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The reputation which Mr. Bayle had now acquired, induced the states of Friezland, in 1684, to offer him a professorship in their university; but he wrote them a letter of thanks, and declined the offer. This same year he began to publish his “Nouvelles de la republique des lettres;” and the year following he wrote a second part to his “Censure on the History of Mr. Maimbourg.”

In 1686, he was drawn into a dispute respecting the famous Christina queen of Sweden: in his Journal for April, he took notice of a printed letter, supposed to have been written by her Swedish majesty to the chevalier de Terlon, wherein she condemns the persecution of the protestants in France. He inserted the letter itself in his Journal for May; and in that of June following he says: “What we hinted at in our last month, is confirmed to us from day to day, that Christina is the real author of the letter concerning the persecutions in France which is ascribed to her: it is a remainder of protestantism.” Mr. Bayle received an anonymous letter, the author of which says, that he wrote to him of his own accord, being in duty bound to it, as a servant of the queen. He complains that Mr. Bayle, speaking of her majesty, called her only Christina, without any title; he finds also great fault with his calling the letter, “a remainder of protestantism.” He blames him likewise for inserting the words “I am,” in the conclusion of the letter. “These words, says this anonymous writer, are not her majesty’s; a queen, as she is, cannot employ these words but with regard to a very few persons, and Mr. de Terlon is not of that number.” Mr. Bayle wrote a vindication of himself as to these particulars, with which the author of the anonymous letter declared himself satisfied, excepting as to what related to “the remainder of protestantism.” He would not admit of the defence with regard to that expression; and, in another letter, advised him to retract it. He adds in a postscript, “You mention in your Journal of August, a second letter of the queen, which you scruple to publish. Her majesty would be glad to see that letter, and you will do a thing agreeable to her, if you would send it to her. You might take this opportunity of writing to her majesty. This counsel may be of some use to you; do not neglect it.” Mr. Bayle took ithe hint, and wrote a letter to her majesty, dated the 14th of November 1686; to which the queen, on the 14th of December, wrote the following answer:

“I have received your excuses, and am willing you should know by this letter, that I am satisfied with them. I am obliged to the zeal of the person, who gave you occasion of writing to me; for I am very glad to know you. You express so much respect and affection for me, that I pardon you sincerely; and I would have you know, that nothing gave me offence but that ' remainder of protestantism, 7 of which you accused me. I am very delicate on that head, because nobody can suspect me of it, without lessening my glory, and injuring me in the most sensible manner. You would do well, if you should even acquaint the public with the mistake you have made, and with your regret for it. This is all that remains to be done by you, in order to deserve my being entirely satisfied with you. ”As to the letter which you have sent me, it is mine without doubt and since you tell me that it is printed, you will do me a pleasure if you send me some copies of Jt. As I fear nothing in France, so neither do I fear any thing at Rome. My fortune, my blood, and even my life, are entirely devoted to the service of the church; but I flatter nobody, and will never speak any thing but the truth. I am obliged to those who have been pleased to publish my letter; for I do not at all disguise my sentiments. I thank God, they are too noble and too honourable to be disowned. However, it is not true, that this letter was written to one of my ministers. As I have every where enemies, and persons who envy me, so I in all places have friends and servants; and I have possibly as many in France, notwithstanding the court, as any where in the world. This is purely the truth, and you may regulate yourself accordingly.

“But you shall not get off so cheap as you imagine. I will enjoin you a penance which is, that you will henceforth take the trouble of sending me all curious books that shall be published in Latin, French, Spanish, or Italian, on whatever subject or science, provided they are worthy of being looked into; I do not even except romances or satires: and above all, if there are any books of chemistry, I desire you may send them to me as soon as possible. Do not forget likewise to send me your ‘ Journal.’ I shall order that you be paid for whatever you lay out, do but send me an account of it. This will be the most agreeable and most important service that can be done me. May God prosper you. Christina Alexandra.”

It now only remained that Mr. Bayle should acquaint the public with the mistake he had made, and his regret for it, in order to merit that princess’s entire satisfaction. This he did in his Journal of January, 1687. “We have been informed, to our incredible satisfaction,” says he, “that the queen of Sweden having seen the ninth article of the Journal of August, 1686, has been pleased to be satisfied with the explanation we gave there. Properly, it was only the words f remainder of protestanism,' which had the misfortune to offend her majesty; for, as her majesty is very delicate on that subject, and desires that all the world should know, that after having carefully examined the different religions, she had found none to be true but the Roman catholic, and that she has heartily embraced it; it was injurious to her glory to give occasion for the least suspicion of her sincerity. We are therefore very sorry that we have made use of an expression, which has been understood in a sense so very different from our intention; and we would have been very far from making use of it, if we had foreseen that it was liable to any ambiguity: for, besides the respect which, we, together with all the world, owe to so great a queen, who has been the admiration of the universe from her earliest days, we join with the utmost zeal in that particular obligation which all men of letters are under to do her homage, because of the honour she has done the sciences, by being pleased thoroughly to examine their beauties, and to protect them in a distinguishing manner.”

The persecution which the protestants at this time suffered in France affected Mr. Bayle extremely. He made occasionally some reflections on their sufferings in his Journal; and he wrote a pamphlet also on the subject. Some time after he published his “Commentaire philosophique,” upon these words, “Compel them to come in;” against compulsion in matters of religion; but the great application he gave to this and his other works, threw him into a fit of sickness, which obliged him to discontinue his Literary Journal. Being advised to try a change of air, he left Rotterdam, and went to Cleves;, whence, after having continued some time, he removed to Aix la Chapelle, and thenct? returned to Rotterdam. In 1690, the famous book, entitled, “Avis aux Refugiez,” &c. made its appearance: Mr. Jurieu, who took Mr. Bayle for the author, wrote a piece against it, and prefixed an advice to the public, wherein he calls Mr. Bayle a profane person, and a traitor engaged in a conspiracy against the state. As soon as Mr. Bayle had read this accusation, he went to the grand schout of Rotterdam, and offered to go to prison, provided his accuser would accompany him, and undergo the punishment he deserved, if the accusation was found unjust. He published also an answer to Mr. Jurieu’s charge; and as his reputation, and even his life was at stake, in case the accusation of treason was proved, he therefore thought himself not obliged to keep any terms with his accuser, and attacked him with the utmost severity. Mr. Jurieu applied to the magistrates of Amsterdam, who advised him to a reconciliation with Mr. Bayle, and enjoined them not to publish any thing against each other till it was examined by Mr. Boyer, the pensioner of Rotterdam.But, notwithstanding this prohibition, Mr. Jurieu attacked Mr. Bayle again, and drew from him to write a new vindication of his character and principles.

In November, 1690, Mr. de Beauval advertised in his Journal, a scheme for a “Critical Dictionary.” This was the work of Mr. Bayle. The articles of the three first letters of the alphabet were already prepared; but a dispute happening betwixt him and Mr. de Beauval, he for some time laid the work aside. Nor did he resume it till May 1692, when he published his scheme; but the public not approving of his plan, he threw it into a different form, and the first volume was published in August, 1695, the second the October following. The work was extremely well received by the public; but it engaged him in fresh disputes, particularly with Mr. Jurieu and the abbe Renaudot. Mr. Jurieu published a piece, wherein he endeavoured to engage the ecclesiastical assemblies to condemn the Dictionary: he presented it to the senate sitting at Delft; but they took no notice of the affair. The consitory of Rotterdam granted Mr. Bayle a hearing; and after having heard his answers to their remarks on his Dictionary, declared themselves satisfied, and advised him to communicate this to the public. Mr. Jurieu made another attempt with the consistory in 1698; and so far he prevailed, that they exhorted Mr. Bayle to be more cautious about his principles in the second edition of his Dictionary; which was published in 1702, with many additions and improvements.

Mr. Bayle was a most laborious and indefatigable writer. In one of his letters to Des Maizeaux, he says, that since his 20th year he hardly remembers to have had any leisure. His intense application contributed perhaps to impair his constitution, for it soon began to decline. He had a decay of the lungs, which weakened him considerably; and as this was a distemper which had cut off several of his family, he judged it to be mortal, and would take no medicines. He died the 28th of December 1706, after he had been writing the greatest part of the day. He wrote several books besides what we have mentioned, many of which were in his own defence against attacks from the abbe Renaudot, M. le Clerc, M. Jaquelot, and others; a particular account of his works may be seen in the sixth volume of Niceron. Among the productions which do honour to the age of Lewis XIV. M.Voltaire has not omitted the Critical Dictionary of our author: It is the first work of the kind, he says, in which a man may learn to think. He censures indeed those articles which contain only a detail of minute facts, as unworthy either of Bayle, an understanding reader, or posterity. In placing him, continues the same author, amongst the writers who do honour to the age of Lewis XIV. although a refugee in Holland, I only conform to the decree of the parliament of Toulouse; which, when it declared his will valid in France, notwithstanding the rigour of the laws, expressly said, “that such a man could not be considered as a foreigner.”

The opinion of Voltaire, however, which we have preserved (as we have done the article of Bayle nearly as it stood in our last edition), must not be allowed much weight in a question where religion or morals are concerned. Bayle has been hailed as one of those who introduced the spirit of free inquiry; and while this merit maybe allowed him, we may add that he has exhibited in his own person, the consequences of pushing free inquiry beyond all reasonable and necessary bounds. But it would have been more just to have said that he was one of those who have conducted an opposition to the truths of revealed religion by the means of sarcasm and impertinence, instead of fair argument; and except the French Encyclopedic, there is not perhaps any book so likely to unsettle the minds of young readers as his celebrated Dictionary. Nor is this the only objection that may be urged against it. Bayle has been praised for his morality in private life; but what are we to think of the morals of a man, who not only taken every opportunity that may lay in his way to introduce obscene discussions, quotations, and allusions, but even perpetually travels out of his way in search of them, who delights in accumulating the anecdotes and imagery of vice, and presenting them to his readers in every shape? Considered in a critical light, this Dictionary may be allowed to form avast mass of information, but the plan is radically bad. It has been said that he wrote it merely for the sake of the notes, which had accumulated in his common-place book: hence the text bears a very small proportion to the notes suspended from it, and the reader’s attention is perpetually diverted from the narrative to attend, not always to what may throw light on the object of the text, but to Mr. Bayle’s tattle and gossip collected from various quarters, and from his own prolific and prurient imaginations It is much to be regretted that his reputation was such as to render this mode of writing Biography a fashion, and particularly that it was followed in our Biographia Britannica, in many parts of which Bayle’s garrulity has been exactly followed. With respect to Bayle’s other works, a reference for their titles to Niceron may he sufficient. They are now in little repute, and his fame must principally stand or fall on the merits of his Dictionary.

, one of the physicians to the king of Prussia, and member of the colleges of physicians of London and Edinburgh, was author of “An essay on the BathWaters, 1757;” “A narrative of facts demonstrating the existence and cause of a Physical Confederacy, made known in the printed letters of Dr. Lucas and Dr. Oliver, 1757,” and “An historical account of the General Hospital or Infirmary in the city of Bath,” 1758, all which excited a contest between him and his medical brethren, who seemed to have the public on their side, and he was excluded from consultations at Bath, where as well as in London he formerly practised physic. It is related of him that when he was first introduced to the late king of Prussia, to whom much had been said of his medical skill, the king observed to him, “That to have acquired so much experience, he must necessarily have killed a great many people.” To which the doctor replied, “Pas tant que vatre majeste,” “Not so many as your majesty.” He died in 1787 at Berlin, and left his library and medals to the king of Prussia, in the service of which court he had lived for many years. It was at the German Spa where his talents were first noticed. Previously to his going abroad he is said to have lived in a very splendid manner at Evesham in Worcestershire, and was once a candidate for a seat in the British parliament, but without success.

, an English prelate, was born at Caermarthen in Whales, and educated at the university of Oxford; but in what college, or what degrees he took is uncertain. We find only that he was admitted, as a member of Exeter college, to be reader of the sentences in 1611; about which time he was minister of Evesham in Worcestershire, chaplain to prince Henry, and rector of St. Matthew’s, Friday-street, in London. Two years after he took his degrees in divinity; and being very much celebrated for his talent in preaching, was appointed one of the chaplains to king James I. who nominated him to the bishopric of Bangor in the room of Dr. H. Rowlands, in which see he was consecrated at Lambeth, Dec. 8, 1616. On the 15th of July 1621, he was committed to the Fleet, but was soon after discharged. It is not certain what was the reason of his commitment, unless, as Mr. Wood observes, it was on account of prince Charles’s intended marriage with the Infanta of Spain. He died in the beginning of 1632, and was interred in the church of Bangor. His fame rests chiefly on his work entitled “The practice of Piety,” of which there have been a prodigious number of editions in 12mo and 8vo, that of 1735 being the fifty-ninth. It was also translated into Welsh and French in 1633, and such was its reputation, that John D'Espagne, a French writer, and preacher at Somerset-house chapel in 1656, complained, that the generality of the common people paid too great a regard to it, and considered the authority of it as almost equal to that of the Sqriptures. This book was the substance of several sermons, which Dr. Bayly preached while he was minister of Evesham. But Lewis du Moulin, who was remarkable for taking all opportunities of reflecting upon the bishops and church of England, in his “Patronus Bonce Fidei, &c.” published in 8vo, 1672, asserts, that “this book was written by a Puritan minister, and that a bishop, whose life was not very chaste and regular, after the author’s death, bargained with his widow for the copy, which he received, but never paid her the money; that he afterwards interpolated it in some places, and published it as his own.” It is not very probable, however, that a man “whose life was not very chaste and regular,” should have been anxious to publish a work of this description; but Dr. Kennet, in his Register, has very clearly proved that bishop Bayly was the real author.

, son of the above, born in Herefordshire, in 1595, entered of Exeter college in 1611, and became fellow the year following. His tutor was Dr. Prideaux. After completing his master’s degree, he went into orders, and had some church preferment from his father. He was afterwards one of his majesty’s chaplains, and guardian of Christ’s hospital in Ruthyn. He published “The Angel Guardian,” a collection of sermons, London, 1630, 4to, and some others which Wood has not enumerated, nor does he give any account of his death.

, the fourth and youngest son of bishop Bayly, was educated at Cambridge, and having commenced B. A. was presented to the subdeanery of Wells by Charles I. in 1638. In 1644, he retired with other loyalists to Oxford, where, proceeding in his degrees he was created D. D. and two years after wle find him with the marquis of Worcester, in Ragland castle, after the battle of Naseby. When this was surrendered to the parliament army, on which occasion he was employed to draw up the articles, he travelled into France and other countries; but returned the year after the king’s death, and published at London, in 8vo, a book, entitled “Certamen Religiosum, or a conference between king Charles I. and Henry late marquis of Worcester, concerning religion, in Ragland castle, anno 1646.” But this conference was believed to have no real foundation, and considered as nothing else than a prelude to the declaring of himself a papist. The same year, 1649, he published “The Royal Charter granted unto kings by God himself, &c. to which is added, a treatise, wherein is proved, that episcopacy is jure dvvino” 8vo. These writings giving offence, occasioned him to be committed to Newgate whence escaping, he re^ tired to Holland, and became a zealous Roman catholic. During his confinement in Newgate, he wrote a piece entitled, “Herba Parietis, or the wall-flower, as it grows out of the stone-chamber belonging to the metropolitan prison; being an history, which is partly true, partly romantic, morally divine; whereby a marriage between reality and fancy is solemnized by divinity,” Lond. 1650, in a thin folio. Some time after, he left Holland, and settled at Douay where he published another book, entitled “The end to controversy between the Roman catholic and Protestant religions, justified by all the several manner of ways, whereby all kinds of controversies, of what nature soever, are usually or can possibly be determined,” Douay, 1654, 4to, and afterwards “Dr. Bayly’s Challenge.” At last this singular person went to Italy, where he lived and died extremely poor (although Dodd says that he died in cardinal Ottoboni’s family) for Dr. Trevor, fellow of Merton college, who was in Italy in 1659, told Mr. Wood several times, that Dr. Bayly died obscurely in an hospital, and that he had seen the place where he was buried.

The works above mentioned occasioned the following answers; “A vindication of the Protestant Religion against the marquis of Worcester’s last papers. By Christ Cartwright, JLond. 1652, 4to.” An answer to the marquis of Worcester’s papers relating to king Charles I.“by L'Esstrange, Load. 1651, 8vo.” Answer to Dr. Bayly’s Challenge,“an imperfect work, by Rob. Sanderson.” Animadversions on Certamen Religiosum, &c. by Peter Hey1m, who in 1649, 1650, and 1659, published a collection of papers entitled “Bibliotheca Regia.” In this, says Wood, is inserted the conference between king Charles I. and the marquis of Worcester at Ragland, which is by many taken to be authentic, because published by Heylin.

Dr. Bayly’s name is likewise to a well-known “Life of bishop Fisher,” which is said to have been the production of Richard Hall, D.D. of Christ church, Cambridge, and afterwards canon and official of the cathedral church of St. Omer’s, where he died in 1604. The manuscript, after his death, came into the possession of the English monks of Dieulwart, in Lorrain; from whence a copy fell into the hands of one Mr. West, who presented it to Francis a St. Clara, alias Francis Davenport, a Franciscan friar. Davenport gave it to sir Wingfield Bodenham, who put it into the hands of Dr. Bayly. The doctor read it, took a copy of it, and sold it to a bookseller who published it with Dr. Bayly’s name. — Such is the account Wood gives, and in which he is followed by Dodd, on which we have only to remark that this life is preceded by a dedication signed with the doctor’s initials, and avowing himself to be the author.

, a learned English lady, the only daughter of Dr. Edward Baynard, a gentleman of an ancient family, and an eminent physician in London, was born at Preston, in Lancashire, in 1672. Her father, who discovered her early capacity, bestowed great care on her education, and was rewarded by the extraordinary proficiency she made in various branches of learning not usual with her sex^ She? was well acquainted with philosophy, mathematics, and physics. She was also familiar with the writings of the ancients in their original languages. At the age of twentythree she had the knowledge of a profound philosopher, and in metaphysical learning was a nervous and subtle disputant. She took great pains with the Greek language, that she might read in their native purity the works of St. Chrysostom. Her Latin compositions, which were various, were written in a pure and elegant style. She possessed an acute and comprehensive mind, an ardent thirst of knowledge, and a retentive memory. She was accustomed to declare, “that it was a sin to be content with a little knowledge.” To theendowments of the mind she added the virtues of the heart she was modest, humble, and benevolent, exemplary in her whole conduct, and in every relative duty. She was pious and constant in her devotions, both public and private; beneficent to the poor; simple in her manners; retired, and rigid in her notions and habits. It was her custom to lay aside a certain portion of her income, which was not large, for charitable uses; to this she added an ardent desire and strenuous efforts for the mental and moral improvement of those within her circle and influence. About two years previous to her death, she seems to have been impressed with an idea of her early dissolution which first suggested itself to her mind while walking alone among the tombs, in a church-yard and which she indulged with much complacency. On her death-bed she earnestly entreated the minister who attended her, that he would exhort all the young people of his congregation to the study of wisdom and knowledge, as the means of moral improvement and real happiness. “I could wish,” says she, “that all young persons might be exhorted to the practice of virtue, and to increase their knowledge by the study of philosophy; and especially to read the great book of nature, therein they may see the wisdom and power of the Creator, in the order of the universe, and in the production and preservation of all things.” “That vr omen are capably of such improvements, which will better their judgments and understandings, in past all doubt, would they but set sjbout it in earnest, and spend but half of that time in study thinking) which they do in visits, vanity, and folly. It would introduce a composure of mind, and lay a solid basis for wisdom and knowledge, by which they would be better enabled to serve God, and to help their neighbours.” These particulars are taken from her funeral sermon, preached at Barnes, where she died in her 25th year, June 12, 1697, by the rev. John Prade, and reprinted in that useful collection of such documents, “Wilford’s Memorials.” She was interred at the East end of the churchyard of Barnes, with a monument and inscription, of which no traces are now to be found, but the inscription is preserved in Aubrey.

, was born in April 1758, at Middleham, in Yorkshire where his father, who afterwards retired from business, then followed the profession of the Jaw. Mr. Baynes received his education at Richmond, under the rev. Mr. A. Temple, author of three discourses, printed in 1772; of “Remarks on the Layman’s Scriptural Confutation; and letters to the rev. Thomas Randolph, D. D. containing a defence of Remarks on the Layman’s Scriptural Confutation,” 1779, 8vo. At school he soon distinguished himself by his superior talents and learning, and by the age of fourteen years was capable of reading and understanding the Greek classics. From Richmond he was sent to Trinity college, Cambridge; where, before he had arrived at the age of twenty years, he obtained the medals given for the best performances in classical and mathematical learning. In 1777 he took the degree of B. A.; and determining to apply himself to the study of the law, he about 1778, or 1779, became a pupil to Alien Chambre, esq. and entered himself of the society of Gray’s-inn. In 1780 he took the degree of M. A. and about the same time was chosen fellow of the college. From this period he chiefly resided in London, and, warmed with the principles of liberty, joined those who were clamorous in calling for reformation in the state. He was a member of the constitutional society, and took a very active part at the meeting at York, in December, 1779. In his political creed he entertained 'the same sentiments with his friend Dr. Jebb; and, like him, without hesitation renounced those of his party whom he considered to have disgraced themselves by the unnatural coa^ lition between lord North and Mr. Fox. We are told, however, that if the warmth of his political pursuits was not at all times under the guidance of discretion, he never acted but from the strictest principles of integrity. He had a very happy talent for poetry, which by many will be thought to have been misapplied, when devoted as it was, to the purposes of party. He wrote many occasional pieces in the newspapers, particularly in the London Courant, but was very careful to conceal himself as the writer of verses, which he thought would have an ill effect on him in his profession, a species of caution not much calculated to prove that independence of spirit for which men of his stamp contend. There is great reason to believe that he wrote the celebrated Archaeological epistle to Dr. Milles, dean of Exeter. It is certain this excellent performance was transmitted to the press through his hands; and it is more than probable, that the same reason which occasioned him to decline the credit of his other poetical performances, influenced him to relinquish the honour of this. It is a fact, however, which should not be suppressed, that he always disclaimed being the author of this poem; and when once pressed on the subject by a friend, he desired him to remember when it should be no longer a secret, that he then disowned it. Mr. Baynes had many friends, to whom he was sincerely attached, and by whom he was greatly beloved. Scarce any man, indeed, had so few enemies. Even politics, that fatal disuniter of friendships, lost its usual effect with him. As he felt no rancour towards those from whom he differed, so he experienced no malignity in return. What he conceived to be right, neither power nor interest could deter him from asserting. In the autumn before his death, when he apprehended the election for fellows of Trinity college to be irregularly conducted, he boldly, though respectfully, with others of the society, represented the abuse to the heads of the college; and when, instead of the expected reform, an admonition was given to the remonstrants, to behave with more respect to their superiors, conscious of the rectitude of their intentions, he made no scruple of referring the conduct of himself and his friends to a higher tribunal, but the matter was not decided before his death. It was his intention to publish a more correct edition of lord Coke’s tracts; and we are informed he left the work nearly completed. His death is supposed to have been occasioned by an intense application to business, which brought on a putrid fever, of which he died, universally lamented, August 3, 1787, after eight days illness. In the ensuing week he was buried near the remains of his friend Dr. Jebb, privately, in Bunhill-fields burying-ground.

, an English divine of considerable eminence at Cambridge, was a native of London. He received his school-education at Withersfield, in Essex, and was afterwards admitted of Christ college, Cambridge, where his behaviour was so loose and irregular that his father left what he meant to bestow on him, in the hands of Mr. Wilson, a tradesman of London, with an injunction not to let him have it, unless he forsook his evil courses. This happy change took place not long after his father’s death, and Mr. Wilson delivered up his, trust. In the interim, although his moral conduct was censurable, such was his proficiency in learning, that he was elected a fellow of his college; and after his reformation, having been admitted into holy orders, he was so highly esteemed for his piety, eloquence, and success, as a preacher, that he was chosen to succeed the celebrated Perkins, as lecturer of St. Andrew’s church. In this office he continued until silenced for certain opinions, not favourable to the discipline of the church, by Abp. Bancroft’s visitor, Mr. (afterwards archbishop) Harsnet; and Mr. Baynes appealed, but in vain, to the archbishop. On another occasion he was summoned by Dr. Harsnet, then bishop of Chichester, to the privy-council, but acquitted himself so much to the satisfaction of all present, that he met with no farther trouble. During his suspension from the regular exercise of his ministry, he employed himself on his writings, none of which, if we may judge from the dates of those we have seen, were published in his life-time. He died at Cambridge, in 1617. His works are: 1. “A commentary on the first chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians, handling the controversy of Predestination,” London, 1618, 4to. 2. “The Diocesan’s Trial, wherein all the sinews of Dr. Downham’s defence are brought into three heads, and dissolved,” 1621. 3. “Help to true happiness, explaining the fundamentals of Christian religion,” London, 12m'o. 3d edit. 1635. 4. “Letters of consolation, exhortation, direction, with a sermon of the trial of a Christian’s estate, 1637, 12mo. 5.” A Commentary on the epistle to the Ephesians," Lond. fol. 1643.

, an English prelate, was a native of Yorkshire, and educated in St. John’s college, Cambridge, where he attained considerable reputation, as an expounder of the Scriptures, and as a Greek and Hebrew scholar. Having taken his degree of D. D. he went over to Paris, and was for some time royal professor of Hebrew. He remained abroad during the latter part of the reign of Henry VIII. and the whole of Edward VI. but upon the accession of queen Mary, with whose principles he coincided, he was consecrated bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. When queen Elizabeth succeeded, he was deprived, and for some time imprisoned, but lived afterwards in the bishop of London’s house. He died in 1559, of the stone. Fuller says, in allusion to the persecutions he occasioned in his diocese, that although he was as bad as Christopherson, he was better than Bonner. He wrote “Prima Rudimenta in linguam Hebraicam,” Paris, 1550, 4to, and “Comment, in proverbia Salomonis, lib. III.” ibid, and same year, fol.

, an eminent physician, and professor of music at Gresham-college, in London, was born about the year 1622, and educated at Christ’s college, in Cambridge, under the tuition of the learned Dr. Henry More, where he took the degree of B. A. about the year 1642. In 1649, he took the degree of M. A. and commenced the study of physic. He went into Italy in company with Mr. Finch (afterwards sir John), with whom he had contracted the strictest friendship; and at Padua they were both created doctors of physic. Upon the restoration of king Charles II. in 1660, Mr. Baynes and Mr. Finch returned into England, and the same year were created doctors of physic at Cambridge. On the 26th of February following, Mr. Baynes, together with sir John Finch, was admitted a fellow extraordinary, i. e. one bey.ond the then limited number, of the college of physicians of London. Dr. Petty having resigned his professorshjp of music in Gresham-coilege, Dr. Baynes was chosen to succeed him, the 8th of March, 1660; and the 26th of June following, he and his friend sir John Finch were admitted graduates in physic at Cambridge, in pursuance of the grace passed in their favour the year before. In March 1663, they were elected F. K. S. upon the first choice made by the council, after the grant of their charter, of which they had been members before; and May 15, 1661, had, with several others, been nominated a committee for a library at Gresham college, and for examining of the generation of insects. In March 1664, Dr. Baynes accompanied sir John Finch to Florence, where that gentleman was appointed his majesty’s resident, and returned back with him into England in 1670. Towards the end of the year 1672, sir John being appointed the king’s ambassador to the grand signer, Dr. Baynes was ordered to attend him as his physician, and before he left England, received from his majesty the honour of knighthood.' Nine years after, sir Thomas still continuing in Turkey, the Gresham committee Cound it necessary to supply his professorship, by chusing Mr. William Perry in his room, but of this he never heard, as he died at Constantinople about a month after, Sept. 5, 1681, to the inexpressible grief of his affectionate friend, sir John Finch, who died Nov. 18, 1682, and according to his own desire, was interred at Cambridge, in the chapel of Christ’s college, whither the remains of sir Thomas had been brought. Dr. Henry More inscribed a long epitaph to their memories, commemorating their many virtues and steady friendship. They jointly left four thousand pounds to that college, by which two fellowships and two scholarships were fouuded, and an addition made to the master’s income. Sir John was supposed to have paid most of the money, though he was willing that sir Thomas should share with him in the honour of this donation, as in all his other laudable actions. This instance of a long and inviolably mutual attachment, may be added to the histories of human friendship, which are so rare, and so gratifying when they do occur. Is it not probable that these two gentlemen imbibed something of the noble enthusiasm they were inspired with from tljeir tutor, Dr. Henry More; who was a man of the warmest and most generous affections, and a great adept in the Platonic philosophy?

, an Italian physician, of great reputation in his day, charitably attentive to the wants of the poor, and so successful in his practice, as to be often consulted by princes and men of rank, who munificently rewarded his services, was born at Turin, about the year 1478, and became first physician to Charles II. (or according to Dict. Hist. Charles III.) duke of Savoy. He died April 1, 1558. His works are: 1. “De pestilentia ej usque curatione per preservationum et curationum regimen,” Turin, 1507, 4to, Paris, 1513, 8vo. 2. “Lexipyretae perpetuae questionis et annexorum solutio, de nobilitate facultatum per terminos utriusque facultatis,” Turin, 1512, fol. 3. “De medendis humani corporis mahs Enchyridion, quod vulgo Vade-mecum vocant,” Basil," 1563, and often reprinted.

a physician at Strasburgh, who died in May 1754, was not more esteemed for his successful practice, than for his knowledge of botany and natural history. In his pursuit of these studies, he published: 1. “Observations sur les Plantes,” Strasburgh, 1741, 8vo. 2. “Traite de Taccroissement des Plantes,” 1745, 8vo. 3. “Histoire des Abeilles,” Paris, 1744, 2 vols. 12mo. 4. “Lettre sur le Polypes,” 1745, 12mo. 5. “Abrege” de Phistoire des Insectes," Paris, 1747, 2 vols. 12mo, an excellent abridgment of Reaumur.

, engraver, and letter-founder, was born at Troyes, in 1525, son of Guilleaume le Be, a noble bourgeois, and Magdalen de St. Aubin. Being brought up in the house of Robert Stephens, whom his father supplied with paper, he got an insight into the composition of the types of that famous printing-house. He afterwards, by order of Francis I. made those beautiful oriental types which Robert Stephens used; and Philip II. employed him to prepare those with which his Bible of Antwerp was printed. In 1545 le B6 took a journey to Venice, and there cut for Mark Anthony Justiniani, who had raised a Hebrew printing-house, the punches necessary to the casting of the founts to be employed in that establishment. Being returned to Paris, he there practised his art till 1598, the year of his decease. Casaubon speaks of him highly to his credit in his preface to the Opuscula of Scaliger. Henry le Be, his son, was a printer at Paris, where he gave in 1581, a quarto edition of the “Institutiones Clenardi Gr.” This book, which was of great utility to the authors of the “Methode Grecque” of Port-royal, is a master-piece in printing. His sons and his grandsons signalised themselves in the same art. The last of them died in 1685.

, an English writer, was a wine merchant at Wrexham, in Denbighshire, a man of learning, great humanity, of an easy fortune, and much respected. He published in 1737, “Eugenio, or virtuous and happy life,” 4to, a poem inscribed to Pope, and by no means destitute of poetical merit. He submitted it in manuscript to Swift, who wrote him a long and very candid letter, now printed in his works, and Mr. Beach adopted Swift’s corrections. He is said to have entertained very blameable notions in religion, but his friends endeavoured to vindicate him from this charge, when his death took place, May 17, 1737, precipitated by his own hand.

, one of the English reformers, was a native of Norfolk, or Suffolk, and educated at Cambridge, where he took his bachelor’s degree in 1530. He was presented on May 24, 1547, to the rectory of St. Stephen Walbrook, ol which he was deprived in 1554, and imprisoned twice in queen Mary’s time, but escaped to Marpurg. From Strasburgh, in the same year, we find him addressing an “Epistle to the Faithful in England,” exhorting them to patient perseverance in the truth. After queen Mary’s death, he returned to England, and in 1560 was preferred to the rectory of Buckland, in Hertfordshire, and in 1563 to that of St. Dionis Backchurch, in London. He was also a prebend of the fourth stall in Canterbury cathedral, and had been, in Cranmer’s time, chaplain to that celebrated prelate. Tanner’s account of his promotions is somewhat different. We learn from Strype, in his life of Grindall, that he objected at first, but afterwards conformed to the clerical dress, some articles of which at that time were much scrupled by the reformers who had lived abroad. He died at Canterbury, about 1570, in his sixtieth year. In the Heerologia, a work not much to be depended on, it is said that he was professor of divinity at Oxford, an assertion contrary to all other authority. He wrote:

I. “Counts Dominica et Missse Papistical comparatio,” Basil, 1559, 8vo. 2. “Various treatises,” fol. printed by Day, 1560. 3. “The Acts of Christe and Antichriste,” Lond. 1577, 12mo. 4. “The reliques of Rome,” by Day, 1563, 16mo. On the opposite side to the title is the head of the author, with the inscription, “Ætatis suae 41, 1553,” which makes the time of his birth 1512; and at the time of his persecution in 1541, he must have been about twenty-nine years of age. 5. “Postills upon the sundry Gospels,” Lond. 4to, 1566. 6. “His works,” Lond. 1564, 2 vols. 7. “The Sick man’s salve, or directions in sickness, and how to dye,” Edin. 1613, 8vo. It has been said that he was the first Englishman that wrote against bowing at the name of Jesus, but no such work is enumerated in the list of his writings.

, a portrait-painter in the reign of Charles II. was daughter of Mr. Cradock, minister of Walton upon Thames, but was born in Suffolk in 1632. She was assiduous in copying the works of sir Peter Lely and Vandyke. She painted? in oil, water-colours, and crayons; and had much business. The author of the essay towards an English school of Painters, annexed to De Piles’s art of Painting, says, that “she was little inferior to any of her contemporaries, either for colouring, strength, force, or life; insomuch that sir Peter was greatly taken with her performances, as he would often acknowledge. She worked with a wonderful body of colours, and was exceedingly industrious.” She was greatly respected and encouraged by many of the most eminent among the clergy of that time; she took the portraits of Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Patrick, Wilkins, &c. some of which are still remaining at the earl of Ilchester’s, at Melbury, in Dorsetshire. In the manuscripts of Mr. Oldys, she is celebrated for her poetry as well as for her painting; and is styled “that masculine poet, as well as painter, the incomparable Mrs. Beale.” In Dr. S. Woodford’s translation of the Psalms, are two or three versions of particular psalms, by Mrs. Beale: whom, in his preface, he calls “an absolutely complete gentlewoman r” He says farther, “I have hardly obtained leave to honour this volume of mine with two or three versions, long since done by the truly virtuous Mrs. Mary Beale; among whose least accomplishments it is, that she has made painting and poetry, which in the fancies of others had only before a kind of likeness, in her own to be really the same. The reader, I hope, will pardon this public acknowledgement, which I make to so deserving a person.” She died Dec. 28, 1697, in her 66th year. She had two sons, who both exercised the art of painting some little time; one of them afterwards studied physic under Dr. Sydenham, and practised at Coventry, where he and his father died. There is an engraving, by Chambers, from a painting by herself, of Mrs. Beale, in Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting in England.

