave of superior understanding and knowledge, inspired the car-? dinal with such prepossession in his favour, that he was unwilling to part with him, till he had learnt the particulars of the stranger’s country, his parentage, his education, and the different scenes of life through which he had passed. Greatly interested by the narrative, he rose early the next morning, and, demanding a conference with the magistrates, consulted them on Mr. Wilson’s proposition; but not wishing their decision to be solely the result of his recommendation, he invited them on a certain day to an entertainment, a kind of symposium at his palace; during which he contrived to engage Mr, Wilson in disputation with a learned physician on certain points of Natural Phi-. Josophjr. It does not appear, that his learning and accomplishments ever procured him any thing better from this period than his laborious though honourable employment of teaching the ancient languages at Carpentras. It was perhaps to reconcile himself to the mediocrity of his lot, that during his residence in that city he composed his excellent book “De Tranquillitate Aninii.” If he possessed that contentment and peace of mind which made the subject of these contemplations, the first blessing of life was his, and which wealth and station only have never bestowed on man.

This work is written in dialogue. The speakers are, Franciscus Michaelis, a patrician of Lucca, Demetrius, Caracalla, and the author himself. The first part of the work, and about one third of the whole, is taken up with proving, partly from the sentiments of the author, but chiefly from those of the ancient philosophers, moralists, and poets, that tranquiHity of mind is a practicable acquisition, in answer to the doubts and objections of the other interlocutors. In this part, and indeed throughout the whole work, Mr. Wilson displays a vast compass of learning, and an intimate acquaintance with all the Greek and Latin classics; many apt and beautiful quotations from them adorn his treatise; not to mention several little poems of his own composition interspersed, which at once enliven the piece, and give the reader a very advantageous idea of the author’s poetic genius and talent for Latin versification. This work was first printed by Gryphius, at Leyden, 1543, and reprinted at Edinburgh in 1571, 8vo. A third edition was printed at Edinburgh in 1707, corrected by Kuddiman; and there is a fourth, 1751, with a preface by Dr. John Ware!.

About 1546, the tenth year of Mr. Wilson’s residence at Carpentras, after having taught the belles lettres with great reputation, and established the character of a very learned, ingenious, and worthy man, he felt a strong desire to revisit his native country. But the doctrines of the Reformation having now got some footing in Scotland, Mr. Wilson was aware of the difficulties which he should have to contend with on his return. He had therefore recourse to his friend and patron the cardinal Sadolet, at that time at Rome. He wrote to request his advice, in. what manner he should conduct himself betwixt religious parties in his own country. We find the answer in the sixteenth book of Sadolet’s Epistles, dated 1546, and the substance of ifc is to recommend an adherence to the religion of his forefathers. From a Romish cardinal no other could be expected. Wilson now determined upon his journey to Scotland, but falling sick at Vienne in Dauphiny, his progress was suddenly stopped. His disorder increased beyond the power of medical relief; and he expired on the banks ef the Rhone 1547.

Besides the work mentioned in the course of Mr. Wilson’s life, he wrote a book of Latin poems, printed in London 1619, 4to; also “Commentatio Theologica, in Aphorismos dissecta, per Sebast. Gryphseum,” 1539, 8vo; and “Philosophise Aristotelicse Synopsis,” Lib. IV. Whether this last article ever appeared in print is doubtful.

, a very distinguished artist of the last century, was born in 1714, and was the son of the rector of Pineges, in Montgomeryshire, who was afterwards collated to the living of Mould in Flintshire. Edwards says, that “his connections were highly respectable, being maternally related to the late lord chancellor Camden, who was pleased to acknowledge him as his cousin.” His father gave him a good education, and as he early discovered a taste for painting, sent him to London, and placed him under the tuition of one Thomas Wright, a portrait-painter of very slender abilities. Wilson, therefore, began his career as a portrait-painter but with a mediocrity that afforded no luminous hopes of excellence; yet he must have acquired some rank in his profession, for we find, that in 1749, he painted a large picture of his present majesty, and of his brother the late duke of York. After having practised some years at London, he went to Italy, and continued the study of portrait-painting, until a small landscape of his, executed with a considerable share of freedom and spirit, casually meeting the eye of Zuccarelli, so pleased the Italian, that he strenuously advised him to follow that mode of painting, as most congenial to his powers, and therefore most likely to obtain for him fame as well as profit.

This flattering encomium from an artist of Zuccarelli’s knowledge and established reputation, produced such an influence on Wilson, as to determine him at once to turn from portrait to landscape, which he pursued with vigour and success. To this fortunate accident is owing the splendour diffused by his genius over this country, and even over Italy itself, whose scenes have been the frequent subjects of his pencil. His studies, indeed, in this branch of the art, must have been attended with rapid success, for he had some pupils in landscape while at Rome, and his works were so much esteemed thatMengs painted his portrait, for which Wilson, in return, painted a landscape.

It is not known at what time he returned to England, but he was in London in 1758, and resided over the north arcade of the piazza, Covent-garden, at whjch time he had gained great celebrity as a landscape-painter. To the first exhibition of 1760, he sent his picture of Niobe, which is now in the possession of his royal highness the duke of Gloucester. Sir Joshua Reynolds, in his last lecture but one, has offered some strictures on the figures introduced in this celebrated picture, in which Mr. Fuseli seems to agree, but which Edwards labours to oppose; and even to trace sir Joshua’s opinion to private pique. In 1765, Wilson exhibited, with other pictures, a view of Rome, from the villa Madama, a capital performance, which was purchased by the late marquis of Tavistock, and is probably in the collection of the duke of Bedford. When the Royal Academy was instituted, he was chosen one of the founders, and, after the death of Hayman, was made librarian; an office which his necessities rendered desirable, and which he retained until his decayed health compelled him to retire to his brother’s in Wales, where he died in May 1782. Mr. Opie says, in his “Lectures,” that Wilson, though second to no name of any school or country in classical and heroic landscape, succeeded with difficulty, by pawning some of his works at the age of seventy (sixty-seven or sixty-height), in procuring ten guineas to carry him to die in unhonoured and unnoticed obscurity in Wales.“Edwards informs us, that” though be had acquired great fame, yet he did not find that constant employment which his abilities deserved. This neglect might probably result from his own conduct; for it must be confessed, that Mr. Wilson was not very prudentially attentive to his interest; and though a man of strong sense, and superior education to most of the artists of his time, he certainly did not possess that suavity of manners which distinguished many of his contemporaries. On this account, his connexions and employment insensibly diminished, and left him, in the latter part of his life, in comfortless infirmity.“This appears to us but a sorry excuse for the neglect Wilson met with for what has patronage to do with the temper of anartist Wilson’s taste was so exquisite, says Fuseli, and his eye so chaste, that whatever came from his easel bore the stamp of elegance and truth. The subjects he chose were such as did credit to his judgment. They were the selections of taste; and whether of the simple, the elegant, or the sublime, ^they were treated with an equal felicity. Indeed, he possessed that versatility of power, as to be one minute an eagle sweeping the heavens, and the next, a wren twittering a simple note on the humble thorn. His colouring was in general vivid and natural; his touch, spirited and free; his composition, simple and elegant; his lights and shadows, broad and well distributed; his middle tints in perfect harmony, while his forms in general produced a pleasing impression. Wilson has been called the English Claude; a comparison which Mr. Fuseli cannot admit, from the total dissimilarity of their style.” Claude,“he adds,” little above mediocrity in all other branches of landscape-painting, had one great prerogative, sublimity; but his powers rose and set with the sun, he could only be serenely sublime or romantic. Wilson, without so great a feature, had a more varied and more proportionate power: he observed nature in all her appearances, and had a characteristic touch for all her forms. But though in effects of dewy freshness and silent evening lights few equalled, and fewer excelled him, his grandeur is oftener allied to terror, bustle, and convulsion, than to calmness and tranquillity. Figures, it is difficult to say, which of the two introduced or handled with greater infelicity: treated by Claude or Wilson, St. Ursula with her Virgins, and yneas Landing, Niobe with her family, or Ceyx drawn on the shore, have an equal claim to our indifference or mirth."

, a statesman and divine in the reign of queen Elizabeth, celebrated for the politeness of his style and the extent of his knowledge, was the son of Thomas Wilson of Stroby in Lincolnshire, by Anne daughter and heir of Roger Comberwortb, of Comberworth in the same county. He was educated at Eton, and atKing’scollege, Cambridge; and went thence into the family of Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, who intrusted him with the education of his two sons. During the reign of Mary, to whose persecution many fugitives owed their qualifications for future honours, he lived abroad, received the degree of doctor of laws at Ferrara, and was for some time imprisoned by the inquisition at Rome, on account of his two treatises on rhetoric and logic, which he had published in England, and in the English language, several years before. He is said to have suffered the torture, and would have been put to death, on refusing to deny his faith, had not a fire happened, which induced the populace to force open the prison, that those confined there might not perish > by which means he escaped; and, returning to England, after queen Mary’s death, was appointed one of the masters of requests, and master of St. Katherine’s hospital near the Tower. This was in the third year of queen Elizabeth, at which time he was her majesty’s secretary; but finding his patent for the mastership of St. Catherine’s void, because he was not a priest, according to queen Philippa’s charter, he surrendered the office, and had a new patent, with a non obstante, Dec. 7, 1563. According to Dr. Ducarel, his conduct in this office was somewhat objectionable, as he sold to the city of London the fair of St. Katherine’s, for the sum of 700 marks, surrendered the charter of Henry VI. and took a new one 8. Elizabeth, leaving out the liberty of the aforesaid fair; and did many other things very prejudicial to his successors. In 15lhe had been admitted a civilian; and in 1576 he was sent on an embassy to the Low Countries, where he acquitted himself so well, that in the following year he was named to succeed sir Thomas Smith as secretary of state; and in 1579 obtained a deanery of Durham. He died in 1581, and was buried in St. Katherine’s church. He was endowed with an uncommon strength of memory, which enabled him to act with N remarkable dispatch in his negociations. Yet he was more distinguished as a scholar than as a minister, and was perhaps unfortunate in having served jointly with the illustrious Walsingham, whose admirable conduct in his office admitted of no competition. Sir Thomas Wilson married Anne, daughter of sir William Winter, of Lidney in Gloucestershire, and left three children: Nicholas, who settled at Sheepwash in Lincolnshire; Mary, married, first, to Robert Burdett, of Bramcote in Warwickshire, secondly to sir Christopher Lowther, of Lowther in Westmoreland; and Lucretia, wife of George Belgrave, of Belgrave in Leicestershire.

Sir Thomas Wilson wrote, 1. “Epistola de vita et obita duorum fratrum SufFolciensium, HenricietCaroli Brandon,” Lond. 1552, 4to, prefixed to a collection of verses written on their deaths by several scholars of Oxford and Cambridge. Of this rare book there are only three copies known, one in the Bodleian, another in the British museum, and a third in the magnificent library of earl Spencer. 2. “The rule of Reason, containing the art of Logic,” 1551, 1552, 1553, 1567, 4to. 3. “The art of Rhetoric,” 1553, 4to, often reprinted. 4. “Discourse upon Usury,” Lond. 1572, a work much praised by Dr. Lawrence Humphrey, the queen’s professor of divinity at Oxford, in his life of Jewell. Wilson also translated from Greek into English, <c The three Orations of Demosthenes, chief orator among the Grecians,“Lond. 1570. Of his” Art of Logic,“Mn Warton says that such a” display of the venerable mysteries of this art in a vernacular language, which had hitherto been confined within the sacred pale of the learned tongues, was esteemed an innovation almost equally daring with that of permitting the service of the church to be celebrated in English; and accordingly the author, soon, afterwards happening to visit Rome, was incarcerated by the inquisitors of the holy see, as a presumptuous and dangerous heretic.“Of his” Art of Rhetoric," Mr. Wartori says, it is liberal and discursive, illustrating the arts of eloquence by example, and examining and ascertaining the beauties of composition with the speculative skill and sagacity of a critic. It may therefore be justly considered as the first book or system of criticism in our language. This opinion Mr. Warton confirms by very copious extracts.

a puritan divine, of the sixteenth century, was minister of St. George’s church, in Canterbury, one of the six preachers in that city, chaplain to lord Wotton, and a man of high reputation. We have, however, no particulars of his early life. He preached at Canterbury thirty-six years, and was assiduous and indefatigable in all the duties of his saqred office. He died in Jan. 1621, on the 25th of which month his funeral sermon, which has been printed, was preached by William Swift, minister of St. Andrew’s, at Canterbury, and great grandfather of dean Swift. His works are, 1. “A Commentary on the Romans,” 1614, a work much approved. 2. “Christ’s farewell to Jerusalem,” 1614. 3. “Theological Rules,” 1615. 4. “A complete Christian Dictionary,” fol. of which the sixth edition, with a continuation by Bagwell and Symson, was published in 1655. This was one of the first attempts, in English, towards a concordance of the Bible. Mr. Wilson wrote some other pieces of less note.

, the pious and venerable bishop of Sodor and Man, was born at Burton, a village in the hundred of Wirrel, in the county Palatine of Chester, in 1663. He was educated in the city of Chester until qualified for the university, when he was entered of Trinity college, Dublin. During his residence there he made great proficiency in academical studies, and had at first an intention of devoting himself to that of physic as a profession, but he was soon persuaded by a dignitary of the church to turn his thoughts to divinity. He continued at college till 1686, when he was ordained a deacon by the bishop of Kildare, soon after which he left Ireland, partly owing to the confusions which prevailed under the unhappy reign of king James II.; and in the latter end of the same year, became curate of New Church, in the parish of Winwick, in Lancashire, of which his maternal uncle, Dr. Sherlock, was then. rector, and here he first displayed his affectionate and conscientious regard for the poor, by setting apart a tenth of his income (which was only 30l. a year) to charitable purposes.

In 1689 he entered into priest’s orders, and it was not long before his excellent character recommended him to the notice of the earl of Derby, who, in 1692, appointed him his domestic chaplain, and preceptor to his son, lord Strange, with a salary of 30l. and he being appointed about the same time master of the alms-house at Latham, worth 20l. a ye'ar more, he set apart a fifth part of the whole for pious uses. In this situation he remained till 1697, when, to use his own words, “he was forced into the bishopric of the Isle of Man,” a promotion for which he was in all respects eminently qualified. Being first created doctor of laws by the archbishop of Canterbury, he was confirmed bishop of Man at Bow church, Jan. 15, 1697-8, and next day was consecrated at the Savoy church, by Dr. Sharp, archbishop of York.

In the beginning of April following he landed in the Isle of Man, and was enthroned in the cathedral of St. Germain’s in Peel Castle. His palace he found almost a ruin. It had not been inhabited for eight years, and nothing but an ancient tower and chapel remained entire. He was, therefore, obliged to rebuild it, and the expence, which amounted to 1400l. interrupted, in some measure, his charity to the poor, but this he soon resumed, and his beneficence ever afterwards increased with his income. About this time the earl of Derby offered him the valuable living of Baddesworth, in Yorkshire, to hold in commendam, probably as a compensation for the expences he had been at; but he declined the offer, as being incompatible with his resolution never to take two ecclesiastical preferments with cure of souls, especially when he must necessarily be absent from one of them.

In 1699 bishop Wilson published a small tract in Manks and English, the first work ever printed in the former language, entitled “The Principles and Duties of Christianity, for the use of the island,” where a great degree of ignorance prevailed, and where it was necessary to diffuse elementary treatises written in the plainest manner, which is the characteristic of most of our prelate’s writings, and predominated also in his sermons. By the advice, and with the assistance of Dr. Bray, he likewise began to found parochial libraries throughout his diocese, giving to each a proper book-case^ and furnishing them with Bibles and such other books as were calculated to instruct the people in the great truths and duties of religion. In the beginning of 1707 the degree of D. D. was conferred upon him by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. About this time also he was admitted a member of the socrety for promoting Christian knowledge, and in the same year he had the church catechism printed in Manks and English, for the use of the schools which he had established in various parts of his diocese, and which he superintended with the greatest care. Indeed he applied himself with singular diligence to all the duties of his sacred function, and also endeavoured, both by his exhortations and example, to animate the clergy of the island to a regular and faithful discharge of their pastoral office. With this view they were occasionally assembled in convocation at Bishop’s court (the name of the episcopal palace), where our prelate delivered such charges as circumstances required, earnestly pressing them at all. times to attend to the care of their flocks, and to endeavour, by all possible methods, to plant the fear of God in the hearts of the people. One of his leading objects was to maintain and preserve, in their full force, those ecclesiastical constitutions which he had established in 1703, and by which he hoped to revive in some measure the primitive discipline of the church. The lord chancellor King was so much pleased with these constitutions as to declare, that “if the ancient discipline of the church were lost, it might be found in all its purity in the Isle of Man.”

From this time our prelate continued to perform all the offices of a good bishop and a good man; and we hear little more of him till 1721 and 1722, when the orthodoxy of his spirit, and zeal for church-discipline, seem to have involved him in altercations and difficulties. When the famous work called “The Independent Whig,” came into the diocese of Man, the bishop immediately issued an act against it, dated Jan. 27, 1721, declaring its purpose to be subversive of the doctrine, discipline, and government, of the church, as well as undermining the Christian religion. But his zeal against it did not stop here, for he took it upon him to seize it wherever he found it: and accordingly, when, Mr. Worthington sent it as a present to the public library of the island, the bishop commanded one Stevenson to take and keep it; so that it should neither be deposited in the library, nor yet restored to the right owner. Complaint was made to the governor of the island, who committed Stevenson to prison till he should make reparation. The bishop remonstrated; and the governor replied, in which reply he charged the bishop, who had pleaded obedience to the king’s commands in his attempts to suppress irreligion, with having neglected to use the prayers composed in the time of the rebellion in 1715, which was also an equal object of obedience. The issue of this affair was, that the book was restored, and Stevenson set at liberty.

But there happened another dispute between the bishop and the governor, which, so far as the bishop was personally concerned, was much more serious; and it is related thus: Mrs. Home, the governor’s wife, had defamed Mrs. Puller and sir James Pool with a false charge of criminal conversation; and, in consequence of being contumacious, and refusing to ask pardon of the persons injured, was by the bishop interdicted from the holy communion. But Mr. Horribin, his archdeacon, who was chaplain to captain sHorne, received Mrs. Home to the communion, and was suspended by the bishop. Upon this, the governor, conceiving that the bishop had acted illegally, fined him 50l. and his two vicars-general 20l. each; and, on their refusing to pay this fine, committed them all, June 29, 1722, to Castle Rushin, a damp and gloomy prison, where they were closely confined, and no persons were admitted within the walls to see or converse with them, and where Dr. Wilson was treated with a rigour which no protestant bishop had experienced since the reformation.

The concern of the people was so great when they heard of this tyrannical treatment of their beloved pastor and friend, that they assembled in crowds, and it was with difficulty they were restrained from proceeding to violence and outrage against the governor, by the bishop himself, who, being permitted to speak to them through a grated window, exhorted them to peace, and told them that he intended to appeal to the king, and did not doubt but his majesty would vindicate his cause. He also sent a circular letter to his clergy, drawn up in such terms as seemed most proper for appeasing the people, and desired it might be generally communicated throughout the island. After some delays, owing to the technical formalities of law, the bishop’s appeal was heard before the lords justices in council, July 18, 1723, and the proceedings of the governor were reversed, as extrajudicial and irregular, and the fines were ordered to be restored to the bishop and his vicarsgeneral. This was accordingly done, and upon the bishop’s application for costs, the king, by the president of the council, and sir Robert Walpole, promised that he would see him satisfied. In consequence of this engagement, the king, some time after, offered him the bishopric of Exeter, then vacant, to reimburse him, but our unambitious prelate could not be prevailed upon to quit his own Diocese; upon which his majesty promised to defray his expences out of the privy purse, and gave it in charge to lord Townsend, lord Carleton, and sir Robert Walpole, to remind him of it; but the king going soon afterwards to Hanover, and dying before his return, this promise was never fulfilled. The only recompense he had was by a subscription set on foot by the archbishop of York, amounting to 300l. not a sixth part of the expences of his application to the crown. To add to the indignation which we are confident every reader will feel, ic may be mentioned, that from the dampness of the prison in which the bishop was confined by the brutal governor, he contracted a disorder in his right hand, which disabled him from the free use of his fingers, and he ever after wrote with his whole hand grasping the pen. He was advised to prosecute the governor, &c. in the English courts of law, to recover damages; but to this he could not be persuaded, and extended his forgiveness to those who had ill-used him, in the most sincere and liberal manner.

After this absence from his diocese of eighteen months, which he had spent mostly in London, where he was beloved and admired to a degree of enthusiasm by all classes of people, he returned to the island, and resumed his ex^ emplary course. In 1735 he came to England for the last time, to visit his son, the subject of the following article; and being introduced at the court of George II. he was much noticed by their majesties, and particularly by queen Caroline, who was very desirous of keeping him in England, but he could not be prevailed upon to quit his poor diocese, the value of which did not exceed 3QO/. a year. On his return he visited the province of York at the request of archbishop Blackburn, and confirmed upwards-of fifteen thousand persons.

In 1739 the clergy of the Isle of Man were much alarmed by the death of the earl of Derby, who dying without issue, the lordship of Man, as a barony in fee, became the property of the duke of Athol, who had married the heiress of a late earl of Derby. This threatened to deprive the clergy of their subsistence, for the livings of the Isle of Man consist of a third of the impropriations, which had been originally purchased of a former earl of Derby by bishop Barrow, in the reign of Charles II.; but now the duke of Athol claimed the impropriations as an inseparable appendage of his estate and royalty. The clergy were now in danger of losing all their property, for the deeds of conveyance from the earl of Derby to bishop Barrow were lost from the records of the island, and the affair became every year more difficult, until at length, by the care and diligence of the bishop and his son, the deeds were discovered in the Rolls chapel, where they had been deposited for safe custody. This discovery put an end to the dispute, and in 1745 the deeds were exemplified under the great seal of England, and every precaution taken for the future payment of the money.

In his latter days bishop Wilson formed a plan for translating the New Testament into the Manks language, but did not live to make a further progress than to translate the four gospels, and print that of St. Matthew. This important work was completed by his successor (See HlLDES­Ley). This seems to have been the last concern of a public nature in which he was engaged, beyond the immediate duties of his bishopric, which he continued to execute to the latest period of his life, notwithstanding the infirmities naturally attending his great age. He had attained his ninety-third year, when, in consequence of a cold caught by walking in his garden in very cold weather, after reading evening prayers in his own chapel, he was confined for a short time to his bed, and expired March 7, 1755. He was interred in the - church-yard of Kirk-Michael, almost the whole population of the island attending the funeral, and lamenting their loss.

Bishop Wilson’s life was an uniform display of the most genuine and active benevolence. Considering himself as the steward, not the proprietor, of the revenues of the bishopric, he devoted his income to what he esteemed its proper use. The annual receipts of the bishopric, as we have just mentioned, did not exceed 300l. in money; some necessaries in his house were of course to be paid for in money; distressed or shipwrecked mariners, and some other poor objects, it was also requisite to relieve with money; but the poor of the island were fed and clothed, and the house in general supplied from his demesnes by exchange, without money. The poor who could spin or weave, found the best market at Bishop’s-court, where they bartered the produce of their labour for corn. Taylors an'd shoemakers were kept in the house constantly employed, to make into garments or shoes that cloth or leather which his corn had purchased; and the aged and the infirm were supplied according to their several wants. At the same time he kept an open hospitable table, covered with the produce of his own demesnes, at which he presided with equal affability and decorum. His manners, though always consistently adorned with Christian gravity, were ever gentle and polite; and in his conversation he was one of the most entertaining and agreeable, as well as instructive of men. With these qualities of the gentleman, the bishop united the accomplishments and virtues of the scholar and the divine. He was well skilled in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages; and there was hardly any part of science that could be serviceable in his diocese which he did not understand. In his younger days he had a poetical turn, but afterwards laid aside such amusements, as thinking them inconsistent with his episcopal character. During the fiftyeight years that he held the bishopric, he never failed, unless on occasions of sickness, to expound the scripture, to preach, or to administer the sacrament, every Sunday, at one or other of the churches in his diocese, and, if absent from the island, he always preached at the church where he resided for the day. He alternately visited the different parishes of his diocese on Sundays (which the dimensions of the island will permit in a carriage) without giving them notice, and, after doing the duty of the day, returned home to dinner. His family prayers were as regular as his public duties. Every summer morning at six, and every winter morning at seven o'clock, his whole household attended him in his chapel, where he himself, or one of those divinity-students whom he maintained in his house, performed the service of the day; and in the evening they did the same. Thus it was that he formed his young clergy for the pulpit, and for a graceful delivery. He was so great a friend to toleration, that the papists who resided in the island, loved and esteemed him, and not unfrequently attended his ministrations. Dissenters likewise even attended the communion-service, as he admitted them to receive the sacrament, either standing or sitting, at their own option, so that there was neither schism nor separate- congregation in his diocese. The few quakers also, who were resident on the island, visited and respected him. Many other amiable, and some singular traits of the character of this excellent prelate may be seen in the work from which the above particulars are taken.

His works, consisting of religious tracts, most of which have been repeatedly printed separately, and extensively circulated, and of sermons, were collected by his son and published in 1780, 2 vols. 4to, and reprinted in 2 handsome Tolumes, folio, by the editor, the late Rev. Clement Cruttweil, who also edited, a few years after, a splendid edition of the Bible in 3 vols. 4to, with notes by bishop Wilson.

, D. D. only surviving son of the preceding, was born. Aug. 24, 1703, in the parish of Kirk-­Michael, in the Isle of Man, and after such an institution there as he must have received under the eye of so excellent a father, was entered of Christ Church, Oxford, where he took the degree of M. A. Dec. 16, 1727. On the 10th of May, 1739, having previously become possessed of his mother’s jointure, which devolved to him on her decease, he accumulated the degrees of B. and D. D. May 10, 1739, when he went out grand compounder. He was many years senior prebendary of Westminster, and minister of St. Margaret’s there; and rector of St. Stephen’s, Walbrook, forty-six years; in which last he succeeded Dr. Watson, on the presentation of lord-chancellor Hardwicke. In 1761 was published a pamphlet entitled “The Ornaments of Churches considered; with a particular view to the late decoration of the parish church of St. Margaret, Westminster. To which is subjoined an appendix, containing the history of the said church, an account of the altar-piece and stained glass window erected over it, a state of the prosecution it has occasioned, and other papers,” 4to. To the second edition of this pamphlet was prefixed a view of the inside of St. Margaret’s church, with the late excellent speaker, Arthur Onslow, in his seat. This pamphlet has been by some ascribed to a son of Dr. Shebbeare, as published under Dr. Wilson’s inspection. The reason for such conjecture is not given, and the fact is therefore doubtful. We know of no son of Dr. Shebbeare’s, and at this time Dr. Shebbeare himself was a well-known writer, and sufficiently practised in deceptions, had any been necessary. Another report is that the work was chiefly the composition of the late archdeacon Hole; Dr. Wilson having borrowed a ms treatise on the subject written by the archdeacon, and then printed almost the whole of it, inserting here and there a few notes, c. of his own. This assertion is made by an anonymous writer in the Gent. Mag. for 17S6, but who the late archdeacon Hole was, we haye not been able to discover; Mr. William Hole, archdeacon of Sarum, was then alive, and died in 1791. Another pamphlet ascribed to Dr. Wilson was, “A review of the project for building a new square at Westminster, said to be for the use of Westminster-school. By a Sufferer. Part I.” 1757, 8vo. The injury here complained of was the supposed undervaluation of the doctor’s prebendal house, which was to have made way for the project alluded to. He was also the supposed author of a pamphlet entitled “Distilled Liquors the bane of the nation;” which recommended him to sir Joseph Jekyil, then master of the rolls, who interested himself in procuring him his rectory. Even concerning this a doubt has been suggested, as Dr. Hales printed a pamphlet with exactly the same title. That elaborate and excellent work of Dr. Leland’s, entitled “A view of the principal Deistical Writers,” was originally addressed in a series of letters, in the form they now appear, to Dr. Wilson, who finding that the booksellers would not give the author any adequate remuneration (50l. only were offered) printed the first edition at his own risk.

