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1721, 8vo. 3. “King Alfred, in twelve books,” 1723, 8vo. 4. “History of the Conspiracy against king William the Third,” 1723, 8vo, 5. “A discourse on the Plague, with a preparatory account of malignant fevers, in two parts containing an explication of the nature of those diseases, and the methods of cure,” 1720, 8vo. 6. “A treatise on the Small-pox, in two parts and a dissertation upon the modern practice of Inoculation,” 1722, 8vo. 7. “A treatise on Consumptions and other distempers belonging to the breast and lungs,” 1724, 8vo, 8. “A treatise on the Spleen and Vapours, or hypochonclriacal and hysterical affections; with three discourses on the nature and cure of the Cholic, Melancholy, and Palsy,” 1725, 8vo. 9. “A critical dissertation upon the Spleen,” 1725. 10. “Discourses on the Gout, Rheumatism, and the King’s Evil,” 1726, 8vo. 11. “Dissertations on a Dropsy, a Tympany, the Jaundice, the Stone, and the Diabetes,” 1727, 8vo. 12. “Just prejudices against the Arian hypothesis,” 1725, 8vo. 13. “Modern Arians unmasked,” 1721, 8vo. 14. “Natural Theology, or moral Duties considered apart from positive: with some observations on the desirableness and necessity of a supernatural revelation,” 1728, 8vo. 15. “The accomplished Preacher; or, an essay upon divine eloquence,” 1731, 8vo. This last piece was published after the author’s death, in pursuance of his express order, by the rev. Mr. John White, of Nayland, in Essex who attended sir Richard during his last illness, and bore testimony to the elevated piety with which he prepared for his approaching dissolution.

, knight, and LL. D. an illustrious English lawyer, was born July 10, 1723, in Cheapside, in the parish of St. Michael-le-Querne, at the house of his father, Mr. Charles Blackstone, a silkman, and citizen and bowyer of London, who was the third son of Mr. John Blackstone, an eminent apothecary, in Newgate-street, descended from a family of that name in the west of England, at or near Salisbury. His mother was Mary, eldest daughter of Lovelace Bigg, esq. of Chilton Foliot, in Wiltshire. He was the youngest of four children, of whom, John died an infant, Charles, the eldest, and Henry, the third, were educated at Winchester-school, under the care of their uncle Dr. Bigg, warden of that society, and were afterwards both fellows of New college, Oxford. Charles became a fellow of Winchester, and rector of Wimering, in Hampshire; and Henry, after having practised physic for some years, went into holy orders, and died in 1778, rector of Adderbury, in Oxfordshire, a living in the gift of New-college. Their father died some months before the birth of the subject of this article, and their mother died before he was twelve years old. from his birth, the care both of his education and fortune was kindly undertaken by his maternal uncle, Mr. Thomas Bigg, an eminent surgeon in London, and afterwards, on the death of his eldest brothers, owner of the Chilton estate, which, if we mistake not, is still enjoyed by that family. The affectionate care of this uncle, in giving all his nephews a liberal education, supplied the great loss they had so early sustained, and compensated, in a great degree, for their want of more ample fortunes, and it was always remembered by them with the sincerest gratitude. In 1730, being about seven years of age, he was put to school at the Charter-house, and in 1735 was, by the nomination of sir Robert Walpole, on the recommendation of Charles Wither, of Hall, in Hampshire, esq, his cousin by the mother’s side, admitted upon the foundation.

In this excellent seminary he applied himself to every branch of youthful education, with the same assiduity which accompanied his studies through life. His talents and industry rendered him the favourite of his masters, who encouraged and assisted him with the utmost attention; so that at the age of fifteen he was at the head of the school, and, although so young, was thought well qualified to be removed to the university and he was accordingly entered a commoner at Pembroke college, Oxford, ISov. 30, 1738, and was the next day matriculated. At this time he was elected to one of the Charter-house exhibitions, by the governors of that foundation, to commence from the Michaelmas preceding, but was permitted to continue a scholar there till after the 12th of December, being the anniversary commemoration of the founder, to give him an opportunity of speaking the customary oration, which he had prepared, and which did him much credit. About this time, also, he obtained Mr. Benson’s gold prize medal of Milton, for verses on that poet. Thus, before he quitted school, his genius received public marks of approbation and reward; and so well pleased was the society of Pembroke college with their young pupil, that, in the February following, they unanimously elected him to one of lady Holford’s exhibitions for Charter-house scholars in that house.

Here he prosecuted his studies with unremitting ardour, and, although the classics, and particularly the Greek and Roman poets, were his favourites, they did not entirely engross his attention logic, mathematics, and the other sciences were not neglected. From the first of these, (studied rationally, abstracted from the jargon of the schools), he laid the foundation of that close method of reasoning for which he was so remarkable and from the mathematics, he not only reaped the b'iiiefit of using his mind to a close investigation of every subject that occurred to him, till he arrived at the degree of demonstration which the nature of it would admit, but converted that dry study, as it is usually thought, into an amusement, by pursuing the branch of it which relates to architecture. This science he was peculiarly fond of, and made himself so far master of it, that at the early age of twenty, he compiled a treatise entitled “Elements of Architecture,” intended for his own use only, and not for publication, but esteemed by those judges who have perused it, in no respect unworthy of his maturer judgment, and more exercised pen.

Having -determined on his future plan of life, and made choice of the law for his profession, he was entered in the Middle Temple, Nov. 20, 1741, and found it necessary to quit the more amusing pursuits of his youth for the severer studies to which he had dedicated himself, and betook himself seriously to reading law. His sensations on this occasion are admirably expressed in some verses since published in Dodsley’s poems, vol. IV. entitled “The Lawyer’s Farewell to his Muse,” in which the struggle of his mind is expressed so strongly, so naturally, with such elegance of language, and harmony of versification, as must convince every reader, that his passion for the muses was too deeply rooted to be laid aside without much reluctance and that if he had pursued that flowery path, he would not, perhaps, have proved inferior to the best of our modern poets. Several little fugitive pieces, besides this, have at times been communicated by him to his friends, and he left (but not with a view to publication) a small collection of juvenile pieces, both originals and translations, which do him no discredit, inscribed with this line, from Horace,

Some notes on Shakspeare, which just before his death he communicated to Mr. Malone, and which were inserted by him in his supplement to Johnson and Steevens’s edition of that author, shew how well he understood the meaning, Rs well as the beauties, of that, his favourite among the English poets and we may mention likewise his elegant and acute defence of Addison, inserted in the life of that author, in the second edition of the Biographia Britannica.

In November 1743, he was elected into the society of All Souls college, and in the November following, he spoke the annual speech in commemoration of archbishop Chichele, the founder, and the other benefactors to that house of learning, and was admitted actual fellow. From this period he divided his time between the university and the Temple, where he took chambers in order to attend the courts: in the former he pursued his academical studies, and, on the 12th of June 1745, commenced B.C. L.; in the latter he applied himself closely to his profession, both in the half, and in his private studies, and on the 28th of November 1746, was called to the bar.

The first years of a counsel’s attendance on the courts afford little matter proper to be inserted in a narrative of this kind and he, in particular, not being happy in a graceful delivery, or a flow of elocution, (both of which he much wanted), nor having any powerful friends or connexions to recommend him, made his way very slowly, and acquired little notice and little practice yet he then began to lay in that store of knowledge in the law which he has since communicated to the world, and contracted an acquaintance with several of the most eminent men in that profession, who saw through the then intervening cloud, those talents which afterwards were exerted with so much splendour.

At Oxford his active mind had more room to display itself; and being elected into the office of Bursar, soon after he had taken his degree, and finding the muniments of the college in a confused, irregular state, he undertook and completed a thorough search, and a new arrangement, from whence that society reaped great advantage. He found also, in the execution of this office, the method of keeping accounts in use among the older colleges, though very exact, yet rather tedious and perplexed; he drew up, therefore, a dissertation on the subject, in which he entered into the whole theory, and elucidated every intricacy that might occur. A copy of this tract is still preserved, for the benefit of his successors in the Bursarship. But it was not merely the estates, muniments, and accounts of the college, about which he was usefully employed during his residence in that society. The Cpdrington, library had for many years remained an unfinished building. He hastened the completion of it, rectified several mistakes in the architecture, and formed a new arrangement of the books under their respective classes.

The late duke of Wharton, who had engaged himself by bond to defray the expence of building the apartments between the library and common room, being obliged soon after to leave his country, and dying in very distressed circumstances, the discharge of this obligation was long despaired of. It happened, however, in a course of years, that his grace’s executors were enabled to pay his debts; when, by the care and activity of Mr. Blackstone, the building was completed, the college thereby enabled to make its demand, and the, whole benefaction recovered. In May 1749, as a small reward for his services, and to give him further opportunities of advancing the interests of the college, he was appointed steward of their manors and in the same year, on the resignation of his uncle Seymour Richmond, esq. he was elected recorder of the borough of Wallingford, in Berkshire, and received the king’s approbation on the 30th of May.

The 26th of April, 1750, he commenced doctor of civil law, and thereby became a member of the convocation which enabled him to extend his views beyond the narrow circle of his own society, to the general benefit of the university at large. In this year he published “An essay on Collateral Consanguinity,” relative to the claim made by such as could by a pedigree prove themselves of kin to the founder of All-Souls college, of being elected preferably to all others into that society. Those claims became now so numerous, that the college, with reason, complained of being frequently precluded from making choice of the most ingenious and deserving candidates. In this treatise, which was his first publication, he endeavoured to prove, that as the kindred to the founder, a Popish ecclesiastic, could be only collateral, the length of time elapsed since his death must, according to the rules both of the civil and canon law, have extinguished consanguinity; or that the whole race of mankind were equally founders’ kinsmen. This work, although it did not answer the end proposed, or convince the then visitor, yet did the author great credit; and shewed that he had read much, and well digested what he had read. And most probably, the arguments contained in, it had some weight with his Grace the late archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Cornwallis, when about forty years ago, on application to him, as visitor of the college, he formed a new regulation, which gives general satisfaction, by limiting the number of founder’s kin; by which the inconvenience complained of was in a great measure removed, without annihilating a claim founded on the express words of the college statutes. In forming this new regulation, his Grace made choice of Mr. Blackstone as his common-law assessor, together with 'Dr. Hay the civilian.

After having attended the courts in Westminster-hall for seven years, and finding the profits of his profession very inadequate to the expence, in the summer of 1753, he determined to retire to his fellowship and an academical life, still continuing the practice of his profession, as a provincial counsel. He had previously planned, what he now began to execute, his “Lectures on the Laws of England,” a work which has so justly signalized his name. In the ensuing Michaelmas term he entered on his new province of reading these lectures; which, even at their commencement, such were the expectations formed from the acknowledged abilities of the lecturer, were attended by a very crowded class of young men of the first families, characters, and hopes. In July, 1755, he was appointed one of the delegates of the Clarendon press. On his entering on this office, he discovered many abuses which required correction; and much mismanagement which demanded new and effectual regulations. In order to obtain a thorough insight into the nature of both, he made himself master of the mechanical part of printing and to promote and complete a reform, he printed a letter on the subject, addressed to Dr. Randolph, then vice-chancellor. This and his other endeavours produced the desired effect; and he had the pleasure of seeing, within the course of a year, the reform he had proposed, carried into execution. About a year before this, he published “An Analysis of the Laws of England,” as a guide to those gentlemen who attended his lectures, on their first introduction to that study; in which he reduced that intricate science to a clear method, intelligible to the youngest student.

In 1757, on the death of Dr. Coxed, warden of Winchester, he was elected by the surviving visitors of Michel’s new foundation in Queen’s college into that body. This new situation afforded fresh matter for his active genius; and it was chiefly by his means that this donation, which had been for some years contested, became a very valuable acquisition to the college, as well as an ornament to the university, by completing that handsome pile of building towards the High-street, which for many years had been little better than a confused heap of ruins. The engrafting a new set of fellows and scholars into an old established society could not be an easy task, and in the present instance was become more difficult, from the many unsuccessful attempts that had been made, all of which had only terminated in disputes between the members of the old and the visitors of the new foundation; yet under these circumstances Dr. Blackstone was not disheartened, but formed and pursued a plan, calculated to improve Mr. Michel’s original donation, without departing from his intention and had the pleasure to see it completed, entirely to the satisfaction of the members of the old foundation, and confirmed, together with a body of statutes he drew for the purpose, by act of parliament, in 1769.

Being engaged as counsel in the great contest for knights of the shire for the county of Oxford in 1754-, he very accurately considered a question then much agitated, whether copyholders of a certain nature had a right to vote in county elections? He afterwards reduced his thoughts on that subject into a small treatise; and was prevailed on by sir Charles Mordaunt, and other members of parliament, who had brought in a bill to decide that controverted point, to publish it in March 175H, under the title of “Considerations on Copyholders.” And the bill soon after received the sanction of the legislature, and passed into a law.

Mr. Viner having by his will left not only the copy-right of his abridgement, but other property to a considerable amount, to the university of Oxford, to found a professorship, fellowships, and scholarships of common law, he was on the 20th of October, 1758, unanimously elected Vinerian professor; and on the 25th of the same month read his first introductory lecture; one of the most elegant and admired compositions which any age or country ever produced this he published at the request of the vice-chancellor and heads of houses, and afterwards prefixed to the first volume of his Commentaries. His lectures had now gained such universal applause, that he was requested by a noble personage, who superintended the education of our present sovereign, then prince of Wales, to read them to his royal highness; but as he was at that time engaged to a numerous class of pupils in the university, he thought he could not, consistently with that engagement, comply with this request, and therefore declined it. But he transmitted copies of many of them for the perusal of his royal highness who, far from being offended at an excuse grounded on so honourable a motive, was pleased to order a handsome gratuity to be presented to him.

In 1759 he published two small pieces merely relative to the university the one entitled, “Reflections on the opinions of Messrs. Pratt, Morton, and Wilbraham, relating to lord Litch field’s Disqualification,” who was then a candidate for the chancellorship the other, “A Case for the opinioji of counsel on the right of the University to make New Statutes.”

Having now established a reputation by his lectures, which he justly thought might entitle him to some particular notice at the bar, in June 1759, he bought chambers in the Temple, resigned the office of assessor of the vicechancellor’s court, which he had held about six years, and soon after the stewardship of All-Souls college; and in Michaelmas term, 1759, resumed his attendance at Westminster, still continuing to pass some part of the year at Oxford, and to read his lectures there, at such times as did not interfere with the London terms. The year before this he declined the honour of the coif, which he was pressed to accept of by lord chief justice Willes and Mr. justice (afterwards earl) Bathurst.

In November 1759, he published a new edition of the Great Charter, and Charter of the Forest; which added much to his former reputation, not only as 'a great lawyer, but as an accurate antiquary, and an able historian. It must also be added, that the external beauties in the printing, the types, &c. reflected no small honour on him, as the principal reformer of the Clarendon press, from whence no work had ever before issued, equal in those particulars to this. This publication drew him into a short controversy with the late Dr. Lyttelton, then dean of Exeter, and afterwards bishop of Carlisle. The dean, to assist Mr. Blackstone in his publication, had favoured him with the collation of a very curious ancient roll, containing both the Great Charter, and that of the Forest, of the 9th of Henry III. which he and many of his friends judged to be an original. The editor of the Charters, however, thought otherwise, and excused himself (in a note in hjs introduction) for having made no use of its various readings, “as the plan of his edition was confined to charters which had passed the great seal, or else to authentic entries and enrolments of record, under neither of which classes the roll in question could be ranked.” The dean, upon this, concerned for the credit of his roll, presented to the Society of Antiquaries a vindication of its authenticity, dated June the 8th, 1761 and Mr. Blackstone delivered in an answer to the same learned body, dated May the 28th, 1762, alleging, as an excuse for the trouble he gave them, “that he should think himself wanting in that respect which he owed to the society, and Dr. Lyttelton, if he did not either own and correct his mistakes, in the octavo edition then preparing for the press, or subijiit to the society’s judgment the reasons at large upon which his suspicions were founded.” These reasons, we may suppose, were convincing, for here the dispute ended.

A dissolution of parliament having taken place, he was in March 1761, returned burgess for Hindon, in Wiltshire, and on the 6th of May following had a patent of precedence granted him to rank as king’s counsel, having a few months before declined the office of chief justice of the court of common pleas in Ireland.

Finding himself not deceived in his expectations in respect to an increase of business in his profession, he now determined to settle in life, and on the 5th of May, 1761, he married Sarah the eldest surviving daughter of the late James Clitherow, of Boston-house, in the county of Middlesex, esq. with whom he passed near nineteen years in the enjoyment of the purest domestic and conjugal felicity, for which no man was better calculated, and which, he used often to declare, was the happiest part of his life by her he had nine children, the eldest and youngest of whom died infants seven survived him viz. Henry, James, William, Charles, Sarah, Mary, and Philippa the eldest not much above the age of 16 at his death.

His marriage having vacated his fellowship at All- Souls, he was, on the 28th of July 1761, appointed by the earl of Westmoreland, at that time chancellor of Oxford, principal of New-inn hall. This was ah agreeable residence during the time his lectures required him to be in Oxford, and was attended with this additional pleasing circumstance, that it gave him rank, as the head of an house in the university, and enabled him, by that means, to continue to promote whatever occurred to him, that might be useful and beneficial to that learned body. An attempt being made about this time to restrain the power given him, as professor, by the Vinerian statutes, to nominate a deputy to read the solemn lectures, he published a state of the case for the perusal of the members of convocation upon which it was dropped.

In the following year, 1762, he collected and republished several of his pieces, under the title of “Law Tracts,” in 2 vols. 8vo. In 1763, on the establishment of the queen’s family, Mr. Blackstone was appointed solicitor general to her majesty, and was chosen about the same time a bencher of the Middle Temple.

Many imperfect and incorrect copies of his lectures having by this time got abroad, and a pirated edition of them being either published, or preparing for publication in Ireland, he found himself under the necessity of printing a correct edition himself; and in November, 1765, published the first volume, under the title of “Commentaries on the Laws of England,” and in the course of the four succeeding years the other three volumes, which completed a work that will transmit his name to posterity among the first class of English authors, and will be universally read and admired, as long as the laws, the constitution, and the language of this country remain. Two circumstances respecting this great work, omitted by his biographer, we are enabled to add from unquestionable authority. So anxious was he that this work should appear with every possible advantage, that he printed three copies of the first volume, which he sent to three learned friends, for their opinion. The other circumstance does honour to his liberality. After reserving the copy-right in his own hands for some years, he disposed of it to Messrs. Strahan and Cadell for a considerable sum, but as, immediately after concluding the bargain, the decision passed the house of lords, which depreciated literary property, he offered Messrs. Strahan and Cadell, to cancel the agreement, and substitute another, by which he thought they would be less injured. These gentlemen, however, met his proposition with a corresponding liberality, and the original bargain stood; and every reader will be glad to hear thatthey were no losers, the work soon becoming, and yet remaining, in every sense, an English classic.

In 1766, he resigned, the Vinerian professorship, and the principality of New-inn hall finding he could not discharge the personal duties of the former, consistently with his professional attendance in London, or the delicacy of his feelings as an honest man. Thus was he detached from Oxford, to the inexpressible loss of that university, and the great regret of all those who wished well to the establishment of the study of the law therein. When he first turned his views towards the Vinerian professorship, he had formed a design of settling in Oxford for life he had flattered himself, that by annexing the office of professor to the principality of one of the halls (and perhaps converting it into a college), and placing Mr. Viner’s fellows and scholars under their professor, a society might be established for students of the common law, -similar to that of Trinity hall in Cambridge for civilians. Mr. Viner’s will very much favoured this plan. He leaves to the university “all his personal estate, books, &c. for the constituting, establishing, and endowing one or more fellowship or fellowships, and scholarship or scholarships, in any college or hall in the said university, as to the convocation shall be thought most proper for students of the common law.” But notwithstanding this plain direction to establish them in some college or hall, the clause from the delegates which ratified this designation, had the fate to be rejected by a negative in convocation.

In the new parliament chosen in 1768 he was returned burgess for Westbury in Wiltshire. In the course of this parliament, the question, “W 7 hether a member expelled was, or was not, eligible in the same parliament,” was frequently agitated in the house with much warmth and what fell from him in a debate being deemed by some persons contradictory to what he had advanced on the same subject in his Commentaries, he was attacked with much asperity, in a pamphlet supposed to be written by a baronet, a member of that house. To this charge he gave an early reply in print. In the same year, Dr. Priestley animadverted on some positions in the same work, relative to offences against the doctrine of the established church, to which he published an answer.

Mr. Blackstone’s reputation as a great andable lawyer was now so thoroughly established, that had he been possessed of a constitution equal to the fatigues attending the most extensive business of the profession, he might probably have obtained its most lucrative emoluments and highest offices. The offer of the solicitor generalship, on the resignation of Mr. Dunning, in Jan. 1770, opened the most flattering prospects to his view. But the attendance on its complicated duties at the bar, and in the house of commons, induced him to refuse it. But though he declined this path, which so certainly, with abilities like Mr. Blackstone’s, leads to the highest dignities in the law, yet he readily accepted the office of judge of the common pleas, when offered to him on the resignation of Mr. Justice Clive; to which he was appointed on the 9th of February 1770. Previous however to the passing his patent, Mr. Justice Yates expressed an earnest wish to remove from the king’s bench to the court of common pleas. To this wish Mr. Blackstone, from motives of personal esteem, consented but on his death, which happened between the ensuing Easter and Trinity terms, Mr. Blackstone was appointed to his original destination in the common pleas; and on his promotion to the bench, he resigned the recordership of Wallingford.

He seemed now arrived at the point he always wished for, and might justly be said to enjoy “otium cum dignitate.” Freed from the attendance at the bar, and what he had still a greater aversion to, in the senate, “where (to use his own expression) amid the rage of contending parties, a man of moderation must expect to meet with no quarter from any side,” although he diligently and conscientiously atcended the duties of the high office he was now placed in, yet the leisure afforded by the legal vacations he dedicated to the private duties of life, which, as the father of a numerous family, he now found himself called upon to exercise, or to literary retirement, and the society of his friends, at his villa, called Priory-place, in Wallingford which he purchased soon after his marriage, though he had for some years before occasionally resided at it. His connection with this town, both from his office of recorder, and his more or less frequent residence there, 'from about 1750, led him to form and promote every plan which could contribute to its benefit or improvement. To his activity it stands indebted for two new turnpike roads through the town; the one opening a communication, by means of a new bridge over the Thames at Shillingford, between Oxford and Reading the other to Wantage through the vale of Berkshire. He was indeed always a great promoter of the improvement of public roads: the new western road over Botley Causeway was projected, and the plan of it entirely conducted by him. He was the more earnest in this design, not merely as a work of general utility and ornament, but as a solid improvement to the estate of a nobleman, in settling whose affairs he had been most laboriously and beneficially employed. To his architectural talents, also, his liberal disposition, his judicious zeal, and his numerous friends, Wallingford owes the rebuilding that handsome fabric, St. Peter’s church. These were his employments in retirement; in London his active mind was never idle, and when not occupied in the duties of his station, he was ever engaged in some scheme of publifc utility. The last of this kind in which, he was concerned, was the act of parliament for providing detached houses of hard labour for convicts, as a substitute for transportation. Of this scheme we have just given some account in the life of Blackburn the architect. It has been put in practice in several counties, but the question as to the beneficial effects of solitary confinement, although frequently agitated, has not been so completely decided as to obviate many objections which have been lately offered.

It ought not to be omitted, that the last augmentation of the judges’ salaries, calculated to make up the deficiencies occasioned by the heavy taxes they are subject to, and thereby render them more independent, was obtained in a great measure by his industry and attention.

In this useful and agreeable manner he passed the last ten years of his life; but not without many interruptions Ly illness. His constitution, hurt by the studious midnight labours of his younger days, and an unhappy aversion he always had to exercise, grew daily worse not only the gout, with which he was frequently, though not very severely, visited from 1759, but a nervous disorder also, that frequently brought on a giddiness or vertigo, added to a corpulency of body, rendered him still more unactive than, he used to be, and contributed to the breaking up of his constitution at an early period of life. About Christmas 1779 he was seized with a violent shortness of breath, which the faculty apprehended was occasioned by a dropsical habit, and water on the chest. By the application of proper remedies that effect of his disorder was soon removed, but the cause was not eradicated for on his coming up to town to attend Hilary term, he was seized with afresh attack, chiefly in his head, which brought on a drowsiness and stupor, and baffled all the art of medicine the disorder increasing so rapidly, that he became at last for some days almost totally insensible, and expired on the 14th of Feb. 1780, in the fifty-sixth year of his age.

A few weeks before he died, he was applied to by the trustees for executing the will of the late sir George Downing, bart. who had bequeathed a large estate for the endowing a new college in Cambridge, to give his assistance in forming a proper plan for this society, and framing a body of statutes for its regulation. This was a task to which his abilities were peculiarly adapted and it may be difficult to determine, whether the application reflected more, honour on the trustees, or on him. He had mentioned to some of his most intimate friends, his undertaking this business with great pleasure, and seemed to promise himself much satisfaction in the amusement it would afford him but, alas his disorder was then coming on with such hasty strides, that before any thing could be done in it, death put an end to this and all his labours, and left the university of Cambridge, as well as that of Oxford, to lament the loss of Mr. Justice Blackstone. He was buried, by his own direction, in a vault he had built for his family, inliis parish church of St. Peter’s in Wallingford. His neighbour And friend Dr. Barrington, bishop of Landaff, now of Durham, at his own particular request, performed the funeral service, as a public testimony of his personal regard and highest esteem.

In his public line of life he approved himself an able; upright, impartial judge perfectly acquainted with the laws of the country, and making them the invariable rule of his conduct. As a senator, he was averse to party violence, and moderate in his sentiments. Not only in parliament, but at all times, and on all occasions, he was a firm supporter of the true principles of our happy constitution in church and state on the real merits of which few men were so well qualified to decide. He was ever an active and judicious promoter of whatever he thought useful or advantageous to the public in general, or to any particular society or neighbourhood he was connected with; and having not only a sound judgment, but the clearest ideas, and the most analytical head that any man, perhaps, was ever blessed with; these qualifications, joined to an unremitting perseverance in pursuing whatever he thought right, enabled him to cany many beneficial plans into execution, which probably would have failed, if they had been attempted by other men.

He was a believer in the great truths of Christianity, from a thorough investigation of its evidence: attached to the church of England from conviction of its excellence, his principles were those of its genuine members, enlarged and tolerant. His religion was pure and unaffected, and his attendance on its public duties regular, and those duties always performed with seriousness and devotion.

His professional abilities need not be dwelt upon. They will be universally acknowledged and admired, as long as his works shall be read, or, in other words, as long as the municipal laws of this country shall remain an object of study and practice and though his works will only hold forth to future generations his knowledge of the law, and his talents as a writer, there was hardly any branch of literature he was unacquainted with. He ever employed much time in reading, and whatever he had read and once digested, he never forgot. He was an excellent manager of his time and although so much of it was spent in an application to books, and the employment of his pen, yet this was done without the parade or ostentation of being a hard student. It was observed of him, during his residence at college, that his studies never appeared to break in upon the common business of life, or the innocent amusements of society; for the latter of which few men were better calculated, being possessed of the happy faculty of making iis own company agreeable and instructive, whilst he enjoyed, without reserve, the society of others. Melancthon himself could not have been more rigid in observing the hour and minute of an appointment. During the years in which he read his lectures at Oxford, it could not be remembered that he had ever kept his audience waiting for him, even for a few minutes. As he valued his own time, he was extremely careful not to be instrumental in squandering or trifling away that of others, who, he hoped, might have as much regard for theirs, as he had for his. Indeed, punctuality was in his opinion so much a virtue, that he could not bring himself to think favourably of any who were notoriously defective in it.

The virtues of his private character, less conspicuous in their nature, and consequently less generally known, endeared him to those he was more intimately connected with, and who saw him in the more retired scenes of life. He was, notwithstanding his contracted brow (owing in a great measure to his being very near-sighted), a cheerful, agreeable, and facetious companion. He was a faithful friend, an affectionate husband and parent, and a charitable benefactor to the poor *, possessed of generosity, without affectation, bounded by prudence and ceconomy. The constant accurate knowledge he had of his income and expences (the consequence of uncommon regularity in his accounts) enabled him. to avoid the opposite extremes of meanness and profusion.

Being himself strict in the exercise of every public and private duty, he expected the same attention to both in others and, when disappointed in his expectations, was apt to animadvert with some degree of severity on those who, in his estimate of duty, seemed to deserve it. This rigid sense of obligation, added to a certain irritability of temper, derived from nature, and increased in his latter years by a strong nervous affection, together with his countenance and figure, conveyed an idea of sternness, which occasioned the unmerited imputation, among those who did not know him, of ill-nature but he had a heart as benevolent and as feeling as man ever possessed. A natural reserve and diffidence which accompanied him from his earliest youth, and which he could never shake off, appeared to a casual observer, though it was only appearance, like pride especially after he became a judge, when he thought it his duty to keep strictly up to forms (which, as he was wont to observe, are now too much laid aside), and not to lessen the respect due to the dignity and gravity of his office, by any outward levity of behaviour.

For this excellent memoir of Judge Blackstone, we are indebted to the Preface prefixed to his “Reports,” 1780, 2 vols. folio, written by James Clitherow, esq. his brother-­in-law. For its length no apology can be necessary, for Blackstone may justly be ranked among the illustrious characters of the eighteenth century, and as possessing a claim to permanent reputation which it will not be easy to lessen. It was not long after his death, before the sons of Oxford paid the honours due to the memory of so eminent a scholar and benefactor. In 1781, a portrait was presented to the picture-gallery, by R. Woodeson, D. C. L. professor; T. Milles, B. C. L.; T. Plumer, A. M.; and H. Addington, A. M. (now lord Sidmouth), scholars upon Viuer’s foundation: and in 1784, by the liberality of Dr. Buckler, and a few other members of All Souls, a beautiful statue, by Bacon, was erected in the hall of that college, and may be considered as one of its most striking ornaments. His arms are likewise in one of the north windows of the elegant chapel of All Souls.

, a native of Derbyshire, born in 1674, was admitted sizer in Emannel college, Cambridge, Sept. 13, 1690; proceeded B. A. in 1694, and went out M. A. 1698. He was appointed head master of the free-school at Derby, and lecturer of All-hallows there, where in 1706 he distinguished himself in the literary world by “Theognidis Megarensis sententise morales, nova Latina versione, notis et emendationibus, explanatæ et exornatae una cum variis lectionibus, &c.” 8vo. Whilst at Derby he also published “An Introduction to the Classics containing a short discourse on their excellences, and directions how to study them to advantage with an essay on the nature and use of those emphatical and beautiful figures which give strength and ornament to writing,” 1718, 12mo; in which he displayed the beauties of those admirable writers of antiquity, in a very instructive, concise, and clear manner. In 1722 he was appointed head master of the free-school at Market-Bosworth in Leicestershire and in 1725 appeared, in quarto, his greatest and most celebrated work, “The Sacred Classics defended and illustrated.” A second volume (completed but a few weeks before his death) was published in 1731, under the title of “The Sacred Classics defended and illustrated. The second and last volume.” To this volume was prefixed a portrait of the author by Vertue, from an original painting. Both volumes were reprinted in 4to, Lipsix, 1736. In many respects this is a work of great merit. It displays a fund of genuine learning, and contains a number of useful and important observations. In a great variety of instances it is shewn, that several of the words and phrases in the New Testament which have been condemned as barbarous, are to be found in Greek writers of the best reputation. But it is the opinion of some judicious critics, that he has not succeeded in proving the general purity and elegance of language in which the evangelists and apostles wrote. Among these Dr. Campbell appears to be Mr. Blackwall’s most formidable adversary, in his “Four Gospels translated from the Greek,” 4to edit. vol. I. p. 13 17.

Mr. Blackwall, in his seminaries at Derby and Bosworth, had the felicity of bringing up a number of excellent scholars besides Mr. Dawes. Among these was sir Henry Atkins, bart. who, being patron of the church of Clapharn. in Surrey, as a mark of his gratitude and esteem, presented our author, on the 12th of October, 1726, to that rectory, which was then supposed to be worth three hundred pounds a year. The grammar which Mr. Blackwall made use of, for the purpose of initiating the young people under his care into the knowledge of the Latin tongue, was of his own composition; and it was considered as so well adapted to that end, that he was prevailed upon to publish it in 1728. Such, however, was his modesty, that it would not permit him to fix his name to it, because he would not be thought to prescribe to other instructors of youth. The title of it is, “A 'New Latin Grammar; being a short, clear, and easy introduction of young scholars to the knowlege of the Latin tongue containing an exact account of the two first parts of grammar.” It is probable, that Mr. Blackwall’s situation at Clapham did not altogether suit his disposition; for, early in 1729, he resigned the rectory of that place, and retired to Market- Bosworth, where his abilities and convivial turn of mind rendered him generally respected. At the school-house of this town he died, ou the 8th of April, 1730. He left behind him two children, a son and a daughter. The son was an attorney at StokeGolding, in the neighbourhood of Bosworth, where he died July 5, 1763; and the daughter was married to a Mr. Pickering.

, an ingenious lady, to whom physic was indebted for the most complete set of figures of the medicinal plants, was the daughter of a merchant of Aberdeen, and born, probably about the beginning of the last century. Her husband, Dr. Alexander Blackwell (brother of Dr. Thomas, the subject of our next article) received an university education, and was early distinguished for his classical knowledge. By some he is said only to have assumed the title of doctor after his successful attendance on the king of Sweden, but the other report is more probable, that when he had regularly studied medicine, he took his degree at Leyden under Boerhaave. Having failed in his attempt to introduce himself into practice, first in Scotland, and afterwards in London, he became corrector of the press for Mr. Wilkins, a printer. After some years spent in this employment, he set up as a printer himself, and carried on several large works, till 1734, when he became bankrupt. To relieve his distresses, Mrs. Blackwell, having a genius for drawing and painting, exerted all her talents: and, understanding that an herbal of medicinal plants was greatly wanted, she exhibited to sir Hans Sloane, Dr. Mead, and other physicians, some specimens of her art in painting plants, who approved so highly of them as to encourage her to prosecute a work, by the profits of which she is said to have procured her husband’s liberty, after a confinement of two years.

Mr. Rand, an eminent apothecary, was at that time demonstrator to the company of apothecaries, in the garden at Chelsea, and by his advice she took up her residence opposite the physic garden, in order to facilitate her design, by receiving the plants as fresh as possible. He not only promoted her work with the public, but, together with Mr. Philip Miller, afforded her all possible direction and assistance in the execution of it. After she had completed the drawings, she engraved them on copper, and coloured the prints with her own hands. During her abode at Chelsea, she was frequently visited by persons of quality, and many scientific people who admired her performances, and patronized her undertaking. On publishing the first volume in 1737, she obtained a recommendation from Dr. Mead, Dr. Sherard, Mr. Rand, and others, to be prefixed to it. And being allowed to present, in person, a copy to the college of physicians, that body made her a present, and gave her a public testimonial of their approbation; with leave to prefix it to her book. The second volume was finished in 1739, and the whole published under the title, “A curious Herbal, containing 500 cuts of the most useful plants whicih are now used in the practice of physic, engraved on folio copperplates, after drawings taken from the life. By Elizabeth Blackwell. To which is added, a short description of the plants, and their common uses in physic,” 2 vols. fo!.

The drawings are in general faithful, and if there is wanting that accuracy which modern improvements have rendered necessary, in delineating the more minute parts, yet, upon the whole, the figures are sufficiently distinctive of the subject. Each plate is accompanied with an engraved page, containing the Latin and English officinal names, followed by a short description of the plant, and a summary of its qualities and uses. After these occurs the name in various other languages. These illustrations were the share her husband took in the work.

This ill-fated man, after his failure in physic and in printing, became an unsuccessful candidate for the place of secretary to the society for the encouragement of learning. He was then made saperintendant of the works belonging to the duke of Chandos at Cannons, and experienced those disappointments incident to projectors. He also formed schemes in agriculture, and wrote a treatise on the subject, which, we are told, was the cause of his being engaged in Sweden. In that kingdom he drained marshes, practised physic, and was even employed in that capacity for the king. At length he was involved in some state cabals, or, as some accounts inform us, in a plot with count Tessin, and was put to the torture, which not producing a confession, he was beheaded, Aug. 9, 1747. The British ambassador was recalled from Sweden in the same year, among other reasons, for the imputations thrown on his Britannic majesty in the trial' of Dr. Blackwell. Soon after this event, appeared “A genuine copy of a Letter from a merchant in Stockholm, to his correspondent in London, containing an impartial account of Dr. Alexander Blackwell, his plot, trial, character, and behaviour, both under examination and at the place of execution, together with a copy of a paper delivered to a friend upon the scaffold,” in which he denied the crime imputed to him. When Mrs. Blackwell died does not appear. An improved edition of her Herbal was published by Trew, the text in Latin and German, Nuremberg, 1750 1760, fol. and at Leipsic was published in 1794, 8vo, “Nomenclator Linnaeanus in Blackvellianum Herbarium per C. G. Greening,” a proof of the estimation in which this work is still held on the continent.