, or Belus, who was the eldest sou of Robert Beale, a descendant from the family of Beale, of Woodbridge, in Suffolk, appears to have been educated to the profession of the civil and canon law. He was an exile on account of religion, in queen Mary’s days, but some time after his return, married Editha, daughter of Henry St. Barbe, of Somersetshire, and sister to the lady of sir Francis Walsingham, under whose patronage he first appeared at court. In 1571 he was secretary to sir Francis when sent ambassador to France, and himself was sent in the same character, in 1576, to the prince of Orange. Heylin and Fuller inform us that he was a great favourer of the Puritans, and wrote in defence of their principles. About the year 1564 he wrote in defence of the validity of the marriage between the earl of Hertford and lady Catherine Grey, and against the sentence of the delegates, which sentence was also opposed by the civilians of Spire, and of Paris, whom Beale had consulted. Strype, in his life of Parker, mentions his “Discourse concerning the Parisian massacre by way of letter to the lord Burghley.” His most considerable work, however, is a collection of some of the Spanish historians, under the title “Rerum Hispanicarum Scriptores,” Francf. 1579, 2 vdls. fol. He was by the interest of Walsingham appointed secretary for the northern parts, and a clerk of the privy council. Camden seems to think that his attachment to Puritanism made him be chosen to convey to Fotheringay the warrant for heheading Mary queen of Scots, which he read on the scaffold, and was a witness of its execution. He was also one of the commissioners at the treaty of Bologne, the year before his death, which event happened May 25, 1601, at Barnes, in Surrey. He was interred in the parish church of Allhallows, London Wall.

, D. D. master of the Charterhouse, was born May 1, 1697, and elected scholar of the Charter-house, on the nomination of lord Somers, July 19, 1710; whence, in Nov. 1712, he was elected to the university, and was matriculated of St. Mary Magdalen hall, Oxford, Dec. 17, following. In 1716 he took his bachelor’s degree, and in June 1717, was elected probationary, and two years after, actual fellow of Merton college. After taking deacon’s orders in 1718, and priest’s in 1719, and proceeding M. A. he was appointed preacher to the Charter-house in 1724. In 1730 he accumulated the degrees of B. and D. D. and in 1738 was made one of the king’s chaplains, and in March 1739, secretary to the society for propagating the gospel in foreign parts. In 1743 he was instituted to the rectory of Stormouth in Kent, which he held by dispensation, and was elected master of the Charter-house Dec. 18, 1753. He died Nov. 17,1761. Although a man of worth and learning, he had no talents for writing. The only attempt he made was in his “Historical Account of Thomas Sutton, esq. and of his Foundation in the Charter-house,” Lond. 1737, 8vo. He intended also to have published a collection of the Rules and Orders, but being prevented by the governors, some extracts only were printed in a quarto pamphlet, and dispersed among the officers of the house.

, an English actor and singer, born in 1717, was bred up in the king’s chapel, and was one of the singers in the duke of Chandos’s chapel at Cannons, where he performed in Esther, an oratorio composed by Mr. Handel. He appeared the first time on the stage at Drury-lane, Aug. 30, 1737, in sir John Loverule, in the “Devil to Pay.” He afterwards, on the 8th of Jan. 1739, married lady Henrietta Herbert, daughter of J&mes earl Waldegrave, and widow of lord Edward Herbert, second son of the marquis of Powis. She died 31st of May 1753. On his marriage he quitted the stage for a few years. He afterwards returned to Drury-lane, and in 1744 to Coventgarden, where he remained until 1758. In that year he engaged with Mr. Garrick, and continued with him until 1759, when having married a daughter of Mr. Rich, he was engaged at Covent-garden, where, on the death of that gentleman, he became manager. His first appearance there was on the 10th of Oct. 1759, in the character of Macheath, which, aided by Miss Brent in Polly, ran fifty-two nights. In 1768 he retired from the theatre, and died universally respected at the age of seventy-four, in 1791. His remains were deposited in the vault of the church at Hampton in Middlesex. He was long the deserved favourite of the public; and whoever remembers the variety of his abilities, as actor and singer, in oratorios and operas, both serious and comic, win 1 testify to his having stood unrivalled in fame and excellence. This praise, however, great as it -was, fell short of what his private merits acquired. He had one of the sincerest hearts joined to the most polished manners. He was a most delightful companion, whether as host or guest. His time, his pen, and purse, were devoted to the alleviation of every distress that fell within the compass of his power, and through life he fulfilled the relative duties of son, brother, guardian, friend, and husband, with the most exemplary truth and tenderness.

, archbishop of St. Andrew’s in Scotland, and cardinal of the Roman church, was born 1494, and educated in the university of St. Andrew’s. He was afterwards sent over to the university of Paris, where he studied divinity; and when he attained a proper age, entered into orders. In 1519 he was appointed resident at the court of France; about the same time his uncle James Beaton, archbishop of Glasgow, conferred upon him the rectory of Campsay; and in 1523 this uncle, being then archbishop of St. Andrew’s, gave him the abbacy of Aberbrothock, or Arbroath. David returned to Scotland in 1525, and in 1528 was made lord privy seal. In 1533 he was sent again to France, in con-­junction with sir Thomas Erskine, to confirm the leagues subsisting between the two kingdoms, and to bring about a marriage for king James V. with Magdalene, daughter of the king of France; but the princess being in a very bad state of health, the marriage could not then take effect. During his residence, however, at the French court, he received many favours from his Christian majesty. King James having gone over to France, had the princess Magdalene given him in person, whom he espoused on the first of January 1537. Beaton returned to Scotland with their majesties, where they arrived the 29th of May; but the death of the queen happening the July following, he was sent over again to Paris, to negotiate a second marriage for the king with the lady Mary, daughter to the duke of Guise and during his stay at the court of France, he was consecrated bishop of Mirepoix. All things being settled in regard to the marriage, in the month of June, he embarked with the new queen for Scotland, where they arrived in July: the nuptials were celebrated at St. Andrew’s, and the February following the coronation was performed with great splendour and magnificence in the abbey church of Holyrood -house.

Beaton, though at this time only coadjutor of St. Andrew’s, yet had all the power and authority of the archbishop; and in order to strengthen the catholic interest in Scotland, pope Paul III. raised him to a cardinalship, by the title of St. Stephen in Monte Ccelo, Dec. 20, 1538. King Henry VIII. having intelligence of the ends proposed! by the pope in creating him a cardinal, sent a very able ^minister to king James, with particular instructions for a deep scheme to procure the cardinal’s disgrace; but it did not take effect. A few months after, the old archbishop flying, the cardinal succeeded: and it was upon this promotion that he began to shew his warm and persecuting zeal for the church of Rome. Soon after his instalment, Jie got together, in the cathedral of St. Andrew’s, a great confluence of persons of the first rank, both clergy and laity; to whom, from a throne erected for the purpose, he made a speech, representing to them the danger wherewith tha church was threatened by the increase of heretics, who had the boldness to profess their opinions even in the king’scourt; where, said he, they find but too great countenance: and he mentioned by name sir John Borthwicl:, whom he had caused to be cited to that diet, for dispersing heretical books, ^nd holding several opinions contrary to the doctrine of the Roman church. Then the articles of accusation were read against him, and sir John appearing neither in person nor by proxy, was declared a heretic, his goodsconfiscated, and himself burnt in effigy. Sir John retired to England, where he was kindly received by king Henry, who seat him into Germany, in his name, to conclude a treaty with the protestant princes of the empire. Sir John Borthwick was not the^only person proceeded against for heresy; several others were also prosecuted, and among the rest, George Buchanan, the celebrated poet and historian: and as the king left all to the management of the cardinal, it is difficult to say to what lengths such a furious zealot might have gone, had not the king’s death put a stop to his arbitrary proceedings.

When the king died, there being none so near him as the cardinal, it was suggested by his enemies that he forged his will; and it was set aside, notwithstanding he had it proclaimed at the cross of Edinburgh, in order to establish the regency in the earls of Argyle, Huntley, Arran, and himself. He was expressly excluded from the government, and the earl of Arran was declared sole regent during the minority of queen Mary. This was chiefly effected by the noblemen in the English interest, who, after having-sent the cardinal prisoner to Blackness-castle, managed the public affairs as they pleased. Things did not remain long, however, in this situation for the ambitious enterprising“cardinal, though confined, raised so strong a party, that the regent, not knowing how to proceed, began to dislike his former system, and having at length resolved to abandon it, released the cardinal, and became reconciled to him. Upon the young” queen’s coronation, the cardinal was again admitted of the council, and had the high office of chancellor conferred upon him; and such was now his influence with the regent, that he got him to solicit the court of Rome to appoint him legate a latere from the pope, which was accordingly done.

His authority being now firmly established, he began again to promote the popish cause with his utmost efforts. Towards the end of 1545 he visited some parts of his diocese, attended with the lord governor, and others of the nobility, and ordered several persons to be executed for heresy. In 1546 he summoned a provincial assembly of the clergy at the Black friars in Edinburgh, in order to concert measures for restraining heresy. How far they proceeded is uncertain; but it is generally allowed that the cardinal was diverted from the purposes he had then in hand, by information he received of Mr. George Wisbart, the most famous protestant preacher in Scotland, being at the house of Mr. Cockburn at Ormiston. The cardinal, by an order from the governor, which was indeed with difficulty obtained, caused him to be apprehended. He was for some time confined in the castle of Edinburgh, and removed from thence to the castle of St. Andrew’s. The cardinal, having resolved to proceed without delay to his trial, summoned the prelates to St. Andrew’s. At this meeting the archbishop of Glasgow gave as his opinion, that application should be made to the governor, to grant a commission to some nobleman to try so famous a prisoner, that the whole blame might not lie upon the clergy. He was accordingly applied to; and notwithstanding his refusal, and his message to the cardinal, not to precipitate his trial, and notwithstanding Mr. Wishart’s appeal, as being the governor’s prisoner, to a temporal jurisdiction; yet the furious prelate went on with the trial, and this innocent gentleman was condemned to be burnt at St. Andrew’s. He died with amazing firmness and resolution: and it is averred by some writers, that he prophesied in the midst of the flames, not only the approaching death of the cardinal, but the circumstances alsa that should attend it. Buchanan’s account is as follows: After relating the manner in which Mr. Wishart spent the morning of his execution, he proceeds thus: “A while after two executioners were sent to him by the cardinal; one of them put a black linen shirt upon him, and the other bound many little bags of gun-powder to all the parts of his body. In this dress they brought him forth, and commanded him to stay in the governor’s outer chamber, and at the same time they erected a wooden scaffold in the court before the castle, and made up a pile of wood. The windows and balconies over against it were all hung with tapestry and silk hangings, with cushions for the cardinal and his train, to behold and take pleasure in the joyful sight, even the torture of an innocent man; thus courting the favour of the people as the author of so notable a deed. There was also a great guard of soldiers, not so much to secure the execution, as for a vain ostentation of power and beside, brass guns were placed up and down in all convenient places of the castle. Thus, while the trumpets sounded, George was brought forth, mounted the scaffold, and was fastened with a cord to the stake, and having scarce leave to pray for the church of God, the executioners fired the wood, which immediately taking hold of the powder that was tied about him, blew it up into flame and smoke. The governor of the castle, who stood so near that he was singed with the flame, exhorted him in a few words to be of good cheer, and to askpardon of God for his offences. To whom he replied, ` This flame occasions trouble to my body indeed, but it hath in no wise broken my spirit; but he, who now looks down so proudly upon me from yonder lofty place (pointing to the cardinal) shall ere long be as ignominiously thrown down, as now he proudly lolls at his ease.' Having thus spoken, they straitened the rope which was tied about his neck, and so strangled him; his body in a few hours being consumed to ashes in the flame.”

This prophecy, however, is called in question by others, who treat it as a story invented after the cardinal’s death. Archbishop Spotswood and Mr. Petrie follow Buchanan in regard to the circumstances of Mr. Wishart’s death and his prophecy. On the other side, Mr. Keith suggests that the story is very doubtful, if not false. “I confess,” says he, “I give but small credit to this, and to some other persons that suffered for religion in our country, and which upon that account I have all along omitted to narrate. I own I think them ridiculous enough, and seemingly contrived, at least magnified, on purpose to render the judges and clergymen of that time odious and despicable in the eyes of men. And as to this passage concerning Mr 1 Wishart, it may be noticed, that there is not one word of it to be met with in the first edition of Mr. Knox’s History; and if the thing had been true in fact, I cannot see how Mr. Knox, who was so good an acquaintance of Mr. Wishart’s, and no farther distant from the place of his execution than East Lothian, and who continued some months along with the murderers of cardinal Beaton in the castle of St. Andrew’s, could either be ignorant of the story, or neglect in history so remarkable a prediction. And it has even its own weight, that sir David Lindsay, who lived at that time, and wrote a poem called ‘ The tragedy of cardinal Beaton,’ in which he rakes together all the worst things that could be suggested against this prelate, yet makes no mention either of his glutting himself inhumanly with the spectacle of Mr. Wishart’s death, nor of any prophetical intermination made by Mr. Wishart concerning the cardinal; nor does Mr. Fox take notice of either of these circumstances, so that I am much of the mind, that it has been a story trumped up a good time after the murder.”

This proceeding, however, made a great noise throughout the kingdom; the zealous papists applauded his conduct, and the protestants exclaimed against him as a murderer; but the cardinal was pleased with himself, imagining he had given a fatal blow to heresy, and that he had struck a terror into his enemies.

Soon after the death of Mr. Wishart, the cardinal went to Finhaven, the seat of the earl of Crawford, to solemnize a marriage between the eldest son of that nobleman and his daughter Margaret. Whilst he was thus employed, intelligence came that the king of England was making great preparations to invade the Scottish coasts. Upon this he immediately returned to St. Andrew’s; and appointed a day for the nobility and gentry of that country, which lies much exposed to the sea, to meet and consult what was proper to be done upon this occasion. He likewise began to fortify his own castle much stronger than ever it had been before. Whilst he was busy about these matters, there came to him Norman Lesley, eldest son to the earl of Rothes, to solicit him for some favour; who, having met with a refusal, was highly exasperated, and went away in great displeasure. His uncle Mr. John Lesley, a violent enemy to the cardinal, greatly aggravated this injury to his nephew; who, being passionate and of a daring spirit, entered into a conspiracy with his uncle and some other persons to cut off the cardinal. The accomplices met early in the morning, on Saturday the 29th of May. The first thing they did was to seize the porter of the castle, and to secure the gate: they then turned out all the servants and several workmen. This was performed with so little noise, that the cardinal was not waked till they knocked at his chamber door upon which he cried out, “Who is there?” John Lesley answered, “My name is Lesley.” “Which Lesley?” replied the cardinal, “Is it Norman?” It was answered, “that he must open the door to those who were there,” but being afraid, he secured the door in the best manner he could. Whilst they were endeavouring to force it open, the cardinal called to them, “Will you have my life?” John Lesley answered, “Perhaps we will.” “Nay,” replied the cardinal, “swear unto me, and I will open it.” Some authors say, that upon a promise being given that no violence should be offered, he opened the door; but however this be, as soon as they entered, John Lesley smote him twice or thrice, as did likewise Peter Carmichael; but James Melvil, as Mr. Knox relates the fact, perceiving them to be in choler, said, “This work and judgment of God, although it be secret, ought to be done with greater gravity; and, presenting the point of his sword, said, Repent thee of thy wicked life, but especially of the shedding the blood of that notable instrument of God, Mr. George Wishart, which albeit the flame of fire consumed before men, yet cries it for vengeance upon thee; and we from God are sent to revenge it. For here, before my God, I protest, that neither the hatred of thy person, the love of thy riches, nor the fear of any trouble thou couldst have done to me in particular, moved or moveth me to strike thee; but only because thou hast been, and remainest, an obstinate enemy against Christ Jesus and his holy gospel.” After having spoken thus, he stabbed him twice or thrice through the body: thus fell that famous prelate, a man of great parts, but of pride and ambition boundless, and withal an eminent instance of the instability of what the world calls fortune. This event is said to have taken place May 29, 1546. Though cardinal Beaton’s political abilities were undoubtedly of the highest kind, and some false stories may have been told concerning him, it is certain that his ambition was unbounded, that his insolence was carried to the greatest pitch, and that his character, on the whole, was extremely detestable. His violence, as a persecutor, must ever cause his memory to be held in abhorrence, by all who have any feelings of humanity, or any regard for religious liberty. It is to the honour of Mr. Guthrie, that, in his History of Scotland, he usually speaks of our prelate with indignation.

With respect to the story of cardinal Beaton’s having forged king James the Fifth’s will, the fact is considered as an undoubted one, by the generality of modern, as well as the more early historians. Dr. Robertson and Mr. Guthrie both speak of it in this light. Mr. Hume, in the following words, expresses himself with a certain degree of caution upon the subject. “He (Beaton) forged, it is said, a will for the king, appointing himself, and three noblemen, regents of the kingdom during the minority of the infant princess: at least, for historians are not well agreed in the circumstances of the fact, he had read to James a paper of that import, to which that monarch, during the delirium which preceded his death, had given an imperfect assent and approbation.”

The story of Wishart’s prediction, concerning the fate of his malignant persecutor, seems to be controverted on good grounds. If there be any thing in the fact, it certainly was not a prophecy properly so called, but a mere denunciation of the divine vengeance, which Wishart might naturally think would fall upon the cardinal for his iniquities. He could not but know, too, how hateful Beaton was to many persons, and that he might be expected to become a victim to his arrogance and cruelty. Mr. Hume, who admits the prediction, says that it was probably the immediate cause of the event which it foretold. Whatever becomes of this part of the story concerning Wishart’s martyrdom, the other part of it, relative to the cardinal’s viewing the execution from a window, is highly credible, and perfectly suitable to his character.

The sons of the archbishop were James, Alexander, and John. They were all legitimated in his own life-time, and are termed the natural sons of the right reverend, &c.

We shall add Dr. Robertson’s character of our prelate, when he mentions his pretensions to the regency. “The cardinal was by nature of immoderate ambition; by long experience he had acquired address and refinement; and insolence grew upon him from continual success. His high station in the Church placed him in the way of great employments; his abilities were equal to the greatest of these; nor did he reckon any of them to be above his merit. As his own eminence was founded upon the power of the Church of Rome, he was a zealous defender of that superstition, and for the same reason an avowed enemy to the doctrine of the reformers. Political motives alone determined him to support the one or to oppose the other. His early application to public business kept him unacquainted with the learning and controversies of the age: He gave judgment, however, upon all points in dispute, with a precipitancy, violence, and rigour, which contemporary historians mention with indignation.” Cardinal Beaton wrote, if we may depend upon Dempster, “Memoirs of his own Embassies;” “a treatise of Peter’s primacy,” which had been seen by William Barclay, and “Letters to several persons:” Of these last there are still some copies, said to be preserved in the library of the French king.

, archbishop of St. Andrew’s in the reign of James V. was uncle to the preceding. We have no certain account of his birth, or of the manner of his education, except that, being a younger brother, he was from his infancy destined for the church. He had great natural talents, and having improved them by the acquisition of the learning fashionable in those times, he came early into the world, under the title of Provost of Both well; a preferment given him through the interest of his family. He received his first benefice in 1503, and next year was advanced to the rich preferment of abbot of Dumferling. In 1505, upon the death of sir David Beaton, his brother, his majesty honoured him with the staff of high-treasurer, and he was thenceforward considered as one of the principal statesmen. In 1508 he was promoted to the hishopric of Galloway, and before he had sat a full year in that cathedral chair, he was removed to the archiepiscopal see of Glasgow, on which he resigned the treasurer’s staff, in order to be more at leisure to mind the government of his diocese: and indeed it is universally acknowledged, that none mflffe carefully attended the duties of his functions than archbishop Beaton while he continued at Glasgow; and he has left there such marks of concern for that church, as have baffled time, and the rage of a distracted populace: the monuments of his piety and public spirit which he raised at Glasgow, still remaining to justify this part of his character. It does not appear that he had any hand in the counsels which drove king James IV. into a fatal war with England. On the death of this monarch in the battle of Flodden-field, the regent John duke of Albany appointed our prelate to be high-chancellor. In 1523 he became archbishop of St. Andrew’s, not only by the favour of the regent, but with the full consent of the young king, who was then, and all his life, much under the influence of the archbishop’s nephew David, the subject of the preceding article. The power of the regent, “however, being abrogated by parliament, and the earl of Angus haying placed himself at the head of government, our archbishop was dismissed the court, and obliged to resign the office of chancellor; but when the Douglases were driven from court, and the king recovered his freedom, the archbishop came again into power, although he did not recover the office of chancellor. He now resided principally at the palace of St. Andrew’s, and, as some say, at the instigation of his nephew, the cardinal, proceeded with great violence against the protestants, and is particularly accountable for the death of Patrick Hamilton, the protomartyr of Scotland, a young man of piety, talents, and high birth, whom he procured to be burnt to death, although it is but justice to add that the same sentence was subscribed by the other archbishop, three bishops, six abbots and friars, and eight divines. He is even said to have had some degree of aversion to such proceedings. The clergy, however, were for stopping the mouths of such as preached what they disliked, in the same manner as they had done Hamilton’s. The archbishop moved but heavily in these kind of proceedings; and there are two very remarkable stories recorded to have happened about this time, which very plainly shew he was far enough from being naturally inclined to such severities. It happened at one qf their consultations, that some who were most vehement pressed for going on with the proceedings in the Archbishop’s court, when one Mr. John Lind$ey, a man in great credit with the archbishop, delivered himself to this purpose” If you burn any more of them, take my advice, and burn them in cellars, for I dare assure you, that the smoke of Mr. Patrick Hamilton has infected all that it blew upon.“The other was of a more serious nature; one Alexander Seton, a black friar, preached openly in the church of St. Andrew’s, that, according to St. Paul’s description of bishops, there were no bishops in Scotland, which being reported to the archbishop, not in very precise terms, he sent for Mr. Seton, and reproved him sharply for having said, according to his information,” That a bishop who did not preach was but a dumb dog, who feel not the flock, but fed his own belly.“Mr. Seton said, that tho.se vvho had reported this were liars, upon which witnesses were produced, who testified very positively to the fact. Mr. Seton, by way of reply, delivered himself thus:” My lord, you have heard, and may consider, what ears these asses have, who cannot discern between Paul, Isaiah, Zachariah, Malachi, and friar Alexander Seton. In truth, my lord, I did preach that Paul saith, it hehoveth a bishop to be a teacher. Isaiah saith, that they that feed not the flock are dumb dogs; and the prophet Zachariah saith, that they are idle pastors. Of my own head I affirmed nothing, but declared what the Spirit of God before pronounced; at whom, my lord, t if you be not offended, you cannot justly be offended with me.“How much soever the bishop might be incensed, he dismissed friar Seton without hurt, who soon afterwards fled out of the kingdom. It does not appear, that from this time the archbishop acted much in these measures himself, but chose rather to grant commissions to others that were inclined to proceed against such as preached the doctrines of the reformation, a conduct which seems very fully to justify the remark of archbishop Spotswood upon our prelate’s behaviour.” Seventeen years,“says he,” he lived bishop of this see, and was herein most unfortunate, that under the shadow of his authority many good men were put to death for the cause of religion, though he himself was neither violently set, nor much solicitous (as it was thought) how matters went in the church."

In the promotion of learning, he shewed a real concern, by founding the New-college in the university of St. Andrew’s, which he did not live to finish, and to which, though he left the best part of his estate, yet after his death it was misapplied, and did not come, as he intended, to that foundation. One of the last acts of his life was the being present at the baptism of the young prince, born at St. Andrew’s the very year in which he died. His nephew Dieted for several years as his co-adjutor, and had the whole management of affairs in his hands; but the king retained to the last so great an affection for the archbishop, that he allowed him to dispose of all his preferments, by which means, his relation, George Drury, obtained the rich abbey of Dumferline, and one Mr. Hamilton, of the house of Roplock, became Abbot of Killwinning. Our archbishop deceased in 1539, and was interred in the cathedral church of St. Andrew’s before the high altar. He enjoyed the primacy of Scotland sixteen years, and his character is very differently represented, according to the dispositions of those who have mentioned him in their writings; but upon the whole more favourably than that of his nephew, the cardinal.

, another nephew of the preceding, and archbishop of Glasgow, was educated chiefly at Paris, and was early employed in political affairs but we have no account of the various steps by which he arrived at the archbishopric of Glasgow, to which he was consecrated in 1552, as some writers report, at Rome, whither he was very probably sent, to lay before the pope an acco.unt of the ecclesiastical affairs in Scotland after the murder of his uncle. He was, however, no sooner advanced to this dignity than he began to be considered as one of the ablest as well as most powerful persons in the kingdom. In 1557, he was one of the commissioners appointed to witness the marriage of the young queen Mary to the dauphin of France, a commission to which the historians of the ti-ue affix great importance. After his return, he acted as a privy-counsellor to the queen dowager, who was appointed by her daughter regent of Scotland, and laboured, although in vain, to preserve internal peace. When the reformers became powerful enough to make a successful stand against the court, our archbishop retired to France, carrying with him the treasures and records or' the archiepiscopal see, and carefully deposited them in the Scots college in Paris. On his arrival in France, he was extremely well received by queen Mary, then sovereign of that country, and by the court of France. Immediately after his departure, the reformers in Scotland appointed a preacher at Glasgow, seized all the revenues of the archbishopric, and would no doubt have proceeded against his person had he appeared.

When it was found that he could not return in safety, Mary, now a widow, and inclined to visit her hereditary dominions, determined to secure his services and residence in France, by making him her ambassador to the French, court, which she first declared in 1561, and confirmed in 1564. Under this commission he acted as long as he lived, and the papers and letters he preserved would have no doubt formed valuable materials for future historians; but there is reason to think the greater part have been taken away or destroyed. While he remained at Paris, a? ambassador of Scotland, he received very little, if any thing, from thence: for we find Mr. James Boyd appointed superintenclant of that diocese after the death of Mr. Willock; and upon the death of Mr. Boyd in 1578, it was bestowed on Mr. Robert Montgomery, who, in 1587 resigned it to Mr. Erskine, by whom the best part of the revenues of tue see were granted away to t <e family of Lenox. But not long after, king James VI. becoming of age, and having a full account of our author’s fidelity to his mother, restored him both to the title and estate of his archbishopric, of which he had been so long deprived. Before this, however, he had obtained several ecclesiastical preferments in. France, for the support of his dignity, which he enjoyed as long as he lived, king James continuing him there as his ambassador, to whom he rendered many important services. He was universally and deservedly esteemed for his learning, loyalty, and hearty affection to his country. He was uniform in his conduct, sincere in his religion, and unb tameable in his morals, and lived in credit abroad, beloved and admired by all parties, and left his memory unstained to posterity. He died April 24, 1603, aged eighty-six, and was succeeded in his see by the celebrated Spotswood, Archbishop Beaton is said, by Dempster, to have written, 1. “A Commentary on the book of Kings.” 2. “A Lamentation for the kingdom of Scotland.” 3. “A book of Controversies against the Sectaries.” 4. “Observations upon Gratian’s Decretals” and 5. “A collection of Scotch proverbs.” None of these have been printed.

, LL. D. an eminent philosopher, critic, and poet, was born at Laurencekirk, in the county of Kincardine, Scotland, on the 25th day of October, 1735. His father, who was a farmer of no considerable rank, is said to have had a turn for reading and fur versifying; but, as he died in 1742, when his son was only seven years of age, could have had no great share in forming his mind. James was sent early to the only school his birth-place afforded, where he passed his time under the instructions of a tutor named Milne, whoin he used to represent as a “good grammarian, and tolerably skilled in the Latin language, but destitute of taste, as well as of some other qualifications essential to a good teacher.” He is said to have preferred Ovid as a school-author, whom Mr. Beattie afterwards gladly exchanged for Virgil. Virgil he had been accustomed to read with great delight in Ogi ivy’s and Dryden'g translations, as he did Homer in that of Pope; and these, with Thomson’s Seasons, and Milton’s Paradise Lost, of all which he was very early fond, probably gave him that taste for poetry which he afterwards cultivated with so much success. He was already, according to his biographer, inclined to making verses, and among his schoolfellows went by the name of The Poet.

At this school he made great proficiency by unremitting diligence, and appeared to much advantage on his entering Marischal college, Aberdeen, in 1749, where he obtained the first of those bursaries or exhibitions which were left for the use of students whose parents are unable to support the entire expences of academical education. Here he first studied Greek, under principal Thomas Blackwell, author of the “Inquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer,” &c. who with much of the austerity of pedantry, was kind to his diligent scholars, and found in Mr. Beattie a disposition worthy of cultivation and of patronage. In the following year he bestowed on him the premium for the best Greek analysis, which happened to be part of the fourth book of the Odyssey, and at the close of the session 1749-50, he gave him a book elegantly bound, with the following inscription: "Jacobo Beattie, in prima classe, ex comitatu Mernensi, post examen publicum librum hunc a^rewovl*, præmium dedit T. Blackwell, Aprilis 3° MDCCL.“The other professor, with whom Mr. Beattie was particularly connected, was the late Dr. Alexander Gerard, author of” The genius and evidences of Christianity;“” Essays on Taste and Genius" and other works. Under these gentlemen our author’s proficiency, both at college and during the vacations, was very exemplary, and he accumulated a much more various stock of general knowledge than is usual with young men whose ultimate destination is the church. The delicacy of his health requiring amusement, he found, as he supposed, all that amusement can give, in cultivating his musical talents, which were very considerable.

The only science in which he made no extraordinary proficiency, was mathematics, in which although he performed the requisite tasks, he was eager to return to subjects of taste or general literature. In every other branch of academical study, he never was satisfied with what he learned within the walls of the college. His private reading was extensive and various, and he became insensibly partial to the cultivation of those branches on which his future celebrity was to depend.

In 1753, having gone through every preparatory course of study, he took the degree of M. A. and had now technically finished his education. Having hitherto been supported by the generous kindness of an elder brother, he wished to exonerate his family from any further burden. With this laudable view, there being a vacancy for the office of school-master and parish-clerk to the parish of Fordoun, adjoining to Laurencekirk, he accepted the appointment, August 1, 1753; but this was neither suited to his disposition, nor advantageous to his progress in life. He obtained in this place, however, a few friends, particularly lord Gardenstown and lord Monboddo, who honoured him with encouraging notice; and his imagination was delighted by the beautiful and sublime scenery of the place, which he appears to have contemplated with the eye of a poet. His leisure hours he employed on some poetical attempts, which, as they were published in the “Scots Magazine,” with his initials, and sometimes with his place of abode, must have contributed to make him yet better known and respected.

The church of Scotland was at this time the usual resource of well-educated youn^ men, and with their academical stores in full memory, there were few difficulties to be surmounted before their entrance on the sacred office. Although this church presents no temptations to ambition, Mr. Beattie appears to have regarded it as the only means by which he could obtain an independent rank in life. He returned, therefore, during the winter, to Marischal college, and attended the divinity lectures of Dr. Robert PolJock, of that college, and of professor John Lumsden, of King’s, and performed the exercises required by the rules of both. One of his fellow-students informed sir William Forbes, that during their ^tendance at the divinity-hall, he heard Mr. Beattie deliver a discourse, which met with much commendation, but of which it was remarked by the audience, that he spoke poetry in prose.

While the church seemed his only prospect, and one which he never contemplated with satisfaction, there occurred, in 1757, a vacancy for one of the masters of the grammar school of Aberdeen, a situation of considerable importance in all respects. On this occasion Mr. Beattie was advised to become a candidate; but he was diffident of his qualifications, and did not think himself so retentive of the grammatical niceties of the Latin language as to be able to answer readily any question that might be put to him by older and more experienced judges. In every part of life, it may be here observed, Mr. Beattie appears to have formed an exact estimate of his own talents and in the present instance he failed just where he expected to fail, rather in the circumstantial than the essential requisites for the situation to which he aspired. The other candidate was accordingly preferred. But Mr. Seattle’s attempt was attended with so little loss of reputation, that a second vacancy occurring a few months after, and two candidates appearing, both unqualified for the office, it was presented to him by the magistrates in the most handsome manner, without the form of a trial, and he immediately entered upon it in June 1758.

He had not been long an usher at this school before he published a volume of poems. An author’s first appearance is always an important era. Mr. Beattie’s was certainly attended with circumstances that are not now common. This volume was announced to the public in a more humble manner than the present state of literature is thought to demand in similar cases. On the 18th of March 1760, not the volume itself, but “Proposals for printing original Poems and Translations,” were issued. The poems appeared accordingly, on Feb. 16, 1761, and were published both in London and Edinburgh. They consisted partly of originals, and partly of the pieces formerly printed in the Scots Magazine, but altered and corrected, a practice which Mr. Beattie carried almost to excess in all his poetical works.

The praise bestowed on this volume was very flattering. The English critics, who then bestowed the rewards of literature, considered it as an acquisition to the republic of letters, and pronounced that since Mr. Gray (whom in their opinion Mr. Bealtie had chosen for his model) they had not met with a poet of more harmonious numbers, more pleasing imagination, or more spirited expression. But notwithstanding praises which so evidently tended to give a currency to the poems, and which were probably repeated with eagerness by the friends who had encouraged the lication, the author, upon more serious consideration, was so dissatisfied with this volume as to destroy every copy he could procure, and some years after, when his taste and judgment hecame fully matured, he refused to acknowledge above four of them, namely, Retirement, ode to Hope, elegy on a Lady, and the Hares, and these he almost rewrote before he would permit them to be printed with the Minstrel.

But notwithstanding the lowly opinion of the author, these poems contributed so much to the general reputation he had acquired, that he was considered as deserving of a higher rank. Accordingly a vacancy happening in Marischal college, his friends made such earnest applications in his behalf, that in September 1760 he was appointed, by his late majesty’s patent, professor of philosophy. His department in this honourable office extended to moral philosophy and logic; and such was his diligence, and such his love of these studies, that within a few years he was not only enabled to deliver an admirable course of lectures on moral philosophy and logic, but also to prepare for the press those works on which his fame rests; all of which, there is some reason to think, were written, or nearly written, before he gave the world the result of his philosophical studies in the celebrated " Essay on Truth.' 7 It may be added, likewise, that the rank he had now attained in the university entitled him to associate more upon a level with Reid and with Campbell, with Gerard and with Gregory, men whose opinions were in many points congenial, and who have all been hailed, by the sister country, among the revivers of Scotch literature. With these gentlemen and a few others, he formed a society or club for the discussion of literary and philosophical subjects. A part of their entertainment was the reading a short essay, composed by each member in his turn. It is supposed that the works of Reid, Campbell, Beattie, Gregory, and Gerard, or at least the outlines of them, were first discussed in this society, either in the foYm of essay, or of a question for familiar conversation.