Dr. Wilson died at Alfred House, Bath, April 15, 1784, in the eighty-first year of his age, and on the 27th was interred, with great funeral pomp, in Walbrook church; where he had in his life-time put up a tablet undated. His tenacity in the cause he espoused v^as no less conspicuous in his opposition to the building of the intended square in Westminster, than in his attachment to the noted Mrs. Macaulay, to whom, when living, he erected a statue in his church, which, with his other marks of high regard for this lady, created much ridicule. By her second 'marriage, however, he was completely cured, and diverted his testamentary remembrances into more proper channels. Dr. Wilson adopted the modest motto of “Sequitur patrem, non passibus aequis,” and in his adherence to the turbulent politics of Wilkes and his party, certainly departed from his father’s example, but in acts of benevolence was by no means behind him. He often employed the Rev. Clement Cruttwell, whom we have mentioned as the editor of bishop Wilson’s works, as his almoner, who, among many other instances of his liberality and prompt attention to the wants of the distressed, used to relate the following. One day Dr. Wilson discovered a clergyman at Bath, who he was told was sick, poor, and had a numerous family. In the evening of the same day he gave Mr. Cruttwell a considerable sum (50l. if we have not forgot) requesting he would deliver it to the clergyman in the most delicate manner, and as from an unknown person. Mr. Gruttwell said, “I will call upon him early in the morning.” “You will oblige me by calling directly. Think, sir, of what importance a good night’s rest may be to that poor man.” Dr. Wilson had accumulated a very copious historical library for the use of Mrs. Macaulay, which he bequeathed to Mr. Cruttwell, along with the copy-right of his father’s works. This curious library, after Mr. Cruttwell’s death, came into the possession of one of his nephews at Bath.

, a learned English divine, was the son of a reputable surgeon at Farringdon, in the county of Berks, where he was born. He was educated at Magdalen-college, Oxford, as a chorister and demy; proceeded M.A. in 1736, B. D. in 1747, and D. D. in 174-9. In July 1747 he was elected fellow, having been for some years before, as he was afterwards, a considerable tutor in the college. In 1761 he resigned his fellowship, on being presented by the society to the rectory of Appleton, Berkshire, at a small distance from his native place; and in the same year, June 10, he married Lucretia Townson, sister of Thomas Townson, rector of Malpas, Cheshire, who had also been fellow of Magdalen-college. She died-at Appleton, greatly esteemed and lamented, Jan. 26, 1772. Five years afterwards he married Jennett, widow of his fellowcollegian, Richard Lluellyn, B. D. and sister of the late Thomas Lewis, esq, of Frederick’s-place, London, one of the directors of the Bank of England. To the sincere and lasting regret of all who knew him, he was seized with a paralytic stroke, which proved fatal May 17, 1780, and was buried in the chancel of his own church, near the remains of his wife. His only preferment, besides the rectory of Appleton, was the curacy of Astley-chapel, near Arbury, Warwickshire, a donative given him by his esteemed friend sir Roger Newdigate, bart.

“His talents,” says his biographer, “if not splendid, were sound and good, his attainments various and useful and he was a true son of the Church of England. He resided constantly on his living; where by his preaching and example, he brought to conformity some of the very few dissenters in his parish. He took a most cordial interest in the temporal and spiritual concerns of his parishioners; and having studied anatomy, and being well skilled in medicine, he was, according to the pattern of the excellent Mr. Herbert’s Country Parson,' physician of the body as well as the soul, to his flock.”

Dr. Winchester paid great attention to such controversies in his time as concerned the doctrine and discipline of the church, and contributed some valuable remarks to contemporary writers who were more particularly involved in these disputes. He also wrote some letters in the Gentleman’s Magazine on the Confessional controversy, and topics arising from it. The only separate publication from his pen was published, but without his name, in 1773, under the title of “A Dissertation on the XVIIth article of the Church of England; wherein the sentiments of the compilers, and other contemporary reformers, on the subject of the divine decrees, are fully deduced from their own writings, to which is subjoined a short tract, ascertaining the reign and time in which the royal declaration before the XXXIX articles was first published.” This work was reprinted in 1803, on occasion of the controversy being revived by Mr. Overton, “with emendations from the author’s corrected copy, and the addition of a biographical preface.” The latter is written by the rev. archdeacon Churton, and to it we are indebted for the preceding particulars.

, a learned dissentingdivine, was born May 15, 1693, at Hutton-John, in the parish of Graystock, in Cumberland, where his father was a farmer. He was educated in grammatical learning at Penruddock, and in his fifteenth year began his divinity and philosophy studies at a dissenting academy at Whitehaven, where he had for his contemporaries Dr. Rotheram of Kendal, and Mr. John Taylor of Norwich, author of the Hebrew-English Concordance. From Whitehaven, Mr. Winder removed to Dublin, where for two years he applied very closely to the study of divinity under the rev. Mr. Boyse. After passing the usual examinations, he became a preacher, but returned to England, and in 1714, when only twenty-two years of age, succeeded Mr. Edward Rothwell, as pastor of a congregation at Tunley in Lancashire, and in 1716 was ordained. In 1718 he was chosen pastor of the meeting at Castle-hey in Liverpool, where it appears that he had some trouble with his congregation, during certain disputes on liberty, charity, and the rights of conscience, whiqh he endeavoured to compose by referring them to the Bible as the only standard of orthodoxy, not sufficiently adverting to the fact that this is what all sects profess to do, without any approach towards harmony of sentiment. In 1740, when he was on a visit at Glasgow, the degree of D. D. was conferred upon him by that university. He continued to preside over his congregation at Liverpool, with great approbation, until his death, Aug. 9, 1752. As a testimony of his esteem for his people, he bequeathed his wellchosen library for the use of his successors. Dr. Winder is known in the literary world by an ingenious and elaborate work, published a second time in 1756, 2 vols. 4to, entitled “A critical and chronological History of the Rise, Progress, Declension, and Revival of Knowledge, chiefly religious; in two periods, the period of tradition from Adam to Moses, and the period of Letters from Moses to Christ.” To this are prefixed memoirs of his life by the rev. Dr. George Benson.

, an artist and antiquary of great taste and talents, was born August 21, 1739, at Twickenham, in the house afterwards the residence of Richard Owen Cambridge, esq. He was educated at Eton school, from which he went to Christ’s-college, Cambridge, but took no degree. He returned from an extensive tour through France, Italy, Istria, and Switzerland, in 1769; and soon after married the honourable Charlotte De Grey, sister to the lord Walsingham; by whom he has left no issue. In all which is usually comprehended under the denomination of Belles Lettres, Mr. Windham may claim a place among the most learned men of his time. To an indefatigable diligence in the pursuit of knowledge, he joined a judgment clear, penetrating, and unbiassed, and a memory uncommonly retentive and accurate. An ardent love for truth, a perfect freedom from prejudice, jealousy, and affectation, an entire readiness to impart his various and copious information, united with a singular modesty and simplicity, marked his conversation and manners. Few men had a more critical knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, or a deeper feeling for the beauties of style and sentiment in the classic writers; but in his minute and comprehensive acquaintance with every thing in them illustrative of human life and manners, especially all that relates to the fine arts, he scarcely had an equal. The history of art in the middle ages, and every circumstance relative to the revival of literature and the arts, from the fourteenth century to the present time, were equally familiar to him; and his acquaintance with the language of modern Italy was surpassed by few. He had very particularly studied the antiquities of his own country, and was eminently skilled in the history of English architecture. His pencil, as a draftsman from nature, was exquisite. His portraits of mere natural scenery were peculiarly spirited and free, and his drawings of architecture and antiquities most faithful and elegant. During his residence at Rome, he studied and measured the remains of ancient architecture there, particularly the baths, with a precision which would have done honour to the most able professional architect. His numerous plans and sections of them he gave to Mr. Cameron, and they are engraved in his great work on the Roman baths. To this work he also furnished a very considerable and valuable part of the letter-press. He also drew up the greater portion of the letter-press of the second volume of the “Ionian Antiquities,” published by the society of Dilettanti; and Mr. Stuart received material assistance from him in the second volume of his Athens. In his own name he published very little. His accuracy of mind rendered it difficult to him to please himself; and, careless of the fame of an author, he was better content that his friends should profit by his labours, than that the public should know the superiority of his own acquirements. He had been long a fellow of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies; and in the latter, was for many years of the council, and one of the committee for the publication of the Cathedrals of England. He more than once declined the honourable office of vice-president. Of the society of Dilettanti he was one of the oldest members; and to his zeal it was principally owing that the publications of that society were continued, after a suspension of many years. Mr. Windham died at Earsham-house, Norfolk, Sept. 21, 181U. In private life, he was the most amiable of men. Benevolent, generous, cheerful, without caprice, above envy, his temper was the unclouded sun-shine of virtue and sense. If his extreme modesty and simplicity of character prevented his striking at the first acquaintance, every hour endeared him to those who had the happiness of his intimacy. In every relation of life he was exemplary. A kind husband, a firm friend, a generous landlord, an indulgent master.

, a late distinguished statesman, was descended of an ancient family in Norfolk, and was born in Golden-square, London, May 3, 1750. His father was colonel William Windham, of Felbrigg in Norfolk, a man of versatile talents and an ardent mind. He was the associate of the wits of his time, the friend and admirer of Garrick, and the distinguished patron of all manly, exercises. In his father’s (Ash Windham’s) life-time, he had lived much on the continent, particularly in Spain, and of his proficiency in the language of that country, he gave proof in some printed observations on Smollett’s translation of Don Quixote. At home he had devoted his attention to the improvement of the militia, of which he became lieutenant-colonel, and was the author of a “Plan of Discipline composed for the use of the militia of the county of Norfolk,” 1760, 4-to, which was much esteemed, and generally adopted by other corps of the establishment. He died of a consumptive disorder in the following year, leaving one son, the subject of the present article.

At seven years of age young Mr. Windham was placed at Eton, where he remained until he was about sixteen, distinguishing himself by the vivacity and brilliancy of his talents. On leaving Eton in 1766, he went to the university of Glasgow, where he resided for about a year in the house of Dr. Anderson, professor of natural philosophy, and diligently attended his lectures and those of Dr. Robert Simson, professor of mathematics. For this study Mr. Windham had an early predilection, and left behind him three treatises on mathematical subjects. In Sept. 1767 he was entered a gentleman commoner of University-college, Oxford, Mr. (afterwards sir Robert) Chambers being his tutor. While here he took so little interest in public affairs, that it became the standing joke of one of his contemporaries, that “Windham would never know who was prime minister.” This disinclination to a political life, added to a modest diffidence in his own talents, led him about this period, to reject an offer which, by a youth not more than twenty years of age, might have been considered as a splendid one, that of being named secretary to his father’s friend, lord Townshend, who had been appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland.

After four years residence, he left Oxford in 1771; he always retained feelings of gratitude towards his alma mater, and preserved to the last an intimate acquaintance and correspondence with some of the most distinguished resident members. He probably took his degree of B. A. while at college, but did not obtain that of A. M. until 1732, and then by creation, as he did that of LL. D. in 1793 at the installation of the duke of Portland. It is related that on this occasion, almost the whole assembly rose from their seats, when he entered the theatre, and received him with acclamations of applause. Nor was his memory forgotten at the late installation of lord Grenville; for in the recitations made on that occasion, due honours were paid to the genius, taste, and acquirements of which the public had recently been deprived.

In 1773, when he was but twenty-three years old, his love of adventure and his thirst of knowledge, induced him to accompany his friend, Constantine lord Mulgrave, in his voyage towards the North Pole; but he was so harassed with sea-sickness, that he was under the necessity of being landed in Norway, and of wholly abandoning his purpose. His earliest essay as a public speaker was occasioned by a call which was made on the country, for a subscription in aid of government, to be applied towards carrying on the war with our American colonies. A meeting for this purpose was held at Norwich, and his speech, which has been preserved by his biographer, though it must not be compared with later specimens of his eloquence, may be allowed to exhibit some proofs of acuteness, dexterity, and vigour. He opposed the subscription, as well as the war itself. Some time before this he had entered himself as an officer in the western battalion of Norfolk militia, and when quartered at Bury in Suffolk, by his intrepidity and personal exertion, he quelled a dan^ gerous mutiny which had broke out, notwithstanding he was highly beloved by the regiment. Soon afterwards, in consequence of remaining several hours in wet cloaths, he was seized with a dangerous bilious fever, which nearly deprived him of his life. In the autumn of that year, partly with a view of restoring his health, he went abroad, and spent the two following years in Switzerland and Italy. Previously to his leaving England, he was chosen a member of the Literary club founded by sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr. Johnson, who had the greatest esteem for Mr. Windham; and, notwithstanding his engagements in consequence of his parliamentary business, and the important offices which he filled, he was a very frequent attendant at the meetings of that society, for which he always expressed the highest value, from 1781 to near the time of his death. In 1782 he came into parliament, where he sat for twenty-eight years, at first for Norwich, and afterwards for various boroughs; and he so early distinguished himself in the House of Commons, that he was selected by Mr. Burke in 1784 to second his motion for a representation to his majesty on the state of the nation. He was at this time in the ranks of the opposition, created by the appointment of Mr. Pitt to be prime-minister, and may have been said to be particularly of the school of Burke, with whom he afterwards thought and acted on many important occasions. In the preceding year, he had been appointed principal secretary to the earl of Northington, then constituted lord-lieutenant of Ireland; and in that capacity he visited Dublin in the spring of 1783, and intended to have accompanied his excellency, when he afterwards opened the session of parliament there in October*, but being prevented by illness, he relinquished the office.

* When about to visit that country in perhaps I make the time shorter than his official capacity, he called on Dr. it was. Such conversation I shall not Johnson and in the course of con- have again till I come back to the reversation lamented that he should be gions of Literature, and there Windunder the necessity of sanctioning ham is inter stellas luna. minores.“Alpractices of which he could not ap- though e have said that illness was prove.” Don't be afraid, sir,“said the cause of Mr. Windham’s resignathe tioctor, with a pleasant smile, tion, his biographer affords some rea­”you will soon in -ke a very pretty son to think that it really arose from rascal.“Dr. Johnson in a letter to the conscientious scruples which Dr. Dr. Bruckle.-'by, written an Ashbourne Johnson thought might soon vanish, in 1784 says:” Mr. Wjiuiham has and that it was owing to his being been here to see me he came, [ dissatisfied with some part of the lord think, forty miles ou of his Vay, lieutenaut’s conduct, and staid about a day aud a half; Although from the time of his coming into parliament, he usually voted with the opposition of that day, he never was what is called a thorough party-man, frequently deviating from those to whom he was in general attached, when, in matters of importance, his conscience directed him to take a different course from them; on which account his virtues and talents were never rightly appreciated by persons of that description, who frequently on this ground vainly attempted to undervalue him. After thq rupture between Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke, in consequence of the French revolution, Mr. Windham attached himself wholly to the latter, with whom he had for many years lived in the closest intimacy; and of whose genius and virtues he had always the highest admiration. Being with him thoroughly convinced of the danger then impending over his country from the measures adopted by certain classes of Englishmen, in consequence of that tremendous convulsion, he did not hesitate to unite with the duke of Portland, lord Spencer, and others, in accepting offices under the administration in which Mr. Pitt then presided. On this arrangement Mr. Windham was appointed secretary at war, with a seat in the cabinet, an honourable distinction which had never before been annexed to that office. This station he continued to fill with the highest reputation from that time (17S4) till 1801, when he, lord Spencer, lord Grenville, and Mr. Pitt, resigned their offi-r ces; and shortly afterwards Mr. Addington (now lord viscount Sidmouth) was appointed chancellor of the exchequer and first lord of the treasury. On the preliminaries of peace with France being acceded to by that statesman aod his coadjutors, in 1801, Mr. Windham made his celebrated speech in parliament, which was afterwards (April 1802) published, with an Appendix, containing a character of the Usurper of the French throne, which will transmit to posterity the principal passages of his life up to that period, in the most lively colours. On Mr. Addington being driven from the helm, in 1805, principally by the battery of Mr, Windham’s eloquence, a new administration was again formed by Mr. Pitt, which was dissolved by his death, in 1806; and shortly afterwards, on lord Grenville’s accepting the office of first lord of the Treasury, Mr. Windham was appointed secretary of state for the war department, which he held till his majesty in the following year thought fit to constitute a new administration. During this period he carried into a law his bill for the limited service of those who enlist in our regular army; a measure which will ever endear his name to the English soldiery. But it is not our purpose to detail the particular measures which either originated from him, or in which he took a part. This indeed would be impossible within any prescribed limits; and would involve the history of perhaps the whole of the war. It may suffice to notice that his genius and talents were universally acknoxvledged. He was unquestionably not inferior, in many respects, to the most admired characters of the age that is just gone by. He had been in his earlier years a very diligent student, and was an excellent Greek and Latin scholar. In his latter years, like Burke and Johnson, he was an excursive reader, but gathered a great variety of knowledge from different books, and from occasionally mixing, like them, with very various classes and descriptions of men. His memory was most tenacious. In his parliamentary speeches his principal object always was to convince the understanding by irrefragable argument, which he at the same time enlivened by a profusion of imagery, drawn sometimes from the most abstruse parts of science, but oftener from the most familiar objects of common life. But what gave a peculiar lustre to whatever he urged, was his known and uniform integrity, and a firm conviction in the breasts of his hearers, that he always uttered the genuine and disinterested sentiments of his heart. His language, both in writing and speaking, was always simple, and he was extremely fond of idiomatic phrases, which he thought greatly contributed to preserve the purity of our language. He surveyed every subject of importance with a philosophic eye, and was thence enabled to discover and detect latent mischief, concealed under the plausible appearance of public advantage. Hence all the clarnourers for undefined and imaginary liberty, and all those who meditate the subversion of the constitution under the pretext of Reform, shrunk from his grasp; and persons of this description were his only enemies. But his dauntless intrepidity, and his noble disdain of vulgar popularity, held up a shield against their malice; and no fear of consequences ever drove him from that manly and honourable course, which the rectitude and purity of his mind induced him to pursue. As an orator, he was simple, elegant, prompt, and graceful. His genius was so fertile, and his reading so extensive, that there were few subjects on which he could not instruct, amuse, and persuade. He was frequently (as has justly been observed) “at once entertaining and abstruse, drawing illustrations promiscuously from familiar life, and the recondite parts of science; nor was it unusual to hear him through three adjoining sentences, in the first witty, in the second metaphysical, and in the last scholastic.” But his eloquence derived its principal power from the quickness of his apprehension, and the philosophical profundity of his mind. In private life no man perhaps of any age had a greater number of zealous friends and admirers. In addition to his extraordinary ta-^ lents and accomplishments, the grace and happiness of his address and manner gave an irresistible charm to his conversation; and few, it is believed, of either sex (for his address to ladies was inimitably elegant and graceful) ever partook of his society without pleasure and admiration, or quitted it without regret. His brilliant imagination, his various knowledge, his acuteness, his good taste, his wit, his dignity of sentiment, and his gentleness of manner (for he never was loud or intemperate) made him universally admired and respected. To crown all these virtues and accomplishments, it mav be added, that he fulfilled all the duties. of life, the lesser as well as the greatest, with the most scrupulous attention; and was always particularly ardent in vindicating the cause of oppressed merit. But his best eulogy is the general sentiment of sorrow which agitated every bosom on the sudden s and unexpected stroke which terminated in his death. During the nineteen days of his sickness, his hall was daily visited by several hundred successive inquirers concerning the state of his health; and that part of Pall Mall in which his house was situated, was thronged with carriages filled with ladies, whom a similar anxiety brought to his door. Every morning, and also at a late hour every evening, when his physicians and surgeons attended, several apartments in his house were filled with friends, who anxiously waited to receive the latest and most accurate accounts of the progress or abatement of his disorder. This sympathetic feeling extended almost through every class, and even reached the throiio, for his majesty frequently inquired concerning the state of his health, pronouncing on him this high eulogy, that “he was a genuine patriot, and a truly honest man.” Of the fatal malady which put an end to his invaluable life, erroneous accounts have been published, but the fact was, that on the 8th of July 1809, Mr. Windham, returningon foot at twelve o'clock at niiht from the house of a friend, as he passed by the end of Conduit-street, saw a house on fire, and instantly hastened to the spot, with a view to assist the sufferers; and soon observed that the house of the Hon. Mr. Frederic North was not far distant from that which was then on fire. He therefore immediately undertook to save his friend’s library, which he knew to be very valuable. With the most strenuous activity he exerted himself for four hours, in the midst of rain and the playing of the fire-engines, with such effect that, with the assistance of two or three persons whom he had selected from the crowd assembled on this occasion, he saved four parts out of five of the library; and before they could empty the fifth book room, the house took fire. The books were immediately removed, not to Mr. Windham’s house, but to the houses of the opposite neighbours, who cook great care of them. In removing same heavy volumes he accidentally fell, and suffered a slight contusion on his hip, of which, however, he unfortunately took no notice for some months, when an indolent encysted tumour was formed, which, after due consultation, it was judged proper to cut out. The operation was accordingly performed apparently with success on May 17, 1810, but soon after unfavourable symptoms came on, and terminated fatally June 4, to the unspeakable regret of all who knew him.

, whom Dr. Hutton pronounces one of the clearest writers on arithmetic, &c. in the English language, was the son of Roger Wingate, esq. of Bornend and Sharpenhoe, in Bedfordshire, but was born in Yorkshire in 1593. In 1610 he became a commoner of Queen’s-college, Oxford, and after taking a degree in arts, removed to Gray’s -Inn, London, where he studied the law. His chief inclination, however, was to the mathematics, which he had studied with much success at college. In 1624 he was in France, where he published the scale, or rule of proportion, which had been invented by Gunter, and while in that country gave instructions in the English language to the princess Henrietta Maria, afterwards wife of Charles I. and to her ladies. After his return to England, he became a bencher of Gray VInn; and on the breaking out of the great rebellion, he joined the popular party^ took the covenant, was maxle justice of the peace for the county of Bedford, where he resided at Woodend in the parish of Harlington. His name occurs in the register of Anipthill church, as a justice, in 1654, at which period, according to the republican custom, marriages were celebrated by the civil magistrate. In 1650 he took the oath, commonly called the engagement, became intimate with Cromwell, and was chosen into his parliament for Bedford. He was also appointed one of the commissioners, for that county, to eject from their situations those loyal clergymen and schoolmasters who were accused as being scandalous and ignorant. He died in Gray’s- Inn, in 1656, and was buried in the parish church of St. Andrew Holborn.

His works are, 1. “The use of the proportional Rules in Arithmetic and Geometry; also the use of Logarithms of numbers, with those of sines and tangents;” printed ill French, at Paris, 1624, 8vo, and at London, in English^ 1626, 1645, and 1658. In this book, Mr. Wingate speaks of having been the first who carried the logarithms tqf France; but an edition of Napier’s “Description and construction of Logarithms” was printed at Lyons in 1620, four years earlier than Wingate’s publication. 2. “Of Natural, and Artificial Arithmetic, or Arithmetic made easy,” Lond. 1630, 8vo, which has gone through numerous editions; the best is that by Mr. Doclson. 3. 4 Tables of Logarithms of the signs and tangents of all the degrees and minutes of the Quadrant; with the use and application of the same,“ibid. 1633, 8vo. 4.” The Construction and use of Logarithms, with the resolution of Triangles, &c.“5.” Ludus Mathematicus: or an Explanation of the description, construction, and use of the numerical table of proportion,“ibid. 1654, 8vo. 6.” Tacto-metria, seu Tetagne-nqme-t tria, or the Geometry of regulars, &c.“ 8vo. 7.” The exact Surveyor of Land, &c.“8vo. 8.” An exact abridgment of all the statutes in force and use from the Magna Charta to 1641,“1655, 8vo, reprinted and continued to 1663, 1680, 1681, and 1684. 9.” The body of the common law of England,“1655, &c. 8vo. 10.” Maxims of reason, or the Reason of the Common Law of England,“1658, fol. 11.” Statuta Pacis; or, the Table of all the Statutes which any way concern the office of a justice of peace, &c." 12mo. 12. An edition of Britton, 1640, 12mo. He was supposed to be the editor of some other law books, which show equal judgment and industry, but he is now remembered only as a mathematician.

, an eminent antiquary, was born at Stendall, in the old Marche of Brandenbourg, in the beginning of 1718. He was the son of a shoemaker, but although to all appearance destined by his birth to superintend a little school in an obscure town in Germany, he raised himself to the office of president of antiquities in the Vatican. After having been seven years professor in the college of Seehausen near Salswedel, he went into Saxony,where he resided seven years more, and was Jibrarian to count Bonau at Nothenitz. The count was author of an “History of the Empire,” and died 1762. His fine library, valued in 1749 at 15,000 English crowns, has been since added to the public library of Dresden. Mr. Winkelman, in 1748, made a most methodical and informing catalogue of it, in 4 vols. When he left this place in 1754, he went to Dresden, where he formed an acquaintance with the ablest artists, and particularly with M. Oeser, an excellent painter, and one of the best draughtsmen of the age. In that year he abjured Lutheranism, and embraced the Roman cathylic religion. In Sept. 1755, he set out for Italy, and arrived at Rome in December following. His principal object was to see the Vatican library, and to examine the ruins of Herculaneum. While engaged, as he tells us, in teaching some dirty boys their Abc, he aspired to a knowledge of the beautiful, and silently meditated on the comparisons of Homer’s Greek with the Latin literature, and a critical acquaintance with the respective languages, which were more familiar to him than they had ever been to any former lover of antiquity, both by his application in studying them, and his public lectures as professor of them. His extensive reading was improved in the noble and large library which he afterwards superintended. The solitude and the beauty of the spot where he lived, and the Platonic reveries which he indulged, all served to prepare the mind for the enthusiasm winch he felt at the sight of the master-pieces of art. His first steps in this career bespoke a man of genius; but what a concurrence of^circumstances were necessary to develope his talents! The magnificent gallery of paintings and the cabinet of antiquities at Dresden, the conversation of artists and amateurs, his journey to Rome, his residence there, the friendship of Mengs the painter, his residence in the palace and villa of cardinal Albani, his place of writer in the Vatican, and that of president *of antiquities, were so many advantages and helps to procure him materials, and to facilitate to him the use of them for the execution of the design which he had solely in view. Abso,­lute master of his time, he lived in a state of perfect independence, which is the true source of genius, contenting himself with a frugal and regular life, and knowing no other passions than those which tended to inflame his ardent pursuit. An active ambition urged him on, though he affected to conceal it by a stoical indifference. A lively imagination, joined to an excellent memory, enabled him to derive great advantages from his study of the works of the ancients, and a steady indefatigable zeal led him naturally to new discoveries. He kindled iii Rome the torch of sound study of the works of the ancients. His intimate acquaintance with them enabled him to throw greater certainty upon his explanations, and even upon his conjectures, and to overthrow many arbitrary principles and ancient prejudices. His greatest merit is, to have pointed out the true source of the study of antiquity, which is the knowledge of art, to which no writer had before attended. Mr. Winkelman carried with him into Italy a sense of beauty and art, which led him instantly to admire the master-pieces of the Vatican, and with which he began to study them. He soon increased his knowledge, and it was not till after he had thus purified his taste, and entertained conceptions of ideal beauty, which transported him to inspiration, and led him into the greatest secrets of art, that he began to think of the explanation of other monuments, in which his great learning could not fail to distinguish him. At the same time another immortal scholar treated the science of antiquity in the same manner on this side the Alps. Count Caylus had a profound and extensive knowledge of the arts, was master of the mechanical part, and drew and engraved in a capital style. Winkelman was upt endowed with these advantages, but in point of classical erudition surpassed the count; and while the latter employed himself in excellent explications of little objects, the former had continually before him at Rome the greatest monuments of ancient art. This erudition enabled him to fill ap his principal plan of writing the “History of Art.” In 1756 he planned his “Restoration of Ancient Statues,” and a larger work on the “Taste of the Greek Artists;” $od designed an account of the galleries of Rome and Italy, beginning with a volunqe on the Belvedere statues, in the manner of Richardson, who, he says, only ran over Rome. In. the preface he intended to mention the fate of these statues at the sacking of Rome in 1527, when the soldiers made a fire in Raphael’s lodge, which spoiled many things. He also intended a history of the corruption of taste in art, the restoration of statues, and an illustration of the obscure points of mythology. All these different essays led him to his “History of Art,” and his “Monumenti Inediti.” It must, however, be confessed, that the first of these works has not all the clearness and precision that might be expected in its general plan, and division of its parts and objects; but it has enlarged and extended the ideas both of antiquaries ancj collectors. The description of the gems and sulphurs of the Stosch cabinet contributed not a little to extend Mr. Winkelman’s knowledge. Few persons have had opportunities of contemplating such vast collections. The engravings of Lippet and count Caylus are all that many can arrive at. Mr. Winkelman’s “Monumenti Inediti,” of which he had begun the third vol. 1767, seem to have secured him the esteem of antiquaries. He there explained a number of monuments, and particularly bas reliefs till then accounted inexplicable, with a parade of learning more in compliance with the Italian fashion than was necessary. Had he lived, we should have had a work long wished for, a complete collection of the bas reliefs discovered from the time of Bartoli to the present, the greater part of which are in the possession of cardinal Albani. But however we may regret his tragical end, the intenseness of his application, and the eagerness of his pursuit after ancient monuments, had at last so bewildered tym, in conjectures, that, from a commentator on the works of the ancients, he became a kind of seer or prophet. yis warm imagination outran his judgment. As he proceeded in his knowledge of the characters of art in monunients, he exhausted iiis fund of observations drawn from the ancients, and particularly from the Greeks. He cited early editions, which are frequently not divided into chapters; and he was entirely unacquainted with the publications in the rest of Europe on the arts and antiquity. Hence his “History of Art” is full of anachronisms.