, an ingenious and very learned writer of the last century, was born August 4, 1701, in the city of Aberdeen. His father, the rev. Mr. Thomas Blackwell, was minister of Paisley in Renfrewshire, from whence he was removed in 1700 to be one of the ministers of Aberdeen. He was afterwards elected professor of divinity in the Marischal college of that city, and in 1717 was presented by his majesty to be principal of the college, in both which offices he continued until his death in 1728. His mother’s name was Johnston, of a good family near Glasgow, and sister to Dr. Johnston, who was many years professor of medicine in the university of Glasgow. Our author received his grammatical education at the grammarschool of Aberdeen, studied Greek and philosophy in the Marischal college there, and took the degree of master of arts in 1718; which, as he was at that time only seventeen years of age, must be regarded as a considerable testimony of his early proficiency in literature. A farther proof of it was his being presented, on the 28th of November 1723, by his majesty king George the First, to the professorship of Greek, in the college in which he had been educated. He was admitted into this office on the 13th of December in the same year; and after that continued to teach the Greek language with great applause. His knowledge of that language was accurate and extensive, and his manner of communicating it perspicuous and engaging. He had a dignity of address which commanded the attention of the students, a steadiness in exacting the prescribed exercises which enforced application, and an enthusiasm for the beauties of the ancients, and utility of classical learning, which excited an ardour of study, and contributed much to diffuse a spirit for Grecian erudition far superior to what had taken place before he was called to the professorship. Together with his lessons in the Greek tongue, he gave, likewise, lessons on some of the Latin classics, chiefly with a view to infuse a relish for their beauties. To his zeal and diligence in discharging the duties of his station, it is probable that the world was, in part, indebted for such men as Campbell, Gerard, Reid, Beattie, Duncan, and the Fordyces, who have appeared with so much eminence in the republic of letters. When the celebrated Dr. Berkeley was engaged in the scheme of establishing an American university in the Summer Islands, Mr. Blackwell was in treaty with him for going out as one of his young professors; but the negociation did not take effect. In 1735 was published at London, in octavo, without the name of the bookseller, and without his own name, our author’s “Enquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer” a work, the great ingenuity and learning of which will be acknowledged by all who have perused it. It was embellished with plates, designed by Gravelot, and executed by different engravers. This we apprehend to be the most esteemed, and it is, in our opinion, the most valuable, of Mr. Blackwell’s performances. The second edition appeared in 1736; and, not long after, he published “Proofs of the Enquiry into Homer’s Life and Writings, translated into English being a key to the Enquiry with a curious frontispiece.” This was a translation of the numerous Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian and French notes which had been subjoined to the original work. In 1748, came out, in London, “Letters concerning Mythology,” in a large octavo, but without the bookseller (Andrew Millar’s) name. On the 7th of October, in the same year, our author was appointed by his late majesty, George II. to be principal of the Marischal college in Aberdeen, and was admitted to the office on the 9th of November following. He continued, also, professor of Greek till his death. He is the only layman ever appointed principal of that college, since the patronage came to the crown, by the forfeiture of the Marischal family in 1716 all the other principals having been ministers of the established church of Scotland. When Robert and Andrew Foulis, printers at Glasgow, intended to publish an edition of Plato, Mr. Blackwell proposed to furnish them with several critical notes for it, together with an account of Plato’s Life and Philosophy but the printers not acceding to the terms which he demanded for this assistance, he promised, by a Latin advertisement in 1751, himself to give an edition of Plato. His design, however, was not carried into execution nor did it appear, from any thing found among his papers after his death, that he had made any considerable progress in the undertaking. On the 3d of March, 1752, he took the degree of doctor of Laws. In the following year, appeared the first volume of his “Memoirs of the Court of Augustus,” in 4to. The second volume came out in 1755 and the third, which was posthumous, and left incomplete by the author, was prepared for the press by John Mills, esq. and published in 1764. At the same time, was published the third edition of the two former volumes. This is a proof of the good reception the work met with from the public, though it must be acknowledged that the parade with which it was written, and the peculiarity of the language, exposed it to some severity of censure, particularly to a most acute, and in some respects humourous, criticism by Dr. Johnson, written for the Literary Magazine, and now inserted in Johnson’s works. It cannot be denied that there is a considerable degree of affectation in Dr. Blackwell’s style and manner of composition and, unhappily, this affectation increased in him as he advanced in years. His “Enquiry into the Life of Homer” was not free from it it was still more discernible in his “Letters concerning Mythology” and was most of all apparent in his “Memoirs of the Court of Augustus.” We perceive in his various productions a mixture of pedantry but it is not the sober dull pedantry of the merely recluse scholar. In Dr. Blackwell it assumes a higher form. Together with the display of his erudition, he is ambitious of talking like a man who is not a little acquainted with the world. He is often speaking of life and action, of men and manners; and aims at writing with the freedom and politeness of one who has been much conversant with the public. But; in this he is unsuccessful: for though he was not destitute of genius or fancy, and had a high relish for the beauties of the ancient authors, he never attained that simplicity of taste, which leads to true ease and elegance in composition. It is probable, also, that, like many others at that time, he might be seduced by an injudicious imitation of lord Shaftesbury; a writer, whose faults have been found more easily attainable than his excellences.

Soon after Dr. Blackwell became principal of his college he married Barbara Black, the daughter of a merchant of Aberdeen, by whom he had no children, and who survived him so late as 1793. Several years before his death, his health began to decline so that he was obliged to employ an assistant for teaching his Greek class. His disorder was of the consumptive kind, and it was thought to be increased by the excess of abstemiousness which he imposed on himself and, in which, notwithstanding all the remonstrances of his physicians, he obstinately persisted, from an opinion of his own knowledge of his constitution, and of what he found by experience to suit it best. His disease increasing, he was advised to travel; and accordingly, in February 1757, he set out from Aberdeen, but was able to go no farther than Edinburgh, in which city he died, on the 8th of March following, in the fifty-sixth year of his age. Dr. Blackwell enjoyed an equable flow of temper, in which his intimate friends scarcely ever observed any variation. This he maintained during his whole illness. The day before he set out from Aberdeen, he desired to meet with all the professors of the college, and spent two hours with them with his usual vivacity. In Edinburgh he was visited, at his own desire, by Dr. Wallace, one of the ministers of that city, whose ingenuity and learning are well known. Dr. Blackwell, on the very day in which he died, wrote letters to several of his friends, and took leave of them with the greatest chee. fulness. In the April following our author’s decease, it being Dr. Gerard’s business, as (at that time) professor of moral philosophy and logic in the Marischal college, to preside at conferring the degree of master of arts on those whose standing entitled them to it, the doctor took that occasion to pronounce publicly, on the late principal, such an encomium as his literature deserved. It was a fault in Dr. Blackwell, that he too much assumed the appearance of universal knowledge; the consequence of which was that he sometimes laid himself open, by entering on subjects of philosophy and mathematics, without a sufficient acquaintance with them. With all the ancient, and with most of the modern languages, he was really acquainted and his reading, in the departments of history and the belles lettres, was very extensive. He had a ready and lively manner of introducing his knowledge of this kind, which made his conversation both instructive and entertaining and it was rendered still more so by being accompanied with great good humour, and an entire command of his passions, even when he was provoked. Though he had something of the stiffness of the recluse, he joined with it much of the confidence and good breeding that are found in men who converse much in the world. His life was private and studious: he did not wholly decline mixed companies, though it was but seldom that he came into them and at home he chose only the conversation of the learned, or that of persons of superior rank or fortune. At London he was known to several men of eminence. The late duke of Newcastle, and Mr. Henry Pelham, were his patrons, and procured for him the office of principal of the Marischal college. It is confidently said that they had intended him an establishment at Cambridge, and that the professorship of modern history was fixed upon for him, if he had not died a short time before it became vacant. A man of Dr. Blackwell’s abilities and reputation could not fail of having some valuable literary connexions and correspondents; among whom he had the honour of numbering the late celebrated Dr. Mead, and the no less celebrated Dr. Warburton, bishop of Gloucester. It is said that Mr. Blackwell, soon after the publication of his Enquiry, being at Cambridge, paid a visit to Dr. Bentley, and the discourse turning upon the book, the doctor, being asked his opinion of it, answered, “That when he had gone through half of it, he had forgotten the beginning; and that, when he had finished the reading of it, he had forgotten the whole.” Whatever truth is in this story, it is certain, at least, that a similar objection had been started by others, if not by Dr. Bentley.

In the first volume of the Archaeologia is a letter, written in 1748, by Dr. Blackwell, to Mr. Ames, containing an explanation of a Greek inscription, on a white marble, found in the isle of Tasso, near the coast of Romania, by captain Joseph Hales, in 1728. As Dr. Blackwell was singular in his style and sentiments, he likewise imbibed some religious opinions, little known at that time in the bosom of the Calvinistic church of Scotland. He was so much a Socinian, that he never read ttie first chapter of St. John in his class, but always began with the second. This on one occasion gave rise to a foolish report respecting his knowledge of Greek, which we shall have occasion to notice in the life of Dv. Gregory Sharpe. His widow, who, as alreadynoticed, died in 1793, bequeathed her estates partly to found a chemical professorship in the college over which her husband had so long presided, and partly for a premium for an English essay, and for the augmentation of the professors’ salaries.

, a learned English writer of the church of Rome, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, was born in the county of Middlesex, and admitted a scholar of Trinity college in Oxford at seventeen years of age, May 27, 1562, probationer in 1565, being then bachelor of arts, perpetual fellow the year following, and master of arts in 1567. But being more inclined to the Roman catholic than the Protestant religion, he left his fellowship, and retired to Gloucester hall, where he continued for some time, and was highly esteemed by Edmund Rainolds and Thomas Allen, two learned seniors of that hall. He afterwards went beyond sea, and spent some time in one of the English seminaries newly erected to receive the exiled English catholics andwas at last in 1598, with the permission of pope Clement VIII. constituted by Henry cardinal Cajetan, protector of the English nation at Rome, and superior of the English clergy, with the authority and name of Archpriest of England, and was appointed by that pope notary of the apostolic see. This affair being resented by the English catholic clergy, especially as they imagined that our author was absolutely under the influence of Henry Garnet, provincial of the Jesuits of England, it occasioned a warm contest between them in England. The Jesuits wrote and spoke against the secular priests in so virulent a manner, as to detract very much from BlackwelPs authority who upon this degraded them of their faculties, so that when they afterwards appealed to the pope, he caused them to be declared in a book schismatics and heretics. They vindicated themselves from this charge, and procured the censure“of the university of Paris in their favour; which was answered by our author. He also declared his abhorrence of the Powder Plot in 1605, and wrote two letters to dissuade the Roman catholics from all violent practices against the king and government. He held the office of archpriest till 1607, when he was succeeded by George Birket. The reason of this change was, because our author having been seized at London June 24 the same year, he was committed to prison, and consequently deprived of the liberty required to act in his office. He was released soon after upon his taking the oath of allegiance. An account of this aft'air was published at London, 1607, in 4to, entitled” The examination of George Blackwell, upon occasion of his answering a letter sent by cardinal Bellarmine, who blamed him for taking the oath of allegiance." He died suddenly January 12, 1612-3, and was buried, as Mr. Wood supposes, in some church in London. He was esteemed by those of his own persuasion, and by others likewise, a man of great learning and piety, and a good preacher.

He was the author of “A letter to cardinal Cajetane io. commendation of the English Jesuits,” written in 1596. “Answers upon sundry examinations whilst he was a prisoner,” London, 1607, 4to. “Approbation of the Oath of Allegiance letters to the Romish priests touching the lawfulness of taking the Oath of Allegiance,” and another to the same purpose, all of which were printed with the “Answers upon sundry examinations,” &c. “Epistolae ad Anglos Pontificios,” London, 1609, 4to. “Epistolae ad Robertum cardinalem Bellarminum.” See the third volume of the Collections of Melchior Goldast, Francfort, 1613, fol. “Answer to the Censure of Paris in suspending the secular priests obedience to his authority,” dated May the 29th, 1600. This was replied to by John Dorel, or Darrel, dean of Agen the same year. “A treatise against lying and fraudulent dissimulations,” in manuscript, among those given to the Bodleian library by archbishop Laud. At the end of it is the approbation of the book written by Blackwell, and recommended by him as fit for the press; so that no other name being put to it, it has been ascribed to him whereas it is more justly supposed to have been written by Francis Tresham, esq. an English Catholic.

, professor of civil law at Poictiers, was born at Dumfermling, in Scotland, in 1539, descended of an ancient family. He was left an orphan in the tenth year of his age, and was sent by his uncle, the bishop of Orkney, to the university of Paris. On his uncle’s death, by which he seems to have lost the means of being able to remain at Paris, he returned to Scotland, but finding no encouragement there, he went again to Paris, where, by the liberality of Mary, queen of Scotland, he was enabled to pursue his studies in philosophy, mathematics, and the oriental languages. He then went to the university of Tholouse, where he studied civil law for two years and having obtained the patronage of Beaton, archbishop of Glasgow, he was chosen by the parliament of Poictiers one of their counsellors, and afterwards professor of civil law. He died in 1623, and was interred at Poictiers in St. Porcharius church, near his brother George. As a writer, he was chiefly known for his vindication of his royal mistress, when put to death by queen Elizabeth, written with all that bitterness of resentment which is natural for a man of spirit to feel, who, by an act of flagrant injustice, was deprived of his mistress and his sovereign, his friend and his benefactress. He addresses himself, in a vehement strain of passion, to all the princes of Europe, to avenge her death; declaring, that they are unworthy of royalty, if they are not roused on so interesting and pressing an occasion. He laboured hard to prove that Henry VIII.' s marriage with Anne Bolen was incestuous a calumny too gross to merit a formal refutation. This work was entitled “Martyre de Maria Stuart Reyne d'Escosse,” Antwerp, 1588, 8vo. His other works were, 1. “Adversus G. Buchanani Dialogum de Jure Ilegni apud Scotos, pro regibus apologia,” Pict. 1580, 8vo. 2. “De Vinculo Religionis et Imperii,” Paris, 1575, 8vo. 3. “Sanctarum precationum prsemia,” a manual of devotions, Pict. 1598, 8vo. 4. “Varii generis poemata,” ibid. 1609, 8vo. 5. “Jacobi I. Magnse Britanniae inauguratio,” Paris, 1606, 4to. These and some other pieces by him, were collected and published, with a life, by Gabriel Naudeus, 1644, 4to.

, another brother of the preceding, was born probably about 1526, at Dumfermling in Fifeshire, and educated at St. Andrew’s. He was also sent by his uncle, the bishop of Orkney, to Paris, where in 1551, he taught philosophy. He afterwards applied himself to the study of physic, became a member of the college of physicians, and was finally honoured with the dignity of clean of the faculty, a place of considerable importance in the college of Paris. He was also appointed physician to the duke de Longueville, with a salary of 20O pistoles. During the plague at Paris, he had the resolute humanity to continue in that city, much to his own honour, and the consolation of the people. He is supposed to have died in 16 J 3, or 1614. He wrote several medical and philosophical treatises, of which we only know of two that were printed 1. “Hippocratis quaedam cum Mss. collata,” Paris, 1625, and 2. “Questio Medica, an visceribus nutritiis aestuantibus aquarum metal licarum potus salubris” ibid. 4to. He had a son of both his names, likewise a physician of eminence, of whom Moreri gives a short account.

, of Albro'-hatch, in the county of Essex, was early in life an officer in the army, bearing the commission of lieutenant-colonel in queen Anne’s reign, under the great duke of Marlborough. In 1714, he was made comptroller of the. Mint, and in 1717, one of the lords commissioners of trade and plantations. In the same year he was appointed envoy extraordinary to the court of Spain, but declined it, and retained the office he held until his death, Feb. 14, 1746. He satin the fifth, sixth, and seventh parliaments of Great Britain for Stockbridge, in the eighth for Maiden, and in the ninth for Portsmouth. Coxeter hints that he was secretary of state for Ireland, but this is doubtful. He wrote two very indifferent dramatic pieces, “Orpheus and Euridice,” and “Solon” which were printed in 1705, 4to, without his consent. He is best known, however, by his translation of Caesar’s Commentaries, which he dedicated to the duke of Marlborough. This book was in some estimation formerly, and Mr. Bowyer appears to have assisted in correcting it. He was buried in Stepney church, with a very handsome inscription to his memory. Pope introduces him in the Uunciad as a gamester, for what reason cannot now be ascertained. He was uncle to Collins the celebrated poet, to whom he left an estate, which poor Collins did not get possession of till his faculties were deranged, and he could not enjoy it.

, an eminent printer, and publisher of geographical maps and charts, was born at Amsterdam in 1571, and died there in 1638. He was the scholar and friend of Tycho-Brahe, and applied himself, besides his particular art, to the study of geography and astronomy. When he had formed the design of his celebrated “Atlas,” he gave liberal prices to the most experienced geographers and draughtsmen for original maps, which he procured to be engraved with great care, and all the elegance which the state of the arts in his time could admit. Eager, however, as he was to render this work perfect, as he was obliged to trust to the incomplete and dubious relations of travellers, the work is now valued chierly as a beautiful specimen of engraving, and bears a considerable price, especially when coloured. It was entitled the “Grand Atlas geographique,” or “Theatrum Mundi” and including the celestial and hydrographical maps, forms 14 vols. fol. 1663 67, very little of it having been published in his life-time, but. the whole completed by his sons. He published also, “Instruction astronomique de l'usage des globes et sphere celestes et terrestres,” Amst. 1642, 4to 1669, 4to. There was a neatness in all his publications of this description, which has been rarely imitated. An accidental fire which destroyed the greater part of the first edition of the atlas and of his other works, rendered them for some time in great demand. His “Theatrum urbium et munimentorum,” was another collection of views and maps in much esteem. These and other designs were pursued and completed by his sons John and Cornelius, and, the latter dying young, chiefly by John, who was also the printer of a great many classics, which yield in beauty only to the Elzevirs. Among the geographical works of John Blaeu, are, 1. “Novum ac magnum theatrum civitatum totius Belgiae,” 1649, 2 vols. fol. 2. “Civitates et admirandae Italiae,” 1663, 2 vols. fol. reprinted with a French text, Amst. 1704, 4 vols. fol. and Hague, 1724. 3. “Theatrum Sabaudise et Pedemontii,” 1682, 2 vols. fol. translated and published under the title “Theatre de Piemont e de la Savoie,” by James Bernard, Hague, 1735, 2 vols. fol. Vossius and Grotius speak in high terms of the talents and industry of John and Cornelius Blaeu. It may be noticed that John Blaeu sometimes concealed himself under a fictitious name. His edition of “Erythraei Pinacotheca,” a work to which we have sometimes referred, was published with Cologne in the title page, instead of Amsterdam, and Jodocus Kalcovius, instead of John Blavius, or Blaeu.

, an eminent mathematician, who flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries, was the son of John Blagrave, of Bulmarsh, esq. and was born at Reading, but in what year is not known. He acquired the rudiments of his education at Reading, whence he removed to St. John’s college, Oxford, but soon quitted the university, and retired to Southcote Lodge at Reading, where he devoted his time to study and contemplation. His genius seemed to be turned most to mathematics; and that he might study this science without interruption, he devoted himself to a retired life. He employed himself chiefly in compiling such works as might render speculative mathematics accurate, and the practical parts easy. He accordingly finished some learned and useful works, in all which he proposed to render those sciences more universally understood. He endeavoured to shew the usefulness of such studies, that they were not mere amusements for scholars and speculative persons, but of general advantage, and absolutely indispensable in many of the necessaries and conveniences of life with this view he published the four following works: 1. “A Mathematical Jewel, shewing the making and most excellent use of an instrument so called: the use of which jewel is so abundant, that it leadeth the direct path-way through the whole art of astronomy, cosmography, geography,” &c. 1582, folio. 2. “Of the making and use of the Familiar Staff, so called for that it may be made useful and familiarly to walk with, as for that it performeth the geometrical mensuration of all altitudes,” 1590, 4to. 3. “Astrolabium uranicum generale a necessary and pleasant solace and recreation for navigators in their long journeying containing the use of an instrument, or astrolabe,” &c. 1596, 4to. 4. “The art of Dialling, in two parts.” 1609, 4to.

Blagrave was a man of great beneficence in private life. As he was born in the town of Reading, and had spent most of his time there, he was therefore desirous of leaving in that place some monuments of his beneficent disposition and such too as might have reference to each of the three parishes of Reading. He accordingly bequeathed a legacy for this purpose, of which we have an account by Ashmole, in the following words: “You are to note, that he doth devise that each church-warden should send on Good-Friday one virtuous maid that has lived five years with her master: all three maids appear at the town-hall before the mayor and aldermen, and cast dice. She that throws most has 10l. put in a purse, and she is to be attended with the other two that lost the throw. The next year come again the two maids, and one more added to them. He orders in his will that each maid should have three throws before she loses it; and if she has no luck in the three years, he orders that still new faces may come and be presented. On the same Good-Friday he gives eighty widows money to attend, and orders 10s. for a good sermon, and so he wishes well to all his countrymen. It is lucky money, for I never heard but the maid that had the lOl. suddenly had a good husband.” Blagrave died at his own house near Reading, August 9, 1611, and lies interred near his mother in the church of St. Lawrence; with a fine monument to his memory, and an inscription; the following account of which is given by Mr. Ashmole, and remains still nearly correct. On the north against the wall is a noble monument, representing a man under an arch to the middle, holding one hand on a globe, the other on a quadrant. He is habited in a short cloak,- a cassock, and a ruff, surrounded with books on each side of him. On one side is the figure of a woman to the breasts, naked, holding an instrument in her hand, as offering it to him, and under her feet the word Cubus. On the other side is another woman, somewhat naked, though with a scarf thrown closely round her, and offering in like manner; under her feet, Τετραεδρον. On the top are two women leaning on their arms, inscribed Οκταεδρον, Αδοδεκαεδρον. In the middle, a person armed, cap-a-pee, but now almost defaced, entitled Εικοσεδρον. And under the first figure mentioned, an inscription, in an oval: celebrating his virtues in homely rhimes.

, probably a relation of the preceding, was born in the parish of St. Giles, Reading, in 1610, and was a great enthusiast in astrological studies. He published “An introduction to Astrology,” 1682, 8vo, to which is prefixed an engraving of him mentioned by Granger. He was the author of a large supplement to Culpepper’s Herbal; to which is added “An account of all the Drugs that were sold in the druggists and apothecaries shops, with their dangers and connexions.” To this book is subjoined “A new tract of Chirurgery,” 8vo. He was also author of “The Astrological practise of Physick, discovering the true method of curing all kinds of diseases, by such herbs and plants as grow in our nation,” 8vo. In the Biographia Britannica, is an account of a manuscript which had been seen by Dr. Campbell, the author of that article, and had been bought at the sale of the library of an eminent physician near Covent-garden. In the first leaf it was said to be written by Mr. J. Blagrave, and was dedicated to Mr. B. (Backhouse) of Swallowfield. It appeared, from some mention of the royal society, and its members, to have been written in 1669, or 1670. The title was, “A remonstrance in favour of Ancient Learning against the proud pretensions of the moderns, more especially in respect to the doctrine of the Stars.” From the distribution of the several heads, and the extracts from them, it seems to be the work of an ingenious writer; one far superior to Joseph Blagrave in style and composition; and might, possibly, as Mr. Coates conjectures, be an unpublished work of Mr. John Blagrave, the mathematician, by whose will he inherited an estate in Swallowfield, yet we know not how to reconcile this with the dates respecting the royal society, which certainly did not exist in the mathematician’s time. This Joseph Blagrave died in 1679.

, D.D. an eminent divine of the church of Scotland, was born at Edinburgh, April 7, 1718. His father, John Blair, a respectable merchant in that city, was a descendant of the ancient family of Blair, in Ayrshire, and grandson of the famous Mr. Robert Blair, minister of St. Andrew’s, chaplain to Charles I. and one of the most zealous and distinguished clergymen of the peilod in which he lived. Of the two sons who survived him, David, the eldest, was a clergyman of eminence in Edinburgh, and father to Mr. Robert Blair, minister of Athelstanford, the author of the well-known poem entitled “The Grave.” From his youngest son, Hugh, who engaged in business as a merchant, and had the honour to fill a high station in the magistracy of Edinburgh, the object of the present memoir descended.

Dr. Blair was educated for the church, and while he prosecuted his studies at the college of Edinburgh with great success and approbation, a circumstance occurred which determined the bent of his genius towards polite literature. An essay “On the beautiful,” written by him when a student of logic, in the usual course of academical exercises, had the good fortune to attract the notice of professor Stevenson, and with circumstances honourable to the author, was appointed to be read in public, at the conclusion of the session, a mark of distinction which made a deep impression on his mind.

At this time, Dr. Blair commenced a method of study which contributed much to the accuracy and extent of his knowledge, and which he continued to practise occasionally, even after his reputation was fully established. It consisted in making abstracts of the most important works which he read, and in digesting them according to the train of his own thoughts. History, in particular, he resolved to study in this manner; and, in concert with some of his youthful associates, he constructed a very comprehensive scheme of chronological tables, for receiving into its proper place every important fact that should occur. The scheme devised by this young student for his own private use, was afterwards improved, filled up, and given to the public by his learned friend Dr. John Blair, prebendary of Westminster, in his valuable work “The Chronology and History of the World.”

In 1739 Dr. Blair took his degree of A.M. and in 1741 was licensed to preach by the presbytery of Edinburgh, and his first living was the parish of Colessie, in Fife but in 1743 he was recalled to his native city, as second minister of the Canongate church, in which he continued eleven years. In 1754 he was translated from the Canongate to lady Yester’s, one of the city churches, and in 1758 he was promoted to the high church of Edinburgh, the most important ecclesiastical charge in that kingdom.

Hitherto his attention seems to have been devoted almost exclusively to the attainment of professional excellence, and to the regular discharge of his parochial duties. No production of his pen had yet been given to the world by himself, except two occasional sermon*, some translations in verse of passages of Scripture for the psalmody of the church, and a few articles in the Edinburgh Review, a publication begun in 1755, and conducted for a short time by some of the ablest men in that kingdom. But, standing as he now did, at the head of his’ profession, and released by the labour of former years from what his biographer, rather incautiously, calls the drudgery of weekly preparation for the pulpit, he began to think seriously on a plan for teaching to others that art which had contributed so mueh to the establishment of his own fame. With this view he communicated to his friends a scheme of lectures on composition; and having obtained the approbation of the university, he began to read them in the college on the llth of December, 1759. Before this, he had received the degree of D. D. from the university of St. Andrew’s, a literary honour which at that time was very rare in Scotland. His first course of lectures were so much approved, that the patrons of the university, convinced that they would form a valuable addition to the system of education, agreed in the following summer to institute a rhetorical class under his direction, as a permanent part of their academical establishment; and on the 7th of April, 1762, his majesty was graciously pleased “To erect and endow a professorship of rhetoric and belles lettres in the university of Edinburgh, and to appoint Dr. Blair, in consideration of his approved qualifications, regius professor thereof, with a salary of 70l.” These lectures he published in 1783, when he retired from the labours of the office; and the general voice of the public has pronounced them to be a most judicious, elegant, and comprehensive system of rules for forming the style, and cultivating the taste of youth.

About this time he was employed in “rescuing from oblivion the poems of Ossian.” The controversy respecting the authenticity of these poems is well known. The biographer of Dr. Blair asserts that it was by the solicitation of Dr. Blair and Mr. John Home (the author of Douglas), that Mr. Macpherson was induced to publish his “Fragments of Ancient Poetry,” and that their patronage was of essential service in procuring the subscription which enabled him to undertake his tour through the Highlands for collecting the materials of Fingal, and of those other productions which bear the name of Ossian. To these, in 1763, Dr. Blair prefixed a “Dissertation” of the critical kind, which procured him much reputation, whatever may be thought of the subject. The great objects of his literary ambition being now attained, his talents were for many years consecrated solely to the important and peculiar employments of his station. But his chief fame was yet to rest upon the publication of his sermons, and the fate of them furnishes a singular instance of the vicissitudes of literary history. His biographer, however, relates this without any of the circumstances that are most interesting. He contents himself with saying that "It was not till the year 1777 that he could be induced to favour the world with a volume of the sermons which had so long furnished instruction and delight to his own congregation. But this volume being well received, the public approbation encouraged him to proceed three other volumes followed at different intervals; and all of them experienced a degree of success of which few publications can boast. They circulated rapidly and widely wherever the English tongue extends they were soon translated into almost all the languages of Europe and his present majesty, with that wise attention to the interests of religion and literature which distinguishes his reign, was graciously pleased to judge them worthy of a public reward. By a royal mandate to the exchequer in Scotland, dated July 25th, 1780, a pension of 200l. a year was conferred on their author, which continued unaltered till his death.

Mr. Boswell, in his “Life of Dr. Johnson,” informs us that Dr. Blair transmitted the manuscript of his first volume of sermons to Mr. Strahan, the king’s printer, who, after keeping it for some time, wrote a letter to him, discouraging the publication. Such at first was the unpropitious state of one of the most successful theological books that has ever appeared. Mr. Strahan, however, had sent one of the sermons to Dr, Johnson, for his opinion and after his unfavourable letter to Dr. Blair had been sent off, he received from Johnson on Christmas-eve, 1776, a note in which was the following paragraph “I have read over Dr. Blair’s first sermon with more than approbation to say it is good, is to say too little.” Mr. Strahan had very soon after this time, a conversation with Dr, Johnson concerning them and then he very candidly wrote again to Dr. Blair, enclosing Johnson’s note, and agreeing to purchase the volume, for which he and Mr. Cadell gave one hundred pounds. The sale was so rapid and extensive, and the approbation of the public so high, that, to their honour be it recorded, the proprietors made Dr. Blair a present, first of one sum, and afterwards of another, of fifty pounds; thus voluntarily doubling the stipulated price and when he prepared another volume, they gave him at once three hundred pounds and, we believe, for the others he had six hundred pounds each. A fifth volume was prepared by him for the press, and published after his death, 1801, to which is added a “Short account of his Life” by James Finlayson, D. D. of which we have availed ourselves in the preceding account. The sermons contained in this last volume were composed at very different periods of his life, but were all written out anew in his own hand, and in many parts re-composed, during the course of the summer 1800, after he had completed his eighty-second year.

In April 1748 he married his cousin, Katherine Bannatine, daughter of the rev. James Bannatine, one of the ministers of Edinburgh. By her he had a son, who died in infancy, and a daughter, who lived to her twentyfirst year: Mrs. Blair died a few years before her husband, after she had shared with the tenderest affection in all his fortunes, and contributed near half a century to his happiness and comfort.

Dr. Blair had been naturally of a feeble constitution of body, but, as he grew up, it acquired greater firmness and vigour. Though liable to occasional attacks from some of the sharpest and most painful diseases that afflict the human frame, he enjoyed a general state of good health and, through habitual cheerfulness, temperance, and care, survived the usual term of human life. For some years he felt himself unequal to the fatigue of instructing his very large congregations from the pulpit; and under the impression which this feeling produced, he was heard at times to say, “that he was left almost the last of his contemporaries.” Yet he continued to the end in the regular discharge of all his other official duties, and particularly in giving advice to the afflicted, who, from different quarters of the kingdom, solicited his correspondence. His last summer was devoted to the preparation of the fifth volume of his sermons; and, in the course of it, he exhibited a vigour of understanding, and capacity of exertion, equal to that of his best days. He began the winter pleased with himself, on account of the completion of this work; and his friends were flattered with the hope that he might live to enjoy the accession of emolument and fame which he expected it would bring. But the seeds of a mortal disease were lurking unperceived within him. On the 24th of December 1800, he complained of a pain in his bowels, which, during that and the following day, gave him but little uneasiness; and he received as usual the visits of his friends. On the afternoon of the 26th, the symptoms became violent and alarming he felt that he was approaching the end of his appointed course; and, retaining to the last moment the full possession of his mental faculties, he expired on the morning of the 27th, universally lamented through the city which he had so long instructed and adorned.

Although the popularity of Dr. Blair’s “Sermons” exceeds all that we read of in the history of literature, yet it does not appear to us to be of that species arising from judgment as well as taste, which leads to permanent reputation. They happened to hit the taste of the age, to whom compositions so highly polished, were somewhat new and they were introduced by that fashionable patronage which common readers find irresistible. They differ from all other compositions under the same title, in being equally adapted to readers of every class; and they were recommended to the perusal of the young of every religious persuasion, as containing nothing that could interfere with their opinions. Their character is that of moral discourses, but as such they never could have attained their popularity without that high polish of style which was the author’s peculiar object. Under this are concealed all the defects which attach to them as sermons, a name which they can never deserve when compared with the works of the most eminent English and Scotch divines. It may be doubted, therefore, whether his “Lectures” will not prolong his fame to a much later period. Although he possessed a sound judgment rather than a vigorous mind, and had more taste than genius, yet, perhaps, on the former account his lectures may always be recommended as an useful introduction to polite literature. “They contain,” says an excellent critic, “an accurate analysis of the principles of literary composition, in all the various species of writing a happy illustration of those principles by the most beautiful and apposite examples, drawn from the best authors both ancient and modern; and an admirable digest of the rules of eiocution, as applicable to the oratory of the pulpit, the bar, and the popular assembly. They do not aim at the character of a work purely original for this, as the author justly considered, would have been to circumscribe their utility; neither in point of style are they polished with the same degree of care that the author has bestowed on some of his other works, as for example, his” Sermons.“Yet, so useful is the object of these lectures, so comprehensive their plan, and such the excellence of the matter they contain, that, if not the most splendid, they will, perhaps, prove the most durable monument of their author’s reputation.”

was born and bred in Scotland, and ordained and beneficed in the episcopal church there but meeting with some discouragements under an unsettled state of affairs, and having a prospect of discharging his ministerial function more usefully elsewhere, he quitted his preferments, and came into England near the end of Charles the Second’s reign. It was not long before he was taken notice of by Compton, bishop of London, who prevailed with him to go as missionary to Virginia, about 1685 where, by exemplary conduct, and unwearied labours in the work of the ministry, he did good service to religion, and gained to himself a good report amongst all: so that bishop Compton being well apprised of his worth, made choice of him, about 1689, as his commissary for Virginia, the highest office in the church there; which, however, did not take him off from his pastoral care, but only rendered him the more shining example of it to the rest of the clergy.

While his thoughts were intent upon doing good in his office, he observed with concern that the want of schools, and proper seminaries for religion and learning, so impeded all attempts for the propagation of the gospel, that little could be hoped for, without first removing that obstacle. He therefore formed a vast design of erecting and endowing a college in Virginia, at Williamsburgh, the capital of that country, for professors and students in academical learning: in order to which, he had himself set on foot a voluntary subscription, amounting to a great sum and, not content with that, came over into England in 1693, to solicit the affair at court. Queen Mary was so well pleased with the noble design, that she espoused it with a particular zeal and king William also very readily concurred with her in it. Accordingly a patent passed for erecting and endowing a college, by the name of the William and Mary college; and Mr. Blair, who had the principal hand in laying, soliciting, and concerting the design, was appointed president of the college. He was besides rector of Williamsburgh in Virginia, and president of the council in that colony. He continued president of the college near fifty, and a minister of the gospel above sixty years. He was a faithful labourer in God’s vineyard, an ornament to his profession, and his several offices and in a good old age went to enjoy the high prize of his calling, in the year 1743. His works are “Our Saviour’s divine sermon on the mount, explained and the pi-actice of it recommended in divers sermons and discourses,” Lond. 1742, 4vols. 8vo. The executors of Dr. Bray (to whom the author had previously transferred his copy-right) afterwards published a new impression, revised and corrected. Dr. Waterland, who wrote a preface to the new edition, calls these sermons a “valuable treasure of sound divinity and practical Christianity.”

, a monk of the order of St. Benedict, was born in the county of Fife, in Scotland, in the reign of king Alexander III. and educated with the celebrated sir William Wallace, at the school of Dundee. He then went over to France, where he studied for some time in the university of Paris, and became a monk of the order of St. Benedict. On his return to Scotland, he found his country in great confusion, owing to the death of Alexander III. without issue, and the contests of various competitors for the throne. At first, therefore, he retired to the house of the Benedictines at Dumfermline but when, sir William Wallace was made governor or viceroy of the kingdom in 1294, Blair became his chaplain, and being by this means an eye-witness of most of his actions, he composed the history of his life in Latin verse. Of this a, fragment only is left, which was copied by sir James BaU four out of the Cottonian library, and published in 1705, by sir Robert Sibbald, the celebrated botanist. It appears to have been written in 1327 and what remains is translated in Hume’s “History of the Douglasses.” Blair, the exact period of whose death is uncertain, is sometimes called John, and sometimes Arnold, which latter name he is said to have adopted when he retired into his monastery, and which is also used by sir Robert Sibbald in his “Relationes quaedam Arnoldi Blair monachi de Dumfermelem et Capellani D. Willelmi Wallas Militis. Cum Comment.” Edinb. 1705, 8vo.