In 1765, Mr. Beattie published “The Judgment of Paris,” a poem, in 4to. Its design was to prove that virtue alone is capable of affording a gratification adequate to our whole nature, the pursuits of ambition or sensuality promising only partial happiness, as being adapted not to our whole constitution, but only to a part of it. So simple a position seems to require the graces of poetry to set it off. The reception of this poem, however, was unfavourable, and although he added it to a new edition of his poems, in 1766, yet it was never again reprinted, and even his biographer has declined reviving its memory by an extract. To this edition of 1766 he added a poem “On the talk of erecting a Monument to Churchill in Westminster-hall,” which, sir William Forbes says, was first published separately, and without a name. That it was printed separately we are informed on undoubted authority, but we question if it was ever published for sale unless in the above-mentioned edition of his poems. The asperity with which these lines are marked induced his biographer, contrary to his first intention, to omit them, but they are added to his other poems, in the late edition of “English Poets.”

Although Mr. Beattie had now acquired a station in which his talents were displayed with great advantage, and commanded a very high degree of respect, the publication of the “Essay on Truth” was the great era of his life; for this work carried his fame far beyond all local bounds and local partialities. It is not, however, necessary to enter minutely into the history of a work so well known. Its professed intention was to trace the several kinds of evidence and reasoning up to their first principles, with a view to ascertain the Standard of Truth, and explain its Immutability. He endeavours to show that his sentiments, however inconsistent with the genius of scepticism, and with the practice and principles of sceptical writers, were yet perfectly consistent with the genius of true philosophy, and with the practice and principles of those whom all acknowledge to have been the most successful in the investigation of truth; and he concludes with some inferences or rules, by which the most important fallacies of the sceptical philosophy may be detected by every person of common sense, even though he should not possess acuteness of metaphysical Itnowledge sufficient to qualify him for a logical confutation of them.

When this work was completed, so many difficulties occurred in procuring it to be published, that his friends, sir William Forbes and Mr. Arbuthnot, were obliged to become the-pnrchasers, unknown to him, at a price with which they thought he would be satisfied. Sir William accordingly wrote to him that the manuscript was sold for fifty guineas, as the price of the first edition. This edition was published in an octavo volume in 1770, and bought up with such avidity that a second was called for, and published in the following year. The interval was short, but as the work had excited the public attention in an extraordinary degree, the result of public opinion had reached the author’s ear, and to this second edition he added a postscript, in vindication of a certain degree of warmth of which he had been accused.

The “Essay on Truth,” whatever objections were made to it, and it met with very few public opponents*, had a more extensive circulation than probably any work of the kind ever published. This may be partly attributed to the charms of that popular style in which the author conveyed his sentiments on subjects which his adversaries had artfully disguised in a metaphysical jargon, the meaning of which they could vary at pleasure; but the eagerness with which it was bought up and read, arose chiefly from the just praise bestowed upon it by the most distinguished friends of religion and learning in Great Britain. With many of these of high rank both in church and state, the author had the pleasing satisfaction of dating his acquaintance from the publication of this work. There appeared, indeed, in the public in general, an honourable wish to grace the triumph of sound reasoning over pernicious sophistry. Hence in less than four years five large editions of the Essay were sold f, and it was translated into several foreign languages, and attracted the notice of many emi­* The principal publication was Dr. hut the flippant and sarcastic style he

Priestley’s " Examination of Dr. Reid assumed on this occasion was disapon the Human Mind; Dr. Beattie on proved even hy his own friends, the Nature and Immutability of Truth;

and Dr. Oswald’s Appeal to Common f The first appeared in May 1770;

fersthe system of Dr. Hartley, which 1772; the fourth, Jan, 1773; and the

he was then endeavouring to introduce, fifth, Feb. 1774. nent persons in France, Germany, Holland, Italy, and other parts of the continent.

Among other marks of respect, the university of Oxford conferred the degree of LL.D. on the author*, and on his second arrival in London he was most graciously received by his Majesty, who not only bestowed a pension on him, but admitted him to the honour of a private conference. Many years after, when Dr. Beattie went to pay his respects to his Majesty, he was still received with every mark of royal condescension and kindness.

It was in July 1771 that Dr. Beattie first visited London, and commenced a personal acquaintance with men of the first eminence, with lord Mansfield and lord Lyttelton, Drs. Kurd, Porteus, Johnson, Mr. Burke, and, indeed, the whole of the literary society whose conversations have been so pleasantly detailed by Mr. Boswell; and returned to Scotland with a mind elevated and cheered by the praise, the kindness, and the patronage, of the good and great. It was, however, on his second visit to London, in 1773, that he received his degree from Oxford, and those honours from his majesty, which we anticipated as a direct, though not an immediate consequence of the services he rendered to his country by the publication of the “Essay on Truth.” His conversation with his majesty is detailed at some length by himself, in a diary published by sir William Forbes.

Soon after this visit to London he was solicited by a very flattering proposal sent through the hands of Dr. Porteus, late bishop of London, to enter into the church of England. A similar offer had been made some time before by the archbishop of York, but declined. It was now renewed with more importunity, and produced from him the important reasons which obliged him still to decline an offer which he could not but consider as “great and generous.” By these reasons, communicated in a letter to Dr. Porteus, we find that he was apprehensive of the injury that might be done to the cause he had espoused, if his enemies should have any ground for asserting that he had written his Essay on Trutn, with a view to promotion: and he was likewise of opinion, that it might have the appearance of levity and insincerity, and even of want of principle, were he to quit, without any other apparent motive than that of bettering his circumstances, the church of which he had hitherto been a member. Other reasons he assigned, on this occasion, of some, but less weight, all which prevailed on his friends to withdraw any farther solicitation, while they honoured the motives by which he was influenced. In the same year he refused the offer of a professor’s chair in the university of Edinburgh, considering his present situation as best adapted to his habits and to his usefulness, and apprehending that the formation of a new society of friends might not be so easy or agreeable in a place where theenemies of his principles were numerous. To some of his friends, however, these reasons did not appear very convincing.

Although Mr. Beattie had apparently withdrawn his claims as a poet, by cancelling as many copies of his juvenile attempts as he could procure, he was not so inconscious of his admirable talents, as to relinquish what was an early and favourite pursuit, and in which he had probably passed some of his most delightful hours. A few months ;;fter the appearance of the “Essay on Truth,” he published the “First Book of the Minstrel,” in 4to, but without his name. By this omission, the poem was examined with all that rigour of criticism which may be expected in the case of a work, for which the author’s name can neither afford protection or apology. He was accordingly praised for having adopted the measure of Spenser, because he had the happy enthusiasm of that writer to support and render it agreeable; but objections were made to the limitation of his plan to the profession of the Minstrel, when so much superior interest might be excited by carrying him on through the practice of it. These objections appear to have coincided with the author’s re-consideration; and he not only adopted various alterations recommended by his friends, particularly Mr. Gray, but introduced others, which made the subsequent editions of this poem far more perfect than the first.

The Minstrel, however, in its first fornij contained somany passages of genuine poetry, the poetry of nature and of feeling, and was so eagerly applauded by those whose right of opinion was incontestable, that it soon ran through four editions; and in 1774, the author produced the Second Book;" and as its success was not inferior to that of the first, h was the general wish that the author would fulfil his promise by completing the interesting subject; but the increasing business of education, the cares of a family, and the state of his health, originally delicate, and never robust, deprived him of the time and thought which he considered as requisite. In 1777, however, he was induced to publish the two parts of the Minstrel together, and to add a few of his juvenile poems.

During the preceding year, 1776, he prepared for the press a new edition of the “Essay on Truth,” in a more splendid form than it had hitherto appeared in, and attended by a very liberal subscription, and with other circumstances of public esteem which were very flattering. The list of subscribers amounted to four hundred and seventy-six names of men and women of the first rank in life, and of all the distinguished literary characters of the time. The copies subscribed for amounted to seven hundred and thirty-two, so that no inconsiderable sum must have accrued in this delicate manner to the author. Dr. Beattie was by no means rich; his pension was only two hundred pounds, and the annual amount of his professorship never reached that sum.

The Essays added to this volume, and which he afterwards printed separately in 8vo, were “On Poetry and Music” on “Laughter and ludicrous Composition and” on the utility of Classical Learning." They were written many years before publication, and besides being read in the private literary society already mentioned, had been submitted to the judgment of his learned friends in England, who recommended them to the press.

For the frequent introduction of practical and serious observations, he offers a satisfactory reason in the preface to “Dissertations Moral and Critical, on Memory and Imagination; on Dreaming; the Theory of Language; on Fable and Romance; on the Attachments of Kindred; and Illustrations on Sublimity,” 1783, 4to. These, he informs us, were at first composed in a different form, being part of a course of prelections read to those young gentlemen whom it was his business to initiate in the elements of moral science; and he disclaims any nice metaphysical theories, or other matters of doubtful disputation, as not suiting his ideas of moral teaching. Nor was this the disgust of a metaphysician “retired from business.” He had ever been of the same opinion, Dr. Beattie’s aim was, indeed > in all his lectures, “to inure young minds to habits of attentive observation; to guard them against the influence of bad principles; and to set before them such views of nature, and such plain and practical truths, as may at once improve the heart and the understanding, and amuse and elevate the fancy*.”

Of these Essays, the preference has been generally given to those on “Memory and Imagination,” and on “Fable and Romance,” and to “The Theory of Language,” and in re-publishing the latter separately for the use of seminaries of education, he complied with the wish, of many readers and critics.

During a visit to the metropolis in 1784, Dr. Beattie submitted to the late bishop of London, with whose friendship he had long been honoured, a part of a work which at that excellent prelate’s desire he published in 1786, entitled “Evidences of the Christian Religion briefly and plainly stated,” 2 vols. 12mo. This likewise formed part of his concluding lectures to his class, and he generally tlictated an abstract of it to them in the course of the session. From a work of this kind, and on a subject which had employed the pens of the greatest and best English writers, much novelty was not to be expected, nor in its original form was any novelty intended. It must be allowed, however, that he has placed many of the arguments for the evidences of Christianity in a very striking and persuasive light, and it is not too much to suppose that if he could have devoted more time and study to a complete review and arrangement of what had, or might be advanced on these evidences, he would have produced a work worthy of his genius, and worthy of the grandeur and importance of the subject.

* Cowper’s praise of this volume, ts his ease too, that his own character too valuable to be omitted “Beat-appears in every page, and, which it tie, the most agreeable and amiable very rare, we see not only the writer, writer 1 ever met with the only au-but the man and the man so gentle, thor I have seen whose critical and so well tempered, so happy in his rephilosophical researches are diversified ligion, and so humane in his philosoand embellished by a poetical imagi-phy, that it is necssary to love him if nation, that makes even the driest one has any sense of what is lovely.” subject, and the leanest, a feast for an Hayley’s Life of Cowper, vol. III. epicure in boks. He is Bo much at p. 247. to present to thd public, in a correct and somewhat enlarged form, the abstract which he used to dictate to his scholars. Accordingly, in 1790, he published “Elements of Moral Science,” vol. I. 8vo, including psychology, or perceptive faculties and active powers; and natural theology, with two appendices on the Incorporeal Nature and on the Immortality of the Soul. The second volume was published in 1793; containing ethics, economics, politics, and logic. All these subjects are necessarily treated in a summary manner; but it will be found sufficiently comprehensive, not only for a text-book, or book of elements, which was the professed intention of the author, but also as an excellent aid to the general reader who may not have an opportunity of attending regular lectures, and yet wishes to reap some of the advantages of regular education.

In vol. II. there occurs a dissertation against the Slave Trade, which the author informs us he wrote in 1778 with a view to a separate publication. He exposed the weak defences set up for that abominable traffic with wonderful acuteness, and thus had the honour to contribute to that mass of conviction which at length became irresistible, and delivered the nation from her greatest reproach.

To the second volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, published in 1790*, he contributed “Remarks on some passages of the sixth book of the Æneid.” This was, in fact, a dissertation on the mythology of the Romans, as poetically described by Virgil, in the episode of the descent of ^neas into hell; and the author’s object was to vindicate his favourite poet from the charges of impiety, &c. brought against him by Warburton and others. In the same year he is said to have superintended an edition of “Addison’s periodical Papers,” published at Edinburgh in 4 vols. 8vo. To this, however, he contributed only a few notes to Tickell’s Life of Addison, and to Dr. Johnson’s remarks. It were to be wished he had done more. Addison never had a warmer admirer,. nor a more successful imitator.

In 1794 appeared the last work our author composed, and its history requires some notice of his family. In 1767 be married Miss Mary Dun, daughter of Dr. James Dun,

* About 1773 he printed a letter tained a few specimens of translations to Dr. Blair “On the improvement of of the Palms. He printed also some Psalmody in Scotland.” This was years after a list of ScuUicism-j, for the duly privately circulated. It con- use of his students. rector or head master of the grammar-school of Aberdeen, a man of great personal worth, and an excellent classical scholar.

With this lady Dr. Beattie enjoyed for many years as much felicity as the married state can add; and when she visited London with him, she shared amply in the respect paid to him, and in the esteem of his illustrious friends. By her he had two sons, James Hay, so named from the earl of Errol, one of his old and steady friends; and Montagu, from the celebrated Mrs. Montagu, in whose house Dr. Beattie frequently resided when in London. While these children were very young, Mrs. Beattie was seized with an indisposition, which, in spite of all care and skill, terminated in the painful necessity of separation from her husband*. The care of the children now entirely devolved on the father, whose sensibility received such a shock from the melancholy circumstance alluded to, as could only be aggravated by an apprehension that the consequences of Mrs. Beattie’s disorder might not be confined to herself This alarm, which often preyed on his spirits, proved happily without foundation. His children grew up without the smallest appearance of the hereditary evil; but when they had just begun to repay his care by a display of early genius, sweetness of temper, and filial affection, he was compelled to resign them both to an untimely gravey His eldest son died November 19, 1790, in his twentysecond year; and his youngest on March 14, 1796, in his eighteenth year.

Soon after the death of James Hay, his father drew up an account of his “Life and Character; to which were added,” Essays and Fragments,“written by this extraordinary youth. Of this volume a few copies only were printed, and were given as” presents to those friends with whom the author was particularly acquainted or connected." Dr. Beattie was afterwards induced to permit the Life and some of the Essays and Fragments to be printed for publication. The life is perhaps one of the most interesting and affecting narratives in our language.

Her date. “Although it did not, for a till, at last, it unquestionably oonlriconsiderable time, breakout into open buted to bring him to his grave.” insanity, yet in a few years after their been appointed successor to his father, and had occasionally lectured in the professor’s chair, Dr. Beattie resumed that employment himself, and continued it, although with intervals of sickness and depression, until the unexpected death of his second and last child, in 1796. His hopes of a successor, of his name and family, had probably been revived in this youth, who exhibited many proofs of early genius, and for some time before his death had prosecuted his studies with great assiduity. But here too he was compelled again to subscribe to the uncertainty of all human prospects. From this period he began to withdraw from society, and brooded over the sorrows of his family, until they overpowered his feelings, and abstracted him from all the comforts of friendship and all power of consolation. Of the state of his mind, sir William Forbes has given an instance so extremely affecting, that no apology can be necessary for introducing it here.

“The death of his only surviving child completely unhinged the mind of Dr. Beattie, the first symptom of which, ere many days had elapsed, was a temporary but almost total loss of memory respecting his son. Many times he could not recollect what had become of him; and after searching in every room of the house, he would say to his niece, Mrs. Glen me, * You may think it strange, but I must ask you if I have a son, and where he is?‘ She then felt herself under the painful necessity of bringing to his recollection his son Montagu’s sufferings, which always restored him to reason. And he would often, with many tears, express his thankfulness that he had no child, saying, * How could I have borne to see their elegant minds mangled with madness!’ When he looked for the last time on the dead body of his son, he said, * I have now done with the world:' and he ever after seemed to act as if he thought so.”

The last three years of his life were passed in hopeless solitude, and he even dropt his correspondence with many of those remote friends with whom he had long enjoyed the soothing interchange of elegant sentiment and friendly attachment. His health, in this voluntary confinement, gradually decayed, and extreme and premature debility, occasioned by two paralytic strokes, terminated his life, on the 18th of August, 1803. His reputation was so well founded and so extensive, that he was universally lamented as a loss to the republic of letters, and particularly to the university to which he had been so long a public benefactor and an honour.

Of his general character a fair estimate may be formed from his works, and it is no small praise that his life and writings were in strict conformity. No man ever felt more strong impressions of the value of the virtues he recommended than Dr. Beattie. Although he disdained the affectation of feeling, and the ostentation of extraordinary purity, he yet more abhorred the character of those writers whose professions and practice are at variance. His zeal for religious and moral truth, however censured by those to whom religion and truth are adverse, originated in a mind fully convinced of the importance of what he prescribed to others, and anxious to display, where such a display was neither obtrusive nor boastful, that his conviction was sincere, and his practice resolute.

, first professor of rhetoric in the college of the Grassins, and afterwards professor in the college-royal, secretary to the duke of Orleans, perpetual secretary and pensionary of the academy of inscriptions, was born at Paris, Oct. 19, 1701 (Saxius says 1709), and died in that city, March 13, 1778. He was married, and left only one daughter. This honest and laborious academician, the rival of Rollin in the art of teaching, idolized by his scholars, as that famous professor was, had perhaps a more extensive fund of learning, and particularly in Greek and Latin literature. His history of the Lower Empire, in 22 vols. 12mo, 1757, forming a continuation of Crevier’s History of the Emperors, is the more esteemed, as in the composition of it he had many difficulties to overcome, in reconciling contradictory writers, rilling up chasms, and forming a regular body out of a heap of mishapen ruins. It is strongly characterized by a judicious series of criticism, couched in a polished and elegant style. The logician sometimes appears too conspicuously; but in general it is read with pleasure and profit. The first volume of an English translation of this work was published in 1770, but, we believe, not continued. The memoirs of the academy of belles lettres are enriched with several learned dissertations by the same author, particularly on medals, on the Roman legion, on the Roman art of war, and thirty-four biographical eloges, distinguished for truth and impartiality. The religious sentiments, the sound principles, the sweetness of manners, and the inviolable integrity of M. le Beau, which inspired his friends and disciples with so much attachment to him when alive, occasioned them to feel a long and lasting regret at his departure. Several little anecdotes might here be related that do honour to his heart. A place in the academy of bt-iles lettres had been designed for him. Bougainville, the translator of the Anti-Lucretius, who applied for it, with fewer pretensions, and a less consummate knowledge, dreaded such a formidable competitor as M. le Beau, to whom, however, from his known character, he was not deterred from making his wishes known. The professor felt for his embarrassment, and hastened to the friends who had promised him their votes, desiring they might be transferred to the young student. “It is one of the smallest sacrifices,” said he, “1 should be ready to make in order to oblige a man of merit.' 1 M. le Beau was received at the election following; and M. Capperonier, surprised at his extensive erudition, and affected by his generosity, exclaimed,” He is our master in all things!“On another occasion, when highly praised for his acquisitions, he said,” I know enough to be ashamed that I knowno more." Thierrat published Le Beau’s Latin works, Paris, 1782, 2 vols. 8vo, consisting of orations, poetry, ancj fables; -the last inferior to his other productions.

, younger brother to the above, professor of rhetoric in the college of the Grassins, and member of the academy of inscriptions, was born at Paris, March 8, 1721, and died March J2, 1766. He filled with distinguished merit the functions of academician and professor. He is author of a discourse in which, after having shewn the pernicious effects of poverty to men of letters, and what dangers they have to dread from riches, he concludes, that the state of a happy mediocrity is the fittest for them. He published an edition of “Homer,” Greek and Latin, 2 vols. 1746; and the “Orations of Cicero,” in 3 vols. 1750. To both he has subjoined copious annotations, and wrote several papers in the Memoirs of the academy.

, a learned French Jesuit, and classical antiquary, was born in 160U, in the conitat Yenaissin, and entered among the Jesuits in 1619. He taught rhetoric for seven years at Toulouse, and was afterwards rector of the college of Rhodez. He died in the college of Montpellier, July 26, 1670. His works, which discover much valuable literary research, are, 1. “Diatribac dux-, prima de partibus templi Atiguralis; altera, de mense-et die victoria? Pharsalica;,” Toulouse, 1637, 8vo, and inserted in Graevius’s Roman antiquities, vol. V. and vol. VIII. 2. “Diatriba de Pharsalici conflictus mense et die, cum accessionibus et prefatione Henrici Leonard! Schurztleischii,” Wirtembcrg, 1705, 8vo. 3. “Breviculiim cxpeditionis Hispaniensis Ludovici XIII.” Toulouse, 164:2, 4 to. 4. “Otia regia Ludovici XIV. regis Christianissimi, sive Polyoenus Gallicus de veterum et recentium Gallorum stratagematibus,” Clermont, 1658, 8vo, Francfort, 1661, 8vo. 5. “La Vie de M. Frai^ois D'Estaing, eveque de Rhodez,” Clermont, 1655, 4to, and an abridgment of the same in Latin, 12mo. 6. “Historia de vita. Bartholomaei de Martyribus,” Paris, 4to. 7. “Speculum veri antistitis in vita Alphonsi Torribii archiepiscopi Litnensis in Peru via,” Paris, 4to.

, in Latin Belcarius Plguilio, bishop of Metz, a man of some note in the sixteenth century, was born April 15, 1514, of one of the most ancient families of the Bourbonnois. The progress he male in polite literature induced Claude de Lorraine, the h'rst duke of Guise, to choose him to be preceptor to cardinal de Lorraine, his second son, an appointment which very naturally, we will not say very justly, attached him to the family of Guise, and made him too partial in his writings to their character. He attended his pupil to Rome, where he became acquainted with Paul Jovius, in whose history he afterwards pointed out some errors. On his return from Italy, the cardinal of Lorraine procured him in 1555 the bishopric of Metz, but according to Beza (Hist. Ecclesiast. lib. xvi. p. 439), this was little more than a titular preferment, the cardinal reserving the revenues, or the greater part of them, to himself. According to the same author, Beaucaire, with two other bishops, came to Metz, and occasioned an alarm among the inhabitants of the reformed religion, some of whom thought proper to retire for safety from the city. Beza, however, adds that Beaucaire only wrote a small tract in Latin on “Sanctification,” and “The Baptism of Infants,” which was soon answered. Some time after his promotion, his patron, the cardinal, carried him with him to the council, on the day that the fathers of the council had appointed as a thanksgiving for the battle of Dreux, fought Jan. 3, 1563, and here Beaucaire pronounced an oration, which was much applauded, and is inserted at the end of the thirtieth book of his “History of his own times.” This work he began in 1568, when he resigned his bishopric to his patron, and retired to his castle of la Chrete in Bourbonnois. He died Feb. 14-, 1591. His history, which extends from 1461 to 1580, or according to Bayle from 1462 to 1567, according to either account is not very properly called a history of his own times. The title of the publication, however, is “Rerum Gallicarum Coramentaria, ab. A. 1462 usque ad A. 1566,” Lyons, 1625, fol. Saxius doubts whether he be the same Francis Bellicarius, who translated the first book of the Greek Anthology into Latin, as asserted by Fabricius, and which was published at Paris, 1543, 4to. His other works are so differently and confusedly spoken of, that we shall refer our readers to his biographers, rather than attempt to reconcile them. His tract on the baptism of infants, above alluded to by Beza, may perhaps be “Traité des enfans morts dans le sein de leurs meres,” 1567, 8vo, the question being, whether children dying in the womb, and consequently without baptism, are saved, which he was disposed to answer in the negative. The Calvinists held that children dying in infancy are saved, an opinion, we presume, that will seldom be denied.

, a member of the national Institute of France, and an astronomer of considerable fame, was born at Vesoul, June 29, 1752. He was originally intended for the church, and in 1767, entered the order of the Bernardines, but his turn for astronomy induced him to become the pupil of Lalande, and one of the ablest of his scholars. His uncle Miroudat, bishop of Babylonia, having-appointed him his vicar-general, he left France in 1781, to exercise the functions of that office in the Levant, and at the same time to take astronomical observations. He went first to Aleppo, thence to Bagdad, Bassora, and Persia. On the eve of the revolution, he returned to France, after having contributed very essentially to the promotion of the sciences of astronomy and geography, as may appear by his communications in the “Journal deaf Savans” for 1782, 1784, 1785, 1787, 1788, and 1790. He remained with his family until 1795, when the then French government appointed him consul at Mascate, a Portuguese settlement in Arabia; but in 1797, we find him at Constantinople, whence he sailed along the Black Sea, making many observations, and rectifying many errors in the charts of that sea. When Bonaparte was appointed commander of the expedition to Egypt, he recalled Beauchamps from Mascate, and added him to the number of scientific men attached to the army. In 1799, Bonaparte sent him on a secret mission to Constantinople, but before he had proceeded far from the port of Alexandria, he was taken by the English, and delivered up to the grand Turk as a spy. By the intercession, however, of the ambassadors of Spain and Russia, his punishment was mitigated to imprisonment in a strong castle on the borders of the Black Sea, and in 1801 he was released. Bonaparte, then first consul, appointed him mercantile commissary at Lisbon, but before he could reach this place, he died at Nice, Nov. 19, 1801, to the great regret of his friends, and particularly of the learned world.

, a French miscellaneous writer, was born at Paris in 1689, and died in that metropolis in 1761. He wrote, 1. “The Loves of Ismene & Isménias,” 1743, 8vo, a free translation of a Greek romance by Eustathius, or rather Eumathius, who must not be confounded with Eustathius the grammarian, and author of the commentary on Homer. It contains interesting adventures, in that species of epic poetry in prose which partakes at once of the tragic and comic vein. A beautiful edition of it was published at Paris in 1797, 4to, with illuminated prints. 2. “The loves of Rhodantes & Docicles,” another Greek romance by Theodorus Prodromus, translated into French, 1746, 12mo. 3. “Recherches sur les Theatres de France,” 1735, 4to, and 8vo, 3 vols. Beauchamps did not confine himself to the titles of the dramatical pieces: he has added particulars of the lives of some of the French comedians; but he has omitted a number of interesting anecdotes, with which he might have embellished his work. It were to be wished that he had developed the taste of the former ages of the French for dramatic representations, the art and the progress of tragedy and comedy from the time of Jodelle; the genius of the French poets, and their manner of imitating the ancients. But Beauchamps, in this work, is little more than a compiler, and that from well-known materials. 4. “Lettres d‘Heloise & d’Abailard,” in French verse, fluent enough, but prosaic, 1737, 8vo. 5. “Several theatrical performances.” 6. The romance of “FuDestine,” 1757.

, born at Paris in 1645, was the son of a player, and was considered as a poet when no more than eight years old. The queen, mother of Louis XIV. cardinal Mazarin, the chancellor Seguier, and the first personages of the court, took pleasure in conversing with this child, and in exercising his talents. He was only twelve years old when he published a collection of his poetical pieces, in 4to, under the title of “La Lyre de jeune Apollon,” or, “La Muse naissant du petit de Beauchateau,” with copper-plate portraits of the persons he celebrates. About two years afterwards he went over to England with an ecclesiastic. Cromwell and the most considerable persons of the then government admired the young poet. It is thought that he travelled afterwards into Persia, where perhaps he died, as no farther tidings were ever heard of him. He had a brother, Hypolite Chastelet de Beauchateau, an impostor, who pretended to abjure the Roman Catholic religion, and came over to England under the disguised name of Lusancy. Moreri and Anth. Wood in Ath. Ox. vol. II. give an account of this adventurer.

, otherwise named Bever, and in Latin Fiber, Fiberius, Castor, and Castorius, was a Benedictine monk in Westminster-abbey, and nourished about the beginning of the fourteenth century. He was a man of quick parts, and of great diligence and ingenuity: and applied himself particularly to the study of the history and antiquities of England. Among other things, he wrote a “Chronicle of the British and English Affairs,” from the coming in of Brute to his own time, now among the Cottonian Mss. Hearne issued proposals for publishing it in 1735, which his death prevented. He also wrote a book “De Rebus ccenobii Westmonasteriensis,” of Westminsterabbey, and the several transactions relating thereto. Leland commends him, as an historian of good credit; and he is also cited with respect by Stowe in his Survey of London and Westminster. Bale says he does not give a slight or superficial account, but a full and judicious relation, of things; and takes proper notice of the virtues and vices of the persons mentioned in his history.

, a Jesuit, was born at St. Flour in Auvergne in 1674, and died at Toulouse at a very advanced age in 1758. Preaching, the composition of some literary works, and the direction of a number of pious votaries, for which he had uncommon attractions and a peculiar talent, took up almost the whole of his life. The pieces he published are, 1. “Several funeral discourses/' 2. The” Life of Madame de Lestonac.“3. The life of” Madame de Chantal“and, 4.” Letters on the government of Religious Houses," Paris, 1740, 12mo.

, bishop of Winchester, and cardinal priest of the church of Rome, was the son of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, by his third wife, Catherine S win ford. He studied for some years both at Cambridge and at Oxford, in the latter in Queen’s college, and was afterwards a benefactor to University and Lincoln colleges, but he received the principal part of his education at Aix la Chapelle, where he was instructed in civil and common law. Being of royal extraction, he was very young when advanced to the prelacy, and was made bishop of Lincoln in 1397, by an arbitrary act of Boniface IX. John Beckingham, bishop of that see, being, contrary to his wishes, translated to Lichfield, to make room for Beaufort, but Beckingham, with becoming spirit, refused the proffered diocese, and chose to become a private monk of Canterbury. In 1399 Beaufort was chancellor of the university of Oxford, and at the same time dean of Wells. He was lord high chancellor of England in 1404, and in some years afterwards. The following year, upon the death of the celebrated Wykeham, he was, at the recommendation of the king, translated to the see of Winchester. In 1414, the second of his nephew Henry V. he went to France, as one of the royal ambassadors, to demand in marriage Catherine, daughter of Charles VI. In 1417 he lent the king twenty thousand pounds (a prodigious sum in those days), towards carrying on his expedition against France, but had the crown in pawn as a security for the money. This year also he took a journey to the Holy Land and in his way, being arrived at Constance, where a general council was held, he exhorted the prelates to union and agreement in the election of a pope; and his remonstrances contributed not a little to hasten the preparations for the conclave, in which Martin III. was elected. We have no farther account of what happened to our prelate in this expedition. In 1421, he had the honour to be godfather, jointly with John duke of Bedford, and Jacqueline, countess of Holland, to prince Henry, eldest son of his nephew Henry V. and Catherine of France, afterwards Henry VI. M. Aubery pretends, that James, king of Scots, who had been several years a prisoner in England, owed his deliverance to the bishop of Winchester, who prevailed with the government to set him free, on condition of his marrying his niece, the granddaughter of Thomas Beaufort, earl of Somerset. This prelate was one of king Henry Vlth’s guardians during his minority; and in 1424, the third of the young king’s reign, he was a fourth time lord-chancellor of England. There were perpetual jealousies and quarrels, the cause of which is not very clearly explained, between the bishop of Winchester, and the protector, Humphrey duke of Gloucester, which ended in the ruin and death of the latter. Their dissensions began to appear publicly in 1425, and to such a height, that Beaufort thought it necessary to write a letter to his nephew the duke of Bedford, regent of France, which is extant in Holinshed, desiring his presence in England, to accommodate matters between them. The regent accordingly arriving in England the 20th of December, was met by the bishop of Winchester with a numerous train, and soon after convoked an assembly of the nobility at St. Alban’s, to hear and determine the affair. But the animosity on this occasion was so great on both sides, that it was thought proper to refer the decision to the parliament, which was to be held at Leicester, March 25, following. The parliament being met, the duke of Gloucester produced six articles of accusation against the bishop, who answered them severally, and a committee appointed for the purpose, having examined the allegations, he was acquitted. The duke of Bedford, however, to give some satisfaction to the protector, took away the great seal from his uncle. Two years after, the duke of Bedford, returning into France, was accompanied to Calais by the bishop of Winchester, who, on the 25th of March, received there with great solemnity, in the church of Our Lady, the cardinal’s hat, with the title of St. Eusebius, sent him by pope Martin V. In September 1428, the new cardinal returned into England, with the character of the pope’s legate lately conferred on him; and in his way to London, he was met by the lord-mayor, aldermen, and the principal citizens on horseback, who conducted him with great honour and respect to his lodgings in Southwark; but he was forced, for the present, to wave his legatine power, being forbidden the exercise of it by a proclamation published in the king’s name. Cardinal Beaufort was appointed, by the pope’s bull, bearing date March 25, 1427-8, his holiness’s legate in Germany, and general of the crusade against the Hussites, or Heretics of Bohemia. Having communicated the pope’s intentions to the parliament, he obtained a grant of money, and a considerable body of forces, under certain restrictions; but just as he was preparing to embark, the duke of Bedford having sent to demand a supply of men for the French war, it was resolved in council, that cardinal Beaufort should serve under the regent, with the troops of the crusade, to the end of the month of December, on condition that they should not be employed in any siege. The cardinal complied, though not without reluctance, and accordingly joined the duke of Bedford at Paris. After a stay of forty-five days in France, he marched into Bohemia, where he conducted the crusade till he was recalled by the pope, and cardinal Julian sent in his place with a larger army. The next year, 1430, the cardinal accompanied king Henry into France, being invested with the title of the king’s principal counsellor, and bad the honour to perform the ceremony of crowning the young monarch irt the church of Notre Dame at Paris; where he had some dispute with James du Chastellier, the archbishop, who claimed the right of officiating on that occasion. During his stay in France he was present at the congress of Arras for concluding a peace between the kings of England and France, and had a conference for that purpose with the dutchess of Burgundy, between Calais and Gravelines, which had no effect, and was remarkable only for the cardinal’s magnificence, who came thither with a most splendid train. In the mean time the duke of Gloucester took advantage in England of the cardinal’s absence to give him fresh mortification. For, first, having represented to the council, that the bishop of Winchester intended to leave the king, and come back into England to resume his seat in council, in order to excite new troubles in the kingdom, and that his intentions were the more criminal, as he made use of the pope’s authority to free himself from the obligations of assisting the king in France; he procured an order of council forbidding all the king’s subjects, of what condition soever, to accompany the cardinal, if he should leave the king, without express permission. The next step the protector took against him, was an attempt to deprive him of his bishopric, as inconsistent with the dignity of cardinal; but the affair having been a long time debated in council, it was resolved that the cardinal should be heard, and the judges consulted, before any decision. Being returned into England, he thought it necessary to take some precaution against these repeated attacks, and prevailed with the king, through the' intercession of the commons, to grant him letters of pardon for all offences by him committed contrary to the statute of provisors, and other acts of prsemunire. This pardon is dated at Westminster, July 19, 1432. Five years after, he procured another pardon under the great-seal for all sorts of crimes whatever, from the creation of the world to the 26th of July 1437. Notwithstanding these precautions, the duke of Gloucester, in 1442, drew up articles of impeachment against the cardinal, and presented them with his own hands to the king, but the council appointed to examine them deferred their report so long that rhe protector discontinued the prosecution. The cardinal died June 14, 1447, having survived the duke of Gloucester not above a mouth, of whose murder he was suspected to have been one of the contrivers, and it is said that he expressed great uneasiness at the approach of death, and died in despair; but for this there does not appear much foundation, and we suspect the commonlyreceived character of Beaufort is mostly credited by those who have considered Shakspeare as an authentic historian. We rather agree with the historian of Winchester, that there is no solid ground for representing him as that ambitious, covetous, and reprobate character which Shakspeare has represented, and who has robbed his memory, in order to enrich that of his adversary, popularly termed the “good duke Humphrey” of Gloucester. Being involved in the vortex of worldly politics, it is true, that he gave too much scope to the passions of the great, and did not allow himself sufficient leisure to attend to the spiritual concerns of his diocese. He possessed, however, that munificent spirit, which has cast a lustre on the characters of many persons of past times, whom it would be difficult otherwise to present as objects of admiration. It he was rich, it must be admitted that he did not squander away his money upon unworthy pursuits, but chiefly employed it in the public service, to the great relief of the subjects, with whom, and with the commons’ house of parliament, he was popular. He employed his wealth also in finishing the magnificent cathedral of Winchester, which was left incomplete by his predecessor, in repairing Hyde-abbey, relieving prisoners, and other works of charity. But what, Dr. Milner says, has chiefly redeemed the injured character of cardinal Beaufort, in Winchester and its neighbourhood, is the new foundation which he made of the celebrated hospital of St. Cross. Far the greater part of the present building was raised by him, and he added to the establishment of his predecessor, Henry de Blois, funds for the support of thirty-five more brethren, two chaplains, and three women, who appear to have been hospital nuns. It appears also, says the same writer, that he prepared himself with resignation and contrition for his last end; and the collected, judicious, and pious dispositions made in his testament, the codicil of which was signed but two days before his dissolution, may justly bring into discredit the opinion that he died in despair. He was buried at Winchester in the most eleg-ant and finished chantry in the kingdom.