In one of his letters, dated 1754, he gives an account of his change of religion, which too plainly appears to have been guided by motives of interest, in order to make his way to Rome, and gain a better livelihood. At Dresden he published, 1755, “Reflections on the Imitation of the Works of the Greeks,” 4to, translated into French the same year, and republished 1756, 4to. At Rome he made an acquaintance with Mengs, first painter to the king of Poland, afterwards, in 1761, appointed first painter to the house of Spain, with an appointment of 80,000 crowns, a house, and a coach; and he soon got access to the library of cardinal Passionei, who is represented as a most catholic and respectable character, who only wanted ambition to be pope. His catalogue was making by an Italian, and the work was intended for Winkelman. Giacomelli, canon of St. Peter, &c. had published two tragedies of Æschylus and Sophocles, with an Italian translation and notes, and was about a new edition of “Chrysostom de Sacerdotio;” and Winkelman had joined with him in an edition of an unprinted Greek oration of Libanius, from two Mss. in the Vatican and Barberini libraries. In 1757 he laments the calamities of his native country, Saxony, which was then involved in the war between the emperor and the king of Prussia. In 1758 he meditated a journey over the kingdom of Naples, which he says could only be done on foot, and in the habit of a pilgrim, on account of the many difficulties and dangers, and the total want of horses and carriages from Viterbo to Pisciota, the ancient Velia. Jn 1768 we find him in raptured with the idea of a voyage to Sicily, where he wished to make drawings of the many beautiful earthen vases collected by the Benedictines at Catana. At the end of the first volume of his letters, 1781, were first published his remarks on the ancient architecture of the temple of Girgenti. He was going to Naples, with 100 crowns, part of a pension from the king of Poland, for his travelling charges, and thence to Florence, at the invitation of baron Sto&ch. Cardinal Archinto, secretary of state, employed him to take care of his library. His “Remarks on Ancient Architecture' 7 were ready for a second edition. He was preparing a work in Italian, to clear up some obscure points in mythology and antiquities, with above fifty plates; another in Latin, explanatory of the Greek medals that are least known; and he intended to send to be printed in England” An Essay on the Style of Sculpture before Phidias.“A work in 4to appeared at Zurich, addressed to Mr. Wrnkelman, by Mr. Mengs, but without his name, x entitled,” Thoughts on Beauty and Taste in Painting,“and was published by J. C. Fuesli. When Cardinal Albam succeeded to the place of librarian of the Vatican, he endeavoured to get a place for the Hebrew language for Winkelman, who refused a canonry because be would not take the tonsure. The elector of Saxony gave him, 1761, unsolicited, the place of counsellor Richter, the direction of the royal cabinet of medals, and antiquities at Dresden. Upon the death of the abbe Venuti, 1762, he was appointed president of the antiquities of the apostolic chamber, with power over all discoveries and exportations of antiquities and pictures. This is a post of honour, with an income of 160 scudi per annum. He had a prospect of the place of president of antiquities in the Vatican, going to be created at 16 scudi per month, and was named corresponding member of the academy of inscriptions. He had thoughts of publishing an” Essay on the Depravation of Taste in the Arts and Sciences.“The king of Prussia offered him by Col. Quintus Icilius the place of librarian and director of his cabinet of medals and antiquities, void by the death of M. Gautier de la Croze, with a handsome appointment. He made no scruple of accepting the offer; but, when it came to the pope’s ears, he added an appointment out of his own purse, and kept him at Rome. In April 1768 he left Rome to go with M. Cavaceppi over Germany and Switzerland. When he came to Vienna he was so pleased with the reception he met with that he made a longer stay there than he had intended. But, being suddenly seized with a secret uneasiness, and extraordinary desire to return to Rome, he set out for Italy, putting off his visits to his friends in Germany to a future opportunity. It was the will of Providence, however, that this opportunity should never come, he being assassinated in June of that year, by one Arcangeli, of whom, and of his crime, the following narrative was published: ” Francis Arcangeli was born of mean parents, near the city of Pistoia, and bred a cook, in which capacity he served in a respectable family at Vienna, where, having been guilty of a considerable robbery, he was condemned to work in fetters for four years, and then to be banished from all the Austrian dominions, after being sworn never to return. When three years of his slavery were expired, he found friends to intercede in his favour, and he was released from serving the fourth, but strictly enjoined to observe the order of banishment; in consequence of which he left Vienna, and retired to Venice with his pretended wife, Eva Rachel. In August 1767, notwithstanding his oath, he came to Trieste with a view to settle; but afterwards changed his mind, and returned to Venice, where, being disappointed of the encouragement he probably expected, he came again to Trieste in May 1768. Being almost destitute of money, and but shabbily dressed, he took up his lodging at a noted inn (probably with a view of robbing some traveller). In a few days the abbe Winkelman arrived at the same inn in his way from Vienna to Home, and was lodged in the next apartment to that of Arcangeli. This circumstance, and their dining together at the ordinary, first brought them acquainted. The abbe expressed a desire of prosecuting his journey with all possible expedition, and Arcangeli was seemingly very assiduous in procuring him a passage, which the abbé took very kindly, and very liberally rewarded him for his services. His departure, however, being delayed by the master of the vessel which was to carry turn, Arcangeli was more than ordinarily diligent in improving every opportunity of making himself acceptable to the abbe, and their frequent walks, long and fainiliar conversations, and the excessive civility and attention of Arcangeli upon all occasions that offered, so improved the regard which the abbe had begun to conceive for him, that he not only acquainted him in the general run of their discourse with the motives and the event of his journey to Vienna, the graces he had there received, and the offers of that ministry; but informed him also of the letters of credit he had with him, the medals of gold and silver which he had received from their imperial majesties, and, in short, with all the things of value of which he was possessed.

"Arcungeli expressed an earnest desire to see the medals, and the abbe an equal eagerness to gratify his curiosity; but the villain no sooner beheld the fatal coins, than yielding to the motions of his depraved heart, he determined treacherously to murder and rob the possessor. Several days, however, elapsed before he put his cruel design into execution, in which time he so officiously and courteously conformed himself to the temper and situation of his new friend, that he totally disarmed the abbe of all mistrust, and had actually inspired him with a sincere friendship.

"In the morning of the 7th of June, being determined no longer to delay his bloody purpose, he bought a sharp pointed knife, the instrument he intended to use in the execution, and then going to the coffee-house, he there found the abbe, who paid for him as usual, and continued with him in conversation till they both went home to dinner. After dinner they went again abroad together: but the villain having meditated a new scheme, he parted from the abbe and went and purchased some yards of cord, with which he returned home and retired to his chamber. Till the abbe came home, he employed himself in twisting the cord and forming a noose; and having prepared it to his mind, he placed that and the knife in a chair, ready. Soon after this the abbé came in, and, as his custom was, invited Arcangeli to supper. The cheerfulness of the abbe, and the frankness and cordiality with which he received and treated him, staggered him at first; and the sentiments of humanity so far took place, that his blood ran cold with the thoughts of his cruel intention, nor had he at this time courage to execute it. But the next morning, June the 8th, both going out of the inn together, and drinking coffee at the usual house, after Arcangeli had pretended in vain to hire a vessel to carry the abbe to Bagni, they returned to the inn, and each going into his Owr room, Arcangeli pulled off his coat (probably to prevent its being stained with blood) and putting the knife unsheathed, and the cord into his waistcoat pocket, about nine he went into Winkelmarf s chamber, who received him with his accustomed frankness, and entered into chat about his journey and about his medals; and, as he was upon the point of his departure, he invited the man, who was that instant to be his murderer, in the most affectionate manner, to Home, where he promised him his best assistance. Full of those friendly sentiments, the abbe sat himself down in his chair, when instantly the assassin, who stood behind him, threw the cord over his head and drew it close. The abbe with both his hands endeavoured to loosen the cord, but the murderer with his knife already unsheathed stabbed him in several places. This increased the struggle, and the last efforts of the unhappy victim brought both of them to the ground; the murderer, however, was uppermost, and having his knife still reeking with blood in his hand, plunged it five times into the bowels of his wounded friend. The noise of the fall, and the groans of the abbe, alarmed the chamberlain of the house, who hastily opening the door, was witness to the bloody conflict. The assassin, surprised in the fact, dropped the bloody knife, and in his waistcoat only, without a hat, his breast open, and his shirt covered with blood, he escaped out of the inn.

"With the cord about his neck, and his wounds streaming, the abbe had still strength to rise, and descending from the second floor to the first, he placed himself against the balustrade, and called for assistance. Moved with compassion, those who heard his cries hastened to his relief, and helping him to his room, laid him upon his bed, where, having no hope of recovery, he received the sacraments, and made his will. After suffering a great deal with heroic constancy, and truly Christian piety, not complaining of his murderer, but most sincerely pardoning him, he calmly breathed his last about fourin the afternoon.

“In the mean time the assassin had escaped into the Venetian territories, where, not thinking himself safe, he pursued his way to Pirano, with a design to embark in whatever ship was ready to sail, to whatever place; but expresses being every where dispatched with an account of the murder, and a description of the murderer, he found himself surrounded with dangers on all sides. Having found means, however, to change his deaths, he quitted the high road', and passing through forests, and over mountains unknown to him, he at length came to a road that led to Labiana, and had already reached Planina, when a drummer, mistaking him for a deserter, caused him to be apprehended. Upon his examination, not being able to give a satisfactory account of himself, and being threatened by the magistrates of Aldesperg, he voluntarily confessed the murder, and eight days after committing the fact, wan brought back to Trieste, heavily ironed, and under a strong guard. Here he was tried, and being found guilty, as well on his own confession as on the clearest evidence, he was sentenced by the emperor’s judges to be broken on the wheel opposite to the inn where he had perpetrated the murder, and his body to be exposed in the usual place of executions, On the 18th of June he was informed of his sentence, and on the 20th of the same month it was executed in all its points, in the presence of an innumerable multitude, who flocked from all parts to see the execution.”

Some of Winkelman’s Mss. got to Vienna, where the new edition of his “History of Art” was presently advertised. He intended to have got this work translated into French at Berlin, by M. Toussaint, that it might be printed under his own inspection at Rome. It was translated by M. Hubert, so well known in the republic of letters, who has since published it in 3 vols. 4to, witlj head and tailpieces from designs of M. Oeser. An Italian translation of it by a literary society has been published at Milan.

Abbe Winkelman was a middle-sized man; he had a very low forehead, sharp nose, and little black hollow eyes, which gave him an aspect rather gloomy than otherwise. If he had any thing graceful in his physiognomy, it was, his mouth, yet his lips were too prominent; but, when he was animated, and in good humour, his features formed an ensemble that was pleasing. A fiery and impetuous disposition often threw him into extremes. - Naturally enthusiastic, he often indulged an extravagant imagination; but, as he possessed a strong and solid judgment, he knew how to give things a just and intrinsic value. In consequence of this turn of mind, as well as a neglected education, a cautious reserve was a quality he little knew. If hewas bold in his decisions as an author, he was still more so in his conversation, and has often made his friends tremble for his temerity. If ever man knew what friendship was, that man was Mr. Winkelman, who regularly practised all its duties, and for this reason he could boast of having friends among persons of every rank and condition. People of his turn of thinking and acting seldom or ever indulged suspicions: the abbe’s fault was a contrary extreme. The frankness of his temper led him to speak his sentiments on all occasions; but, being too much addicted to that species of study which he so assiduously cultivated, he was not always on his guard to repress the sallies of self-love. His picture was drawn half length, sitting, by a German lady born at Kosinitz, but carried when young into Italy by her father, who was a painter. She etched it in a 4to size, and another artist executed it in mezzotinto. This lady was Angelica Kauffman. The portrait is prefixed to the collection of his letters published at Amsterdam, 1781, 2 vols. 12ino. Among his correspondents were Mr. Heyne, Munchausen, baron Reidesel (whose travels into Sicily, translated into English by Dr. Forster, 1773, 8vo, are addressed to him, and inspired him with an ardent longing to go over that ground), count Bunau, C. Fuesli, Gesner, P. Usteri, Van Mechlen, the duke de Rochfoucault, lord (alias Mr. Wortley) Montague, Mr. Wiell; and there are added extracts from letters to M. Clerisseaux, while he was searching after antiquities in the South of France a list of the principal objects in Rome, 1766, &c. and an abstract of a letter of Fuesli to the German translators of Webb on the “Beauties of Painting.”

, a skilful anatomist who settled in France, was born in 1669, at Odensee, in Denmark, where his father was minister of the place, and intended him for his own profession, but he preferred that of medicine, which he studied in various universities in Europe. In 1698 he was at Paris, studying under the celebrated Duverney, and here he was induced by the writings of Bossuet to renounce the protestant religion, a change which, it is rather singular, happened to his granduncle Stenonius (See Stenonius) by the same influence. He now settled at Paris, was elected one of the college of physicians, lecturer at the royal garden, expounder of the Teutonic language at the royal library, and member of the academy of sciences. According to Haller, who had been his pupil, his genius was not so remarkable as his industry, but by dint of assiduity he became an excellent anatomist; and his system of anatomy, or “Exposition Anatomique,” has long been considered as a work of the first reputation and utility, and has been translated into almost all the European languages, and into English by Douglas, 1734, 2 vols. 4to. He was also the author of a great number of anatomical dissertations, some of which were published separately, but they mostly -appeared in the Memoirs of the French academy. He died in 1760, at the advanced age of ninety-one.

, originally a barber, author of the “Lives of the Poets;” of “Select Lives of England’s Worthies;” “Historical Rarities;” “The Loyal Martyrology;” and some single lives; all in 8vo. Granger says he is a fantastical writer, and of the lowest class of biographers:. but we are obliged to him for many notices of persons and things, which are mentioned by no other writer, which must account for his “England’s Worthies” being a book still in request; and, as some of the vampers think, even worthy of being illustrated by prints. It is not, however, generally known, that it is necessary to have both editions of this work; those of 1660 and 1684, in order to possess the whole of his biographical labours: Winstanley, who could trim in politics as well as trade, omitted from the latter all the republican lives, and substituted others in their room. He flourished in the reigns of Charles I. II. andJames II. and was probably alive at the publication of his second edition, in which he changed his dedication, adopting new patrons. * In the “Gensura Literaria,” vol. V. is an account of “The Muses Cabinet,” 1655, 12mo, containing his original poetry, which is called in the title-page “both pleasant and profitable;” but now we are afraid will not be thought either. He was a great plagiary, and took his character of the English poets from Phillips’s “Theatrum,” and much from Fuller and others, without any acknowledgment.

an eminent physician, was born in 1575, and educated in Clare-hall, Cambridge, of which he became fellow. He took the degree of M. A. in 1602, and then visited the continent for improvement in the study of physic. He attended the lectures of Fabricius ab Aquapendente and Prosper Alpinus at Padua, and of Caspar Bauhine at Basil, and took the degree of doctor at Padua. He returned to England, graduated again at Cambridge in 1607, and settled in London; and in 1613 was admitted a candidate of the college of physicians, and the next year was made fellow. On the death of Dr. Mounsel, professor of physic in Gresham-college, he was chosen October 25, 1615, to succeed him, and held his professorship till 1642; when, by permission of the House of Lords, he went over to France, where he staid about ten years, and returned when the troubles were over. He did not live long to enjoy a well acquired fortune; for he died October 24, 1655, aged eighty. 'He published nothing in his life-time; but after his death, his “Anatomical Lectures” were printed in 1659, 1664, 8vo, and were supposed the most complete then in the English language.

, an eminent Greek scholar, was the son of Francis Winterton of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, A. M. where he was born. That he was an excellent Greek scholar appears from many of his productions in that language, which entitled him to be a competitor, though an unsuccessful one, in 1627, for the Greek professorship at Cambridge, on the death of Andrew Downes, with four other candidates, who all read solemn lectures in the schools on a subject appointed them by the electors. He was educated at KingVcollege, Cambridge, where he had the misfortune, during the early part of his residence, to be somewhat disordered in his intellects; but, recovering, he took to the study of physic, and was allowed to excel all of that profession in his time. In 1631 he 'published the first book of Hippocrates’s Aphorisms in a Greek metrical version at Cambridge, in quarto, and the year following the whole seven books together, in the same manner. In 1633, by the advice of Dr. John Collins, regius professor of physic, he published an edition of the Aphorisms in octavo at Cambridge, with Frere’s Latin poetical translation, and his own Greek version, with a Latin prose translation by John Heurnus of Utrecht. At the end is annexed a small book of epigrams and poems, composed by the chiefest wits of both universities, but chiefly of Cambridge, and of KingVcollege in particular. In 1631 he printed, in octavo, at Cambridge, a translation of “Gerard’s Meditations,” whicfi went through six editions in about nine years. In 1632 he published likewise at Cambridge, in octavo, Gerard’s “Golden Chain of Divine Aphorisms.” He published also, for the use of Etonschool, an edition of “Dionysius de situ Orbis,” with some Greek verse* at the end of it, addressed to the scholars, and exhorting them to the study of geography. This was reprinted at London in 1668, 12mo. In the above year (1632), he translated “Drexelius on Eternity,” which was printed at Cambridge. In the preface to this, he has some sentiments which shew that he was of a pious but somewhat singular turn of mind. In 1634, being M. D. he was nominated by the king his professor of physic for forty years, if he should live so long. The year following he published at Cambridge in octavo an edition of the “Minor Greek Poets,” with observations upon Hesiod. This has passed through many editions. His advancement to the professorship appears to have interrupted his employment as an author; but he did not survive that honour long, dying in the prime of life Sept. 13, 1636. He vva^ buried at the east end of King’s- college chapel, but without any memorial. After his death was published a translation by him of Jerome Zanchius’s “Whole Duty of the Christian Religion,” Lorid. 1659, 12mo. He appears to have contributed his assistance in the publication of many learned works, which have escaped our research. His character was that of an industrious and judicious scholar, an able physician, and a just and upright man.

, a learned divine, of whom our memorial is but scanty, was born at Gloucester -28th April 1737. He was educated chiefly in his native city, and distinguished by his thirst after^knowledge, and his diligent application to school-exercises. Obtaining an exhibition at Pembroke-college, Oxford, he there became scholar^ fellow, and tutor, taking his degree of M. A. in 1759. In 1767, archbishop Seeker made him rector of Wittri.shamin Kent, and called him to be one of his domestic chaplains and the following year he went to Oxford, and took his degree of bachelor of divinity. After the deathof his grace, in the following year, he resided at Wittrisham, or on the small living of St. Peter, in Wallingford; until, in 1774, relinquishing these preferments, he was presented,. by the late bisbrop of Winchester, to the rectory of Brightwell, Berks. At Brightwell he lived constantly forty years, and at Brightwell he died, July 29, 1814, leaving a widow, two sons, and one grand -daughter. In early life Mr. Wintle was unremitting in the attainment of useful learning, and in the practice of religion and virtue; and in his more mature and later years he ceased not, by precept and example, to set forth the expediency and advantages of religion, while his fame in the literary world was not inconsiderable. He published, 1st, “An improved Version of Daniel attempted, with a Preliminary Dissertalion, and Notes critical, historical, and explanatory.” 2. “A Dissertation on the Vision contained in the second chapter of Zechariah.”3. “Eight Sermons on the Expediency, Prediction, and Accomplishment, of the Christian Redemption, preached at the Bampton Lecture.” 4. “Christian Ethics, or Discourses on the Beatitudes, with isome preliminary and subsequent Discourses the whole designed to explain, recommend, or enforce, the Duties of the Christian Life.” 5. “A Letter to the Lord Bishop of Worcester, occasioned by his Strictures on Archbishop Seeker and Bishop Lowth, in his Life of Bishop Warburton.” The two first of, these publications will class Mr. Wintle with the most distinguished Biblical scholars, and the Bampton Lectures and Christian Ethics are not less valuable, as illustrations of the Christian system.

, an eminent physician, was the son of Dr. Clifton Wintringham, also a physician, who died at York, March 12, 1748, and was an author of reputation, but rather of the mechanical school, as appears by his first publication, “Tractatus de Podagra, in quo de ultimis vasis et liquidis et succo nutritio tractatur,” York, 1714, 8yo. In this he assigns, as the causes of the gout, a certain acrimonious viscosity in the nervous fluid? the rigidity of the fibres, and a straitness in the diameter of the vessels that are near the joints. His second publication was entitled “A Treatise of endemir-diseases,” ibid. 1718, 8vo, which was followed by his most important publication, “Commentarium nosologicum morbos epidemicos et aeris variationes in urbe Eboracensi, locisque vicinis, ab anno 1715 ad anni 1725 finem grassantes complectens,” Lorn!. 1727, 1733, 8vo. This last edition was edited by his son, He published also “An experimental inquiry on some parts of the animal structure,” ibid. 1740, 8vo, and “An inquiry into the exility of the vessels of a human body,” ibid. 1743, 8vo.

His son, the more immediate subject of this brief notice, was born in 1710, and educated at Trinity college, Cambridge, where he took his degree of bachelor. of medicine in 1734, and that of doctor in 1749. During the interval it is not improbable that he studied the art at Leyden, as was usual at that time. He settled however at London, where he became a fellow of the college of physicians, and in 1742 of the Royal Society, in 1759 physician extraordinary, and afterwards physician general to the army. In 1749 he had been appointed chief physician to the duke of Cumberland, and in 1762 was nominated physician ta his present majesty, and received the honour of knighthood. He attained considerable practice during a very long life, and was much respected both for his private and public character. He died at Hammersmith, after a lingering illness, Jan. 9, 1794, at the age of eighty-four. In 1774 he had been created a baronet, with remainder to Jarvis Clifton, esq. second son of sir Jarvis Clifton, bart. of Clifton, Nottinghamshire, who however died before him, and the title became extinct. By his will, sir Clifton left to Trinity college, where he had been educated, a small marble image of Esculapius found near Rome, which was accordingly deposited there by his widow.

Sir Clifton published an edition, with annotations, of Mead’s “Monita et praecepta medica,” and an edition of his father’s works, 1752, 2 vofs. 8vo. The only production from his own pen was entitled “De morbis quibusdam commentarii,” 1782 and 1790, 2 vols.

, secretary of state in the reign of James I. was son of Mr. Lewis Winwood, some time secretary to Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk; and was born about 1565, at Aynho, in Northamptonshire. He was at first sent to St. John’s college, Oxford, whence he was elected a probationer-fellow of Magdalen college in 1582. He took both the degrees in arts, and that of bachelor of law; and in 1692, was proctor of the university. Afterwards he travelled on the continent, and returned a very accomplished gentleman. In 1599, he attended sir Henry Neville, ambassador to France, as his secretary; and, in' the absence of sir Henry, was appointed resident at Paris: whence he was recalled in 1602-3, and sent that year to the States of Holland by James I. In 1607, he was knighted; and the same year appointed ambassador jointly with sir Richard Spencer to Holland. He was sent there again in 1609, when he delivered the remonstrance of James I. against Vorstius (See Vorstius) the Arminian, to the assembly of the States, to which they seemed to pay very little attention. Upon this the king proceeded to threaten them with his pen; and plainly told them, that if they had the hardiness to “fetch again from hell ancient heresies long since dead, &c. he should be constrained to proceed publicly against them.” It is certain that his majesty wrote a pamphlet against Conr. Vorstius, which was printed in 1611.

In 1614, Winwood was made secretary of state; in which office he continued till his death, which happened Oct. 27, 1617. He was interred in the parish church of St. Bartholomew the Less, London. Lloyd tells us, that “he was a gentleman well seen in most affairs, but most expert in. matters of trade and war.” But although others acknowledge his abilities and integrity, they add that he was nol; sufficiently polished as a courtier, as there was something harsh and supercilious in his demeanour. He left a son named Richard, afterwards of Ditton Park in Bucks, who dying without issue in 1688, his estate went to a son of Edward earl of Montague, who had married his sister. In 1725, were published at London, in 3 vols. folio, “Memorials of Affairs of State in the Reigns of queen Elizabeth and king James I. collected chiefly from the original papers of the right honourable sir Ralph Winwood, knight, some time one of the principal secretaries of state. Comprehending likewise the negotiations of sir Henry Neville, sir Charles Cornwallis, sir Dudley Carlton, sir Thomas Edmonds, Mr. Trumble, Mr. Cottington, and others, at the courts of France and Spain, and in Holland, Venice, &c. wherein the principal transactions of those times are faithfully related, and the policies and the intrigues of those courts at large discovered. The whole digested in an exact series of time. To which are added two tables, one of the letters, the other of the principal matters. By Edmund Sawyer, esq.” then one of the masters in chancery.

, an artist, whom, Fuseli says, situation, temper, and perhaps circumstances, hav:e deprived of the celebrity he deserved, was a native of Zuric, born in 1640, the son of a canon, and professor of divinity in its college, and appears to have had a liberal education. Thoqgb, when a youth, he lost one eye, he was bound to Conrad Meyer, of whom, with the elements of painting, he acquired the mystery of etching. As a painter he devoted himself to portraiture, which he exercised with success, and in a style little inferior and sometimes equal to that of S. Hofmann; but the imitation of dormant or insipid countenances, unable to fill a mind so active and open to impression, in time gave way to composition in art and writing, both indeed devoted to the most bigoted superstition, and theologic rancour, for in his Dialogues ofi the Apocalypsis of S, John, blind zeal, legendary falsehood, and barbarism of style, go hand in hand with shrewdness of observation, controversial acuteness, and blunt naivete a heterogeneous mass, embellished by ah etched series of poetic and historic subjects, in compositions dictated.by the most picturesque fancy, original, magnificent, various, romantic, terrible, and fantastic; though in small, on a scale of arrangement and combinations to fill the pompous scenery of Paolo, or challenge the wildest caprice of Salvator; and in the conception of the Last Judgment, for sublimity far superior to Michael Agnolo. With these prerogatives, and neither insensible to beauty nor form, the artist is often guilty of ludicrous, nay, even premeditated incorrectness, and contortions which defy possibility. His style of etching, free, spirited, and yet regular, resembles that of Wilhelm Baur; and though no vestiges remain of his having seen Italy, it is difficult to conceive by what other means he could acquire that air of Italian scenery, and that minute acquaintance with the architecture, the costume, and ceremonies, of that country, without having visited it himself. His dialogues, above mentioned, were published in 1677, 8vo, entitled “J. Wirzii Romse animale exemplum, &c.” with 42 plates. Wirz resided and died in 1709, at a small villa which he possessed near Zuric.