, was educated at Edinburgh, and was, as already noticed, related to Dr. Hugh Blair. He came to London in company with Andrew Henderson, a voluminous writer, who, in his title-pages styled himself A. M. and for some years kept a bookseller’s shop in Westminster-hall. Henderson’s first employment was that of an usher at a school in Hedge-lane, in which he was succeeded by his friend Blair, who, in 1754, obliged' the world with a valuable publication under the title of “The chronology and history of the world, from the creation to the year of Christ 1753. Illustrated in fifty-six tables; of which four are introductory, and contain the centuries prior to the first olympiad; and each of the remaining fifty-two contain in one expanded view fifty years, or half a century. By the rev. John Blair, LL. D.” This volume, which is dedicated to lord chancellor Hardwicke, was published by subscription, on account of the great expence of the plates, for which the author apologized in his preface, where he acknowledged great obligations to the earl of Bath, and announced some chronological dissertations, in which he proposed to illustrate the disputed points, to explain the prevailing systems of chronology, and to establish the authorities upon which some of the particular seras depend. In Dr. Hugh Blair’s life, it has been noticed that this work was partly projected by him. In January 1755, Dr. John Blair was elected F. R. S. and in 1761, F. A. S. In 1756 he published a second edition of his Chronological Tables. In Sept. 1757, he was appointed chaplain to the princess dowager of Wales, and mathematical tutor to the duke of York; and, on Dr. Townshend’s promotion to the deanry of Norwich, the services of Dr. Blair were rewarded, March 10, 1761, with a prebendal stall at Westminster. The vicarage of Hinckley happening to fall vacant six days after, by the death of Dr. Moires, Dr. Blair was presented to it by the dean and chapter of Westminster and in August that year he obtained a dispensation to hold with it the rectory of Burton Goggles, in Lincolnshire. In September 1763, he attended his royal pupil the duke of York in a tour to the continent; had the satisfaction of visiting Lisbon, Gibraltar, Minorca, most of the principal cities in Italy, and several parts of France and returned with the duke in August 1764. In 1768 he published an improved edition of his Chronological Tables, which he dedicated to the princess of Wales, who had expressed her early approbation of the former edition. To the edition were annexed fourteen maps of ancient and modern geography, for illustrating the tables of chronology and history. To which is prefixed a dissertation on the progress of geography. In March 1771 he was presented by the dean and chapter of Westminster to the vicarage of St. Bride’s, in the city of London which made it necessary for him to resign Hinckley, where he had never resided for any length of time. On the death of Mr. Sims, in April 1776, he resigned St. Bride’s, and was presented to the rectorjr of St. John the Evangelist in Westminster and in June that year obtained a dispensation to hold the rectory of St. John with that of Horton, near Colebrooke, Bucks. His brother, captain Blair *, falling gloriously in the service of his country in the memorable sea-fight of April 12, 1782, the shock accelerated the doctor’s death. He had at the same time the influenza in a severe degree, which put a period to his life June 24, 1782. His library was sold by auction December 1113, 1781; and a course of his “Lectures on the canons of the Old Testament,” has since appeared.

, an ingenious Scotch botanist, was a practitioner of physic and surgery at Dundee, where he made himself first known as an anatomist, by the dissection of an elephant, which died near that place, in 1706. He was a nonjuror, and for his attachment to the exiled family of Stuart, was imprisoned, in the rebellion in 1715, as a suspected person. He afterwards removed to London,

engagement with the Dutch on the and became one of three heroes, to

Dogger Bank, August 5, 1781, was whom their country, by its rapresentapromoted to the command of the An- tives, voted a monument, on, a new ship of 64 guns. By bravely where he recommended himself to the royal society by some discourses on the sexes of flowers. His stay in London was not long, and after leaving it, he settled at Boston, in Lincolnshire, where Dr. Pulteney conjectures that he practised physic during the remainder of his life. The time of his decease is not known, but it is supposed to have taken place soon after the publication of the seventh Decad of his “Pharmaco-Botanologia,” in 1728. Dr. Blair’s first publication was entitled “Miscellaneous observations in Physic, Anatomy, Surgery, and Botanies,” 1718, 8vo. In the botanical part of this work he insinuates some doubts relating to the method suggested by Petiver, and others, of deducing the qualities of vegetables from the agreement in natural characters, and instances the Cynoglossum, as tending to prove the fallacy of this rule. But the work by which he rendered the greatest service to botany, originated with his “Discourse on the Sexes of Plants,” read before the royal society, and afterwards greatly amplified, and published at the request of several members of that body, under the title of “Botanic Essays,” 1720, 8vo, in which he strengthened the arguments in proof of the sexes of plants, by sound reasoning, and some new experiments. He published also, “Pharmaco-botanologia, or an alphabetical and classical dissertation on all the British indigenous and garden plants of the new dispensatory,” Lond. 1723 28, 4to, but this work extends only to the letter H. Dr. Blair wrote some papers in the Philosophical Transactions, particularly his anatomy and osteology of the elephant, &c.

, a Scotch divine and poet, was the eldest son of the rev. David Blair, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, and chaplain to the king. His grandfather was the rev. Robert Blair, sometime minister of the gospel at Bangor, in Ireland, and afterward at St. Andrew’s, in Scotland. Of this gentleman, some “Memoirs,” partly taken from his manuscript diaries, were published at Edinburgh, in 1754. He was celebrated for his piety, and by those of his persuasion, for his inflexible adherence to presbyterianism, in opposition to the endeavours made in his time to establish episcopacy in Scotland. It is recorded also that he wrote some poems. His grandson, the object of the present article, was born in the year 1699, and after the usual preparatory studies, was ordained minister of Athelstaneford, in the county of East Lothian, where he resided until his death, Feb. 4, 1747. The late right hon. Robert Blair, president of the court of session in. Scotland, who died in 1811, was one of his sons, and the late celebrated Dr. Hugh Blair, professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres, was his cousin.

Such are the only particulars handed down to us respecting the writer of “the Grave.” It is but lately that the poem was honoured with much attention, and appears to have made its way very slowly into general notice. The pious and congenial Hervey was among the first who praised it. Mr. Pinkerton in his “Letters of Literature,” published under the name of Heron, endeavoured to raise it far above the level of common productions, and it has of late years been frequently reprinted but it may be questioned whether it will bear a critical examination. It has no regular plan, nor are the reflections on mortality embellished bj any superior graces. It is perhaps a stronger objection that they are interrupted by strokes of feeble satire at the expence of physicians and undertakers. His expressions are often mean, and his epithets ill-chosen and degrading, “supernumerary horror;” “new-made widow;” “sooty blackbird;” “strong-lunged cherub;” “lame kindness,” c. &c. “solder of society” “by stronger arm belaboured” “great gluts of people,” &c. are vulgarisms which cannot be pardoned in so short a production.

“The Grave” is said to have been first printed at Edinburgh in 1747, but this is a mistake. It was printed in 1743 at London, for M. Cooper. The author had previously submitted it to Dr. Watts, who informed him that two booksellers had declined the risk of publication. He had likewise corresponded with Dr. Doddridge on the subject, and in a letter to that divine, says, that “in order to make it more generally liked, he was obliged sometimes to go cross to his own inclination, well knowing that whatever poem is written upon a serious argument, must upon that very account lie under peculiar disadvantages; and therefore proper arts must be used to make such a piece go down with a licentious age which cares for none of those things.” In what respect he crossed his inclination, and by what arts he endeavoured to make his poem more acceptable to a licentious age, we know not. In defence of the present age, it may be said with justice that the poem owes its popularity to its subject, and that notwithstanding its defects, it will probably be a lasting favourite with persons of a serious turn.

, a gentleman who was cut off early in life, but whose progress and improvements in natural knowledge were so great, that the editors of the second edition of the Biographia Britannica have thought him entitled to an honourable place in their work, was the son of John Blake, esq. and born in London, Nov. 4, 1745; educated at Westminster school; afterwards instructed in mathematics, chemistry, and drawing: but botany was his favourite object, in which he made a great progress. With these advantages he set out in life, and in 1766 was sent as one of the East India company’s supercargoes at Canton in China where he was no sooner fixed, than he resolved to employ every moment of his time, which could be spared from the duties of his station, to the advancement of natural science for the benefit of his countrymen. His plan was, to procure the seeds of all the vegetables found in China, which are used in medicine, manufactures, and food; and to send into Europe not only such seeds, but the plants by which they were produced, that they might be propagated either in Great Britain and Ireland, or in those colonies of America, the soil and climate of which might suit them best. But it was not to botanic subjects alone, that Mr. Blake’s genius was confined he had begun to collect fossils and ores and he now attended as much to mineralogy, as he had done to botany.

It would exceed the limits of our plan, to relate particularly what he did in both, but he is supposed to have sacrificed his life to the closeness and ardour of his pursuits. By denying- himself the needful recreations, and by sitting too intensely to his drawing and studies, he brought on a gravelly complaint; and this increasing to the stone, and being accompanied with a fever, carried him off at Canton Nov. 16, 1773, in his 29th year. The friends of natural knowledge in England were preparing to have him enrolled among the members of the royal society, when the news of his death arrived when sir John Pringle, the president, took an opportunity of making his eloge, and lamented the loss of him very pathetically, as a public misfortune.

, a celebrated English admiral, was born August 1599, at Bridgewater, in Somersetshire, where he was educated at the grammar-school. He went from, thence to Oxford, and was entered at St. Alban’s hall, but removed to Wadham college, and in 1617 took the degree of B. A. In 1623 he wrote a copy of verses on the death of Camden, and soon after left the university. He was tinctured pretty early with republican principles and disliking that severity with which Laud, then bishop of Bath and Wells, pressed uniformity in his diocese, he began to fall into the puritanical opinions. The natural bluntness and sincerity of his disposition led him to speak freely upon all occasions, insomuch that, his sentiments being generally known, the puritan party got him elected member for Bridgewater in 1640. When the civil war broke out, he declared for the parliament. In 1643 he was at Bristol, under the command of col. Fiennes, who intrusted him with a little fort on the line and, when prince Rupert attacked Bristol, and the governor had agreed to surrender it upon, articles, Blake nevertheless for some time held out his fort, and killed several of the king’s forces: which exasperated prince Rupert to such a degree, that he talked of hanging him, had not some friends interposed, and excused him on account of his want of experience in war. He served afterwards in Somersetshire, under the command of Popham, governor of Lyme; and, being much beloved in those parts, he had such good intelligence there, that in conjunction with sir Robert Pye, he surprised Taunton for the parliament. In 1644 he was appointed governor of this place, w; ich was of the utmost importance, being the only garrison the parliament had in the west. The works about it were not strong, nor was the garrison numerous; yet, by his strict discipline, and kind behaviour to the townsmen, he found means to keep the place, though not properly furnished with supplies, and sometimes besieged, and even blocked up by the king’s forces. At length Goring made a breach, and actually took part of the town; while Blake still held out the other part and the castle, till relief came. For this service the parliament ordered the garrison a bounty of 2000l. and the governor a present of 500l. When the parliament had voted that no farther addresses should be made to the king, Blake joined in an address from the borough of Taunton, expressing their gratefulness for this step taken by the house of commons. However, when the king came to be tried, Blake disapproved of that measure, as illegal; and was frequently heard to say, he would as freely venture his life to save the king’s, as ever he did to serve the parliament. But this is thought to have been chiefly owing to the humanity of his temper; since after the death of the king he entered into all the measures of the republican party, and, next to Cromwell, was the ablest officer the parliament had.

February 12, 1649, he was appointed to command the fleet, in conjunction with col. Deane and col. Popham, and soon after was ordered to sail, with a squadron of men of war, in pursuit of prince Rupert. Blake came before Kinsale in June 1649, where prince Rupert lay in harbour. He kept him in the harbour till the beginning of October; when the prince, despairing of relief by sea, and Cromwell being ready to take the town by land, provisions of all sorts falling short, he resolved to force his way through Blake’s squadron, which he effected with the loss of three of his ships. The prince’s fleet steered their course to Lisbon, where they were protected by the king of Portugal. Blake sent to the king for leave to enter, and coming near with his ships, the castle shot at him; upon which he dropped anchor, and sent a boat to know the reason of this hostility. The captain of the castle answered, he had no orders from the king to let his ships pass: however, the king commanded one of the lords of the court to wait upon Blake, and to desire him not to come in except the weather proved bad, lest some quarrel should happen between him and prince Rupert; the king sent him, at the same time, a large present of fresh provisions. The weather proving bad, Blake sailed up the river into the bay of Wyers, but two miles from the place where prince Rupert’s ships lay; and thence he sent capt. Moulton, to inform the king of the falsities in the prince’s declaration. The king, however, still refusing to allow the admiral to attack prince Rupert, Blake took five of the Brazil fleet richly laden, and at the same time sent notice to him, that unless he ordered the prince’s ships out from his river, he would seize the rest of the Portuguese fleet from America. Sept. 1650 the prince endeavoured to get out of the harbour, but was soon driven in again by Blake, who sent to England nine Portuguese ships bound for Brazil. October following, he and Popham met with a fleet of 23 sail from Brazil for Lisbon, of whom, they sunk the admiral, took the vice-admiral, and 11 other ships, having 10,000 chests of sugar on board. Jn his return home, he met with two ships in search of the prince, whom he followed up the Streights when he took a French man of war, the captain of which had committed hostilities. He sent this prize, reported to be worth a million, into Calais, and followed the prince to the pore of Carthagena, where he lay with the remainder of his fleet. As soon as Blake came to anchor before the fort, he sent a messenger to the Spanish governor, informing him, that an enemy to the state of England was in his port, that the parliament had commanded him to pursue him, and the king of Spain being in amity with the parliament, he desired leave to take all advantages against their enemy. The governor replied, he could not take notice of the difference of any nations or persons amongst themselves, only such as were declared enemies to the king his master; that they came in thither for safety, therefore he could not refuse them protection, and that he would do the like for the admiral. Blake still pressed the governor to permit him to attack the prince, and the Spaniard put him off till he could have orders from Madrid. While the admiral was cruizing in the Mediteranean, prince Rupert got out of Carthagena, and sailed to Malaga. Blake, having notice of his destroying many English ships, followed him and attacking him in the port, burnt and destroyed his whole fleet, two ships only excepted this was in January 1651. In February, Blake took a French man of war of 40 guns, and sent it, with other prizes, to England. Soon after 'he came with his squadron to Plymouth, when he received the thanks of the parliament, and was made warden of the cinque ports. March following, an act passed, whereby colonel Blake, colonel Popham, and colonel Deane, or any two of them, were appointed admirals and generals of the fleet, for the year ensuing. The next service he was put upon, was the reducing the isles of Scilly,- which were held for the king. He sailed in May, with a body of Boo land troops on board. Sir John Grenville, who commanded in those parts for the king, after some small resistance, submitted. He sailed next for Guernsey, which was held for the king, by sir George Carteret. He arrived there in October, and landing what forces he had the very next day, he did every thing in his power in order to make a speedy conquest of the island, which was not completed that year. In the beginning of the next, however, the governor, finding all hopes of relief vain, thought proper to make the best terms he could. For this service Blake had thanks from the parliament, and was elected one of the council of state. March 25, 1652, he was appointed sole admiral for nine months, on the prospect of a Dutch war. The states sent Van Trump with forty-five sail of men of war into the Downs, to insult the English Blake, however, though he had but twentv-three ships, and could expect no succour but from major Bourne, who commanded eight more, yet, being attacked by Van Trump, fought him bravely, and forced him to retreat. This was on the 19th of May, 1652. After this engagement the states seemed inclined to peace but the commonwealth of England demanded such terms as could not be complied with, and therefore both sides prepared to carry on the war with greater vigour. Blake now harassed the enemy by taking their merchant ships, in which he had great success. On the 10th of June, a detachment from his fleet fell upon twenty-six sail of Dutch merchantmen, and took them every one and by the end of June he had sent into port forty prizes. On the 2d of July he sailed, with a strong squadron, northwards. In his course he took a Dutch man of war; and about the latter end of the month, he fell on twelve men of war, convoy to their herring busses, took the whole convoy, 100 of their busses, and dispersed the rest. August 12, he returned into the Downs, with six of the Dutch men of war, and 900 prisoners. Thence he stood over to the coast of Holland, and on Sept. 28th, having discovered the Dutch about noon, though he had only three of his own squadron with him, vice-admiral Penii with his squadron at some distance, and the rest a league or two astern, he bore in among the Dutch fleet, being bravely seconded by Penn and Bourne when three of the enemy’s ships were wholly disabled at the first brunt, and another as she was towing oft* The rear-admiral was taken by captain Mildmay and had not night intervened, it was thought not a single ship of the Dutch fleet would have escaped. On the 29th, about day-break, the English espied the Dutch fleet N.E. two leagues off; the admiral bore up to them, but the enemy having the wind of him, he could not reach them however, he commanded his light frigates to ply as near as they could, and keep firing while the rest bore up after them upon which the Dutch hoisted their sails, and run for it. The English being in want of provisions, returned to the Downs. Blake having been obliged to make large detachments from his fleet Van Trump, who had again the command of the Dutch navy, consisting of eighty men of war, resolved to take this opportunity of attacking him in the Downs, knowing he had not above half his number of ships. He accordingly sailed away to the back of the Goodwin. Blake having intelligence of this, called a council of war, wherein it was resolved to fight, though at so great a disadvantage. The engagement began November 29, about two in the morning, and lasted till near six in the evening. Blake was aboard the Triumph; this ship, the Victory, and the Vanguard, suffered most, having been engaged at one time with twenty of the enemy’s best ships. The admiral finding his ships much disabled, and that the Dutch had the advantage of the wind, drew off his fleet in the night into the Thames, having lost the Garland and Bonaventure, which were taken by the Dutch a small frigate was also burnt, and three sunk and his remaining ships much shattered and disabled Van Trump, however, bought this victory dear, x one of his flag-ships being blown up, all the men drowned, and his own ship and De Kuyter’s both unfit for service till they were repaired. This success invigorated the spirits of the Dutch exceedingly; Van Trump sailed through the channel with a broom at his main-top-mast, to signify that he had swept the seas of English ships. In the mean time, Blake having repaired his fleet, and Monk and Deane being now joined in commission with him, sailed Feb. 8, 1653, from Queensborough, with sixty men of war, which were soon after joined with twenty more from Portsmouth. On the 18th they discovered Van Trump with seventy men of war, and 300 merchant ships under his convoy. Blake, with twelve ships, came up with and engaged the Dutch fleet, and, though grievously wounded in the thigh, continued the fight till night, when the Dutch, who had six men of war sunk and taken, retired. After having put ashore his wounded men at Portsmouth, he followed the enemy, whom he came up with next day, when the fight was renewed, to the loss of the Dutch, who continued retreating towards Boulogne. All the night following Blake continued the pursuit, and, in the morning of the 20th, the two fleets fought again till four in the afternoon, when the wind blowing favourably for the Dutch, they secured themselves on the flats of Dunkirk and Calais. In these three engagements the Dutch lost eleven men of war, thirty merchant ships, and had fifteen hundred men slain. The English lost only one ship, but not fewer men than the enemy. In April Cromwell turned out the parliament, and shortly after assumed the supreme power. The states hoped great advantages from this, but were disappointed Blake said on this occasion to his officers, “It is not for us to mind state affairs, but to keep foreigners from fooling us.” Towards the end of the month Blake and his colleagues, with a fleet of an hundred sail, stood over to the Dutch coast, and forced their fleet to take shelter in the Texel, where, for some time, they were kept by Monk and Deane, while Blake sailed Northward at last Van Trump got out, and drew together a fleet of an hundred and twenty men of war. June 3d, Deane and Monk engaged him off the North Foreland. On the 4th Blake came to their assistance with eighteen fresh ships, by which means a complete victory was gained; and if the Dutch had not again saved themselves on Calais sands, their whole fleet had been sunk or taken. Cromwell having called the parliament, styled the Little Parliament, Blake, Oct. 10, took his seat in the house, where he received their solemn thanks for his many and faithful services. The protector afterwards called a new parliament, consisting of four hundred, 'where Blake sat also, being the representative for his native town of Bridgewater. Dec. 6th he was appointed one of the commissioners of the admiralty. Nov. 1654, Cromwell sent him with a strong fleet into the Mediterranean, with instructions to support the honour of the English flag, and to procure satisfaction for any injuries that might have been done to our merchants. In December Blake came into the road of Cadiz, where he was treated with great respect; a Dutch admiral would not hoist his flag while he was there. The Algerines were so much afraid of him, that they stopped their Sallee rovers, obliged them to deliver up what English prisoners they had on board, and sent them to Blake, in, order to procure his favour. Nevertheless, he came before Algiers on the 10th of March, when he sent an officer on shore to the dey to tell him he had orders to demand satisfaction for the piracies committed on the English, and to insist on the release of all such English captives as were then in the place. To this the dey made answer, that the captures belonging to particular men he could not restore; but, if Mr. Blake pleased, he might redeem what English captives were there at a reasonable price; and, if he thought proper, the Algerines would conclude a peace with him, and for the future offer no acts of hostility to the English. This answer was accompanied with a present of fresh provisions. Blake sailed to Tunis on the same errand. The dey of Tunis sent him a haughty answer. “Here,” said he, “are our castles of Goletta and Porto Ferino, do your worst! do you think we fear your fleet?” On the hearing this, Blake, as his custom was when in a passion, began to curl his whiskers; and, after a short consultation with his officers, bore into the bay of Porto Ferino with his great ships when, coming within musket-shot of the castle, he fired on it so briskly, that in two hours it was rendered defenceless, and the guns on the works along the shore were dismounted, though sixty of them played at a time upon the English. He found nine ships in the road, and ordered every captain, even of his own ship, to man his long boat with choice men, and these to enter the harbour and tire the Tuniseens, while he and his fleet covered them from the castle, by playing continually on it with their cannon. The seamen in their boats boldly assaulted the pirates, and burnt all their ships, with the loss of twenty-five men killed, and forty-eight wounded. This daring action spread the terror of his name throughout Africa and Asia, which had for a long time before been formidable in Europe. He also struck such terror into the piratical state of Tripoly, that he made them glad to strike up a peace with England. These and other exploits raised the glory of the English name so high, that most of the princes and states in Italy thought fit to pay their compliments to the protector, particularly the grand duke of Tuscany, and the republic of Venice, who sent magnificent embassies for that purpose. The war in the mean time was grown pretty hot with Spain and Blake used his utmost efforts to ruin their maritime force in Europe, as Penn had done in the West Indies. But finding himself now in a declining state of health, and fearing the ill consequences which might ensue in case he should die without any colleague to take charge of the fleet, he wrote letters into England, desiring some proper person to be named in commission with him; upon which general Montague sent joint-admiral, with a strong squadron to assist him. Soon after his arrival in the Mediterranean, the two admirals sailed with their whole fleet to block up a Spanish squadron in the bay of Cadiz. At length, in September, being in great want of water, Blake and Montague stood away for the coast of Portugal, leaving captain Stayner with seven ships to look after the enemy. Soon after they were gone, the Spanish plate fleet appeared, but were intercepted by Stayner, who took the vice-admiral and another galleon, which were afterwards burnt by accident, the rear-admiral, with two millions of plate on board, and another ship richly laden. These prizes, together with all the prisoners, were seat into England under general Montague, and Blake alone remained in the Mediterranean till, being informed that another plate fleet had put into Santa Cruz, in the island of Teneriffe, he sailed thither in April 1657, with a fleet of twenty-five men of war. On the 20th he came into the road of Santa Cruz; and though the Spanish governor had timely notice, was a man of courage and conduct, and had disposed all things in the most proper manner, so that he looked upon an attack as what no wise admiral would think practicable yet Blake having summoned him, and received a short answer, was determined to force the place, and to burn the fleet therein; and he performed it in such a manner as appears next to incredible. It is allowed to be one of the most remarkable actions that ever happened at sea. As soon as the news arrived of this extraordinary action, the protector sent to acquaint his second parliament, then sitting, therewith upon which they ordered a public thanksgiving, and directed a diamond ring worth 500l. to be sent to Blake and the thanks of the house was ordered to all the officers and seamen, and to be given them by their admiral. Upon his return to the Mediterranean he cruised some time before Cadiz but finding himself declining fast, resolved to return home. He accordingly sailed for England, but lived not to see again his native land for he died as the fleet was entering Plymouth, the 17th of August 1657, aged 58.His body was conveyed to Westminster abbey, and interred with great pomp in Henry the Seventh’s chapel but removed from thence in 1661, and re-interred in St. Margaret’s church-yard. He was a man of a low stature but of a quick, lively eye, and of a good soldier-like countenance. He was in his person brave beyond example, yet cool in action, and shewed a great deal of military conduct; in the disposition of those desperate attacks which men of a cooler composition have judged rather fortunate thun expedient. He certainly* loved his country with extraordinary ardour, and, as he never meddled with intrigues of state, so whatever government he served, he was solicitous to do his duty. He was upright to a supreme degree, for, notwithstanding the vast sums which passed through his hands, he scarcely left five hundred pounds behind him of his own acquiring. In fine, he was altogether disinterested and unambitious, exposing himseii on all occasions for the benefit of the public and the g-ory of the nation, and not wkh any view to his own private profit or fame. In respect to his personal character, he was pious without affectation, strictly just, and liberal to the utmost extent of his fortune. His officers he treated with the familiarity of friends, and to his sailors he was truly a parent. The state buried him as it was fit: at the public expence a grave was given him, but no tomb; and though he still wants an epitaph, writers of all parties have shewn an eagerness to do his memorv justice. We find it very positively asserted, that captain Benjamin Blake, brother to the general, suffered so many hardships for being a dissenter, in the latter end of the reign of king Charles II. that he found himself under the necessity of selling his patrimony, and transporting himself and his family to Carolina. Another author (though some indeed think it is the same) relates this story of Mr. Humphry Blake, the general’s brother, and tells us, that the family estate was worth tsvo hundred pounds a year, which he was obliged to dispose of, to pay the fines laid upon him for his nonconformity. It is jiowever strange, that every one of the general’s nephevfs an,d nieces, by his sister Susannah, who married a gentleman at Mineheacl, in Somersetshire, should be totally unacquainted with this transaction, and that none of the family should be able to give any account of that matter; and therefore it seems to be justly doubted whether there be any truth in the story, or whether it is only grounded on there being a considerable family of his name settled in that province, one of whom, when it was in private hands, was a lord proprietor.

In a life of him, written by Dr. Johnson, in the Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. X. there is a circumstance recorded that we have not found elsewhere, nor do we know the authority on which it is grounded. It is said, that while Blake was cruising in the Mediterranean, in February 1650-51, he met with a French ship of considerable force, and commanded the captain to come on board, there being then no war declared between the two nations. The captain, when he came, was asked whether “he was willling to lay down his sword and yield.” This he gallantly refused, though in his enemy’s power. Blake, scorning to take the advantage of an artifice, and detesting the appearance of treachery, told him, “That he x was at liberty to go back to his ship, and defend it as long as he could.” The captain willingly accepted the offer, and after a fight of two hours, confessed himself conquered, kissed his sword, and surrendered it.

In the same author there are some remarks concerning Blake’s conduct, in the battle which he fought with the Dutch, on the 29th of November, 1652, that appear worthy of atter.tion. “There are,” says he, “sometimes observations and enquiries, which all historians seem to decline by agreement, of which this action may alford us an example. Nothing appears at the first view more to demand our curiosity, or afford matter for examination, than this wild encounter of twenty-two ships, with a force, according to their accounts who favour the Dutch, three times superior. Nothing can justify a commander in fighting under such disadvantages, but the impossibility of retreating. But what hindered Blake from retiring as well before the fight as after it To say he was ignorant of the strength of the Dutch fleet, is to impute to him a very criminal degree of negligence; and at least it must be confessed, that, from the time he saw them, he could not but know that they were too powerful to be opposed by him, and even then there was time for retreat. To urge the ardour of his sailors, is to divest him of the authority of a commander, and to charge him with the most reproachful weakness that can enter into the character of a general. To mention the impetuosity of his own courage, is to make the blame of his temerity equal to the praise of tils valour; which seems, indeed, to be the most gentle censure that the truth of history will allow. We must then admit, amidst our eulogies and applauses, that the great, the wise, and the valiant Blake, was once betrayed to an inconsiderate and desperate enterprize, by the resistless ardour of his own spirit, and a noble jealousy of ttie honour of his country.” This quotation we reta n for the purpose of ad din", that if the author had lived in the times of a St, Vincent and a Nelson, he would have probably viewed Blake’s temerity in a different light.

Blake’s behaviour to his brother Benjamin has been deservedly celebrated as one of the noblest instances of justice to his country, and, at the same time, of tenderness to a friend and relation, that can be met with in ancient or modern history. When that brother betrayed cowardice in the first trial, he immediately broke and sent him home, as unworthy of the nation’s pay. Yet the want of military virtue did not lessen the ties of fraternal affection, and he left his brother to enjoy that estate which he might be qualified to adorn in private life.

Mr. Hume’s character of our greatadmiral is drawn up with that historian’s usual elegance and spirit. “Never man, so zealous for a faction, was so much respected and esteemed even by the opposite factions. He was, by principle, an inflexible republican and the late usurpations, amidst all the trust and caresses which he received from the puling powers, were thought to be very little grateful to him. ‘It is still our duty,’ he said to the seamen, ‘to fight for our country, into whatever hands the government may fall.’ Disinterested, generous, liberal ambitious only of true glory, dreadful only to his avowed enemies he forms one of the most perfect characters of that age, and the least stained with those errors and violences, which were then so predominant. The protector ordered him a pompous funeral at the public charge but the tears of his countrymen were the most honourable panegyric on his memory.”

, an English puritan divine, was born in Staffordshire in 1597, and in 1616 was entered of Christ Church, Oxford, where he took his degrees, and went into the church. In 1648 he sided with the ruling party, subscribed the covenant, and became pastor of St. Alcmond’s in Shrewsbury, and afterwards of Tamworth in Staffordshire, where he was also one of the committee for the ejection of those who were accounted “ignorant and scandalous ministers and schoolmasters.” He died in June, 1657, and was buried in Tamworth church, after a funeral sermon preached by the famous Mr. Anthony Burgess, of Sutton Colfield.

He wrote, besides some controversial tracts on Infant Baptism, 1. “Vindiciae Foederis, a treatise of the covenant of God with mankind, &c.” Lond. 1653, 4to. 2. “The Covenant sealed,” ibid. 4to, 1655 and several single sermons, and meditations entitled “Living Truths in dying times,” 1665, 12mo. Burgess’s Funeral Sermon for him. was printed. Lond. 1658, 4to, but became so scarce, that Wood informs us he -could never see a copy, otherwise he would have enlarged his account from it. There is but little in it, however, of personal character. The funeral oration printed along with it, and spoken by one Shaw, a schoolmaster, is a curious specimen of pedantic imagery.

, a classical editor, was born at Leyden, of a noble family, Dec. 11, 1625, and was educated under Boxhorn and Golius. He had scarcely arrived at his twentieth year, when he was invited to become professor of history at Steinfurth. This he resigned in 1650 for the chair of history and antiquities at Middleburgh,but this school falling into decay, Blancard removed to Heeren-veen in Friseland, where he practised physic. In November 1669, he was appointed Greek professor at Franeker. At these different places he published, 1. an edition of “Quintus Curtius,” with notes, Leyden, 1649, 8vo. 2. “Florus,” with his own added to the Variorum,“ibid. 1650, 8vo; Franeker, 1690, 4-to. 3.” Arrian’s Alexander,“not in much estimation, Amsterdam, 1668, 8vo. 4.” Arriani Tactica, Periplus, de Venatione Epicteti Enchiridion,“&c. Amst. 1683, 8vo. 5.” Harpoerationis Lexicon,'“' Leyden, 1683, 4to. 6.” Ptiilippi CypriiChronicon ecclesiae Grseciae,“Franc.1679, 4to, the first edition, which Blancard copied from a manuscript brought from Constantinople, and translated it into Latin. 7.” Thomoe Magistri dictionum Atticarum. eclogae,“Fran. 1690, 8vo, reprinted 1698, with notes by Lambert Bos. In the fine edition of Thomas-published by Bernard in 1757, this text of Blancard is adopted as well as Bos’s notes. In Burmann’s” Sylloge," are three letters of Blancard’s. He had begun to prepare an edition of Thucydides, but owing to his age and infirmities was obliged, about the year 1690, to give up his literary labours. He died May 15, 1703.

, son to the preceding, was an, eminent physician at Franeker, and one of the most voluminous compilers of his time. He published large works on every branch of medicine and surgery, taken from all preceding and even contemporary authors, without either judgment or honesty; for while he took every thing good and bad which he could find, he in general published all as his own. His “Anatomia practica rationalis,” 1688, would have been a useful work, had it not partaken too much of indiscriminate borrowing but, perhaps, that for which he is best known is his “Lexicon medicum GraecoLatinum,” which has gone through a great many editions, some of which have been improved by more able scholars. The best, we believe, is that printed at Louvain, 1754, 2 vols. 8vo. An English translation, under the title of the “Physical Dictionary,” printed first in 1693, 8vo, was for some time a popular book, until supplanted, if we mistake not, by Quiucey’s. Haller and Man get have given lists of Blancard’s numerous works, but neither gives much of his personal history. There was a collection of what probably were esteemed the best of his pieces, printed at Leyden, 4to, 1701, under the title of " Opera meclica, theoretica, practica et chirurgica.

, an eminent painter, called the French Titian, was born at Paris in 1600. He learned the rudiments of his profession under his uncle Nicholas Bellori, but left him at twen'y years of age with an intention to travel to Italy. He stopped at Lyons in his way thither, where he staid for son e time; and during his residence here reaped both profit and amusement. He passed onto Rome, where he continued about two years. From thence he went to Venice, where he was so much pleased with the works of Titian, Tintoret, and Paul Veronese, that he resolved to follow their manner; and in this he succeeded so far, that at his return to Paris he soon got into high employment being generally esteemed for the novelty, beauty, and force of his pencil. He painted two galleries at Paris, one belonging to the first president, Perrault, and the other to monsieur de Bullion, superintendant of the finances. But his capital pieces are those in the church of Notre Dame, St. Andrew kneeling before the cross, and the Holy Ghost descending. Blanchard was in a likely way of making his fortune; but a fever and an imposthume in the lungs carried him off in his thirty-eighth year. Of all the French painters Blanchard was esteemed the best colourist, having studied this branch with great care in the Venetian school. There are few grand compositions of his; but what he has left of this kind shew him to have had great genius. He was mostly taken up with Madonnas, half-lengths, which prevented his employing himself in subjects of greater extent.

, a French abbé of considerable talents and amiable character, was born at Angerville, near Chartres, Jan. 26, 1707, of poor parents, who were, however, enabled to give him an education, to complete which he came to Paris. In 1724 he entered among the Jesuits as a noviciate, but did not remain long among them: yet he was highly esteemed by his masters, and preserved the friendship of the eminent Jesuits Brumoy, Bougeant, and Castel. He then employed himself in education, and taught, with much reputation, rhetoric and the classics in two provincial colleges, until the weak state of his health obliged him to restrict his labours to the office of private tutor, an office which he rescued from the contempt into which it had fallen, by taking equal care of the morals and learning of his pupils, all of whom did him, credit in both respects. Being a lover of independence, he resigned his canonry in the cathedral of Boulogne, and when appointed one of the interpreters of the king’s library, the same scruples induced him to decline it, until M.Bignon assured him that the place was given him as the reward of his merit, and required no sacrifices. Soon after he was appointed censor, but upon condition that he should have nothing to censure, and he accordingly accepted the title, but refused the salary and his friends, having thus far overcome his repugnance to offices of this description, procured him the farther appointment of keeper of the books in the king’s cabinet at Versailles. Yet this courtly situation was not at all to his mind, and he resigned in order to go and live in obscurity at St. Germain-en- laye, where he died Jan. 29, 1781, at about eighty. His disposition was amiable in society, where, however, he seldom appeared; but he became gloomy and melancholy in the solitude to which he condemned himself. Premature infirmities had considerably altered his temper. He was oppressed with vapours, from which he suffered alone, and by which he was afraid of making others suffer. It was this that made him seek retirement. “Such as I am,” said he, “I must bear with myself; but are o.hers obliged to bear with me I really think, if I had not the support and consolations of religion, I should lose my senses.” By nature disinterested, he constantly refused favours and benefits, and it was with great difficulty he could be made to accept of any thing. The advancement of his friends, however, was not so indifferent to him as his own; and he was delighted when they were promoted to any lucrative or useful place. Living in this retired manner, he was scarcely known to the public till after his death. Of his writing are the “Varietes morales et amusantes,” 1784, 2 vols. 12mo, and “Apologues et contes orientaux,” 1785, 8vo in both which he shews himself a man of much reading, and who has the talent of writing with sentiment, philosophy, and taste. There are likewise by him several little pieces of poetry, of the light and agreeable kind, of which the greater part were attributed to the best poets of the time, who did not shew any vehement disdain at the imputation which made the abbé Blanchet say, “I am. delighted that the rich adopt my children.” These he would lend to his friends on the most solemn promises to return them without copying, or suffering them to be copied, and would often be extremely anxious if they were not retunted within the time specified, when he immediately consigned them to the flames. One of his poems, however, appears to have escaped this fate, an ode on the existence of God, which was published in 1784, with his “Vues sur Teducation d'un prince,” 12mo. Dusaulx, his relation, wrote an amusing life of the abbé, which is prefixed to the “Apologues.”