, the foundress of Christ’s and St. John’s colleges in Cambridge, was the only daughter and heir of John Beaufort, duke of Somerset (grandson of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster), and of Margaret Beauchamp his wife. She was born at Bletshoe in Bedfordshire) in 1441. About the fifteenth year of her age, being a rich heiress, the great duke of Suffolk, minister to Henry the Vlth. solicited her in marriage for his son; while the king wooed her for his half-brother Edmund, then earl of Richmond. On so nice a point the good young lady advised with an elder gentlewoman; who, thinking it too great a decision to take upon herself, recommended her to St. Nicholas, the patron of virgins. She followed her instructions, and poured forth her supplications and prayers with such effect, that one morning, whether sleeping or waking she could not tell, there appeared unto her somebody in the habit of a bishop, and desired she would accept of Edmund for her husband. Whereupon she married Edmund earl of Richmond; and by him had an only son, who was afterwards king Henry the VI 1th. Edmund died, Nov. 3, 1456, leaving Henry his son and heir but fifteen weeks old: after which Margaret married sir Henry Stafford, knight, second son to the duke of Buckingham, by whom she had no issue. Soon after the death of sir Henry Stafford, which happened about 1482, she was married again to Thomas lord Stanley, who was created earl of Derby, Oct. 27, 1485, which was the first year of her son’s reign; and this noble lord died also before her in 1504.

The virtues of this lady are exceedingly celebrated. Her humility was such, that she would often say, “on condition that the princes of Christendom would combine themselves, and march against the common enemy the Turks, she would most willingly attend them, and be their laundress in the camp.” For her chastity, the rev. Mr. Baker, who republished bishop Fisher’s “Funeral Sermon” on her, in 1708, informs us in a preface, that, as it was unspotted in her marriage, so in her last husband’s days, and long before his death, she obtained a licence of him to live chaste; upon which she took upon her the vow of celibacy from Fisher’s hands, in a form yet extant in the registers of St. John’s-college in Cambridge; and for this reason, as Baker supposes, her portrait is usually taken in the habit of a nun. All thw for a lady who had had three husbands, and was now advanced in life, will not, we are afraid, be considered as any very violent degree of constraint. Her education, however, had qualified her for a studious and retired way of life. She understood the French language perfectly, and had some skill in the Latin; but would often lament that in her youth she did not make herself a perfect mistress of it. This affection for literature no doubt induced her mother-in-law, the duchess of Buckingham, to give her the following legacy in her last will “To her daughter Richmond, a book of English, being a legend of saints; a book of French, called Lucun another book of French, of the epistles and gospels and a primer with clasps of silver gilt, covered with purple velvet.” This was a considerable legacy of its kind at that time, when few of her sex were taught letters; for it has often been mentioned as an extraordinary accomplishment in Jane Shore, the darling mistress of Edward IV. that she could write and read.

Lady Margaret, however, could do both; and there are some of her literary performances still extant. She published, “The mirroure of golde for the sinful 1 soule,” translated from a French translation of a book called, * Speculum aureum peccatorum,' very scarce. She also translated out of French into English, the fourth book of Gerson’s treatise “Of the imitation and following the blessed life of our most merciful Saviour Christ,” printed at the nd of Dr. William Atkinson’s English translation of the three first books, 1504. A letter to her son is printed in Howard’s “Collection of Letters.” She also made, -by her son’s command and authority, the orders, yet extant, for great estates of ladies and noble women, for their precedence, &c. She was not only a lover of learning, but a great patroness of learned men; and did more acts of real goodness for the advancement of literature in general, than could reasonably have been expected from so much superstition. Erasmus has spoken great things of her, for the munificence shewn in her foundations and donations of several kinds; a large account of which is given by Mr. Baker, in the preface prefixed to the “Funeral Sermon.” What adds greatly to the merit of these donations is, that some of the most considerable of them were performed in her life-time; as the foundation of two colleges in Cambridge. Her life was checquered with a variety of good and' bad fortune: but she had a greatness of soul, which seems to have placed her above the reach of either; so that she wasneither elated with the former, nor depressed with the latter. She was most affected with what regarded her only child, for whom she had the most tender affection. She underwent some hardships on his account. She saw him from an exile, by a wonderful turn of fortune, advanced to the crown of England, which yet he could not keep without many struggles and difficulties; and when he had reigned twenty-three years, and lived fifty-two, she saw him carried to his grave. Whether this might not prove too great a shock for her, is uncertain; but she survived him only three months, dying at Westminster on the 29th of June, 1509. She was buried in his chapel, and had a beautiful monument erected to her memory, adorned with gilded brass, arms, and an epitaph round the verge, drawn up by Erasmus, at the request of bishop Fisher, for which he had twenty shillings given him by the university of Cambridge. Upon this altar-tomb, which is enclosed with a grate, is placed the statue of Margaret countess of Richmond and Derby, in her robes, all of solid brass, with two pillars on each side of her, and a Latin inscription, of which the following is a translation: “To Margaret of Richmond, the mother of Henry VII. and grandmother of Henry VIII. who founded salaries for three monks in this convent, for a grammar-school at Wymborn, and a preacher of God’s word throughout England; as also for two divinity-lecturers, the one at Oxford, the other at Cambridge; in which last place she likewise built two colleges, in honour of Christ and his disciple St. John. She died in the year of our Lord 1509, June the 29th.” This lady was the daughter and sole heiress of John Beaufort duke of Somerset, who was grandson to John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, fourth son of Edward the Third. Her mother, Margaret Beauchamp, was daughter and heiress of the lord Beauchamp of Powick. Bishop Fisher observes, “that by her marriage with the earl of Richmond, and by her birth, she was allied to thirty kings and queens, within the fourth degree either of blood or affinity; besides earls, marquisses, dukes, and princes: and since her death,” as Mr. Baker says, “she has been allied in her posterity to thirty more.” Her will, which is remarkably curious, is printed at length in the “Collectioii of Royal and Noble Wills,” 1780, 4to, p. 376.

, a French dramatic writer of modern celebrity, was born at Paris, Jan. 24, 1732. His father was a watchmaker, and at the age of twenty-one himself invented an improvement in watchmaking, which being contested by an eminent artist, was decided in favour of young Beaumarchais by the academy of sciences. Being passionately fond of music, and especially of the harp, he introduced some improvements in this instrument, which, with his excellent performance, gained him admittance to Mesdames, the daughters of Louis XV. to give them lessons, and this was the origin of his fortune. He lost two wives successively, and then gained three considerable law-suits. The papers which he published concerning each of these causes, excited great attention. He had also an affair of honour with a duke, in consequence of which he was sent to Fort L‘Eve’que. He was afterwards employed in some political transactions by the ministers Maurepas and Vergennes. He supported the scheme for the caisse d'escompte, or bank of discount, which he vainly thought to have made a rival to that of England: but he was more successful, although after much opposition, in procuring the adoption of a scheme for a fire-pump to supply the city of Paris with water. A plan, also, concerning poor women, was executed at Lyons, and gained him the thanks of the merchants of that city. After the death of Voltaire, he purchased the whole of his manuscripts, and not being able to print them in France, established a press at Kell, where they were printed in a very magnificent manner with Baskerville’s types.

When the American war took place, Beaumarchais speculated in supplying the Americans with arms, ammunition, &c. and although some of his ships were taken by the English, he was so successful with the rest as to realize a considerable fortune, and built a magnificent house in the Faubourg St. Antoine. He was planning the construction of a bridge over the Seine, when the revolution intervened to oppose his projects, and although he was one of those who had contributed to the public stock of discontent, he never became popular with the revolutionists. In 1792,. having signed a contract with the war minister, to furnish 60,000 musquets, which he was to procure from Holland, and not having delivered one, although he had received 500,000 francs in advance, the people accused him of forming a depot of them in his house on the Boulevard, and he was imprisoned for a time, but released, after which he took refuge in England. In 1794 he returned to Paris, and began to collect the remains of his fortune, but dissipated the principal part in a speculation on salt. In May 1799, he died of an apoplectic stroke, after a life of bustle and intrigue, and divided between literature and business. His countrymen do not represent his character in the most amiable light: his morals were not of the purest species, and his more favourable personal accomplishments were obscured by a self-conceit, and a love of talking about and praising himself, which he could never repress. It was said that if he had been ordered to be hanged, he would have requested a gallows as high as Hainan’s, that he might be more conspicuous.

His works are, 1. “Memoires centre les sieurs de Goetznian, La Blache, Marin d'Arnaud,” 1774 and 1775. 2. “Memoire en reponse a celui de Guillaume Kornmann,” Paris, 1787. These relate to his law-suits above-mentioned, to which it is said that no man but himself could have attached such an importance as to render them objects of public curiosity and conversation. His dramatic career was more brilLant. It began with, 3. “Eugenie,” a drama in five acts, 1767, taken partly from theDiable Boiteux of Le Sage, and partly from some incidents in his own family. 4. “Les deux amis,” 1770. 5 “Le Barbier de Seville,” 1775. 6. “Le Manage de Figaro,” 1784, twa pieces since familiarized to the English stage, the former by Coiman the elder, and the latter by Holcroft. 7. “Tarare,” an opera, 1787, not of much poetical merit. 8. “La Mere coupable,” 1792. 9. “Memoire en reponse au manifeste du roi d'Angleterre,” afterwards suppressed. 10. “Memoires a Lerointre de Versailles, ou mes six Epoques,” Paris, 1795. These and other pieces have been since collected into an edition of his works published in 1809, 7 vols. 8vo. In 1802, a life of him was published, which we have not seen.

, a French writer of some note, was born at Valleraugues, in the diocese of Allais, in 1727, and died at Paris Nov. 1773. Being invited to Denmark as professor of the French belles-lettres, he opened this course of literature by a discourse that was printed in 1751, and well received. Having always lived in the south of France, a residence in the north could hardly agree with him, but he was held in such esteem, that he quitted Denmark with the title of privy-counsellor and a pension. Stopping at Berlin, he was desirous of forming an intimacy with Voltaire, with whose writings he was much captivated; but, both being of irritable and impetuous characters, they had no sooner seen each other than they quarrelled, without hope of reconciliation. The history of this quarrel, which gave rise to so many personalities and invectives, is characteristic of both parties. A reflection in a publication of la Beaumelle, entitled “Mes Pensees,” was the first cause of it. This work, very studiously composed, but written with too much boldness, procured the author many enemies; and, on his arrival at Paris in 1753, he was imprisoned in the Bastille. No sooner was he let out, than he published his “Memoirs of Main ­tenon,” which drew on him a fresh detention in that royal prison. La Beaumelle, having obtained his liberty, retired into the country, where he put in practice the lessons he had given to Voltaire, in the following letter: “Well, then, we are once more at liberty; let us revenge ourselves on these misfortunes by rendering them of use to us. Let us lay aside all those literary infirmities which have spread so many clouds over the course of your life, so much bitterness over my youthful years. A little more glory, a little more opulence: What does it all signify? Let us seek the reality of happiness, and not its shadow. The most shining reputation is never worth what it costs. Charles V. sighs after retirement; Ovid wishes to be a fool. We are once more free. I am out of the Bastille; you are no longer at court. Let us make the best use of a benefit that may be snatched from us at every moment. Let us entertain a distant respect for that greatness which is so dangerous to those that come near it, and that authority, so terrible even to them that exercise it; and, if it be true that we cannot venture to think without risk, let us think no more. Do the pleasur.es of reflection counterbalance those of safety? Let us be persuaded, you, after sixty years of experience; me, after six months of annihilation. Let us be wiser, or at least more prudent; and the wrinkles of age, and the remembrance of bolts and bars, those injuries of time and power, will prove real benefits to us.”

He now cultivated literature in peace, and settled himself in the comforts of domestic life by marrying the daughter of M. Lavaisse, an advocate of great practice at Thoulouse. A lady of the court called him to Paris about the year 1772, and wished to fix him there, by procuring him the place of librarian to the king; but he did not long enjoy this* promotion; a dropsy in the chest proved fatal the following yean. He left a son and a daughter. His works are: 1. “A Defence of Montesquieu’s ' Esprit des Loix,” against the author of the “Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques,” which is inferior to that which the president de Montesquieu published himself, but for which that writer expressed his thanks. 2. “Mes Pense*es, ou, Le Qu'en dira-t-on?” 1751, 12mo; a book which has not kept up its reputation, though containing a great deal of wit; but the author in his politics is often wide of the truth, and allows himself too decisive a style in literature and morals. The passage in this book which embroiled him with Voltaire is this: “There have been better poets than Voltaire; but none have been ever so well rewarded. The king of Prussia heaps his bounty on men of talents exactly from the same motives as induce a petty prince of Germany to heap his bounty on a buffoon or a dwarf.” 3. “The <f Memoirs of Madame de Maintenon,” 1756, 6 vols. 12mo. which were followed by 9 vols. of letters. In this work many facts are given on conjecture, and others disfigured; nor is Madame de Maintenon made to think and speak as she either thought or spoke. The style has neither the propriety nor the dignity that is proper to history, but the author occasionally writes with great animation and energy, discovering at times the precision and the force of Tacitus, of whose annals he left a translation in manuscript. He had bestowed much study on that philosophic historian, and sometimes is successful in the imitation of his manner. 4. “Letters to M. de Voltaire,” 1761, 12mo, containing sarcastic remarks on Voltaire’s “Age of Louis XIV.” Voltaire refuted these remarks in a pamphlet entitled “Supplement to the age of Louis XIV.” in which he shews it to be an odious thing to seize upon a work on purpose to disfigure it. La Beaumelle in 1754 gave out an “Answer to this Supplement,” which he re-produced in 1761, under the title of “Letters.” To this Voltaire made no reply; but shortly after stigmatized it in company with several others, in his infamous poem the “Pucelle,” where he describes la Beaumelle as mistaking the pockets of other men for his own. The writer, thus treated, endeavoured to cancel the calumny by a decree of the parliament of Thoulouse but other affairs prevented him from pursuing this. Voltaire, however, had some opinion of his talents; and the writer of this article has seen a letter of his in which he says’: “Ce pendard a bien de Pesprit.” “The rascal has a good deal of wit.” La Beaumelle, on the other hand, said: “Personne n'ecrit mieux que Voltaire.” “No one writes better than Voltaire.” Yet these mutual acknowledgments of merit did not prevent their passing a considerable part of their life in mutual abuse. The abb Irail informs us, that la Beaumelle being one day asked why he was continually attacking Voltaire in his books “Because,” returned he, “he never spares me in his and my books sell the better for it.” It is said, however, that la Beaumelle would have left off writing against the author of the Henriade; and even would have been reconciled with him, had he not imagined that it would be impossible to disarm his wrath, and therefore he preferred war to an insecure peace. 5. “Penses de Seneque,” in Latin and French, in 12mo, after the manner of the “Pensees de Ciceron,” by the abbe d'Olivet, whom he has rather imitated than equalled. 6. “Commentaire sur la Henriade,” Paris, 1775, 2 vols. 8vo. Justice and taste are sometimes discernible in this performance, but too much severity and too many minute remarks. 7. A manuscript translation of the Odes of Horace. 8. “Miscellanies,” also in ms. among which are some striking pieces. The author had a natural bent towards satire. His temper was frank and honest, but ardent and restless. Though his conversation was instructive, it had not that liveliness which we perceive in his writings.

, *an English poet, was the son of Francis Beaumont one of the judges of the common pleas in the reign of queen Elizabeth, and brother of Francis, the dramatic colleague of Fletcher. He was born in 1582, at Grace-Bieu, the family seat in Leicestershire, and admitted a gentleman commoner of Broadgate’s-hall, (now Pembroke college) Oxford, the beginning of Lent term, 1596. After three years study here, during which he seems to have attached himself most to the poetical classics, he became a member of one of the inns of court, but soon quitted that situation, and returned to Leicestershire, where he married Elizabeth daughter of John Fortescue, esq.

But Heav'n was kind, and would not let thee see

Which shall add weight and measure to their sin."

What these lines imply it is not easy to conjecture. Sir John died at the age of forty-six, almost in the prime of life, and his poetical attempts were the amusement of his young days, which he had relinquished for more serious studies.

He had seven sons and four daughters. Of his sons, the most noticeable were, John, his successor, the editor of his father’s poems, and himselfa minor poet Francis, the author of some verses on his father’s poems, who became afterwards a Jesuit; Gervase, who died at seven years old, and was lamented by his father in some very pathetic verses, in the late edition of the English poets; and Thomas, the third baronet. Sir John, who succeeded his father, is recorded as a man of prodigious bodily strength. He was killed in 1644 at the siege of Gloucester, and dying unmarried, was succeeded in title by his brother Thomas, who, like him, was plundered by the republicans.

Besides his works, in the “English poets,” Wood ascribes to our author a poem in eight books, enlitletl “The Crown of Thorns;” and a work under this title is alluded to in Hawkins’s commendatory verses, but it has escaped the researches of the poetical collectors. His other poems were published in 1629, under the title of “Bosworth-field, with a taste of the variety of other poems, left by sir John Beaumont, baronet, deceased; set forth by his sonne, sir John Beaumont, baronet, and dedicated to the king’s most excellent majestic.” They are prefixed, not only by this loyal dedication to the king, but by commendatory verses by Thomas Hawkins the auUior’s sons John and Francis George Fortescue, the brother of his lady; Ben Jonson, Drayton, &c.

Bosworth Field is the most considerable of this collection, and certainly contains many original specimens of the heroic style, not exceeded by any of his contemporaries, and the imagery is frequently just and striking. The lines describing the death of the tyrant may be submitted with confidence to the admirers of Shakspeare. Among his lesser poems, a few sparklings of invention may now and then be discovered, and his translations are in general spirited and correct. His verses on the true form of English poetry, addressed to king James I. entitle him to a place among the most judicious critics of his time, and the chaste complexion of the whole shews that to genius he added virtue and delicacy.

, third son of Francis, the judge, was born at Grace-Dieu, in Leicestershire, 1586; and in the beginning of Lent term 1596, was admitted (with his two brothers Henry and John) a gentleman commoner of Broadgate’s-hall, now Pembroke-college, Oxford. Anthony Wood, who refers his education to Cambridge, mistakes him for his cousin Francis, master of the Charterhouse, who died in 1624. It is remarkable, that there were four Francis Beaumonts of this family, all living in 1615, and of these at least three were poetical the master of the Charter-house, the dramatic writer, and Francis Beaumont, a Jesuit.

Our poet studied for some time in the Inner Temple, and his “Mask of the Inner Temple and Gray’s-inn,” was acted and printed in 1612-13, when he was in his twenty-sixth year. His application to the law was probably not very intense, nor indeed is it possible to conceive that be could have been preparing for the practice of the bar, and producing his poems and plays within the limits of a life not exceeding thirty years. He appears to have devoted himself to the dramatic muse from a very early period; but at what time he commenced a partnership with Fletcher, who was ten years older, is not known. The date of their first play is 1607, when Beaumont was in his twenty-first year; and it was probably acted some time before. He brought, however, into this firm a genius uncommonly fertile and commanding. In all the editions of their plays, and in every notice of their 4 joint productions, notwithstanding Fletcher’s seniority, the name of Beaumont always stands first.

Their connection, from similarity of taste and studies, was very intimate, and it would appear, at one time, very Œconomical. Aubrey informs us, that “There was a wonderful consimility of fancy between Mr. Francis Beaumont and Mr. John Fletcher, which caused that dearness of friendship between them. I have heard Dr. John Earl, since bishop of Sarum, say, who knew them, that his (Beaumont’s) main business was to correct the super-overflowings of Mr. Fletcher’s wit. They lived together on the Bankside, not far from the play-iiouse, both bachelors; had one bench in the house between them, which they did so admire the same cloaths, cloak, &c. between them.” With respect to the specific share he had in the plays which have been published as the joint production of Beaumont and Fletcher, the reader may find much information, and perhaps all that can now be ascertained on this subject, in the preliminary matter of the edition published in 1778, 10 vols. vo, or more briefly in a note in Mr. Malone’s life of Dryden, vol. II. p. 100—101. Sir Egerton Brydges, whose judgment is of sterling value in matters of literary antiquity, suspects that great injustice has been generally done to Beaumont, by the supposition of Langbaine and others that his merit was principally confined to lopping the redundancies of Fletcher. He acquits, however, the editors of the Biographia Dramatica of this blame. They say, “It is probable that the forming of the plots, and contriving the conduct of the fable, the writing of the more serious and pathetic parts, and lopping the redundant branches of Fletcher’s wit, whose luxuriances, we are told frequently, stood in need of castigation, might be, in general, Beaumont’s portion of the work.” This,“adds Mr. Brydges,” is to afford him very high praise," and the authorities of sir John Birkenhead, Jasper Mayne, sir George Lisle, and others, amount to strong proof that he was considered by his contemporaries 'in a superior light, (and by none more than by Jonson), and that this estimation of his talents was common in the life-time of his colleague, who, from candour or friendship, appears to have acquiesced in every respect paid to the memory of Beaumont.

How his life was spent, his works show. The production of so many plays, and the interest he took in their success, were sufficient to occupy his mind during his short span, which cannot be supposed to have been diversified by any other events than those that are incident to candidates for theatrical fame and profit. Although his ambition was confined to one object, his life probably abounded in those little varieties of hope and fear, perplexity and satisfaction, jealousy and rivalship, friendship and caprice, which are to be experienced within the walls of a theatre, and compose the history of a dramatic writer.

He appears a satirist on women in some of his poems, but he was more influenced by wit than disappointment, and probably only versified the common-place raillery of the times. He married Ursula, daughter and co-heir of Henry Isley of Sundridge in Kent, by whom he had two daughters. One of these, Frances, was living at a great age in Leicestershire, in 1700, and at that time enjoyed a pension of lOOl. a-year from the duke of Ormond, in whose family she had resided for some time as a domestic. She had once in her possession several poems of her father’s writing, which were lost at sea during her voyage from Ireland. Mr. Beaumont died early in March, 1615-16, and was buried on the 9th, at the entrance of St. Benedict’s chapel near the earl of Middlesex’s monument, in the collegiate church of St* Peter, Westminster, without any inscription.

The first edition of his poems appeared in 1640, 4to, and the second in 1653, but neither so correct as could be wished. The editor of both was the bookseller, Laurence Blaiklock, whom Anthony Wood characterises as a “Presbyterian bookbinder near Temple-bar, afterwards an informer to the committee of sequestration at Haberdashers’ and Goldsmiths’ hall, and a beggar defunct in prison.” Whoever he was, he put together what he could find in circulation, without much discernment or inquiry, and has mixed with Beaumont’s several pieces that belong to other authors. The only poem printed in Beaumont’s life-time was “Salmacis and Hermaphroditus” from Ovid, which he published in 1602, when he was only sixteen years of age, a circumstance not necessary to prove it the production of a very young man.

His original poems give him very superior claims to a place in our collections. Although we find some of the metaphysical conceits so common in his day, particularly in the elegy on lady Markham, he is in general more free from them than his contemporaries. His sentiments are elegant and refined, and his versification is unusually harmonious. Where have we more lively imagery, or in such profusion, as in the sonnet “Like a ring without a finger?” His amatory poems are sprightly and original, and some of Jiis lyrics rise to the impassioned spirit of Shakspeare and Milton. Sir E. Brydges is of opinion that the thu;d song in the play of “Nice Valour” afforded the first hint of the II Penseroso,

, D. D. master of Peter-house, Cambridge, and king’s professor of divinity, was a descendant of the ancient family of Beaumont in Leicestershire. His father, who died in 16 53, had been a woollen manufacturer at Hadleigh in Suffolk, where our author, his eldest son, was born March 13, 1615. His father, who discovered in him a turn for letters, placed him at the grammar school of his native place, where he made uncommon proficiency in classical learning, and in his sixteenth year was removed to Peterhouse in Cambridge, and distinguished himself, not more by his literary acquirements than by his pious and orderly deportment, acquiring the high esteem of Dr. Cosins, then master of that college, and afterwards bishop of Durham. After taking his degree of A. B. he was elected fellow, and afterwards tutor and moderator. In 1643, as he adhered loyally to his sovereign, he was obliged to leave the university, then in possession of the usurping powers, and being ejected from his fellowship, he retired to Hadleigh, where he associated with some other persons of his own sentiments, chiefly his former pupils and the sons of his friend and patron bishop Wren; and here he appears to have amused himself in writing his “Psyche,” which was begun in April 1647, finished before the end of March 1648, and published the same year; an allegorical poem, displaying the “Intercourse between Christ and the Soul,” which was much admired in his time, but has not preserved its popularity. Pope is reported to have said of it, that “there are in it a great many flowers well worth gathering, and a man who has the art of stealing wisely will find his account in reading it.” His biographer, however, confesses that he has generally preferred the effusions of fancy to the corrections of judgment, and is often florid and affected, obscure and perplexed. His Latin poems, although perhaps superior in style, are yet below the purity of the Augustan age. All his poetical efforts were the amusement of his leisure hours during the rebellion, by which he lost, besides his fellowship, some preferments which bishop Wren had bestowed on him, as the rectory of Kelshall in Hertfordshire in 1643, that of Elm with the chapel of Emneth in 1646, and the seventh canonry and prebend in the cathedral of Ely in 1647. And so zealous was bishop Wren for his interest and happiness, that he took him into his house as his domestic chaplain, and married him to his step-daughter in 1650. With her Mr. Beaumont retired to Tatingston-place, where they lived in a private manner until the restoration. On that event he took possession of his former livings, and was also admitted into the first list of his majesty’s chaplains, and by his majesty’s mandamus was created D. D. in 1660. In 1661 he removed, at bishop Wren’s desire, to Ely, where he had the misfortune to lose his wife in 1662. In April of that year, on the resignation of Dr. Pearson, master of Jesus’ college, Cambridge, the bishop of Ely appointed him successor, and in 1663, on the death of Dr. Hale, master of Peterhouse, he was removed to the headship of that college, which he governed with great care and liberality. The same year he was instituted to the rectory of Teversham near Cambridge, and in 1664 to that of Barley in Hertfordshire, where he alternately resided in the vacation months every summer, feeding the poor, instructing the ignorant, and faithfully discharging his pastoral charge. In 1665 he was drawn into a controversy with Dr. Henry More, who had advanced some doctrines in his “Mystery of Godliness,” which our author thought subversive of our constitution in church and state, and productive of manyevils to the Christian religion; Dr. More replied to this charge, but Dr. Beaumont received the thanks of the university for his services on this occasion. In 1670 he was elected to the divinity chair. In the course of his leetures, which he read for twenty-nine years, he went through the two epistles to the Romans and Colossians, with a view to explain the difficulties and controversies occasioned by some passages hi them. In 1689, when the Comprehension was attempted, in order to unite the church and dissenters, he was one of the commissioners appointed for that purpose, but never took his place at the board, convinced of the little probability that such a scheme should succeed. He continued to discharge the several duties of his office, even when advanced to his eighty-fourth year, and preached before the university in turn, Nov. 5, 1699; but a high fever came on the same evening, which, with the addition of the gout in his stomach, proved fatal on the 23d of the same month. His biographer sums up his character in these words “He was religious without bigotry, devout without superstition, learned without pedantry, judicious without censoriousness, eloquent without vanity, charitable without ostentation, generous without profusion, friendly without dissimulation, courteous without flattery, prudent without cunning, and humble without meanness.” Mr. Cole informs us, that in 1662 he obtained, from the vicechancellor of Cambridge, a dispensation to eat flesh in Lent, as fish did not agree with his constitution; probably this was among the last instances of such a scruple in the Protestant church. His “Psyche” was reprinted, with many of the author’s corrections, and the addition of four cantos, in 1702, by his son Charles Beaumont, A.M. of Peterhouse, who informs us that his father left all his works, critical and polemical, to the college, strictly forbidding the printing of any of them. In 1749 was published his lesser “Poems in English and Latin, with an appendix, containing some dissertations and remarks on the Epistle to the Colossians,” 4to. To this is prefixed an account of his life, from which the present sketch has been taken.

, theson of Florimond de Beaune, seigneur of Goulieux, was born at Blois in 1601, and having studied law, became counsellor of the presidial of Blois. He was most celebrated, however, for his skill in mathematics, which induced Descartes to pay him a visit, which de Beaune returned afterwards, and they frequently consulted one another on their pursuits. De Beaune invented many astronomical instruments, and some telescopes of great utility. He is also famous for a problem that bears his name; it consists in the construction of a curve, with conditions that render it extremely difficult. Descartes solved this problem; and de Beaune, animated by the praises of a man so celebrated, discovered a method of determining the nature, of curves by the properties of their tangents. De Beaune died in 1652, in his fifty-first year.

, an accurate military geographer, the descendant of an ancient family, was born at Aix in Issart in 1697, and at the age of nineteen went to Paris, where he studied geography under the celebrated Sanson, geographer to the king. His progress was so rapid, and his reputation so high, that at the age of twenty-five he was honoured with the same title. A perpetual almanac which he invented, and with which Louis XV. was much pleased, procured him the patronage of that prince, for whom he drew a great number of plans and charts. But his principal reputation rests on his topographical plans of the military kind, particularly his “Description topographique et militaire des campagnes de Flandre, depuis 1690 jusqu'en 1694,” Paris, 1756, 3 vols. folio, drawn up from the memoirs of Vaultier and the marshal Luxembourg. He had also the honour of contributing to the education of the dauphin, for which a pension was conferred on him in 1756, and, as he had talents of the political kind, he was not unfrequently employed in negociations by cardinal de Fleury and Amelot. He died at Paris, Feb. 11, 1771. His son, the chevalier de Beaurain, who appears to have inherited his father’s talents as a military draftsman, published “Cartes des campagnes de grande Conde” en Flandre," Paris, fol. 1774; and in 1781, those of Turenne, with the descriptions of Grimoard, compiled from Turenne’s original papers, the correspondence of Louis XIV. that of his ministers, and several other authentic memoirs, a most splendid folio, enriched with a great number of charts and plans, executed with uncommon fidelity, precision, and. minuteness, so as to describe every motion of the armies in the most distinct manner.

, a French miscellaneous writer, entitled to some notice, was born at St. Paul in Artois, July 9, 1728, and became noted at Paris for hi oddities and his numerous writings. He affected great singularity in dress, and was not less remarkable for his bons mots and tart replies. When asked why he followed no profession, he said, “I have been too long enamoured of goodness and honour, to fix my affections on fortune.” He used to say that “Hfe was a continual epigram, to which death furnished the point.” There is perhaps not much in these, and probably the other witticisms we have seen attributed to him derived their principal effect from his manner, or from the person or occasion when applied. He was, however, a man of great humanity, and particularly attached to children, employing himself for many years in instructing them, and at last he procured admission to the Normal school, that he might contribute his share to the general plan of public education. His writings are, 1. “L'Heureux citoyen,” 1759, 12mo. 2. “Cours d'Histoire sacree et profane,” 1763 and 1766, 2 vols. 12mo. 3. “Abreg6 de Phistoire des Insectes,” Paris, 1764, 2 vols. 8vo. 4. “L'Heureux viellard,” a pastoral drama, 1769. 5. “Cour* d'histoire naturelle,” Paris, 1770, 7 vols. 12mo. 6. “Varletes Litteraires,” 1775, 12mo. 7. “De Talaitement et de la premiere Education des Enfans,” 1782, 12mo. 8. “L'Eleve de la Nature,” Geneva, 1790, 2 vols. 8vo, often. reprinted. It contains an ingenious sketch, but not very happily filled up. 9. “L‘Accord parfait, ou l’Equilibre physique et morale,” Paris, 1793. 10. “Le Port-feuille Francais,” &c. By all these literary labours, however, the author appears to have profited little, as he died in an hospital at Paris, Oct. 5, 1795.

, an eminent Calvinist divine and ecclesiastical writer, was born at Niort in Upper Poitou, March 8, 1659, of a family originally of Provence, whose name was Bossart, which one of his ancestors changed to Beausobre, on taking refuge in Swisserland from the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s day. In his youth he had some favourable opportunities for rising in the world. M. de Vieuxfournaux, cousin-german to his father, strongly solicited him not to change his religion, but to study law, because in that case he had sufficient interest with Madame de Maintenon to recommend him to her, who would have made his 1 fortune. But as he probably foresaw that the sacrifice of his religion must ultimately be the consequence, in order to secure him patronage of this kind, he withstood his relation’s solicitations, and pursued his original intention, that of qualifying himself for the church. Having finished his studies at Saumur, he was ordained, by imposition of hands, at the age of twenty-one, in the last synod of Loudon, and had a congregation intrusted to him, to whom he officiated for three or four years, during which he married Claude Louisa Arnaudeau, whose father was pastor of the church of Lusignan. The days of persecution approaching, M. de Beausobre’s church was shut up, and having been so rash, as to break it open, contrary to the orders of the court, he found it necessary to make his escape. At first he intended to have gone to England, but for some reasons, not mentioned in our authority, he preferred Holland, where he recommended himself to the favour of the princess of Orange, who appointed him chaplain to her daughter the princess of A nhalt-Dessau, and accordingly he went to Dessau in 1686. Here his situation was rendered peculiarly agreeable by the kindness of the princess, the esteem she conceived for, and the confidence she reposed in him' and here he appears to have applied himself to those studies, the produce of which appeared soon afterwards.