, a learned antiquary, and Radcliffe librarian at Oxford, was born in the house of his father Francis Wise, a mercer at Oxford, June 3, 1695. He received the first part of his education in New college school, under the care of Mr. James Badger, a man very eminent as a schoolmaster. In January 1710-11 he was admitted a. member of Trinity college, and in the summer following was elected scholar of that house. He took the degree of M.A. in 1717, and about this period was employed by Mr. Hudson, as an underkeeper or assistant in the Bodleian library, an admirable school for Mr. Wise, who had a turn for literary history and antiquities. In 1718 he became probationer, and in the following year actual fellow of his college. In 1722 he published “Asser Menevensis de rebus gestis Alfredi magni,” 8vo, very elegantly printed, and with suitable engravings, &c. The year preceding this, (172 J) the hon. Francis North, afterwards earl of Guildford, entered of Trinity college under die tuition of Mr. Wise, for whom he entertained a great esteem through life. From this nobleman he received the living of Eljesfield near Oxford, a very small piece of preferment, and not worth above 251. a year at most, but peculiarly agrefeable to our author, who contrived to make it a place of some importance to curious visitors. He took a small estate there, on a long lease, under lord Guildford, and converted a cottage upon it into an agreeable retirement, by building one or two good rooms, and laying out a garden with a piece of ground adjoining, scarcely before of any use, in a very whimsical but pleasing manner. In this little spot of a few acres, his visitors were surprised to meet with ponds, cascades, seats, a triumphal arch, the tower of Babel, a Druid temple, and an Egyptian pyramid. These buildings, which were designed to resemble the structures of antiquity, were erected in exact scale and measure, to give, as far as miniature would permit, a just idea of the edifice they were intended to represent. From the time that his illustrious pupil left Oxford, Mr. Wise constantly resided in his family at intervals, and divided his time between the seat of the Muses, and the elegant mansion of his friend and patron. In 1726 he was elected custos archivorum; and in 1727 took his degree of bachelor of divinity.

In 1738, Mr. Wise published a Letter to Dr. Mead concerning some antiquities in Berkshire, particularly showing that the White Horse was a Saxon monument, 4to. This pamphlet was answered by an anonymous person (supposed to be one Asplin, vicar of Banbury) who in his pamphlet, entitled “The Impertinence and Imposture of Modern Antiquaries displayed,” insinuated a suspicion that Mr. Wise was no friend to the family on the throne. This insinuation gave Mr. Wise great uneasiness, as he then had in view, some preferment from the officers of state (the place of Radcliffe Librarian). He therefore drew up in 1742, another treatise, called “Further Observations upon the White Horse, &c.” and was vindicated also both in his political principles and antiquarian conjectures by a friend (the Rev. Mr. North, F.S.A.) who then concealed his name. (See North, George).

In 1745, he was presented by Trinity college to the rectory of Rotherfield Greys, in the county and diocese of Oxford; and on May 10, 1748, he was appointed Radcliffe librarian. In 1750, he published his “Catalogue of the Coins in the Bodleian library,” folio, which he had designed, and taken subscriptions for, above twenty years before, but through the smallness of his income he was unable to bear the expense of engravings, &c. This work he dedicated to his friend and patron the earl of Guildford, and in it has given some yiews of his house and gardens at Ellesfield. After this period he resided chiefly in this pleasing retreat, and pursued his researches into antiquity. In 1758, he printed in 4to, “Some Enquiries concerning the first inhabitants, learning, and letters of Europe, by a member of the Society of Antiquaries, London;” and in 1764, another work in 4to, entitled “History and Chronology of Fabulous Ages considered.” No name is prefixed to these performances, but at the end of each we have the initials F. W. R. L. (Francis Wise, Radcliffe librarian). These were his last publications. He was after this period much afflicted with the gout, and lived quite retired at Ellesfield till his death, which happened Oct. 6, 1767. He was buried in the churchyard of that place, and by his own direction, no stone or monument perpetuates his memory. In his life-time he had been a benefactor to the Bodleian library by supplying from his own collections many deficiencies in the series of their coins; and after his death, his surviving sister, who resided at Oxford, and was his executrix, generously gave a large and valuable cabinet of his medals, &c. to the Radcliffe library.

, one of the first martyrs for the protestant religion in Scotland, and a person of great distinction in the ecclesiastical history of that country, was born in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and appears to have very early felt the consequences of imbibing the spirit of the reformers. He was descended of the house of Pitarrow in the Mearns, an illustrious family in Scotland, and is said to have travelled into Germany, where he became acquainted with the opinions of Luther. Other accounts mention x his having been banished from his own country by the bishop of Brechin, for teaching the Greek 7‘estament in the town of Montrose, and that after this he resided for some years in the university of Cambridge. Of this latter circumstance there is no reason to doubt, for besides an account of him while there by one of his pupils, printed by Fox, the historian of Bene’t or Corpus Christ! college has inserted a short account of him, as one of the members of that house. In 1544, he returned to his native country, in the company of the commissioners who had been sent to negociate a treaty with Henry VIII. of England. At this time he was allowed to excel all his countrymen in learning, and to be a man of the most persuasive eloquence, irreproachable in life, courteous and affable in manners. His fervent piety, zeal, and courage, in the cause of truth, were tempered with uncommon meekness, modesty, patience, prudence, and charity. With these qualifications he began to preach in a very bold manner, against the corruptions of the Romish church, and the vices of the clergy. He met with a most favourable reception wherever he appeared, and was much followed and eagerly listened to, which so excited the indignation of cardinal Beaton, and the popish clergy in general, that a resolution was formed to take away his life by some means or other.

Two attempts were made to cut him off by assassination; but he defeated the first by his courage, and the second by his caution. On the first of these attempts he behaved with great generosity. A friar named Weighton, who had undertaken to kill him when he was in Dundee (where he principally preached), knowing that it was his custom to remain in the pulpit after sermon, till the church was empty, skulked at the bottom of the stairs with a dagger in his right hand under his gown. Wishart (who was remarkably quick-sighted), as he came down from the pulpit, observing the friar’s countenance, and his hand with something in it under his gown, suspected his design, sprung forward, seized his hand, and wrenched the dagger from him. At the noise which this scuffle occasioned, a crowd of people rushed into the church, and would have torn the friar in pieces; but Mr. Wishart clasped him in his arms, and declared that none should touch him but through his body. “He hath done me no hurt” said he, “my friends; he hath done me much good; he hath taught me what I have to fear, and put me upon my guard.” And it appeared that he defeated the second attempt on his life by the suspicion which the first had inspired. When he was at Montrose, a messenger came to him with a letter from a country gentleman, acquainting him that he had been suddenly taken ill, and earnestly intreating him to come to him without delay. He immediately set out, accompanied by two or three friends, but when they were about half a mile from the town, he stoppled, saying, “I suspect there is treason in this matter. Go you (said he to one of his friends) up yonder, and tell me what you observe.” He came back and told him, that he had seen a company of spearmen lying in ambush near the road. They then returned to the town, and on the way he said to his friends; “I know I shall one day fall by the hands of that blood-thirsty man (meaning cardinal Beaton), but I trust it shall not be in this manner.”

These two plots having miscarried, and Wishart still continuing to preach with his usual boldness and success, the cardinal summoned a synod of the clergy to meet Jan. 11, 1546, in the Blackfriars church, Edinburgh, and to consider of means for putting a stop to the progress of heresy, and while thus employed, he heard that Wishart was in the house of Ormiston, only about eight miles from Edinburgh, where he was seized by treachery, and conducted to the castle of Edinburgh, and soon after to the castle of St. An-r drew’s. Here, being completely in the hands of the cardinal, he was put upon his trial March 1, before a convocation of the prelates and clergy assembled for that purpose in the cathedral, and treated with the utmost barbarity, every form of law, justice, or decency, being dispensed with. He endeavoured to answer the accusations brought against him, and to shew the conformity between the doctrines he had preached and the word of God; but this was denied him, and he was condemned to be burnt as an obstinate heretic, which sentence was executed next day on the castle green. The cardinal seems to have been sensible that the minds of men would be much agitated by the fate of this amiable sufferer, and even to have apprehended that some attempt might be made to rescue him from the flames. He commanded all the artillery of the castle to be pointed towards the scene of execution; and, either to watch the ebullitions qf popular indignation/to display his Contempt of the reformers, or to satiate himself by contemplating the destruction of a man, in whose grave he hoped that their principles would be buried, he openly, with the prelates who accompanied him, witnessed the melancholy spectacle. In many accounts which we have of Wishart’s death, it is mentioned that, looking towards the cardinal, he predicted, “that he who, frooi yonder place (pointing to the tower where he sat), beholdeth us with such pride, shall, within a few days, lie in the same as ignominiously as now he is seen proudly to rest.” In our account of Beaton we have noticed the evidence for this fact, and the opinion of historians upon it, to which may now be added the opinions of some able writers (noticed in our references) who have appeared since that article was drawn up. Concerning Wishart, we may conclude, with Dr. Henry, that his death was a loss to his persecutors as well as to his friends. If he had lived a few years longer, the reformation, it is probable, would have been carried on with more regularity and less devastation. He had acquired an astonishing power over the minds of the people; and he always employed it in restraining them from acts of violence, inspiring them with lave to one another, and with gentleness and humanity to their enemies.

, bishop of Edinburgh, was born in East Lothian in 1609, and educated in the university of Edinburgh; where he took his degrees, and entered into holy drders. He became minister of North Leith, but was deposed in 1638, for refusing to take the covenant, and was also imprisoned for his loyalty. On his release he accompanied the marquis of Montrose as his chaplain. When the marquis was defeated by general Lesley in 1645, Wishart was taken prisoner, and would have suffered death along with several noblemen and gentlemen whom the covenanters condemned, had not his amiable character endeared him to some of the leading men of the party. He then went abroad, and became chaplain to Elizabeth, queen of Bohemia, sister to Charles I. with whom he came over into England in 1660, to visit her royal nephew Charles II. Soon after, Mr. Wishart had the rectory of Newcastle upon Tyne conferred upon him; and upon the restoration of episcopacy in Scotland, was consecrated bishop of Edinburgh, June I, 1662. In that station he gave a most striking proof of that benevolence which should ever characterise a real Christian; for, when some of the presbyterians who had persecuted him were committed to prison for rebellion, he assisted them with every necessary, and procured them a pardon. He died in 1671, and was buried in the abbey of Holyrood-bouse, under a magnificent tomb, with a long Latin inscription. Keith says, “he was a person of great religion; and having been a prisoner himself, it is reported of him that he was always careful at each dinner, to send off the first mess to the prisoners.” He wrote the history of the war in Scotland under the conduct of the marquis of Montrose, in elegant Latin, ijmler the title of “J. G. de rebus auspiciis serenissimi et potentissimi Caroli, Dei gratia Mag. Brit. regis, &c. sub imperio illustrissimi Montisrosarum marchionis, &c. anno 1644, et duobus sequentibus, praeclare gestis, comtuentarius, mterprete A. S.” This was first published in 1646, and there have been several English translations of it from that time to 1720, when it was printed with a second part, which Keith says the author left in manuscript.

, an excellent portrait painter, was born at Amsterdam in 1656, and bred up under Dodaens, an historical painter at the Hague. On coming to England, he worked some time for sir Peter Lely, whose manner he successfully imitated, and after whose death he came into fashion. He painted Charles II. and his queen, James II. and his queen, and the prince and princess of Denmark; and was sent over to Holland, by king James, to draw the prince and princess of Orange. What recommended him to the esteem of Charles II. was his picture of the duke of Monmouth, whom he drew several times and in several attitudes. He drew most of the then court, and became competitor with sir Godfrey Kneller, whose fame was at that time increasing every day. It is said that, in drawing portraits of the fair sex, when any lady came to sit, whose complexion was rather pale, he would commonly take her by the hand, and dance about the room till she became warmer and her colour increased. This painter died much lamented at Burleigh-house, in Northamptonshire, Sept. 10, 1687, aged only thirty-one; and was buried in St. Martin’s church, Stamford, where a marble tablet, with a Latin inscription, was placed by John earl of Exeter. There is a mezzotinto print of him, under which are these words, “Gulielmus Wissingus, inter pictores sui saeculi celeberrimus, nulli secundus, artis suse non exiguuai decus & ornamentum. Immodicis brevis est aetas.”

, a good astronomer and mathematician, was born in 1728. He was maternally descended from the celebrated clock and watchmaker, Daniel Quare, in which business he was himself brotignt up, and was educated in the principles of the Quakers, all his progenitors for many generations having been of that community, whose simplicity of manners he practised through life. It appears that he cultivated the study of astronomy at a very early age, as he had a communication on that subject in the “Gentleman’s Diary” for 1741, which must have been written when he was thirteen years of age. Soon after this he became a frequent writer both in the Diaries and in the Gentleman’s Magazine, sometimes under his own name, but oftener with the initials G. W. only. In 1764 he published a map, exhibiting the passage of the moon’s shadow over England in the great solar eclipse of April 1, that year; the exact correspondence of which to the observations gained him great reputation. In the following year he presented to the commissioners of longitude a plan for calculating the effects of refraction and parallax, on the, moon’s distance from the sun or a star, to facilitate the discovery of the longitude at sea. Having taught mathematics in London for many years with much reputation, he was in 1767 elected F. R. S. and appointed head master of the royal naval academy at Portsmouth, where he died of a paralytic stroke in 1785, aged fiftyseven.

, a name well known among the readers of old English poetry, and revived, of late, by the taste and judgment of some eminent poetical antiquaries, was born at Bentworth, near Alton in Hampshire, June 11, 1588. He was the only son of George Wither of Bentworth (by Anne Serle), who was the second son of John Wither of Manydowne near W r otton St. Lawrence in that county, at which' seat Mr. Bigg Wither, the heir (not the heir male, hut the heir female, who has taken the name), still resides. The poet was educated under John Greaves of Colemore, a celebrated schoolmaster, whom he afterwards commemorated with gratitude in a poem published in 1613. About 1604- he was sent to Magdalen college, Oxford, under the tuition of John Warner, afterwards bishop of Rochester. Here he informs us, in the proemium to his “Abuses stript and whipt,” that he found the v art of logic, to which his studies were directed, first dull and unintelligible; but at the moment it began all at once to unfold its mysteries to him, he was called home “to Jiold the plough.” He laments that he was thus obliged to forsake “the Paradise of England” to go “in quest of care, despair, and discontent.”

After he had remained some time in his own country, certain malicious advisers, under the mask of friendship, pretending that nothing was to be got by learning, endeavoured to persuade his father to put him to some mechanic trade; but our poet, finding that country occupations were not fitted to his genius, determined, on some slight gleam of hope, to try his fortune at court, and therefore entered himself as a member of Lincoln’s-inn. The world now opened upon him in characters so different from his expectations, that, having been probably educated in puritanical principles, he felt that disgust which perhaps made him a satirist for life. The first thing which appeared to fill him with dislike and anger, was the gross flattery and servility which seemed necessary to his advancement. If, however, his manners did not procure him favour with the courtiers, his talents obtained him the acquaintance and friendship of many men of genius. William Browne, the pastoral poet, who was of the Inner Temple, was an early familiar of his. And some of his verses having got abroad, began to procure the name of a poet for himself. His “Philarete’s Complaint, &c.” formed a part of his “Juvenilia,” which are said to have been his earliest compositions. He also wrote elegies in 1612 on that general subject of lamentation, the death of prince Henry.

In 1613 first appeared his celebrated satires, entitled “Abuses stript and xvhipt,” for which so much food was furnished by the motley and vicious manners of the nation. Wither, therefore, bursting with indignation at the view of society which presented itself to his young mind, took this opportunity to indulge in a sort of publication to which the prosaic taste of the times was well adapted; but he disdained, and perhaps felt himself unqualified, to use that glitter of false ornament, which was now substituted for the true decorations of the muse. “I have strived,” says he, “to be as plain as a pack-saddle,' 7 and in these satires he is indeed excessively plain, and excessively severe, and they gave so much offence that he was committed to the Marshalsea, where be continued several months. In 1615 be published” The Shepherd’s Hunting: being certain eglogues written during the time of the author’s imprisonment in the Marshalsea;“which book, Wood observes, is said to contain more of poetical fancy than any other of his writings. Of this interesting poem, sir Egerton Brydgnes has lately published a beautiful edition in 12mo, and in the preface observes, with a decision which every man of taste will respect, that” The Shepherd’s Hunting has so much merit, and is so abundant in a natural vein of simple, affecting, and just sentiment, as well as imagery, that he who can read it, and doubt the author’s genius, is insensible to all the features which bespeak the gifts of the muse.“When in prison, Wither not only also wrote but published his” Satire to the King," 1614. He terms this an apology for former errors, proceeding from the heat of youth, but part of it is a vindictive appeal to the king from the restraint put upon his person, and part of it is a monologue conducted by the author between the impulses of supplication and disdain. It h thought, however, to have procured his release.

After this time he continued to write and publish both poetry and prose without intermission to the day of his death, which yet was at a great distance. Wood remarks, with more correctness of judgment and expression than he usually attains, that our poet was now cried up, “especially by the puritan party, for his profuse pouring forth of English rhyme,” which abundant facility has certainly tempted him into an excess that has totally buried the effusions of his happier moments. Such a superfluity of easy but flat and insipid narrative, and trite prosaic remarks, scarce any writer has been guilty of. On, his pen appears in general, to have run, without the smallest effort at ex- > cellence and therefore subjected him too justly to Wood’s stigma of being a scribbler. But let it be observed, this was the fault of his will, and not of his genius. When the examples of real poetry, which he has given, are selected from his multitudinous rhymes, they are in point both of quality and quantity sufficient to stamp his fame.

Another cause of the depression of Wither’s reputation was the violent party spirit, by which a large portion of his works was dictated and degraded, as well as the active part which he took on the side of the parliament. In 1639, he had been a captain of horse in the expedition against the Scots, and quarter-master-general of his regiment, under the earl of Arundel. But as soon as the civil wars broke out in 1642, he sold his estate to raise a troop of horse for the parliament; and soon afterwards rose to the rank of major; but being taken prisoner by the royalists, “Sir John Denham the poet,” says Wood, “some of whose estate at Egham, in Surrey, Wither had got into his clutches, desired his majesty not to hang him, because so long as Wither lived, Denham would not be accounted the worst poet in England. About that time,” continues Wood, "he was constituted by the Long Parliament a justice of peace in quorum for Hampshire, Surrey, and Esse v x, which office he kept six years, and afterwards was made by Oliver, major-general of all the horse and foot in the county of Surrey, in which employment he licked his fingers sufficiently, gaining thereby a great odium from the generous loyalists/'

At the restoration in 1660, the spoils which he had amassed from the adherents of the king, and from the church, were taken from him. His principles, and especially a libel entitled “Vox vulgi,” which he had dispersed, and which was deemed seditious, rendered him obnoxious fco the new government, and he was now committed to Newgale; and afterwards, by order of the House of Commons, was sent close prisoner to the Tower, to be debarred of pen, ink, and paper; and about the same time (March 1661-2), an impeachment was ordered to be drawn up against him. In this confinement he continued more than three years, and here he wrote several things by connivance of the keeper, of which some were afterwards published, “yet never,” adds Wood, “could refrain from shewing himself a preshyterian satirist.” When he was released is not mentioned, but he reached the age of seventy-nine, and died May 2, 1667, and was interred in the Savoy church in the Strand.

That Wither was a poet, and a poet deserving to be better known, has been sufficiently proved by the selection from his “Juvenilia,” printed by the late Alexander Dalfymple, esq. in 1785, and particularly by the more recent republications of his “Shepherd’s Hunting,” 1814, his “Fidelia,” 1815, and his “Hymns and Songs of the Church,” 1815, by sir Egerton Brydges, whose prefaces and remarks add no small value to these beautiful volumes, and whose judgment and taste in the revival of works of neglected merit cannot be too highly appreciated. It is to this learned baronet also that the reader is indebted for all that is valuable in the present sketch of Wither, taken frorii a more copious life of the poet in the “Bibliographer.” In the same work, the reader may be referred to a very accurate list, and history, by Mr. Park, of all Wither’s writings, amounting to 112 articles in prose and verse, from which very pleasing selections may yet be made, They are almost all of rare occurrence, and expensive in proportion, since the attention of the public has been drawn to them by the various critics mentioned in our references.

, an able physician and botanist, was born in 1741, at Wiliington in Shropshire, where his father was an apothecary. After being initiated in pharmacy and medicine under his father, he was sent to the university of Edinburgh, where he studied the usual time, and took the degree of doctor of physic in 1766. Not long after he left the university, he settled at Stafford, where meeting with little encouragement, he removed in 1774 to Birmingham; and here his abilities were soon called into action; and in a few years his practice became very extensive, and having a studious turn, he devoted those hours which remained after the business of the day, to philosophical and scientific pursuits. In 1776 he published, in 2 vols. 8vo, the first edition of his “Botanical Arrangement;” a work which, at that time, could be considered as little more than a mere translation from Linnæus of such genera and species of plants as are indigenous in Great Britain and in which Ray’s “Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum,” and Hudson’s “Flora Angiica,” could not fail to afford him great assistance; but, in the course of the two other editions of it (the last of which, in 4 vols. 8vo, was published in 1796), this “Arrangement” has been so mucii improved and enlarged, as to have become, in a great measure, an original work; and certainly, as a national Flora^ it must be allowed to be a very elaborate and complete, performance. Botany, however, did not engross all ouf author’s attention: many of his leisure hours he devoted to chemistry and mineralogy. In 1783, he translated Bergman’s “Sciagraphia Regni Mineralis,” under the title of “Outlines of Mineralogy;” and, before and since that time, he addressed!to the Koyal Society several communications relative to those branches of knowledge. Thus, in 1773, we find inserted in the Philosophical Transactions his experiments on different kinds of marie found in Staffordshire. In the same Transactions for 1782, his analysis of the toad-stone, a fossil met with in Derbyshire. In the same work for 1784, his experiment on the terra ponderosa. And lastly, in 1798, his analysis of a hot mineral spring in Portugal. Amidst these diversified pursuits he did not relax in his professional studies. In 1779, he published an “Account of the Scarlet Fever and Sore Throat” and, in 1785, appeared his account of the fox-glove; wherein he laid before the public a very satisfactory body of evidence in favour of the diuretic virtues of this vegetable in various kinds of dropsies. From early life Dr. Withering was of a slender and delicate habit of body; and, not. long after his first establishment in practice, he became subject to attacks of peripneumony. By these repeated attacks his lungs were at length so much injured, and his whole frame so much debilitated, that he found it necessary to repair to a warmer climate. Accordingly, in the autumn of 1793, he made a voyage to Lisbon, where he passed the winter, returning to England the following spring. Thinking he had received benefit from the climate of Portugal, he made a second voyage to Lisbon the following winter, and returned home again 1795. While he was in Portugal, he analyzed the hot mineral waters, called the Caldas. This analysis was published in the Memoirs of the royal academy of sciences at Lisbon; and since in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in London. After his return from his last voyage to Lisbon, his health remained in a very fluctuating state, sometimes so tolerable as to allow going out in a carriage; at other times, so bad as to contine him to his room. In this manner his existence was protracted until Sept. 1799, when he removed from Edgbaston-hall, where he had resided (under a lease granted by the late lord Calthorpe) for several years, to a house. which he had recently purchased, and had named the Larches, and where he died Oct. 6, 1799. To the distinguished rank which he held in *he medical profession, Dr. Withering was raised wholly by personal merit. He possessed great clearness of discernment, joined with a most persevering application. He was of a humane and mild disposition. With his family and among his friends he was cheerful and communicative; but with the world at large, and even in his professional character, he. was shy and reserved.

, an eminent divine in Scotland and America, and a lineal descendant from Knox the celebrated Scotch reformer, was born Feb. 5, 1722, at Yester near Edinburgh, of which parish his father was minister. After some previous education at the public school at Haddingtonj he was, at the age of fourteen, sent to the university of Edinburgh, and having gone through the usual course of academical studies, was licensed to preach, and soon after was ordained minister of the parish of Beith, in the west of Scotland, whence, in a few years, he was removed to be minister at the large and flourishing town of Paisley. During his residence here he was much admired for his general learning, his abilities in the pulpit, and for his writings, one of which, his “Ecclesiastical Characteristics,” is perhaps one of the most humorous satires ever written on a subject which apparently did not admit of that mode of treatment. No satire in our time was read with more approbation and interest than Witherspoon’s a Characteristics“for many years in Scotland. It is levelled at the party in the general assembly of Scotland, who were called the moderate men, in contradistinction to those called the orthodox, of who adhered strictly to the doctrines contained in their national” Confession or Faith.“From this publication, and from his speeches in the general assembly, Witherspoon acquired much influence, but he had to contend with almost all the literary force of the assembly, the Blairs, Gerards, Campbells, and Robertsons, who were considered as the leaders of the moderate party. One day, after carrying some important questions against Dr. Robertson, the latter said in his pleasant manner,” I think you have your men better disciplined than formerly.“”Yes,“replied Witherspoon,” by urging your politics too far, you have compelled us to beat you with your own weapons."

During Dr. Witherspoon’s residency at Paisley, he had eligible offers from Dublin, from Dundee, and from Rotterdam, which he rejected, but at length his reputation having reached that continent, he was induced to accept an offer from America, and on his arrival at Prince-town in 1768, was appointed president of the college there, the prosperity of which was greatly augmented under his administration, not only with respect to its funds and the number of students, but from his introducing evei;y improvement in education and science, which fyad been adopted in Europe. When the revolutionary war was approaching, he became a decided friend to the cause of America, and was for seven years a member of the congress. After the peace he paid a visit to England, and returning soon after to Prince-town, died there Nov. 15, 1794, in his seventy-third year. His printed works, very superior in point of style and manner, consist of “Essays” in 3 vols. 8vo, on theological topics, and two volumes of “Sermons,” besides the “Characteristics,” already noticed, and a work “On the nature and effects of the Stage,” which at one time made a great noise. Bishop Warburton mentions “The Characteristics” with particular approbation.

, a very learned and eminent divine of North Holland, was born at Enckhuisen, Feb. 12, 1636. He was trained to the study of divinity, and so distinguished himself by his uncommon abilities and learning, that he was chosen theological professor, first at Franeker, afterwards at Utrecht, and lastly at Leyden. He applied himself successfully to the study of the Oriental tongues, and was not ignorant in any branch of learning which is necessary to form a good divine. He died Oct. 82, 1708, in the seventy-third year of his age, after having published several important works, which shew great judg^ ment, learning, and piety. One of the principal of these is “Egyptiaca;” the best edition of which, at Amsterdam, 1696, in 4to, has this title “Ægyptiaca, et Decaphylon sive, de Jigyptiacorum Sacrorum cum Hebraicis collatione Libri tres. Et de decem tribubus Israelis Liber singularis. Accessit Diatribe de Legione Fulminatrice Christianorum, &ub Icnperatore Marco Aurelio Antonino,” Amst. 1683, and 1696, 4to. Witsius, in this work, not only compares the religious rites and ceremonies of the Jews and Egyptians, but he maintains particularly, against our sir John Marsham and Dr. Spencer, that the former did not borrow theirs, or any part of them, from the latter, as these learned and eminent writers had asserted in their respective works, “Canon Chronicus,” and “De Legibus Hebrseorum.” “The Oetionomy of the Covenants between God and Man” is another work of Witsius, and the best known in this country, having been often printed in English, 3 vols. 8vo. Of this and its author, Hervey, in his “Theron and Aspasia,” has taken occasion to speak in the following terms: “The Oeconomy of the Covenants,” says he, “is a body of divinity, in its method so well digested, in its doctrine so truly evangelical, and, what is not very usual with our systematic writers, in its language so refined and elegant, in its manner so affectionate and animating, that I would recommend it to every student in divinity. I would not scruple to risk all my reputation upon the merits of this performance; and I cannot but lament it, as one of my greatest losses, that I was no sooner acquainted with this most excellent author, all whose works have such a delicacy of composition, and such a sweet savour of holiness, that I know not any comparison more proper to represent their true character than the golden pot which had manna, and was outwardly bright with burnished gold, inwardly rich with heavenly food.”