, a painter, born at Paris in 1617, the disciple and friend of Poussin and Albano, was appointed professor of painting by the academy of Paris, though absent, and therefore contrary to established custom; but Blanchet was accounted deserving of this departure from the rules. Le Brun presented his picture for reception, representing Cadmus killing a dragon. He spent a part of his life at Lyons, and there died in 1689. A ceiling at the town-house of that place, in which Blanchet displayed the whole force of his talents, was burnt by fire in 1674, and the rest of his works perished in the revolutionary destruction to which that city was doomed in 1793. This painter excelled in history and portraits. His touches are bold, agreeable, and easy, his drawing correct, and his colouring excellent. Several of his pictures were formerly at Paris.

, a lady remarkable both for her knowledge of the Hebrew language, and for a peculiar skilfulness in writing it, was born about the time of the restoration, and was daughter and heir of Mr. Robert Fisher of Long-acre. April 26, 1681, she married Mr. Nathanael Bland (then a linen-draper in London, afterwards lord of the manor of Beeston in Yorkshire), by whom she had six children, who all died in their infancy, excepting one son named Joseph, and a daughter called Martha, who was married to Mr. George Moore of Beeston. She was instructed in the Hebrew language by the lord Van Helmont, which she understood to such a degree of perfection, that she taught it to her son and daughter.

Among the curiosities of the Royal Society is preserved of her writing, a phylactery in Hebrew, of which Dr. Grew has given us a description in his “Account of rarities preserved at Gresham college,” London, 1681, folio. It was written by her at the request of Mr. Thoresby, and she it to that repository. By the two pedigrees of the family, printed in Mr. Thoresby’s Ducatus Leodiensis, pages 209 and 587, it seems that she was living in 1712. This is all the account we have been able to procure either of her or her writings, which probably were considerable, as her attainments in this one branch of learning were so uncommon.

, a man who acquired some fame in the sixteenth century by the shallow pretence of free inquiry, was born in the marquisate of Saluzzo in Italy. He appears to have studied medicine, and for some time practised with reputation, but the various opinions which arose out of the reformation from popery in the beginning of the sixteenth century, having excited his curiosity in no common degree, he determined to try them all, and began with abandoning the principles of popery in which he had been educated, for those of Luther, which he quitted soon after for those of Calvin. Not satisfied with this, he wished to retrace more ancient opinions, embraced those of Arius, then inclined to the doctrines of Paul of Samosata, and finally struck out of his creed all belief in the incarnation and the Trinity, maintaining that Jesus Christ was a mere man, and no more deserving of religious worship than any other man. Stocked with these notions, as well as with his professional knowledge, he had the ambition to propagate the one and practise the other in Germany, Poland, and Transylvania. In Polandhe became physician to the queen of Sigismund Augustus, and having insinuated himself into the good graces of that prince, began to communicate to him his religious opinions, and after some time returned to Italy, where the freedom he took in divulging these occasioned his being shut up in the prison of the inquisition at Pavia. Having, however, contrived to make his escape, he went to Geneva, and became a warm admirer of the opinions of Servetus, who had recently been put to death for oppugning the doctrine of the Trinity. On this, Calvin, after having in vain endeavoured to reclaim him by conference and correspondence, gave him up to justice, which Blandrata escaped by making profession of Calvinism, to which he adhered long enough to reach Poland, where the imposition was detected. At this time, John Sigismund, prince of Trausylvania, appointed him his physician and being a man of skill he found means to insinuate his principles in the families which employed him. In 1566, at Alba Julia, in the presence of the court, he held a public conference against the Lutherans, which lasted ten days, and ended in bringing over the prince and the nobles of Transylvania to unitarianism. An account of this conference was printed in 1568, 4to, entitled “Brevis enarratio disputationis Albanæ de Deo trino et Christo duplici.” On the death of Sigismund, he came a third time into Poland, and was appointed physician and counsellor to king Stephen Battori; but as he found this monarch unfriendly to his religious tenets, he withdrew himself from the unitarians, for which he was severely censured by Socinus, who hoped to have found him an able assistant, and had invited him to Poland with that view. This was the last of his many changes of opinion; for soon after, a nephew whom he had threatened to disinherit, on account of his attachment to popery, put him to death in a violent quarrel, which perhaps he had provoked for the purpose. This appears to have taken place some time between 1585 and 1592. He gave so little satisfaction to any party, that all considered his death as a judgment on his apostacy. Blandrata’s works are in Sandius’s Anti-Trinitarian library.

, a German writer of some note, was born at Colberg in Pomerania, Jan. 24, 1744, and entered into the Prussian service at the age of fourteen, where he distinguished himself during the seven years war. After having been in the army for twenty-one years, the bad state of his health obliged him to solicit his discharge, which was granted him with the rank of captain, and from that time he took up his resi-. dence at Leipsic, devoting his time to literary studies and pursuits. He was a man of good taste, as well as judgment, and had a very great memory. His original works were, 1. “An essay on Romance,” Leipsic, 1774, 8vo. 2. “A supplement to Sulzer’s Universal Theory of the Fine Arts,” 1786—87, four parts, 8vo, reprinted at Leipsic, 1792 94. 3. “On the German language and literature,” printed in Adelung’s Magazine for 1784. He was very desirous of introducing English literature into his country, and with this view published German translations, with useful notes, of Dr. Gilbert Stuart’s View of Society, Leipsic, 1779, 8vo Dr. Johnson’s Lives of the Poets, Altenburgh, 1781—1785, 8vo and Dr. Gillies’s History of Greece, Leipsic, 1787, &c. He died May 4, 1796.

, a painter of great abilities, was born at Alkmaar in 1628, and received his earliest instruction from Arent Tierling but afterwards he was successively the disciple of Peter Scheyenburg and Caesar Van Everdingen. When he had spent some years with those masters, he went to Rome, where, during his continuance in that city, he carefully copied the works of the best masters, and was admitted into the society of Flemish painters called Bentvogels, who gave him the name of Jan Maat (which in Dutch signifies mate or companion), and by that name he is most generally known. His subjects were landscapes, with views of rivers or sea-shores, havens or ports, which he executed with a light free pencil; and in the representation of storms and calms (as nature was always his model) he described those subjects with great truth, exactness, and neatness of handling. The pictures of this master which are most commended are the Italian sea-ports, with vessels lying before them. He possessed a lively imagination; nor was his hand less expeditious than his thoughts; and the connoisseurs agreed in opinion, that if he had bestowed more labour on his pictures than he usually did, so as to finish them more highly, he would certainly have destroyed a great deal of their spirit, force, and effect. His most capital performance is a view of the sea-shore, with the waves retiring at ebb tide; which is described by Houbraken as being wonderfully beautiful and natural. He died in 1670.

, a saint and martyr, and according to the Breviary, bishop of Sebasta in Cappadocia, deserves this slight notice, as a person of great note among the vulgar, who in their processions of the wool-trade, always carry an effigies or representation of him, as the inventor or patron of their art of combing it. There was an order of knighthood also instituted in honour of him; and his day, which stands now marked in our Calendar, was Feb. 3. He suffered death in the reign of Dioclesian, about the year 283, according to the Legenda Aurea, but the English version of that book has the year 387, neither of which dates are strictly true, since Dioclesian did not succeed to the empire till the year 2Si, and died before the latter date. Before his death, which was by beheading, he was whipped, and had his flesh tornferreis pectinibiis, with iron combs and this seems to be the only foundation for the respect paid to his memory by wool-combers. Thus far the learned antiquary Dr. Pegge, in a letter on the history of St. Blase but Butler, in his “Lives of the Saints,” fixes his death in the year 316, when he was martyred in the persecution of Licinius, by the command of Agricolaus, governor of Cappadocia and the lesser Armenia.

, D. D. an eminent Hebrew critic, canon of Christ church, regius professor of Hebrew in the university of Oxford, 1787, and rector of Polshot, was first of Worcester college, where he proceeded M. A. 1753; afterwards fellow of Hertford college, where he took the degree of B. D. 1768, and of D. D. 1787 and was installed Hebrew professor Dec. 7. of that year. He was also some time a Whitehall preacher. He distinguished himself greatly as a scriptural commentator and translator. He published, 1. “A dissertation, by way of enquiry into the true import and application of the Vision related Dan. is. 20 to the end, usually called Daniel’s Prophecy of Seventy Weeks with occasional remarks on Michaelis’s letters to sir John Pringle on the same subject, 1775,” 4to. 2. “Jereiniah and Lamentations, a new translation, with notes critical, philosophical, and explanatory, 1784,” 8vo. 3. “The Sign given to Ahaz, a discourse on Isaiah vii. 14, 15, 16, delivered in the church of St. John, Devizes, at the triennial visitation of Shute, lord bishop of Sarum, July 26, 1786 with a proposed emendation of a passage in his dissertation on Daniel,” 1786, 4to. 4. “Christ the greater glory of the temple, a sermon, preached before the university of Oxford, at Christ church, Nov. 9, 1788,” 4to. J. “Zechariah, a new translation, with notes critical, philosophical, and explanatory and an Appendix, in reply to Dr. Eveleigh’s Sermon on Zechariah i. S 1 1 (to which is added, a new edition, with alterations, of the dissertation on Daniel), 1797,” 4to. In this dissertation on Daniel the study and criticism of this learned divine produced a translation very different from that in the common English Bible, as well as from that of Michaelis. It . is less liable to objection, particularly as it has no recourse to that ingenious but uncertain and unsatisfying method of computation by lunar years; it extends also to those verses of the chapter which Dr. Michaelis seemed to give up as inexplicable, almost in despair of ever attaining a probable solution of the difficulty. The translation of Jeremiah and Lamentations is on the plan of Dr. Lowth’s Isaiah, and does credit to its author both as a translator and a critic. The same may be said respecting the translation of Zechariah and it may be added, that the candour and liberality which Dr. Blayney opposes, in this instance, to the intemperance and acrimony of one of his antagonists, do him great honour. The doctor also took uncommon pains in correcting the text of the edition of the common version of the English Bible, which was printed at the Clarendon press in 1769, 4to. He made a great number of additional references in the margin, and produced the most correct Bible in our language; but, unfortunately, a large part of the impression was soon after burned at the Bible warehouse in Paternoster row, and it is now ranked among the most scarce and valuable editions.

Dr. Blayney diet! at Polshot, Sept. 20, 1801, and directed by will, that his critical papers should first be submitted to his much-valued patron and friend, the present bishop of Durham, and then deposited in the library at Lambeth. They consist of, 1. New version of the Psalms, 2 vols. 4to. 2. Critical comment on the Psalms, 3 vols. 4to. 3. Notes on Isaiah, 3 vols. 4to. 4. Remarks on the Minor Prophets, compared with bishop Newcome’s version and commentary, 1 vol. 4to. 5. Remarks on the Song of Moses, Psalin xviii. compared with 2 Sam. xxii and Deborah’s Song and Jacob’s Blessing, Gen. xlix and Moses’s Blessing, Deut. xxxiii; and Moses’s Monitory Song, Deut. xxxii. 6. Further observations on some of the Psalms and on some chapters of Isaiah and on several of the minor Prophets, particularly Zechariah, 1 vol. folio.

, a French surgeon, or physician, of the seventeenth century, by uniting the quack and the regular, acquired a considerable degree of reputation, and belongs to a class, we fear, pretty numerous in other countries as well as France. He began his career as a trussmaker, and then placed himself at the head of an academy of his own creation for medical discoveries, the memoirs of which were published monthly, and we presume there must have been some papers of consequence among them, as the celebrated Bonnet translated those of the first three years into Latin, and published them under the title of “Zodiacus Medico-Gallicus,” 1680, 4to. The liberties, however, which Blegny took with the characters of some physicians of reputation occasioned the suppression of these memoirs in 1682, yet he continued to write, and sent his papers to one Ganthier, a physician of Niort, who published them at Amsterdam in 1684, under the title of the “Mercure savant.” In the mean time Blegny endeavoured to make himself famous, and that nothing might be wanting to shew his variety of talents he added to surgery and pharmacy a course of lectures on wig-making. For some time he appears to have imposed on the court itself, as we find that in 1678 he was appointed surgeon in ordinary to the queen; in 1633 surgeon in ordinary to the duke of Orleans; and in 1687, physician in ordinary to the king: but in 1693, his real character becoming more apparent, he was stripped of these honours for having attempted to establish an order of knighthood, and sent to prison at the castle of Angers, where he was confined for eight years. After his release, he retired to Avignon, where he died in 1722, aged about seventy. He published various works, now in little estimation.

, a painter of history and landscape, was born at Bovine, near Dinant, in 1480. He acquired his skill in the art merely by the strength of his natural genius, assisted by a diligent study and observation of the works of Patenier, without having any other instructor: and at last rendered himself very eminent, particularly by his landscapes. His best performances were bought up by the emperor Rodolph, and they are still preserved at Vienna. His style of composition in historical subjects resembled the style of the Flemish artists of that age, and exhibited a great number of figures finished with extreme neatness. But he crowded several subjects into one design; as in his picture of the disciples at Emmaus, he represented not only that incident, but in different groupes disposed in the back ground, he represented likewise the different parts of the passion of our Saviour. And yet, notwithstanding the impropriety of that manner of composing, his pictures were so delicately pencilled and finished, and his landscapes in particular so agreeably invented, so full of variety, and well executed, that even in Italy his works were in great request, and were distinguished there by the appellation of the owl-pictures for he fixed an owl, as his peculiar mark, in every picture he painted by which the works of this master are always indisputably known. He died in 1550.

, was born at Rennes, Eeb. 25, 1696, and entered early into the congregation of the oratory, where he was a distinguished professor. The order against wigs, which seems to have raised very serious scruples, occasioned his quitting it; but he retained the friendship and esteem of his former brethren. He then went to Paris, where his talents procured him the professorship of eloquence in the collegeroyal, and a place in the academy of belles lettres. He published several works, which have been well received by the public 1. “The Life of the Emperor Julian,” Paris, 1735, 1746, 12mo, a curious performance, well written, and distinguished at once by impartiality, precision, elegance and judgment, and which was translated into English under the inspection of Mr. Bowyer in 1746. 2. “The History of the Emperor Jovian,” with translations of some works of the emperor Julian, Paris, 1748, 2 vols. 12mo, a book no less valuable than the former, by the art with which the author has selected, arranged and established facts, and by the free and varied turns of the translator. This was abridged by Mr. Duncombe in the “Select Works of the Emperor Julian,” 1784, 2 vols. 8vo. The life of Jovian, however, seems much inferior to that of Julian. But the difference may be owing to the character of those two persons, the one being an object of much more interest than the other. 3. A translation of some works of Tacitus, Paris, 1755, 2 vols. 12mo. The manners of the Germans, and the life of Agricola, are the two pieces comprised in this version, which is equally elegant and faithful. Prefixed is a Life of Tacitus, which is also worthy of this writer, and was admired for strength of sentiment and animation of style. For this historian the abbé cle la jSleterie had an uncommon predilection he spoke of him incessantly to his friends. “To Tacitus,” said he, “I am much indebted I ought therefore in justice to dedicate to his glory the remainder of my life.” 4. “Tiberius, or the six first books of the Annals of Tacitus, translated into French,” Paris, 1768, 3 vols. 12mo. This work was not so popular among his countrymen, who blame the affected style, and say they very seldom discover in it the elegant historian of Julian. It occasioned at the time these two lines

This translation is in other respects sufficiently exact. 5. “Letters occasioned by the account of Quietism given by M. Phelipeaux,” 173';, 12mo. This pamphlet, which is scarce, and very well written, contains a defence of the conduct of madame de Guyon. 6. Some highly esteemed dissertations in the memoirs of the academy of belles lettres. 7. “Most humble Remonstrances of M. de Montempuis;” an obscure and indifferent work, in favour of a pedant, who had made himself ridiculous by an absurd and unlucky adventure. The abbé de la Bleterie died at an advanced age, June 1, 1772. He was a man of learning, attached to religion, and his morals did not belie his principles. His knowledge being solid and diversified, rendered his conversation useful and interesting. With sound rather than brilliant talents, endowed with more judgment than imagination, he had the merit of knowing how to choose his friends, and how to retain them.

Besides the works above-mentioned, Bleterie was editor of Masclef’s Hebrew Grammar when studying that language he took a fancy to Masclef’s method, and in order to support it, published a work enticed “Vindiciae methodi Masclefianse,” in elegant Latin, and afterwards inserted it in his edition of the grammar published in 1731. We have already mentioned that he was a member of the academy of belles-lettres, and was a candidate for the French academy. His rival on this occasion was Racine, the son, but both were rejected as Jansenists. Bleterie submitted to the disappointment, and when his friends were about to interest themselves in the repeal of this sentence of exclusion, he would upon no account co-operate with them, contenting himself with the esteem of the academicians, who, the president Renault says, consitiered him as a colleague of whom they had been deprived.

, an eminent naturalist, and a Jew hy birth, was born at Anspech, in 1723, of very poor parents. He began to study very late at the age of nineteen, he knew neither German or Latin, and had read only some of the writings of the Rabbis, notwithstanding which, he was employed as a tutor in the family of a Jew surgeon at Hamburgh. There he himself was taught German, and a poor Bohemian Catholic gave him some instructions in Latin; he picked up also some knowledge of anatomy. Afterwards he made rapid progress in regaining lost time, and having removed to live with some relations he had at Berlin, he applied himself with eagerness and success to the study of anatomy and natural history, and received a doctor’s degree at Francfort on the Oder, with which he returned to practise as a physician at Berlin. Here the celebrated naturalist Martini procured him to be elected a member of the society of the “Curious in nature,” and he soon became highly distinguished among the scientific men of his time. He died Aug. 6, 1799, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. His principal work was his “Natural history of Fishes, particularly those of the Prussian states,” four parts, Berlin, 1781 and 1782, large 4to. He wrote afterwards a “Natural history of foreign Fishes,” Berlin, 1784, and “The natural history of German Fishes,” 1782. These different works, of which the descriptions are in German, were afterwards united under the title of “Ichthyology, or the natural history of Fishes,” Berlin, 1785, 12 vols. 4to, published by subscription, in seventy-two parts; the text was translated into French by Laveaux, and was published in 12 vols. fol. and reprinted in 1795. This is unquestionably one of the most splendid books in natural history, but the author, who had begun to have his drawings, engravings, and the colouring executed at his own expence, never could have completed it, had not his countrymen considered it as a national work, and princes, nobles, and amateurs, came forward with the most liberal assistance, and enabled him to finish the last six volumes upon the same scale of elegance as the former. The French edition in 12 vols. 8vo, Berlin, 1796, is greatly inferior to the former. Block wrote also, a “Treatise on the generation of worms in the intestines, and on the method of destroying them,” which gained the prize offered by the royal society of Denmark, and was printed at Berlin, 1782, 4to, and a “Treatise on the waters of Pyrmont,” both in German, Hamburgh, 1774, 8vo.

, bishop of Ripen, in Denmark, who was born in 1717, and died in 1773, cultivated the science of botany, particularly with a view to illustrate those passages of Scripture in which plants, &c. are mentioned. In 1767, he published at Copenhagen “Tentamen Phoenicologices sacra, seu dissertatio emblematico-theologica de Palma,” 8vo, a work containing many curious remarks on the palm or date-tree of Palestine and Idumea, which was called the phosnix by the Greeks and most of the eastern nations. It often occurs in the Bible, and the learned author has collected and explained the several passages. This species of palm is the phoenix dactylifera of modern botanists. A third author of the same name, John Erasmus Block, a Danish gardener, published at Copenhagen a treatise on the art of cultivating gardens, under the title “Horticultura Danica,” 1647, 4to.

, a female artist, on whose singular talents Descamps has bestowed a long article, was born at Amsterdam, Nov. 17, 1650. Her genius first showed itself in wax models of fruit, &c. beautifully coloured she then engraved with diamond on crystal and glass, ftodVopied paintings in coloured silks, but at last devoted her whole time to cutting paper, in which she excelled. Whatever others produced in a print by a graver, she effected by a pair of scissars. In this way she executed all kinds of subjects landscapes, sea-pieces, animals, flowers, &c. and even portraits, in which the resemblance was preserved in a striking degree. This new art of expressing representations of objects upon white paper became the object of universal curiosity, and the artist was encouraged by all the courts of Europe. The elector Palatine offered her a thousand florins (about an hundred guineas) for three little pieces, which she refused. The empress of Germany gave her orders for a trophy with the arms of the emperor Leopold I. In this piece were crowns supported by eagles, and round the borders garlands of flowers, and other ornaments relative to the subject, for which she received four thousand florins. She also cut the portrait of the emperor, which in Descamps’ time was preserved in the emperor’s cabinet at Vienna. Her works were all in a correct and beautiful style. She died Dec. 28, 1715.

, painter of landscape, cattle, history, and portrait, was born at Gorcum in. 1564, according to Houbraken but according to Sandrart, whose authority seems to claim the preference, he' was born in 1567, and lived mostly at Utrecht. In his youth he applied himself diligently to design after the works of Francis Floris, and afterwards received instructions from several artists of no great repute; but the power of his own genius proved his principal director in the art of painting. He formed a manner peculiar to himself, making nature his model for many of the objects he painted, particularly his cattle, in which he excelled. He died in 1647. He left four sons, two of them, Henry and Adrian, were artists of considerable merit, but inferior to the youngest, the subject of the following article.

, the youngest son of Abraham, was born in 1603, at Utrecht. The first principles of drawing and painting he learned from his father but his natural inclination for the 'art of engraving was so powerful, that he applied himself wholly to the pursuit of it. He first studied under Crispin de Pass, an engraver much more famous for the neatness than the good taste of his works. Not satisfied with what he learned from this artist, he went to Rome, in order to profit by studying the works of the greatest masters and in that city (where the far greater part of his engravings were made) he died in a very advanced age. “The manner of engraving adopted by this excellent artist, appears to me (says Mr. Strutt) to be not only quite original, but the source from which we may trace that style in which the greatest and best French masters excelled; those, I mean, who worked with the graver only. He covered the lights upon his distances, and the other parts of his piates whicn required tinting, with great care. The lights, whether on the distant hills, trees, buildings, or figures, in the engravings prior to his time, had been left quite clear, and by so many white spots scattered in various parts of the same design, the harmony was destroyed, the subject confused, and the principal figures prevented from relieving with any striking effect. By this judicious improvement, Bloemart gave to his prints a more clear and finished appearance than all the laboured neatness even of Jerome Wierix had been able to produce. He drew correctly but from his style of engraving, which was executed entirely with the graver, the extremities of his figures are heavy, and his heads are not always equally beautiful or expressive. With respect to the mechanical part of the work, few indeed have excelled him, either in clearness or freedom of execution. His great fault, however, is want of variety. The naked parts of his figures, the ch-aperies, and the back-ground, are equally neat, and engraved precisely in the same manner. Hence the effect is flat and the flesh, for want of sufficient distinction, appears cold and silvery. His works are justly held in high estimation. They are very numerous, and many of them difficult to be procured.”

, was an artist of whose life we have very few particulars, till he was known at Rome, in the year 1716, being at that time painter to count Martinetz and his reputation, as a good painter of portrait in miniature, was well established in Italy. By the solicitation of Overbeke, he was induced to go to Amsterdam, and in that city was employed to paint small portraits for bracelets, rings, and snuff-boxes and although they were painted in water-colours, yet the colouring was as lively and as natural as if they had been painted in oil. However, as he found his sight much impaired by the minuteness of his work, he discontinued water-colour painting, and attempted the use of oil, with a reasonable degree of success. After he had resided for some years in the Low Countries, he went to England, and set up a new method of printing mezzotinto plates in colours so as to imitate the pictures of which they were copies. In this manner he executed in England several large plates, from pictures of the greatest masters, and disposed of the prints by lottery. But those who obtained the prizes (Mr. Strutt says) appear not to have held them in any very great estimation. “The prints,” he adds, “certainly possess some merit, exclusive of their novelty; but, in general, the colours are flat and dirty the effect is neither striking nor judiciously managed and the drawing is frequently very incorrect, especially in the extremities of his figures.” Mr. Pilkington speaks of them with greater approbation “The artist,” he says, “imitated his models with so much skill, such exact resemblance, such correctness of outline, such similarity of colour and expression, that at first they amazed every beholder who viewed them at a proper distance and many of those prints are still extant, which are much esteemed by persons of good taste.” And Mr. Wai pole observes, that some heads, coloured progressively, according to their several gradations, bear witness to the success and beauty of his invention. He had another merit to the public, with which few inventors begin; for he communicated his secret in a thin quarto, entitled “Coloritto, or the harmony of colouring in painting reduced to mechanical practice, under easy precepts and infallible rules.” His method was performed by several mezzotinto plates for one piece, each expressing different shades and parts of the piece in different colours. He was not, however, it is said, the original inventor of that manner of managing colours, but took it from Lastman and others, who, with, much greater regularity of morals, equal capacities, and more discreet conduct, had before undertaken it without success. Le Blond, whose head was continually full of schemes, next set on foot a project for copying the cartoons of Raphael in tapestry, and made drawings from the pictures for that purpose. Houses were built and looms erected at the Mulberry Ground at Chelsea but the expences being too great, or the contributions not equal to the first expectations, the scheme was suddenly defeated, and Le Blond disappeared, to the no small dissatisfaction of those who were engaged with him. From hence he went to Paris, where, Basan informs us, he was in the year 1737; and in that city he died, 1740, in an hospital. Le Blond was also author of a treatise, in French, on ideal beauty. It was published in 1732, and has since been translated into English.

, a protestant minister, celebrated for his knowledge in ecclesiastical and civil history, was born at Chalons in Champagne, 1591. He was admitted minister at a synod of the isle of France in 1614. A few years afterwards he began to write in defence of protestantism, for in 1619 he published a treatise entitled “Modeste declaration de la sincerite et verite des Eglises Reformees de France.” This was an answer to several of the catholic writers, especially to the bishop of Lucon, so well known afterwards under the title of cardinal Richelieu. From this time he was considered as a person of great hopes. He was secretary more than twenty times in the synods of the isle of France, and was deputed four times successively to the national synods. That of Castres employed him to write in defence of the Protestants. The national synod of Charenton appointed him honorary professor in 1645, with a handsome salary, which had never been granted to any professor before. He wrote several pieces; but what gained him most favour amongst the Protestants are, his “Explications on the Eucharist” his work entitled “De la primaute d'Eglise” his “Treatise of the Sybils” and his piece “De episcopis et presbyteris.” Some of his party, however, were dissatisfied with him for engaging in disputes relating to civil history; and particularly offended at the book he published to shew that what is related about pope Joan is a ridiculous fable.

Upon the death of Vossius he was invited to succeed him in the history professorship in the college of Amsterdam. He accordingly went thither in 1650, where he continued his studies with great assiduity, but intense application, and the air of the country not agreeing with him, greatly impaired his health, and deprived him of his sight. In this condition he is said to have dictated two volumes in folio, on the genealogy of the kings of France, against Chifflet, a work which we are told he undertook at the desire of chancellor Seguier. He had, likewise, some

uneasiness in Holland, from being suspected of Arminianism, and for being the author of “Considerations religieuses et politiques,” which he published during the war betwixt Cromwell and the Hollanders. He died the 6th of April 1655, aged 64.

, a celebrated French mathematician and military engineer, was born at Ribemond in Picardy, in 1617. While he was yet but young, he was chosen regius professor of mathematics and architecture at Paris. Not long after, he was appointed governor to Lewis-Henry de Lomenix, count de Brienne, whom he accompanied in his travels from 1652 to 1655, of which he published an account. He enjoyed many honourable employments, both in the navy and army; and was entrusted with the management of several negociations with foreign princes. He arrived at the dignity of marshal de camp, and counsellor of state, and had the honour to be appointed mathematical preceptor to the Dauphin. He was a member of the royal academy of sciences, director of the academy of architecture, and lecturer to the royal college in all which he supported his character with dignity and applause. Blondel was no less versed in the knowledge of the belles lettres than in the mathematical sciences, as appears by the comparison he published between Pindar and Horace, 1675, 12mo, and afterwards reprinted in Rapin’s miscellaneous works. He died at Paris, the 22d of February, 1686, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. His chief mathematical works were 1. “Cours d' Architecture,” Paris, 1675, folio. 2. “Resolution des quatre principaux problemes d' Architecture,” Paris, 1676, fol. 3. “Histoire du Calendrier Romain,” Paris, 1682, 4to. 4. “Cours de Mathematiques,” Paris, 1683, 4to. 5. “L'Art de jetter des Bombes,” La Haye, 1685, 4to. Besides a “New method of fortifying places,” and other works. Blondel had also many ingenious pieces inserted in the memoirs of the French academy of sciences, particularly in the year 1666.

, nephew of the preceding, and a man of abilities, although not equal to his uncle, was born Jan. 8, 1705, and consequently could not have been educated by his uncle, as some biographers have asserted. Removing from Rouen to Paris in his thirty-fourth year, he opened there a public school for architecture, and acquired so much reputation as to be elected into the academy in 1755. Appointed afterwards professor, he carried on his public lectures and private tuition for thirty years, during which his instructions produced a new sera in architecture. He likewise wrote all the articles on this subject in the Encyclopaedia. When attacked with the disease which proved fatal, he caused himself to be removed to his school in the Louvre, that he might breathe his last in the place where he had acquired his fame, and died there, January 9, 1774. His principal buildings are to be seen at Metx and Strasburgh. His printed works are, 1. “Architecture Francaise,” 1772, 2 vols. fol. 2. “Cours d' Architecture civile,” 9 vols. 8vo, three of which consist o? plates only but this work, the second part of which appeared in 1773, is unfortunately imperfect, owing to his death. 3. “Architecture moderne,” 1728, 2 vols. 4to. 4. “De la distribution des maisons de plaisance,” Paris, 1737, 2 vols. 4to. Blondel was a good engraver, and executed many of the plates for his “Course of Architecture.”

, who was born at Paris in 1671, and died at Evreux, July 23, 1740, possessed a most extensive knowledge of books of every kind, but particularly what related to liturgies, monastic rules, and other branches of ecclesiastical history, which he communicated liberally to the literati of his time. For seventeen years he was corrector of Desprez’s press, and published there, in 1772, “Vie de Saints,” fol. which have gone through several editions. At the end of this volume are subjoined the lives of various other persons eminent for their piety. His own works were chiefly of the religious cast, but he was frequently employed as editor of the works of others, which he illustrated with notes.

, an English physician, born in England, of a French family, and a licentiate of the college of physicians, about the beginning of the last century, published in 1727, “The strength of imagination in pregnant women examined, &c.” This excited a controversy with Dr. Turner, who, in his work on the diseases of the skin, was a strong advocate for the power of imagination in producing marks and deformities. Blondel answered him; and by his humour, as well as argument, contributed much to remove the common prejudices on that popular subject.

, generally known by the appellation of colonel Blood, was a disbanded officer of Oliver Cromwell’s army, famous for his daring crimes and his good fortune. He was first distinguished by engaging in a conspiracy to surprise the castle of Dublin, which was defeated by the vigilance of the duke of Ormond; and some of his accomplices were executed. Escaping to England, he meditated revenge against Ormond and actually seized him one night in his coach in St. James’s-street, where he might have finished his purpose if he had not studied refinements in his vengeance. He bound him on horseback behind one of his associates, resolving to- hang him at Tyburn, with a paper pinned to his breast but when they got into the fields, the duke, in his efforts for liberty, threw himself and the assassin, to whom he was fastened, to the ground and while they were struggling in the mire, he was rescued by his servants; but the authors of this attempt were not then discovered. A little after, in 1671, Blood formed a design of carrying off the crown and regalia from the tower; a design, to which he was prompted, as well by the surprising boldness of the enterprize, as by the views of profit. He was very near succeeding. He had bound and wounded Edwards, the keeper of the jewel-office, and had got out of the tower with his prey but was overtaken and seized, with some of his associates. One of them was known to have been concerned in the attempt upon Ormond and Blood was immediately concluded to be the ringleader. When questioned, he frankly avowed the enterprize but refused to discover his accomplices. “The fear of death (he said) should never induce him either to deny a guilt or betray a friend.” All these extraordinary circumstances made him the general subject of conversation and the king was moved with an idle curiosity to see and speak with a person so noted for his courage and his crimes. Blood might now esteem himself secure of pardon and he wanted not address to improve the opportunity. He told Charles, that he had been engaged with others, in a design to kill him with a carabine above Battersea, where his majesty often went to bathe that the cause of this resolution was the severity exercised over the consciences of the godly, in restraining the liberty of their religious assemblies: that when he had taken his stand among the reeds, full of these bloody resolutions, he found his heart checked with an awe of majesty; and he not only relented himself, but diverted his associates from their purpose: that he had long ago brought himself to an entire indifference about life, which he now gave for lost; yet he could not forbear warning the king of the danger which might attend his execution; that his associates had bound themselves, by the strictest oaths, to revenge the death of any of their confederacy; and that no precaution nor power could secure any one from the effects of their desperate resolutions. Whether these considerations excited fear or admiration in the king, they confirmed his resolution of granting a pardon to Blood and what is yet more extraordinary? Charles carried his kindness so far as to grant him an estate of 500l. a-year. He also showed him great countenance and while old Edwards, who had been wounded, in defending the crown and regalia, was neglected, this man, who deserved only to be stared at and detested as a monster, became a kind of favourite. Blood enjoyed his pension about ten years, till, being charged with fixing an imputation of a scandalous nature on the duke of Buckingham, he was thrown into prison, where he died August 24, 1680.

, was a Flemish painter, whose works are not frequently seen in these kingdoms nor are they easily purchased in Holland, being carefully preserved in private collections, and very highly esteemed. The subjects he chose to paint were always taken from the lowest life such as boors drinking, feasting, dancing, or quarrelling shepherds piping, and sometimes the marriages of villagers. He was a faithful and indeed too servile an imitator of nature never departing from the actions, attitudes, or draperies of his models. He showed a good knowledge of the chiaro-scuro, and perspective he had a delicate manner of pencilling, and his colouring was mellow but he had no idea of elegance yet his pictures had in many respects great merit, and his defects seem rather imputable to the taste of his country than to his own genius some of his works being, for the lightness of the touch, the neatness of handling, and transparence of colour, equal to the best of his time. He died in 1667.

, younger son of sir Henry Blount, and brother to sir Thomas Pope Blount hereafter mentioned, an eminent writer in the last century, was born at his grandfather’s seat at Upper Holloway, in the county of Middlesex, April 27, 1654. He was endowed by nature with a great capacity, and with a strong propensity to learning; which excellent qualities were properly cultivated by the assiduous care of his father, and under so able an instructor, he quickly acquired an extraordinary skill in the arts and sciences, without any thing of that pedantry, which is too frequently the consequence of young men’s application to study in the common course. His pregnant parts and polite behaviour brought him early into the world, so that his father, who was a true judge of men, thought fit, when he was about eighteen, to marry him to Eleanora, daughter of sir Timothy Tyrrel, of Shotover in the county of Oxford, and gave him a very handsome estate, having always respected him as a friend, as well as loved him with the affection of a father. The year after his marriage, he wrote a little treatise, which he published without his name, in defence of Dryden, whose “Conquest of Granada” was attacked by Richard Leigh, a player. In 1678, or perhaps in 1679, he published his “Anima Mnndi,” in which it is said, and with great probability, that he had the assistance of his father. It had been long before handed about in manuscript among the acquaintance of its author, with several passages in it much stronger than in that which was transmitted to the press, and licensed by sir Roger L'Estrange. This, however, did not hinder its giving great offence, insomuch that complaint was made to Dr. Compton, then Lord Bishop of London, who, upon perusal, signified that he expected it should be suppressed, and intimating, that he would thereupon rest satisfied. But afterwards, when the Bishop was out of town, an opportunity was taken by some zealous person to burn the book, which however has been reprinted since. The same year he published a broad sheet under the title of “Mr. Hobbes’s last Words and dying Legacy.” It was extracted from the “Leviathan,” and was intended to weaken and expose his doctrine yet he could be no very warm antagonist, since there is still extant a letter of his to Mr. Hobbes, wherein he professes himself a great admirer of his parts, and one who would readily receive his instructions. He afterwards gave a strong testimony in favour of liberty, in a pamphlet on the Popish Plot, and the fearof a Popish successor, entitled, “An Appeal from the country to the city for the preservation of his majesty’s person, liberty, property, and the Protestant religion.” This treatise is subscribed Junius Brutus, and is the strongest invective against Popery and Papists that was published even in that age, when almost all the wit of the nation was pointed that way. There are in it likewise such express recommendations of the Duke of Monmouth, as might well hinder the author from owning it, and give it, in the eyes of the lawyers of those times, an air of sedition at least, if not of treason. In 1680, he printed that work which made him most known to the world, “The Life of Apollonius Tyaneus,” which was soon after suppressed, and only a few copies sent abroad. It was held to be the most dangerous attempt, that had been ever made against revealed religion in this country, and was justly thought so, as bringing to the eye of every English reader a multitude of facts and reasonings, plausible in themselves, and of the fallacy of which, none but men of parts and learning can be proper judges. For this reason it is still much in esteem with the Deists, and the few copies that came abroad contributed to raise its reputation, by placing it in the lists of those that are extremely rare. In the same year he published his “Diana of the Ephesians,” which, as the author foresaw, raised a new clamour, many suggesting that, under colour of exposing superstition, he struck at all Revelation, and while he avowed only a contempt of the Heathen, seemed to intimate no great affection for the Christian priesthood. The wit, learning, and zeal of our author, had, by this time, raised him to be the chief of his sect; and he took a great deal of pains to propagate and defend his opinions in his discourses and familiar letters, as well as by his books, but he had the usual inconsistency of the infidel, and we find him owning, in a letter to Dr. Sydenham, that in point of practice, Deism was less satisfactory than the Christian scheme. The noise his former pieces had made, induced him to conceal, industriously, his being the author of a book, entitled, “Religio Laici,” published in 1683, but which is little more than a translation of Lord Herbert’s treatise under the same title and one may reasonably suppose, that the same motives prevailed on him to drop a design, in which it appears he was once engaged, of writing the Life of Mahomet, the Turkish prophet, which however has been since executed, in his manner, by a French author, Boulanvilliers. That the world might perceive Mr. Blount was capable of turning his thoughts to subjects very different from those he had hitherto handled, he, in 16S4, published a kind of introduction to polite literature, which shewed the extent of his knowledge, and the acquaintance he had in the several branches of philosophy and science. This was entitled “Janus Scientiarum or an Introduction to Geography, Chronology, Government, History, philosophy, and all genteel sorts of Learning,” London, 8vo. He concurred heartily in the Revolution, and seems to have had very honest intentions of punishing those who were king James’s evil counsellors, after the government was re-settled, by declaring the prince and princess of Orange king and queen. He gave another strong testimony of his sincere attachment to his principles, and inviolable love to freedom, by a nervous defence of the liberty of the press wherein he shews that all restraints on it can have no other tendency than to establish superstition and tyranny, by abasing the spirits of mankind, and injuring the human understanding. This little piece, therefore, has been always esteemed one of the best he ever wrote; and has furnished their strongest arguments to many succeeding writers. The warmth of Mr. Blount’s temper, his great affection for king William, and his earnest desire to see certain favourite projects brought about, led him to write a pamphlet, in which, he asserted king William and queen Mary to be conquerors, which was not well relished by the house of commons. The title of this very singular and remarkable piece at large, runs thus: “King William and queen Mary conquerors; or, a discourse endeavouring to prove that their majesties have on their side, against the late king, the principal reasons that make conquest a good title; shewing also how this is consistent with that declaration of parliament, king James abdicated the government, &c. Written with an especial regard to such as have hitherto refused the oath, and yet allow of the title of conquest, when consequent to a just war,” 1693, 4to.