The first occasion of his becoming an author was the conduct of the duke of Saxe-Barby, who quitted the Lutheran communion, and printed a confession of his faith in 1688. A year after appeared, under the name of the theological faculty of Leipsic, a work in German, purporting to be “An inquiry into the motives which induced the duke of Saxe to separate from the Lutherans;” and a Latin translation of it having been submitted to M. Beausobre, he perceived its weakness, and conceived it an act of justice in behalf of the more moderate part of the Lutherans, to make a public declaration of the doctrines of the reformers. Accordingly this his first work was entitled “Defense de la doctrine des Reformes,” on the subjects of providence, predestination, grace, the Lord’s supper, &c. printed at Magdeburgh, 1693. In this, while he speaks favourably of the moderate writers among the Lutherans, he censures the others for their bigotry against the Calvinists, or against any who differ from them in the least degree. His work was extremely well received, although this edition is full of typographical errors.

In 1693, on the death of John-George II. prince of Anhalt-Dessau, he pronounced a funeral oration, which was printed at Berlin, 1695, 4tp, in the form of a “Sermon Funcbrc,” the subject of which (John xvii. 3.) was pointed out by the prince himself. After residing eight years at Dessau, Beausobre, in 1694, removed to Berlin, where the refugees for the cause of religion, many of them his particular friends, had formed an asylum, and where he might enjoy the menus of educating his family. Here he passed the rest of his life, and exercised his ministry for the space of forty-six years, not only as one of the pastors appointed to supply the churches of the French refugees, but as chaplain to their majesties, an office he had the honour to fill until the death of the queen Sophia-Charlotte. He was besides, counsellor of the royal consistory, inspector of the French college, and a year before his death was appointed inspector of the French churches in Berlin, and of the other churches comprised within the inspection of that city. As every church had its separate pastor, Basnage belonged first to that of Ville-Neuve, but on the death of his friend Mr. Lenfant in 1728, he succeeded him in the church of Werder, where he officiated through the remainder of his life.

As soon as Beausobre became settled at Berlin, he resumed his favourite studies, and particularly his “History of the Reformation,” which he carried down to the Augsburgh confession, and left it in manuscript. In this state it remained until 1784, when it was published at Berlin in 4 vols. 8v6. Its principal object is the origin and progress, of Lutheranism, in treating of which the author has availed himself of Seckendorfl’s history, but has added many vainable materials. It contains also very curious and ample details relative to the progress of the reformation in France and Swisserland; but it nevertheless is not free from objections, both on the score of impartiality and accuracy. In the mean time, the Prussian court having desired M. Beausobre and his friend M. Lenfant to prepare a translation of the New Testament, they shared the labour between them, M. Lenfant taking the Evangelists, Acts, Catholic epistles, and the Apocalypse, and M. Beausobre the epistles of St. Paul. The whole was published in 2 vols. 4to, Amst. 1718, with prefaces, notes, c. A second edition appeared in 1741, with considerable additions and corrections. Their “Introduction” was published separately at Cambridge (translated into English) in 1779; and Dr. Watson, bishop of Llandaff, who inserted it in the third volume of his “Theological Tracts,” pronounces it a work of extraordinary merit, the authors Laving left scarcely any togic untouched, on which the voting student in divinity may he supposed to wunt information. Their only opponent, at the time of publication, was a Mr. Dartis, formerly a minister at Berlin, from which he had retired, and who published a pamphlet, to which Beausobre and Lenfant made separate replies. Beausobre was one of the principal members of a society of literary men of Berlin, who called them the “Anonymi,” and this connection led 'him to be a contributor to the “Bibliothcque Gcrmanique,” of which he was editor from vol. IV. to the time of his death, excepting vol. XL. One of the pieces he wrote for this journal was translated into English, and published at London, 1735, 8vo, under the title of “St. Jatzko, or a commentary on a passage in the plea for the Jesuits of Thorn”. But his most celebrated work was his “Histoire critique de Mauicheisme,” Amst. 1734, 1739, 2 vols. 4to. Of the merit of this work it may, perhaps, be sufficient to give the opinion of a man of no religion, Gibbon, who says that “it is a treasure of ancient philosophy and theology. The learned historian spins, with incomparable art, the systematic thread of opinion, and transforms himself by turns into the person of a saint, a sage, or an heretic. Yet his refinement is sometimes excessive: he betrays an amiable partiality in favour of the weaker side, and while he guards against calumny, he does not allow sufficient scope for superstition and fanaticism,” things, or rather words, which Gibbon js accustomed to use without much meaning. The journalists of Trevoux having attacked this work, gave Mr. IjJeausobre an opportunity of showing his superiority in ecclesiastical history, by an answer published in the BibL Germanique, which perhaps is too long. He wrote also a curious preface to the “Memoirs of Frederick-Henry, prince of Orange,” Amst. 1733. These are all the works which appeared in the life-time of our author, but he left a great many manuscripts, dissertations on points of ecclesiastical history, and sermons, none of which, we believe, have been published, except the “History of the Reformation,” already noticed. M. Beausobre reached the period of old age, without experiencing much of its influence. He preached at the age of eighty with vigour and spirit. His last illness appears to have come on in October 1737, and although it had many favourable intermissions, he died June 5, 1738, in the full possession of his faculties and recollection, and universally regretted by his Hock, as well as by the literary world. The most remarkable encomium bestowed on him, is that of the prince, afterwards Frederick king of Prussia, in a letter to Voltaire, published in the works of the latter. “We are -about to lose one of the greatest men of Germany. This is the famous M. de Beausobre, a man of honour and probity, of great genius, a taste exquisite and delicate, a great orator, learned in the history of the church and in general literature, an implacable enemy of the Jesuits, the best writer in Berlin, a man full of fire and vivacity, which eighty years of life have not chilled; has a little of the weakness of superstition, a fault common enowgh with people of his stamp, and is conscious enough of his abilities to be affected by applause. This loss is irreparable. We have no one who can replace M. de Beausobre; men of merit are rare, and when nature sows them they do not always come to maturity.” The applause of such a man as Beausobre, from Frederick of Prussia to Voltaire, is a curiosity.

Beausobre left, by his first wife, two sons and a daughter, and by his second, whom he married in his seventieth year, two infant sons. His second son by the first marriage, Charles Louis Beausobre, was born at Dessau in 16^0, and became a pastor of a church at Berlin, where he died in 1753. He published “Discours sur le Nouv. Test.” as a sequel to that of Saurin; “Apologie des Protestans,” and contributed to the completion of his father’s History of the Reformation, which he did not, however, live to see published.

, perhaps of the same family with the preceding, was born at Berlin in 1730, where he also died, Dec. 3, 1784, in consequence of an apoplectic stroke. He was privy counsellor to the king of Prussia in the French department, counsellor of revision of the supreme consistory, and member of the royal academy of sciences and belles lettres at Berlin. He published, 1. “Des dissertations philosophiques sur la nature de Feu,” 1753, 12mo, containing many accurate observations, with some of a more doubtful kind. 2. “Le Pyrrhonisme du sage,” 1754, 12mo. 3. “Les songes d'Epicure,” 1756, 12mo. 4. “Introduction generate a l'etude de la Politique, des Finances, et du Commerce,” Berlin, 1771, 3 vols. 12mo, 6. “Essai sur le Bortheur,” and 7. “Introduction a la Statistique.”

, one of the French academy, and professor of grammar in the military school, was born at Verdun, May 9, 1717, and died at Paris, Jan. 25, 1789. Of his early life we have no account, but he appears to have been selected by the encyclopedists to furnish the articles on grammar in their celebrated undertaking. The abbe BarrueL who says he was a layman much to be respected for his piety, once asked him, how a man of his principles came to be associated with the encyclopedists, who were notoriously infidels. “The very same question,” answered Beauzee, “have I put to d‘Alembert. At one of the sittings, seeing that I was almost the only person who believed in God, 1 asked him how he possibly could ever have thought of me for a member, when he -knew that my sentiments and opinions differed so widely from those of his brethren? D’Aiembert without hesitation answered,” I am sensible of your amazement, but we were in want of a skilful grammarian, and among our party not one had acquired a reputation in that study. We knew that you believed in God, but being a good sort of a man, we cast our eyes on you, for want of a philosopher to supply your place.“About the same time, probably, Beauzee published his” Grammaire generate, ou exposition raisonnee des elemens necessaires du Langage, pour servir de fondement a l'etude de toutes les Langues,“Paris, 1767, 2 vols. a work which, although it falls short of its title, contains much valuable instruction, especially respecting the French language. The chief fault is, that the author wants precision, and is frequently too metaphysical to be intelligible. He published also a new edition of the abbe” Girard’s “Synonymes,” with great additions, 2 vols. 12mo; translations of Sallust, often reprinted, and much admired of Quintus Curtius, which likewise became popular; and of Thomas a Kempis. He promoted the publication of the translation of sir Isaac Newton’s Optics by Marat, 2 vols. 8vo, 1787, which is thought to be very correct. The Dict. Hist, mentions another work by Beauzee, but without date, “Exposition abregee des preuves historique de le religion,” 12mo.

, a Lutheran divine, was born at Strasburg, in 1632, where he was first pastor and professor of divinity and ecclesiastical history, and afterwards professor of divinity, pastor and superintendant general at Wittemberg, where he died of an apoplexy, Oct. 2, 1686. When very young he wrote “Theses Philologicae de re nummaria veterum,” and “Disputationes Philologicae de Theologia Gentili ex antiquis nummis eruta,” Wittemberg, 1658, 4to. He afterwards published “Dissertatio de aris et mensis Eucharisticis veterum,” Strasb. 1666, 4to; “Antiquitates Ecclesise,” ibid. 1669 1680, 3 vols. 4to. And after his death, appeared “Ecclesia Antediluviana vera et falsa,” ibid. 1706. “Memorabilia Hist. Ecclesiasticoe recentioris,” Dresden, 1731, 4 to. Witte, in his Diarium, gives a longer list of his writings, but without specifying whether they are collected dissertations or separate volumes; a neglect very common with the biographers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

, a native of Justingen, in Suabia, where his father was a labourer, was educated at home, and in 1495 went to Cracow, where, and at Tubingen, he studied the languages, jurisprudence, and particularly poetry. In 1501, the emperor Maximilian I. honoured him with the poetical crown. Before this, in 1497, he was professor at Tubingen, and lectured on the ancient orators and historians, and is said to have been the first who introduced into Germany a relish for the purity of the Latin tongue, in which his works show that he had attained considerable excellence. His Latin dissertations of the historical kind, relating to Germany, are inserted in the first volume of Scharde’s Scrip. Her. Germanicarum. Ife is less to his credit that he wrote some tales of a very licentious kind. He formed, also, a collection of German proverbs, which with his poems were published at Strasburgh, in 1512, 4to, under the title “Opuscula BebeJiana.” A posthumous work of his, “De necessitate linguae Latinae,” was published at Augsburgh, in 1801, with his life in German, by Zapf. Saxius fixes his death in 1514.

, an eminent Jesuit, born in 156J, at Hilvarenbec, a small village of Brabant, entered the society of Jesuits in 1583. He taught philosophy four years, and divinity twenty-two years, at Mentz, Wirtzburgh, and Vienna, and was reckoned one of the ablest professors of his time. The emperor Matthias maintained him at Vienna, and he was made confessor to the emperor Ferdinand II. The popish historians say he was happy in a clear conception, and could express himself so intelligibly to his scholars, even upon the most intricate points, that several universities contended which shoiil.l receive him. He published a tract upon scholastic divinity, which Dupin says is short and clear, and has been much esteemed, and several treatises of controversy. He was the friend and follower of Bellarmin, and supported him in his controversy with king James I. and bishop Andrews (see Andrews). It may supply a small defect in bishop Andrews’s life, to note here that Becan wrote “Refutatio Apologias et Monitorix prefationis Jacobi regis Anglian,” Mentz, 1610, 8vo. 2. “Refutatio Torturae Torti (bishop Andrews’s book. See his life, p. 219.) ibid. 1610, 8vo. This was answered by Robert Burhill, in” Responsio pro Torlura Torti, contra M. Becanum,“Lond. 1611, 8vo. 3.” Controversia Anglicana de potestate regis et pontificis, contra Lancelotum Andream,“Mentz, 1612, 8vo. All Becan’s works were published at Mentz, 1630, 2 vols. fol.; and at Doway, 1641, but in this collection his” Analogy of the Old and New Testament," one of the most esteemed of his productions, is omitted. He died at Vienna, Jan. 24, according to Dnpin, but in May, according to others, 1624. The fate of his works has been somewhat singular. In his opposition to king James and the bishop of Ely, he carried the power of the pope so far, that Paul V. was obliged to have his book condemned at Rome, Jan. 3, 1613; and a century and a half after this, in 1762, the parliament of Paris ordered the whole of his works to be burnt.

, surnamed Panormita, from his native country, Palermo, in Latin Panormus, vvas born 'there in 1394, and at the age of six was sent to the university of Bologna, to study law, after which he was taken into the court of the duke of MiIan, Philip-Maria-Visconti. He vvas afterwards professor of the belles-lettres at Pavia, but without leaving the court, in which he enjoyed a revenue of eight hundred crowns of gold. The emperor Sigismond, when on a tour in Lombardy in 1432, honoured him with the poetic crown at Parma. Beccadelli then went to the court of Naples, where he passed the remainder of his life, always accompanying Alphonso, the king, in his expeditions and travels, who loaded him with favours, gave him a beautiful country house, enrolled him among the Neapolitan nobility, intrusted him with political commissions of great importance, and sent him as ambassador to Geneva, Venice, to the emperor Frederic III. and to some other princes. And after the death of Alphonso, he was not less a favourite with king Ferdinand, who made him his secretary, and admitted him of his council. He died at Naples, in 1471. While in the service of Alphonso, he wrote his history “De dictis et factis Alphonsi regis, lib. IV.” Pisa, 1485, 4to, and often reprinted. He was rewarded by his sovereign with a thousand crowns of gold for this performance. His five books of letters, orations, poems, tragedies, &c. were published at Venice, 1553, 4to, under the title “Epistolarum lib. V. Orationes II. Carmina praeterea quasdam, &c.” But the most extraordinary of his productions was his “Hermaphroditus,” which long remained in obscurity. This is a collection divided into two books of small poems, grossly indecent, and yet dedicated to Cosmo de Medicis, who is not said to have resented the insult. What renders this production the more extraordinary, is, that it was written when the author was advanced in life, and at a time when his character seemed to derive dignity from the honourable employments he held, and his reputation in the learned world. Of this work, written with great purity of Latin style, some copies got abroad, and ^excited the just indignation of the age. Filelfo and Laurentius Valla attacked it in their writings; the clergy preached against it, and caused it to be burnt; and the author was burnt in effigy at Ferrara and Milan. Valla even goes so far as to wish that he had been burnt in person. Even Poggio, not the most chaste of Italian writers, reproached his friend with having gone too far. Beccadelli defended himself by the example of the ancients, and Guarino of Verona quotes the example of St. Jerome, but sense and decency went against them, and these poems were confined to the Laurentian library strictly, as Mr, Koscoe says, but surely a more certain method might have been devised to consign them to perpetual oblivion. A copy, however, was by some means preserved, and printed at Paris in 1791, when the revolution had brought on a general dissolution of morals and public decency. “The editor,” says Ginguene, “no doubt thought that our morals were so confirmed as to have nothing to fear, and the book is now in every shop.”

, was born at Bologna in 1502, of a noble family. Having gone through a course of study at Padua, he applied himself to business, without however entirely quitting literature. He attachedhimself to cardinal Pole, whom he followed in the legation to Spain, and was soon appointed himself to those of Venice and Augsburg, after having assisted at the council of Trent, and the archbishopric of Ragusa was the reward of his labours. Cosmo I. grand duke of Tuscany, having entrusted him in 1563 with the education of his son, prince Ferdinand, he gave up his archbishopric, in the hope that was held out to him of obtaining that of Pisa; but, being deceived in his expectations, he was obliged to content himself with the provostship of the cathedral of Prato, where he ended his days in 1572. His principal works are: “The life of cardinal Pole,” in Italian, translated by Duditius into Latin, and thence by Maucroix into French; and that of Petrarch, in Italian, more exact than any that had appeared before. This prelate was in correspondence with almost all the learned, his contemporaries, Sadolet, Bembo, the Manuciuses, Varchi, &c. It remains to be noticed that his life of cardinal Pole was published in 1766, in English, by the Rev. Benjamin Pye, LL. B. Of this, and other lives of that celebrated cardinal, notice will be taken in his article.

, a political writer of considerable note, was born at Milan in 1735, and died in the same place in 1793 or 1794. In his first publication, which appeared at Lucca in 1762, he pointed cut several abuses, with their remedies, in the system of coinage adopted in the state of Milan. A short time after, some literary gentlemen of Milan projected a periodical work, which was to contain essays on various subjects of philosophy, morals, and politics, calculated to enlighten the public mind. It was accordingly published in the years 1764 and 1765, under the title of “The Coffeehouse,” and when collected, the papers formed 2 vols. 4to, of which the most interesting and original were from the pen of Beccaria. It was likewise in 1764, that he published his celebrated treatise on “crimes and punishments,” “Dei Delitti e delle Pene,” 12mo, a work to which some objections may he made, and in which there are some inconsistencies, yet few works were read with more avidity, or more directly tended to introduce a humane and wise system in the criminal law. Within eighteen months of its publication, six editions of the Italian were eagerly bought up, and it is computed that it has since gone through above fifty editions and translations. The English translation published in 1766 contained also a commentary attributed to Voltaire, but contributing more to amuse than instruct the reader. Much, however, as the author was applauded by the enlightened part of the world, he was likely to have been brought into trouble by the bigotry of his countrymen, had he not met with very powerful protection. In 1768 the Austrian government founded a professorship of political economy for him, and his lectures on that subject were published in 1804, 2 vols. 8vo, under the title of “Elemens d'economie publique.” In 1770 he published the first part of his “Recherches sur la nature du style,” Milan, 8vo. There are some shrewd remarks in this, but he appears to have got into the paradoxical way of writing, and endeavours to prove that every individual has an equal degree of genius for poetry and eloquence.

, a very eminent physician, was born in 1682 at Bononia. He received the first rudiments of education among the Jesuits. He then proceeded to the study of philosophy, in which he made great progress; but cultivated that branch of it particularly which consists in the contemplation and investigation of nature. Having gone through a course of philosophy and mathematics, he applied himself to medicine. Being appointed teacher of natural philosophy at an academy in Bononia, in consequence of his ardent pursuits in philosophy, his fellow citizens conferred on him the office of public professor. His first step in this chair was the interpretation of the Dialectics. He kept his house open to students, who found there a kind 6*f philosophical society. Here it was his practice to deliver his sentiments on the different branches of science, or to explain such metaphysical subjects as had been treated of by Descartes, Malebranche, Leibnitz, and others of the moderns. Among the frequenters of this little Society we find the names of John Baptist Morgagni, Eustathius Manfred, and Victorius Franciscus Stancarius, who, in concurrence with Beccaria, succeeded in shaking oil the old scholastic yoke, and formed themselves into an academy, adopting a new and more useful method of reasoning. In this institution it was thought fit to elect twelve of their body, who were called ordinarii, to read the several lectures In natural history, chemistry, anatomy, medicine, physics, and mathematics, in which partition the illustration of natural history fell to the share of Beccaria; who gave such satisfaction, that it was difficult to determine which was most admired, his diligence or his ingenuity. In 1712 he was called to give lectures in medicine, in which he acquired so great a reputation, that he found it scarcely practicable to answer the desires of the incredible number of those who applied to him for instruction. At the beginning of the year 1718, while entirely occupied in this station, and in collecting numberless anatomical subjects to exhibit and to explain to his auditors, he was attacked by a putrid fever, which brought his life in imminent danger, and from which he did not recover till afte.r a confinement of eight months; and even then it left him subject to intermitting attacks, and a violent pain in his side. But the vigour of his mind triumphed over the weakness of his body. Having undertaken to demonstrate and explain his anatomical preparations, he would not desist; and went on patiently instructing the students that frequented his house. On the death of Antonio Maria Valsalva, who was president of the institution, Beccaria, already vice-president, was unanimously chosen by the academicians to succeed him, in which post he did the academy much signal service; and to this day it adheres to the rules prescribed by Beccaria. He now practised as well as taught the art of medicine, and in this he acquired an unbounded fame; for it was not confined to his owa countrymen, but was spread throughout Europe. He communicated to the royal society of London several barometrical and meteorological observations; with others on the ignis fatuus, and on the spots that appear in stones, and in acknowledgement he was chosen a member of that learned body in 1728. He confesses thai in his constitution he was not without some igneous sparks, which were easily kindled into anger and other vehement emotions; yet he was resolved to evince by example what he had constantly taught, that the medicine of the mind is more to be studied than that of the body; and that they are truly wise and happy who have learnt to heal their distorted and bad affections. He had brought himself to such an equal temper of mind, that but a few hours before his death he wanted to mark the heights of the barometer and thermometer, which was his usual practice three times every day. Thus, after many and various labours, died this learned and ingenious man, the 30th of Jan. 1766, and was buried in the church of St. Maria ad Baracanum, where an inscription is carved en his monument. He published the following works: 1. “Lettere al cavaliere Tommaso Derham, intorno la nieteora chiamata fuoco fatuo. Edita primum in societatis Lond. transact.” 1720. 2. “Dissertatio mctheorologicamedica, in qua ae'ris temperies et morbi Bononizegrassantes annis 1729, et sequent! describuntur.” 3. “Pa re re intorno al taglio delia macchiadi Viareggio,” Lucca, 1739, 4to. 4. “De longis jejuniis dissertatio.” Patavii, 1743, fo'l. 5. “De quamplurimis phosphoris nunc primum detectis commentarius,” Bononia?,“1744, 4to. 6.” De quamplurim. &c. commentarius alter.“7.” De motu intestino corporum fluidorum.“8.” De medicatis Recobarii aquis.“9.” De lacte.“10.” Epistolrc tres mediciP ad Franciscum lloncalium Parolinum,“Brixiir, 1747, fol. 11.” Scriptura medico-legalis," 1749; and some others. He left behind him several manuscripts.

, a monk of the EcolesPies, or Pious Schools, was born at Mondovi, and died at Turin, May 22, 1781. He was professor of mathematics and philosophy, first at Palermo, then at Rome; and by his experiments and discoveries was so successful as to throw great light on natural knowledge, and especially on that of electricity. He was afterwards called to Turin to take upon him the professorship of experimental philosophy. Being appointed preceptor to the two princes, Benedict duke of Chablais, and Victor Amadscus duke of Ctirignan, neither the life of a court, nor the allurements of pleasure, were able to draw him aside from study. Loaded with benefits and honours, he spared nothing to augment his library, and to procure the instruments necessary for his philosophical pursuits. His dissertations on electricity would have been more useful, if he had been less strongly attached to some particular systems, and especially that of Mr. Franklin. He published, 1. “Experimenta quibus Electricitas Vindex late constituitur, &c.” Turin, 1771, 4to. 2. “Electricismo artificiale,” 1772, 4to, an English translation of which was published at Lond. 1776, 4to. We have also by him an “Essay on the cause of Storms and Tempests,” where we meet with nothing more satisfactory than what has appeared in other works on that subject; several pieces on the meridian of Turin, and other objects of astronomy and physics. Father Beccaria was no less respectable for his virtues than his knowledge.

, born in 1645,at Spires, was at first professor of medicine, and then first physician to the elector of Mentz, and afterwards to him of Bavaria. He went to London, where his reputation had got before him, and where the malice of his rivals had forced him to seek an asylum, and here he died in 1685. His works are various, among which we may distinguish the following: 1. “Physica subterranea,” Frankfort, 1669, 8vo, reprinted at Leipsic, 1703, and in 1759, 8vo. 2. “Experimentum Chymicum novum,” Frankfort, 1671, 8vo. 3. “Character pro notitia linguarum universali;” a universal language, by means whereof all nations might easily understand each other the fanciful idea of a man of genius. 4. “Institntiones Chymicse, seu manuductio ad pjiilosophiam hermeticam,” Mentz, 1662, 8vo. 5. “Institutiones GhymictE prodromye,” Frankfort, 1664, and Amsterdam, 1665, 12mo. 6. “Experimentum novum ac curiosum de Minera arenaria perpetua,” Frankfort, 1680, 8vo. 7. “Epistohe Chymicae,” Amsterdam, 1673, 8vo. Becher was reputed to be a very able machinist and a good chymist. He was a man of a lively te-mper, impetuous and headstrong, and therefore indulged jn a thousand chymical reveries. He was the first who applied the art of chymistry, in all its extent, to philosophy, and shewed what use might be made of it in explaining the structure, the combinations, and the mutual relations of hodies. He pretended to have found out a sort or‘ perpetual motion. However, it is beyond a doubt ’that the world is indebted to him for some useful discoveries, and he attempted to make some improvements in the art of printing.

was born at Konigsberg in 1627, the son of a father of the same names, who was doctor and professor of medicine, and first physician to the elector of Brandenburgh. He also followed his father’s profession, and took his doctor’s degree at Strasburgh in 1652. Next year he was appointed public professor at Konigsberg, and in 1663 the elector of Brandenburgh admitted him a counsellor, and to be his first physician. He died at Konigsberg in 1673, almost in the prime of life. His works were, 1. “Medicus Microcosmus,” Rostock, Leyden, and Lond. 1660. 2. “De Cultrivoro Prussiaco,” Konigsberg, 1636, Leyden, 1638. 3. “Hist, morbi academici Regiomontani,” Leyden, 1649. 4. “De unguento armario,” in the “Theatrum Sympatheticum,” Nuremberg, 1662. 5. “Commentarius de Theriaca,” Konigsberg, 1649.

, archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Henry II. was born in London 1119, the son of Gilbert, a merchant, and Matilda, a Saracen lady, who is said to have fallen in love with him, when he was a prisoner to her father in Jerusalem. Thomas received the first part of his education at Merton-abbey in Surrey, whence he went to Oxford, and afterwards studied at Paris. He became in high favour with Theobald archbishop of Canterbury, who sent him to study the civil law at Bononia in Italy, and at his return made him archdeacon of Canterbury, and provost of Beverley. Before this he had discovered such superior talents for negociation, that archbishop Theobald dispatched him as his agent to the pope, on a point he thought of great moment, which was to get the legantine power restored to the see of Canterbury. This commission was performed with such dexterity and success, that the archbishop entrusted to him all his most secret intrigues with the court of Rome, and particularly a matter of the highest importance to England, the soliciting from the pope those prohibitory letters against the crowning of prince Eustace, by which that design was defeated. This service, which raised Becket’s merit not only with the prelate by whom he was employed, but also with king Henry, was the original foundation of his high fortune. It is remarkable, that he was the first Englishman, since the latter years of the reign of William the Conqueror, on whom any great office, either in church or state, had been conferred by the kings of the Norman race; the exclusion of the English from all dignities having been a maxim of policy, which had been delivered down by that monarch to his sons. This maxim Henry the Second wisely and liberally discarded, though the first instance in which he deviated from it happened to be singularly unfortunate.

Theobald also recommended him to king Henry II. in so effectual a manner, that in 1158 he was appointed high chancellor, and preceptor to the prince. Becket now laid aside the churchman, and affected the courtier; he conformed himself in every thing to the king’s humour; he partook of all his diversions, and observed the same hours of eating and going to bed. He kept splendid levees, and courted popular applause; and the expences of his table exceeded those of the first nobility. In 1159 he made a campaign with king Henry into Toulouse, having in his own pay 1200 horse, besides a retinue of 700 knights or gentlemen. While here he gave a piece of advice which marked the spirit and fire of his character. This was, to seize the person of Lewis, king of France, who had imprudently thrown himself into the city of Toulouse without an army. But the counsel was deemed too bold. Besides several political reasons against complying with it, it was thought an enormous and criminal violation of the feudal allegiance, for a vassal to take and hold in captivity the person of his lord. We need not inforjn our historical readers, that Henry, though a very powerful monarch, did, by the large possessions he held in France, stand in. the relation of a vassal to the king of that country. In the war against the earl of Toulouse, Becket, besides his other military exploits, engaged, in single combat, Engelvan, de Trie, a French knight, famous for his valour, dismounted him with his lance, and gained his horse, which he led off in great triumph.

In 1160, he was sent by the king to Paris, to treat of a marriage between prince Henry and the king of France’s eldest daughter, in which he succeeded, and returned with the young princess to England. He had not enjoyed the chancellorship above four years, when archbishop Theobald died; and the king, who was then in Normandy, immediately sent over some trusty persons to England, who managed matters so well with the monks and clergy, that Becket was almost unanimously elected archbishop.

It has been said that it was with the utmost difficulty Becket could be prevailed upon to accept of this dignity, and that he even predicted it would be the cause of a breach between the king and him. But this is greatly doubted by lord Lyttelton in his History of Henry II. and it stands contradicted by the affirmation of Foliot, bishop of London, and ill agrees with the measures which were taken to procure Becket' s election. His biographers themselves acknowledge, that one reason which induced Henry to promote him to Canterbury, was, “because he hoped, that, by his means, he should manage ecclesiastical, as well as secular affairs, to his own satisfaction.” Indeed, no other reasonable motive can be found. Nothing could incline that prince to make so extraordinary and so exceptionable a choice, but a firm confidence, that he should be most usefully assisted by Becket, in the important reformation he meant to undertake, of subjecting the clergy to the authority of the civil government. Nor is it credible that he should not have revealed his intention, concerning that affair, to a favourite minister, whom he had accustomed to trust, without reserve, in his most secret counsels. But if such a declaration had been made by that minister, as is related by the historians, it is scarcely to be supposed, that a king so prudent as Henry would have forced him into a station, in which he certainly might have it in his power to be exceedingly troublesome, instead of being serviceable to his royal master. It was by a different language that the usual sagacity of this prince could have been deceived. Nor, indeed, could the most jealous and penetrating eye have discovered in Becket, after he was elected archbishop of Canterbury, any marks of an enthusiastic or bigotted zeal. That several indications of a contrary temper, and different principles, had appeared in his conduct, is shewn by lord Lyttelton, who produces two remarkable instances in support of his assertion. The same noble writer hath brought, likewise, satisfactory evidence, to prove that Becket was almost as eager for procuring the archbishopric, as his master could be to raise him to that dignity. After he had received his pall from pope Alexander III. then residing in France, he immediately sent messengers to the king in Normandy, with his resignation of the seal and office of chancellor. This displeased the king; so that upon his return to England, when he was met at his landing by the archbishop, he received him in a cold and indifferent manner.

Becket now betook himself to a quite different manner of life, and put on all the gravity and austerity of a monk. He began likewise to exert himself with great zeal, in defence of the rights and privileges of the church of Canterbury; and in many cases proceeded with so much warmth and obstinacy, as raised him many enemies. Pope Alexander III. held a general council of his prelates at Tours in April 1163, at which Becket was present, and was probably animated by the pope in his design of becoming the champion for the liberties of the church and the immunities of the clergy. It is certain that on his return he prosecuted this design with such zeal that the king and he came to an open rupture Henry endeavoured to recall certain privileges of the clergy, who had greatly abused their exemption from the civil courts, concerning which the king had received several complaints; while the archbishop stood up for the immunities of the clergy. The king convened a synod of the bishops at Westminster, and here demanded that the clergy, when accused of any capital offence, might take their trials in the usual courts of justice. The question put to the bishops was, Whether, in consideration of their duty and allegiance to the king, and of the interest and peace of the kingdom, they were willing to promise a submission to the laws of his grandfather, king Henry? To this the archbishop replied, in the name of the whole body, that they were willing to be bound by the ancient laws of the kingdom, as far as the privileges of the order would permit, salvo ordine suo. The king was highly displeased with this answer, and insisted on having an absolute compliance, without any reservation whatever; but the archbishop would by no means submit, and the rest of the bishops adhered for some time to their primate. Several of the bishops being at length gained over, and the pope interposing in the quarrel, Becket was prevailed on to acquiesce; and soon after the king summoned a convention or parliament at Clarendon, in 1164, wheje several laws were passed relating to the privileges of the clergy, called from thence, the Constitutions of Clarendon. But before the meeting of this assembly, Becket had again changed his rnind, and when he appeared before the council, he obstinately refused to obey the laws as he had before agreed. This equally disappointed and enraged the king, and it was not until after some days debate, and the personal entreaties, and even tears, of some of his particular friends, that Becket was again softened, and appearing before the council, solemnly promised and swore, in the words of truth and without any reserve, to obey all the royal laws and customs which had been established in England in the reign of his majesty’s grandfather Henry L The constitutions of Clarendon were then put in writing, read in the council, and one copy of them delivered to the primate, another to the archbishop of York, and a third deposited among the records of the kingdom. By them ecclesiastics of all denominations were reduced to a due subjection to the laws of their country; they also limited the jurisdiction of spiritual courts, guarded against appeals to Rome, and the pronouncing of interdicts and excommunications, without the consent of the king or his judiciary.

As it was with visible reluctance that Becket had sworn to obey these constitutions, he soon began to give indications of his repentance, by extraordinary acts of mortification, and by refraining from performing the sacred offices of his function. He also dispatched a special messenger, with an account of what had happened, to the pope, who sent him a bull, releasing him from the obligation of his oath, and enjoining him to resume the duties of his sacred office. But though this bull reconciled his conscience to the breach of his oath, it did not dispel his fears of the royal indignation, to avoid which he determined to retire privately out of the kingdom. Accordingly he went aboard a ship, in order to make his escape beyond sea but before he could reach the coast of France, the wind shifting about, he was driven back to England, and, conscious that he had done amiss, he waited upon the king at Woodstock, who received him without any other expression of displeasure than asking him if he had left England because he thought it too little to contain both? Notwithstanding the mildness of this rebuke, Becket persisted in setting the clergy above the laws; and therefore the king summoned a parliament at Northampton, 1165, where the archbishop having been accused of failure of duty and allegiance to the king, was sentenced to forfeit all his goods and chattels. Becket made an appeal to the pope but this having availed nothing, and finding himself deserted by his brethren, he withdrew privately from Northampton, and went aboard a ship for Graveline in Holland, from whence he retired to the monastery of St. Bertin in Flanders.