, or W1TTEN (Henningus), a German biographer, was born in 1634. We find very few particulars of him, although he has contributed so muc)i to our knowledge of other eminent men. He was a divine and professor of divinity at Riga, where he died Jan. 22, 1696. Morhoff bestows considerable praise on his biographical labours, which were principally five volumes of memoirs of the celebrated men of the seventeenth century, as a sequel to those of Meichior Adam. They were octavo volumes, and published under the titles of “Memoria Theologorum nostri seculi,” Franc. 1674, reprinted in 1695, 2 vols. “Memoria Medicorum” “Memoria Jurisconsultorum” “Memoria Philosophorum,” &c. which last includes poets and polite scholars. The whole consist of original lives, or eloges collected from the best authorises. The greater part are Germans, butthere are a few French and English. In 1688 he published, what we have often found very useful, his * 4 Diarium Biographicum Scriptorum seculi xvii.“vol. I. 4to, 1688, vol, II. 1691. It appears that Wittepaid a visit to England in 1666, and became acquainted with the celebrated Dr. Pocock, to whom he sent a letter ten years afterwards, informing the doctor that he had for some time been engaged in a design of writing the lives of the most famous writers of that age in each branch of literature, and had already published some decades, containing memoirs of divines, civilians, and physicians;” that he was now collecting eloges on the most illustrious phiiologers, historians, orators, and philosophers; but wanted memoirs of the chief Englishmen who, in the present (seventeenth) century, have cultivated these sciences, having no relation of this sort in his possession, except of Mr. Camden; he begs, therefore, that Dr. Pocock, would, by the bearer, transmit to him whatever he had to communicate in this way."

, the first translator into English verse of all the tragedies and fragments of Euripides which are extant, was born Aug. 15, 1740, at Then ford, in Northamptonshire, and was sent first to Twyford, in Buckinghamshire, to the school of the rev. William Cleaver. This preceptor had three sons, William, bishop of St. Asaph, Eusebius, archbishop of Dublin, and John, student of Christ Church, Oxford, who were all attached to Mr. Wodhull with the sincerest friendship through life. To John, one of his poetical epistles (the ninth) is addressed, in which honourable mention is made of the father.

Imbibed the dictates of the good and sage."

From Twyford he was removed to Winchester school, and afterwards to Brasennose college, Oxford. He inherited from his father, who died while he was at school, a large fortune, of which the first use that he made was to build a handsome mansion on his patrimonial inheritance. In 1761 he married a lady of great personal accomplishments, and universally loved and respected, Miss Catherine Milcah Ingram, of an ancient family situated at WoK ford, in Warwickshire, who left him a widower without family in 1808. In 1803 he took advantage of the short peace to gratify his curiosity in the libraries of Paris, and was one of the English detained by Bonaparte, but was afterward released on account of his age. He returned home an invalid and alone, and it was a source of great distress to him to be compelled to leave behind him in France his faithful servant. From that period his bodily infirmities gradually increased, his sight at length failed, and his voice became scarcely audible, but his senses and his memory, which was most singularly retentive, continued unimpaired to the last. He died without a struggle or groan, Nov. 10, 1816, in the seventy-seventh year of his age.

Of his politics, Mr. Wodhtill says they were c< those of a British whig, not run away with by national prejudices;" but he never entered into public life; his chief occupation and amusement being the study of books, of which he was celebrated as a collector. He disposed during his life of many which he had purchased, but left behind him above 4000 volumes, consisting principally of first editions and rare specimens of early printing. The duties 6f private and social life no man discharged with more fidelity or exactness. As a son, a husband, a friend, a master, a landlord, few could excel him, and his charities, which were numerous, were known generally to those only whom he benefited.

As to his religious sentiments, although he was an advocate for toleration, he invariably asserted the principle of conformity to the sound and apostolic establishments of the land. His practice, even when very infirm, was to attend divine service in his parish church, to read or pro-? cure some friend to read a sermon and prayers to his family and domestics every Sunday evening. He never spoke an unkind word to his servants, and there was hardly an instance known of any one quitting his service for that of another master. He never complained, nor uttered a peevish expression under the greatest privations and the most severe pain. His funeral was, by his own desire,' as his life had been, without parade or ostentation, and the monumental stone declares no more than the name and age of him whose mortal reliques lie near it.

The first edition of Mr. Wodhull’s translation of “Euripides” appeared in 1782, 4 vols. 8vo, since reprinted in 3 vols. 8vo. Whoever considers the number of dramas composed by the Greek tragedian, the variety of allusions which they contain to ancient manners, and to the tenets of philosophers; and the peculiar force of the language in which they were written, will acknowledge that the attempt to render them into English verse must have failed altogether without a rare unibn of perseverance, knowledge, and ability. Original composition is the surest test of genius, but the poetical images, and ideas of one man cannot adequately be represented or expressed by another who does not himself possess the imagination and fancy of a poet. In his translation of Euripides, Mr. Wodhull has selected blank verse as the best adapted for the dialogue, and has rendered the chorusses for the most part in a Pindaric ode. The difference therefore both of the subject and versification is such that no comparison can fairly be instituted with the poetical versions of the Æneid and the Iliad. But as Dryden and Pope have secured to themselves a high rank in the list of British Classics by their translations, an honourable post will also be assigned to Mr. Wodhull, who has contributed no mean addition to the stock of British Literature, and naturalized among us him, whom he entitles “The Philosophic Bard.”

Mr.Wodhuli’s poetical fame, however, does not rest merely on translations; he was the author of several poems published at different periods, which he collected in 1804, and printed with several alterations for the use of his friends in an elegant octavo volume, to which his portrait was prefixed. The poems consist of five odes, two songs, “The Equality of Mankind;” “On Mr. Hollis’s print of Dr. Mayhew;” “The Use of Poetry,” and thirteen epistles addressed to different friends. When a very young man he wrote an “Ode to Criticism,” which is not found in this collection. It was intended as an attack on certain peculiarities in the writings of Thomas Warton. Warton took a singular mode of avenging himself, by inserting the ode in “The Oxford Sausage” among poems of a very different sort. This proceeding may perhaps be considered as a proof of humour in the laureate; but it is to be regretted that it has been the means of perpetuating a composition which its author would long ago have consigned to oblivion.

, a Scotch ecclesiastical historian, son to the rev. James Wodrow, professor of divinity in the university of Glasgow, was born there in 1679, and after passing through his academic course, was chosen in 1698 librarian to the university. He held this office for four years, during which he had many valuable opportunities for indulging his taste in the history and antiquities of the church of Scotland. In 1703 he was ordained minister of the parish of Eastwood, in which humble station he continued all his life, although he had encouraging offers of greater preferment in Glasgow and Stirling. He died in 1734, at the age of fifty-five. He published in 1721, in 2 vols. folio., a “History of the singular sufferings of the Church of Scotland, during the twenty-eight years immediately preceding the Revolution,” written with a fidelity which has seldom been disputed, and confirmed, at the end of each volume, by a large mass of public and private records. In England this work has been little known, except perhaps by an abridgment in 2 vols. 8vo. by the Rev. Mr. Cruickshanks, but since the publication of the historical work of the Hop. Charles James Fox, as well as by the writings of Messrs. Sommerville and Laing, it has greatly risen in reputation as well as price. “No historical facts,” Mr. Fox says, “are better ascertained than the accounts which are to be found in Wodrow. In every instance where there has been an opportunity of comparing these accounts with the records and authentic monuments, they appear to be quite correct.” Mr. Wodrow also left a greafc many biographical memoirs of the Scotch reformers and presbyterian divines, which are preserved in the university library of Glasgow.

, a name worthy to be preserved on account of his valuable edition of the Alexandrine ms. of the New Testament, was a native of Holland, but of his early history we have no account. His first preferment in this country was to the preachership of the Dutch chapel-royal at St. James’s, about 1770, to which he was afterwar4s appointed reader also. At the time of his death he was reader and chaplain at the Dutch chapel in the Savoy. In 1778 he was elected a fellow of the society of antiquaries, and in that year distinguished himself by revising, through the Clarendon press, Scholtz’s “Egyptian Grammar,” written in 1750, in 2 vols. 4to, and also La Croze’s 5* Lexicon Egyptiaco-Latinum." It had long been the wish of the learned that both these works, left in ms. by their respective authors, might be published, but they could not find a printer furnished with Egyptian types, or who would hazard the undertaking, until at last the university of Oxford, with its usual munificent spirit, determined to t>ear the expense. When the Lexicon was printing, Mr. Woide was desired to make some additions to it, but this not being proposed till more than half the work was printed, he could extend his remarks to three letters only, and to render the undertaking more useful, he added an index. It was intended to print Scholtz’s Grammar in 2 quarto yols. immediately after the Dictionary, which consists of one vol. quarto; but it being found too voluminous, Woide very properly abridged it, and has improved it by carefully examining and correcting it by means of Mss. unknown to Scholtz. The Sahidic part was entirely supplied by Dr. Woide.

In 1782 Dr. Woide was appointed an assistant librarian at the British Museum, at first in the department of natural history, but soon after in one more congenial to his studies, that of printed books. He had before obtained the degree of D. D. from the university of Copenhagen, and in 1786 was created doctor of laws at Oxford. In this year appeared his truly valuable work, the “Novum Tes^ tamentum Graecum, e codice ms. Alexandrino, qui Londini in Bibl. Musei Britannici asservatur, &c. Ex prelo Joannis Nichols, 'Ty pis Jacksonianis,” fol. The history of this ms. thus preserved and perpetuated by an accurate fac-simile, is contained in the editor’s learned preface, which was reprinted at Leipsic in 1790,'in an octavo volume, with notes by Gottliebb Leberecht Spohn. Dr. Woide was seized with an apoplectic fit, May 6, 1790, while at sir Joseph Banks’s converzatione, of which he died next day at his apartments in the British Museum.

, baron of the Roman empire, privy-counsellor to the king of Prussia, and chancellor of the university of Hall in Saxony, was born at Breslau, Jan. 24, 1679. To the college of this city he was indebted for his first studies: after having passed his lessons in philosophy, he applied himself assiduously to the mathematics. The “Elementa Arithmeticse, vulgaris et literalis,” by Henry Horch, were his earliest guides; by a frequent perusal of these, he was at length enabled to enrieh them with additional propositions of his own. So rapid a progress did him great honour; whilst the different disputes, in which he was engaged with the canons of Breslau, laid the permanent foundation of his increasing fame. In 1699, he repaired to the university of Jena, and chose John Philip Treuner for his master in philosophy, and George Albert Hamberger for the mathematics; whose lessons he received with so happy a mixture of attention and advantage, that he became afterwards the able instructor of his fellow-students.

From Philip Muller, and Frederic Beckman, he received his knowledge of theology: a treatise written by Tschirnhausen, entitled “Medicina Mentis & Corporis, 17 engaged him for some time; in consequence of which, in 1702, he had a conference with the author, to clear up some doubts concerning particular passages. The detail into which Tschirnhausen had the complaisance to enter with this’ young philosopher, enabled him to model the whole on a more extensive plan. Having finished that part of his education which he was destined to receive at Jena, he went to Leipsic in 1702; and, having obtained a permission to give lectures, he began his new employment, and, in 1703, opened with a dissertation called” Philosophia practica universalis, methodo mathematica conscripta;“which first attempt served greatly to enhance the reputation of his talents. Wolfe chose, for the foundation of his lessons, the method followed by Tschirnhausen, His philosophy bore as yet a very strong resemblance to that of Descartes, as may be seen in his dissertation” De loquela," which he published in 1703. Leibnitz, to whom he sent it, told him, that he plainly perceived, that his hypothesis concerning the union of the soul and body was not hitherto sufficiently just and explicit. These objections made him review the whole, which afterwards went through several material alterations.

Two dissertations which he published at the end of 1703^ the first, “De rods dentatis,” and the second, “De Algorithmo infinitesimali differential!,” obtained him the honourable appellation of assistant to the faculty of philosophy at Leipsic. The universities of Giessen and Hall having invited him to be their professor in mathematics, he accepted of the offer of the last, and went thither in 1707. The same year he was admitted into the society at Leipsic, which was at that time engaged in the publication of the “Acta eruditorum.” After having inserted in this work many important pieces relating to physic and the mathematics, he undertook, in 1709, to teach all the various branches of philosophy, and began with a little logical Latin treatise, which made its appearance afterwards in the German language, under the title of * Thoughts on the Powers of the human Understanding." While he was carrying on these great pursuits with assiduity and ardour, the king of Prussia rewarded him with the post of counsellor to the court on the decease qf Bodinus in 1721, and augmented the profits of that office by very considerable appointments: he was also chosen a member of the Royal Society of London and Prussia.

In the midst of this prosperity he raised a storm against himself. He had, on the 12th of July, 1721, delivered a Latin oration, the subject of which was the morality of the Chinese: he loaded their philosophy with applause, an-d endeavoured to prove how similar its principles were to those which he, had advanced in. doctrines of his own. The divines at Hall were so exasperated at this attempt to undervalue their tenets, that on the day following every pulpit resounded with censures of Wolfe, and^the opposition to him continued till 1722, when the faculty of theology were determined strictly to examine each production of our extraordinary philosopher. Daniel Strathler, whose province was to scrutinize the “Essay on Metaphysics,” published a refutation of it. Wolfe made his complaints to the academic council, who issued out an order, that no one should presume to write against him: but the facultyhaving sent their representation to the court, which were all backed by the most strenuous assertions, that the doctrine which Wolfe taught, particularly on the subject of liberty and necessity, was dangerous to the last degree, an order at length arrived, Nov. 18, 1723, not only displacing Wolfe, but commanding him (under pain of being severely punished if he presumed to disobey) to leave Hall and the States in twenty-four hours at the farthest.

Wolfe retired now to Cassel, where he obtained the professorship of mathematics and philosophy in the university of Marbourg, with the title of counsellor to the court ^f the landgrave of Hesse, to which a profitable pension was annexed. Here he reassumed his labours with redoubled ardour; and it was in this retreat that he published the best parts of his numerous works. In 1725 he was declared an honorary professor of the academy of sciences at St. Petersburgh, and, in 1733, was admitted into “that at Paris. The king of Sweden also declared him one of the council of regency: the pleasing situation of his new abode, and the multitude of honours which he had received, were too alluring to permit him to accept of many advantageous offers; amongst which was the post of president 6f the academy at St. Petersburgh. The king of Prussia, who was now recovered from the prejudices he had been made to conceive against Wolfe, wished to re-establish him in the university of Hall in 1733, and made another attempt to effect it in 173.9. Wolfe met these advances with all that respectful deference which became him, but took the liberty to insinuate, that he did not then believe it right for him to comply. At last, however, he submitted; and the prince offered him, in 1741, an employment which threw every objection that he could make aside. Wolfe, still mindful of his benefactors, took a gracious leave of the king of Sweden; and returned to Hall, invested with the characters of privy-counsellor, vice-chancellor,” and professor of the law of nature and of nations. After the death of Ludwig, the king raised him to the dignity of chancellor of the university, and the elector of Bavaria created him a baron of the empire (whilst he was exercising the vicarship of it), from his own free unbiassed inclination.

He died at Hall in Saxony, of the gout in his stomach, April 9, 1754, in his seventy-sixth year; after having composed in Latin and German more than sixty distinct pieces. The chief of his mathematical compositions is his “Elementa Matheseos Universse,” the best edition of which is that of 1732, 5 vols. 4to, printed at Geneva; which does not, however, comprise his Mathematical Dictionary in the German language, nor many other distinct works on different branches of the mathematics. His “System of Philosophy” is contained in 23 vols. 4to.

Brucker says, that Wolfe “possessed a clear and methodical understanding, which by long exercise in mathematical investigations was particularly fitted for the employment of digesting the several branches of knowledge into regular systems; and his fertile powers of invention enabled him to enrich almost every field of science, in which he laboured, with some valuable additions. The lucid order which appears in all his writings enables his reader to follow his conceptions, with ease and certainty, through the longest trains of reasoning. But the close connection of the several parts of his works, together with the vast variety and extent of the subjects on which he treats, renders it impracticable to give a summary of his doctrines.” A French critic remarks that all the German works of this author are “extremely well written, and he has also been very happy in finding words, in that language, answering to the Latin philosophical terms which had till then been adopted; and as this renders a small dictionary necessary for understanding his phrases, he has placed one at the end of such books as require it. As to his Latin works, they are very ill written; his words are ill chosen, and frequently used in a wrong sense; his phrases too perplexed and obscure, and his style in general too diffuse.” An abridgment of his great Latin work, “On the Law of Nature and Nations,” has been published in French, three small vols. 12mo, by Formey; to which is prefixed, a life of Wolfe, and a chronological list of all his writings. He was, doubtless, one of the most learned philosophers and mathematicians Germany has produced; but his eulogy seems to us to be carried too far, when he is compared to Descartes and Leibnitz for his genius and writings, in both which he was certainly much inferior to them.

, a brave English officer, was the son of lieutenant-general Edward Wolfe, and was born at Westerham, in the county of Kent, where he was baptised the 11th of Jan. 1726. He seemed by nature formed for military greatness his memory was retentive, his judgment deep, and his comprehension amazingly quick and clear: his constitutional courage was not only uniform and daring, perhaps to an extreme, but he possessed that higher species of it, that strength, steadiness, and activity, of mind, which no difficulties could obstruct, or dangers deter. With an universal liveliness, almost to impetuosity of temper, he was not subject to passion; with the greatest independence of spirit, free from pride. Generous, almost to profusion, he contemned every little art for the acquisition of wealth; whilst he searched after objects for his charity and beneficence, the deserving soldier never went unrewarded, and even the needy inferior officer frequently tasted of his bounty: constant and distinguishing in his attachment, manly and unreserved, yet gentle, kind, and conciliating in his manners. He enjoyed a large share of the friendship, and almost the universal good-will, of mankind; and, to crown all, sincerity and candour, a true sense of honour, justice, and public liberty, seemed the inherent principles of his nature, and the uniform rule of his conduct. He betook himself, when very young, to the profession of arms; and with such talents, joined to the most unwearied assiduity, he was soon singled out as a most rising military genius. Even so early as the battle of Lafeldt, when scardely twenty, he exerted himself in so masterly a manner, at a very critical juncture, that it drew the highest encomiums from the great officer then at the head of the army. During the whole war, he went on, without interruption, forming his military character; was present at every engagement, and never passed undistinguished. Even after the peace, whilst others lolled on pleasure’s downy lap, he was cultivating the arts of war. He introduced (without one act of inhumanity) such regularity and exactness of discipline into his corps, that, as long as the six British battalions on the plains of Minden are recorded in the annals of Europe, so long, will Kingsley’s stand amongst the foremost of that day. Of that regiment he continued lieutenant-colonel, till Mr. Pitt, afterwards lord Chatham, who roused the sleeping genius of his country, called him forth into higher spheres of action. He was early in the most secret consultations for the attack upon Rochfort: and what he would have done there, and what he afterwards did at Louisbourg, are recorded in history, with due approbation. He was scarcely returned thence, when he was appointed to command the important expedition against Quebec. There his abilities shone out in their brightest lustre: in spite of many unforeseen diifiaulties, from the nature of the situation, from great superiority of numbers, the strength of the place itself, and his own bad state of health, he persevered with unwearied diligence, practising every stratagem of war to effect his purpose. At last, singly, and alone in opinion, he formed and executed that great, that dangerous, yet necessary, plan which drewout the French to their defeat, and will for ever denominate him the conqueror of Canada. When, however, within the grasp of victory, he received a ball through his wrist, which immediately wrapping up, he went on, with the same alacrity, animating his troops by precept and example: but, in a few minutes after, a second ball, through his body, obliged him to be carried off to a small distance in the rear. There, roused from fainting, in the last agonies, by the sound of “They run,” he eagerly asked, “Who run?” and being told the French, and that they were defeated, he said, “then I thank God; I die contented;” and almost instantly expired, Sept. 13, 1759.

He was brought to England, and interred at Greenwich in the same grave with his father, who was buried on the second of April preceding. There is no memorial for him. at Greenwich, but a cenotaph has been put up to his memory in Westminster Abbey at the public expence, and there is another at Westerham, the place of his nativity.

, a learned compiler, was born Aug. 10, 1537, at Bergzabern in the duchy of Deux Fonts, and was educated in law and philosophy at Strasburgli, Wirtemberg, Tubingen, and other celebrated academies, and afterwards was entrusted with the education of some noblemen’s sons, with whom he travelled in France, &c. from 1564 to 1567. Returning then to Dol, he took the degree of licentiate in civil law, and settled in practice at Spire, where two years after he was admitted into the number of assessors. In 1569 he attended Wolfgang, the elector Palatine, who came with an army to the assistance of the French protestants, and his highness dying a few months afterwards, Wolfe conducted his corpse back to Germany by sea, and it was interred at Meisenheim. For this melancholy duty and his other faithful services he grew in esteem with Philip Lewis and John, the electors Palatine, who thought him worthy of being sent twice on important'business to queen Elizabeth of England, and once to the king of Poland. In 1573 Charles marquis of Baden made him one of his counsellors, and in 1575 appointed him governor of Mundlesheim, which office he held for twenty years, and received many honours and marks of favour from the Baden family. In 1594, finding his health exhausted by official fatigues, he retired to Hailbrun, where he passed the remainder of his days in study, and died of a very short illness, as had always been his wish, May 23, 1600, in the sixty-third year of his age. He wrote “Clavis Historiarum;” and a larger work entitled “Lectionum memorabilium et reconditarum Centuriae XVI.” 2 vols. fol. printed first in the year he died, but there is an edition of 1671, which is not so much valued. Mr. Dibdin has accurately described this curious work in his “Bibliomania,” to which the reader is referred.

, a learned scholar, hitherto strangely overlooked by most foreign biographers, was a native of Germany, born in 1683, but removed in his youth to Hamburgh, where he was educated under Fabricius, and assisted him in his “Bibliotheca Graeca,” as appears by vol. XIII. of that laborious work. He was a Lutheran divine, and preached at Hamburgh, where he was also professor of the Oriental languages, and where he died in 1739. Many of his works are known in this country, and have been often quoted with approbation by biblical scholars and critics. Among them are, 1. “Historia Lexicorum Hebraicorum,” Wittem. 1705, 8vo. 2. “Dissertatio de Zabiis,” ibid. 1706, 4to. 3. “Origenis Philosophumena recognita et nods illustrata,” Hamb. 1706, Sto. 4. An edition of Pbsedrus, 1709. 5. “Dissertatio de Atheism! falso suspectis,” Wittem. 1710, 4to. 6. “Casauboniana, sive Isaaci Casauboni varia de Scriptoribus, librisque judicia,” Hamb. 1710, 8vo. 7. “Libanii epist. adhuc non editarum centuria selecta Gr. cum versione et nods,” Leipsic, 1711, 8vo. 8. “Anecdota Gneca sacra et profana,” Hamb. 1722, &c. 3 vols. 8vo. 9. “Curse philologicae et criticae in omnes libros N. T.” Hamb. 1725 1735, but the best edition is that of Basil, 1741, 3 vols. 4to. This work, says bishop Watson, has some resemblance, in the manner of its composition, to Pool’s “Synopsis,” but is written with more judgment, and contains the opinions of many expositors who have lived since the publication of Pool’s work. Wolfe, moreover, has not followed Pool in simply relating the sentiments of others, but has frequently animadverted on them with great critical discernment. Wolfe published other works, and new editions, all which display great learning and critical acumen. His brother John Christian, who died in 1770, was the author of the “Monumenta typographies,” Hamburgh, 1740, 8vo, an edition of the fragments of Sappho, and other works.

, a learned and ingenious" writer, was born March 26, 1659, at Colon Clanford, in Staffordshire, where his father then resided, a private gentleman of small fortune, being descended from an ancient and considerable family in that county, where the elder branch always continued; but the second, in process of time, was transplanted into other counties. The head of it flourished formerly at Oncot, in the county of Stafford, though afterwards at Shenton, in Leicestershire; and was possessed of a large estate lying in those and other counties. Our author was a second son of a third son of a second son of a second son, yet notwithstanding this remarkable series of younger brothers, his grandfather, who stands in the midst of it, had a considerable estate both real and personal, together with an office of 700l. per annum. And from a younger brother of the same branch sprang sir John Wollaston,lord- mayor of London, well known in that city at the time of the grand rebellion.

At nine years old, Mr. Wollaston was sent to a master, who had opened a Latin school, at Shenstone in Stafford^ shire, where his father then resided. Here he continued near two years, and then removed to Lichfield; but had not been long at this school, when the magistrates of the city, in consequence of some dispute, turned the master out of the school-house. Mr. Wollaston, however, with many of the scholars, followed the ejected master, and re^ inained with him till he quitted school, which was about three years, after which, the schism being ended, he returned into the free-school, and continued there about a year. The rudeness of a great school was particularly disagreeable to his natural disposition; and what was still worse, he began now to be much troubled with the headach, which seems to have been constitutional in him; yethis uncommon attention to his book, and eagerness to improve, had now rendered him fit for the university. Accordingly he was sent to Cambridge, and admitted a pensioner at Sidney-college, June 18, 1674, in the sixteenthyear of his age. Here he laboured under some discouragements. He was come up a country lad from a countryschool; had no acquaintance in his college^ nor even in the university; few books or materials to work with; his allowance being by no means more than sufficient for bare necessaries; neither had he sufficient confidence to supply that defect by applying to others. Add to this that his state of health was not quite firm. However, under all these disadvantages, he acquired much reputation, and having taken his degree of B. A. at the regular time, he offered himself a candidate for a fellowship in his college, but missed of that preferment. In July 1681 he commenced M. A. and about this time seems to have entered into deacon’s orders.

On Michaelmas-day following, he left the university, and having made a visit to the then head of this branch of the family, his cousin Wollaston of Shenton in Leicestershire, he went to pay his duty to his father and mother at Bloxwyche, where they then lived, and remained with them till May or June 1682. But seeing no prospect of preferment, he so far conformed himself to the circumstances of his family, as about this time to become assistant at Birmingham school to the head master, who readily embraced the opportunity of such a coadjutor, and considered Mr. Wollaston as one who had prudentially stooped to an employment beyond what he might reasonably have pretended to. This instance, however, of his humble industry was far from being displeasing to his cousin of Shenton, who had a great esteem for the head master, and in a short time, he got a small lecture at the distance of about two miles from Birmingham; but as he performed there the whole Sunday’s duty, that fatigue, added to the business of a great freeschool for about four years, began to break his constitution. But the old master being now turned out, in order to make way for a particular person to succeed him, our author was chosen second master only, under a pretence that he was too young to be at the head of so great a school, but some of the governors themselves owned that he was not well used in this affair.

However that may be, it is certain upon this occasion he took priest’s orders in pursuance to the charter of that school, which being interpreted likewise so as to oblige the masters to take no church-preferment, he resigned his lecture. This happened in 1686, and was a considerable relief to him, while his new post was worth about TOl. per annum, which afforded him a tolerable subsistence. In the mean time the late chief master after his expulsion retired to his brother’s house, which lying in the neighbourhood of Shenton, he once or twice waited upon Mr. Wollaston, of Shenton, and undoubtedly informed him of the character, learning, conversation, and conduct of our author, which he was very capable of doing, because they lived together, till the time of this old gentleman’s leaving Birmingham. Mr. Woliaston, of Shenton, having now lately lost his only son. and never intending (as appears from his whole conduct) to give his estate to his daughters, pursued his father’s design of continuing it in the male line of his family, and resolved to settle it upon our author’s uncle and father, his own first cousins, and his nearest male-relations, in the same proportions and manner exactly as it had been entailed on them by his father. And accordingly he made such a settlement, subject however to a revocation.

Our author all this while applied himself to his business; and never waited upon his cousin, or employed any one tospeak or act in his behalf (though many then blamed him for neglecting to do it); only one visit he made him in the November before his death, which was upon a Saturday in the afternoon. He gave him a sermon the next day, received his hearty thanks, and the next morning desired leave to return to the duties of his station; without speaking or even insinuating any thing respecting his estate. His cousin dismissed him with great kindness; and by his looks and manner seemed to have a particular regard for him, but discovered nothing of his intention by words. However, he used to employ persons privately to observe our author’s behaviour (who little suspected any such matter), and his behaviour was found to be such, that the stricter the observations were upon it, the more they turned to his advantage. In fine, Mr. Woliaston, of Shenton, became so thoroughly satisfied of our author’s merit, that he revoked the above-mentioned settlement, and made a will in his favour. In August following, that gentleman fell sick, and sending secretly toour author to come over to him, as of his own accord, without any notice of his illness, be complied with the message, and staid some days at Shenton. But while he was gone home, under a promise of returning, his cousin died, August 19, 1688.