We now draw near to his death, which corresponded more closely with his principles than his friends and admirers will probably allow. After the death of his wife, he became enamoured of her sister, who, we are told, was a lady of great beauty, wit, good humour, virtue, and discretion, and who is said not to have been insensible on her side, but scrupulous only as to the lawfulness of the thing he proposed, viz. marrying her after her sister. Our author wrote a letter on this subject, in which he states the case as of a third person, and treats it with some ingenuity. It is also said that he applied himself to the archbishop of Canterbury, and other divines, who having decided against his opinion, and the lady consequently becoming inflexible, it threw him into a fit of despair, which ended in a frenzy, so that he shot himself in the head. The wound, however, did not prove inured lately mortal he lived after it some clays and retaining still his passion for that lady, he would receive nothing hut from her hands during that period. He died in the month of August, 1693, and was interred with his family in the church of Ridge, in Hertfordshire. After Mr. Blount’s decease, abundance of his private letters were published in a work called “The Oracles of Reason,” compiled by Mr. Gildon, who in his preface gives seme account of our author, in a letter addressed to a ladv, in which he defends Mr. Blount’s manner of dying, and threatens to follow his example but he lived to change his opinions afterwards. These “Oracles of Reason” were afterwards printed with several of our author’s pieces, under the title of “The miscellaneous works of Charles Blount, esq.” 1695, including all we have mentioned, except the pamphlet respecting king William and queen Mary, which is now extremely scarce. As to his character, he was certainly a man of sense and learning, and could write with much seeming strength, where his arguments were not very cogent. His early dislike to superstition hurried him into dangerous mistakes, and inclined him to believe all revealed religion priestcraft, because some priests made a trade of religion. However, if any credit be due to his writings (and sincerity seems to have been rooted in his temper) he was certainly a Deist; foreigners have classed him among Atheists, which Dr. Campbell, in his life in the Biog. Brit, has taken more pains than necessary to contradict.

, father to the preceding, and a considerable writer in the last century, was descended from a very ancient and honourable family, and born December 15, 1602, at his father, sir Thomas Pope Blount’s, seat at Tittenhanger, in Hertfordshire. He received the first tincture of letters in the free-school of St. Alban’s, where he manifested an unusual quickness of parts, and having qualified himself for the university, was removed to Trinity-college, in Oxford, and entered a gentleman commoner there in 1616, before he was full fourteen years of age. Some years he spent in that learned society, with great reputation and universal respect, not so much on account of his family, by which he was nearly related to the founder, sir Thomas Pope, as from his personal merit. For in his youth he was of a cheerful disposition, a sprightly wit, an easy address, and frank and entertaining in conversation, charmed all who were of his acquaintance, and was justly esteemed as promising a genius as any in the university. In the year 1618 he took the degree of B.A. and soon after left Oxford for Gray’s-inn, where for some time he applied himself to the study of the law, and set out on his travels in the spring of the year 1634, being then lately become of age. He made first the tour of France, part of Spain and Italy, and then passing to Venice, he there contracted an acquaintance with a Janizary, with whom he resolved to pass into the Turkish dominions. With this view he embarked on the 7th of May, 1634, on board a Venetian galley, in which he sailed to Spalatro, and thence continued his journey by land to Constantinople. There he was very kindly received by sir Peter Wich, then our ambassador at the Port. His stay at Constantinople was short, because, having an earnest desire to see Grand Cairo, and meeting with a sudden opportunity, he readily embraced it, and after a peregrination of near two years, returned safely into England, where, in 1636, he printed an account of his travels, London, 1636, 4to, which soon after came to a second edition, and in 1638 to a third, in the same size. It was then printed in 12mo, and reached many editions the title of the eighth runs thus “A Voyage into the Levant, being a brief relation of a Journey lately performed from England by the way of Venice, into Dalmatia, Sclavonia, Bosnia, Hungary, Macedonia, Thessaly, Thrace, Rhodes, and Egypt, unto Grand Cairo; with particular observations concerning the modern condition of the Turks, and other people under that empire. By sir Henry Blount, knight.” This book made him known to the world, and so much noticed, that shortly after, king Charles I. who desired to fill his court with men of parts, appointed him one of the band of pensioners, then composed of gentlemen of the first families in the kingdom. In 1638, his father, sir Thomas Pope Blount, died, and left him the ancient seat of Blount’s hall, in Staffordshire, and a very considerable fortune. On the 21st of March in the succeeding year, the king conferred on him the honour of knighthood. At the first breaking out of the civil war, he, following the example of the elder branches of his illustrious family, who were eminently loyal, attended the king at York, at Oxford, and other places, was present at the battle of Edgehill, and had there (according to a tradition in the family) the honour of taking care of the young princes. Afterwards he quitted his majesty’s service, and returned to London, where he was questioned for his adhering to the king but he being now grown a very wary and dexterous speaker, so well excused himself, by alleging his duty on account of his post, that he escaped all censure, and was thenceforward well received. It appears, however, that he had not the courage to be faithful, or that Ije had seriously repented his loyalty to the king, for he complied with the usurping government so implicitly, that in 1651 he was named on a committee of twenty persons, for inspecting the practice of the law, and remedying its abuses. He declared himself very warmly against tithes, and would willingly have reduced the income of parish ministers to one hundred pounds a year. A man of this opinion must have been very acceptable at that time. His next appearance, however, was more to his credit. He sat with Dr. Hichard Zouch, Dr. William Clarke, Dr. William Turner, civilians, and with several other eminent persons in the court of king’s (then called the upper) bench, in Westminster hall, on the 5th of July, 1654, by virtue of a commission from Oliver Cromwell, for trying Don Pantalion Saa, brother to the Portuguese ambassador, for murder, of which, being found guilty, he was, much to the honour of the justice of this nation, by sentence of that court, adjudged to suffer death, and was executed accordingly, Jn, the same year, by the death of his elder brother Thomas Pope Blount, esq. the estate of Tittenhanger descended to him. His great reputation for general knowledge and uncommon sagacity was the reason that his name was inserted in the list of twenty-one commissioners appointed, November 1, 1655, to consider of the trade and navigation of the commonwealth, and how it might be best encouraged and promoted, in which station he did his country eminent service. But whatever his compliances with the forms of government set up between 1650 and 1660, he was received into favour and confidence on the ling’s restoration, and appointed high sheriff of the county of Hertford, in 1661. He lived after that as an English gentleman, satisfied with the honours he had acquired, and the large estate he possessed, and having passed upwards uf twenty years in this independent state, be died on the 9th of October, 1682, when he wanted but four months of four-score, and was two days afterwards interred in the vault of his family, at Ridge in Hertfordshire. As to what appears from his writings, he seems to have had strong parts, a lively imagination, and, in consequence of these, some very singular opinions. His style was manly, flowing, and less affected than could be expected, considering the times in, and the subjects on, which he wrote. A Latin fragment, published by his son, in his “Oracles of Reason,” better explains his sentiments than all the rest of his works, and demonstrates that he was a man of an irregular way of thinking.

Mr. Warton, in the life of his great ancestor, says very justly, that his “Voyage into the Levant” is the voyage of a sceptic it has more of the philosopher than the traveller, and would, probably, never have been written, but for the purpose of insinuating his religious sentiments. Yet his reflections are so striking and original, and so artfully interwoven with the thread of his adventures, that they enliven, instead of embarrassing the narrative. He had the art of colouring his paradoxes with the resemblance of truth, and so little penetration had the orthodox court of Charles I. that merely on the merit of this book, he was appointed one of the band of pensioners. For the first forty years of his life he was a boon companion, and much given to raillery; but in the other forty, of a serious temper, and a water drinker. He married in 1647, dame Hester Manwaring, relict of sir William Manwaring, of Cheshire, knight, daughter and coheiress of Christopher Wase, of Upper Holloway, in the county of Middlesex, esq. by whom he left three sons and one daughter.

The rest of the works he published were, 1. “Six Comedies, written by John Lilly, under the title of Court Comedies,” by the care of Mr. Henry Blount, London, 1632, 8vo. 2. A satire, entitled “The Exchange Walk,” in 1647. This, Mr. Wood says, some of his relations informed him, fell from the pen of sir Henry Blount, though his sons knew nothing of it. 3. “An epistle in praise of Tobacco and Coffee,” prefixed to a little treatise, entitled “Organum. Salutis,” written by Walter Rumsey, esq. 1657, 8vo.

, called in Latin Blondus, or Blundus, a very eminent divine in the thirteenth century, was educated in the university of Oxford, and went afterwards for his improvement to Paris, where he quickly distinguished himself, among many of his learned contemporaries, by the vivacity of his wit. On his return into England, he again settled himself at Oxford, and read divinity lectures there with universal applause. Wood says he was the first that lectured on Aristotle both in Paris and Oxford. The reputation of his learning obtained him also several other preferments, particularly those of prebendary andhancellor in the church of York. In 1232, the archiepiscopal see of Canterbuiy being vacant by the death of Richard Wethershed, and the rejection of two of his successors, Ralph Nevil, bishop of Chichester and chancellor of England, and John, sub-prior of Canterbury, by the pope, Dr. Blount was, by the chapter of Canterbury, elected archbishop. He did not, however, enjoy that dignity; for the pope immediately objected to him, and after a summary inquiry into the validity of his election, declared it void, for several reasons, of which our historians take notice, though very probably Bale has hit upon the true, although not the ostensible cause, namely, that his abilities rendered him obnoxious to the court of Rome, or, as Bale expresses it, that he was more learned than that court wished an archbishop to be.

Many of our modern writers, and particularly bishop Godwin, fall into frequent inaccuracies concerning this prelate, sometimes mistaking his sirname, and sometimes confounding him with Richard Blount, bishop of Lincoln. After his return from Rome, and being deprived of his high dignity, he retired once again to Oxford, and, as Leland tells us, consoled himself under his misfortunes, by an ardent application to his studies. In this manner he spent sixteen years, during which time he composed several learned works, and amongst them various commentaries on the Holy Scriptures. He was celebrated by his contemporaries for the elegance of his style, and for the extensiveness of his learning. John Ross, of Warwick, no contemptible historian, and who did not live above a century after his time, speaks of him as a prodigy of science. This very learned, though unfortunate person, having attained to a good old age, and to a high reputation for his knowledge, prudence, and piety, died hi 1248, having always shevyn an equanimity of mind, which demonstrated him worthy of the highest station, by enabling him to bear with fortitude his fall from thence.

Leland, in his life of this learned person, owns ingenuously, that he was so unlucky as never to have met with any of those writings which rendered our author’s memory famous, adding a doubt whether any of them were extant. Bale, in the first edition of his work, omitted this life; and when he added it afterwards, he only copied Leland, adding that Blount had written “Summarium Sacrae Facultatis,” lib. 1. “Disceptationes aliquot,”' lib. 1. and several Commentaries on the Scriptures. Pits transcribes Bale, adding the censure mentioned above yet takes no notice of any other works than those which Bale had before noted, and, which is very remarkable, does not give us the beginning of any of them, as his custom always is, wherever he had seen such books, or could meet with any accounts from other people who had seen them. It is therefore more than probable, that he spoke slightingly of his talents, in order to support the credit of the see of Rome, by lessening the reputation of a person whom it had so vehemently persecuted.

, an eminent writer towards the close of the seventeenth century, was the eldest “son of sir Henry Blount before mentioned, and was born at Upper Holloway in the county of Middlesex, Sept. 12, 1649. He was carefully educated under the eye of his father, who took care to acquaint him with the several branches of polite literature most worthy the notice of a person of his rank; and so great was the improvement he made under so able an instructor, that, even in his junior years, he was considered both as a judicious and learned man, and on this account, as well as for other marks of worth and genius, he was, by king Charles II. advanced to the degree of a baronet, by apatent dated Jan. 27,1679, in the thirtieth year of his majesty’s reign, and in the lifetime of sir Henry Blount his father. He was elected burgess for St. Albari’s in Hertfordshire, in the parliaments in the thirtieth and thirty-first of king Charles II. and was knight of the shire in three parliaments after the Revolution, having also the honour to be elected commissioner of accounts for the three last years of his life by the house of commons. He always distinguished himself as a lover of liberty, a sincere friend to his country, and a true patron of learning. His strong attachment for literature and criticism, and his extensive acquaintance with the best writers in all ages and sciences, appearecLfully in the” Censura," which he composed, first for his own use and satisfaction, and then published in the universal language for the benefit of others. His talents for original remark appear from his essays, which, in point of learning, judgment, and freedom of thought, are certainly no way inferior to those of the famous Montaigne. His knowledge and modesty are equally conspicuous in another piece of his, wherein he presents the public with the fruits of his reading on natural history, without depriving those from whom he drew his knowledge, of any part of their reputation. What he has written on poetry was likewise drawn together for his own information, and afterwards sent abroad for public use. Having thus satisfied in his riper years, the great expectations which his friends had of him in his youth, having been steady to one party, without violence towards others, after acquiring honour in his several public characters, esteem in private conversation, and affection in domestic life, he quietly ended his days at his seat at Tktenhanger, June 30, 1697, in the forty-eighth year of his age, and was buried the eighth of July following, in the vault of his family, at Ridge in Hertfordshire. He married Jane, daughter of sir Henry Caesar, of Benington Place in the county of Hertford, knight, and by her left issue five sons and nine daughters, but the baronetage is now extinct.

His “Censura Celebrium Authorum” was first printed at London, 1690, fol. and was reprinted at Geneva, 1694, 4to, and 1710, 4to. This compilation, a work of great erudition and labour, is well known to the critic and the literary historian, but cannot be compared, as Niceron has attempted, with Baillet’s “Jugement des Savans,” Baillet reporting the opinions of others in his own words, but Blount transcribes them literally, which adds considerably to their value. His “Essays,” which were published 1697, 8vo, are on the following subjects: popery, learning, education and custom, the ancients, passion, &c. His “Natural History, containing many, not common observations, extracted out of the best modern authors,” was published 1693, 12mo and his “Remarks on Poetry,” 1694, 4to. This is a species of Censura confined to the poetical class, and was honoured with the approbation of lord Mul grave, the most elegant critic of that age. Upon the whole, sir Thomas Pope Blount, as he was the most learned, appears to have been the most useful of the family, and most deserving the veneration of posterity.

, a miscellaneous writer of the seventeenth century, was born 1618, at Bardsley in Worcestershire, the son of Myles Blount, of Orleton in Herefordshire, who was the fifth son of Roger Blount of Monkland in the same county. He appears to have supplied the want of an university education by diligent application, and after studying the classics, entered himself of the Inner Temple, and was in due course admitted to the bar. Being, however, a Roman catholic, he never pleaded, but after some time resided mostly at Orleton. A sedentary life having much impaired his health, and the popish plot breaking out in 1678, he was so hurried from place to place, that the fatigue brought on a palsy, of which he died at Orleton, Dec. 26, 1679. Whether by this mention of the popish plot, his biographer means that he was concerned in it, does not appear. Wood seems to insinuate that he was only alarmed, as he was known to be a zealous Roman catholic. He was, however, a man of general knowledge, and an industrious and useful writer. His works are, 1. “The Academy of Eloquence, or complete English rhetoric,” 1654, 12mo, often reprinted. 2. “Glossographia, or a Dictionary of hard words,” Lond. 1656, 8vo. Of this there have been at least five editions. 3. “The Lamps of the Law, and the Lights of the Gospel,” ibid. 1658, 8vo. 4. “Boscobel; or the history of his majesty’s escape after the battle of Worcester,” ibid. 1660. 5. Boscobel, the second part, with the addition of the “Claustrum regale reseratum,” or the king’s concealment at Trent in Somersetshire, published by Mrs. Anne Windham of Trent,” ibid. 1681. Both these now are among the scarce and high-priced curiosities of the seventeenth century. Extracts are given from them in the Addenda to lord Clarendon’s History. 6. “The Catholic Almanac for 1661-2-3, &c.” 7. “Booker rebuked; or animadversions on Booker’s Almanac.” 8. “A Law Dictionary,” ibid. 1671, fol. reprinted with additions. 9. “Animadversions on sir Richard Baker’s Chronicle,” Oxf. 1672, 8vo. 10. “A World of Errors, discovered in Mr. Edmund Philips’s World of Words,” London, 1673, fol. 11. “Fragmenta Antiquitatis. Ancient tenures of land, and jocular customs of some manors,” ibid. 1679, 8vo of which Josiah Beckwith of York published a new edition in 1784. 12. “Animadversions on Blome’s Britannia,” not published. 13. “The art of making Devises, treating of Hieroglyphics, Symbols, &c.” a translation from the French, 1646, 4to. 14. “A catalogue of the Catholics, who lost their lives in the king’s cause, during the civil war,” printed at the end of lord Castlemain’s “Catholic Apology.” 15. “A Chronicle of England,” left imperfect, and a history of Herefordshire, a ms. left with his heirs, but which was probably lost, or has escaped the researches of Mr. Gough. 16. “A pedigree of the Blounts,” printed in Peacham’s “Complete Gentleman,” edit. 1661.

, an English musician of considerable fame, was born in 1648, at North Collingham in Nottinghamshire, and became one of the first set of children of the chapel royal after the restoration. In 1673, he was sworn one of the gentlemen of the chapel, and in 1674, appointed master of the children. In 1685, he was nominated one of the private music to king James II. and in 1687, was likewise appointed almoner and master of the choristers in the cathedral church of St. Paul but, in 1693, he resigned this last place in favour of his scholar Jeremiah Clerk. Blow had his degree of doctor in music conferred on him by the special grace of archbishop Sancroft, without performing an exercise for it at either of the universities. On the death of Purcell, in 1695, he was elected organist of St. Margaret’s, Westminster; and in 1699, appointed composer to the chapel of their majesties king AYilliam and queen Mary, at the salary of 40l. a year, which afterwards was augmented to 73l. A second composer, with the like appointment, was added in 1715, at which time it was required that each should produce a new anthem on the first Sunday of his month in waiting. Dr. Blow died in 1708 and though he did not arrive at great longevity, yet by beginning his course, and mounting to the summit of his profession so early, he enjoyed a prosperous and eventful life. His compositions for the church, and his scholars who arrived at eminence, have rendered his name venerable among the musicians of our country. In his person he was handsome, and remarkable for a gravity and decency in his deportment suited to his station, though he seems by some of his compositions to have been not altogether insensible to the delights of a convivial hour. He was a man of blameless morals, and of a benevolent temper; but was not so insensible to his own worth, as to be totally free from the imputation of pride. Sir John Hawkins furnishes us with an anecdote that shews likewise that he had a rough method of silencing criticism. In the reign of James II. an anthem of some Italian composer had been introduced into the chapel royal, which the king liked very much, and asked Blow if he could make one as good Blow answered in the affirmative, and engaged to do it by the next Sunday when he produced “I beheld and lo a great multitude.” When the service was over, the king sent father Petre to acquaint him that he was much pleased with it: “but,” added Petre, “I myself think it too long.” “That,” answered Blow, “is the opinion of but one fool, and I heed it not.” This provoked the Jesuit so much that he prevailed on the king to suspend Blow, and the consequences might perhaps have been more serious, had not the revolution immediately followed.

Though Dr. Blow’s church music was never collected in, a body, yet besides the three services and ten full and verse anthems printed by Boyce, nineteen of his choral productions have been preserved in Dr. Tudway’s ms collection and in Dr. Aldrich’s collection in Christ church, there are five more. He appears to have been a composer of anthems, even while a singing-boy in the chapel royal. His secular compositions were published in a folio volume in 1700, under the title of “Amphion Anglicus,” in imitation of Purcell’s collection, the “Orpheus Britannicus,” but are deemed considerably inferior. Some of his choral productions are in a very bold and grand style, yet he is unequal and frequently unhappy in his attempts at new harmony and composition. Dr. Burney has given a very elaborate criticism on all his works, accompanied by specimens on plates, by which it appears that he was either defective in some of the qualifications of a great composer, or careless and inaccurate.

, a German poet, was born at Rathenau, in the March of Brandenburgh, Nov. 17, 1739. He studied at Brandenburgh, Berlin, and Francfort on the Oder, and appears to have been intended either for the church or the bar, but preferred philosophy and polite literature, which he cultivated with success, under Ramler and Alexander Baumgarten, and afterwards devoted himself to a retired life in his own country. His first publication, “Lyric Poems,” published at Berlin in 1765, procured him very high reputation and was followed, in 1776, by another volume of Idylls and miscellaneous pieces, in a style of poetry, simple, pure, original, and elegant. In 1785 appeared an additional volume, which contributed to support the character he had acquired. In prose he published what were called “Walks,” moral and critical, and a “Dictionary of German proverbs,” Leipsic, 1782, with their explanations and origin. He died at Rathenau, Aug. 28, 1790, leaving the character of an amiable and virtuous man, beloved by all who knew him, and esteemed by his countrymen as one of the best of their modern poets, although perhaps not belonging to the first class.

, a Theatine, was born at London of French parents, Dec. 4, 1638, and became celebrated for his acquirements both in sacred and profane learning. Having gone to Portugal, he learned the language of that country in six months, and preached several times before the king and queen. He was also admitted into the academy, and appointed to an office in the inquisition. His biographers tell us that when in England he had been chaplain or preacher to Henrietta Maria queen to Charles I. forgetting that he could not be ten years old when that unhappy princess was expatriated. He died at Lisbon, Feb. 13, 1734, in the ninety-fifth year of his age. On the 28th of the same month his eloge was pronounced in the academy, and two learned doctors gravely discussed the question, “whether England was most honoured in. his birth, or Portugal in his death r” On the same occasion various pieces both in Latin and Portuguese were recited to his memory. His works, which must justify this high panegyric, are, 1. “A Vocabulary or Dictionary, Portuguese and Latin,” Coimbra, 1712 1728, 10 vols. folio, including a supplement in 2 vols. Moraes de Silva compiled from this voluminous work a good Portuguese Dictionary, printed at Lisbon, 1789, 2 vols. 4to. 2. “Oraculum utriusque Testament!, musseum Bluteavianum.” 3. “A List of all Dictionaries, Portuguese, Castilian, Italian, French, and Latin,” with the dates, &c. Lisbon, 1728, and printed in the supplement to his Dictionary. 4. Sermons and panegyrics, under the title “Primicias Evangelicas,” 1685, 4to.

, Boudicea, or Bonduca, a renowned British queen of the first century, was the wife of Prasatagus, king of the Iceni (the inhabitants of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge, and Huntingdonshires), who in order to secure the friendship and protection of Nero to his wife and family, left the emperor and his daughters co-heirs. But as soon as he was dead, the emperor’s officers seized upon his effects in their master’s name. Boadicea, widow of the deceased king, strongly remonstrated against these unjust proceedings but her complaints only exposed her to farther wrongs and injuries, which she resented in such terms, as provoked the officers to treat her in the most barbarous manner; they caused her to be publicly scourged, and her daughters to be ravished.

This story soon spread through the island, and the public indignation was so generally raised, that all, excepting London, agreed to revolt. The Roman historians themselves acknowledge, that the violence and injustice of the emperor’s officers gave the Britons sufficient reason to lay aside their private animosities, and while they aided the queen to revenge her wrongs, to recover their own liberty. Accordingly she put herself at their head, and earnestly exhorted them to take advantage of the absence of the Roman general, then in the isle of Man, by putting these foreign oppressors all to the sword. They readily embraced the proposal and attacking the Romans wherever they found them, massacred all without distinction of age or sex and it is said that seventy thousand perished on this occasion. In the mean time, Suetonius Paulinus, the Roman general, suddenly returning, marched against the revolted Britons, who had an army of 100,000, or, according to Dio CassiuS, 230,000 men, under the conduct of Boadicea. The tine person of Boadicea, fair and dignified, and her undaunted courage, inspired the most ardent hopes. Paulinus, likewise, was in great perplexity the ninth legion had been defeated by the enemy, and Poenius Posthumus, at the head of a large detachment of the second, refused to join him; so that he had the choice but of two expedients, either to march with his army, not exceeding 10,000, into the open field against his numerous enemies, or shut himself up in some town and wait for them. At first he chose the latter, and remained in London, but soon altered his resolution and instead of retiring from the Br.tons, who were now on the march towards him, he resolved to meet them. The field of battle he pitched upon was a narrow tract of ground, facing a large plain, where they encamped, and his rear was secured by a forest. The Britons traversed the plain in large bodies, exulting in their numbers; and, secure of victory, had brought their wives and children in waggons to be spectators of their actions in the battle, placing them round their entrenchments.

Boadicea, in the mean time, was not idle, but mounting her chariot, with her two daughters, rode up and down, through the several squadrons of her army, whom she addressed to the following effect “That it was not the first time the Britons had been victorious, under the conduct of their queen. That, for her part, she came not there as one descended of royal blood, to fight for empire or riches, but as one of the common people, to avenge the loss of their liberty, and the wrongs of herself and children. That the wickedness of the Romans was come to its height and that the gods had already begun to punish them so that, instead of being able to withstand the attack of a victorious army, the very shouts of so many thousands would put them to flight. That if the Britons would but consider the number of their forces, or the motives of the war, they would resolve to vanquish or die. That it was much better to fall honourably in defence of liberty, than. be again exposed to the outrages of the Romans. Such at least was her resolution as for the men, they might, if they pleased, live and be slaves.” At the end of her speech she is said to have let loose a hare, which she had concealed, as an omen of victory.

While Boadicea thus laboured to animate her Britons to behave with their wonted bravery, Paulinus was no less assiduous in preparing his troops for the encounter. The Britons expected his soldiers to be daunted at their number, but when they saw them advance with short steps, sword in hand, without discovering any fear, their hearts began to fail them, and they fell into disorder, which continually increased, it not being in the power of their commanders to lead them back to the charge. The Romans observing their consternation, pushed the advantage with great fury, and threw their army into a confusion past the possibility of recovery. They gave no quarter, and 80,000 of the Britons perished. Boadicea herself escaped falling into the hands of the conquerors but, unable to survive the remembrance of this terrible defeat, either fell a victim to despair or poison. This battle was fought in the year 61.

, a Dutchman, and physician to the state in Ireland, in 1649, desesves some notice here, as being the first inquirer into the natural history of Ireland, of which he published an account. He lived to hold his post of physician to the state only eight months, dying either in 1649 or 1650, but compiled part of it some years before he went over, from materials furnished by sir William and sir Richard Parsons, and his own brother, Dr. Arnold Boate, who practised physic eight years at Dublin, and spent some months with him at London, in his way to Paris, in 1644, instructing him how to improve certain forfeited lands he had purchased in Leinster and Ulster. The title of his book is “Ireland’s Natural History, &c.” published by Samuel Hartlib, esq. “for the common good of Ireland, and more especially for the benefit of the adventurers and planters therein,” Lond. 1652, 12mo. Although some of his accounts are imperfect, and his topographical errors numerous, it is wonderful that a stranger should have accomplished so much, and at least run away with the honour of laying the foundation of the natural history of Ireland. He intended a second and a third book of the vegetables and animals, and a fourth of the natives, their old fashions, laws, and customs, and the attempts of their English conquerors to civilize and improve both them and their country, which his brother, in his letter to Hartlib, promised to publish. What he published was afterwards incorporated into a Natural History of Ireland, by several hands, 1736, reprinted 1755, with a new preface and index of chapters, 4to. Boate’s book was translated into French by Briot, and published at Paris 1666, 12mo. We have no farther account of his history; but Weston, in his catalogue of English writers on husbandry, says that his true name was Beats.

, a German horticulturist, who came to England about the middle of the seventeenth century, was appointed first superintendant of the physic-garden at Oxford, founded in 1632 by Henry earl of Danby. Some writers call him doctor, and some professor of botany, but he was neither, nor was there any professor, properly so called, before Dillenius. The “Catalogus -Plantarum” in this garden, published at Oxford in 1648, 12mo, was drawn up by Bobart, and is a very favourable proof of his zeal and diligence. Under his care and that of his son, the garden at Oxford continued to flourish for many years. The old man, according to Wood, lived in the gardenhouse, and died there Feb. 4, 1679, aged eighty-one. Mr. Granger relates an anecdote that “on rejoicing days old Bobart used to have his beard tagged with silver.” He left two sons, Jacob and Tillemant, who were both employed in the physi-garden. Jacob, who seems to have been a man of some learning, published the second volume of Morison’s “Oxford history of Plants,” 1699, fol. Of him too, an anecdote is told which implies somewhat of a humourous disposition. He had transformed a dead rat into the feigned figure of a dragon, which imposed upon the learned so far, that “several fine copies of verses were wrote on so rare a subject.” Bobart afterwards owned the cheat but it was preserved for some years, as a master-piece of art. Dr. Pulteney thinks Bobart was alive in 1704; but he appears to have lived considerably longer, as Dr. Abel Evans dedicated “Vertumnus,” a poetical epistle, to him in 1713. A descendant of this family, Tillemant Bobart, is still well known to all who wish for civil treatment and a safe carriage on the road to Oxford.

, one of the most eminent Italian poets and scholars, and one of the revivers of literature in Europe, was born in 1313. His father was a merchant of Florence, when to be a merchant was the first of situations, and his family was originally of Certaldo, a village about twenty miles from Florence, which accounts for Boccaccio always adding to his name the words “da Certaldo.” He was not, therefore, the son of a peasant, as reported by some biographers, but it cannot be denied that he was the fruit of an illicit connection which his father formed at Paris, where he happened to be on commercial 'business, and where this son was born, and it appears, likewise, that his father was not very rich. Being, however, brought early to Florence, his education commenced there, and he is said to hav e evinced a decided attachment to poetry before he was ten years old, about which time his father placed him in a merchant’s counting-house, to learn- arithmetic and book-keeping, that he might be the sooner enabled to provide for him among his connections. Some years after, this merchant took him to Paris, where he went to set up in business, and for six years, during which Boccaccio resided in his house, endeavoured to reconcile him to trade; but finding after every experiment, either by persuasion or constraint, that this was impossible, he at length sent him home to his father.

At Florence, as at Paris, Boccaccio’s time was divided between mercantile employment, to which he had a fixed dislike, and his taste for literature, which he contrived to indulge whenever possible. This became more easy at Naples, where his father had sent him in 1333, that he might be detached entirely from his studies, and acquire a zest for commercial pursuits; but here, during a residence of eight years, instead of giving his company only to merchants, he formed an acquaintance with the most eminent men of letters, both Neapolitans and Florentines, who lived there under the liberal patronage of king Robert. There is no reason, however, to suppose that Boccaccio profited by this monarch’s bounty, but he appears to have acquired the good graces of one of the king’s natural daughters, a married lady, for whom he composed several pieces both in prose and verse, and whom, he often mentions un ier the name of Fiammetta. Generally admired for his personal accomplishments, wit, and. spirit, and happy in his attachment to a king’s daughter, it is not very surprising that the fulfilment of his father’s wishes as to trade should become more and more difficult. The taste which his mistress had for poetry, his acquaintance with men of letters, the deep impression made on his mind by an accidental view of Virgil’s tomb, the presence of the celebrated Petrarch, who was received with the highest distinction at the court of Naples, in 1341, and who was about to receive the same honours at Rome, and the acquaintance Boccaccio had formed with him, all contributed, with his natural bent, to decide irrevocably that he should be a scholar and a poet. On his return to Naples, after a residence of two years with his father at Florence, he was favourably received by the queen, who now reigned in the room of her deceased husband, and it is said that it was to please her, as well as his beloved Fiammetta, that he began to write the “Decameron,” which unquestionably places him. in the first rank of Italian prose writers. In the mean time, his father finding it impossible to resist his inclination for literature, ceased to urge him more on the subject of trade, and only conditioned with him that he should study the canon law. Boccaccio endeavoured to please him, but found the Decretals worse than the ledger and the day-book, and returned with fresh ardour to the muses and the classics, studying to acquire a purer Latin style than hitherto, and to add t& his treasures a knowledge of the Greek. This he learned partly in Calabria, where he frequently went, or in Naples, where he had formed an intimacy with Paul of Perugia, an able Greek grammarian, and librarian to king Robert. He studied also mathematics, astronomy, or rather astrology, under a celebrated Genoese, Andelone del Nero, and even paid some attention to the outlines of theology, but it does not appear that he went much farther.

On the death of his father, being entirely at liberty, and with some little property, to pursue his inclination, he first settled at Florence, where his studies were interrupted only by his pleasures, and some very honourable employments confided to him by his fellow citizens. Among others, one must have been peculiarly gratifying to him. This was his being sent to Padua in 1350, to announce to Petrarch the news of his recall, and the restitution of his father’s property, who had formerly been banished from Florence, and died in exile. Such an errand had a natural tendency to cement their friendship, Some years after, when Boccaccio had spent his little property, partly in purchasing books, and partly in gratifying his taste for pleasure, he found in Petrarch a friend, who, besides assisting his wants, gave him such affectionate and judicious advice as produced a very salutary change in his conduct. Before this, while suffering under the reflections of his follies, in 1361, a friar had persuaded him to renounce the world, and all that could be called profane learning. The fact seems to have been, that Boccaccio, in his Decamerone, which first appeared in 1353, had satirized the licentious lives of the monks, and this friar came to him with a story of his having seen a vision, and being commissioned to warn him of his danger, if he did not renounce his sins, and burn his Decamerone: and Boccaccio was so alarmed, that he actually put on the ecclesiastical habit, (for which, as being a natural son, he was obliged to apply to the pope for a dispensation) and resumed the study of theology; but he soon found that this was too late, and too averse from his habits, and he therefore had recourse to Petrarch, who persuaded him to remove to Certaldo, where he had a small estate, and pursue his literary labours in that retirement.

Before this time, all his works, and they only works of amusement, were written in Italian, but now he began to compose on the subjects of literature aud history in Latin, and one of these treatises was the first modern work that gave any account of the mythological notions of the antients. We have already noticed that he was well acquainted with Greek, and brought with him, at his own expense, from Venice to Florence, Leontius Pilatus of Thessalonica, and entertained him in his house for three years. During this time he improved his knowledge of Greek, and Leontius went over the Iliad and Odyssey with him, translating it into Latin. Boccaccio wa_s the first who was at the expence of importing from Greece Mss. of both the Iliad and Odyssey, among many other valuable Mss. both Greek and Latin, by which he endeavoured to introduce a taste for these valuable remains of antiquity, and particularly for the Greek authors, in preference to the scholastic studies, which alone were at this time pursued in the schools.

It must be confessed, however, tuat Boccaccio was not critically skilled in the Greek. For want of lexicons and grammars, he was obliged to content himself with the general sense of what he read, and did not acquire that accurate knowledge, which distinguished the scholars of the two succeeding centuries. Still his acquisitions and his zeal entitle him to high praise, and he was the means of establishing a sort of Greek colony at Florence, at a time when that language was an absolute stranger in all the schools and universities of Europe.