The king seized upon the revenues of the archbishopric, and sent an ambassador to the French king, desiring him not to give shelter to Becket: but the French court espoused his cause, in hopes that the misunderstanding betwixt him and Henry might embarrass the affairs of England; and accordingly when Becket came from St. Bertin to Soissons, the French king paid him a visit, and offered him his protection. Soon after the archbishop went to Sens; where he was honourably received by the pope, into whose hands he in form resigned the archbishopric of Canterbury, and was presently re-instated in his dignity by the pope, who promised to espouse his interest. The archbishop removed from Sens to the abbey of Pontigny in Normandy, from whence he wrote a letter to the bishops of England, informing them, that the pope had annulled the Constitutions of Clarendon. From hence too he issued put excommunications against several persons, who had violated the rights of the church. This conduct of his raised him many enemies. The king was so enraged against him for excommunicating several of his officers of state, that he banished all Becket’s relations, and compelled them to take an oath, that they would travel directly to Pontigny, and shew themselves to the archbishop. An order was likewise published, forbidding all persons to correspond with him by letters, to send him any money, or so much as to pray for him in the churches. He wrote also to the general chapter of the Cistertians, threatening to Seize all their estates in England, if they allowed Becket to continue in the abbey of Pontigny. The archbishop thereupon removed to Sens; and from thence, upon the king of France’s recommendation, to the abbey of St. Columba, where he remained four years. In the mean time, the bishops of the province of Canterbury wrote a letter to the archbishop, entreating him to alter his behaviour, and not to widen the breach, so as to render an accommodation impracticable betwixt him and the king. This, however, no effect on the archbishop. The pope also sent two cardinals to try to reconcile matters but the legates finding both parties inflexible, gave over the attempt, and re*­turned to Rome.

The beginning of 1167, Becket was at length so far prevailed upon as to have an interview with Henry and the king of France, at Mont-Moral in Champaigne. He made a speech to Henry in very submissive terms and concluded with leaving him the umpire of the difference between them, saving the honour of God. Henry was provoked at this clause of reservation, and said, that whatever Becket did not relish, he would pronounce contrary to the honour of God. “However,” added the king, “to shew my inclination to accommodate matters, I will make him this proposition: I have had many predecessors, kings of England, some greater and some inferior to myself; there have been likewise many great and holy men in the see of Canterbury. Let Becket therefore but pay me the same regard, and own my authority so far, as the greatest of his predecessors owned that of the least of mine, and I am satisfied. And, as I never forced him out of England, I give him leave to return at his pleasure; and am willing he should enjoy his archbishopric, with as ample privileges as any of his predecessors.” All who were present declared that Henry had shewn sufficient condescension. The king of France, surprised at the archbishop’s silence, asked him why he hesitated to accept such reasonable conditions? Becket replied, he was willing to receive his see upon the terms his predecessors held it; but as for those customs which broke in upon the canons, he could not admit them; for he looked upon this as betraying the cause of religion. And thus the interview ended without any effect.

In 1169, endeavours were again used to accommodate matters, but they proved ineffectual. The archbishop refused to comply, because Henry would not give him the customary salute, or kiss of peace, which his majesty would have granted, had he not once swore in a passion never to salute the archbishop on the cheek; but he declared that he would bear him no ill will for the omission of this ceremony. Henry became at length so irritated against this prelate, that he ordered all his English subjects to take an oath, whereby they renounced the authority of Becket and pope Alexander: most of the laity complied with this order, but few of the clergy acquiesced. The following year king Henry, upon his return to England, ordered his son, prince Henry, to be crowned at Westminster, and the ceremony was performed by the archbishop of York: this office belonged to the see of Canterbury; and Becket complained of it to the pope, who suspended the archbishop of York, and excommunicated the bishops who assisted him.

This year, however, an accommodation was at length concluded betwixt Henry and Becket, upon the confines of Normandy,where the king held the bridle of Becket’s horse, while he mounted and dismounted twice. Soon after the archbishop embarked for England; and upon his arrival, received an order from the young king to absolve the suspended and excommunicated bishops; but refusing to comply, the archbishop of York, and the bishops of London and Salisbury, carried their complaint to the king in Normandy, who was highly provoked at this fresh instance of obstinacy in Becket, and said on the occasion, “That he was an unhappy prince, who maintained a great number of lazy, insignificant persons about him, none of whom had gratitude or spirit enough to revenge him on a single, insolent prelate, who gave him so much disturbance,' 7 or as some report his words,” Shall this fellow, who came to court on a lame horse, with all his estate in a wallet behind him, trample upon his king, the royal family, and the whole kingdom? Will none of all these lazycowardly knights whom I maintain, deliver me from this turbulent priest?" This passionate exclamation made too deep an impression on some of those who heard it, particularly on the four following barons, Reginald Fitz-Urse, William de Tracy, Hugh de Morville, and Richard Breto, who formed a resolution, either to terrify the archbishop into submission, or to put him to death.

Having laid their plan, they left the court at different times, and took different routes, to prevent suspicion; but being conducted by the devil, as some monkish historians tell us, they all arrived at the castle of Ranulph de Broc, about six miles from Canterbury, on the same day, Dec. 28, 1170, and almost at the same hour. Here they settled the whole scheme of their proceedings, and next morning early set out for Canterbury, accompanied by a body of resolute men, with arms concealed under their clothes. These men they placed in different parts of the city, to prevent any interruption from the citizens. The four barons above-named then went unarmed with twelve of their company, to the archiepiscopal palace, about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, and were admitted into the apartment where the arehbishop sat conversing with some of his clergy. After their admission a long silence ensued, which was at length broken by Reginald Fitz-Urse, who told the archbishop that they were sent by the king to command him to absolve the prelates, and others, whom he had excommunicated; and then to go to Winchester, and make satisfaction to the young king, whom he had endeavoured to dethrone. On this a very long and violent altercation followed, in the course of which they gave several hints, that his life was in danger if he did not comply. Bat he remained undaunted in his refusal. At their departure they charged his servants not to allow him to flee; on which he cried out with great vehemence, “Flee! I will never flee from any man living; I am not come to flee, but to defy the rage of impious assassins.” When they were gone, his friends blamed him for the roughness of his answers, which had inflamed the fury of his enemies, and earnestly pressed him to make his escape but he only answered, “I have no need of your advice I know what I ought to do.” The barons, with their accomplices, finding their threats were ineffectual, put on their coats of mail; and taking each a sword in his right hand, and an axe in his left, returned to the palace, but found the gate shut. When they were preparing to break it open, Robert de Broc conducted them up a back stair-case, and let them in at a window. A cry then arose, “they are armed! they are armed!” on which the clergy hurried the archbishop almost by force into the church, hoping that the sacredness of the place would protect him from violence. They would also have shut the door, but he cried out, “Begone, ye cowards! I charge you on your obedience, do not shut the door. What! will you make a castle of a church?” The conspirators having searched the palace, came to the church, and one of them crying, “Where is the traitor? where is the archbishop?” Becket advanced boldly and said, “Here I am, an archbishop, but no traitor.” “Flee,” cried the conspirator, “or you are a dead man.” “I will never flee,” replied Becket. William de Tracy then took hold of his robe, and said, “You are my prisoner; come along with me.” But Becket seizing him by the collar, shook him with so much force, that he almost threw him down. De Tracy, enraged at this resistance, aimed a blow with his sword, which almost cut off the arm of one Edward Grim, a priest, and slightly wounded the archbishop on the head. By three other blows given by the other conspirators, his skull was cloven almost in two, and his brains scattered about the pavement of the church.

The assassins, conscious of their crime, and dreading its consequences, durst not return to the king’s court at Normandy, but retired to Knaresburgh in Yorkshire; where every body avoided their company, hardly any person even choosing to eat or drink with them. They at length took a voyage to Home, and being admitted to penance by pope Alexander III. they went to Jerusalem; where, according to the pope’s order, they spent their lives in penitential austerities, and died in the Black Mountain. They were buried at Jerusalem, without the church door belonging to the Templars, and this inscription was put over them:

King Henry was much disturbed at the news of Becket’s death, and immediately dispatched an embassy to Rome-to clear himself from the imputation of being the cause of it. Immediately all divine offices ceased in the church of Canterbury; and this for a year, excepting nine days, at the end of which, by order of the pope, it was re-consecrated. Two years after, Becket was canonized; an'd the following year, Henry, returning to England, went to Canterbury, where he did penance as a testimony of his regret for the murder of Becket. When he came within sight of the church, where the archbishop was buried, he alighted off his horse, and walked barefoot, in the habit of a pilgrim, till he came to Becket’s tomb; where, after he had prostrated himself, and prayed for a considerable time, he submitted to be scourged by the monks, and passed all that day and night without any refreshment, and kneeling upon the bare stone. In 1221, Becket’s body was taken up, in the presence of king Henry III. and several nobility, &nd deposited in a rich shrine on the east side of the church. The miracles said to be wrought at his tomb were so numerous, that we are told two large volumes of them were kept in that church. His shrine was visited from all parts, and enriched with the most costly gifts and offerings.

According to lord Lyttelton, who appears to have studied the character of this turbulent prelate with great care, Becket was “a man of great talents, of elevated thoughts, and of invincible courage; but of a most violent and turbulent spirit; excessively passionate, haughty, and vainglorious; in his resolutions inflexible, in his resentments implacable. It cannot be denied that he was guilty of a wilful and premeditated perjury; that he opposed the necessary course of public justice, and acted in defiance of the laws of his country; laws which he had most solemnly acknowledged and confirmed: nor is it less evident, that, during the heat of this dispute, he was in the highest degree ungrateful to a very kind master, whose confidence in him had been boundless, and who from a private condition had advanced him to be the second man in his kingdom. On what motives he acted, can be certainly judged of by Him alone, ‘ to whom all hearts are open.’ He might be misled by the prejudices of a bigotted age, and think he was doing an acceptable service to God, in contending, even to death, for the utmost excess of ecclesiastical and papal authority. Yet the strength of his understanding, his conversation in courts and camps, among persons whose iiotions were more free and enlarged, the different colour of his former life, and the suddenness of the change which seemed to be wrought in him upon his election to Canterbury, would make one suspect, as many did in the times wherein he lived, that he only became the champion of the church from an ambitious desire of sharing its power; a power more independent on the favour of the king, and therefore more agreeable to the haughtiness of his mind, than that which he had enjoyed as a minister of the crown. And this suspicion is increased by the marks of cunning and falseness, which are evidently seen in his conduct on some occasions. Neither is it impossible, that, when first he assumed his new character, he might act the part of a, zealot, merely or principally from motives of arrogance and ambition; yet, afterwards, being engaged, and inflamed by the contest, work himself up into a real enthusiasm. The continual praises of those with whom he acted, the honours done him in his exile by all the clergy of France, and the vanity which appears so predominant in Ins mind, may have conduced to operate such a change. He certainly shewed in the latter part of his life a spirit as fervent as the warmest enthusiast’s; such a spirit indeed as constitutes heroism, when it exerts itself in a cause beneficial to mankind. Had he defended the established laws of his country, and the fundamental rules of civil justice, with as much zeal and intrepidity as he opposed them, he would have deserved to be ranked with those great men, whose virtues make one e?sily forget the allay of some natural imperfections: but, unhappily, his good qualities were so misapplied, that they became no less hurtful to the public weal of the kingdom, than the worst of his vices.”

On the other hand, Mr. Berington, in his “History of the reign of Henry If.” has attempted a vindication of Becket, in which he differs considerably from lord Lyttelton and other protestant historians, but for this w must refer to the book itself. Few men have had more biographers, if reliance could be placed on them, than Becket, but unfortunately the greater part of them were his panegyrists, and not his historians, and too much under the influence of the monkish principles of their days, to deserve much credit. The following list, however, of his biographers may afford some information to the curious inquirer, taken from Leland, Bale, Pits, and others. 1. Herbert Bosenham, or Bosscham, or de Hoscham, who was this archbishop’s secretary, and also present at the slaughter of him. 2. Edward, a monk, of Canterbury, the martyr’s most intimate friend. 3. Johannes Sarisburiensis, who accompanied Becket in his exile, but never countenanced his behaviour towards the king, being as sharp a writer against the encroachments of the papal see, as any man of his time. 4. Bartholomseus Iscanus, or Exonensis, bisiiop of Exeter, where he died in 118k 5. E. a monk of Eveshatn, who dedicated his book, or wrote it by way of epistle, to Henry, abbot of Croyland. 6. William Stephens, or Fitz-Stephen, a monk of Canterbury, and, for at reason, usually called Gulielmus Cantuariensis. He said to have written three several treatises of the life, martyrdom, and miracles of St. Thomas Becket; which are now in the Cotton library: But that, which there carries his name, seems to have been penned by Johannes Carnotensis, who is the same person with Sarisburiensis above mentioned, since, in the Quadripartite History, what we have from him is often to be found, in the same words, in the life there ascribed to Fitz-Stephen. 7. Benedictus Petroburgensis, abbot of Peterborough, who died in 1200. 8. Alanus Teukesburiensis, abbot of Tewkesbury, who died about the same time. 9. Roger, a monk of Croyland, who lived about 1214. It is observed, that St. Thomas’s miracles were become so numerous in this writer’s time, that he had matter for seven large volumes, in composing of which he spent no less than fifteen years. 10. Stephen Langton, a famous successor of Becket’s in the see of Canterbury, whose work on this subject is said be in the library of Bene't college. 11. Alexander de Hales, so called from the monastery of Hales in Gloucestershire, where he was educated, one of the most eminent schoolmen of his age, and master to Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, &c. 12. John Grandison, or Graunston, who died in 1369. 13. Quadrilogus, or the author of a book, entitled “De vita et processu S.Thomae Cantuariensiset Martyris super Libertate Ecclesiastica.” It is collected out of four historians, who were contemporary and conversant with Becket, viz. Herbert de Hoscham, Johannes Carnotensis, Gulielmus Canterburiensis, and Alanus Teukesburiensis, who are introduced as so many relaters of facts interchangeably. This book was first printed at Paris in 1495, and is often quoted by our historians, in the reign of Henry II. by the name of Quadripartita Historia. 14. Thomas Stapleton, the translator of Bede, in whose book De tribus Thomis, or Of the three Thomas’s, our saint makes as considerable a figure as either Thomas the Apostle, or Thomas Aquinas. 15. Laurence Vade, or Wade, a Benedictine monk of Canterbury, who lived and died we know not when, or where; unless perhaps he be the same person with 16. An anonymous writer of Becket’s life, who appears to have been a monk of that church, and whose book is said to be in the library at Lambeth. 17. Richard James, nephew of Dr. Thomas James, some time keeper of the Bodleian library; a very industrious and eminent antiquary, who endeavoured to overthrow the great design of all the above-mentioned authors, in his “Decanonizatio Thomse Cantuariensis et suorum,” which, with other manuscript pieces by the same hand, is in the public library at Oxford. These are the principal writers of our archbishop’s life besides whom, several other historians have spoken largely of him as John Bromton, Matthew Paris, Gervase, &c.

, a dramatic writer, born in 1699, was the son of a linen-draper in Fleet-street, London, and educated at Merchant Taylors’ school, under the rev. Dr. Smith, where he made very great proficiency in all his studies, and gave proofs of extraordinary talents. To dramatic poetry he appears to have been very early attached, two pieces of his, “Scipio Afriaanus,” and “Henry IV. of France,” both tragedies, being represented on the stage before he had completed his twentieth year. He wrote several other poems, but his genius was limited to a short career, as he died Feb. 19, 1730-1, in the thirty-second year of his age.

, an English prelate, was born in the parish of Beckington, in Somersetshire, or according to Dr. Chandler at Wallinoford in Berkshire, towards the close of the fourteenth century. He was educated in grammar learning at Wyk chain’s school near Winchester, while that great prelate was living, and proceeded to his college (New College) in Oxford in 1403, the year before Wykeham died, and there became doctor of laws, and continued in his fellowship about twelve years. Within this period, most probably, he was presented to the rectory of St. Leonard’s, near Hastings in Sussex, and to the vicarage of Sutton Courtney in Berkshire. He was also prebendary of Bedwin, York, and Lichfield, archdeacon of Buckingham, and master of St. Catherine’s hospital near the Tower in London. About 1429, he was dean of the court of arches, and a synod being then held in St. Paul’s church, London, which continued above six months, Beckington was one of three appointed to draw up a form of law, according to which the Wickliffites were to be proceeded against. Having been once tutor to Henry VI. and written a book, in which, in opposition to the Salique law, he strenuously asserted the right of the kings of England to the crown of France, he arrived to high favour with that prince, and was made secretary of state, keeper of the privy seal, and bishop of Bath and Wells. On Sunday, Oct. 13, 1443, he was consecrated by the bishop of Lincoln in the old collegiate church of St. Mary of Eton; and after the ceremony, celebrated his first mass in his pontificals in the new church of St. Mary? then erecting, and not half finished, under a pavilion provided for the purpose at the altar, directly over the spot where king Henry had laid the first stone.

Bishop Beckington was well skilled in polite learning and history, and very conversant in the holy Scriptures; a goo-d preacher, and so generous a patron and favourer of all learned and ingenious men, that he was called the Mxcenas of his age. His works of munificence and charity were numerous. He contributed to the completion of Lincolncollege, which had been left imperfect by its founder, Richard Flemming, bishop of Lincoln, and got the manor of Newton-Longueviile settled upon New college, Oxford, in 1440. He also laid out six thousand marks upon the houses belonging to his see; built an edifice, called New-buildings, and the west side of the cloisters at Wells; and erected a conduit in the market-place of that city. By his will, dated Nov. 3, 1464, and procured to be confirmed under the great seal, he left several charitable legacies. He died at Wells, Jan. 14, 1464-5, and was buried in his cathedral, where his monument is still to be seen. His panegyric was written by Thomas Chandler, warden of New college, who had been preferred by him to the chancellorship of Wells. He does not appear to have ever been chancellor of the university of Oxford. His book on the right of the kings of England to the crown of France is in the Cottonian library, with some other of his pieces, and a large collection of his letters is in the Lambeth library.

, an ingenious artist and antiquary, was the son of a respectable attorney in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He was early apprenticed as a housepainter to Mr. George Fleming of Wakefield, from whom he derived his skill in drawing and limning, as well as imbibed a love for the study of antiquities. To these he added heraldic and genealogical knowledge, to all which he applied himself, in his leisure hours, with such unwearied diligence, that his collection, together with the works of his own hands, became at length very considerable. Scarcely any object arrested his curiosity, particucularly if an antique, of which he did not make a drawing, and scarcely a church or a ruin in the vicinities of the places of his abode, that he did not preserve either in pencil or water-colours. Some years before his death he obtained a patent for a species of hardened crayons, which would bear the knife, and carry a point like a pencil; and about the same time he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. But what contributed most to make him known to those who were unacquainted with him in any other branch, was his extensive information respecting genealogical subjects, in consequence of which he frequently had the arrangement of the pedigrees of some of the first families, which he was enabled to execute from visitation books, and other authentic documents, which fell into his hands. Few men possessed more intelligence respecting the antiquity and descents of the principal families in the inland adjacent counties, and of various others more remote from him. It is much to his credit, likewise, that his industry in collecting could only be exceeded by his willingness to impart any information which he had received. Mr. Beck with died Feb. 17, 1786. Previous to his death, he had compiled “A Walk in and about the city of York,” an the plan of Mr. Gostling’s “Walk in and about the city of Canterbury,” but we have not heard that it has been published.

, a native of Paris, where he was born in 1654, became a monk of the Celestine order, and was for forty years their librarian at Paris. He was a man of considerable taste, well acquainted with books an.d authors, and wrote Latin and French with great purity. He died at Paris, Jan. 20, 1730. His principal work is a history of the congregation of the Celestines, with the lives of the most distinguished men among them. This work, written in Latin, was published at Paris, 1719, 4to. In 1721 he published in French, a pamphlet, entitled “Supplement et remarques critiques sur le vingt-troisieme chapitre du vi. tome de Phistoire des ordres monastiques et militaires, par le P. Heliot.” Where he speaks of the Celestines, Becquet corrects his errors, and throws considerable light on the history of St. Celestin and the order. In the Trevoux memoirs, where this piece is inserted, Becket wrote also some remarks on Baillet’s lives of the saints, and on the abbe Fleuri’s Ecclesiastical History. He is said to have employed some years on a “Roman Martyrology,” with notes biographical, critical, and astronomical, but this has not been published, nor is it certain it was completed.

, daughter of a gentleman of Dauphine, abbess of St. Honore de Tarascon, where she was honoured with the name of Scholastica, made great progress in the Latin language, and in several branches o science, under Denys Faucher, monk of Lerins and almoner of his monastery. Francis I. was so charmed with the letters of this abbess, that he carried them, as it is said, about him, and shewed them to the ladies of his court, as models for their imitation. He went from Avignon to Tarascon, with queen Margaret of Navarre, for the sake of conversing with this learned lady. She died in 1547, after having published several works, Latin and French, in verse and in prose. Two Italian writers, Louis Domenichi and Augustin della Chiesa, have published eloges on this lady in their respective works.

, or Bede, the brightest ornament of the eighth century, and one of the most eminent fathers of the English church, whose talents and virtues have procured him the name of the Venerable Bede, was born in the year 672, or according to some in the year 673, on the estates belonging afterwards to the abbies of St. Peter and St. Paul, in the bishopric of Durham, at Wermouth and Jarrow, near the mouth of the river Tyne. Much difference of opinion prevails among those who have treated of this illustrious character, respecting the place of his birth, some even contending that he was a native of Italy; but we shall confine ourselves to such facts as seem to be clearly ascereertained by the majority of historians. These are indeed but few, for the life of a studious, recluse, and conscientious ecclesiastic, cannot be supposed to admit of many of the striking varieties of biographical narrative. At the age of seven years, or about the year 679, he was brought to the monastery of St. Peter, and committed to the care of abbot Benedict, under whom and his successor Ceolfrid, he was carefully educated for twelve years, a favour which he afterwards repaid by writing the lives of these his preceptors, which were first published by sir James Ware at Dublin in 1664, 8vo. At the age of nineteen he was ordained deacon, and in the year 702, being then thirty, he was ordained priest by John of Beverley, bishop of Hagulstad or Hexham, who had been formerly one of his preceptors. It was probably from Beverley, a person of high character for piety and learning, that JBede imbibed his opinions concerning the monastic state, and the duties of such as embraced it. The bishop thought that in all professions men ought to labour for their own maintenance, and for the benefit of the society. He was consequently averse to the great errors of this institution, ease and indolence. He inculcated upon Beda’s mind, that the duties of this life consisted in a fervent and edifying devotion, a strict adherence to the discipline of the house, an absolute selfdenial with respect to the things of this world, an obedience to the will of his abbot, and a constant prosecution of his studies in such a way as might most conduce to the benefit of his brethren, and the general advantage of the Christian world.

Nor were these lessons thrown away. Beda became so exemplary for his great diligence and application, and his extensive and various learning, that his fame reached the continent, and particularly Rome, where pope Sergius made earnest applications to the abbot Ceolfrid, that Beda might be sent to him; but Beda, enamoured of his studies, remained in his monastery, exerting his pious labours only in the Northumbrian kingdom, although tradition, and nothing but tradition, insinuates that he at one time resided at the university of Cambridge, a place which in his day probably had no existence, or certainly none that deserved the name of university. Remaining thus in his own country, and improving his knowledge by all the learning his age afforded, animated at the same time with a wish to contribute to the improvement of his brethren and countrymen, he concentrated his attentions to that point in which he could be most useful. The collections he made for his “Ecclesiastical History” were the labour of many years, a labour scarcely conceivable by modern writers in the amplitude and facilities they possess for acquiring information. This history was in some respects a new work, for although, as he owns, there were civil histories from which he could borrow some documents, yet ecclesiastical affairs entered so little into their plan, that he was obliged to seek for materials adapted to his object, in the lives of particular persons, which frequently included contemporary history: in the annals of their convents, and in such chronicles as were written before his time. He also availed himself of the high character in which he stood with many of the prelates, who procured for him such information as they possessed or could command. They foresaw, probably, what has happened, that this would form a lasting record of ecclesiastical affairs, and making allowance for the legendary matter it contains, without a mixture of which it is in vain to look back to the times of Beda, few works have supported their credit so long, or been so generally known, and consulted by the learned world. He published this history in the year 731, when as he informs us, he was fifty-nine years of age, but before this he had written many other books on various subjects, a catalogue of which he subjoined to this history. By these he obtained such reputation as to be consulted by the most eminent churchmen of his age, and particularly by Egbert bishop of York, who was himself a very learned man. To him Beda wrote an epistle, which illustrates the state of the church at that time. It was one of the last, and indeed probably the very last of Beda’s writings, and in it he expresses himself with much freedom, both in the advice he gave to Egbert, and with respect to the inconveniencies which he wisely foresaw would arise from the multiplication of religious houses, to the prejudice both of church and state.

As this epistle throws much light on the state of ecclesiastical affairs at the time, and, what is more important for our present purpose, affords many proofs of the superior wisdom and good sense of Beda, we shall avail ourselves of the following sketch of it. Amongst other heads of advice, he recommends the finishing St. Gregory’s model to this prelate, by virtue of which York was to have' been a metropolis with twelve Suffragans. He insists upon this plan, the rather, because in some woody, and almost impassable, parts of the country, there were seldom any bishops came either to confirm, or any priests to instruct the people; and, therefore, he is of opinion that the erecting new sees would be of great service to the church. For this purpose he suggests the expedient of a synod to form: the project, and adjust the measures; and that an order of court should be procured to pitch upon some monastery, ani turn it into a bishop’s see and to prevent opposition; from the religious of that house, they should be softened with some concessions, and allowed to choose the bishop out of their own society, and that the joint government of the monastery and diocese should be put into his hands. And if the altering the property of the house should make the increasing the revenues necessary, he tells him there are monasteries enough that ought "to spare part of their estates for such uses; and, therefore, he thinks it reasonable that some of their lands should be taken from them, 'and laid to the bishopric, especially since many of them full short of the rules of their institution. And since it is commonly said, that several of these places are neither serviceable to God nor the commonwealth, because neither the exercises of piety and discipline are practised, nor the estates possessed by men in a condition to defend the country; therefore if the houses were some of them turned into bishoprics, it would be a seasonable provision for the church* and prove a very commendable alteration. A little after he intreats Egbert to use his interest with king Ceolwulf, to reverse the charters of former kings for the purposes above-mentioned: For it has sometimes happened, says he, that the piety of princes has been over-lavish, and directed amiss. He complains farther, that the monasteries were frequently filled with people of unsuitable practices; that the country seemed over-stocked with those foundations; that there were scarcely estates enough left /or the laity of condition; and that, if this humour increased, the country would grow disfurnished of troops to defend their frontiers. He mentions another abuse crept in of a higher nature: that some persons of quality of the laity, who had neither fancy nor experience for this way of living, used to purchase some of the crown-lands, under pretence of founding a monastery, and then get a charter of privileges signed by the king, the bishops, and other great men in church and state; and by these expedients they worked up a great estate, and made themselves lords of several villages, And thus getting discharged from the service of the commonwealth, they retired for liberty, took the range of their fancy, seized the character of abbots, and governed the monks without any title to such authority; and, which is still more irregular, they sometimes do not stock these places with religious, properly so called, but rake together a company of strolling monks, expelled for their misbehaviour; and sometimes they persuade their own retinue to take the tonsure, and promise a monastic obedience. And having furnished their religious houses with such ill-chosen company, they live a life perfectly secular under a monastic character, bring their wives into the monasteries, and are husbands and abbots at the same time. Thus for about thirty years, ever since the death of king Alfred, the country has run riot in this manner; insomuch, that there are very few of the lord-lieutenants, or governors of towns, who have not seized the religious jurisdiction of a monastery, and put their ladies in the same post of guilt, by making them abbesses without passing through those stages of discipline and retirement that should qualify them for it; and as ill customs are apt to spread, the king’s menial servants have taken up the same fashion: and thus we find a great many inconsistent offices and titles incorporated; the same persons are abbots and ministers of state, and the court and cloister are unsuitably tacked together; and men are trusted with the government of religious houses, before they have practised any part of obedience to them. To stop the growth of this disorder, Beda advises the convening of a synod; that a visitation might be set on foot, and all such unqualified persons thrown out of their usurpation. In short, he puts the bishop in mind, that it is part of the episcopal office to inspect the monasteries of his diocese, to reform what is amiss both in head and members, and not to suffer a breach of the rules of the institution. It is your province, says he, to take care that the devil does not get the ascendant in places consecrated to God Almighty; that we may not have discord instead of quietness, and libertinism instead of sobriety.

It appears from this epistle that he was very much indisposed when he wrote it, and probably he began now to fall into that declining state of health, from which he never recovered. The last stage of his distemper was an asthma, which he supported with great firmness of mind, although in much weakness and pain for six weeks, during which he continued his usual pious labours among the youth in the monastery, and occasionally prosecuted some of his writings, that he might be able to leave them complete. In all the nights of his sickness, in which, from the nature of the disease, he had little sleep, he sung hymns and praises. His last days were partly employed on his translation of the Gospel of St. John into the Saxon language, and some passages he was extracting from the works of St. Isidore. The day before his death, he passed the night as usual, and continued dictating to the person who wrote for him, who observing his weakness, said, “There remains now only one chapter, but it seems very irksome for you to speak,” to which he answered, “It is easy, take another pen, dip it in the ink, and write as fast as you can.” About nine o'clock he sent for some of his brethren, to divide among them some incense, and other things of little Value, which were in his chest. While he was speaking to them, the young man, Wilberch, who wrote for him, said, “There is now, master, but one sentence wanting,” upon, which he bid him write quick, and soon after the young man said, “It is now done,” to which he replied, “Well! thou hast said the truth, it is now done. Take up my head between your hands, and lift me, because it pleases me much to sit over against the place where I was wont to pray, and where now sitting I may yet invoke my Father.” Being thus seated according to his desire, upon the floor of his cell, he said, “Glory be to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,” and as he pronounced the last word, expired. This, according to the best opinion, for the date is contested, happened May 26, 735. His body was interred in the church of his own monastery at Jarrow, but, long afterwards, was removed to Durham, and placed in the same coffin or chest with that of St. Cuthbert, as appears by a very ancient Saxon poem on the relics preserved in the cathedral of Durham, printed at the end of the “Decem Scriptores.”

Mr. Warton justly observes, that Beda’s knowledge, if we consider his age, was extensive and profound: and it is amazing, in so rude a period, and during a life of no considerable length, he should have made so successful a progress, and such rapid improvements, in scientifical and philological studies, and have composed so many elaborate treatises on different subjects. It is diverting to see the French critics censuring Be da for credulity: they might as well have accused him of superstition. There is much perspicuity and facility in his Latin style: but it is void of elegance, and often of purity; it shews with what grace and propriety he would have written, had his mind been formed on better models. Whoever looks for digestion of materials, disposition of parts, and accuracy of narration, in this writer’s historical works, expects what could not exist at that time. He has recorded but few civil transactions: but, besides that his history professedly considers ecclesiastical affairs, we should remember, that the building of a church, the preferment of an abbot, the canoniza T tion of a martyr, and the importation into England of the shin-bone of an apostle, were necessarily matters qf m,uch more importance in Bede’s conceptions than victories or revolutions. He is fond of minute description; but particularities are the fault and often the merit of early historians. The first catalogue of Beda’s works, as vye liare before observed, we have from himself, at the end of his Ecclesiastical history, which contains all he had written before the year 731. This we find copied by Leland, who also mentions some other pieces he had met with of Beda’s, and points out likewise several that passed under his name, though in his judgment spurious. John Bale, in the first edition of his book, which he finished in 1548, mentions ninety-six treatises written by Beda; and in his last edition he swells these* to one hundred and forty-five tracts; and declares at the close of both his catalogues, that there were numberless pieces of our author’s besides, which he had not seen. Pits, according to his usual custom, has much enlarged even this catalogue; though, to do him justice, he appears to have taken great pains in drawing up this article, and mentions the libraries in which many of these treatises were to be found. The catalogues given by Trithemius, Dempster, and others, are much inferior to these. Several of Beda’s books were printed very early, and, for the most part, very incorrectly; but the first general coU lection of his works appeared at Paris in 1544, in three volumes in folio. They were printed again in 1554, at the same place, in eight volumes. They were published in the same size and number of volumes, at Basil, in 1563, reprinted at Cologne in 1612, and lastly at the same place in 1688. A very clear and distinct account of the contents of these volumes, the reader may find in the very learned and useful collection of Casimir Otidin. But the most exact and satisfactory detail of Beda’s life and writings, we owe to that accurate, judicious, and candid Benedictine, John Mabillon. Neither has any critic exerted his skill more effectually than he, though largely, and with copious extracts interspersed. But, perhaps, the easiest, plainest, and most concise representation of Beda’s writings, occurs in the learned Dr. Cave’s “Hist. Literaria,” which has been followed by the editors of the Biog. Britannica.

Those treatises of Beda, which are mentioned in his own catalogue of his works, were published by the learned and industrious Mr. Wharton from three Mss. in the famous library in the archiepiscopal palace at Lambeth, under the title of “Bedae Venerabilis Opera c|iuedam Theologica, nunc primum edita, necnon Historicu antea semel edita. Accesserunt Egberti Archiepiscopi Eboracensis Dialogus de Ecclesiastica Institutioue, et Adhelmi Episcopi Seireburnensis Liber tie Virginitate, ex codice antiquiss’uno iemendatus,” Lond. 1693, 4to. The worthy editor gives a large account of these (and other pieces added to them) in an epistolary discourse addressed to the Rev. Mr. archdeacon Batteley, dated Aug. 30, 1693; wherein he takes notice, amongst other things, that he published these Opuseula of Venerable Bede, to remove the complaint of our negligence in this respect, and that foreign writers might not boast, as they had hitherto done, of being the sole publishers of the works of Beda. He added to these the small treatises that had been before published by sir James Ware, and which it seems were at that time become extremely scarce. But at the same time he shews that he was not transported, as some editors are, with such an affection for his author, as to conceive better of his works than they deserved; since he confesses that the divines of the middle ages are by no means to be compared with the ancient fathers in point of authority, or to the moderns in respect to acuteness; but nevertheless they have their uses, and therefore such collections had been well received by the learned world, and amongst them none better than such of the works of Beda as had^been before published.

, a French divine of the sixteenth century, principal of the college of Montaigu in 1507, and syndic of the faculty of theology at Paris, was born in Picardy. He published a violent attack on the paraphrases of Erasmus. That illustrious scholar condescended to take the trouble to refute it with great minuteness, averring that he had convicted his censurer of having advanced 181 lies, 210 calumnies, and 47 blasphemies. The doctor, having no reasonable answer to make, took extracts from the works of Erasmus, denounced him as a heretic to the faculty, and succeeded in getting him censured. It was he who prevented the Soroonne from deciding in favour of the divorce of Henry VIII. of England, an opinion not discreditable to him, although he is said to have carried it by his vehemence. “As Beda (says pere Berthier) could neither bridle his pen nor his tongue, he dared to preach against the king himself, under pretext, perhaps, that the court did not prosecute heretics with as much vigour as his bold and extravagant temper would have wished. His intolerant spirit drew upon him twice successively a sentence of banishment. Recalled for the third time, and continuing incorrigible, he was condemned by the parliament of Paris, in 1536, to make the amende-honorable before the church of Notre-Dame, for having spoken against the king, and against truth.” He was afterwards ex led to the abbey of Mont St. Michel, where he died Feb. 8, 15^7, with the reputation (adds pere Berthier) of being a violent declaimer and a vexatious adversary. Beda wrote, l.“A treatise” De unica Magdalena, Paris," 1519, 4to, against the publications of Faber Stapulensis. 2. Twelve books against the Commentary of Faber. 3. One against the Paraphrases of Erasmus, 1526, folio; and several other works, which are all marked with barbarism and rancour. His Latin is neither pure nor correct. Henry Stephens has preserved a circumstance of him, which sufficiently marks his character. He undertook to dissuade Francis I. from employing professors of languages in the university of Paris, and maintained before that prince, in the presence of Budaeus, that the Greek tongue was the cause of heresies.