By his relation’s will, Mr. Woliaston found himself intitled to a very ample estate; but this change, sudden, and advantageous as it was to his affairs, wrought no change in his temper. The same firmness of mind, which had supported him under the pressure of a more adverse fortune, enabled him to bear his prosperity with moderation. In November following he came to London, and about a year after, on the 26th of that month, 1689, he married miss Catherine Charlton, daughter of Mr. Nicholas Charlton, an eminent citizen of London, a fine woman with a good fortune, and an excellent character. With this lady he settled in Charter- house square, in a private, retired, and studious life. His carriage was nevertheless free and open. He aimed at solid and real content, rather than show and grandeur, and manifested his dislike of power and dignity, by refusing one of the highest preferments in the church, when it was offered to him.

He had now books and leisure, and he was resolved to make use of them, He was perfectly acquainted with the elementary parts of learning, and with the learned languages, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, &c. He thought it necessary to add to these such a degree of philology and criticism as seemed likely to be useful to him: and also mathematical sciences, or at least the fundamentals of them; the general philosophy of nature the history and antiquities of the more known and noted states and kingdoms; and in order to attain the knowledge of true religion, and the discovery of truth, the points which he always had particularly in view, and to which he chiefly directed all his studies, he diligently inquired into the idolatries of the heathens; and made himself master of the sentiments, rites, and learning of the Jews; the history of tjie first settlement of Christianity, and the opinions and practice introduced into it since. In the mean time he exercised and improved his mind by using himself to clear images, observing the influence and extent of axioms, the nature and force of consequences, and the method of investigating truth. In general, he accustomed himself to much thinking as well as much reading. He likewise delighted in method and regularity: and chose to have his labours and refreshments periodical, and that his family and friends should observe the proper seasons of their revolution. He was most remarkably cheerful and lively in conversation, which rendered his company agreeable, and himself worthy to be courted by the learned and virtuous. But a general acquaintance was what he never cultivated, and it grew (as is mostly the case) more and more his aversion, so that he passed his days principally at home, with a few friends, with whom he could enjoy an agreeable relaxation of mind, and receive all the advantages of a sincere and open friendship. Having thus fixed his resolution to deserve honours, but not to wear them, it was not long before he published a piece entitled, “The Design of Part of the Book of Ecclesiastes, or the Unreasonableness of Man’s restless Contentions for the present Enjoyments, represented in an English poem,” in 8vo. But as he had never made poetry his study, he was very sensible of the defects of this attempt, and was afterward very desirous to suppress it. Ttiis poem was printed in 1690. Notwithstanding he declined to accept of any public employment, yet his studies were designed to be of public use, and his solitude was far from being employed in vain and trifling amusements, terminating in himself alone. But neither in this last view, could his retirement be without some inconveniences. His intimates were dropping off, and their places remained unsupplied; his own infirmities were increasing; the frequent remission of study, growing more and more necessary; and his solitude at the same time becoming less and less agreeable, for want of that conversation which had hitherto supported it.

It was but a short time before his death that he published his celebrated treatise, entitled “The Religion of Nature delineated.” He appears at first to have doubted the success of this work, and in 1722 printed only a few copies for the use of his friends, but when prevailed upon to publish it, it was so much approved that upwards of 10,000 copies were sold in a few years; and it has in all passed through eight or nine editions, five of which were in quarto.

Of the ingenuity of this work as a composition no doubts have been entertained, but its tendency was soon thought liable to suspicion. Some objected that he had injured Christianity by laying too much stress upon the obligations of truth, reason, and virtue; and by making no mention of revealed religion, nor even so much as dropping the least and most distant hints in its favour. This made him pass for an unbeliever with some; and the late lord Bolingbroke supposes Dr. Clarke to have had him in his eye when he described his fourth sort of theists. Wollaston held and has asserted the being and attributes of God, natural and moral a providence, general and particular; the obligations to morality the immateriality and immortality of the soul a future state and Clarke’s fourth sort of theists held and asserted the same. But whether Wollaston, like those theists, rejected all above this in the system of revelation, cannot with any certainty be concluded, though at the same time the contrary perhaps may not appear; because, whatever might have been thought necessary to prevent offence from being taken, it was not essential to Wollaston’s design to meddle with revealed religion. In the mean time, lord Bolingbroke has treated “The Religion of Nature delineated,” as a system of theism; which it certainly is, whether Wollaston was a believer or not. His lordship calls it “strange theism, as dogmatical and absurd as artificial theology,” and has spent several pages to prove it so; yet allows the author of it to have been “a man of parts, of learning, a philosopher, and a geometrician.” The seventh edition of this work was printed in 1750 in 8vo, to which are added an account of the author, and also a translation of the notes into English. There is prefixed an advertisement by Dr. John Clarke, late dean of Salisbury, which informs us, that this work was in great esteem with her late majesty queen Caroline, who commanded him to translate the notes into English for her own use. Pope, who has taken some thoughts from it into his “Essay on Man,” informs Mr. Bethel in one of his letters how much this work was a favourite with the ladies, but accompanies his information with a sneer at the sex, which we dare not transcribe.

Immediately after he had completed the revisal and publication of his “Religion of Nature delineated,” Mr. Wollaston had the misfortune to break his arm; and as his health was before in a very infirm state, this accident accelerated his death, which happened Oct. 29, 1724. He was interred in Great Finborough church, Suffolk, in the same grave with his wife, who died in 1720.

He had begun several other works, but they being in an unfinished state, he had burnt, or ordered them to be burnt, some time before his death. The following, however, happened to be spared; but from the place in which they were deposited, and from some other circumstances, it is probable that they owed their escape to mere forgetful ness. They were in number thirteen (besides about fourscore sermons) viz. 1. “An Hebrew Grammar.” 2. “Tyrocinia Arabica & Syriaca.” 3. “Specimen Vocabularii Biblico-Hebraici, literis nostratibus, quantum fert Linguarum dissonantia, descripti.” 4. “Formulae quasdam Gemarinse.” 5. “De variis generibus pedum, metrorum, carminum, &c. apud Judaeos, Graecos, & Latinos.” 6. “De Vocutii Tonis Monitio ad Tyrones.” 7. “Rudimenta ad Mathesin & Philosophiam spectantia” 8. “Miscellanea Philologica.” 9. Opinions of the ancient Philosophers. 10. “Judaica: sive Religionis & Literatures Judaicae synopsis.” 11. A collection of some antiquities and particulars in the history of mankind; tending to shew, that men have not been here upon this earth from eternity, &c. 12. Some passages relating to the history of Christ, collected out of the primitive fathers, 13. A treatise relating to the Jews, of their antiquities, language, &c. What renders it the more probable, or indeed almost beyond doubt, that he would have destroyed these likewise, if he had remembered them, is, that several of those which remain undestroyed, are only rudiments 01^ rougher sketches of what he afterwards reconsidered and carried on much farther; and which even after such revisal, he nevertheless committed to the flames, as being still (in his opinion) short of that perfection, to which he desired and had intended to bring them, and accordingly none of them have appeared.

, a celebrated cardinal and statesman, but to be remembered with more respect as a benefactor to learning, was so obscure in his origin that scarcely any historian mentions the names of his father and mother. Their names, however, are preserved by Rymer (Feed. vol. XIV. p. 355), in the pope’s bull of favours to those who came to Cardinal college in Oxford, and prayed for the safety of the said cardinal, and after his decease for the souls of him, his father Robert, and his mother Joan. This partly confirms the discovery of his zealous biographer, Dr. Fiddes, that he was the son of one Robert Wolsey, a butcher of Ipswich, where he was born in March 1471. Fiddes says that this Robert had a son whose early history corresponds with that of the cardinal, and that he was a man of considerable landed property. We may from other evidence conclude that his parents were either not poor, or not friendless, since they were able to give him the best education his native, town afforded, and afterwards to send him to Magdalen college. But in whatever way he was introduced here, it is certain that his progress in academical studies was so rapid that he was admitted to the degree of bachelor of arts at the age of fifteen, and from this extraordinary instance of precocity, was usually named the boy bachelor.

No proofs are indeed wanting of his uncommon reputation as a scholar, for he was elected fellow of his college soon after taking his bachelor’s degree, and proceeding to that of master, he was appointed teacher of Magdalen grammar school. In 1498, he was made bursar of the college, about which time he has the credit of building Magdalen tower. It is yet more in proof of his learning having been of the most liberal kind, and accompanied with a corresponding liberality of sentiment, that he became acquainted with Erasmus, then at Oxford, and joined that illustrious scholar in promoting classical studies, which were peculiarly obnoxious to the bigotry of the times. The letters which passed between Wolsey and Erasmus for some years imply mutual respect and union of sentiment on all matters in which literature was concerned; and their love of learning, and contempt for the monks, although this last was excited by different motives, are points in which we perceive no great disagreement. Yet as Erasmus continued to live the life of a mere scholar, precarious and dependent, and Wolsey was rapidly advancing to rank and honours, too many and too high for a subject, a distance was placed between them which Wolsey would not shorten, and Erasmus could not pass. Hence, while a courteous familiarity was preserved in Wolsey’s correspondence, Erasmus could not help betraying the feelings of a client who has received little more than promises from his patron, and when Wolsey fell from his high state, Erasmus joined in the opinion that he was unworthy of it. For this he is severely censured by Fiddes, and ably defended by Knight and Jortin.

Wolsey’s first ecclesiastical preferment was the rectory of Lymington in Somersetshire, conferred upon him in 1500, by the marquis of Dorset, to whose three sons he had acted as tutor, when in Magdalen college. On receiving this presentation he left the university, and resided for some time on his cure, when a singular circumstance induced, or perhaps rendered it absolutely necessary for him to leave it. At a merry meeting at Lymington he either passed the bounds of sobriety, or was otherwise accessary in promoting a riot, for which sir Amyas Pauiet, a justice of peace, set him in the stocks. This indignity Wolsey remembered when it would have been honourable as well as prudent to have forgot it. After he had arrived at the high rank of chancellor, he ordered sir Amyas to be confined within the bounds of the Temple, and kept him in that place for five or six years.

On his quitting Lymington, though without resigning the living, Henry Dean, archbishop of Canterbury, made him one of his domestic chaplains, and in 1503, the pope, Alexander, gave him a dispensation to hold two benefices. On the death of the archbishop, in the same year, he was appointed chaplain to sir John Nan fan of Worcestershire, treasurer of Calais, which was then in the possession of the English, and by him recommended to Renry VII. who made him one of his chaplains. About the end of 1504, he obtained from pope Julius II. a dispensation to hold a third living, the rectory of Redgrave in Norfolk. In the mean time he was improving his interest at court by an affable and plausible address, and by a display of political talent, and quick and judicious dispatch in business, which rendered him very useful and acceptable to his sovereign. In February 1508, the king gave him the deanery of Lincoln, and two prebends in the same church, and would probably have added to these preferments had he not been prevented by his death in the following year.

This event, important as it was to the kingdom, was of no disadvantage to Wolsey, who saw in the young king, Henry VIII. a disposition that might be rendered more favourable to his lofty views; yet what his talents might have afterwards procured, he owed at this time to a court intrigue. Fox, bishop of Winchester and founder of Corpus Christi college, introduced him to Henry, in order to counteract the influence of the earl of Surrey (afterwards duke of Norfolk), and had probably no worse intention than to preserve a balance in the council; but Wolsey, who was not destined to play a subordinate part, soon rose higher in influence than either his patron or his opponent. He studied, with perfect knowledge of the human heart, to please the young king, by joining in indulgencies which, however suitable to the gaiety of a court, were ill becoming the character of an ecclesiastic. Yet amidst the luxuries which he promoted in his royal master, he did not neglect to inculcate maxims of state, and, above all, to insinuate, in a manner that appeared equally dutiful and disinterested, the advantages of a system of favouritism, which he secretly hoped would one day center in his own person. Nor was he disappointed, as for some time after this, his history, apart from what share he had in the public councils, is little more than a list of promotions following each other with a rapidity that alarmed the courtiers, and inclined the people, always jealous of sudden elevations, to look back on his origin.

In this rise, he was successively made almoner to the king, a privy counsellor, and reporter of the proceedings of the Star-chamber; rector of Turrington in the diocese of Exeter, canon of Windsor, registrar of the order of the garter, and prebendary and dean of York. From these he passed on to become dean of Hereford, and precentor of St. Paul’s, both of which he resigned on being preferred to the bishopric of Lincoln; chancellor of the order of the garter, and bishop of Tournay in Flanders, which ne held until 1518, when that city was delivered up to the French, but he derived from it afterwards an annual pension of twelve thousand livres. In 1514, he was consecrated bishop of Lincoln, in the room of Smyth, founder of Brasen-nose college, and was chosen chancellor of the university of Cambridge. The same year he was promoted to the archbishopric of York, and created cardin-al of St. Cecilia.

Yet in the plenitude of that political influence which he now maintained to the exclusion of the ancient nobility and courtiers, it appears that for some time he preserved the peace of the country, by a strict administration of justice, and by a punctuality in matters of finance, which admitted no very unfavourable comparisons between him and his predecessors. Perhaps the splendour and festivities which he encouraged in the court might, by a diffusion of the royal wealth among the public, contribute to a certain degree of popularity, especially when contrasted with the more economical habits encouraged by Henry VII. It was not until he established his legantine court, a species of English popedom, that the people had reason to complain of a vast and rapacious power, unknown to the constitution, boundless in its capricious decrees, and against which there was no redress. This court, however, could not have inflicted many public injuries, as it formed no part of the complaints of parliament against him, when complaints mi<rht have been preferred with safety, and would have been welcomed from any quarter. At that time, the legality of the power was called in question, but, not the exercise of it.

In the private conduct of this extraordinary man, while in the height of his prosperity, we find a singular mixture of personal pride and public munificence. While his train of servants rivalled that of the king, and was composed of many persons of rank and distinction, his house was a school where their sons were usefully educated, and initiated in public life. And while he was dazzling the eyes, or insulting the feelings of the people by an ostentation of gorgeous furniture and equipage, such as exceeded the royal establishment itself, he was a general ancj liberal patron of literature, a man of consummate taste in works of art, elegant in his plans, and bpundless in his expences to execute them; and, in the midst of luxurious pleasures and pompous revellings, he was meditating the advancement of science by a munificent use of those riches which he seemed to accumulate only for selfish purposes.

In the mean time, there was no intermission in his preferments. His influence was courted by the pope, who had made him a cardinal, and, in 1516, his legate in England, with powers not inferior to his own; and by the king of Spain, who granted him a pension of three thousand livres, while the duchy of Milan bestowed on him a yearly grant often thousand ducats. On the resignation of archbishop Warham, he was appointed lord high chancellor. “If this new accumulation of dignity,” says Hume, “increased his enemies, it also served to exalt his personal character and prove the extent of his capacity. A strict administration of justice took place during his enjoyment of this high office; and no chancellor ever discovered greater impartiality in his decisions, deeper penetration of judgment, or more enlarged knowledge of law or equity.”

In 1518, he attended queen Catherine to Oxford, and intimated to the university his intention of founding lectures on theology, civil law, physic, philosophy, mathematics, rhetoric, Greek, and Latin; and in the following year three of these, viz. for Greek, Latin, and rhetoric, were founded and endowed with ample salaries, and read in the hall of Corpus Christi college. He appointed for his lectures the ablest scholars whom the university afforded, or whom he could invite from the continent. The members of the convocation, about this time, conferred upon him the highest mark of their esteem by a solemn decree that he should have the revisal and correction of the university statutes in the most extensive sense, and it does not appear that they had any reason to repent of this extraordinary instance of their confidence. The same power was conferred upon him by the university of Cambridge, and in both cases, was accompanied by documents which proved the very high opinion entertained by these learned bodies of his fitness to reform what was amiss in the republic of letters.

In the same year the pope granted him the administration of the bishopric of Bath and Wells, and the king bestowed on him its temporalities. This see, with those of Worcester and Hereford, which the cardinal likewise farmed, were filled by foreigners who were allowed nonresidence, and compounded for this indulgence by yielding a share of the revenues. The cardinal’s aid, about this time, in establishing the College of Physicians of London, is to be recorded among the many instances of the very liberal views he entertained of every improvement connected with literature. In 1521, he evinced his zeal against the reformation' which Luther had begun, by procuring his doctrines to be condemned in an assembly of divines held at his own house, published pope Leo’s bull against him, and endeavoured to suppress his writings in this kingdom; but there is no favourable part of his character so fully established as his moderation towards the English Lutherans, for one article of his impeachment was his being remiss in punishing heretics, and showing a disposition rather to screen them.

In the same year he received the rich abbey of St. Alban’s to hold in commendam, and soon after went abroad on an embassy. About this time also, he became a candidate for the papal chair, on the demise of Leo X. but was not successful. This disappointment, however, was compensated in some degree by the emperor, who settled a pension on him of nine thousand crowns of gold, and by the bishopric of Durham, to which he was appointed in 1523. On this he resigned the administration of Bath and Wells. The same year he issued a mandate to remove the convocation of the province of Canterbury from St. Paul’s to Westminster, one of his most unpopular acts, but which appears to have been speedily reversed. On the death of pope Adrian he made a second unsuccessful attempt to be elected pope; but while he failed in this, he received from his rival a confirmation of the whole papal authority in England.

In 1524, he intonated to the university of Oxford his design of founding a college there, and soon commenced that great work. About two years after he founded his school, or college, as it has been sometimes called, at Ipswich, as a nursery for his intended college at Oxford, aiul this for a short time is said to have rivalled the schools of Winchester and Eton. As he mixed ecclesiastical dignity with all his learned institutions, he appointed here a dean, twelve canons, and a numerous choir. At the same time he sent a circular address to the schoolmasters of England, recommending them to teach their youth the elements of elegant literature, literatura elegantissima, and prescribed the use of Lily’s grammar.

Of the immense riches which he derived from his various preferments, some were no doubt spent in luxuries which left only a sorrowful remembrance, but the greater part was employed in" those magnificent edifices which have immortalized his genius and spirit. In 1514 he began to build the palace at Hampton Court, and having finished it, with all its sumptuous furniture, in 1528, he presented it to the king, who in return gave him the palace of Richmond for a residence. In this last mentioned year, he acceded to the bishopric of Winchester by the death of Fox, and resigned that of Durham. To Winchester, however, he never went. That reverse of fortune which has exhibited him as an example of terror to the ambitious, was now approaching, and was accelerated by events, the consequences of which he foresaw, without the power of averting them. Henry was now agitated by a passion not to be controuled by the whispers of friendship, or the counsels of statesmen, and when the cardinal, whom he had appointed to forward his divorce from queen Catherine and his marriage with Anne Boleyn, appeared tardily to adhere to forms, or scrupulously to interpose advice, he determined to make him feel the weight of his resentment. It happened unfortunately for the cardinal that both the queen and her rival were his enemies, the queen from a suspicion that she never had a cordial friend in him, and Anne from a knowledge that he had secretly endeavoured to prevent her match with the king. But a minute detail of these transactions and intrigues belongs to history, in which they occupy a large space. It may suffice here to notice that the cardinal’s ruin, when once determined, was effected in the most sudden and rigorous manner, and probably without his previous knowledge of the violent measures that were to be taken.

On the first day of term, Oct. 9, 1529, while he was opening the Court of Chancery at Westminster, the attorney-general indicted him in the Court of King’s Bench, on the statute of provisors, 16 Richard II. for procuring a bull from Rome appointing him legate, contrary to the statute, by which he had incurred a prtemunire^ and forfeited all his goods to the king, and might be imprisoned. Before he could give in any reply to this indictment, the king sent to demand the great seal from him, which was given to sir Thomas More. He was then ordered to leave York-place, a palace which had for some centuries been the residence of the archbishops of York, and which he had adorned with furniture of great value and magnificence: it now became a royal residence under the name of Whitehall. Before leaving this place to go to Esher, near Hampton Court, a seat belonging to the bishopric of Winchester, he made an inventory of the furniture, plate, &c. of York-place, which is said to have amounted to the incredible sum of five hundred thousand crowns, or pounds of our money. He then went to Putney by water, and set out on the rest of his journey on his mule, but he had not gone far before he was met by a messenger from the king, with a gracious message, assuring him that he stood as high as ever in the royal favour, and this accompanied by a ring, which the king had been accustomed to send, as a token to give credit to the bearer. Wolsey received these testimonials with the humblest expression of gratitude, but proceeded on his way to Esher, which he found quite unfurnished. The king’s design by this solemn mockery is not easily conjectured. It is most probable that it was a trick to inspire the cardinal with hopes of being restored to favour, and consequently to prevent his defending himself in the prosecution upon the statute of provisors, which Henry knew he could do by producing his letters patent authorising him to accept the pope’s bulls. And this certainly was the consequence, for the Cardinal merely instructed his attorney to protest in his name that he was quite ignorant of the above statute; but that he acknowledged other particulars with which he was charged to be true, and submitted himself to the king’s mercy. The sentence of the court was, that “he was out of the protection, and his lands, goods, and chattels forfeit, and his person might be seized.”

The next step to complete his ruin was taken by the duke of Norfolk and the privy counsellors, who drew up articles against him, and presented them to the king; but he still affecting to take no personal concern in the matter, remained silent. Yet these probably formed the basis of the forty-four articles presented December 1, to the House of Lords, as by some asserted, or, according to other accounts, by the lords of the council to the House of Commons. Many of them are evidently frivolous or false, and others, although true, were not within the jurisdiction of the House. The cardinal had, in fact, already suffered, as his goods had been seized by the king; he was now in a prtemunire, and the House could not go much farther than to recommend what had already taken place. The cardinal, however, found one friend amidst all his distresses, who was not to be alarmed either at the terrors of the court or of the people. This was Thomas Cromwell, formerly Wolsey’s steward (afterwards earl of Essex), who now refuted the articles with so much spirit, eloquence, and argument, that although a very opposite effect might have been expected, his speech is supposed to have laid the foundation of that favour which the king afterwards extended to him, but which, at no very distant period, proved as fatal to him as it had been to his master. His eloquence had a yet more powerful effect, for the address founded on these articles was rejected by the Commons, and the Lords could not proceed farther without their concurrence.

During the cardinal’s residence at Esher the king sent several messages to him, “some good and some bad,” says Cavendish, “but more ill than good,” until this tantalizing correspondence, operating on a mind of strong passions, brought on, about the end of the year, a sickness which was represented to the king as being apparently fatal. The king ordered his physician, Dr. Butts, to visit him, who confirmed what had been reported of the dangerous state of his health, but intimated that as his disease affected his mind rather than his body, a kind word from his majesty might prove more effectual -than the best skill of the faculty. On this the king sent him a ring, with a gracious message that he was not offended with him in his heart; and Anne Boleyn sent him a tablet of gold that usually hung at her side, with many kind expressions. The cardinal received these testimonies of returning favour with joy and gratitude, and in a few days was pronounced ut of danger.

Nor can we blame Wolsey for his credulity, since Henry, although he had stripped the cardinal of all his property, and the income arising from all his preferments, actually granted him, Feb. 12, 1530, a free pardon for all crimes and misdemeanors, and a few days after restored to him the revenues, &c. of the archbishopric of York, except York place, before-mentioned, and one thousand marks yearly from the bishopric of Winchester. He also sent him a present of 3000l. in money, and a quantity of plate and furniture exceeding that sum, and allowed him to remove from Esher to Richmond, where he resided for some time in the lodge in the old park, and afterwards in the priory. His enemies at court, however, who appear to have influenced the king beyond his usual arbitrary disposition, dreaded Wolsey’s being so near his majesty, and prevailed on him to order him to reside in his archbishopric. In obedience to this mandate, which was softened by another gracious message from Henry, he first went to the archbishop’s seat at Southwell, and about the end of September fixed his residence at Cawood castle, which he began to repair, and was acquiring popularity by his hospitable manners and bounty, when his capricious master was persuaded to arrest him for high treason, and order him to be conducted to London. Accordingly, on the first of November he set out, but on the road he was seized with a disorder of the dysenteric kind, brought on by fatigue and anxiety, which put a period to his life at Leicester abbey on the 28th of that mouth, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. Some of his last words implied the awful and just reflection, that if he had served his God as diligently as he had served his king, he would not have given him over to his enemies. Two days after he was interred in the abbey church of Leicester, but the spot is not now known. As to the report of his having poisoned himself, founded on an expression in the printed work of Cavendish, it has been amply refuted by a late eminent antiquary, who examined the whole of the evidence with much acuteness. Modern historians have formed a more favourable estimate of Wolsey’s character than their predecessors, yet it had that mixture of good and evil which admits of great variety of opinion, and gives to ingenious party-colouring all the appearance of truth. Perhaps Shakspeare, borrowing from Holinshed and Hall, has drawn a more just and comprehensive sketch of his perfections and failings than is to be found in any other writer.

He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one;

Exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading;

Lofty and sour to them that lov'd him not;

And though he was unsatisfy'd in getting,

Ipswich and Oxford! one of which fell with him,

So excellent in art, and still so rising,

For then, and not till then, he felt himself,

And found the blessedness of being little:

And, to add greater honours to his age

The cardinal’s biographers, in treating of the founda.­tion of his college, begin with a very laboured defence of his seizing the property and revenues of many priories and nunneries, which were to serve as a fund for building and endowment; and the zeal they display on this subject, if it cannot now enforce conviction, at least proves the historical fact that the rights of property even at that time were not to be violated with impunity, and that the cardinal’s conduct was highly unpopular. At first it was objected to even by the king himself, although he soon afterwards converted it into a precedent for a more general dissolution of religious houses. Wolsey, however; ought not to be deprived of such defence as has been set up. It has been urged, that h.e procured bulls from the pope empowering him to seize on these priories; and that the pope, according to the notions then entertained of his supremacy, could grant a power by which religious houses might be converted into societies for secular priests, and for the advancement of learning. It has been also pleaded, that the cardinal did not alienate the revenues from religious service, but only made a change in the application of them; that the appropriation of the alien priories by Chichele and Waynriete was in some respects a precedentj and that the suppression of the Templers in the fourteenth century, might also be quoted. Bishop Tanner likewise, in one of his letters to Dr. Charlett, quotes as precedents., bishops Fisher, Alcock, and Beckington. But perhaps the best excuse is that hinted by lord Cherbury, namely, that Wolsey persuaded the king to abolish unnecessary monasteries that necessary colleges might be erected, and the progress of the reformation impeded by the learning of the clergy and scholars educated in them. Tbe same writer suggests, that as Wolsey pleaded for the dissolution of only the small and superfluous houses, the king might not dislike this as a fair experiment how far the project of a general dissolution would be relished. On the other hand, by two letters still extant, written by the king, it appears that he was fully aware of the unpopularity of the measure, although we cannot infer from them that he had any remedy to prescribe.

Whatever weight these apologies had with one part of the public, we are assured that they had very little with another, and that the progress of the college was accompanied by frequent expressions of popular dislike in the shape of lampoons. The kitchen having been first finished, one of the satirists of the day exclaimed, Egregium opus! Cardinalis iste instituit Collegium et absolvit popinam. Other mock inscriptions were placed on the walls, one of which at least, proved prophetic:

By two bulls, the one dated 1524, the other 1525, Wolsoy obtained of pope Clement VII. leave to enrich his college by suppressing twenty-two priories and nunneries, the revenues of which were estimated at nearly 2000l.; but on his disgrace some of these were given by the king for other purposes. The king’s patent, after a preface paying high compliments to the cardinal’s administration, enables him to build his college principally on the site of the priory of St. Frideswide and the name, originally intended to be “The College of Secular Priests,” was now changed to Cardinal College. The secular clergy in it were to be denominated the “dean and canons secular of the cardinal of York,” and to be incorporated into one body, and subsist by perpetual succession. He was also authorised to settle upon it 2000l. a year clear revenue. By other patents and grants to the dean and canons, various church livings were bestowed upon them, and the college was to be dedicated to the praise, glory, and honour of the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, St. Frideswide, and All Saints.