While at Certaldo, he was not forgot. The high character he had already attained induced the republic of Florence to send him on two embassies to pope Urban V. which he accomplished to their satisfaction, but after his return to Certaldo, he experienced a long illness, which left a great degree of langour and dejection. Recovering, however, from this, he took upon him an employment peculiarly gratifying to him in every respect. He had always been a great admirer of Dante, had often copied his works, and inew them almost by heart. The Florentines, who had persecuted and banished that celebrated poet, were now disposed to make some reparation, by instituting, by a decree of the senate, a professorship for lectures on his poems, and Boccaccio was appointed to this new chair. How much he was delighted in an employment, not only highly honourable, but congenial to his habits, may easily be conceived. The pains he took, however, retarded his recovery from his late illness, and the death of Petrarch, of which he was at this time informed, appears tohave'hastened his own. He became more and more weak, and did not survive his illustrious friend and master above a year, dying at Certaldo, Dec. 21, 1375. He was buried there in the church of St. James and St. Philip, and the following inscription, written by himself, was engraven on his tomb

In person he is described, as inclining to corpulence, but his stature was portly, his face round, with a nose a little depressed above the nostrils, his lips somewhat full, but nevertheless handsome and well-formed, his chin dimpled and beautiful when he smiled, his aspect jocund and gay, and his discourse agreeable and polished.

A short time before his death he made his will, bequeathing what property he had to his two nephews, the sons of James, his elder brother. The most valuable legacy, however, was that of his books, which were almost all copies by his own hand, or collected at great expence. These he left to one father Martin, an Augustine, who was his executor, and in this perhaps his adviser, with a view that they might become the property of his convent., They were, however, lost to the world. A celebrated scholar, Niccolo Niccoli, in the succeeding century, built in that convent a library for the express purpose of preserving Boccaccio’s books, but time destroyed them and it. It has been remarked as somewhat singular, that in this will, Boccaccio makes no mention of a natural son he had in his youth, and who was settled at Florence, yet this young man superintended his funeral, and caused the above inscription to be engraven on his tomb. He was universally regretted at Florence, where, in his poverty, he had not met with very liberal attentions. Verses, however, are more easily bestowed than money, and the poets of the time, particularly Sachetti, hastened with their contributions to his memory. Two medals also were struck, and twenty years afterwards, the republic wishing to pay higher honour to him as well as to Dante and Petrarch, deliberated on a magnificent monument to be erected to the three great ornaments of their country in the church of St. Maria del Fiore, but this was never carried into execution.

The predominant passion of Boccaccio, in youth, was the love of pleasure tempered by that of study; as he advanced in age, study became his sole delight. He had no ambition either for rank or fortune. The public employments confided to him came unasked, and when he could lay them down, he did so. He was equally averse to any domestic employments which were likely to take up much of his time, and would accept of no private tutorships, which so often eventually promote a man’s interest. His character was frank and open, but not without a degree of pride, which, however, particularly when he was in low circumstances, kept him from mean compliances. With respect to his talents, it is eviuent that he had always made a false estimate of them he had the fullest confidence in his poetical powers, yet nothing he wrote in verse rises above mediocrity, and many of his prose Italian writings desefve no higher praise. He is superior and inimitable only in his tales, on which he did not pride himself, nor indeed set any value. He fell into the same error with his master Petrarch in supposing that his serious Latin works would be the source of his fame, which he owes entirely to his Tales, as Petrarch owes his to his love-verses. All his Latin writings are crude and hasty. * In them, says Paul Cortesius, “he labours with thought, and struggles to give it utterance but his sentiments find no adequate vehicle, and the lustre of his native talents is obscured by the depraved taste of the times.” In his youth, he was flattered as having obtained the second place in poetry, his admiration for Dante not permitting him to aspire to the first, and the sonnets of Petrarch were not yet known. It is to his honour, however, that as soon us he saw the latter, he threw into the fire the greater part of his lyric compositions, sonnets, canzoni, &e. and seems to have determined to apply himself entirely to the perfection of Italian prose, in which it must be confessed he has succeeded admirably. As a recent event has rendered some of Boccaccio’s writings an object, of research among collectors, we shall enter somewhat more fully than is usual into a detail of their editions. Among his Latin works, we have, 1. “De genealogia Deorum lib. XV. De montium, sylvarum, lucuum, fluviorum, stagnorum, et marium nominibus, liber.” These two were first printed together in folio without date, but supposed to be at Venice, and. anterior to 1472, in which year appeared the second edition, at Venice, with that date. The third was published at the same place in 1473, and followed by others at Reggio, Vincenza, Venice, Paris, and Basle, which last, in 1532, is accompanied with notes and supplements. This account of the genealogy of the Gods, or the heathen mythology, must have been the fruit of immense reading, and as no information on the subject existed then, a high value was placed on it, although it has been since superseded by more recent and accurate works. He has been very unjustly accused of quoting authors no where else to be found, as if he had invented their names, but it is surely more reasonable to think they might be known in his days, although their memory has since perished, or that he might have been himself deceived. This same work, translated into Italian by Joseph Betussi, has gone through twelve or thirteen edi-. tions, the first, of Venice, 1547, 4to. There are -also two French translations, the first anonymous, Paris, 1498, fol. and 1531, also in fol. the second by Claude Wittard, Paris, 1578, 8vo. The lesser book, or Dictionary of the names of mountains, forests, &c. was also translated into Italian by Niccolo Liburnio, and printed in 4to. without date or place, but there is a second edition at Florence, 1598, 8vo. 2. “De casibus Virorum et Foeminarum illustrium libri IX.” Paris, 1535, 1544, fol. and at Vincenza the same year translated into Italian by Betussi, Venice, 1545, 8vo, and often reprinted. But there must have been an edition long previous to the oldest of these, as we find it translated into English in 1494, by John Lydgate, monk of Edmundsbury, at the commandment of Humphrey duke of Gloucester, under the title of “John Boccace of the Fall of Princes and Princesses.” It has likewise been translated and often reprinted in French, Spanish, and German. The first of the Spanish translations is dated Seville, 1495, and the first of the French was printed at Bruges in 1476, folio, then at Paris, 1483, at Lyons the same year, and again at Paris in 1494, 1515, folio, and 1578, 8vo. 3. “De claris Mulieribus.” The first edition of this is without place or date, in the black letter the second is that of Ulm, 1473, fol. followed by those of Louvain and Berne from 1484 to 1539. Of this work the Italians have two translations, one by Vincent Bagli, a Florentine, Venice, 1506, 4to; the other by Betussi, who prefixed a life of Boccaccio, Venice, 1545, and 1547, 8vo. The first edition of the Spanish translation is dated Seville, 1528, fol. That of the German translation is dated Augsburgh, 1471, and was followed by one at Ulm, 1473, 4to. The French have two translations, the oldest 1493, fol. 4. “Eclogae,” sixteen in number, and printed with those of Virgil, Calphurnius, &c. Florence, 1504, 8vo. They are also inserted in the “Bucolicorum auctorcs,” Basil, 1546, 8vo. Like Petrarch, he introduces the events of his time in these eclogues, with the principal personages under fictitious names, but he has furnished us with a key to these in a letter to P. Martin de Signa, his confessor, of which Manni has givdn an extract in his history of the Decameron. His Italian works in verse are, 5. “La Teseide,” the first attempt at an epic in Italian, and written in the ottava rima, or heroic verse, of which Boccaccio is considered as the inventor; printed at Ferrara, 1475, fol. Venice, 1528, 4to, and translated into French, 1597, 12mo. 6. “Amorosa visione,” Milan, 1520 and 1521, 4to, and with grammatical observations and an apology for Boccaccio by Claricio d'Lmola, Venice, 1531, 8vo. This singular poem is divided into fifty cantos or chapters, which contain five triumphs, namely those of wisdom, glory, riches, love, and fortune, written in the terza rima, with a curious contrivance, gratifying to the bad taste of the times, by which the initial letters of each stanza are made to compose an acrostic in praise of the princess Mary, whom elsewhere he celebrates under the name of Fiammetta. 7. “II Filastrato,” a poetical romance in heroic verse, the hero of which is young Troilus, the son of Priam, and the subject, his amours with Chryseis, whom the poet does not make the daughter of Chryses, but of Calchas. Of this there are four editions Bologna, 1498, 4to, Milan, 1499, 4to, Venice 1501 and 1528, 4to. 8. “Nimfale Fiesolano.” It is thought that in this poem Boccaccio has concealed, under the disguise of a pastoral fiction, an amorous adventure which happened in his time in the environs of Florence. The first edition is in 4to. without place or date; the second is of Venice 1477, and was followed by many others at Venice and Florence, and one recently of Paris, 1778, 12mo. It was translated into French by Anthony Guercin du Crest, and printed at Lyons, 1556, 16mo. 9. “Rime,” or miscellaneous poems. We have noticed that he burned the greater part of his minor poems, but those which were dispersed in manuscript in various hands, have been often collected, and the publication of them announced. M. Baldelli, who has since, in 1806, published a good life of Boccaccio, collected all of these poems he could find, and printed them at Leghorn, 1802, 8vo.

Of his Italian works in prose, we may notice, 10. “Il Filocopo, owero amorosa fatica, &c.” a romance written by our author when very young, defective in interest, and altogether so in style, when compared with what he wrote afterwards. The first edition of this romance is without place or date the others, which are all rare, are those of Venice, 1472, Florence, 1472, Milan 1476 and 1478, all in fol. Venice, 1514, 4to, and often reprinted during the same century, and twice translated into French, Paris, 1542, fol. &c. 11. “L'Ammorosa Fiammetta,” another romance not much more valuable than the preceding. Fiammetta, as we have already noticed, is the princess Mary of whom he was enamoured, and Pamphile, whose absence she is made deeply to regret, was himself. Whether this was a real or a poetical amour is not very clear. The romance was first published without date or place, in 4to, but is supposed to have appeared at Padua, with a Latin title, and, at the end of the volume, the date of 1472; the second, which has not the place, is dated 1480, 4to, and was followed by others in the sixteenth century at Florence, Venice, &c. and a French and Spanish translation, often reprinted. 12. “L'Urbano,” Florence, 1598, 8vo, translated into French under the title “Urbain le Mescogneu,” Lyons, without date, 4to, black letter, was a piece which Boccaccio is said to have written to divert his melancholy for the death of his friend Petrarch, but Mazzuchelli and other critics consider it as spurious. 13. “Ameto, or Nimfale d'Ameto,” written with a mixture of prose and verse, is supposed to relate to a real adventure concealed under a poetical allegory. It has gone through a great number of editions, Rome and Venice, 1478, 4to; Trevisa, 1479, 4to Venice, 1503, fol. Rome, 1520, 4to; Florence, 1521, 8vo. 14. “II Corbaccio, o sia Laberinto d'Amore,” a very bitter and indecent satire on a female who had given him some offence after his return to Florence. In spite of the licentiousness of this work, the style has recommended it to the curious, but we doubt whether this was the cause of its passing through so many editions: Florence, 1487, 4to, Venice, 1516, 24mo, &c. &c. and a valuable edition, Paris, 1569, 8vo, by Corbinelli, with a preface and notes. Belleforest translated it into French, Paris, 1571, 1573, and there was a second translation or imitation, by Premont, entitled “Songe de Boccace, ou de Labyrinthe d' Amour,” Paris, 1699, &c. in which the editor has abridged so much, and added so much, that it can scarcely be called Boccaccio’s work. 15. “Origine Vitaet costumi di Dante Alighieri,” Rome, 1544, 8vo, Florence, 1576, 8vo. lit this life of Dante we have many anecdotes not elsewhere to be found, but the author upon, the whole inclines too much to the romantic to attend sufficiently to the strict veracity of the biographer yet the purity of the style recommends it, and the affection and sincerity with which he praises Dante, form, perhaps, a curiosity, from one who had the ambition to be placed so near him. This is naturally connected with 16. “Commento sopra la Commedia di Dante Alighieri,” a valuable work, not only for style, but for the many difficult passages of Dante which are admirably illustrated, although it must be confessed they are at the same time intermixed with much matter that has very little connection with the text. It was an abridgement of the lectures which he gave at Florence, when attacked with the disorder which shortened his days, and was not printed until th;e last century. It extends only to the 17th chapter of the Inferno, and forms the two last volumes of the edition of Boccaccio’s prose works (with the exception of the Decameron) published at Naples (with the false title of Florence), in 1724, 5 vols. 8vo. Lastly, we come to his 17. “II Decamerone,” the work on which his fame is permanently established, and which, of all works, it is difficult to characterize in few words. The assertion, that the greater part of the hundred novels which it contains are taken from the ancient French writers of tales, only shows that those who maintain this opinion are not acquainted either with these writers, or with the Decamerone, of which, at most, ten of the stories only are imitated from the French Fabliaux, or taken from the same remote sources, and it is equally unjust to consider them merely as a collection of amorous and licentious stories. The greater part of the poets, indeed, who have stolen from him have stolen only what is of this obnoxious description, and therefore easily brought a reproach on the whole. Boccaccio, in this work, depicts, as on a vast canvass, men of all conditions, all characters and all ages and events of every kind, comic and serious. He exhibits models of every species of eloquence, and carries the purity and elegance of the Italian language to a degree of perfection unknown before his time. Perhaps few works of the kind have ever been so popular. For more than three centuries it has gone through repeated editions, of which an hundred at least may be mentioned, and his biographer very properly asks, what criticism can stand against this fact

In order to appreciate these editions, it is necessary to advert to the fate of this extraordinary work in the press. For about a century, it was circulated in manuscript, and liberties of every kind were taken at every transcription. At length it was printed for the first time, as has been supposed, in 1470, and run through various editions to the end of the fifteenth, and for more than sixty years of the sixteenth century. During this period it was prohibited by the popqs Paul IV. and Pius IV. who were in this respect more scrupulous than their twenty-five or twenty-six predecessors in the papal chair. Two grand dukes of Tuscany, Cosmo I. and Francis I. applied one after the other to two other popes, Pius V. and Gregory XIII. in consequence of which the academicians were employed to reform the Decameron important corrections were made, and many passages suppressed, and in this state various editions were permitted to be printed. But with respect to the ancient editions, it is now necessary to observe that there are two opinions, which we shall state, without attempting to reconcile. We have already noticed that the first edition has been supposed to have been printed in 1470, without a date but on the other hand, it is contended that the edition of 1471, by Valdarfer, is not only the first with a date (which those who maintain the existence of the edition of 1470 are disposed to allow), but that in fact there was no previous edition. Those who are of this latter opinion very naturally ask their antagonists to produce the edition of 1470, or an edition without date that can be supposed of that period. In England it is certain that no such edition is known but the French bibliographers seem to be of a different opinion. Ginguene 1 to whom we are indebted for the greater part of this life of Boccaccio, who has written the literary history of Italy, and is considered in France, we apprehend justly, as their first critic and bibliographer in Italian literature this writer speaks of the first edition without a date in the following terms “Elle est sans date et sans nom de lieu ni d'imprimeur, in-fol. en caracteres inegaux et mal formes.” (Hist. Litt. d'ltalie, vol. III. p. 129). It remains, therefore, for the reader to determine whether this is the language of a man who has seen the book, and describes what he has seen; and if this be decided in the affirmative, the existence of the edition is proved, as far as his authority goes. But it must be confessed Ginguene goes no fa ther. He says nothing of any library which possesses this treasure, nor of its supposed value but when he comes to speak of Valdarfer’s edition of 1471, he informs us that it- has been valued by bibliomaniacs (bibliomanes) at 3000 francs, or 125l. And this brings us to notice the copy of this edition recently sold from the duke of Roxburgh’s library, to the marquis of Blandford, for the immense (and with respect to the value of books, the unprecedented) sum of Two Thousand Two Hundred And Sixty Pounds. In the catalogue of this library, it is stated that “no other perfect copy is yet known to exist, after all the fruitless researches of more than three hundred years;” but, notwithstanding this, we find that the French bibliographers set a value on the edition, as if copies, however rare, were still occasionally to be found. We cannot suppose that the French booksellers or collectors would fix a price-current on an article which had not been seen, for three hundred years, still less that our authority is speaking of imperfect copies, the value of which can only be estimated by the quantum of imperfection. It remains also to be noticed that the French bibliographers speak precisely with the same familiarity of the Junti edition of Florence, 1527, 4to, which they value at 600 francs, or 25l. and which sold at the Roxburgh sale for 29 1. no great advance upon the French price. They certainly speak both of this edition, and of the 1471, as of rare occurrence, but by no means hint that the latter is of that extreme rarity imputed to it in this country.

The third edition,of Mantua, 1472, fol. Salviati thinks the best of all the early editions, the scarcity of which may now be accounted for by the following extraordinary fact. As soon as they appeared, and became generally read, the monks who felt that much of the satire was directed against them, issued their anathemas and prohibitions and in 1497, Savonarola excited the abhorrence of the Florentines to such a degree, that they collected all the Decamerons, Dantes, and Petrarchs they could find, and burnt them together the last day of the carnival. It is of importance to notice that, of the edition of 1527, a very well executed counterfeit was printed at Venice in 1729, with the date of Florence 1527 at the end. The next valuable edition is that corrected by the academicians of Florence, by order of the grand duke, and with the approbation of pope Gregory XIII. and published at Florence by the Junti, 1573, 4to. Longuerue observes that it is a curious thing to see at the head of this edition a privilege of Gregory XIII. who says, that in this he follows the steps of Pius V. his predecessor of blessed memory, and which threatens with severe punishments, all those who shall dare to give any disturbance to those booksellers to whom this privilege is granted. There is also a decree of the inquisition in favour of this edition. The edition of Salviati, which was also subjected to reform, Venice, 1584, 4to, maybe consulted with the preceding for the sake of the curious corrections and amendments introduced; and perhaps the reader may discover a great difference in the purity of the style between the original and the reformed part. With respect to the translations of the Decameron, they are too numerous, and in general too unimportant, for a particular detail. Every nation has its Decameron, but as the purpose of the translators was mere amusement, they seem to have been little anxious about the author’s reputation. The English editions particularly have conveyed his Tales in a most vulgar and ungraceful style. They were first translated in 1566, by "William Paynter, and have been often reprinted since in various forms the best, we think, was an edition in two volumes, Loud. 1804, 8vo, in which the editor has taken much pains in repressing the licentiousness of our author, and has omitted entirely those tales which could not be rendered proper for general perusal. In a critical view, however, the work must be allowed to be the production of a great genius. The generality of the beaux esprits in. Italy agree that the Decameron is the best book in their language, at least in point of style. It is surely very remarkable that Boccaccio should' carry a barbarous language to its perfection all at once a language left entirely to the people, and which had orly a small part of its rust rubbed off by the immortal Dante.

, an artist who flourished about 1496-, is among the Cremonese, what Griilandajo, Mantegna, Vannucci, Francia, arc in their respective schools the best modern among the ancients, and the best ancient among the moderns. He was the master of Garofalo before his journey to Rome in 1500. The birth of the Madonna with other histories of her life, and that of the Saviour in the frieze of the Dnotno at Cremona, are works of Boccaccino. The style is partly original, partly approaches that of Pietro Perugino less co-ordinate in composition, less agreeable in the airs of the heads, weaker in chiaroscuro hut richer in drapery, more varied in colour, more spirited in attitudes, and perhaps not less harmonious or pleasing in landscape and architecture. His great defect is the short and stumpy appearance which an immoderate load of drapery often gives to his figures. It is probable that he was at Rome, as Vasari pretends that he there reviled the works of Michael Angelo and what followed, as related by the same historian, admits of too much doubt to deserve attention. He died, according to Vasari, in 1518, aged fifty-eight. His son, Ca.Millo Boccaccino, was born at Cremona, in 1511, where he received the first instructions in the art of painting from his father and for some time he was obliged to conform himself to the -style and manner of his instructor. But he determined to quit that hard dry manner of colouring, to which he had been accustomed, and by degrees assumed a style of colour equally remarkable for its suavity and strength. The best remaining specimens of his art are in the church of St. Sigismondo, at Cremona; where, among the Four Evangelists, the figure of St. John, bent upwards in contrast with the arched vault, in boldness of foreshortening and truth of perspective, emulates the style of Correggio. He died very young, at a time when there was a great expectation of his arriving at very high perfection, in 1546.

, an eminent literary lady of France, and a member of the academies of Rome, Bologna, Padua, Lyons, and Rouen, was born at Rouen, Oct. 22, 1710. She was educated at Paris in the convent of the Assumption, where she made a very rapid progress in every branch of education. At a very early age, she studied the English language, that she might be enabled to transfuse the beauties of Pope’s Temple of Fame into French but she concealed her performance for many years, nor did it appear till 1764, in the collection of her works. She had, however, given an ample proof of her poetical talents in 1746, by gaining the first prize givea by the academy of Rouen, which was founded the year preceding by the duke of Luxembourg. This procured her the homage and the society of the most eminent nits and scholars of the day. From this time she published nothing without her name. Having acquired an uncommon relish for the “Paradise Lost” of Milton, she endeavoured to translate a part of it into French, and was highly complimented by Voltaire on her success. She imitated also, but with much more success and more ease, Gesner’s “Death of Abel.” In 1749, her tragedy of “The Amazons” was represented on one of the Paris stages with considerable applause: but her fame rests principally on an epic poem, entitled “The Columbiad, or Discovery of America,” in ten cantos, which procured her the highest reputation at that time from the critics of her own country, although the execution is very far from corresponding with the magnitude of the undertaking.

In 1750, she set out on her travels through England, Holland, and Italy, and published the result of them in “Letters” on her return. Her personal appearance procured her friends and admirers wherever she went, and when she again took up her residence in France, her house became the rendezvous of the most distinguished men of genius of the age, all of whom she survived. She indeed outlived two ages of literature, the latter of which was shortened by the horrors of revolutionary cruelty, from which by some means she was enabled to escape. She died Aug. 1802, at the very advanced age of ninety-two. In early life she was married to a financier, who left her a very young and beautiful widow. Her private character is represented as exceedingly amiable, and her accomplishments, taste, manners, as of the highest order but modern French critics seem not disposed to allot her so high a rank among the votaries of the muses, as her content poraries did and her works, it must be confessed, have not been of late years in much request, there having been, no edition called for since that of 1770, 3 vols. 8vo, A very indifferent translation of her “Letters concerning England, Holland, and Italy,” was published at London in that year, 2 vols. 12ino.

, a satirical wit, was born at Loretto in 1556, the son of an architect of a Roman family, about the beginning of the seventeenth century. The method he took to indulge his turn for satire, or rather plot of his publications, was the idea that Apollo, holding his courts Oh Parnassus, heard the complaints of the wholeworld, and gave judgment as the case required. He was received into the academies of Italy, where he gained great applause by his political discourses, and his elegant criticisms. The cardinals Borghese and Cajetan having declared themselves his patrons, he published his “News from Parnassus/' and” Apollo’s Secretary,“a continuation which being well received, he proceeded further, and printed his” Pietra di Paragone“wherein he attacks the court of Spain, setting forth their designs against the liberty of Italy, and inveighing particularly against themfor the tyranny they exercised in the kingdom of Naples. The Spaniards complained of him in form, and were determined at any rate to be revenged. Boccalini was frightened, and retired to Venice. Some time after he was murdered in a surprising manner. He lodged with one of his friends, who having got up early one morning, left Boccalini in bed; when a minute after four armed men entered his chamber, and gave him so many blows with bags full of sand that they left him for dead so that his friend, upon his return, found him unable to utter one word. Great search was made at Venice for the authors of this murder and though they were never discovered, yet it was universally believed that they were set to work. by the court of Spain. This story, however, has been called in question by Mazzuchelli, and seems indeed highly improbable at least it can by no means stand upon its present foundation. His attacking the court of Spain in his” Pietra di Paragone,“is said to have been the cause of his murder but another cause, if he really was murdered, must be sought, for he died, by whatever means, Nov. 10, 1613, and the” Pietra“was not published until two years after that event. It appears likewise from one of his letters, that he had kept the manuscript a profound secret, communicating it only to one confidential frienc!, to whom the above letter was written. Besides, the register of the parish in which he died, mentions that on Nov. 10, 1613, the signor Trajan Boccalini died at the age of fiftyseven, of a cholic accompanied with a fever. Apostolo Zeno, vrho mentions this circumstance in his notes on Fontanini’s” Italian Library,“adds, that in a speech publicly delivered at Venice in 1<320, in defence of Trissino, whom. Boccalini had attacked, ample mention rs made of him, who had then been dead seven years, and in terms of severe censure; but not a word was said of his assassination, which could not have then been a secret, nor could there be any reason for concealing it. If indeed he suffered in the manner reported, it formed an exact counterpart of what he records to have happened to Euclid the mathematician. Euclid had demonstrated, as a mathematical problem, that all the lines both of princes’” and private men’s thoughts meet in one centre namely, to pick money out of other men’s pockets and put it into their own and for this he was attacked by some of his hearers who beat him with sand-bags and perhaps, as a foundation for the story, some of Boccalini’s readers may have said that he ought to have been punished in the same manner. Boccal'mi’s works are: 1. “Itagguagli di Parnaso, centuria prima,” Venice, 1612, 4to. “Centuria secxinda,” ibid. 1613, 4to, neither published long enough before his death to have excited much general odium. These two parts were afterwards frequently reprinted in one volume. There is unquestionably in this work, much to make it popular, and mnch to excite hostility. His notions on government, liberty, &c. were too free for his age and country and his treatment of literary characters is frequently captious and unjust, yet the work upon the whole is amusing, and original in its plan. A third part was published by Jerome Briani, of Modena, at Venice, 165O, 8vo, and die whole was translated and published in English, tinder the inspection of Hughes the poet, 1705, lol. 2. “Pietra del Paragone politico,” Cosmopoli (Amsterdam), 1615, 4to, and often, reprinted in various sizes; that of Amsterdam, 1653, 24mo, is reckoned the best. It has been translated into Latin, French, and English, first in 1626, 4to, and afterwards in Hughes’s edition and into German. This “political touchstone” bears hard on the Spanish monarchy, and may be considered as a supplement to his “News from Parnassus.” 3. “Commentari sopra Cornelio Tacito,” Geneva, 1669, 4to, Cosmopoli (Amsterdam), 1677, 4to, and afterwards in a collection published under the title “La Bilancia politica di tutte le opere di Trajano Boccalini,” &c. with notes and observations by the chevalier Louis du May, at Castellana, 167S, 3 vols. 4to. The first two volumes of this scarce work contain the Tacitus, on which the annotator, not content with being very free in his religious opinions, takes some extraordinary liberties with the text, and therefore they were soon inserted in the Index Expurgatorius. They contain, however, many curious facts which tend to illustrate the political affairs of the time. The third volume is filled with political and historical letters, collected hy Gregorio Leti but although these are signed with Boccalini’s name, they are supposed to have been written by his son, and by the editor Leti, a man not very scrupulous in impositions of this kind. 6. “La Segretaria d'Apollo,” Amst. 1653, 24mo, a sort of continuation of the “Ragguagli,” very much in Boccalini’s manner, but most probably we owe it to the success of his acknowledged works.

, an eminent musical composer, was born at Lucca, Jan. 14, 1740, where he resided till 1768, when he went to Paris, and where he continued till 1780. He then removed to Madrid, where he died in 1806. His instrument was the violoncello, and he has perhaps supplied the performers on bowed-instruments and lovers of music with more excellent compositions than any master of the present age, except Haydn. His style is at once bold, masterly, and elegant. There are movements in his works, of every style, and in the true genius of the instruments for which he writes, that place him high in rank among the greatest masters who have ever written for the violin or violoncello. There i$ perhaps no instrumental music more ingenious, elegant, and pleasing, than his quintets; in which invention, grace, modulation, and good taste, conspire to render them, when well executed, a treat for the most refined hearers and critical judges of musical composition. The works of this excellent composer would be of use to judicious collectors, as his genius, taste, and judgment were too fertile and refined, to suffer him to commit to paper frivolous or indigested thoughts. His productions of forty years ago have lost nothing of their worth, nor will forty years more wholly deprive them of their bloom. They consist of fifty-eight collections of symphonies, quintets, &c. In the religious cast he has only one piece, a “Stabat mater.”

, an eminent Italian scholar, was born at Bologna in 1488, of a noble family. In his studies he made uncommon proficiency, and had distinguished himself at the early age of twenty by his very learned work on Plautus. According to the custom of the age, he attached himself to various princes, but at first to the celebrated Albert Pio, count of Carpi. Having become imperial orator at the court of Rome, he obtained by his talents and knowledge of business, the titles of chevalier and count Palatine, and was intrusted with some important functions, such as that of bestowing the degree of doctor, of creating notaries, and even legitimizing natural children. At Bologna he was professor of Greek and Latin, rhetoric and poetry, and was chosen one of the Auziani in 1522. Having acquired a handsome fortune, he built a palace, and in 1546 founded an academy in it, named from himself Academia Bocchiana, or Bocchiale. It was also called Ermatena, agreeable to its device, on which was engraven the two figures of Mercury and Minerva. He also established a printing-office in his house, and he and his academicians employed themselves in correcting the many beautiful editions which they printed. Bocchi was a good Hebrew scholar, and well versed in antiquities and history, particularly that of his own country. The senate of Bologna employed him on writing the history of that city, and bestowed on him the title of Historiographer. Cardinal Sadolet, the two Flaminio’s, John Phil. Achillini, and Lcl. Greg. Giraldi, were among his particular friends, who have all spoken very favourably of him in their works. This last was much attached to him, and it is supposed that he meant to express this attachment by giving him the name of Phileros (loving friend), or Philerote, which is on the title of some of his works. Bocchi died at Bologna, Nov. 6, 1562. He wrote, 1. “Apologia in Plautum, cui accedit vita Ciceronis authore Plutarcho,” Bologn.

1509, 4to. 3. “Symbolicaruin qusestionum de universo genere, quas serio ludebat, libri V. BononiiR, in scdibus Bocchianue,” 1555, 4to, reprinted at Bologna, 1574, 4to. This work is highly valued on account of the emblems, which are almost all the invention of Bocchi, and were engraved for the first edition by Julio Bonasoni, and retouched for the second by Agostino Carucchi. Besides these, many of his Latin poems are in Gruter’s “De!ici*e poetarum Latinorum,” and others are yet in Mss. His history of Bologna is also in ms. in the library of the institute of Bologna, and there is a copy in the French imperial library.

, one of the most voluminous writers of Florence, was born in that city in 1548. His education was superintended by his paternal uncle, under whose care he made great progress in learning, and acquired the esteem of Laurence Salviati, the Maecenas of his age. He died at Florence in 1618, leaving a great many works in Latin and Tuscan, among which are “Elogia virorurn Florentinorum,” 1604, 1607, 4to, and other biographical, historical, and literary works, of which a list may he seen in our authority.

, called Clememtone from the vast size of his figure, a distinguished history and portrait painter, was born at Genoa in 1620, and was the disciple of Bernardo Strozzi, an artist of good reputation but he found in himself so strong an ambition to arrive at excellence in his profession, that he left Genoa, and went to Rome and Florence, where he became familiar with Castiglione, there to explore that true sublimity of style, which can only be obtained by a judicious observation of the ancient sculptures and the works of the celebrated modern artists. By the guidance of an excellent genius, and also by a most industrious application to design, he discovered the art of uniting and blending the antique and modern gusto in a style that at once exhibited both gracefulness and strength. His style is more correct and more ideal than that of his master, though inferior in truth of colour. Most of the works of this master (except his portraits, which were lively, natural, and graceful) are in the chapels of Genoa, Pisa, and other cities of Italy, but particularly in Pisa, where is the best of his works, a St. Sebastian in the Certosa.

, an ingenious naturalist, was born at Palermo, in Sicily, April 24th 1633, of a wealthy and respectable family, originally from Savona in Genoa. To improve himself in natural history, particularly in botany, to which he was early attached, he travelled over Sicily, Corsica, Malta, many parts of Germany, Holland, and England, conversing with the most eminent literary characters in the places he visited, with whom he afterwards kept up a correspondence. At Paris he became acquainted with the abbé Bourdalot, to whom he communicated various observations he had made, which, were published at Amsterdam in 1674 under the title “Recherches et observations d'Histoire Naturelle.” In the course of his travels, he was admitted doctor in medicine at Padua, was elected member of the Academ. Naturae Curios, and made botanist to the grand duke of Tuscany. In 1682, he entered among the Cistertian monks at Florence, and with the habit of the order took the name of Sylvio, which he affixed to his latter works, but he was still permitted to continue his researches in natural history. Returning at length to Sicily, he retired to one of the houses of the Cistertians near Palermo, where he died, Dec. 22, 1704. As he had been indefatigable in his researches, his colleciion of plants and other natural productions was very considerable. Sherrard, who saw his hortus siccus, or specimens of dried plants, in 1697, was so struck with their number and beauty, that he engaged him to give a catalogue of them to the public, which he did in his “Musrco plante rare,” published at Venice in 4to, the same year. The catalogue was also published by itself. Several of his works appear to have been printed while he was on his travels; the first of them, “De abrotano mare monitum,” in 1668 and in the same year, “Manifesturn botanicum, de plantis Siculis,” Catatue, 4to. By an advertisement at the beginning of the work he offers to botanists the seeds of many of the curious and rare plants he had collected, at moderate prices. Morison published an edition of this work at Oxford in 1674, 4to, under the title of “Icones et descriptiones rariarum plantarum Sicilian, Melitae, Galliae, et Italioe.” Many of the plants, Haller says, were new. The figures are small, and in general not well delineated or engraved. His next production was “Recherches et observations naturelles,” published at Paris in 1671, 12mo, again at Amsterdam in 1674, and again in 1744, in 8vo. It consists of letters to his correspondents in France, Italy, England, &c. In 1684, in 16mo, “Opcrvazioni natural) ove si contengono materie medico fisiche e di botanica,” Bologna. The observations are twenty in number, and dedicated, or addressed to so many of the author’s friends and patrons, among whom are many perons of high rank. He is very profuse in his elogia on the medical virtue of many of the plants, which he praises far beyond their real value. “Tenere oportet,” Haller says, “creduium esse virum et in viribus medicis plantarum liberalem.” “Musæo di fisica e cli esperienze decorate di opervazioni naturali,” Venet. 1697, 4to. The author here assumes the name of Sylvlo. The observations are, as in the former work, dedicated to his noble patrons, and contain ample accounts of the medical virtues of various plants, much beyond what, from experience, they have been found to possess. Some smaller dissertations were printed in Miscel. Naturae Curias, and in the Journal des Savans. On the whole, Boccone appears to have been an industrious and intelligent writer, possessing considerable originality, and deserves to be classed among botanists of the third rate.

, or Bochius, a Latin poet, was born at Brussels July 27, 1555, and became so eminent for his poetry, as to be called the Belgic Virgil. Having attached himself to cardinal Radzevil, he studied theology for some time, under the tuition of Bellarmin, afterwards the celebrated cardinal. He then travelled in Italy, Poland, Livonia, Russia, and other countries. The only memorable event that his biographers have recorded of these travels, is, that in his way to Moscow his feet were frozen, and he was thinking of submitting to amputation, when the place where he stopped happening to be surprized by the enemy, he recovered his feet in a most surprising manner, and escaped the danger of losing either them or his liberty. On his return home, he devoted his time to his literary pursuits, especially poetry, and died Jan. 13, 1609. He has left the following pieces 1. “De Belgii principatu.” 2. “Parodia heroica Psahnorum Davidicorum.” 3. “Observationes physicae, ethicae, politics, et historical, in Psalmos.” 4. “Vita Davidis.” 5. “Orationes.” 6. “Poe'mata, &.C.” these poetical pieces, consisting of epigrams, elegies, &c. were collected and printed at Cologne, in 1615, with the addition of some poems by his son, a promising youth, who died in Calabria. It must not be omitted that Booh wrote the verses under the cuts of Verstegan’s absurd book against queen Elizabeth, entitled “Theatrum crudelitatum Hereticorum nostri temporis,” a sort of popish martyrology.