, M. D. a gentleman of Welch extraction, was born at Shiffnall in Shropshire, April 15,1760, where he received the first rudiments of his education, but was soon removed to the school of Brewood in Staffordshire. He very early displayed a thirst for knowledge, and, as is frequently the case, appears to have been determined rather by accident than design to that pursuit in which he was afterwards most distinguished. From Brewood he was removed to the grammar-school at Bridgenorth, which he quitted at the age of thirteen. His manners and habits at school were particular, but study and the desire of knowledge were predominant. He seemed early to give way to deep thought and reflection; and this, added to a natural shyness of disposition, gave him an air of reserve, which distinguished him from his young associates. In May 1773, he was placed under the tuition of the Rev. Sam. Dickenson, rector of Blym-hill in Staffordshire, who supplied his biographer with some particulars of his character highly creditable to him. In 1776 he was entered of Pembroke college, Oxford, where he applied himself with remarkable industry and diligence to the study of modern languages, chemistry, mineralogy, and botany. In 1781, he visited the metropolis, and studied anatomy; and in the course of these studies he undertook to translate the works of Spallanzani, which appeared in 1784. It is also thought that he supplied the notes to Dr. Cullen’s edition of Bergman’s Physical and Chemical Essays. In 1783, he took the degree of M. A. and the following year went to Edinburgh, where he distinguished himself, not only as a member, but for some time as president of the royal medical and natural history societies. In 1786 he returned to Oxford, and took his doctor’s degree; and the same year he visited the continent, on his return from which he was appointed to the chemical lectureship at Oxford, in which situation he distinguished hiuisrlf much, and was generally attended by a numerous auditory. Mineralogy at this time appears to have occupied much of his attention: his theory of the earth being, according to his biographer, conformable to that of Hutton; but at this time he was rather hasty in his conclusions, and would frequently acknowledge that he had been misled in the judgment he had formed of certain, ibssus, especially in regard to the operations of fire. Of this a singular instance has been given. A gentleman had Jbr ught to Oxford, from the summit of one of the mountains surrounding Coniston lake in Lancashire, some specimens which had evidently undergone the operation of fire, but which happened to abound near a hollow on the top of the mountain, which some Italian gentlemen had not long before pronounced to be the crater of an extinct volcano. Upon shewing them to Dr. Beddoes, he was so persuaded of the fact, that he even summoned a particular assembly of the members of ]the university by an extraordinary notice, before whom he delivered a long lecture on the specimens supplied, as indicative of the natural operations of fire in those parts of England. A very short time after, he declared that they were evidently nothing better than mere slags from some old furnace, and that he had since discovered a criterion by which he could distinguish between the productions of natural and artificial fire; but this discovery, and the consequent change of his sentiments, he could not be prevailed on to announce as publicly as he had delivered his former opinions.

At this time nothing seemed to interest him more than the account of the two Giants Causeways, or groups of prismatic basaltine columns, in the Venetian states, in Italy, in the LXVth volume of the Philosophical Transactions, communicated by Mr. Strange, long his majesty’s resident at Venice. Dr. Beddoes’s retirement from Oxford, about 1792, was accelerated by his intemperance in politics, occasioned by the remarkable circumstances of the times. In the following year he removed to Bristol, where he began that career of medical and physiological researches, experiments, and lectures, which made him so generally conspicuous, and which appear to have continued with the most striking zeal and perseverance to the last moment of his short life, varied according to circumstances, but never wholly abandoned. In 1798, his Pneumatic Institution was opened, which very much excited the attention of the puhlic, although its practical effects were not correspondent to the high expectations entertained. Various publications came from his pen in rapid succession, until 1808, when he was seized with a disorder which proved fatal, Dec. 24, of that year. This, which was a dropsy of the chest, he had mistaken for a hepatic disorder. His character, as given by his learned and affectionate biographer, is highly favourable, but it presents two subjects of regret, the one that he should have thought it necessary to waste so much time on the fleeting politics of the day; the other, that in his many schemes and experimental researches, he was precipitate and unsteady. He was undoubtedly capable of great things, but too hurried, too sanguine, too unconscious of the lapse of time, and too little aware of the want of opportunity for any one man to accomplish any very numerous ends, either of invention or reformation. The learned world had reason to lament his early death, because age might have corrected those blemishes or eccentricities of his character, which prevented his doing justice, even to his own designs and his own powers. Had he been less impetuous, less sanguine, and more capable of fixing and concentrating his views, he might have accomplished much more good, and left the world much more benefited by his extraordinary labours and indefatigable diligence. Of this labour and diligence, the reader may form a correct notion by the following list of his publications. I. “Translation of Spailanzani’s dissertations on Natural History,” 1784, reprinted 1790. 2. “Notes to a translation of Bergman’s Physical and Chemical Essays,” 1784. 3. “Translation of Bergman’s essay on Elective Attractions,” 178,5. 4. “Translation of Scheele’s Chemical Essays,” edited and corrected by him, 1786.5. “Chemical Experiments and Opinions extracted from a work published in the last century,” 1790. 6. Three papers in the Philosophical Trail*. eactions for 1791 and 1792, on “The affinity between Basaltes and Granite the conversion of cast into malleable i ron and second part to ditto.” 7. “Memorial addressed to the curators of the Bodleian Library,” no date. 8. “A letter to a Lady on the subject of early Instruction, partiticularly that of the poor,” 1792, printed but not published. 9. “Alexander’s Expedition to the Indian Ocean,” not published. 10. “Observations on the nature of demonstrative evidence, with reflections on Language,” 1792. 11. “Observations on the nature and cure of Calculus, Sea-scurvy, Catarrh, and Fever,” 1792. 12. “History of Isaac Jenkins,” a moral fiction, 1793. 13. “Letters from. Dr. Withering, Dr. E wart, Dr. Thornton, &c.” 1794. 14. “A Guide for self-preservation and parental affection,” 1794. 15. “A proposal for the improvement of Medicine,” 1794. 16. “Considerations on the medicinal use, and on the production of Factitious Airs:” parts I. and II. 1794, part III. 1795, and parts IV. and V, 1796. 17. “Brown’s elements of Medicine, with a preface and notes,” 1795. 18. “Translation from the Spanish, of Gimbernat’s new method of operating on Femoral Hernia,” 1795. 19. “Outline of a plan for determining the medicinal powers of Factitious Airs,” 1795. 20. “A word in defence of the Bill of Rights against Gagging-bills, 1795. 21.” Where would be the harm of a Speedy Peace?“1795. 22.” An essay on the public merits of Mr. Pitt,“1796. 23.” A letter to Mr. Pitt on the Scarcity,“1796. 24.” Alternatives compared, or, What shall the Rich do to be safe?“25.” Suggestions towards setting on foot the projected establishment for Pneumatic Medicine,“1797. 26.” Reports relating to Nitrous Acid,“1797. 27.” A lecture introductory to a popular course of Anatomy,“1797. 28.” A suggestion towards an essential improvement in the Bristol Infirmary,“1798. 29.” Contributions to medical and physical knowledge from the West of England,“1799. 30.” Popular essay on Consumption,“1799. 31.” Notice of some observations made at the Pneumatic Institution,“1799. 32.” A second and third Report on Nitrous Acid,“1799, 1800. 33.” Essay on the medical and domestic management of the Consumptive on Digitalis and on Scrophula,“1801. 34.” Hygeia or Essays, moral and medical, on the causes affecting the personal state of the middling and affluent classes,“1801-2. 35.” Rules of the institution for the sick and drooping Poor.“An edition on larger paper was entitled” Instruction for people of all capacities respecting their own health and that of their children,“1803. 36.” The manual of Health, or the Invalid conducted safely through the Seasons,“1806. 37.” On Fever as connected with Inflammation,“1807. 38.” A letter to sir Joseph Banks, on the prevailing discontents, abuse, and imperfections in Medicine,“1808. 39.” Good advice for the Husbandman in Harvest, and for all those who labour hard in hot births; as also for others who will take it in warm weather," 1808. Besides these, Dr. Beddoes was a considerable contributor to several of the medical and literary journals.

, bishop of Kilmore in Ireland, and one of the most pious and exemplary prelates of the seventeenth century, was descended from a good family, and born in the year 1570, at Black Notley in Essex, and being designed for the church, was sent to Emanuel college in Cambridge, where he was matriculated pensioner, March 12, 1584. He was placed under the care of Dr. Cbadderton, who was for many years head of that house, made great progress in his studies, and went early into holy orders. In 1593 he was chosen fellow of his college, and in 1599 took his degree of bachelor in divinity. He then removed from the university to St. Ednmndsbury in Suffolk, where he had a church, aud by an assiduous application to the duties of his function, was much noticed by many gentlemen who lived near that place. He continued there for some years, till an opportunity offered of his going as chaplain with sir Henry Wotton, whom king James had appointed his ambassador to the state of Venice, about the year 1604. While he resided in that city, he became intimately acquainted with the famous father Paul Sarpi, who took him into his confidence, taught him the Italian language, of which he became a perfect master, and translated into that tongue the English Common Prayer Book, which was extremely well received by many of the clergy there, especially by the seven divines appointed by the republic to preach against the pope, during the time of the interdict, and which they intended for their model, in case they had broken absolutely with Rome, which was what they then sincerely desired. In return for the favours he received from father Paul, Mr. Bedell drew up an English grammar for his use, and in many other respects assisted him in his studies. He continued eight years in Venice, during which time he greatly improved himself in the Hebrew language, by the assistance of the famous rabbi Leo, who taught him the Jewish pronunciation, and other parts of rabbinical learning; and by his means it was that he purchased a very fair manuscript of the Old Testament, which he bequeathed, as a mark of respect, to Emanuel-college, and which, it is said, cost him its weight in silver. He became acquainted there likewise, with the celebrated Antonio de Dominis, archbishop of Spalata, who was so well pleased with his conversation, that he communicated to him his secret, and shewed him his famous book “de Kepublica Ecclesiastica,” which he afterwards printed at London. The original ms. is, if we mistake not, among bishop Tanner’s collections in the Bodleian. Bedell took the freedom which he allowed him, and corrected many misapplications of texts of scripture, and quotations of fathers; for that prelate, being utterly ignorant of the Greek tongue, committed many mistakes, both in the one and the other; and some escaped Bedell’s diligence. De Dorninis took all this in good part from him, and entered into such familiarity with him, and found liis assistance so useful, and indeed so necessary to himself, that he used to say, he could do nothing without him. At Mr. Bedell’s departure from Venice, father Paul expressed great concern, and assured him, that himself and many others would most willingly have accompanied him, if it had been in their power. He, likewise, gave him his picture, a Hebrew Bible without points, and a small Hebrew Psalter, in which he wrote some sentences expressing the sincerity of his friendship. He gave him, also, the manuscript of his famous “History of the Council of Trent,” with the Histories of the Interdict and Inquisition, all written by himself, with a large collection of letters, which were written to him weekly from Rome, during the dispute between the Jesuits and Dominicans, concerning the efficacy of grace, which it is supposed are lost. On his return to England, he immediately retired to his charge at St. Edmundsbury, without aspiring to any preferment, and went on in his ministerial labours. It was here he employed himself in translating the Histories of the Interdict and Inquisition (which he dedicated to the king); as also the two last books of the History of the Council of Trent into Latin, sir Adam Newton having translated the two first. At this time, he mixed so seldom with the world, that he was almost totally forgotten. So little was he remembered, that, some years after, when the celebrated Diodati, of Geneva, came over to England, he could not, though acquainted with many of the clergy, hear of Mr. Bedell from any person with whom he happened to converse. Diodati was greatly amazed, that so extraordinary a man, who was so much admired at Venice by the best judges of merit, should not be known in his own country; and he had given up all hopes of finding him out, when, to their no small joy, they accidentally met each other in the streets of London. Upon this occasion, Diodati presented his friend to Morton, the learned and ancient bishop of Durham, and told him how highly he had been valued by father Paul, which engaged the bishop to treat Mr. Bedell with very particular respect. At length sir Thomas Jermyn taking notice of his abilities, presented him to the living of Horingsheath, A. D. 1615: but he found difficulties in obtaining institution and induction from Dr. Jegon, bishop of Norwich, who demanded large fees upon this account. Mr. Bedell was so nice in his sentiments of simony, that he looked upon every payment as such, beyond a competent gratification, for the writing, the wax, and the parchment; and, refusing to take out his title upon other terms, left the bishop and went home, but in a few days the bishop sent for him, and gave him his title without fees, and he removed to Horingsheath, where he continued unnoticed twelve years, although he gave a singular evidence of his great capacity, in a book of controversy with the church of Rome, which he published and dedicated to king Charles I. then prince of Wales, in 1624. It is now annexed to Burnet’s Life of our author". However neglected he lived in England, yet his fame had reached Ireland, and he was, in 1627, unanimously elected provost of Trinity-college in Dublin, but this he declined, until the king laid his positive commands on him, which he obeyed, and on August 16th of that year, he was sworn provost. At his first entrance upon this scene, he resolved to act nothing until he became perfectly acquainted with the statutes of the house, and the tempers of the people whom he was appointed to govern; and, therefore, carTied himself so abstractedly from all affairs, that he passed some time for a soft and weak man, and even primate Usher began to waver in his opinion of him. When he went to England some few months after, to bring over his family, he had thoughts of resigning his new preferment, and returning to his benefice in Suffolk: but an encouraging letter from primate Usher prevented him, and he applied himself to the government of the college, with a vigour of mind peculiar to him.

His first business was to compose divisions among the fellows, to rectify disorders, and to restore discipline; and as he was a great promoter of religion, he catechised the youth once a week, and divided the church catechism into fifty -two parts, one for every Sunday, and explained it in a way so mixed with speculative and practical matters, that his sermons were looked upon as lectures of divinity. He continued about two years in this employment, when, by the interest of sir Thomas Jermyn, and the application of Laud, bishop of London, he was advanced to the sees of Kilmore and Ardagh, and consecrated on the 13th of September, 1629, at Drogheda, in St. Peter’s church, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. In the letters for his promotion, the king made honourable mention of the satisfaction he took in the services he had done, and the reformation he had wrought in the unirersity. He found his dioceses tinder vast disorders, the revenues wasted by excessive dilapidations, and all things exposed to sale in a sordid manner. The cathedral of Ardagh, and the bishop’s houses, were all flat to the ground, the parish churches in ruins, and the insolence of the Popish clergy insufferable; the oppressions of the ecclesiastical courts excessive; and pluralities and non-residence shamefully prevailing. Yet he had the courage, notwithstanding these difficulties, to undertake a thorough reformation; and the first step he took was, to recover part of the lands of which his sees had been despoiled by his predecessors, that he might be in a condition to subsist, while he laboured to reform other abuses. In this he met with such success, as encouraged him to proceed upon his own plan, and to be content with nothing less than an absolute reformation of those which he esteemed capital and enormous abuses, particularly with regard to pluralities, showing an example in his own case by resigning the bishopric of Ardagh, which he had the satisfaction to see followed in instances of a more flagrant nature. On the arrival of the lord-deputy Wentworth in 1633, our prelate had the misfortune to fall under his displeasure, for setting his hand to a petition for redress of grievances and so high and open was the lorddeputy’s testimony of this displeasure, that the bishop did not think fit to go in person to congratulate him (as others did) upon his entering into his government. It is, however, very improbable, that he should write over to sir Thomas Jermyn and his friends in England, or procure, by their interest, injunctions to the lord-deputy, to receive him into favour, a report which suits very ill with the character either of the men or of the times. On the contrary, it appears from his own letter to the lord deputy, that it was he, not the bishop, who had complained in England; that he meant to justify himself to the deputy, and expected, on that justification, he should retract his complaints. One may safely affirm, from the perusal of this single epistle, that our prelate was as thorough a statesman as the deputy, and that he knew how to becurne all things to all men, without doing any thing beneath him, or inconsistent with his dignity. This conduct had its effect, and in three weeks it appears that he stood well with the deputy, and probably without any interposition but his own letter before mentioned. He then went on cheerfully in doing his duty, and for the benefit of the church, and was very successful. His own example did much: he loved the Christian power of a bishop, without affecting either political authority or pomp. Whatever he did was so visibly for the good of his fiock, that he seldom failed of being well supported by his clergy; and such as opposed him did it with visible reluctance, for he had the esteem of the good men of all parties, and was as much reverenced as any bishop in Ireland. In 1638 he convened a synod, and made some excellent canons that are yet extant, and when offence was taken at this, the legality of the meeting questioned, and the bishop even threatened with the star-chamber, archbishop Usher, who was consulted, said, “You had better let him alone, for fear, if he should be provoked, he should say much more for himself than any of his accusers can say against him.” Amongst other extraordinary things he did, there was none more worthy of remembrance than his removing his lay-chancellor, sitting in his own courts, hearing causes, and retrieving thereby the jurisdiction which anciently belonged to a bishop. The chancellor upon this filed his bill in equity, and obtained a decree in chancery against the bishop, with one hundred pounds costs. But by this time the chancellor saw so visibly the difference between the bishop’s sitting in that seat and his own, that he never called for his costs, but appointed a surrogate, with orders to obey the bishop in every thing, and so his lordship went on in his own way. Our bishop was no persecutor of Papists, and yet the most successful enemy they ever had; and if the other bishops had followed his example, the Protestant religion must have spread itself through every part of the country. He laboured to convert the better sort of the Popish clergy, and in this he had great success. He procured the Common-prayer, which had been translated into Irish, and caused it to be read in his cathedral, in his own presence, every Sunday, having himself learned that language perfectly, though he never attempted to speak it. The New Testament had been also translated by William. Daniel, archbishop of Tuam, but our prelate first procured the Old Testament to be translated by one King; and because the translator was ignorant of the original tongues, and did it from the English, the bishop himself revised and compared it with the Hebrew, and the best translations, He caused, likewise, some of Chrysostom’s and Leo’s homilies, in commendation of the scriptures, to be rendered both into English and Irish, that the common people might see, that in the opinion of the ancient fathers, they had not only a right to read the scriptures as well as the clergy, but it was their duty so to do. He met with great opposition in this work, from a persecution against the translator, raised without reason, and carried on with much passion by those from whom he had no cause to expect it. But, however, he got the translation finished, which he would have printed in his own house, and at his own charge, if the troubles in Ireland had not prevented it; and as it was, his labours were not useless, for the translation escaped the hands of the rebels, and was afterwards printed at the expence of the celebrated Robert Boyle.

The bishop was very moderate in his sentiments, and in. his methods of enforcing them; he loved to bring men into the communion of the church of England, but he did not like compelling them; and it was his opinion, that Protestants would agree well enough if they could be brought to understand each other. These principles induced him to promote Mr. Drury’s design, of endeavouring to reconcile the Lutherans to the Calvinists, a project which had beea encouraged by many other worthy persons, and towards which he subscribed twenty pounds a year, to defray the expences of Mr. Drury’s negociations. The bishop himself, it must be mentioned, was a Calvinist, which Burnet thinks was the cause of his having so little preferment in England. He gave another instance, not only of his charity towards, but his ability in, reconciling those of other communions, to the churches of England and Ireland. There were some Lutherans at Dublin, who, for not coming to church and taking the sacrament, were cited into the archbishop’s consistory, upon which they desired time to write to their divines in Germany, which was given them, and when their answers came, they contained some exceptions to the doctrine of the church, as not explaining the presence of Christ in the sacrament, suitable to their sentiments; to which bishop Bedell gave so full and clear, and withal so moderate and charitable, an answer, as entirely satisfied their objections, insomuch that those divines advised their countrymen to join in communion with the church, which they accordingly did. In this mild and prudent way our prelate conducted his charge, with great reputation to himself, and with the general approbation of all good men, who were perfectly pleased with his doctrine, and edified by his example. When the bloody rebellion broke out in October 1641, the bishop did not at first feel the violence of its effects; for even those rebels, who in their conduct testified so little of humanity, professed a great veneration for him, and openly declared he should be the last Englishman they would drive out of Ireland. His was the only English house in the county of Cavan that was unviolated, notwithstanding that it, and its out-buildings, the church, and the church-yard, were filled with people who fled to him for shelter, whom, by his preaching and prayers, he encouraged to expect and endure the worst with patience. In the mean time, Dr. Swiney, the Popish titular bishop of Kilmore, came to Cavan, and pretended great concern and kindness for bishop Bedell. Our prelate had converted his brother, and kept him in his house till he could otherwise provide for him; and Dr. Swiney desired likewise to lodge in his house, assuring him in the strongest terms of his protection. But this bishop Bedell declined, in a very civil and well-written Latin letter, urging the smallness of his house, the great number of people that had taken shelter with him, the sickness of some of his company, and of his son in particular, but above all, the difference in their ways of worship, which could not but be attended with great inconveniency. This had some effect for a time; but about the middle of December, the rebels, pursuant, to orders they had received from their council of state at Kilkenny, required him to dismiss the people that were with him, which he absolutely refused to do, declaring that he would share the same fate with the rest. They signified to him upon this, that they had orders to remove him; to which he answered, in the words of David, “Here I am, the Lord do unto me as seemeth good to him; the will of the Lord be done.” Upon this they seized him, his two sons, and Mr. Clogy, who had married his step-daughter, and carried them prisoners to the castle of Cloughboughter, surrounded by a deep water, were they put them all but the bishop in irons. They did not suffer any of them to carry any thing with them; and the moment the bishop was gone, Dr. Swiney took possession of his house and all that belonged to it, and said mass in the church the Sunday following. After some time the rebels abated of their severity, took the irons off the prisoners, and suffered them to be as much at their ease as they could be in so wretched a place; for the winter was very rigorous, and the castle being old and ruinous, they would have been exposed to all the severity of the weather, if it had not been for an honest carpenter who was imprisoned there before them, and who made use of a few old boards he found there, to mend a part of the roof, the better to defend them from the snow and sleet. While thus confined, the bishop, his sons, and Mr Clogy, preached and prayed continually to their small and afflicted congregation, and upon Christmas day his lordship administered the sacrament to them. It is very remarkable, that.rude and barbarous as the Irish were, they gave them no disturbance in the performance of divine service, and often told the bishop they had no personal quarrel to him, but that the sole cause of their confining him was, his being an Englishman. After being kept in this manner for three weeks, the bishop, his two sons, and Mr. Clogy, were exchanged for two of the O'Rourkes; but though it was agreed that they should be safely conducted to Dublin, yet the rebels would never suffer them to be carried out of the country, but sent them to the house of Dennis Sheridan, an Irish minister, and convert to the Protestant religion, to which though he steadily adhered, and relieved many who fled to him for protection, yet the Irish suffered him to live quietly among them, on account of the great family from which he was descended. While our prelate remained there, and enjoyed some degree of health, he every Sunday read the prayers and lessons, and preached himself, though there were three ministers with him. The last Sunday he officiated was the 30th of Jan. and the day following he was taken ill. On the second day it appeared that his disease was an ague; and on the fourth, apprehending a speedy change, he called for his sons and his sons’ wives, spoke to them a considerable time, gave them much spiritual advice, and blessed them, after which he spoke little, but slumbered out most of his time, only by intervals he seemed to awake a little, and was then very cheerful. At length, on the 7th of February, 1641, about midnight, he breathed his last, in the seventy-first year of his age, his death being chiefly occasioned by his late imprisonment, and the weight of sorrows which lay upon his mind. The only care now remaining to his friends was, to see him buried according to his desire; and since that could not be obtained but by the new intruding bishop’s leave, Mr. Clogy and Mr. Sheridan went to ask it, and Mr. Dillon was prevailed with by his wife, to go and second their desire. They found the bishop in a state of beastly intoxication, and a melancholy change in that house, which was before a house of prayer. The bishop, when he was awakened out of his drunkenness, excepted a little to their request, and said the church-yard was holy ground, and was no more to be defiled with heretics’ bodies; yet he consented to it at last. Accordingly, February L>, he was buried next his wife’s coffin. The Irish did him unusual honours at his burial, for the chief of the rebels gathered their forces together, and with them accompanied his body from Mr. Sheridan’s house to the church-yard of Kilmore in great solemnity, and they desired Mr. Clogy to bury him according to the office prescribed by the church. But though the gentlemen were so civil as to offer it, yet it was not thought advisable to provoke the rabble so much, as perhaps that might have done; so it was passed over. But the Irish discharged a volley of shot at his interment, and cried out in Latin, “Requiescat in pace ultimus Anglorum,” ‘ May the last of the English rest in peace;’ for they had often said, that as they esteemed him the best of the English bishops, so he should be the last that should be left among them. What came from Edmund Farilly, a Popish priest, at the interment of the bishop, is too remarkable, and is too well attested, to be passed over, who cried out, “O sit anima mea cum Bedello,” ‘ I would to God my soul were with Bedell’s.’ Our prelate had long before prepared for death, as appears by his will, dated the 15th of February, 1640, in which there are several legacies, that shew he had recollected all the memorable passages of his life before he made it, and seriously considered the several blessings which God had bestowed upon him. He married a lady of the ancient and honourable family of L‘Estrange, who was the widow of the recorder of St. Edmundsbury, a woman exemplary in her life, humble and modest in her behaviour, and singular in many excellent qualities, particularly in an extraordinary reverence to him. She bore him three sons and a daughter. One of the sons and the daughter died young; only William and Ambrose survived, for whom he made no provision, but a benefice of eighty pounds a-year for the eldest and worthy son of such a father, and an estate of sixty pounds a-year for the youngest, who did not take to learning. This was the only purchase he made. His wife died three years before the rebellion broke out, and he preached her funeral sermon himself, with such a mixture both of tenderness and moderation, that he drew tears from all his auditors. He was an enemy to burying in the church, thinking that there was both superstition and pride in it, and believing it was a great annoyance to the living, to have so much of the steam of dead bodies rising about them. One of the canons in his synod was against burying in churches, and he often wished that burying’ places were removed out of all towns. He chose the least frequented place of the church-yard of Kilmore for his wife to lie in, and by his will ordered, that he should be placed next to her, with this inscription:

The character given of this amiable prelate in Burnet’s life, drawn up partly by Burnet, and partly by his son-inlaw Mr. Clogy, is highly interesting. Bishop Bedell was tall and graceful, and had something in his looks and carriage that created a veneration for him. His deportment was grave without affectation; his apparel decent with simplicity he wore no silks, but plain stuffs and had a long and broad beard, and grey and venerable hair. His strength continued firm to the last, so that the week before his last sickness, he walked as vigorously ad nimbly as any of the company, and leaped over a broad ditch, insomuch that his sons, who were amazed at it, had enough to do to follow him. He never used spectacles. By a fall in his childhood he had unhappily contracted a deafness in his left ear. He had great strength and health of body, excepting that a few years before his death he had some severe fits of the stone, occasioned by his sedentary life, which he bore with wonderful patience. The remedy he used for it was to dig in the garden (in which he much delighted) until he heated himself, and that mitigated the pain. His judgment and memory remained with him to the last. He always preached without notes, but often wrote down his meditations after he had preached them. He shewed no other learning in his sermons but in clearing the difficulties of his text, by comparing the originals with the most ancient versions.

His style was clear and full, but plain and simple. He read the Hebrew and Septuagint so much, that they were as familiar to him as the English translation. He had gathered a vast heap of critical expositions, which, with a trunk full of other manuscripts, fell into the hands of the Irish, and were all lost, except his great Hebrew manuscript, which was preserved by a converted Irishman, and is now in Emanuel college, in Cambridge. Every day after dinner and supper a chapter of the Bible was read at his table, whether Papists or Protestants were present; and Bibles were laid before every one of the company, and before himself either the Hebrew or the Greek, but in his last years, the Irish translation; and he usually explained ­the occurring difficulties. He wrote much in controversy, occasioned by his engagements to labour the conversion of those of the Roman communion, which he looked on as idolatrous and antichristian. He wrote a large treatise on these two questions: “Where was our religion before Luther? And what became of our ancestors who died in Popery?” Archbishop Usher pressed him to have printed it, and he resolved to have done so; but that and all his other works were swallowed up in the rebellion. He kept a great correspondence not only with the divines of England, but with others over Europe. He observed a true hospitality in house-keeping; and many poor Irish families about him were maintained out of his kitchen; and in Christmas the poor always eat with him at his own table, and he had brought himself to endure both their rags and rudeness. At public tables he usually sat silent. Once at the earl of Strafford’s table, one observed, that while they were all talking, he said nothing. The primate answered, “Broach him, and you will find good liquor in him.” Upon which the person proposed a question in divinity, in answering which the bishop shewed his abilities so well, and puzzled the other so much, that all, at last, except the bishop, fell a laughing at the other. The greatness of his mind, and undauntedness of his spirit, evidently appeared in many passages of his life, and that without any mixture of pride, for he lived with his clergy as if they had been his brethren. In his visitation he would accept of no invitation from the gentlemen of the country, but would eat with his clergy in such poor inns, and of such coarse fare, as the places afforded. He avoided all affectation of state in his carriage, and, when in Dublin, always walked on foot, attended by one servant, except on public occasions, which obliged him to ride in procession among his brethren. He never kept a coach, his strength suffering him always to ride on horseback. He avoided the affectation of humility as well as pride; the former often flowing from the greater pride of the two. He took an ingenious device to put him in mind of his obligations to purity: it was a flaming crucible, with this motto: “Take from me all my Tin,” the word in Hebrew signifying Tin, being Bedil, which imported that he thought every thing in him but base alloy, and therefore prayed God would cleanse him from it. He never thought of changing his see, but considered himself as under a tie to it that could not easily be dissolved; so that when the translating him to a bishopric in England was proposed to him, he refused it; and said, he should be as troublesome a bishop in England as he had been in Ireland. He had a true and generous notion of religion, and did not look upon it as a system of opinions, or a set of forms, but as a divine discipline that reforms the heart and life. It was not leaves, but fruit that he sought. This was the true principle of his great zeal against Popery. He considered the corruptions of that church as an effectual course to enervate the true design of Christianity. He looked on the obligation of observing the Sabbath as moral and perpetual, and was most exact in the observation of it.

, a celebrated preacher in the fourteenth century, was a monk of the order of St. Augustin at Clare, and surnamed de Bury, because he was born at St. Edmund’s Bury, in Suffolk. Having from his youth shewn a quick capacity, and a great inclination to learning, his superiors took care to improve these excellent faculties, by sending him not only to our English, but also to foreign universities; where closely applying himself to his studies, and being a constant disputant, he acquired such fame, that at Paris he became a doctor of the Sorbonne. Not long after he returned to England, where he was much followed, and extremely admired for his eloquent way of preaching. This qualification, joined to his remarkable integrity, uprightness, and dexterity in the management of affairs, so recommended him to the esteem of the world, that he was chosen provincial of his order throughout England, in which station he behaved in a very commendable manner. He wrote several things, as 1 “Lectures upon the master of the sentences, i. e. Peter Lombard, in four books.” 2. “Theological Questions,” in one book. 3. “Sermons upon the blessed Virgin.” 4. " A course of sermons for the whole year. Besides several other things of which no account is given. He flourished about the year 1380, in the reign of Richard II.

, a pious and learned clergyman of the church of England, and many years chaplain to the Haberdashers’ hospital at Hoxton, was the son of Richard Bedford, and was born at Tiddenham, in Gloucestershire, Sept. 1668. Having received the rudiments of learning from his father, he was in 1684, at the age of sixteen, admitted commoner of Brasen-nose college, Oxford, where he acquired some reputation as an Orientalist. He became B.A. in Feb. 1687, and M.A. July, 1691. In 1688 he received holy orders from Dr. Frampton, bishop of Gloucester, and about this time removed to Bristol, and became curate to Dr. Read, rector of St. Nicholas church, with whom he continued till 1692, when, having taken priest’s orders from Dr. Hall, bishop of Bristol, the mayor and corporation of the city presented him to the vicarage of Temple church. From this he was removed to Newtou St. Loe, a private living in Somersetshire, soon after which, as he himself informs us, he was prompted to undertake a work on “Scripture Chronology,” by reading over the preface to Abp. Usher’s Annals, in which the primate gave his opinion concerning a more exact method of “A chronological system of the sacred Scriptures, by the help of astronomy and a competent skill in the Jewish learning.” After many difficulties, Mr. Bedford flattered himself that he had succeeded, and then digested his thoughts into some method. Soon after this, coming to London, to assist in the correction of the Arabic Psalter and New Testament, for the benefit of the poor Christians in Asia, he shewed his thoughts to some friends, who advised him to publish them; with which he complied, with a design not to have exceeded fourscore or an hundred pages in the whole. A few sheets were printed off, but the author having received information that a work of a similar nature was intended to be published from the papers of sir Isaac Newton, and being advised by some friends, contrary to his first intention, to publish the work on a more extensive plan, he suppressed his papers. In the mean time, in 1724, he was chosen chaplain to Haberdashers hospital, (founded in 1690, by alderman Aske), and continued to reside there for the remainder of his life. In 1728 he published “Animadversions upon sir Isaac Newton’s book entitled The chronology of Ancient Kingdoms amended,” 8vo, in which he attempts to prove that sir Isaac’s system entirely contradicts the scripture history, and he appeals, as his supporters in this opinion, to Bochart, Dr. Prideaux, archbishop Usher, and the bishops Lloyd, Cumberland, Beveridge, &c.