With respect to the constitution of this college, there is a considerable variation between the account given by the historian of Oxford, and that by Leonard Hutten, canon of Christ Church, in 1599, and many years sub-dean. His manuscript, now in the possession of the college, and quoted in the Monasticon, states that, according to Wolsey’s design, it was to be a perpetual foundation for the study of the sciences, divinity, canon and civil law, also the arts, physic, and polite literature, and for the continual performance of divine service. The members were to be, a dean, and sixty regular canous, but no canons of the second order, as Wood asserts.

Of these Wolsey himself named the dean and eighteen of the canons. The dean was Dr. John Hygden, president of Magdalen college, and the canons first nominated were all taken from the other colleges in Oxford, and were men of acknowledged reputation in their day. He afterwards added others, deliberately, and according as he was able to supply the vacancies by men of talents, whom he determined to seek wherever they could be found. Among his lattfic appointments frcrr Cambridge, we find the names of Tyndal and Frith, the translators of the Bible, and who had certainly discovered some symptoms of heresy before this time. Cranmer and Parker, afterwards the first and second protestant archbishops of Canterbury, were also invited, bat declined; and the cardinal went on to complete his number, reserving all nominations to himself during his life, but intending to bequeath that power to the dean and canons at his death. In this, however, he was as much disappointed as in his hopes to embody a force of learned men sufficient to cope with Luther and the foreign reformers, whose advantage in argument he conceived to proceed from the ignorance which prevailed among the monastic clergy.

The society, as he planned it, was to consist of one hundred and sixty persons, according to Wood, or omitting the forty canons of the second order, in the enumeration of whom Wood was mistaken, one hundred and forty-six; but no mention could yet be made of the scholars who were to proceed from his school at Ipswich, although, had he lived, these would doubtless have formed a part of the society, as the school was established two years before his fall. This constitution continued from 1525 to 1529-30, when he was deprived of his power and property, and for two years after it appears to have been interrupted, if not dissolved. It is to his honour that in his last correspondence with secretary Cromwell and with the king, when all worldly prospects were about to close upon him, he pleaded with great earnestness, and for nothing so earnestly, as that his majesty would be pleased to suffer his college at Oxford to go on. What effect this had, we know not, but the urgent entreaties of the members of the society, and of the university at large, were at length successful, while at the same time the king determined to deprive Wolsey of all merit in the establishment, and transfer the whole to himself. The subsequent history of Christ church it would be unnecessary to detail in this place.

An impartial life of cardinal Wolsey is perhaps still a desideratum in English biography. Cavendish is minute and interesting in what he relates of the cardinal’s domestic history, but defective in dates and arrangement, and not altogether free from partiality; which, however, in one so near to the cardinal, may perhaps be pardoned. Fiddes is elaborate, argumentative, and upon the whole useful, as arc extensive collector of facts and authorities; but he wrote for a special purpose, and has attempted, what no man can effect, a portrait of his hero free from those vices and failings of which it is impossible to acquit him. Grove, with all the aid of Cavendish, Fiddes, and even Shakspeare, whose drama he regularly presses into the service, is a heavy and injudicious compiler, although he gives so much of the cardinal’s contemporaries, that his volumes may be consulted with advantage as a series of general annals of the time. But Cavendish, on whom all who have written on the actions of Wolsey, especially our modern historians, have relied, has been the innocent cause of some of their principal errors. Cavendish’s work remained in manuscript, of which several copies are still extant, until the civil wars, when it was first printed under the title of “The Negociations of Thomas Wolsey, &c.” 1641, 4to, and the chief object of the publication was a parallel between the cardinal and archbishop Laud, in order to reconcile the public to the murder of that prelate. That this object might be the better accomplished, the manuscript was mutilated and interpolated without shame or scruple, and no pains having been taken to compare the printed edition with the original, the former passed for genuine above a century, nor until very lately has the work been presented to the public as the author left it, in Dr. Wordsworth’s "Ecclesiastical Biography.

, an English prelate, was a native of Norfolk, born in 1612, and the son of Lawrence Womock, B. D. rector of Lopham and Fersfield in that county. He was admitted pensioner of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, July 4, 1629, and in October following was chosen a scholar of sir Nich. Bacon’s foundation. He took the degree of A. B. in 1632, was ordained deacon Sept. 21, 1634, and proceeded A.M. in 1639. He is supposed to have succeeded his father in the living of Lopham upcfi his diocese in 1642, but was ejected by the Norfolk committee for the examination of those who were deemed scandalous ministers, and appears to have been afterwards imprisoned for his principles of religion and loyalty, and to have suffered extreme hardships. After the restoration v however, he was promoted by letters mandate to the degree of D. D. and made both archdeacon of Suffolk, Sept. 8, 1660, and a prebendary of Ely. In 1662 he was presented to the rectory of Horningsheath in Suffolk, and in 1663 to that of Boxford in the same county. He was at length promoted, but late in life, to the bishopric of St. David’s, Nov. 11, 1683, a preferment which, owing to his short continuance in it, was detrimental to his relations. He died March 12, 1685, aged seventy-three, and was buried near the remains of his only daughter in the south aile of the church of St. Margaret, Westminster, where, on a small compartment affixed to the pillar next the west end, is an inscription to his memory.

He is said to have been a man of wit and learning, and possessed of a very noble library. He was attached with much firmness to the constitution in church and state, and rejected all compromise with the principles of the dissenters. He took an active part in the controversies of the times, and was esteemed an antagonist worth contending with. His chief publications, besides some single serrrmns, were, “Beaten Oyle for the lamps of the Sanctuarie,” Jtond. 1641, 4to, in defence of the liturgy. “The Examination of Tilenus before the Triers/' London, 1.658, 8vo.” Arcana Dogmatum Anti-Remonstrantium,“1659, against Baxter, Hickman, and the Calvinists.” The Result of False Principles/' in several dialogues, published anonymously, 1661, 4to. “Uniformity re-asserted,” 1661. “The Solemn League and Covenant arraigned and condemned,” Lond. 1661, 4to. “An Antidote to cure the Calamities of their trembling for fear of the Arke,” Lond. 1663, 4to. “The Verdict upon the Dissenters’ plot,” 1681, 8vo. “Two Letters containing a farther justification of the Church of England,” Lond. 1682. “Suffragium Protestantium, wherein our governors are justified in their impositions and proceedings against dissenters. Meisner also, and the verdict rescued from the cavils and seditious sophistry of Dr, Whitby’s Protestant Reconciler,” Lond. 1683, 8vo.

, an eminent English antiquary and biographer, was the son of Thomas Wood, bachelor of arts and of the civil law; and was born at Oxford, December 17, 1632. He was sent to New-college school in that city in 1641; and three years after removed to the free-school at Thame in Oxfordshire, where he continued till his admission at Merton, 1647. His mother in Tain endeavoured to prevail on him to follow some trade or profession; his prevailing turn was to antiquity: “heraldry, music, and painting, he says, did so much crowd upon him, that he could not avoid them; and he could never give a reason why he should delight in those studies more than others; so prevalent was nature, mixed with a generosity of mind, and a hatred to all that was servile, sneaking, or advantatageous, for lucre-sake.” He took the degree of B.A. 1652, and M.A. in 1655, As he resided altogether at Oxford, he perused all the evidences of the several colleges and churches, from which he compiled his two great worts, and assisted all who were engaged in the like designs; at the same time digesting and arranging all the papers he perused; thus doing the cause of antiquity a double service. His drawings preserved many things which soon after were destroyed. In 1665, he began to lay the foundation of “Historia & Antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis;” which was published in 1674, in 2 vols. folio. The first contains the antiquities of the university in general, and the second those of the particular colleges. This work was written by the author in English, and so well esteemed that the university procured it to be translated into Latin, the language in which it was published. The author spent eight years about it, and was, as we are told, at the pains to extract it from the bowels of antiquity. Of the Latin translation, Wood himself has given an account. He tells us, that Dr. Fell, having provided one Peers, a bachelor of arts of Christ-church, to translate it, sent to him for some of the English copy, and set the translator to work; who, however, was some time before he could make a version to his mind. “But at length having obtained the knack,” says Wood, “he went forward with the work; yet all the proofs, that came from the press, went through the doctor’s hands, which he would correct, alter, or dash out, or put in what he pleased; which created a great deal of trouble to the composer and author, but there was no help. He was a great man, and carried all things at his pleasure so much, that many looked upon the copy as spoiled and vitiated by him. Peers was a sullen, dogged, clownish, and perverse, fellow; and when he saw the author concerned at the altering of his copy, he would alter it the more, and study to put things in that might vex him, and yet please his dean, Dr. Fell.” And he afterwards complains, how “Dr. Fell, who printed the book at his own charge, took so much liberty of putting in and out what he pleased, that the author was so far from dedicating or presenting the book to any one, that he would scarcely own it.” Among the “Genuine Remains of Barlow, bishop of Lincoln, published by sir Peter Pett in 1693,” 8vo, are two letters of that prelate, relating to this work. In the first letter we have the following passage: “What you say of our late antiquities is too true. We are alarmed by many letters, not only of false Latin, but false English too, and many bad characters cast on good men; especially on the Anti-Arminians, who are all made seditious persons, schismatics, if not heretics: nay, our first reformers are made fanatics. This they tell me; and our judges of assize, now in town, say no less^. I have not read one leaf of the book yet; but I see I shajl be necessitated to read it over, that I may with my own eyes see the faults, and (so far as I am able) endeavour the mending of them. Nor do I know any other way but a new edition, with a real correction of all faults; and a declaration, that those miscarriages cannot justly be imputed to the university, as indeed they cannot, but to the passion and imprudence, if not impiety, of one or two, who betrayed the trust reposed in them in the managing the edition of that book.” In the second letter, after taking notice that the translation was made by the order and authority of the dean of Christ-church; that not only the Latin, but the history itself, is in many things ridiculously false; and then producing passages as proofs of both; he concludes thus: “Mr. Wood, the compiler of those antiquities, was himself too favourable to papists; and has often complained to me, that at Christ-church some things were put in which neither were in his original copy nor approved by him. The truth is, not only th Latin, but also the matter of those antiquities, being erroneous in several things, may prove scandalous, and give our adversaries some occasion to censure, not only the university, but the church of England and our reformation. Sure I am, that the university had no hand in composing or approving those antiquities; and therefore the errors which are in them cannot de jure be imputed to the university, but must lie upon Christ-church and the composer of them.” This work, however, is now in a great measure rescued from misapprehension by the publication of Wood’s ms. in English by the rev. John Gutch, 3 vols. 4to.

Mr. Wood afterwards undertook his more important work, which was published in 1691, folio; and a second edition in 1721. folio, with this title: “Athenæ Oxonienses. An exact history of all the writers and bishops who have had their education in the most ancient and famous university of Oxford, from the fifteenth year of king Henry the seventh, A.D. 1500, to the author’s death in November, 1695; representing the birth, fortune, preferment, and death of all those authors and prelates, the great accidents of their lives, and the fate and character of their writings. To which are added, the Fasti, or annals of the skid university. In two volumes. The second edition, very much corrected and enlarged; with the addition of above 500 new lives from the author’s original manuscript.” Impartiality and veracity being qualities so essential in an historian, that all other qualities without them cannot make a history good for any thing, Wood has taken some pains to prove, that these great qualities were not wanting in him; and for that purpose thought it expedient to prefix to his work the following curious account of himself. “As to the author himself,” says he, “he is a person who delights to converse more with the dead than with the living, and has neither interest with, nor inclination to flatter or disgrace, any man, or any community of men, of whatever denomination. He is such a universal lover of all mankind, that he could wish there was such a standing measure of merit and honour agreed upon among them all, that there might be no cheat put upon readers and writers in the business of commendations. But, since every one will have a double balance herein, one for himself and his own party, and another for his adversary and dissenters, all he can do is, to, amass and bring together what every side thinks will make best weight for themselves. Let posterity hold the scales and judge accordingly; suu m cuique decus. posteritas rependat. To conclude: the reader is desired to know, that this Herculean labour had been more proper for a head or fellow of a college, or for a public professor or officer of the most noble university of Oxford to have undertaken and consummated, than the author, who never enjoyed any place or office therein, or can justly say that he hath eaten the bread of any founder. Also, that it had been a great deal more fit for one who pretends to be a virtuoso, and to know all men, and all things that are transacted; or for one who frequents much society in common rooms, at public fires, in coffee-houses, assignations, clubs, &c. where the characters of men and their works are frequently discussed; but the author, alas! is so far from frequenting such company and topics, that he is as it were dead to the world, and utterly unknown in person to the generality of scholars in Oxon. He is likewise so great an admirer of a solitary and retired life, that he frequents no assemblies of the said university, hath no companion in bed or at board, in his studies, walks, or journeys; nor holds communication with any, unless with some, and those very few, of generous and noble spirits, that have in some measure been promoters and encouragers of this work: and, indeed, all things considered, he is but a degree different from an ascetic, as spending all or most of his time, whether by day or night, in reading, writing, and divine contemplation. However, l>e presumes, that, the less his company and acquaintance is, the more impartial his endeavours -will appear to the ingenious and learned, to whose judgments only he submits them and himself.”

But, as unconnected as Wood represents himself with all human things and persons, it is certain that he had his prejudices and attachments, and strong ones too, for certain notions and systems; and these prejudices and attachments will always be attended with partialities for or against those who shall be found to favour or oppose such notions or systems. They had their influence upon Wood, who, though he always spoke to the best of his judgment, and often with great truth and exactness, yet sometimes gave way to prejudice and prepossession. Among other, freedoms, he took some with the earl of Clarendon, their late chancellor, which exposed him to the censure of the university. He had observed in the life of judge Glynne, that “after the restoration of Charles II. he was made his eldest serjeant at law, by the corrupt dealing of the then chancellor,” who was the earl of Clarendon: for which expression, chiefty, the succeeding earl preferred an action in the vice-chancellor’s court against him for defamation of his deceased father. The issue of the process was a hard judgement given against the defendant; which, to be made the more public, was put into the Gazette in these words: “Oxford, July 31, 1693. On the-29th instant, Anthony Wood was condemned in the vice-chancellor’s court of the university of Oxford, for having written and published, in the second volume of his book, entitled `Athense Oxonienses,' divers infamous libels against the right honourable Edward late earl of Clarendon, lord high chancellor of England, and chancellor of the said university; and was therefore banished the said university, until such time as he shall subscribe such a public recantation as the judge of the court shall approve of, and give security not to offend in the like nature for the future: and his said book was therefore also decreed to be burnt before the public theatre; and on this day it was burnt accordingly, and public programmas of his expulsion are already affixed in the three usual places.” An historian who has recorded this censure says, that it was the more grievous to the blunt author, because it seemed to come from a party of men whom he had the least disobliged. His bitterness had been against the Dissenters; but of all the zealous Churchmen he had given characters with a singular turn of esteem and affection. Nay, of the Jacobites, and even of Papists themselves, he had always t spoken the most favourable things; and therefore it was really the greater mortification to him, to feel the storm coming from a quarter where he thought he least deserved, and might least expect it. For the same reason, adds the historian, this correction was some pleasure to the Presbyterians, who believed there was a rebuke due to him, which they themselves were not able to pay. Wood was animadverted upon likewise by Burnet, in his “Letter to the bishop of Litchfield and Coventry, concerning a book of Anthony Harmer (alias Henry Wharton), called `A Specimen of some Errors and Defects in the History of the Reformation,' &c.” upon which, in 1693, he published a vindication of himself, which is reprinted before the second edition of his “Athenæ Oxonienses.”

As a collector Mr. Wood deserves highly of posterity indeed we know not any man to whom English biography is so much indebted, although we may allow, at the same time, that he is deficient in judgment and style. His errors, in other respects, have been corrected, and many valuable additions made, from genuine authorities, in the new edition (of which two volumes, quarto, have already been published), by Philip Bliss, Fellow of St. John’s-college.

Mr. Wood died at Oxford Nov. 29, 1695, of a retention of urine, under which he lingered above a fortnight. The circumstances of his death are recorded in a letter of Dr. Arthur Charlett, rector of University-college, to archbishop Tenison: this letter, which was published by Hearne, in the appendix to his edition of “Johannis Confratris et Monachi Glastoniensis Chronica,” Oxon. 1726, illustrates the character of this extraordinary person, by minutely describing his behaviour at the most important and critical of all seasons. He left his papers and books to the charge of Dr. Charlett, Mr. Bisse, and Mr. (afterwards bishop) Tanner, to be placed in the Ashmolean library.

, a polite scholar, and under-secretary of state in 1764, has a right to a place here, for his very curious “Essay on the original Genius of Homer.” Of the particulars of his life, the proper subject for our pages, we reluctantly confess ourselves ignorant; but shall observe, that in 1751, he made the tour of Greece, Egypt, and Palestine, in company with Mr. Dawkins and Mr. Bouverie; and at his return published a splendid work, in folio, entitled “The Ruins of Palmyra, otherwise Tedmor in the Desert,” being an account of the ancient and modern state of that place; with a great number of elegant engravings of its ruins by Fourdrinier, from drawings made on the spot. This was followed by a similar work respecting Balbec. Speaking of the abovementioned friends, he says, “Had I been so fortunate as to have enjoyed their assistance in arranging and preparing for the public the substance of our many friendly conversations on this subject (Homer) I should be less anxious about the fate of the following work: but, whatever my success may be in an attempt to contribute to the amusement of a vacant hour, I am happy to think, that, though I should fail to answer the expectations of public curiosity, I am sure to satisfy the demands of private friendship; and that, acting as the only sur^ vivor and trustee for the literary concerns of my late fellow-r travellers, I am, to the best of my judgment, carrying into execution the purpose of men for whose memory I shall ever retain the greatest veneration; and though I may do injustice to those honest feelings which urge me to this pious task, by mixing -an air of compliment in an act of duty, yet I must not disown a private, perhaps an idle consolation, which, if it be vanity to indulge, it would be ingratitude to suppress, viz. that, as long as my imperfect descriptions shall preserve from oblivion the present state of the Troade, and the remains of Balbec and Palmyra, so long will it be known that Dawkins and Bouverie were my friends.”

Mr. Wood had drawn up a great part of his “Essay on Homer” in the life-time of Mr. Dawkins, who wished it to be made public. “But,” says Mr. Wood, “while I was preparing it for the press, I had the honour of being called to a station, which for some years fixed my whole attention upon objects of so very different a nature, that it hecame necessary to lay Homer aside, and to reserve the farther consideration of my subject for a time of more leisure. However, in the course of that active period, the duties of my situation engaged me in an occasional attendance upon a nobleman (the late earl Granville), who, though he presided at his majesty’s councils, reserved some moments for literary amusement. His lordship was so partial to this subject, that I seldom had the honour of receiving his commands on business, that he did not lead the conversation to Greece and Homer. Being directed to wait upon his lordship a few days before he died, with the preliminary articles of the treaty of Paris, I found him so languid, that I proposed postponing my business for another time^ but he insisted that I should stay, saying,” it could not prolong his life, to neglect his duty:“and, repeating a passage out of Sarpedon’s speech, dwelt with particular emphasis on a line which recalled to his mind the distinguishing part he had taken in public affairs. His lordship then repeated the last word several times with a calm and determined resignation; and, after a serious pause of some minutes, he desired to hear the treaty read; to which he listened with great attention; and recovered spirits enough to declare the approbation of a dying statesman (1 use his own words) on the most glorious war, and most honourable peace, this country ever saw.” Mr. Wood also left behind him several Mss. relating to his travels, but not sufficiently arranged to afford any hopes of their being given to the public. The house in which he lived in Putney is situated between the roads which lead to Wandswprth and Wimbledon, and became the residence of his widow. Mr. Wood purchased it of the executors of Edward Gibbon, esq. whose son, the celebrated historian, was born there. The farm and pleasuregrounds which adjoin the house are very spacious, containing near fourscore acres, and surrounded by a gravel-walk, which commands a beautiful prospect of London and the adjacent country. Mr. Wood was buried in the cemetery near the upper road to Richmond. On his monument is the following inscription, drawn up by the hon. Horace Walpole, earl of Orford, at the request of his widow:

“To the beloved memory of Robert Wood, a man of supreme benevolence, who was born at the castle of Riverstown near Trim, in the county of Meath, and died Sept. 9, 1771, in the fifty-fifth year of his age; and of Thomas Wood his son, who died August 25th, 1772, in his ninth year; Ann, their once happy wife and mother, now dedicates this melancholy and inadequate memorial of her affection and grief. The beautiful editions of Balbec and Palmyra, illustrated by the classic pen of Robert Wood, supply a nobler and more lasting monument, and will survive those august remains.”

, a divine and poet, eldest son of Robert Woodford, of Northampton, gent, was born in the parish of All-hallows on the Wall, London, April 15, 1636; became a commoner of Waclham college in 1653; took one degree in arts in 1656; and in 1658 returned to the Inner Temple, where he was chamber-fellow with the poet Flatman. In 1660, he published a poem “On the return of king Charles II.” After that period, he lived first at Aldbrook, and afterwards at Bensted in Hampshire, ift^i married and secular condition, and was elected F. R. S. in Nov. 1664. He took orders from bishop Morley, and was soon after presented by sir Nicolas Stuart, bart. to the rectory of Hartley-Maudet in Hampshire. He was installed prebend of Chichester May 27, 1676; made D. D. by the diploma of archbishop Sancroft in 1677; and prebendary of Winchester, Nov. 8, 1680, by the favour of his great patron, the bishop of that diocese. He died in 1700. His poems, which have some merit, are numerous. His “Paraphrase on the Psalms, in five books,” was published in 1667, 4to, and again in 1678, 8vo. This “Paraphrase,” which was written in the Pindaric and other various sorts of verse, is commended by R. Baxter in the preface to his “Poetical Fragments,” 1681 and is called by others “an incomparable version,” especially by his friend Flatman, who wrote a Pindaric ode on it, and a copy of verses on Woodford’s “Paraphrase on the Canticles,” 1679, 8vo. With this latter paraphrase are printed, 1. “The Legend of Love, in three cantos.'. 12.” To the Muse,“a Pindaric ode. 3.” A Paraphrase upon some select Hymns of the New and Old Testament.“4.” Occasional compositions in English rhymes," with some translations out, of Latin, Greek, and Italian, but chiefly out of the last;. some of which compositions and translations were before falsely published by a too-curious collector of them, from very erroneous copies, against the will and knowledge of their author. Dr. Woodford complains, that several of his translations of some of the moral odes had been printed after the same incorrect manner.

, whom Dr. Whitby pronounces “the most ingenious and solid writer of the Roman (catholic) party,” and who merits some notice from his name occurring so frequently in the popish controversy at the latter end of the seventeenth century, was the son of John Woodhead of Thornhill in Yorkshire, and was born in 1608 at Meltham in the parish of Abbersbury, or Ambury, in that county. He had his academical education in University college, Oxford, where he took his degrees in arts, was elected fellow in 1633, and soon after entered into holy orders. In 1641 he served the office of proctor, and then set out for the continent as travelling tutor to some young gentlemen of family who had been his pupils in college. While at Rome he lodged with the duke of Buckingham, whom he taught mathematics, and is supposed about the same time to have embraced the communion of the church of Rome, although for a long time he kept this a profound secret. On his return to England he had an apartment in the duke of Buckingham’s house in the Strand, and was afterwards entertained in lord Capel’s family. In 1648 he was deprived of his fellowship by the parliamentary visitors, but merely on the score of absence, aod non-appearance, when called. After the restoration he was reinstated in his fellowship, but rinding it impossible any longer to conform, he obtained leave to travel, with the allowance of a travelling fellowship. Instead, Kbwever, of going abroad, he retired to an obscure residence at Hoxton near London, where he spent several years, partly in instructing some young gentlemen of popish families, and partly in composing his works. Here he remained almost undiscovered, until a little while before his death, which happened at Hoxton, May 4, 1678. He was buried in St. Pancras church-yard, where there is a monument to his memory.

Woodhead was considered as one of the ablest controversial writers, on the popish side, in his time, aqd some protestants have paid respect to his abilities and candour. Most of his works were printed at Mr. Obadiah Walker’s private press, and some of them have been attributed to him. Wood gives a long list of about twenty-three articles, some of which are translations. The principal of his original writings is his “Guide in controversies,” or more fully, “A rational account of the doctrine of catholics, concerning the ecclesiastical guide in controversies of religion: reflecting on the late writings of protestants, particularly of archbishop Laud, and doctor Stillingfleet, on this subject; in four discourses” under the initials R. H. 1666, 1667, and 1673, 4to. Wood adds, “Many stick not to say, which is a wonder to me^ that he was the author of” The Whole Duty of Man“and of all that goes under the name of that author.” The protestant writers with whom he was involved in controversy, and in whose lives or writings his name occurs, were, Peter Heylyn, Stillingfleet, archbishop Wake, Drs. Aldrich, Smalridge, Harrington, Tully, Hooper, and Whitby.

, an eminent natural philosopher, was descended from a good family, originally of Gloucestershire, and was born in Derbyshire, May 1, 1665. He received the first part of his education at a school in the country, where he made a considerable progress in the Latin and Greek languages; but his father designing him for trade, he was taken from school, before he was sixteen years old, and put apprentice, as is said, to a linen-draper jr> London. This way of life, however, was so contrary to his natural thirst for knowledge and love of books, that he quitted it in a few years, and devoted himself entirely to literary pursuits. His studies were directed to philosophical objects, and the progress he made soon attracted the notice of some persons of eminence in the learned world. Amongst others he was honoured with the particular friendship of that distinguished scholar and physician Dr. Peter Barwick, who was so pleased with his ingenuity and industrious application, that he took him under his immediate tuition in his own family. In this advantageous situation he prosecuted his studies in philosophy, anatomy, and physic, with the utmost ardour.

During his residence here, sir Ralph Dutton, who was Dr. Barwick' s son-in-law, invited Mr. Woodward to accompany the doctor on a visit to his seat at Sherborne, in Gloucestershire. He probably made some stay here, for we are told that he was now first led to inquire into that branch of natural philosophy, which became afterwards the favourite object of his studies, and the foundation of the fame which he acquired. The country about Sherborne, and the neighbouring parts of Gloucestershire, to which he made frequent excursions, abounded with stone; and there being quarries laid open almost every where, he was induced to visit them, and to examine the nature and condition of the stone. In these visits he was struck with the great variety of sea-shells, and other marine productions, with which the sand of most of this stone was incorporated; and being encouraged by the novelty, and as he judged, the singular importance of this speculation, he resolved to pursue it through the remote parts of the kingdom. In consequence of this resolution, he travelled throughout almost all England, in order to inform himself of the present condition of the earth, and all bodies contained in it, as far as either grottoes, caverns, mines, quarries, &c. led him into a knowledge of the interior, and as far as his best observations could extend in respect to the exterior surface, and such productions as any where occurred, plants, insects, sea, river, and land-shells. He directed his attention likewise to the fluids; as well those within the surface of the earth, the water of mines, grottoes, caverns, &c. as those upon the surface, the sea, rivers, and springs; and in making these observations, he entered every curious circumstance, with great care$ in a journal. When he had finished these researches, and had returned to London, he would gladly have gone to the continent on the same pursuit, hut was prevented by the war which at that time disturbed the quiet of Europe. In order, however, to supply this defect as far as possible, he applied to gentlemen who had travelled, and were likely to give him information on the subject of his inquiries; and he also drew up a list of questions upon this subject, which he sent off to all parts of the world, whereever either himself, or any of his acquaintance, had any friends resident; the result of which was, that in time he was abundantly satisfied, that the circumstances after which he inquired, were much the same every where. Being now prepared with information, and, as it will appear, not unprovided with a theory, he published in 1695, in 1 vol. 6vo, “An Essay towards a natural history of the Earth and terrestrial bodies, especially minerals; as also of the sesj rivers, and springs. With an account of the universal deluge, and of the effects that it had upon the earth.' 1 He called it an” Essay," because it was designed, as, he said, to be followed by a large work upon the same subject, of whi-ch this was but a specimen.