, a learned French Protestant, born at Roan in Normandy, 1599. His father was a Protestant clergyman, and his mother a sister of the celebrated Peter du Moulin. He made a very early progress in learning, particularly in the Greek language, of which we have a proof in the verses he composed at the age of fourteen, in praise of Thomas Dempster, under whom he studied at Paris, and who has prefixed them to his Roman Antiquities. He went through a course of philosophy at Sedan, and studied divinity at Saumur, under Cameronius, whom he followed to London, the academy at Sauinur being dispersed during the civil war. He went also to Oxford, and in Lent term, 1622, was entered as a student at the library, where he laid in a considerable part of that stock of Oriental learning which he afterwards displayed in his works. He afterwards went over to Leyden, and studied Arabic under Erpenius. When returned to France, he was chosen minister of Caen, where, in 1630, he distinguished himself by public disputations with father Veron, a very famous polemic, and champion for the Roman catholic religion, published under the title of “Acte de la conference entre S. B. et Jean Baillebache, &c. d'un part: et Francois Veron, predicateur de controverses,” Saumur, 2 vols. 8vo. The dispute was held in the castle of Caen, in presence of a great number of Catholics and Protestants. Bochart came off with honour and reputation, which was not a little increased upon the publication of his Phaieg and Canaan, which are the titles of the two parts of his “Geographica Sacra,” 1646. While at Caen, he was tutor to Wentworth Dillon, earl of Roscommon, author of the “Essay on Translated verse.” He acquired also great fame by his tl Hierozoicon, printed at London, 1675. The great learning displayed in these works rendered him esteemed, not only amongst those of his own persuasion, but amongst all lovers of knowledge of whatever denomination, especially such as studied the scriptures in their original languages, which was then very common. Dr. Haiceweli, who was contemporary with Bochart, speaking of the knowledge of the oriental languages, observes, that “this last century (the fifteenth) afforded more skilful men that way than the other fourteen since Christ” In 1652, the queen of Sweden invited him to Stockholm, where she gave him many proofs of her regard and esteem. At his return into France, in 1653, he continued his ordinary exercises, and was one of the members of the academy of Caen, which consisted of all the learned men of that place. He died suddenly, when he was speaking in this academy, May 6, 1667, which gave M. Brieux occasion to make the following epitaph on him:

Besides what we have mentioned, he wrote a treatise on the terrestrial paradise, on the plants and precious stones mentioned in scripture, and some other pieces, but he left these unfinished. He left also a great number of sermons. As many of his dissertations as could be collected were published in the edition of his works printed in Holland, 1712, 3 vols. folio. The “Hierozoicon, seu Historia animalium S. Scriptime/' was reprinted at Leipsic, by Rosenmuller, with notes and additions, 1793—6, 3 vols. 4to. Bochart, in oriental literature was one of the first men of his time but, like many who have studied the Hebrew with great zeal, he fell into a sort of theory, which made him in many cases more attentive to words than things. His Sacred Geography is a stupendous undertaking, but it was impossible he could bring it to perfection at a time when we knew comparatively very little of modern Asia, and had few good books of travels. He is also accused, and not unjustly, of indulging too freely in etymologies of proper names, taken from the Hebrew, and of changing geographical questions, which are entirely of an historical nature, into etymological ones. These, and some other defects in Bochart’s writings, have occasioned some persons to look on him with contempt, and distrust the whole of his learned work; whereas, he has treated many questions with profound sagacity, and even his errors are instructive. The only thing wanting to render his work extensively useful, and to throw all the light upon the foreign geography of the Hebrews which the nature of the subject can admit of was a proper supplement, which, should fill up his omissions, and correct his mistakes and tliis was undertaken by the celebrated Michaelis, from whom we have abridged the above sentiments on the merits of Bochart, and who, in 1769, published the first part of what he modestly termed a gleaning after Bochart,” Spicilegium Geographiae Hebraeorum exterae post Bochartum," completed in eleven parts, Gottingeu, 1780, 4to.

, a liberal patron of learning, and first president of the parliament of Paris, was born in that metropolis, Jan. L6, 1730, of a family, the branches of which had filled many distinguished offices in the magistracy, and to which the subject of the preceding article appears to have been related. From his infancy, Mons. Saron was attached to mathematical studies, and particularly to calculations, the most complicated of which he performed with astonishing facility and many eminent astronomers, who were his friends, made no scruple to apply to him for assistance of this kind, which he contributed with the greatest politeness and as very much depends on intricate calculations, he may justly be allowed to share with them in the honour of their discoveries. He was, however, among the first who discovered that Herschell’s new star was a new planet, and not a comet, as most of the French astronomers thought. In 1779 he was elected into the academy of sciences, and contributed to the promotion of their labours, not only by his private studies, which were indeed rather those of an amateur than of a scholar by profession, but also by his fortune. He made, at a vast expence, a collection of the finest astronomical instruments of all kinds, which he very willingly lent to those who wished to make use of them, and never had more pleasure than when he fancied he was thus supplying the wants of men of genius. It was also by his liberality that Laplace was enabled to publish his “Theorie du mouvernent elliptujue et de la figure de terre,” 1784, 4to, the expence of which he defrayed. His whole life, indeed, exhibited a perfect model of a patron of learning and Learned men, and demonstrated how easily men of rank and fortune may exalt their characters by the encouragement of genius. Yet this man was doomed to destruction by the monsterswho ruled in France during the revolutionary period, and who ordered him, and some other members of the old parliament of Paris, to be guillotined, a sentence which was executed April 20, 1794. M. Monjoie published in 1800 “L'eloge de Saron,” 8vo, and Cassini paid him a similar compliment, which, however, was not printed.

, professor of divinity and Greek in the university of Konigsberg, was born in that city, May 20, 1716, and died in 1786. Among his numerous works on theology, education, and natural history, which are much esteemed in his own country, we may enumerate, 1. “Specimen theologiae naturalis,” Zullichau, 1743, 4to. 2. “Historia Socinianismi Prussic.” Konigsberg, 1753, 4to. 3. Historia Anti-Trinitariorum maxime Socinianismi et Socinianorum,“1774 1784, 2 vols. 8vo. 4.” A manual of Education,“1780, 8vo, in German. 5.” Essay on the natural history of east and west Prussia,“Dessau, 1782 1784, 5 vols. 8vo. 6.” Prussian Ornithology,“published in the 8th, 9th, 12th, 13th, and 17th numbers of the” Observator of nature.“7.” Essay on the natural history of the Herring," Konigsberg, 1769, 8vo: all the preceding are in German.

, called also Langhen-Jan, a painter of history and portrait of the Flemish school, was born at Munster, about the year 1610; and removing to Flanders, acquired the art of design and colouring in the school of Jacques Jordaens. He designed well the heads erf his women are generally graceful, and those of his men distinguished by character: his tone of colouring sometimes resembled that of Rubens, but more frequently that of Vandyck. His pictures have great force and harmony, and his skilful management of the chiaro-scuro produces an agreeable effect. An altar-piece at the church of St. James in Ghent, representing the martyrdom of this saint, and a picture of the Annunciation in another church, painted in 1664, are distinguished performances of this master. Descamps mentions another John Van Bockhorst, who was born at Dentekoom in 1661, went when young to London, and was employed by sir Godfrey Kneller on his portraits, and the earl of Pembroke also employed him to paint portraits, history, and battle pieces. He afterwards practised portrait-painting in various parts of Germany, principally at the court of Brandeuburgh and in Cleves, and died in 1724.

, a French ecclesiastic, was born at Avallon, April 1, 1649, of poor parents, who, however, neglected nothing that could contribute to his having the means of acquiring a fortune by a good education. He first studied at Dijon, and then went through a course of philosophy at Auxerre. On his return home, he determined on a military life, and went to Paris in hopes of being admitted into the royal guards. Not succeeding, he began to study with a view to the church, but again altered his mind, and accompanied M. de Nointel, the French ambassador, to Constantinople. On his return at the end of two years, he went to Bourges to study law, and having finished his course, he practised for some time at Avallon with considerable success. Here, however, he gave himself up to a dissipated life, which ended in a state of melancholy, during which he wrote to his brother, an ecclesiastic, who advised him to retire for some months to a monastery of Carthusians, and meditate. on his past conduct. Bocquillot complied, recovered his peace of mind, and resumed his ecclesiastical studies. Having received the order of priesthood, he became curate of Chateiux, but was obliged some time after to resign it, owing to his deafness. Being then provided with a canonry at Avallon, he passed the remainder of his days in the tranquil employment of his pen, composing a great many homilies and books of practical piety, which he presented gratis to the booksellers, on condition that he should fix such prices on them as might suit the pockets of the poor. One of his best works is his “Traits historique de la Liturgie sacrée ou de la Messe,” “Paris, 1701, 8vo. He wrote also a life of the chevalier Bayard, under his fictitious name, the Prieur de Louval, taken principally from Godefroi’s life of Bayard, published in 1616, and an antiquary tract, entitled” Dissertation surles Tombeaux de Quarrée, village de Bourgoyne," Lyons, 1724, 8vo. He died of an apoplexy Sept. 22, 1728. His life and letters were published in 1745, 12mo.

, a learned professor of the university of Helmstadt, was born in 1722, at Wernigerode. After having been educated at home, with great care, by his father, who was judge of that city, and counsellor to the count Stolberg of Wernigerode, he went in 1739 to the school of Closter-Bergen, near Magdeburgh, then superintended by Steinmez, and in 1741, took his leave of this school, in a Latin oration, “De societatibus hujus sevi notabilioribus.” He then went to Halle, and having early imbibed a taste for oriental languages and sacred philology, he attached himself particularly to the two Michaelis’s, father and son, who were then professors in that university. From Halle, he went to Leipsic, where he studied Arabic, Syriac, Chaldaic, Samaritan, Ethiopian, and rabbinical Hebrew. On his return to Halle in 1747, he maintained a thesis for his doctor’s degree, under the presidency of Michaelis the father, “On the antiquity of the Hebrew language” and then opened a course of lectures which were much admired. Notwithstanding this success, however, he left Halle, after a residence of two years, and settled at Helmstadt. Here he became a most popular teacher, his lectures being attended by an unusual number of students; and in 1754, the uniYersity secured his services by appointing him professor extraordinary of oriental languages. About this time, happening to meet with some works in which the study of the Armenian, Coptic, and Turkish languages was recommended, he had a great desire to add these to his stock, and not having been able to obtain the assistance of Jablonski for the Coptic, he determined to learn the others without a master. Having begun this task at his lisure hours, in 1756, he made such rapid progress as to be able to publish, before the conclusion of the year, the first two chapters of St. Matthew translated from the Turkish into Latin, with a critical preface on the history and utility of the Turkish language and the first four chapters of the same evangelist translated from the Armenian into Latin, with some considerations on the Armenian language. These two little works, which were published, the first at Bremen, and the other at Halle, were criticised with some severity, perhaps not unjust; but the zeal and industry of the author, although not altogether successful in these attempts, were still the subject of admiration, and were not unrewarded. In 1760 he obtained a pension and in 1763, lest he should accept of the offer of a professorship made to him by the university of Giessen, that of Helmstadt conferred on him the title of professor in ordinary of philosophy, with an augmentation of salary. His various works in the mean time amply confirmed their choice, and extended his reputation throughout Europe. Of his private life we have no further account, although it was prolonged for many years after this period, as he died of an apoplexy, March 7, 1796. His principal works are, 1. “Evangelium secundum Matthaeum ex versione Æthiopici interpretis in Bibliis polyglottis Anglicanis editum cum Graeco, c.” Halle, 1748, 4to, with a preface by Michaelis on the Ethiopian translation of the New Testament. 2. “Evangelium secundum Matthaeum ex versione Persica, &c.” Helmstadt, 17.50, 4to. 3. Persian translations of Mark, Luke, and John, 1751, 4to. published separately. 4. “Evangelium secundum Marcum ex versione Arabica, &c.” Lerngow, 1752, 4to. 5. “Novum Testamentum ex versione jEthiopica, &c. in Latinum,” Brunswick, 1753 55, 2 vols. 4to. 6. “Fragmenta Veteris Test, ex versione Æthiopici interpretis, et alia quaedam opuscula Æthiopica,” Wolfenb. 1755, 4to. 7. “Pseudo-critica Millio-Bengeliana,” Halle, 1767, 8vo, pointing out some inaccuracies in the variorum editions of the New Testament by these eminent critics. Bode is considered by his countrymen as a man of most extensive learning, but as destitute of elegance as a writer, either in Latin or German, and as unacquainted with the art of enlivening his subject.

, a bookseller at Hamburgh, and a man of considerable learning, was born at Brunswick, Jan. 16, 1730, and died Dec. 13, 1793. He was long known for his controversial writings against the free-masons, but perhaps was more esteemed by his countrymen for his translations into German of various foreign popular works. Among these were Marmontel’s Incas and Montaigne’s Essays; and of the English series, Fielding’s Tom Jones, Sterne’s Sentimental Journey, and Tristram Shandy, and Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield.

, a French lawyer, and political writer, was born at Angers about 1530. In his youth he was supposed, but not upon good foundation, to have been a monk. He studied first at Toulouse, and after taking his degrees, read lectures there with much applause, having a design to settle there as law- pro lessor, and with that view he pronounced an oration on public instruction in the schools but finding Toulouse not a sufficiently ample stage for his ambition, he removed to Pans, and began to practise at the bar, where his expectations being likewise disappointed, he determined to apply himself to literary occupations, and in this he had very considerable success. Henry III. who liked to have men of letters about him, admitted him into familiar conversation, and had such an opinion of him, that he sent to prison one John, or Michael de la Serre, who had written against Bodin, and forbid him under pain of death to publish his work but this courtly favour did not last. Thuanus ascribes the king’s withdrawing his countenance to the envy of the courtiers but others think it was occasioned by Bodin' s taking a political part in opposition to the king. He found an asylum, however, with the duke of Alene,on, who made him secretary of his commands, one of the masters of the requests of his palace, and grand master of his waters and forests. The insurgents in the Netherlands at this time intended to declare the duke their sovereign, and were said to be prompted to this by queen Elizabeth of England. Bodin, however, accompanied him into England and Flanders, but he had the misfortune to lose this patron in 1584.

In 1576 he was chosen deputy to the states-general of Blois, by the tiers-etat of Vermandois, and ably contended for the rights of the people, and particularly opposed those who would have all the king’s subjects constrained to profess the Catholic religion, which we can easily suppose effectually prevented the king from being reconciled to him. He after this appears to have resided at Laon, where, in 1589, he persuaded that city to declare for the league, and at the same time wrote to the president Brisson, a letter severely reflecting on Henry III. but this fault he afterwards repaired by securing the allegiance of Laon to Henry IV. He died of the plague at Laon, in 1596, leaving a character more dubious than that of any man in his time, and the light thrown upon it in his works is certainly not of the most favourable kind. It may be said, that although toleration was a word not known in his time, he appears to have cherished some liberal notions on the subject, but, as to religious principles, he had so little steadiness, that he was by turns accounted, perhaps not always justly, a Protestant, Papist, Deist, Sorcerer, Jew, and Atheist; D'Aguessau, however, pronounces him a worthy magistrate, a learned author, and a good citizen. His first work was a commentary on Oppian’s “Cynogeticon,” Paris, 1549, 4to, in which he is supposed to have availed himself rather too freely of the notes of Turnebus. He then published an introduction to the study of history, under the title “Methodus ad facilem Historiarum cognitionem,” Paris, 1566, 4to, the principal fault of which is that it does not correspond with the title, being very desultory and immethodical. But that which procured him most reputation, was his six books on “The Republic,” a work equally immethodical with the other, and abounding in digressions and irrelevant matter, yet, for the time, an extraordinary collection of facts and reflections on political government. It was soon translated into other languages, and was read with much interest in an age when the principles of government were seldom discussed in books. When in England with the duke of Alenc,on, we are told that he found the English had made a Latin translation of it, bad enough, but, bad as it was, the subject of lectures at London and Cambridge. Bodin reports thus far himself; but that “it became a classic at Cambridge” has been supplied by his biographers, who were probably not aware that lectures on political government were then no part of Cambridge education, and if his book was explained and commented on there or at London, it must have been by individuals. In this work he introduces the influence of climate on the principles of government; and as Montesquieu has done the same, La Harpe, the French critic, terms Bodin’s book the “germ of the Spirit of Laws,” but this notion is far more ancient than either, and not indeed of much consequence, whether old or new. The first edition of these “Livres de la Republique” was printed at Paris, 1577, fol. and was followed by three' others, 1577, 1578, and 1580 but the edition of Lyons, 1593, and that of Geneva, 1600, are preferred, because they contain Bodin’s Treatise on Coins. He afterwards translated it into Latin, Paris, 1586, fol. an edition often reprinted, and more complete than the French, and several abridgements were published of it, both in Latin and French. His tables of law, entitled “Juris Universi Distributio,” were printed in 1578, and in the following year, his “”Demonomanie des Sorciers,“to which was annexed” A refutation of the book, de Lamiis,“of John Wier, physician to the duke of Cleves, who had undertaken to prove that the stories of witchcraft and sorcery have chiefly arisen from imposture or delusions of fancy. The literary character of Bodin, who defended this kind of superstition, incurred reproach, and he himself was suspected of being a magician. A work written by him, but never printed, and entitled” Heptaplomeron, sive de abditis rerum sublimium arcanis,“is said to have been an attack upon religion, and designed to invalidate the authority of revelation. By the seeming advantages which he gave in this work to the Jewish religion, he was suspected of being a convert to it; but it is more probable that he was a sceptic with regard to religion, and alike indifferent to all modes of faith. A little while before his death he published a Latin treatise, entitled” Theatrum Universae Naturae," in which he professes to pursue the causes and effects of things to their principles.

, that illustrious benefactor to literature, from whom the public library at Oxford takes its name, was the son of Mr. John Bodley, of Exeter, and of his wife Joan, daughter and heiress of Robert Home, esq. of Ottery St. Mary, near Exeter. By his father’s side he descended from the ancient family of the Bodleys, or Bodleighs, of Dunscomb, near Crediton, in Devonshire. He was born at Exeter, March 2, 1544, and was about twelve years of age when his father was obliged to leave England on account of his religion, and settle at Geneva, where he lived during the reign of queen Mary. The English church at Geneva consisted, as he himself informs us, of some hundred persons; and here, the university having been newly erected, he frequented the public lectures of Chevalerius on the Hebrew tongue, of Beroaldus on the Greek, and of Calvin and Beza on divinity, and had also domestic teachers in the house of Philibertus Saracenus, a physician of that city, with whom he boarded, and where Robert Constantine, author of the Greek Lexicon, read Homer to him. Under such masters, we cannot doubt his proficiency, although we have no more particular detail of his early studies upon record. Whatever else he learned, he appears to have imbibed an uncommon love of books, to have studied their history, and to have prepared himself, although unconscious of the result, for that knowledge which, it is evident from his correspondence, he was perpetually increasing, and which at length, when the political prospects which once flattered his ambition were closed, enabled, as well as incited him, to re-found the public library at Oxford.

Upon the accession of queen Elizabeth in 1558, he returned into England with his father 'and family, who settled at London and soon after, he was sent to Magdalen college, in Oxford, under the tuition of Dr. Humphrey, afterwards president of that society. In 1563he took the degree of B. A. and the same year was chosen probationer of Merton college, and the year following admitted fellow. In 1565, by persuasion of some of the fellows, he undertook the public reading of a Greek lecture in the hall of that college, which he continued for some time without expecting or requiring any stipend but afterwards the society of their own accord allowed him a salary of four marks per annum and from that time continued the lecture to the college. In 1566 he took the degree of M. A. and the same year read natural philosophy in the public schools. In 1569 he was elected one of the proctors of the university and after that, for a considerable time, supplied the place of university orator. Hitherto Mr. Bodley applied himself to the study of various faculties, without the inclination to profess any one more than the rest; but, in 1576, being desirous to improve himself in the modern languages, and to qualify himself for public business, he began his travels, and spent nearly four years in visiting France, Germany, and Italy. Afterwards, returning to his college, he applied himself to the study of history and politics. In 1583 he was made gentleman usher to queen Elizabeth; and in 1585, married Anne, daughter of Mr. Carew, of Bristol, and widow of Mr. Ball, a lady of considerable fortune. Soon after, he was employed by queen Elizabeth in several embassies to Frederick king of Denmark, Julius duke of Brunswick, William landgrave of Hesse, and other German princes, to erfgage them to join their forces with those of the English, for the assistance of the king of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV. of France and having discharged that commission, he was sent to king Henry III. at the time when that prince was forced by the duke of Guise to quit Paris. This commission, he tells us, he performed with extraordinary secrecy, not being accompanied by any one servant, (for so he was commanded), nor with any other letters than such as were written with the queen’s own hand to the king, and some select persons about him. “The effect,” he adds, “of that message it is fit I should conceal; but it tended greatly to the advantage of all the Protestants in France, and to the duke’s apparent overthrow, which also followed soon upon it.” Camden says nothing more of this embassy than that queen Elizabeth “not only assisted the king of Navarre, when he was entangled in a dangerous and difficult war, with money and other military provisions, but sent over sir Thomas Bodley to support or encourage the French king when his affairs seemed to be in a very desperate condition.”

In 1588 he was sent to the Hague, to manage the queen’s affairs in the United Provinces, where, according to an agreement between the queen and the states, he was admitted one of the council of state, and took his place next to count Maurice, giving his vote in every proposition made to that assembly. In this station he behaved greatly to the satisfaction of his royal mistress, and the advancement of the public service. A more particular account of sir Thomas’s negociations with the states may be seen in Camden’s “Annals of queen Elizabeth,” under the year 1595, and in a short piece, written by sir Thomas himself, and published by Mr. Thomas Hearne in his notes upon that passage of Camden, entitled “An account of an Agreement between queen Elizabeth and the United Provinces, wherein she supported them, and they stood not to their agreement.”

After near five years residence in Holland, he obtained leave to return to England to look after his private affairs, but was shortly after remanded back to the Hague. About a year after he came into England again, to communicate some private discoveries to the queen and presently returned to the States for the execution of those councils he had secretly proposed. At length, having succeeded in all his negociations, he obtained his final recal in 1597. After his return, finding his advancement at court obstructed by the jealousies and intrigues of the great men, he retired from the court and all public business, and never could be prevailed with to return and accept of any new employment. His own account of his treatment at this time is too amusing and characteristic to be omitted “I cannot chuse,” says he, “in making report of the principal accidents that have befallen unto me in the course of my life, but record among the rest, that from the very first day 1 had no man more to triend, among the lords of the council, than was the lord treasurer Burleigh for when occasion had been ottered of declaring his conceit, as touching my service, he would always tell the queen (which I received from herself, and some other ear-witnesses) that there was not any man in England so meet as myself to undergo the office of the secretary; and since, his son the present lord treasurer hath signified unto me in private conference, that, when his father first intended to advance him to that place, his purpose was withal to make me his colleague. But the case stood thus in my behalf: Before such time as I returned from the Provinces United, which was in the year 1597, and likewise after my return, the earl of Essex did use me so kindly, both by letters and messages, and other great tokens of his inward favour to me, that, alihough I had no meaning but to settle in my mind my chiefest dependance upon the lord Burleigh, as one that I reputed to be both the best able, and therewithal the most willing, to work my advancement with the queen; yet I know not how the earl, who sought by all devices to divert her love and liking both from the father and the son (but from the son in special), to withdraw my affection from the one and the other, and to win me altogether to depend upon himself, did so often take occasion to entertain the queen with some prodigal speephes of my sufficiency for a secretary, which were ever accompanied with words of disgrace against the present lord treasurer, as neither she herself (of whose favour before I was thoroughly assured) took any great pleasure to prefer me the sooner (for she hated his ambition, and would give little countenance to any of his followers); and both the lord Burleigh and his son waxed jealous of my courses, as if underhand 1 had been induced, by the cunning and kindness of the earl of Essex, to oppose myself against their dealings. And though in very truth they had no solid ground at all of the least alteration in my disposition towards either of them both (for I did greatly respect their persons and places, with a settled resolution to do them any service, as also in my heart I detested to be of any faction whatsoever) yet the now lord treasurer, upon occasion of some talk that I have since had with him of the earl and his actions, hath freely confessed of his own accord to me, that his daily provocations were so bitter and sharp against him, and his comparisons so odious, when he put us in a balance, as he thought thereupon, he had very great reason to use his best means to put any man out of love of raising his fortune, whom the earl with sucn violence, to his extreme prejudice, had endeavoured to dignify. And this, as he affirmed, was all the motive -he had to set himself against me, in whatsoever might redound to the bettering of my state, or increasing my credit and countenance with the queen. When I” had thoroughly now bethought me, first in the earl, of the slender holdfast he had in the queen; of an endless opposition of the chiefest of our statesmen like still to wait upon him; of his perilous, feeble, and uncertain advice, as well in his own, as in all the causes of his friends; and when moreover for myself I had fully considered how very untowardly these two counsellors were affected unto me, (upon whom before in cogitation I had framed all the fabric of my future prosperity); how ill it did concur with my natural disposition, to become, or to be counted a stickler or partaker in any public faction how well I was able, by God’s good blessing, to live of myself, if I could be content with a competent livelihood; how short a time of farther life I was then to expect by the common course of nature when I had, I say, in this manner represented to my thoughts my particular estate, together with the earl’s, I resolved thereupon to possess my soul in peace all the residue of my days; to take my full farewell of state employments; to satisfy my mind with that mediocrity of worldly living that I had of mine own and so to retire me from the court, which was the epilogue and end of all my actions, and endeavours of any important note, till I came to the age of sixty three. Now although after this, by her majesty’s directions, I was often called to the court by the now lord treasurer, then secretary, and required by him, as also divers times since, by order from the king, to serve as an ambassador in France, to go a commissioner from his highness for concluding the truce between Spain and the Provinces, and to negotiate in other very honourable employments yet I would not be removed from my former final resolution insomuch as at length to reduce me the sooner to return to the court, I had an offer made me by the present lord treasurer (for in process of time he saw, as he himself was pleased to tell me more than once, that all my dealing was upright, fair, and direct) that in case I myself were willing unto it, he would make me his associate in the secretary’s office And to the intent I might believe that he intended it bonafide, he would get me out of hand to be sworn of the council. And for the better enabling of my state to maintain such a dignity, whatsoever 1 would ask that might be fit for him to deal in, and for me to enjoy, he woul'd presently solic.t the king to give it passage. All which persuasions notwithstanding, albeit I was often assaulted by him, in regard of my years, and for that I felt myself subject to many indispositions, besides some other reasons, which I reserve unto myself, I have continued still at home my retired course of life, which is now methinks to me as the greatest preferment that the state can afford.“Mr. Camden mentions the affair of sir Thomas’s disappointment in regard to the office of secretary in these words” It raised in him (the earl of Essex) a greater and more apparent discontent, that sir Robert Cecil was chosen secretary in his absence whereas he had some time before recommended sir Thomas Bodley, on the score of his great wisdom and experience in the affairs of the Low Countries, and had run very high in his commendations; but with so much bitterness, and so little reason, disparaged Cecil, that the queen (who had by this time a mean opinion of Essex’s recommendations) was the more inclinable to refuse to make Bodley secretary; neither would she let the lord treasurer join him in commission with his son; both which honours were designed him, till Essex, by too profuse and lavish praises, had rendered him suspected as a creature of his own."

In the same year (1597) he began the munificent work of restoring, or rather founding anew, the public library at Oxford, which was completed in 1599. In his memoirs he has admirably displayed his first thoughts, his first feelings, and his first precautions on this important undertaking. After adverting to the motives which induced him to retire from court and chuse a private life, he goes on thus “Only this I must truly confess of myself, that though I did never yet repent me of those, and some other my often refusals of honourable offers, in respect of emiching my private estate yet somewhat more of late I have blamed myself and my nicety that way, for the love that I bear to my reverend mother the university of Oxon, and to the advancement of her good, by such kind of means, as I have since undertaken. For thus I fell to discourse and debate in my mind tiiat although I might find it fittest for me to keep out of the throng of court contentions, and address my thoughts and deeds to such ends altogether, as I myself could best affect yet withal I was to think, that my duty towards God, the expectation of the world, and my natural inclination, and very morality did require, that I should not wholly so hide those little abilities that 1 had, but that in some measure, in one kind or other, I should do the true part of a profitable member of the state. Whereupon examining exactly for the rest of my life what course I might take, and having sought (as I thought) all the ways to the wood, to select the most proper, I concluded at the last to set up my staff at the library door in Oxon, being thoroughly persuaded, that in my solitude and surcease from the commonwealth affairs, 1 could not busy myself to better purpose, than by reducing that place (which then in every part lay ruined and waste) to the public use of students. For the effecting whereof I found myself furnished, in a competent proportion, of such four kinds of aids, as, unless I had them all, there was no hope of good success. For without some kind of knowledge, as well in the learned and modern tongues, as in sundry other sorts of scholastical literature without some purse-ability to go through with the charge without great store of honourable friends, to further the design and without special good leisure to follow such a work, it could but have proved a vain attempt and inconsiderate. But how well I have sped in all my endeavours, and how full provision I have made for the benefit and ease of all frequenters of the library, that which I have already performed in sight, that which besides I have given for the maintenance of it, and that which hereafter I purpose to add, by way of enlargement of that place (for the project is cast, an. I, whether I live or die, it shall be, God willing, put in full execution), will testify so truly and abundantly for me, as I need not be the publisher of the dignity and worth of my own institution.” Camden, under the year 1598, tells us, that Bodley, being at present unengaged from affairs of state, set himself a task, which would have suited the character of a crowned head, the promotion and encouragement of learning for he began to repair the public library at Oxford, and furnished it with new books. It was set up, he adds, by Humphrey duke of Gloucester, but through the iniquity of the times was, in the reign of Edward VI. stripped of all the books but he (Bodley) having made the choicest collection from all parts of the world of the most valuable books, partly at his own cost, and partly by contributions from others, he first stocked, and afterwards left it so well endowed at his death, that his memory deserves to bear a very lasting date amongst men of worth and letters.“The same author, in his” Britannia,“tells us, duke Humphrey’s library consisted of one hundred and twentynine volumes, procured from Italy at a great expence. His translator adds, that they were valued at above a thousand pounds, and that the duke in 1440 gave one hundred and twenty-six volumes more, and in 1443 a much greater number, besides considerable additions at his death three years after. But, before duke Humphrey’s time, Richard de Bury, alias Aungervil, bishop of Durham, in 1295, gave a great number of books to the university, which were kept in a place for that purpose in the college, now Trinity college, which the monks of Durham had founded in the north suburbs of Oxford; an account whereof may be gathered from a book written by himself, called” Philobiblos, sive de amore librorum, et institutione Bibliothecae.“And after him, in 1320, Thomas Cobham, bishop of Worcester, built another over the old Congregation-house in the north coemetery of St. Mary’s. In 1597, sir Thomas Bodley, taking into his consideration the ruinous condition of duke Humphrey’s library, and resolving to undertake the restoration of it at his own expence, wrote a letter, dated at London, Jan. 23, to Dr. Ravis, dean of Christ church, then vice-chancellor, to be communicated to the university; offering therein to restore the fabric of the said library, and to settle an annual income for the purchase of books, and the support of such officers as might be necessary to take care of it. This letter was received with the greatest satisfaction by the university, and an answer returned, testifying their most grateful acknowledgment and acceptance of his noble offer. On this, sir Thomas immediately set about the work, and in two years time brought it to a good degree of perfection. In 1601, the university had such a sense of his services that he was voted a public benefactor, and his name ordered to be included among the other benefactors repeated in the public prayers. He furnished it with a large collection of books, purchased in foreign countries at a great expence and thi.-, collection in a short time became so greatly enlarged by the generous benefactions of several noblemen, bishops, and others, that neither the shelves nor the room could contain them. &ir Thomas then offering to make a considerable addition to the building, the motion was readily embraced, and, on July 19, 1610, the first stone of the new foundation was laid with great solemnity, the vice-chancellor, Doctors, masters of arts, &c. attending in their proper habits, a speech being made upon the occasion. But sir Thomas Bodley did not live to see this part of his design completed, though he left sufficient means in trust, as he bestowed his. whole estate (his debts, legacies, and funeral charges defrayed) to the noble purposes of this foundation. By this, and the help of other benefactions, in procuring which sir Thomas was very serviceable by his great interest with many eminent persons, the university was enabled to add three other sides to what was already built, forming a noble quadrangle, and spacious rooms for schools of arts. By sir Thomas’s’ will 200l. per annum was settled on the library for ever out of whichhe appointed near forty pounds for the head librarian, ten pounds for the sub-librarian, and eight for the junior. He drew up likewise a body of excellent statutes for the government of the library. In this library is a statue erected to the memory of sir Thomas Bodley, by the earl of Dorset, chancellor of the university, with the following inscription:” Thomas Sackvillus Dorsettia? Comes, Summus Angliae Thesaurarius, et hujus Academise Cancellarius, Thomse Bodleio Equiti Aurato, qui Bibliothecam hanc instituit, honoris causa pie posuit i. e. Thi.mas Sackvile, earl of Dorset, lord high treasurer of England, and chancellor of this university, piously erected this monument to the honour of sir Thomas Bodley, knt. who founded this library.“King James I. we are told, when he came to Oxford in 1605, and, among other edifices, took a view of this famous library, at his departure, in imitation of Alexander, broke out into this speech” If I were not a king, I would be an university man and if it were so that I must be a prisoner, if I might have my wish, 1 would have no other prison than that library, and be chained together with so many good authors." A catalogue of the printed books in the Bodleian library was published in 1674 by Dr. Thomas Hyde, then chief librarian another of the manuscripts was printed in 1697; and a more ample catalogue of the books was printed at Oxford, in 1738, in two volumes, folio.

After king James’s accession to the throne, sir Thomas received the honour of knighthood and from this time, it appears by the Cabala (p. 95), he lived mostly at Parsons’ Green, Middlesex. His town house was in the parish of St. Bartholomew the Less, near Smithfield, London, where his wife died and was buried June 1611, and here likewise sir Thomas died, Jan. 28, 1612. It is probable he had been for some time indisposed, as we find by Wood’s Annals, that the vice-chancellor, heads of houses and proctors sent to him letters of condolence, dated Jan. 17. We learn from the same author, that as soon as his death was announced, the university assembled to consider of the most honourable testimony of respect for his memory, on which it was agreed that a distant day should be appointed for his interment in Merton college chapel, which he had himself desired. The ceremony was accordingly performed with a solemnity and pomp becoming the university which he had so amply enriched. The body lay in state for some days in the hall of Merton college, surrounded by three heralds at arms, the relations of the deceased, his executors, the vice-chancellor, dean of Christ church, the proctors and bedels, and the whole society of Merton. On the day of the funeral, March 27, a procession was formed of the heads of the several houses, all the distinguished members of the university, and sixty-seven poor scholars (the number of his years) chosen by the heads of houses: the body was removed from Merton college through Christ church, and thence through the high street to the divinity school, where it was deposited while an oration was delivered by Richard Corbet, afterwards bishop of Oxford. It was then removed to St. Mary’s church, where a funeral sermon was preached by Dr. William Goodwyn, dean of Christ church and these ceremonies being over, the corpse was conveyed to Merton college, and, after another speech by John Hales, fellow of Merton, “the ever memorable,” was interred at the upper end of the choir, under the north wall. In 1615 Stone the statuary was employed to erect a monument of black and white marble, on which is placed his effigies, in a scholar’s gown, surrounded with books and at the four corners stand grammar, rhetoric, music, and arithmetic. On each hand of his effigies stands an angel that on the left holds out to him a crown and that on the right a book open, in which are these words Non delebo nomen ejus de libro vitae I. e. “I will not blot his name out of the book of life.” Underneath is the figure of a woman, sitting before the stairs of the old library, holding in one hand a key, and in the other a book, wherein the greatest part of the alphabet appears; and behind are seen three small books shut, inscribed with the names of Priscianus, Diomedes, and Donatus. Beneath all are engraven these words Memoriae Thomae Bodley Militis, Publicae Bibliothecae fundatoris, sacrum. Obiit 28 Jan. 1612.

Dr. John Morris, canon of Christ- church, bequeathed by his will to the university five pounds per annum, for a speech to be made by a master of arts in praise of sir Thomas Bodley; the person who made the speech to be nominated by the dean of Christ-church, and confirmed by the vice-chancelor for the time being. But this gift was not to take place till the death of Dr. Morris’s widow; which happening in November, 1681, the annuity then fell to the university, and the year following, Dr. John Fell, dean of Christ-church, nominated Thomas Sparke, A. M. of his college who, being approved by the vicechancellor, made a solemn speech in the schools, the 8th of November, 1682. This is continued annually on the day when the visitation of the library is made. His statutes for the regulation of the library were translated out of English into Latin by Dr. John Budden, principal of Broadgate-hall (now Pembroke college), and incorporated with the university statutes. Sir Thomas wrote his own life to the year 1609, which, together with the first draught of his statutes, and a collection of his letters, were published from the originals in the Bodleian library, by Hearne, under the title of “Reliquiae Bodleianse, or, some genuine remains of sir Thomas Bodley,” London, 1703, 8vo. Of this we have availed ourselves in the preceding account, to which something must now be added from subsequent information. It is not easy to quit the history of a man to whom literature is so exceedingly indebted, and who cannot be contemplated without veneration, not only by the sons of Oxford, but by every one who has profited by access to the invaluable library which will hand his 'name down to the latest posterity.

In Dr. Birch’s Memoirs of the reign of queen Elizabeth, there are extracts of several letters written by sir Thomas Bodley to the earl of Essex, the lord treasurer Burghley, sir Robert Cecil, and Mr. Anthony Bacon, chiefly during sir Thomas’s residence in Holland. From these, therefore, and from other passages in that work, we shall select a few particulars, which may serve to render the account of his life somewhat more complete. In 1583, when Mr. Stafford (afterwards sir Edward Stafford) was appointed ambassador to France, it was said that Mr. Bodley was to go with him as chief secretary but no evidence appears of his having actually served the ambassador in that capacity. The letters we have mentioned exhibit a farther proof of the fidelity and diligence with which he discharged his duty, in the management of queen Elizabeth’s affairs in the United Provinces. As some of the facts the letters relate to r are too minute to require a particular discussion in this place, it may be sufficient to refer generally to Dr. Birch’s Memoirs. One principal business of Mr. Bodley in Holland, was to obtain satisfaction from the States General, for certain sums of money due from them to the queen, for the expence she had been at, in assisting and supporting their republic and though he conducted himself in this negociation with his usual ability, and, in general, gave high satisfaction to her majesty, yet he once greatly displeased her, by returning to England, in order to lay before her, a secret proposition, from some leading members of the States, relative to the payments demanded.