Two years afterwards, he published a sermon (from 2 Tim. ii. 16.) at St. Botolph’s, Aldgate, where he was afternoon lecturer, against the then newly-erected playhouse in Goodman’s fields. This was a favourite subject with Mr. Bedford, who, in other of his publications, proved an able assistant to Mr. Collier, in his attempt to reform the stage. He began, indeed, in this necessary labour, many years before coming to London, as will appear by our list of his works. He continued in his office of chaplain to the hospital, until 1745, when he died, Sept. 15, and was buried in the ground behind the hospital, profrably at his own desire. Tradition informs us his death was occasioned by a fall whilst making observations on the comet of that year, an accident which was very likely to prove fatal to a man in his severity -seventh year. He furnished the hall of the hospital, where the pensioners assemble, wrh some pious works, chained, in the old library manner, to the windows, and, as appears by his writings, was a man or unfeigned piety and zeal. These writings are: 1. “Serious reflections on the scandalous abuse and effects of the Stage, a sermon,” Bristol, 1705, with along preface. 2. “A second advertisement concerning the Play-house,” ibid. 8vo. 3. “The evil and danger of Stage Plays,” ibid. 1706, 8vo, a most curious work, but much enlarged in the subsequent edition. 3. “The temple of Music,” Lond. 1706, 8vo. 4. “The great abuse of Music,” ibid. 1711, 8vo, in which he examines all the series of English songs, pointing out their impious or immoral passages, concluding with a Gloria Patri set to music, apparently by himself, in four parts. 5. “Essay on singing David’s psalms,” 1708. 6. His “Ævil of Stageplays” republished under the title of “A serious remonstrance in behalf of the Christian Religion, against the horrid blasphemies and impieties which are still used in the English Playhouses, &c.” In this he has so completely perused the whole range of the English drama, as to produce “seven thousand instances, taken out of plays of the present century, and especially of the last five years, in defiance of all methods hitherto used for their reformation;” and he has also given a catalogue of “above fourteen hundred texts of scripture, which are mentioned, either as ridiculed and exposed by the stage, or as opposite to their present practices.” 7. “Animadversions on sir Isaac Newton,” mentioned above. 8. “Scripture Chronology, demonstrated by astronomical calculations, in eight books,” ibid. 1741, fol. which Dr. Waterland justly characterises as a very learned and elaborate work. 9. “Eight sermons on the doctrine of the Trinity, at lady Moyer’s lecture,” ibid. 174], 8vo. 10. “The doctrine of Justification by Faith stated according to the articles of the church of England. Contained in nine questions and answers,” ibid. 1741, 8vo. 11. “Horye Mathematics Vacua*, or a treatise of the Golden and Ecliptick Numbers,” ib. 1743, 8vo. The original ms. of this work, which was written during an illness which deprived him of the use of his limbs, is now preserved in Sion college library. He published also several single sermons, preached on public occasions.

, of Sibsey, in Lincolnshire, a quaker, came to London, and settled there as a stationer between the years 1600 and 162.5. He married a daughter of Mr. William Plat, of Highgate, by whom he had a son, Hilkiah, a mathematical instrument maker in Hosier-lane, near West-Smithfield. In this house (which was afterwards burnt in the great fire of London, 1666), was born the famous Hilkiah, July 23, 1663; who was educated at Bradley, in Suffolk, and in 1679 was admitted of St. John’s college, Cambridge, the first scholar on the foundation of his maternal grandfather, William Plat. Hilkiah was afterwards elected fellow of his college, and patronized by Heneage Finch earl of Winchelsea, but deprived of his preferment (which was in Lincolnshire), for refusing to take the oaths at the revolution, and afterwards kept a boarding-house for the Westminster scholars. In 1714, being tried in the court of king’s-bench, he was fined 1000 marks, and imprisoned three years, for writing, printing, and publishing “The hereditary Right of the Crown of England asserted,” 1713, folio; the real author of which was George Harbin, a nonjuring clergyman, whom his friendship thus screened; and on account of his sufferings he received 100l. from the late lord Weymouth, who knew not the real author. His other publications were, a translation of “An answer to Fontenelle’s History of Oracles,” and the translation of the life of Dr. Barvvick, as noticed in the life of that gentleman. He died Nov. 26, 1724, and was buried in the church-yard of St. Margaret’s Westminster, with an epitaph.

, second son of Hilkiah, was educated at Westminster-school; and was afterwards admitted of St. John’s college, Cambridge; became master’s sizar to Dr. Robert Jenkin, the master; and was matriculated Dec. 9, 1730. Being a nonjuror, he never took a degree; but going into orders in that party, officiated amongst the people of that mode of thinking in Derbyshire, fixing his residence at Compton, near Ashbourne, where he became much acquainted with Ellis Farueworth; and was reputed a good scholar. Having some original fortune, and withal being a very frugal man, and making also the most of his money for a length of years, Mr. Bedford died rich at Compton, in Feb. 1773, where he was well respected. Having a sister married to George Smith, esq. near Durham (who published his father Dr. John Smith’s fine edition of Bede), Mr. Bedford went into the north, and there prepared his edition of “Symeonis monacal Durihelmensis libellus de exordio atque procursu Dunhelmensis ecclesiae;” with a continuation to 1154, and an account of the hard usage bishop William received from Rufus; which was printed by subscription in 1732, 8vo, from a very valuable and beautiful ms. in the cathedral library, which he supposes to be either the original, or copied in the author’s life-time. He was residing at Ashbourne in 1742, when he published an Historical Catechism, the second edition, corrected and enlarged. The first edition was taken from abbe Fleury; but as this second varied so much from that author, Bedford left out his name.

, better known on account of his actions than his writings, having been a principal and useful evidence in the discovery in the popish plot, in the reign of Charles II. See the Eng. Hist, for that period; and the “Life of capt. Bedloe,” which contains nothing extraordinary but the aforesaid discovery, written by an unknown hand, and published 1681, 8vo. He was an infamous adventurer of low birth, who had travelled over a great part of Europe, under different names, as well as disguises. Encouraged by the success of Gates, he turned evidence, and gave an account of Godfrey’s murder, to which he added many circumstances of villainy. A reward of 500l. was voted to him by the commons. He is said to have asserted the reality of the plot on his death-bed; but it abounds with absurdity, contradiction, and perjury and still remains one of the greatest problems in the British annals. He died Aug. 20, 1680. Jacob informs us, he wrote a play called the “Excommunicated Prince,” printed 1679, but Wood says it was written by one Thomas Walter, M. A. of Jesus college, Oxford.

, the rabbi Jedaia, son of Abraham, called also Happenini Aubonet-Abram, but better known by the name of Bedraschi, is supposed to have been a nalive of Languedoc, and flourished in Spain towards the close of the thirteenth century. He left several Hebrew works, the principal of which, written at Barcelona in 1298, is entitled “Bechinat-Olem,” or an examination or appreciation of the world, and was printed at Mantua, in 1476, at Soncino in 1484, at Cracow in 1591, at Prague in 1598, and at Furth in 1807, with a German translation. Uchtmann also published a Latin translation at Leyden in 1630, and a French translation was published at Paris in 162y, by Philip d' Aquino. M. Michel Berr, a Jew of Nanci, published at Metz in 1708 another translation, on which M. Sylvestre de Sacy wrote many valuable remarks in the “Magazin Encyclopedique.” Bedraschi’s work is a mixture of poetry, theology, philosophy, and morals. His style is somewhat obscure, but the numerous editions and translations of his work form no inconsiderable evidence of its merit.

, an artist, the son of Peter Begyn, a sculptor, was born at Haerlem, in 1620, and was the disciple of Adrian Ostade. If he did not equal his master, he was at least the best of his disciples. He set out in his profession with credit, and proceeded in it for some years with sufficient success; but he grew too fond of a dissipated life, and at last his morals were so depraved, that his father, after many ineffectual remonstrances, disowned him. For this reason he cast off his father’s name, and assumed that of Bega; his early pictures being marked with the former, and his latter works with the other. He had a fine pencil, and a transparent colour; and his performances are placed among the works of the best artists. He took the plague from a woman with whom he was deeply enamoured and he shewed so much sincerity of affection, that, notwithstanding the expostulations of all his friends and physicians, he would attend her to the last moments of her life, and imbibed from her the same fatal distemper, of which he died in a few days after her, Aug. 27, 1664. He is also classed among engravers, having etched several drolleries, and a set of thirty-four prints, representing alehouse scenes, &c.

, the son of a tanner, was born at Heidelberg, April 19, 1653, and received an education suitable to his promising talents. In compliance with his father’s request, he studied divinity, but after his death indulged his own inclination, by studying law. In 1677, when he was twenty-four years of age, Charles Louis, elector palatine, appointed him his librarian, and keeper of his museum. Beger retained those stations until 1685, when Charles, the son and successor of Charles Louis, being dead, the library passed into the hands of the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, and the museum went to the elector of Brandenburgh. The latter, Frederick William, engaged Beger in his service, gave him the rank of counsellor, and appointed him to the care of his library and medals, a post which he likewise filled under his successor, until his death, April 21, 1705. He had been a member of the society of Berlin from its foundation. He left a great many works, the principal of which are: 1. “Thesaurus ex Thesauro Palatino selectus, seu Gemmae,” Heidelberg, 1685, fol. 2. “Spicilegium antiquitatis,” 1692, folio. 3. “Thesaurus, sive Gemmae, Numismata,” &c. 1696, and 1791, 3 vols. fol. 4. “Regum et Imperatorum Romanorum Numismata, a, Rubenio edita,” 1700, fol. 5. “De nummis Cretensium serpentiferis,” 1702, fol, 6. “Lucernae sepulchrales J. P. Bellorii,” 1702, fol. 7. “Numismata Pontificum Romanorum,” 1703, fol. 8. “Excidium Trojanum,” Berlin, 1699, 4 to, &c. Beger composed a work to authorise polygamy, at the request of Charles Louis, elector palatine, who was desirous of marrying his mistress in the life-time of his first wife; but he refuted it after the death of that prince. The refutation, however, never appeared. The book that gave occasion to it was entitled “Considerations on Marriage, by Daphnseus Arcuarius,” in German, 4to.

, born at Blois in 1638, of a family of distinction, in the former part of his life filled some of the first offices of the law, and soon distinguished himself by the acuteness of his penetration, and his attention to method. The marquis de Seignelei, his kinsman, having induced him to enter the marine, he successively filled the place of intendant of the French West India islands, of the gallies of Havre, and Canada, and of those of Rochefort and la Rochelle, till 1710, when he died, the 14th of March, much regretted. The people loved him as a disinterested officer, and the citizens as their friend and benefactor. The learned were not less warm in their praises of one who protected and encouraged them, took a lively interest in their prosperity, and kept his library open for their use. He had an excellent taste in the choice of his books. He possessed a rich cabinet of medals, antiques, prints, shells, and other curiosities, collected from the four quarters of the world. His books were generally marked in front with the words “Michaeiis Begon et amicorum.” His librarian having once represented to him, that by letting every body have access to them, he would lose several of them: he very liberally replied, “I had mjch rattier lose my books, than seem to distrust an honest man.” He caused to be engraved the portraits of several celebrated persons of the seventeenth century, and collected memoirs of their lives; from which materials Perrault composed his history of the illustrious men of France.

, an advocate of the parliament of Dijon, and afterwards a notary, and a corresponding member of the French academy of belles-lettres, derived considerable reputation from some works which he published on domestic economics and agriculture. He is also the author of some historical pieces, but they have been thought inferior to the others. We have no other memoranda of his life, than that he died in May 1786. He published: I. “Des principes de la vegetation et de ^agriculture,” 1769, 8vo. 2. “Memoire sur les avantages de la mouture economique, et du commerce des farines en detail^” 8vo. 3. “CEnologie, ou Traite de la vigne et des vins,” 1770, 12mo. 4. “Dissertation surTergot, ou ble cornu,” 1771, 4to. 5. “Traite de la connoissance generale des” rains,“1775, 3 vols. 8vo, and 4to. Among other curious things in this work, which is accompanied with cuts well coloured, there is a memoir, transmitted from Pekin, relative to the Chinese method of >reserving corn, and the laws of their police with respect to that article. It contains also many useful remarkson the subject, although not always happily or concisely expressed. 6.” Manuel du meunier et du charpentier des Moulins,“1785, 8vo, taken in a great measure from the memoirs of Cesar Bucquet, 7.” Traite general des subsistances et des grains,“1782, 6 vols. 8vo. Beguillet wrote also” Histoire cles guerres des deux Bourgognes/' tinder the reign of Lewis XIII. and XIV, 1772, 2 vols. 12mo. “Precis de i'Histoire de Bourgogne,” 8vo. “Description generale du duche de Bourgogne,” 6 vols. 8vo, written in part by the abbé Couctepee; and several articles in the Encyclopedia. In conjunction with Poncelin, he also published “Histoire de Paris, avec la description de ses plus beaux monumens,” Paris, 1780, 3 vols. 8vo.

, an engraver of Nuremberg, who flourished about the middle of the sixteenth century, was either instructed, or became an imitator of Henry Aldegrever, and Albert Durer, and like them, engraved on wood as well as copper, and also etched some few plates; but these last, by far the most indifferent, are also the smallest part of his works. If his style of engraving be not original, it is at least an excellent and spirited imitation of that which was adopted by the preceding masters of the country in which he resided. His pictures, for he was a painter, as well as his engravings, were held in such high estimation, that the poets of that age celebrated him in their poems, calling him in Latin, Bohemus. He was certainly a man of much genius, and possessed great fertility of invention. But the Gothic taste which so generally prevailed in Germany at this time, is much too prevalent in his works. His draperies are stiff, and loaded with a multiplicity of short, inelegant folds. His drawing of the naked figure, which he is fond of introducing, though mannered, is often very correct, and sometimes masterly. His heads, and the other extremities of his figures, are carefully determined, and often possess much merit. Of his numerous works, the following may be mentioned as specimens; on wood, a set of prints for a book entitled “Biblicae Histories artinciossissimce depictae,” Francfort, 1537; and on copper, “History of the creation and fall of man:” “The labours of Hercules:” “The virtues and vices,” &c. He had a brother, Bartholomew Beham, who resided principally at Rome. He was also an engraver, and from such of his prints as have been ascertained, which is somewhat difficult, he appears to have been a very excellent artist, and one of the superior scholars of Marc Antonio, whose style of engraving he imitated with great success. His drawing is correct and masterly; his beads are characteristic, and the other extremities of his figures well marked.

, otherwise Behaim, Bœhm, or Behenira, an eminent geographer and mathematician of the fifteenth century, was born at Nuremberg, an imperial city in the circle of Franconia, of a noble family, not yet extinct. He had the best education which the darkness of that age permitted, and his early studies were principally directed to geography, astronomy, and navigation. As he advanced in life, he often thought of the existence of the antipodes, and of a western continent, of which he was ambitious to make the discovery.

Filled with this great idea, in 1459 he paid a visit to Isabella, daughter of John I. king of Portugal, at that time regent of the duchy of Burgundy and Flanders; and having informed her of his designs, he procured a vessel, in which, sailing westward, he was the first European who is known to have landed on the island of Fayal. He there established in 1460 a colony of Flemings, whose descendants yet exist in the Azores, which were for some time called the Flemish islands. This circumstance is proved, not only by the writings of contemporary authors, but also by the manuscripts preserved in the records of Nuremberg; and although this record is contrary to the generally received opinion, that the Azores were discovered by Gonsalva Velho, a Portuguese, yet its authenticity seems unquestionable. It is confirmed not only by several contemporary writers, and by Wagenseil, one of the most learned men of the last century, but likewise by a note written on parchment in the German language, and sent from Nuremberg, a few years ago, to M. Otto, who was then investigating the discovery of America. The note contained, with other things, the following facts: “Martin Beham, esq. son of Mr. Martin Beham, of Scoperin, lived in the reign of John II. king of Portugal, in an island which he discovered, and called the island of Fayal, one of the Azores, lying in the western ocean.”

After having obtained from the regent a grant of Fayal, and resided there about twenty years, Behem applied in 1484 (eight years before Columbus’s expedition), to John II. king of Portugal, to procure the means of undertaking a great expedition towards the south-west. This prince gave hitn some ships, with which he discovered that part of America which is now called Brazil; and he even sailed to the straits of Magellan, or to the country of some savage tribes whom he called Patagonians, from the extremities of their bodies being covered with a skin more like bear’s paws than human hands and feet. A fact so little known, and apparently so derogatory to the fame of Columbus, ought not to be admitted without sufficient proof; but the proofs which have been urged in support of its authenticity are such as cannot be controverted. They are not only the letters of Behem himself, written in 1486, and preserved in the archives of Nuremberg, but likewise the public records of that city; in which we read that “Martin Behem, traversing the Atlantic ocean fenseveral years, examined the American islands, and discovered the strait which bears the name of Magellan before either Christopher Columbus or Magellan sailed those seas; whence he mathematically delineated, on a geographical chart, for the king of Lusitania, the situation of the coast around every part of that famous and renowned strait, long before Magellan thought of his expedition.”

This wonderful discovery has not escaped the notice of contemporary writers. A confirmation of it occurs in the Latin chronicle of Hartman Schedl, and in the remarks made by Petrus Mateus on the canon law, two years before the expedition of Columbus. These passages demonstrate that the first discovery of America is due to the Portuguese, and not to the Spaniards; and that the chief merit belongs to a German astronomer. The expedition of Frederick Magellan, which did not take place before the year 1519, arose from the following fortunate circumstance: This person being in the apartment of the king of Portugal, saw there a chart of the coast of America, drawn by Behem, and at once conceived the bold project of following the steps of our great navigator. Jerome Benzon, who published a description of America in 1550, speaks of this chart; a copy of which, sent by Behem himself, is preserved in the archives of Nuremberg. The celebrated astronomer Riccioli, though an Italian, yet does not seem willing to give his countryman the honour of this important discovery. In his “Geographia Reformata,” book III. p. 90, he says, “Christopher Columbus never thought of an expedition to the West Indies until his arrival in the island of Madeira, where, amusing himself in forming and delineating geographical charts, he obtained information from Martin Bcehm, or, as the Spaniards say, from Alphonsus Sanchez de Huelva, a pilot, who had chanced to fall in with the islands afterwards called Dominica.” And in another place, “Boehm and Columbus have each their praise they were both excellent navigators but Columbus would never have thought of his expedition to America, had not Bcehm gone there before him. His name is not so much celebrated as that of Columbus, Americus, or Magellan, although he is superior to them all.”

That Behem rendered some very important services to the crown of Portugal, is put beyond all controversy by the recompense bestowed on him by king John, who in. 1485 made him a knight^ and governor of Fayal; he is said also to have espoused the daughter of a great lord, “in consideration of the important services he had performed.” These marks of distinction conferred on a stranger, could not be meant as a recompense for the discovery of the Azores, which was made twenty years before, but as a reward for the discovery of Congo, from whence the chevalier Behem had brought gold and different kinds of precious wares. In 1492, crowned with honours and riches, he undertook a journey to Nuremberg, to visit his native country and family. He there made a terrestrial globe, which is looked on as a master-piece for that time, and which is still preserved in the library of that city. The outline of his discoveries may there be seen, under the name of western lands; and from their situation it cannot be doubted that they are the present coasts of Brazil, and the environs of the straits of Magellan. This globe was made in the same year that Columbus set out on his expedition; therefore it is impossible that Behem could have profited by the works of that navigator, who, besides, went a much more northerly course.

After having performed several other interesting voyages, the chevalier Behem died at Lisbon, in July 1506, regretted by every one, but leaving behind him no other work than the globe and chart, which we have mentioned. The globe is made from the writings of Ptolomy, Pliny, Strabo, and especially from the account of Mark Paul, the Venetian, a celebrated traveller of the thirteenth century; and of John Mandeville, an Englishman, who, about the middle of the fourteenth century published an account of a journey of thirty-three years in Africa and Asia. He has also added the important discoveries made by himself on the coasts of Africa and America.

From these circumstantial accounts, which have been but very lately brought to light, there can be little doubt, we think, that America was discovered by Martin Behcrn. Dr. Robertson, indeed, is of a different opinion; but great as we willingly acknowledge his authority to be, we may differ from him without presumption in this case, since he had it not in his power to consult the German documents to which we have appealed, and has himself advanced facts not easily to be reconciled to his own opinion. He allows that Behem was very intimate with Christopher Columbus; that he was the greatest geographer of his time, and scholar of the celebrated John Miiller or Regiomontanus; that he discovered, in 1483, the kingdom of Congo, upon the coast of Africa; that he made a globe which Magellan made use of; that he drew a map at Nuremberg, containing the particulars of his discoveries; and that he placed in this chart land which is found to be in the latitude of Guiana. He adds, indeed, without proof, that this land was a fabulous island; but if authentic records are to give place to bare assertion, there is an end of all historical evidence. If Behem took for an island the first land which he discovered, it was a mistake surely not so gross as to furnish grounds for questioning his veracity, or for withholding from him for ever that justice which has been so long delayed. But this very delay will by some be thought a powerful objection to the truth of Behem’s claim to the discovery of America; for if it was really discovered by him, why did he not leave behind him some writing to confirm the discovery to himself? and why did not the court of Portugal, so jealous of the discovery of the new world, protest against the exclusive claim of the Spaniards?

To these objections we may reply, that, however plansible they may at first appear, they do not in the smallest degree invalidate the positive evidence which we have urged for the Chevalier Behem’s being the real discoverer of the new world: for it would surely be very absurd to oppose the difficulty of assigning motives for certain actions performed at a remote period, to the reality of other actions for which we have the testimony of a cloud of contemporary witnesses. Supposing it were true, therefore, that Behem had left behind him no writing claiming to himself the discovery of any part of the continent of America, the only inference which could be drawn from his silence would be, either that ho was a man of great modesty, or that his mind was intent only on the acquisition of knowledge to himself, without feeling the usual impulse to communicate that knowledge to others. But it is not true that he has left behind him no claim of this discovery to himself. The letters to which we have appealed, and which are preserved in the archives of Nuremberg, together with the globe and map, which he certainly made, furnish as complete a confirmation of his claim as could have been furnished by the most elegant account of his voyages.

For the silence of the Portuguese, many reasons might be assigned. The discoveries of Columbus were made so much farther north than those of Behem, that, in an age when geographical knowledge was so very limited, both Spaniards and Portuguese might very naturally believe that the country discovered by the former of these navigators had no connexion with that discovered by the latter. At any rate, the Portuguese, whose discoveries proceeded from avarice, were satisfied with scraping together gold wherever they could find it: and finding it in Africa, they thought not of searching for it in a more distant region, till the success of the Spaniards shewed them their mistake. One thing more is worthy of attention. The long stay of Columbus at Madeira makes his interview with Behem more than probable. It is impossible that he should have neglected seeing a man so interesting, and who could give hurt every kind of information for the execution of the plan which he had formed. The mariners who accompanied the Chevalier Behem might also have spread reports at Madeira and the Azores concerning the discovery of which they had been witnesses. What ought to confirm us in this is, that Mariana himself says (book xxvi. chap. 3.) that a certain vessel going to Africa, was thrown by a gaie of wind upon certain unknown lands; and that the sailors at their return to Madeira had communicated to Christopher Columbus the circumstances of their voyage. All authors agree that this learned man had some information respecting the western shores; but they speak in a very vague manner. The expedition of the Chevalier Behem explains the mystery.

, a celebrated English poetess, descended from a good family in the city of Canterbury, was born in the reign of Charles I. but in what year is not certain her father’s name was Johnson who beino-related to the lord Willoughby, and by his interest having been appointed lieutenant general of Surinam, and six-andthirty islands, embarked with his family for the West Indies; at which time Aphara was very young. Mr. Johnson died in his passage, but his family arrived at Surinam, where our poetess became acquainted with the American prince Oroonoko, whose story she has given us in her celebrated novel of that name. She tells us, “she had often seen and conversed with that great man, and had been a witness to many of his mighty actions; and that at one time, he and Climene (or Imoinda his wife) were scarce an hour in a day from her lodgings.” The intimacy betwixt Oroonoko and our poetess occasioned some reflections on her conduct, from which the authoress of her life justifies her in the following manner: “Here,” says she, “I can add nothing to what she has given the world already, but a vindication of her from some unjust aspersions I find are insinuated about this town, in relation to that prince. I knew her intimately well, and I believe she would not have concealed any love affairs from me, being one of her own sex, whose friendship and secrecy she had experienced, which makes me assure the world, there was no affair betwixt that prince and Astraea, but what the whole plantation were witnesses of; a generous value for his uncommon virtues, which every one that but hears them, finds in himself, and his presence gave her no more. Besides, his heart was too violently set on the everlasting charms of his Imoinda, to be shook with those more faint (in his eye) of a white beauty; and Astrsea’s relations, there present, had too watchful an eye over her, to permit the frailty of her youth, if that had been powerful enough.”

The disappointments she met with at Surinam, by losing her parents and relations, obliged her to return to England; where, soon after her arrival, she was married to Mr. Behn, an eminent merchant of London, of Dutch extraction. King Charles II. whom she highly pleased by the entertaining and accurate account she gave him of the colony of Surinam, thought her a proper person to be intrusted with the management of some affairs during the Dutch war, in other words to act as a spy; which was the occasion of her going over to Antwerp. Here she discovered the design formed by the Dutch, of sailing up the river Thames, in order to burn the English ships; which she learnt from one Vander Albert, a Dutchman. This man, who, before the war, had been in love with her in England, no sooner heard of her arrival at Antwerp, than he paid her a visit; and, after a repetition of all his former professions of love, pressed her extremely to allow him by some signal means to give undeniable proofs of his passion. This proposal was so suitable to her present aim in the service of her country, that she accepted of it, and employed her lover in such a manner as* made her very serviceable to the king. The latter end of 1666, Albert sent her word by a special messenger, that he would be with her at a day appointed, at which time he revealed to her, that Cornelius de Witt and De Ruyter had proposed the above-mentioned expedition to the States. Albert having mentioned this affair with all the marks of sincerity, Mrs. Behn coukl not doubt the credibility thereof; and when the interview was ended, she sent express to the court of England; but her intelligence (though well grounded, as appeared by the event) being disregarded and ridiculed, she renounced all state affairs, and amused herself during her stay at Antwerp with what was more suited to her talents, the gallantries of the city. After some time she embarked at Dunkirk for England, and in her passage the ship was driven on the coast four days within sight of land; but, by the assistance of boats from that shore, the crew were all saved; and Mrs. Behn arrived safely in -London, where she dedicated the rest of her life to pleasure and poetry, neither of the most pure kind. he published three volumes of miscellany poems; the first in 1684, the second in 1685, and the third in 1688, consisting of songs and miscellanies, by the earl of Rochester, sir George Etherege, Mr. Henry Crisp, and others, with some pieces of her own. To the second collection is annexed a translation of the duke de Rochefoucauld s moral reflections, under the title of “Seneca unmasked.” She wrote also seventeen plays, some histories and novels, which are extant in two volumes, 12mo, 1735, 8th edition, published by Mr. Charles Gildon, and dedicated to Simon Scroop, esq. to which is prefixed the history of the life, and memoirs of Mrs. Behn, written by one of the fair sex. She translated Fontenolle’s History of oracles, and Plurality of worlds, to which last she annexed an essay on translation and translated prose, not very remarkable for critical acumen. The paraphrase of CEnone’s epistle to Paris, in the English translation of Ovid’s Epistles, is Mrs. Behn’s; and Mr. Dryden, in the preface to that work, compliments her with more gallantry than justice, when he adds, “I was desired to say, that the author, who is of the fair sex, understood not Latin; but if she does not, I am afraid she has given us occasion to be ashamed who do.” She was also the authoress of the celebrated Letters between a nobleman and his sister, printed in 1684; and we have extant of hers, eight love-letters, to a gentleman whom she passionately loved, and with whom she corresponded under the name of Lycidas. They are printed in the Life and Memoirs of Mrs. Behn, prefixed to her histories and novels. She died between forty and fifty years of age, after a long indisposition, April 16, 1689, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster-abbey. Mrs. Behn, upon the whole, cannot be considered as an ornament either to her sex, or her nation. Her plays abound with obscenity; and her novels are little better. Mr. Pope speaks thus of her:

, a German physician of note, was born at Hildesheim in Lower Saxony, Aug. 26, 1660. After studying medicine he was admitted to the degree of doctor at Helmstadt in 1684. In 1712, he was appointed court-physician to the duke of Brunswick Lunenburgh. He published many essays and dissertations in the Memoirs of the German Imperial academy, of which he was a member, and other works separately, both in German and Latin. The principal of these, are, 1. “De constitutione artis medicae,” Helmstadt, 1696, 8vo. 2, “The Legal Physician,” in German, ibid. 8vo, containing several medico-legal questions, and the history of sudden deaths, with the appearances on dissection. 3. “Selecta medica de medicinæ natura et certitudine,” Francfort and Leipsic, 1708, an inquiry into the history of medicine, its sects, c. 4. “Selecta Disetetica, seu de recta ac convoniente ad sanitatem vivendi ratione tractatus,” Francfort, 1710, 4to, in which he treats of air, food, exercise, sleep, and whatever may conduce to health of the causes of diseases the use of mineral waters, &c. Behrens died Oct. 4, 1736. His life was published by J. M. Gl-tsener, at Ilildesheim in the same year. His son and grandson were both physicians and medical writers. The former published, 1. “Trias casuum memorabilium medicorum,” Guelpherbiti (Wolfenbuttel), 1727, 4to. 2. “De imaginario quodam miraculo in gravi oculorum rnorbo, &c.” Brunopolis (Brunswick), 1734, 4to. 3. “De felicitate medicorum aucta in terris Brunsvicensis,” ibid. 1747, 4to.

, born in the village of Beidhah, was cadi or judge of the city of Schiraz in Persia, from whence he went to that of Zauris, where he died in the year of the hegira 685 or 692, of the Christian sera 1289, or 1291. He has written a literal commentary in 2 vols, on the Alcoran, which has been explained and commented on by several other authors.

, a native of Jena, where he was born in 1634. In 1658, he was made law professor in that university. He was the first who wrote systematically, on the laws, usages, and duties of corporations and wardens of arts and manufactures, collecting such scattered notices as he could find on these subjects, and throwing considerable light on a part of jurisprudence not then well understood. He died in 1712. His works are, 1. “Tyro prudentiae juris opificialii praecursorum emissarius,” Jena, 1685, 4to, and again in 1688, but the best edition is that edited with great improvements by Struvius, 1717, 4to. 2. “Tractatus de jure prohibendi, quod competit opincibus in opifices,” Jena, 1721, 4to, likewise improved by Struvius, 1721. 3. “Boethus, peregre redux conspectibus et judice conspicuus,” Jena, 1685 and 1717, 4to.

, an artist, was born at Ravensburgh in Suabia, in 1665, and was taught the first rudiments of his art by his father, who was a mathematician, and practised painting only for his amusement, and explained the principles of it to his son. By an assiduous practice for some years, Beisch proved a good artist, and was employed at the court of Munich, to paint the battles which the elector Maximilian Emanuel had fought in Hungary. While the elector was absent on some of his expeditions, Beisch embraced that opportunity to visit Italy, and took the most effectual methods for his improvement, by studying and copying those celebrated spots which have always claimed general admiration. He had three different manners: his first, before his journey to Italy, was true, but too dark; his second had more clearness and more truth; and his last, still more clear, was likewise weaker than all. The scenes of his landscapes, however, are agreeably chosen, and very picturesque: his touch is light, tender, and full of spirit; and his style of composition frequently resembled that of Gaspar Poussin, or Salvator Rosa. Solimene, a superior artist, did not disdain to copy some of Beisch' s landscapes. This artist died in 1748, aged eighty-three.

, better known under the name of Ebn Beithar, was likewise called Aschab, which signifies, botanist or herbalist. He was an African by birth, and died in the 646th year of the hegira. We have of him the “Giame al adviat al mofredat,” in 4 vols. which is a general history of simples or of plants ranged in alphabetical order. He has likewise written “Mogni si adviat al Mofredat,” in which he treats of the use of simples in the cure of every particular part of the body. Ebn Beithar also answered in a book which he called Taalik, to a work of Ebn Giazlah, who accused his works of many imperfections.

, bishop of Durham in the reigns of Edward I. and II. was advanced, with the king’s consent, from the archdeaconry of Durham and other preferments to the bishopric. Of his extraction and education we have no account. He was elected by the monks on the 9th of July 1283, and consecrated, in the presence of the king and several of the nobles, by William Wicwane, archbishop of York, on the 9th of January following. At the time of his consecration, the archbishop, having had a dispute, during the vacancy of the see, with the chapter of Durham, obliged the prior to go out of the church; and the next day enjoined the new bishop, upon his canonical obedience, to excommunicate the superior and several of the monks: but Bek refused to obey the archbishop, saying, “I was yesterday consecrated their bishop, and shall 1 excommunicate them to-day? 110 obedience shall force me to this.” He was enthroned on Christmas eve, 1285; on which occasion a dispute arising between the prior and the official of York about the right of performing that ceremony, Bek was installed by his brother Thomas Bt k bishop of St. David’s. This prelate had a long dispute with the monks of Durham; which proved very detrimental to the revenues and privileges of the see. He is said to have been the richest bishop (if we except Wolsey) that had ever held the see of Durham: for, besides the revenues of his bishopric, he had a temporal estate of five thousand marks per annum; part of which, we are told, he gained by unjustly converting to his own use an estate, which he held in trust for the natural son of the baron of Vescey. He procured the translation of the body of St. William, formerly archbishop of York, and bore the whole expence of the ceremony, which was performed in the church of York. He assisted king Edward I. in his war against John Baliol, king of Scotland, and brought into the field a large body of forces. In 1294, he was sent ambassador from king Edward to the emperor of Germany, to conclude a treaty with that prince, against the increasing power of France. In 1295, the pope having sent two cardinals on an embassy to the English court, this prelate was appointed to answer them in the king’s name. He had the title of patriarch of Jerusalem conferred on him by the pope in 1305; and about the same time received from the king a grant of the principality of the island of Man. An act passed in his time, in the parliament of Carlisle, 1307, to prevent the bishop of Durham or his officers, from cutting -down the woods belonging to the bishopric. This prelate expended large sums in building. He fortified the bishop’s seat at Aukland, and turned it into a castle; and he built, or enlarged, the castles of Bernard in the bishopric of Durham; of Alnwick in Northumberland; of Gainford in the bishopric of Durham; of Somerton in Lincolnshire, which he gave to king Edward I.; and of Eltham in Kent, which he gave to queen Eleanor. He founded the priory of Alvingham in Lincolnshire, the revenue of which, at the dissolution, was valued at 141l. 15s. per annum. He founded, likewise, a collegiate church, with a dean and seven prebendaries, at Chesterupon-the-street, and at Lanchester, in the bishopric of Durham. He also gave to the church of Durham two pictures, containing the history of our Saviour’s nativity, to be hung as an ornament over the great altar on the festival of Christmas. He died at Eltham, March 3, 1310, having sat twenty-eight years, and was buried in the church of Durham near the east front, contrary to the custom of his predecessors, who, out of respect to the body of St. Cuthbert, were never laid within the church. Bek was a man of uncommon pride, which more or less entered into the whole of his conduct. He was fond of military parade, and the attendance of a retinue of soldiers, although he took little pains to attach them to him. His magnificent taste appeared not only in the lasting monuments already noticed, but in his more domestic expences. He is said on one occasion to have paid forty shillings (a sum now equivalent to 80l.) for forty fresh herrings in London, when they had been refused by the most opulent persons of the realm, then assembled in parliament. He was so impatient of rest, that he never took more than one sleep, saying it was unbecoming a man to turn from one side to the other in bed. He was perpetually either riding from one manor to another, or hunting or hawking. Though his expences were great, he was provident enough never to want money. He always rose from his meals with an appetite: and his continence was so singular that he never looked a woman full in the face. We are even gravely told, that in the translation of the body of St. William of York, when the other bishops declined touching that saint’s remains, conscious of their failings in point of chastity, he alone boldly handled them, and assisted the ceremony. His taste in architecture, however, and his munificence in contributing to so many once noble edifices, are the only favourable circumstances in his character, nor should we have thought him worthy of much notice, had he not been admitted by the original editors of our national biography.