Not only the account of the deluge in Genesis, and the traditions to the same effect preserved by all ancient nations, but the abundant remains of sea-shells and coral, found at great distances from the sea, at great heights, and intermixed with various rocks, have induced mineralogists, without exception, to agree that at some former period the whole of this earth was covered with the sea. Various hypothetical explanations of the Way in which* this deluge took place have been from time to time published, and several of these are to be found in the Philosophical Transactions. It is not necessary to take notice of the old hypothesis of Burnel, who conceived that the ante-diluvian world consisted of a thin, smooth crust spread over the whole sea, and that this crust breaking occasioned the deluge, and the j|reWnt uneven surface of the earth; nor of Whiston, who ascribed the deluge to the effect of the tail of a comet; because those opinions have many years ago lost all their supporters. Nor is any attention at present paid to the hypothesis of Buffon, who conceived the earth to have been splintered from the sun by the blow of a comet, and accounted for the deluge by suppositions equally arbitrary, and inconsistent with the phenomena. Dr. Woodward was the first writer who acquired a splendid reputation by his theory; and his opinions, though not always correct, generally prevailed in his time, and after. In the work above mentioned, which he afterwards considerably augmented and improved, after refuting the hypotheses of his predecessors, he proceeds to shew, that the present slate of the earth is the consequence of the universal deluge; that the waters took up and dissolved all the minerals and rocks, and gradually deposited them along with the sea-shells; and he affirms that all rocks lie in the order of their specific gravity. Although this theory has long lost its authority, several of the positions which he laid down continue still to find a place in every theory which has succeeded him.

In the mean time Woodward’s “Essay” occasioned no small controversy. Some of its errors were pointed out by Dr. Martin Lister, in three distinct pieces; and Mr. Robinson, a clergyman of Cumberland, soon after published some “Observations on the natural history of the world of matter, and the world of life,” in which he accused Woodward of plagiarism, and mentioned the authors from whom, as he said, he had borrowed most of his notions. But these different works received an answer in a single treatise published by Mr. Harris, in 1697; and the dispute was compromised that same year, in a pamphlet written by Dr. Arbuthnot, in which, after an impartial examination of Woodward’s hypothesis, he decided that though it seemed liable to many just exceptions, yet the whole was not to be exploded. Hitherto the author himself had made no reply to any of the objections against his “Essay;” but in 1704, a Latin translation of it being published at Zurich, he was led into a controversy, by letters on the subject, with some of his learned correspondents abroad, and particularly with the celebrated Leibnitz. This controversy continued some years, and when ended, a fresh attack was made on our author’s hypothesis, by Elias Camerarius, professor of physic at Tubingen, in some Latin dissertations printed in 1712. On this Dr. Woodward published in 1714, “Naturalis historia telluris illustrata et aucta,” in the preface to which he declares, that what had been urged by his antagonists, before Camerarius, was not of such force as to deserve a distinct reply; that every thing considerable in their objections was now proposed by Camerarius, with some additions of his own entirely new, and that the present might be considered as a general answer. In this work, therefore, he supplied the main defects and omissions of his Essay, and endeavoured to vindicate his hypothesis. The dispute with Catnerarius was closed in a very friendly address from that learned professor, which was published in the German Ephemerides in 1717, though not without some intimation of his continuing still in his first sentiments. In 1726, Mr. Benjamin Holloway, F. R. S. having translated the “Naturalis Historia telluris” into English, doctor Woodward readily embraced this opportunity of strengthening his opinion by some additional papers with which he furnished the translator.

The connexion of all the circumstances of Dr. Woodward’s publication with each other, rendered it necessary to give the above account of the whole in succession; but we must now return to other transactions in his progress towards the reputation he had acquired, and which was not altogether unmixed. In the interval between his visit to sir Ralph Button, and the publication of his first “Essay,” he had been elected professor of physic in Gresham college, to which place he was recommended by some persons of consequence in the learned world, and particularly by Dr. Barwick. This preferment, which he obtained in 1692, was soon followed by other honours. In 1693 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and was frequently afterwards one of their council. In 1695 he was created M. D. by archbishop Tenison, and in the following year he was admitted of Pembroke-hall, Cambridge, and honoured with the same degree in that university. In 1698 he was admitted a candidate of the college of physicians, and was chosen a fellow in 1702.

In 1699 he published, in the Philosophical Transactions, “Some thoughts and experiments concerning Vegetation.” These experiments have acquired great celebrity, and are constantly referred to by all writers on vegetable physiology. They consist in putting sprigs of vegetables into the mouths of phials filled with water, allowing them to vegetate for some time, and then determining the quantity of water which they have imbibed, and the quantity of weight which they have gained. The difference obviously indicates the quantity of moisture exhaled by the plant. About 1693, Dr. Woodward’s attention was directed to an object of a very different kind. He had purchased from the museum of a deceased friend, a small, but very curious icon shield of a round form; on the concave side of which were represented, in the upper part, the ruins of Rome when burnt by the Gauls; and below, the weighing out the gold to purchase their retreat, together with the arrival of Camillus, and flight of the Gauls; and in the centre appeared a grotesque mask with horns very large and prominent; the figures all executed in a spirited and beautiful manner. Mr. Conyers, in whose collection this curiosity was, had purchased it of a brazier, who bought it among some brass and iron fragments which came out of the armoury in the Tower of London, near the end of Charles II.'s reign. As soon as it came into the possession of Dr. Woodward, many inquisitive persons came to see it, and in order to enable others, who had not that opportunity, to form a judgment of it, he not only had several casts made of it, but also, in 1705, had it engravenat Amsterdam, on a copper-plate of the size of the original copies of which were transmitted to many learned foreigners, for their opinion. Antiquaries, however, could not agree as to its age. The professors and other critics in Holland, in general, pronounced it antique; but those in France thought otherwise, and Woodward wrote against their opinion a letter to the abbe Bignon, which is published by Dr. Ward in the appendix to his “'Lives of the Gresham Professors.” Dodwell wrote a “Dissertatio de Parma equestri Woodwardiana,” which was published by Hearne (See Hearne) in 1713. Dodwell supposed this shield came out of some public collection; such as the Shield Walk in Whitehall-­palace, from Henry VIII.'s time to Charles I. Theophilus Downes, fellow of Baliol college, differed from him as to the antiquity of this monument; and after his death were published, in two leaves, 8vo, his “De clypeo Woodwardiano stricturae breves.” Ainsworth abridged Dodwell’s dissertation, and inserted it at the end of the “Museum Woodwardianum,” or catalogue of the doctor’s library and curiosities, sold by auction at Covent-garden in 1728. He afterwards enlarged the piece, considered the objections, and reprinted it with the title, “De Clypeo Camilli antique,” &c. 1734, 8vo. Spanheim and Abr. Seller had both begun to write dissertations on it, but were prevented by death. Ward was the last who made any remarks on it, and those in favour of its antiquity; but Moyle’s objection to its antiquity from the ruins of an amphitheatre has not been removed by Dr. Ward. No ancient artist, Mr. Gough observes, could be so ignorant as to ascribe such buildings to that period. At Dr. Woodward’s sale, this shield was purchased by Col. King, one of his executors, for 100l., and at the sale of the colonel’s effects, in 1768, it was sold to Dr. Wilkinson for forty guineas, along with the letters, &c. relating to it.

In 1707, Dr. Woodward published “An account of some Roman urns, and other antiquities, lately digged up near Bishopsgate; with brief reflections upon the ancient and present state of London, in a letter to sir C. Wren,” &c. This was reprinted at London and Oxford, 1713 and 1723, 8vo, with a letter from the doctor to the editor. It was printed first at the desire of sir Christopher, whose observations have since appeared in the “Parentalia.” Wren could not be persuaded that the temple of Diana stood on the scite of St. Paul’s, though Woodward had prepared a dissertation on her image dug up near that cathedral. This dissertation, never printed, is now in the possession of the editor of this Dictionary.

In the midst of those researches into antiquity, Dr. Woodward did not neglect his medical profession, although it cannot be said that he was eminently successful. In 1718 we find him involved in a controversy with two of the greatest physicians of his time, Dr. Freind and Dr. Mead. In a learned work which Dr. Freind published, about this time, he had advanced several arguments in favour of purging upon the access of the second fever, in some dangerous cases of the confluent small-pox. This practice was warmly Opposed by Dr. Woodward, who, on the contrary, strenuously recommended the use of emetics in such cases; and in the following year printed his “State of Physic and of Diseases, with an Inquiry into the Causes of the late increase of them; but more particularly of the Small-pox. With some considerations upon the new practice of purging in that disease” &c. in 8vo. This laid the foundation of a bitter controversy and Dr. Mead retained a sense of the injury, as he thought it, for many years after, as appears from the preface to his treatise on the small-pox; where he gives a short history of the affair, and also throws some personal reflections on Dr. Woodward, which would have been inexcusable in the heat of the controversy, and were certainly much more so near thirty years after. Pope, Arbuthnot, and other wits, attempted also to turn Dr. Woodward into ridicule, and there appears to have been something of irascibility in his temper, which afforded his enemies considerable advantage io this way.

Dr. Woodward declined in his health a considerable time before he died; and though he had all along continued to prepare materials for his large work, relating to the Natural History of the Earth, yet it was never finished; but only some collections, said to have been detached frooi it, were printed at different times, as enlargements upon particular topics in his essay. He was confined first to his house, and afterwards to his bed, many months before his death. During this time, he not only drew up instructions for the disposal of his books and other collections, but alsocompleted and sent to the press his “Method of Fossils,” in English; and lived to see the whole of it printed, except the last sheet. He died in Gresham-college April 25, 1728; and was buried in Westminster-abbey, where is a monument to his memory. After his death, the two following* works were published, 1. “Fossils of all kinds, digested into a Method suitable to their mutual relation and affinity,” &c. 8vo. 2. “A Catalogue of Fossils in the Collection of John Woodward, M. D.” in 2 vols. 8vo. By his last will, he founded a lecture in the university of Cambridge, to be read there upon his “Essay towards the Na-r tural History of the Earth, his Defence of it, his Discourse of Vegetation, and his State of Physic;” for which he ordered lands of 150l. per annum in South-Britain to be purchased and conveyed to that university, and out of this a hundred pounds per annum to the lecturer, who, after the death of his executors Dixie Windsor, Hugh Bethel, Richard Graham, esqrs. and colonel Richard King, is to be chosen by the archbishop of the province, the bishop of the diocese, the presidents of the College of Physicians and of the Royal Society, the two members of parliament, and the whole senate of the university. This lecturer to be a bachelor; to have no other preferment to read four lectures a year in English or Latin, of which one is to be printed; to have the custody of the two cabinets of fossils given by the doctor to the university, to shew them three days in ach week gratis; and to be allowed ten pounds per annum for making experiments and observations, and keeping correspondence with learned men. Some of these conditions it would not be easy to fulfil, yet the professorship continues, and has been held by men of talents. Dr. Conyers Middleton was the first appointed to the office, who opened the lectures with an elegant Latin oration in praise of the founder, and upon the usefulness of his institution.

Dr. Woodward left a great many manuscripts, enumerated by Dr. Ward, some of which he ordered to be burnt, but others came into the possession of his executor, colonel Richard King, and were sold in 1768 with the rest of the colonel’s collection. Dr. Woodward was in many respects a visionary and an enthusiast, but the extent of his ingenuity and learning cannot well be called in question, and it ought not to be forgot that the circumstances of his youth were discouraging, and that he had no help in his progress from academical instruction.

, one of the most eminent of modern engravers in England, was born at Maidstone, in Kent, Aug. 27, 1735. Of his early history few particulars have been preserved, and those mostly traditionary. His father was a thread-maker, and long time a foreman to Mr. Robert Pope. The family is said to have come originally from Holland; and there is a tradition that Woollett’s great grandfather escaped from the battle fought by the parliamentary forces against the royalists near Maidstone. Our artist was educated at Maidstone under Mr. Simon Goodwin, who used to notice his graphic talents. Once having taken on a slate the likeness of a schoolfellow named Burtenshaw, who had a prominent nose, his master desired him to finish it on paper, and preserved the drawing. He was also in the habit of drawing the likenesses of his father’s acquaintances. His earliest production on copper was a portrait of a Mr. Scott, of Maidstone, with a pipe in his mouth. These are perhaps trifles, but they compose all that is now remembered of Woollett’s younger days. His first attempts having been seen by Mr. Tinney, an engraver, he took him as an apprentice at the same time with Mr. Anthony Walker and Mr. Brown. His rise in his profession was rapid, and much distinguished, for he brought the art of landscape engraving to great perfection. With respect to the grand and sublime, says Strutt, “if 1 may be allowed the term in landscapes, the whole world cannot produce his equal.” Woollett, however, did not confine himself to landscapes, he engraved historical subjects and portraits with the greatest success. The world has done ample justice to his memory, and the highest prices still continue to be given for good impressions of all his prints, but particularly of his “Niobe” and its companion “Phaeton,? ' his” Celadon and Amelia,“and” Ceyx and Alcyone;“and” The Fishery,“all from Wilson, whose peculiar happiness it was that his best pictures were put into the hands of Woollett, who so perfectly well understood and expressed the very spirit of his ideas upon thecopper. To these we may add the portrait of Rubens, from Vandyke, and, what are in every collection of taste, his justly celebrated prints from the venerable president of the academy,” The Death of General Wolfe,“and The Battle of the Boyne.”

Mr. Woollett died at his house, Upper Charlotte-street, Rathbone-place, May 23, 1785, aged fifty and the record of his death is given in these words “To say he was the first artist in his profession would be giving him his least praise, for he was a good nian. Naturally modest and amiable in his disposition, he never censured the works of others, or omitted pointing out their merits; his patience under the continual torments of a most dreadful disorder upwards of nine months was truly exemplary; and he died as he had lived, at peace with all the world, in vtfhich he never had an enemy. He has left his family inconsolable for his death, and the public to lament the loss of a man whose works (of which his unassuming temper never boasted) are an honour to his country.” An elegant monument was afterwards put up to his memory in the cloisters, Westminster abbey.

, an English divine, very notorious in his day for the pertinacity with which he published the most dangerous opinions, was born in 1669, at Northampton, where his father was a reputable tradesman. After a proper education at a grammar-school, he was entered of Sidney college, in Cambridge, in 1685, where he took both the degrees in arts, and that of bachelor of divinity, and was chosen fellow of his college. From this time, in conformity to the statutes of that society, he applied himself to the study of divinity and entering into holy orders, soon, we are told, became distinguished and esteemed for his learning and piety. Of what sort the latter was, his life will shew. It appears that he had very early conceived some of those notions which afterwards so much degraded his character. His first appearance as an author was in 1705, when he printed at Cambridge a work entitled “The old Apology of the Truth for the Christian Religion against the Jews and Gentiles revived,” 8vo. The design of this work, which is an octavo of near 400 pages, is to prove that all the actions of Moses were typical of Christ, and to shew-tljat some of the fathers did not think them real, but typical relations of what was to come. This allegorical way of interpreting the scriptures of the Old Testament our author is said to have adopted from Origen, whose works, however, he must have studied very injudiciously; yet he became so enamoured of this methocf of interpretation, that he not only thought it had been unjustly neglected by the moderns, but that it might be useful, as an additional proof of the truth of Christianity. He preached this doctrine first in the college chapel, and afterwards before the university at St. Mary’s, to the great surprise of his audience. Yet, as his intentions seemed to be good, and his character respected, and as he had not yet begun to make use of the indecent language which disgraced his subsequent works, no opposition was raised; and when the volume appeared in print, though there were some singular notions advanced, and a new manner of defending Christianity proposed, yet there was nothing that gave particular offence, and many things which shewed great ingenuity and learning. He still continued to reside at Cambridge, applying himself indefatigably to his studies, in a quiet and retired way, until 1720, ^hen he published a Latin dissertation entitled “De Pontii Pilati ad Tiberium Epistola circa res Jesu Christi gestas; per Mystagogum,” 8vo, in which he endeavours to prove that Pontius Pilate wrote a letter to Tiberius Caesar concerning the works of Christ; bwt that the epistle delivered down to us under that name among the writings of the fathers, was forged. The same year he published another pamphlet in Latin, with the title of “Origenis Adamantii Renati Epistola ad Doctores Whitbeium, Waterlandium, Whistonium, aliosque literates hujus saeculi disputatores, circa fidem vere orthodoxam et scripturarum interpretationem;” and, soon after, a second epistle with the same title. The rage of allegorizing the letter of the holy scriptures into mystery, with which this writer was incurably infected, began now to shew itself more openly to the world than it had hitherto done. In 1720 and 1721, he published two letters to Dr. Bennet, rector of St. Giles’s, Cripplegate, London; one upon this question, “Whether the people called quakers do not the nearest of any other sect of religion resemble the primitive Christians in principles and practice?” by Aristobulus; the other, “In defence of the Apostles and Primitive Fathers of the Church, for their allegorical interpretation of the law of Moses, against the ministers of the letter and literal commentators of this age;” and, soon after, he himself published an answer to these two letters; in all which his view appears to have been rather to be severe upon the clergy th,an to defend either apostles, fathers, or quakers. At what time he left college does not appear, but he had about this time absented himself from it beyond the time limited by the statutes. The society and his friends, however, compassionating his case, and judging it to be in some degree the effect of a bodily distemper, allowed him the revenues of his fellowship for a support. The supposition hurt his pride, and he went directly to Cambridge to convince the gentlemen of his college that he laboured under no disorder, and as he at the same time refused to reside, he lost his fellowship.

After this his brother, an alderman of Northampton, allowed him thirty pounds a year, besides other occasional assistance, and on this he supported himself, being a man of great temperance, in London. In 1722 he published a piece entitled “The exact fitness of the time in which Christ was manifested in the Flesh, demonstrated by reason, against the objections of the old Gentiles, and of modern Unbelievers.” This was well enough received, as shewing much learning displayed in a temperate manner, and having in it some valuable remarks. It was written twenty years before its publication, and delivered as a public exercise both in Sidney college chapel, and in St. Mary’s church, as Woolston himself observes in his dedication of it to Dr. Fisher, master of Sidney college. But he did not long abstain from his intended attack on the clergy and religion. In 1723 and 1724 came out his four “Free Gifts to the Clergy,” and his own “Answer” to them, in five separate pamphlets; in which he attacks the clergy with the greatest contempt, and, as it would appear, without any provocation. Yet, though he treated them in this manner, he expressed a very great regard for religion; and did what some thought more than necessary to defend it, when in 1726 he published “A Defence of the Thundering Legion, against Mr. Moyle’s Dissertations.”

The “Four free gifts” were scarcely published, when, the controversy with Collins going on at this time, Mr. Woolstou, under pretence of acting the part of an impartial inquirer, published his “Moderator between an Infidel and Apostate,” and two “Supplements to the Moderator.” In these pieces, he pursued his allegorical scheme, to the exclusion of the letter; and, with regard to the miracles of Christ, not only contended for sublime and mystical interpretations of them, but also asserted that they were not real, or ever actually wrought. As he conducted this attempt with greater rudeness and insolence than any of those that had appeared before him, his presumption was not likely to be unnoticed in a Christian country, and he was prosecuted by the attorney-general; but the prosecution was stopped at the intercession of Mr. Whision*. In 1727, 1728, 1729, and 1730, were published his “Six Discourses on the Miracles of Christ,” and his two “Defences” of them. The six discourses are dedicated to six bishops: Gibson, of London; Chandler, of Litchfield; Smalbroke, of St. David’s Hare, of Chichester; Sherlock, of Bangor; and Potter, of Oxford, who are all treated with the utmost rudeness. What he undertakes to prove is, that the miracles of our Saviour, as we find them in the Evangelists, however related by them as historical truths, were not real, but merely allegorical; and that they are to be interpreted, not in literal but only in mystical senses. His pretence is, that the fathers of the church considered our Saviour’s miracles in the same allegorical way that he does; that is, as merely allegorical, and excluding the letter: but this is not so. Some of the fathers, indeed, and Origen in particular, did not confine themselves to the bare letter, but endeavoured, upon the

* It does not appear very clearly Clarke, to persuade him to go with me whether this was at the intercession of to lord Townsend (th‘e secretary of Wbiston. Winston informs us of his state) but he refused, alledging that having applied sto theattorney-gene- the report would then go abroad, that ral, sir Philip Yorke, who said that he the kmij supported blasphemy. Howwould not’ proceed unless the secretary ever, no farther progress was made i of state sent himan order so to do. Mr. Woolston’s trial. “1 then,” addsWhiston, “went to Dr. foundation of the letter, to raise spiritual meanings, and to allegorize by way of moral application; and they did this,­not only upon the miracles of Christ, but upon almost all the historical facts of the Old and New Testament: but they never denied the miracles or the facts. This strange and enthusiastic scheme of Woolston was offensive enough of itself, but infinitely more so from his manner of conducting it; for he not 'only argues against the miracles of Christ, but treats them in a most ludicrous and outrageous way: expressing himself in terms of astonishing insolence and scurrility. Such conduct raised a general disgust: and many books and. pamphlets, berth from bishops and inferior clergy, appeared against his discourses; and a second prosecution was commenced and carried on with vigour, against which there seemed to be now little or no opposition, he having by his disingenuity of argument and scurrility of manner, excluded himself from all the privileges of a fair reasoner. At his trial in Guildhall before the lord chief-justice Raymond, he spoke several times himself; and among other things urged, that” he thought it very bard to be tried by a set of men, who, though otherwise very learned and worthy persons, were yet no morejudges of the subjects on which he wrote than he himself was a judge of the most crabbed points of law.“He was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment, and to pay a fine of Iool He purchased the liberty of the rules of the King’s Bench, where he continued after the expiration of the year, being unable to pay the fine. Dr. Samuel Clarke had begun his solicitations at court for the releasement of Woolston, declaring that he did not undertake it as an approver of his doctrines, but as an advocate for that liberty which he himself had always contended for; but he was hindered from effecting it by his death, which happened soon after Woolston’s commitment. The greatest obstruction to his deliverance from confinement was the obligation of giving security not to offend by any future writings, he being resolved to write again as freely as before. While some supposed this author not in earnest, but meaning to subvert Christianity under a pretence of defending it; others believed him disordered, and not perfectly in his right mind; and many circumstances concurred to persuade to the latter of these opinions; but how, in either case, a prosecu-r tion for blasphemy comes to* be considered as persecution for religion, remains yet to be explained. Such a construction, however, appears to have been put upon it by the Clarkes and Lardners of those days, and by their successors in our own. As the sale of Woolston’s books was very great (for such blasphemies will find readers as well as advocates for the publication of them), his gains arising from them must have been proportionable; but he defrayed all the expences, and those not inconsiderable, to which his publishers were subjected by selling. He died January 27, 1732-3, after an illness of four days; and, a few minutes before his death, uttered these words:” This is a struggle which all men must go through, and which I bear not only patiently, but with willingness." His body was interred in St. George’s church-yard, Southwark.

, bishop of Exeter in queen Elizabeth’s reign', was born at Wigan in Lancashire, in 1535; he was nephew to the celebrated dean Nowell. He entered a student of Brasen-nose college, Oxford, in 1553, whence in 1555 he fled to his uncle and the other exiles in Germany. On Iris return in the- beginning of queen Elizabeth’s reign, he was made canon residentiary of Exeter, where he read a divinity lecture twice a week, and preached twice every Lord’s day; and in the time of the great plague, he only with one more remained in the city, preaching publicly as before, and comforting privately such as were infected with the disease. Besides his residentiaryship, he had the living of Spaxton in the diocese of Wells, and in 1575 became Warden of Manchester college. In 1579 he was consecrated bishop of Exeter, and, as he had been before esteemed a pious, painful, and skilful divine, he was now a vigilant and exemplary prelate. His character in this last respect excited some animosity, and a long string of accusations was presented against him to archbishop Parker, which Strype has recorded at length in his appendix to the life of that celebrated primate, all which bishop Woolton satisfactorily answered.

Bishop Godwin, the biographer, who married one of his daughters, and seems to have been with him in his last moments, says, he dictated letters, not two hours before his death, on subjects of importance, full of the piety and prudence of a man in health and vigour; and being reminded to consult his health, he repeated and applied the saying of Vespasian, that “a bishop ought to die upon his legs;” which in him, as before in the emperor, was verified, for as he was supported across the room (his complaint being an asthma) he sunk, and expired almost before he touched the ground, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. He was interred in Exeter cathedral, with a Latin inscription by his son. He composed many theological tracts, monitory and practical, which were all printed and published in the space of about twelve months, in the years 1576 and 1577. 1. “Anatornie of the whole man.” 2. “Christian manual.” 3. “Of Conscience.” 4. “Armour of proofe.” 5. < Immortalitie of the soule.“6.” Fortresse of the Faithfull,“and 7.” David’s Chain," which last is not mentioned by Wood or Ames.

, an artist of considerable merit, was a native of England, born in 1700, and for the greater part of his life painted portraits in miniature: he afterwards, with worse success, performed them in oil; but at last acquired reputation and money by etchings, in the manner of Rembrandt, which proved to be a very easy task, by the numbers of men who have counterfeited that master so as to deceive all those who did not know his works. Worlidge’s imitations and his heads in black-lead have grown astonishingly into fashion. His best, piece is the whole-length of sir John Astley, copied from Rembrandt, and his copy of the hundred Guilder print; but his print of the theatre at Oxford and the act there, and his statue of lady Pomfret’s Cicero, are very poor performances. His last work was a book of gems from the antique. He died at Hammersmith, Sept. 23, 1766, aged sixty-six.

, a learned physician of Denmark, was born May 13, 1588, at Arhusen, a city of Jutland, where his father was a burgomaster of an ancient family. He began his studies in his native place; but was sent, when very young, to the college of Lunenburg; and thence to Emmeric, in the duchy of Cleves. Having spent four years at these places, he was removed to Marpurg in 1605; and two years after to Strasburg, where he applied himself to physic, to which profession he had now given the preference, and going to Basil studied some time with advantage under Platerus and others. In 1608, he went to Italy, and during a residence of some months at Padua, his uncommon parts and learning procured him singular honours. He visited other cities of Italy, and passed thence into France, remaining three months at Sienna, and four at Montpelier; after which his design was, to make along abode at Paris; but the assassination of Henry IV. in 1610, about two months after his arrival, obliging him as well as other strangers to retire from that city, he went to Holland, and thence to Denmark. He had not yet visited the university of Copenhagen, so that his first care was to repair thither, and to be admitted a member of it. ‘He was earnestly entreated to continue there; but his passion for travelling was not yet satiated, and he resolved to see England first. The chemical experiments that were then carrying on at Marpurg made a great noise; and he went thither in 1611, with a view of perfecting himself in a science of great importance to a physician. Thence he journeyed to Basil, where he took the degree of doctor in physic; and from Basil to London, in which city he resided a year and a half. His friends grew now impatient to have him at home, where he arrived in 1613: and was scarcely settled, when he was made professor of the belles-lettres in the university of Copenhagen. In 1615, he was translated to the chair of the Greek professor; and, in 1624-, to the professorship of physic, in the room of Caspar Bartholin, which he held to his death. These occupations did not hinder him from practising in his profession, and from being the fashionable physician. ’The king and, court of Denmark always employed him; and Christian IV. as a recompence for his services, conferred on him the canonry of Lunden. He died Aug. 31, 1654, aged sixty-six.

Wormius had three wives, who brought him a family of sixteen children. He published some works on subjects relating to his profession, several in defence, of Aristotle’s philosophy, and several concerning the antiquities of Denmark and Norway. For these last he is principally remembered now, and they are esteemed very learned and correct; particularly his, I. “Fasti Danici,” 1626. 2. “A History of Norway,” 1633, 4to. 3. “Litteratnira Danica antiquissima, vulgo Gothica dicta, & de prisca Danorura Poesi,” 1636, 4to. 4. “Monumentorum Danicorurn libri VI.” 1643, folio. 5. “Lexicon Runicum, & Appendix ad Monumenta Danica,” 1650, folio. 6. “Series Regum Danise duplex, & limitum inter Daniam & Sueciam Descriptio,” 1642, folio. 7. “Talshoi, seu Monumentuni Stroense in Scania,” 1528, 4to. 8. “Monumentum Trygvvaldense,” 1636, 4to. All printed at Hafnia, or Copenhagen.