4 In a letter written to the queen on the 14th of May, 1595, just after his return, he inclosed the substance of their overture, and alleged the reasons of his own coming over in person, to be the winning of time, the clearing of doubts, and the framing of the overture fully to her majesty’s satisfaction. Nevertheless, the queen continued so exasperated with the proposal brought by him, that on the 24th of May, he wrote to Mr. Anthony Bacon, that he had not stirred abroad for ten days past, nor knew when he should, since he saw so little hope of better usage at court “where,” says he, “I hear for my comfort, that the queen on Monday last did wish I had been hanged.” And if withal I might have leave, that I should be discharged, I would say, Benedetto si el Giorno, el Mese, & 'lAnno." However, at length, Mr. Bodley was sent back to the Hague, with new instructions, to demand of the States a. hundred thousand pounds in ready money, and to protest, that if they would not now determine to return her majesty such an answer, as she might find they had some feeling of her manifold deserts and present necessities, she would not only revoke her succours from thence with all expedition, but make her grievances known by some public declaration, whereby the world mi^ht take notice of their want of conscience in their dealing. But not being able to bring the States to a compliance with the terms insisted upon, he was, at last, commanded to effect the very same project, which he had before carried to England, and for which he had endured so much bitterness and grief; and in conclusion he brought them to these terms: that they would consent to a discharge of the auxiliary entertainments, which would ease her majesty of at least forty thousand pounds a year, upon condition that her intention might be known two months before to make an annual presentation of twenty thousand pounds, to be paid every time by public legation on her majesty’s birth-day; but not to be continued beyond her reign: to assist her majesty, if there should be occasion, with their shipping and other sea provisions, and to come to no accord or pacification with the Spaniard, unless with her consent; and to discharge the sum of four hundred thousand pounds in four years, but payable only to her majesty’s person.

Among the other aids which sir Thomas Bodley received, in his noble design of restoring the public library at Oxford, his great friend, the earl of Essex, made him a present of a considerable part of the very valuable library that had belonged to the celebrated Jerom Osorius, successively bishop of Sylvas, and of Algarva, in which last see he died in 1580. This library had fallen to the earl’s share, among the booty which had been taken in the famous expedition against Cadiz, in 1596. King James I. likewise, enriched the Bodleian library at Oxford at the expence of his own for he gave a warrant to sir Thomas Bodley, under the privy seal, for any books, which that gentleman should like in any of his houses or libraries. However, his majesty amply supplied this loss, by purchasing lord Lumley’s library, which contained not only his own collection, but that of his father-in-law, Henry Fitz-Alan, earl of Arundel, who had lived in the reign of king Henry the eighth, when, upon the dissolution of the monasteries, he had great opportunities of collecting manuscripts. Many of these manuscripts, as well as of the printed books in the Royal library, have the name of Arundel and Lumley written in them and now constitute a part of the noble collection in the British Museum. In Hearne’s “Johannis Glastoniensis Historia de Rebus Glastoniensibus,” are two letters to sir Robert Cotton, which peculiarly belong to this article, as one of them gave rise to a very ridiculous report. They will be found in the note.

Though sir Thomas Bodley’s design, in re-founding the public library at Oxford, was so excellent and useful, and his bequeathing his estate for that purpose so commendable, some persons were dissatisfied at their not being remembered by him in his last will. This, at least, was the case with Mr. Chamberlayne, who, though not a relation of sir Thomas’s, yet having had a long acquaintance with him, complains of his conduct with no small degree of malignity. He says that sir Thomas Bodley was so carried away with the vanity and vain glory of his library, that he forgot all other respects and duties almost of conscience, friendship, or good nature. Mr. Chamberlayne farther observes, as another argument of sir Thomas’s vanity, that he had written his own life in seven sheets of paper, not leaving out the least minuteness, or omitting any thing that might tend to his own glory or commendation and that he had not so much as made mention of his wife, or that he was married by which it might be seen what a mind he carried, and what account he made of his best benefactors. It is easy to perceive, that these reflections are chiefly the result of spleen and disappointment.

It would requirea volume to enumerate the many important additions made to the Bodleian library by its numerous benefactors, or to give even a superficial sketch of its ample contents in every branch of science. Among the earliest benefactors were, Robert Devereux, earl of Essex Thomas Sackville, lord Buckhurst and earl of Dorset Robert Sidney, lord Sidney of Penshurst viscount Lisle and earl of Leicester; George Carey,- lord Hunsdon William Gent, esq. Anthony Browne, viscount Montacute John lord Lumley Philip Scudamore, of London, esq. and Lawrence Bodley, younger brother to the founder. All these contributions were made before the year 16 Oo. In 1601, collections of books and manuscripts were presented by Thomas Allen, some time fellow of Trinity college Thomas James, first librarian Herbert Westphaling, bishop of Hereford sir John Fortescue, knt. Alexander Nowell, dean of St. Paul’s John Crooke, recorder of London, and chief justice of the Common Pleas and Nicholas Bond, D. D. president of Magdalen college. The most extensive and prominent collections, however, are those of the earl of Pembroke, Mr. Selden, archbishop Laud, sir Thomas Roe, sir Kenelm Digby, general Fairfax, Dr. Marshall, Dr. Barlow, Dr. Rawlinson, Mr. St. Amand, Dr. Tanner, Mr. Browne Willis, T. Hearne, and Mr. Godwin. The last collection bequeathed, that of the late eminent and learned antiquary, Richard Gough, esq. is perhaps the most perfect series of topographical science ever formed, and is particularly rich in topographical manuscripts, prints, drawings, and books illustrated by the manuscript notes of eminent antiquaries. Since 1780, a fund of more than 4001. a year has been esablished for the purchase of books. This arises from a small addition to the matriculation fees, and a moderate contribution annually from such members of the university as are admitted to the use of the library, or on their taking their first degree.

, a younger brother of sir Thonas Bodley, and, as already noticed, a benefactor to his library, was born in the city of Exeter, about the year 1546. After a suitable education, though in what school is not known, he was sent to Christ-church-college in Oxford, where he took the degrees of bachelor and master of arts. From thence he removed into his native country, where his merit became so conspicuous, that he was made one of the canons, residentiary of Exeter cathedral, and rector of Shobroke, about seven miles from that city, near Crediton. He was chief mourner at his brother’s funeral and, March 30, 1613, was created doctor in divinity, as a member of Christ-church. He died April the 19th, 1615, in the seventieth year of his age, and was interred in St. Peter’s cathedral in Exeter, near the choir, under a flat marble stone, with an epitaph. As to his character we are told, that for his pious zeal, and continual labour in the faithful discharge of the duties of his function, he cannot be over-praised, and that he was of an hospitable disposition, very charitable, and pious. In his will, he bequeathed to the mayor and chamber of Exeter, four hundred pounds in money, to purchase twenty pounds a year in lands, towards the maintenance of a preacher in that city. There is nothing of his writing extant, except an. elegy on the death of the famous bishop Jewel, inserted in Humphrey’s life of that prelate. Dr. John Prideaux, regius professor of divinity and rector of Exeter college, dedicated an act sermon to him, and acknowledges himself indebted to him for some preferment. Prideaux entered Exeter college as a poor servitor, and probably was then indebted to Dr. Bodley for his advancement.

, youngest brother to sir Thomas Bodley, was, in all probability, born at Exeter, as well as his brothers. He was bred up a scholar, and spent some time in Merton-college in Oxford; but preferring a military to a studious life, he served in the Low-countries, which was then the theatre of war, and behaved so well, that he was advanced to the degree of a captain. In 1598, he was sent into Ireland, with several old companies of English out of the Netherlands, amounting in all to above a thousand men, of which he was second captain. There he signalized himself by his valour and conduct and was, at the taking of the isle of Loghrorcan at the attack of Castle-Ny park and at the siege of Kinsale, in 1601, where he was overseer of the trenches, as he was also at the sieges of Baltimore, Berchahaven, and Castlehaven, for which, and other services, he was knighted by the lord deputy Chichester. He was living in Ireland in the year 1613, when he was director-general, and overseer of the fortifications of that kingdom, but the time of his death is not known. He wrote “Observations concerning the fortresses of Ireland, and the British colonies of Ulster,” a ms. once in the library of sir James Ware, an'd afterwards in that of Henry lord Clarendon, and “A Jocular Description of a Journey taken by him to Lecale in Ulster, in 1602,” also in manuscript.

, a voluminous writer, and one of the, revivers of literature in Germany, was born at Zurich, July 19, 1693, and notwithstanding his father’s design to bring him up to the church, or for trade, he seemed born for the sciences, and particularly the belles lettres. He concealed his dislike, however, for the ministry, until the time when he might have been admitted, and then declined proceeding any farther. His father then would have him pursue trade, and in 1717 sent him to Bergamo for that purpose. This being of course as disagreeable to him as the study of divinity, he returned home after two years, his predilection for poetry growing more and more upon him. Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a translation of which fell in his way, filled his head with poetical images, and the English Spectator formed his morals, while he studied his philosophy in Bayle and Montaigne. The German language was at this time in a barbarous state; literature was at a low ebb, and the pedantic studies of the schools were not to the liking of such a youth as Bodmer. Finding nothing, therefore, to read in his own language, he confined himself to the classics of antiquity, and gave up every other employment, except the study of the history and politics of Swisserland. In history, however, he looked only for men, manners, and language; and was desirous of forming from it a system of psychology.

In 1737 he was elected a member of the grand council of Zurich, but this excited no ambition. Having lost his children, he refused every kind of civil promotion, and took as much pains to avoid as others do to procure such honours. His object was to reform the taste of his country, and with this view, for many years all his writings were of the didactic and critical kind. In 1721 he and Breitinger made their first appearance in the republic of letters, by a periodical paper, in the manner of the English Spectator, to which they gave the title of the “Painter of Manners,” and which contributed in a very great degree to the reformation of style. This was followed by many other works, which procured Bodmer the high character of the restorer of the German language, criticism, and poetry. He published also various pieces relative to the history of Swisserland, the greater part of which appeared in the Helvetic Bibliotheque, and have since been inserted in the supplement of Lauffer’s history of Swisserland. In 1748 and 1758, he and his former colleague Breitinger re-published many pieces of German poetry of the thirteenth century: Bodmer also translated some old English ballads, and published the poetry of Opitz with critical remarks. All these contributed essentially to the refinement of German taste and style but Bodmer reached his fiftieth year before he became himself a poet. He had hitherto been terrified at the restraint which rhime imposes, and made no attempt of the kind, until Klopstock, by introducing hexameters, opened the way to ease and variety. Bodmer had studied Milton and Klopstock, and as he was the son of a clergyman, and once destined for the church, this, and a desire to tread in the steps of these illustrious predecessors, determined him to choose a subject from the Bible. Perhaps, says his biographer, his creative powers suggested to him the patriarchs instead of the Achilleses and Æncases. Hitherto his pen had not touched on a national subject, nor could he find any creative fund in national history. Animated therefore by the genius of Milton, he ventured to write an epic in an age in which the poetic fire appeared to be extinguished. His hero was Noah, who having survived the destruction of the first, became the father of a new race of men. Bodmer, by charging this new generation with the crimes of all ages, rendered his poem at once moral and political, and, under the title of the “Noachide,” it was printed at Zurich, 1752, 1765, and 1772.

His other works were, a German translation of Milton, Zurich, 1769; and of Homer, ibid. 1769; of Apollonius Rhodius, ibid. 1779; Collections for the history of the Allies, ibid. 1739 Dissertation on the wonderful in poetry, 1749; Critical observations on portraits in poetry Letters on Criticism A collection of all his smaller epic poems, entitled Calliope; A collection of critical and poetical works, the fountain of the German language, 1768; a magnificent edition, already noticed, of the '^Minnisinger,“or Old German Bards, 1758. He also wrote parodies on Lessing’s Fables, and the Tragedies of Weiss, both very inferior, to his other works. In 1767 his” Noah“was translated by Mr. Collier, and partakes of all the faults of such compositions as the” Death of Abel." Bodmer’s great fault, indeed, was that inflated and bombast style, which has been since his time so popular in Germany, and which, in the dramatic form, some years ago, threatened to debase the taste of this country. His imagination is fertile, and occasionally bursts into something like sublimity, but is rarely under the guidance of judgment or taste. Having something of both, however, at the time his countrymen had neither, he cannot be denied the merit of giving a more favourable direction to their studies but it was his misfortune to acquire fame when there was none to dispute it, and as his country increased in its number of scholars and critics, he in vain endeavoured to preserve his superiority by being jealous of rising merit. The first critic when German criticism was in its infancy, he would also be the first when she was advanced to maturity but he outlived his authority, and was no longer the first, although he might rank among the best. He died Jan. 2, 1783.

, an eminent German critic and historian, and counsellor to the emperor and to the elector of Mentz, was born in 1611, at Cronheim in Franconia, and was during a long life reputed one of the ablest men Germany had produced, particularly in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, in history, and political and legal knowledge. He was only twenty when thought worthy of being appointed professor of eloquence at Strasburgh, and in 1640 was made a canon of St. Thomas. Christina, queen of Sweden, invited him to Upsal in 1648, to be professor of eloquence, and the following year conferred on him the place of historiographer of Sweden, with a pension of eight hundred crowns, which she generously continued when his health obliged him to return to Strasburgh. He was then elected professor* of history at Strasburgh, and in 1662 the elector of Mentz appointed him his counsellor. The year after, the emperor Ferdinand III. bestowed the' same honour upon him, with the title of count Palatine. Louis XIV. offered him a pension pf two thousand livres, but the court of Vienna, unwilling to lose him, induced him to decline it, and made up his loss by another pension of six hundred rix-dollars. Boeder, honoured and enriched by so many favours, pursued his studies with unremitting ardour, until his death in 1692. He published with notes or commentaries, editions of Herodian, Strasburgh, 1644, 8vo Suetonius, ibid. 1647, 4to Manilius, ibid. 1655, 4to Terence, ibid, 1657, 8vo Cornelius Nepos, Utrecht, 1665, 12mo; Polybius, 1666, 1670, 1681, 4to; part of Tacitus, Velleius Paterculus, Virgil, Herodotus, and Ovid. His other works were 1 “De Jure Galliae in Lotharingiam,” Strasburgh, 1663, 4to, a refutation of the treatise on the rights of the French king to Lorraine. 2. “Annotationes in Hippolytum a Lapide,” ibid. 1674, 4to, a refutation of the work entitled “De ratione status imperii Romano-Germanici,” by Chemnitz or James de Steinberg. 3. “Dissertatio de scriptoribus Graecis et Latinis, ab Homero usque ad initium XVI seculi,” ibid. 1674, 8vo, and reprinted by Gronovius in the tenth vol. of his Grecian antiquities. 4. “Bibliographia historico-politico-philologica,” 1677, 8vo. 5. “Historia Belli Sueco-Danici annis 1643 1645,” Stockholm, 1676, Strasburgh, 1679, 8vo. 6. “Historia universalis ab orbe comlito ad J. C. nativitatem,” ibid. 1680, 8vo, with a dissertation on the use of history. 7. “Notitia sacri imperii Romani,” ibid. 1681, 8vo. 8. An edition with notes and improvements, of Picolomini’s Latin history of Frederic III. ibid. 1685, fol. reprinted 1702. 9. “De rebus saeculi post Christum XVI. liber memorialis,” Kiel, 1697, 8vo: 10. “Historia universalis IV saeculorum post Christum,” 1699, 8vo, reprinted at Rostock, 4to, with a life of the author, by J. Theophilus Moller. 11. Various “Letters” in Jaski’s collection, Amsterdam, 1705, 12mo. 12. “Commentatio in Grotii librum de jure belli ac pacis,” Strasburgh, 1705, 1712, 4to. He was a most enthusiastic admirer of Grotius. 13. “Bibliographia critica,” Leipsic, 1715, 8vo, enlarged by J. Gottlieb Krause the former editions of this work were very defective. 14. “Dissertations, and smaller pieces,” published by J. Fabricius, ajt Strasburgh, 1712, 4 vols. 4to, on history, politics, morals, criticism, many of them very valuable.

, minister of the German chapel at St. James’s, London, the son of Anthony Boehm, minister at Oeetorff, in the county of Pyrmont, in Germany, who died 1679, was born June 1, 1673, and after his father’s death was sent to school at Lemgo, and afterwards at Hameln, whence, after making proficiency in Greek and Latin, he was removed to the newly-erected university at Halle. Having finished the usual course of studies here, and taken orders, he was for some time employed as tutor to the sons of noblemen and gentlemen. About the year 1701, some German families in London requested of the university of Halle to send over a proper person as schoolmaster to their children. Boehm was invited to accept this situation, and arrived at London in November of that year, where his first object was to acquire the English language. In 1702 he opened a school in Bedfordbnry, but met with so little encouragement, although invited hither for the purpose, that he must have returned to his own country, if, in 1705, he had not been appointed by prince George of Denmark, queen Anne’s husband, to be one of his chaplains, and officiate at his chapel, which he did for some time alternately with his colleague Crusius, and gave so much satisfaction, not only to the prince, but to the queen, that after his highness’s death, in 1708, the queen ordered the same service to be continued, and gave him access to her presence, which he improved occasionally in the promotion of acts, of charity and humanity. On one occasion, particularly, by his intercession, the queen prevailed on the king of France to release many of th French Protestants condemned to the gallies for religion. When king George I. came to the crown, Mr. Boehm was confirmed in his station, which beheld to his death, May 27, 1722. He was buried in Greenwich church-yard, with a characteristic epitaph. He appears to have been a man of unfeigned and fervent piety, and remarkably zealous in promoting works of piety and charity. Dr. Watts said of him, that he feared there were but few such men then in England, British or German, Episcopal or Non -conformist. His original works are 1. “Enchiridion Precum, cum introductione de natura Orationis,” 1707, 1715, 8vo. 2. “A volume of discourses and tracts,” in English. 3. “The duty of Reformation,” 1718. 4. “The doctrine of godly sorrow,” 1720. 5. “Plain directions for reading the Holy Bible,” 1708, and 1721. 6. “Various pious tracts, in the German language. He also translared the” Pietas Hallensis,“a curious history of the rise and progress of the Orphan school at Halle, 1705 6 7, and the first” Account of the Protestant mission at Tranquebar,“1709 11, some parts of the works of bishop Hopkins, Dr. Barrow, &c. Arndt’s” True Christianity" and edited a Latin edition of the same, and editions of some other pious treatises by foreign divines. He left an unfinished history of the reformation in England from Henry VIII. to Charles II. and some other manuscripts.

, privy- counsellor of the landgrave of Hesse, and professor of mathematics and philosophy at Giessen, was born at Darmstadt, Nov. 17, 1720, and died July 6, 1790. As a philosopher, he adhered to the principles of Wolf, who had been his master, but in mathematics he followed and added to the improvement of the age, by many useful and experimental treatises. His “Magazine for engineers and artillery-men,” 1777 85, 12 vols. 8vo, procured him very considerable reputation. He also wrote, 1. “Logica, ordine scientifico in usum. auditorum conscripta,” Francfort, 1749 62 69, 8vo. 2. “Metaphysica,” Giessen, 1673, 8vo, and an improved edition, 1767, 8vo. He had a considerable hand in the “Francfort Encyclopaedia” and, along with F. K. Schleicher, wrote the “New Military Library,” Marbourg, 1789 90, 4 vols.

, or Behmen, a noted visionary, and founder of the sect of the Behmenists, was born in a village near Gorlitz, in Upper Lusatia, 1575. His education was suitable to the circumstances and views of his parents, who, designing him for a mechanic trade, took him from school as soon as he could read and write, and put him apprentice to a shoe-maker. He first began to use that occupation as a master at Gorlitz, in 1594, and getting into such business as enabled him to support a family, he entered after some time into matrimony, and had several children.

In the mean time, being naturally of a religious turn of mind, he was a constant frequenter of sermons from his youth, and took all opportunities of reading books of divinity, but, not being able to satisfy himself about the differences and controversies in religion, he grew very uneasy, till, happening one day to hear from the pulpit that speech of our Saviour, “Your heavenly Father will give the holy spirit to them that ask it” he was presently so affected, that from this moment, as he tells us, he never ceased asking, that he might know the truth. Upon this, he says, by the divine drawing and will, he was in spirit rapt into the holy sabbath, where he remained seven whole days, in the highest joy; after which, coming to himself, he laid aside all the follies of youth, and was driven by divine zeal earnestly to reprehend impudent, scandalous, and blasphemous speeches, and in all his actions forbore the least appearance of evil, continuing to earn a comfortable livelihood by diligent application to his trade. la 1600, he was a second time possessed with a divine light, and by the sight of a sudden object brought to the inward ground or centre of the hidden nature yet somewhat doubting, he went out hi to an open field, and there beheld the miraculous works of the Creator in the signatures, figures, or shapes of all created things very clearly and manifestly laid open; whereupon he was taken with exceeding joy, yet held his peace, in silence praising God. But ten years after, in 1610, through the overshadowing of the holy spirit, he was a third time touched by God, and became so enlightened, that, lest so great grace bestowed upon him should slip out of his memory ^ and he resist his God, he began to write privately for his own use (without the help of any books except the holy scripture), the truths which had been thus revealed to him. In this spirit he first published his treatise, entitled “Aurora, or the rising of the sun,” in 1612 which book was immediately carried to the magistrates of Gorlitz by George Richterus, dean of the ministers of that place, who complained of its containing many of the errors of Paracelsus and Wigelius for Boehmen had amused himself with chemistry in his youth. The magistrates suppressed the piece as much as possible, and commanded the author to write no more, observing to him, that such employment was properly the business of the clergy, and did not belong to his profession and condition.

Thus rebuked, he remained silent for seven years but finding that the directors of the electoral laboratory had recommended him to a great many persons of the court as a good chemist, he lifted up his head, and boldly opposed Richterus and, taking up his pen again, was resolved to redeem the time he had lost; insomuch that in the remaining five years of his life he wrote ahove twenty books, the last of which, entitled “A table of his principles, or a key of his writings,” was published in 1624. He did not long survive it; for, betimes in the morning, Nov. 18 of that year, he called one of his sons, and asked him, “if he also heard that excellent music” To which being answered in the negative, he ordered the door to be set open, that the music might be the better heard. He asked afterwards what o'clock it was and being told it had struck two, he said, “It is not yet my time, my time is three hours hence.” In the interim he was heard to speak these words, “O thou strong God of hosts, deliver me according to thy will O thou crucified Lord Jesus, have mercy upon me, and receive me into thy kingdom.” When it was near six o'clock, he took leave of his wife and sons, and blessed them, and said, “Now I go hence to paradise” then bidding his son turn him, he immediately expired in a deep sigh.

A great number of persons have been inveigled by the visions of this fanatic; among others the famous Quirinus Kahlman in Germany, who says, that he had learned more, being alone in his study, from Boehmen, than he could have learned from all the wise men of that age together: and that we may not be in the dark as to what sort of knowledge this was, he acquaints us, that amidst an infinite number of visions it happened, that being snatched out of his study, he saw thousands of thousands of lights rising round about him. But our author is better known among ou-rselves, where he has hundreds of admirers and no wonder, since, as Dr. Henry More observes, the sect of the Quakers have borrowed a great many of their doctrines from our Teutonic philosopher of whom we shall venture to say, from a perusal of some of his writings, that he possessed the grand arcanum of mysterizing plain truths by an inextricably oenigmatical expression. He has still many disciples in England and we are sorry to add, met with a warm advocate and industrious disciple in the late pious Mr. William Law, who employed many years in preparing an edition and translation of Bcehmen’s works, and which were published after his decease in 2 vols. 4to, to which two others were afterwards added. The titles of these writings will be perhaps sufficient, without entering farther into their merits, or that of their author. 1. Aurora, or the rising of the sun, 1612. 2. Of the three principles, together with an appendix of the threefold life of man, 1619. 3. Of the threefold life of man, 1620. 4. An answer to the forty questions of the soul, propounded by Dr. Walter, &c. ibid. 5. Three books; the first, of the incarnation of Jesus Christ; the second, of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ; the third, of the tree of faith, ibid. 6. Of six parts, ibid. 7. Of the heavenly and earthly mysterium, ibid. 8. Of the last times, to P. K. ibid. 9. De signatura rerum, or the signature of all things, 1621. 10. A consolatory book of the four complexions, ibid. 11. An apology to Balthazar Tilken, in two parts, ibid. 12. A consideration upon Esaias Steefel’s book, ibid. 13. Of true repentance, 1622. 14. Of true resignation, ibid. 15. Of regeneration, ibid. 16. Of predestination and election of God; at the end of which is a treatise, entitled, 17. A short compendium of repentance, 1623. 18. The mysterium magnum upon Genesis, ibid. 19. A table of the principles, or key of his writings, to G. F. and J. H. 20. Of the supersensual life, ibid. LM. Of the two testaments of Christ, viz. baptism and the supper of the Lord, ibid. 22. A dialogue between the enlightened and unenlightened soul, ibid. 23. An apology upon the book of true repentance, directed against a pasquil of the principal minister of Gorlitz, called Gregory Rickter, ibid. 24. An epitome of the mysterium magnum, ibid. 25. A table of the divine manifestation, or an exposition of the threefold world, to J. S. V. S. and A. V. F. ibid. The following are without date. 26. Of the errors of the sects of Ezekiel Meths, to A. P. A. or an apology to Esaias Steefel. 27. Of the last judgment. 28. Certain letters to diverse persons, written at diverse times, with certain keys for some hidden words. Besides these our author left unfinished, 29. A little book of divine contemplation. 30. A book of one hundred and seventy-seven theosophic questions. 3 1 The holy weeks, or the prayerbook.

, an eminent professor of botany and anatomy in the university of Wittetnberg, who was born in 1723, and died in 1803, was the disciple of Ludwig, and the author of a great many treatises on every branch of botanical science, much admired for original thoughts, perspicuity of method, and extensive knowledge. The principal of these were, 1. “Flora Lipsiae indigena,” Leipsic, 1750, 8vo. 2. “Definitiones plantarum Ludwigianas auctas et emendatas edidit G. R. Boehmer,” ibid. 1760, which forms a new and improved edition of Ludwig’s Elements of Botany. 3. “Bibliotheca scriptorum historic naturalis, oeconomisc, aliarumque artium ac scientiarum ad illam pertmentium, realis systematica,” ibid. 9 vols. 8vo, a very valuable bibliographical work, with references to the literary journals, &c. 4. “A history of plants used in arts and manufactures,” ibid. 1794, 8vo, in German. To these may be added a vast number of academical dissertations on botanical subjects. The Bcehmeria, a genus of the class Monrecia Tetrandria, was so named in honour of him, by Jacquin.

, a very celebrated German lawyer, was born in 1674 at Hanover. He became professor of law at Halle, and afterwards director of the university and in 1743 was appointed chancellor of the duchy of Magdeburgh, and chancellor in ordinary of the faculty oflaw. He died Aug. 11, 1749. His chief study was the canon law, but he was also equally distinguished for his knowledge of the civil law and in all his writings displays profound sense and learning. Among the most approved of his works, we may enumerate: 1 “Tractatus ecclesiasticus de jure parochiali,” Halle, 1701, 4to. 2. “Jus Ecclesiasticum Protestantium,” ibid. 1714, 5 vols. 4to and in 1737, a second edition, in 7 vols. 4to; a third in 1740, extended to 12 vols. 4to. 3. “Corpus juris canonici,” Halle, 1747, 2 vols. 4to. This, which is written in a spirit of moderation and candour, he dedicated to pope Benedict XIV. who received the compliment very graciously. He had two sons* John Samuel, and George Louis, both eminent lawyers, law-writers, and professors, a list of whose works may be seen in our authority. A third son, Philip Adolphus, born at Halle in 1717, and who died in 1789, was a physician, having been admitted doctor in medicine in 1736. As he applied his mind particularly to the study of midwifery, he gave for his inaugural thesis, “De precavenda polyporum generatione.” His next dissertation, which was published in 1741, in 4to, was “Situs uteri gravidi, ac foetus, ac sede placentae in utero.” In this he has given a critical examination of the midwifery forceps used in England, which he compares with and prefers to Leuret’s. These pieces were added by the author to his edition of sir Richard Manningham’s “Compendium artis Obstetricoe,” published in 1746, 4to. Having acquired celebrity by these and other works, he was adopted member of the Acad. Nat. Curios, and foreign associate of the royal academy of surgery at Paris. He was also appointed to succeed his father as professor of anatomy and medicine in the university at Hall. In 1749 he published “Institutiones Osteologicse, in usum prelectionum,” 8vo. Haller particularly commends in this work the engravings of the embryos, and some foetal skeletons. His “Observationum Anatomicarum fasciculus primus,” folio, was published in 1752. Among many rare and curious objects are, an engraving of a pregnant uterus, to shew the membrana decidua, and a foetus in one of the Fallopian tubes, with the placenta. The second collection, also in folio, published in 1756, contains a smaller foetus in one of the tubes, and a child with two bodies and only one head.

, an illustrious physician and professor at Leyden, born Dec. 31, 1668, at Voorhoot, a small village in Holland, about two miles from that city. His father intended him for divinity, and with this view initiated him in letters himself. About the twelfth year of his age, he was afflicted with an ulcer in his left thigh, which seemed to baffle the art of surgery, and occasioned such excessive pain, as much interrupted his studies for some time; but at length, by fomenting it with salt and wine, he effected a cure himself, and thereupon conceived his first thoughts of studying physic. In 1682, he was sent to the public school at Leyden, and at the expiration of the year got into the sixth and highest class, whence it is customary, after six months, to be removed to the university. At this juncture his father died, who left a wife and nine children, with a slender provision of whom Herman, though hut sixteen, was the eldest. Upon his admission into the university, he was particularly noticed by a friend of his father, Mr. Trigland, one of the professors of divinity, who procured him the patronage of Mr. Daniel Van Alphen, burgomaster of Leyden and by the advice of these gentlemen he attended Senguerd’s lectures on logic, the use of the globes, natural philosophy, metaphysics, and ethics he likewise attended the learned Jacob Gronovius on Greek and Latin authors, R kius on Latin classics, rhetoric, chronology, and geography, and Trigland and Scaafe on the Hebrew and Chaldee languages, in order to understand the sacred writings in their originals. In 1687, he applied to mathematics, and found the study so entertaining, that, after having gone through geometry and trigonometry, he proceeded to algebra, under Voider, in 1689. This year he gave a specimen of his learning in an academic oration, proving, “That the doctrine of Epicurus concerning the chief good was well understood by Cicero” and for this received the golden medal, which usually accompanies the merit of such probationary exercise. In 1690 he took a degree in philosophy. In his thesis on this occasion, with great strength of argument, he confuted the systems of Epicurus, Hobbes, and Spinosa. After having laid a solid foundation in all other parts of learning, he proceeded to divinity under the professors Trigland and Spanheim the first of whom gave lectures on Hebrew antiquities, the second on ecclesiastical history.

Notwithstanding he was thus qualified for entering into orders, which, according to his father’s intention, he had hitherto chiefly in view, and that his patrimony was by this time almost wholly exhausted; yet such was his diffidence, that he attempted rather, by teaching mathematics, to defray the expence attending the farther prosecution of his theological studies. By this means he not only increased his reputation, but (what laid the foundation of his future fortune) was introduced to an intimate friendship with John Vandenburg, burgomaster of Leyden. By this new connection he was recommended to the curators, to compare the Vossian manuscripts (purchased in England for the public library at Leyden) with the catalogue of sale; which he executed with such accuracy as procured him the esteem of the university, and recommended him in so particular a manner to Mr. Vandenburg, that this gentleman became ever after solicitous for his advancement and observing the amazing progress Boerhaave made in whatever he applied to, persuaded him to join the study of physic to philosophy and theology. As a relaxation therefore from divinity, and in complaisance to this gentleman, he dipt into physic, being duly prepared for it by his acquaintance with the learned languages, mathematics, and natural philosophy and he resolved to take a degree in physic before his ordination. The study of medicine commencing with that of anatomy, he diligently perused Vesalius, Fallopius, and Bartholin, oftentimes himself dissecting and attending the public dissections of professor Nuck. He next applied himself to the fathers of physic, beginning with Hippocrates and, in their chronological order, reading carefully all the Greek and Latin physicians but soon finding that the later writers “were almost wholly indebted to that prince of physicians for whatever was valuable in them, he resumed Hippocrates, to whom alone in this faculty he devoted himself for some time, making extracts, and digesting them in such a manner, as to render those inestimable remains of antiquity quite familiar to him.” He afterwards made himself acquainted with the best modern authors, particularly with Sydenham, whom he usually styled the immortal Sydenham. He next applied to chemistry, which so captivated him, that he sometimes spent days and nights successively in the study and processes of this art. He made also a considerable proficiency in botany not contented with inspecting the plants in the physic-garden, he sought others with fatigue in fields, rivers, &c. and sometimes with danger in almost inaccessible places, thoroughly examining what he found, and comparing them with the delineations of authors.

His progress in physic hitherto was without any assistance from lectures, except those mentioned in anatomy, and a few by professor Drelincourt on the theory; nor had he yet any thoughts of declining the priesthood: amidst mathematical, philosophical, anatomical, chemical and medical researches, he still earnestly pursued divinity. He went to the university of Harderwick in Guelderland, and in July 1693 was created there M. D. Upon his return to Leyden, he still persisted in his design of engaging in the ministry, but found an invincible obstruction to his intention. In a passage-boat where he happened to be, some discourse was accidentally started about the doctrine of Spinosa, as subversive of all religion and one of the passengers, who exerted himself most, opposing to this philosopher’s pretended mathematical demonstrations only the loud invective of a blind zeal, Boerhaave asked him calmly, “Whether he had ever read the works of the author he decried” The orator was at once struck dumb, and fired with silent resentment. Another passenger whispered the person next him, to learn Boerhaave’s name, and took it down in his pocket-book; and as soon as he arrived at Leyden, gave it out every where, that Boerhaave was become a Spinosist. Boerhaave, finding that such prejudices gained ground, thought it imprudent to risque the refusal of a licence for the pulpit, when he had so fair a prospect of rising by physic. He now therefore applied wholly to physic, and joined practice with reading. In 1701, he took the office of lecturer upon the institutes of physic and delivered an oration the 18th of May, the subject of which was a recommendation of the study of Hippocrates: apprehending that, either through indolence or arrogance, this founder of physic had been shamefully neglected by those whose authority was likely to have too great weight with the students of medicine. He officiated as a professor, with the title of lecturer only, till 1709, when the professorship of medicine and botany was conferred on him: his inaugural oration was upon the simplicity of true medical science, wherein, exploding the fallacies and ostentation of alchemistical and metaphysical writers, he reinstates medicine on the ancient foundation of observation and experiments. In a few years he enriched the physic-garden with such a number of plants, that it was found necessary to enlarge it to twice its original extent. In 1714, he arrived to the highest dignity in the university, the rectorship; and, at its expiration, delivered an oration on the method of obtaining certainty in physics. Here, having asserted our ignorance of the first principles of things, and that all our knowledge of their qualities is derived from experiments, he was thence led to reprehend many systems of the philosophers, and in particular that of Des Cartes, the idol of the times. This drew upon him the outrageous invectives of Mr. R. Andala, a Cartesian, professor of divinity and philosophy at Franeker, who sounded the alarm, that the church was in danger; and that the introduction of scepticism, and even Spinosism, must be the consequence of undermining the Cartesian system by such a professed ignorance of the principles of things his virulence was carried to such a degree, that the governors of the university thought themselves in honour obliged (notwithstanding Boernaave’s remonstrances to the contrary) to insist upon his retracting his aspersions. He accordingly made a recantation, with offers of further satisfaction to which Boerhaave generously replied, that the most agreeable satisfaction he could receive was, that so eminent a divine should have no more trouble on his account. In 1728, he was elected of the academy of sciences at Paris; and, in 1730, of the royal society of London. In 1718, he succeeded Le Mort in the professorship of chemistry and made an oration on this subject, “That chemistry was capable of clearing itself from its own errors.” August 1722, he was taken ill and confined to his bed for six months, with exquisite arthritic pains; he suffered another violent illness in 1727; and being threatened with a relapse in 1729, he found himself under the necessity of resigning the professorships of botany and chemistry. This gave occasion to an elegant oration, in which he recounts many fortunate incidents of his life, and returns his grateful acknowledgements to those who contributed thereto. Yet he was not less assiduous in his private labours till the year 1737, when a difficulty of breathing first seized him, and afterwards gradually increased. In a letter to baron Bassand, he writes thus of himself “An imposthumation of the lungs, which has daily increased for these last three months, almost suffocates me upon the least motion if it should continue to increase without breaking, I must sink under it; if it should break, the event is still' dubious happen what may, why should I be concerned since it cannot be but according to the will of the Supreme Being, what else should 1 desire God be praised In th mean time, I am not wanting in the use of the most approved remedies, in order to mitigate the disease, by promoting maturation, but am no ways anxious about the success of them I have lived to upwards of sixty-eight years, and always cheerful.” Finding also unusual pulsations of the artery in the right side of the neck, and intermissions of the pulse, he concluded there were polypous concretions between the heart and lungs, with a dilatation of the vessels. Sept. 8, 1738, he wrote his case to Dr. Mortimer, secretary of the royal society and for some days there were flattering hopes of his recovery but they soon vanished, and he died the 23d, aged almost seventy.