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, an artist, was born at Bois-le-Duc, and having been carefully instructed in the art of painting by the artists of his native city, he applied himself entirely to study after nature, and rendered himself very eminent for truth of colouring and neatness of handling. His favourite subjects were flowers and curious plants, which he usually represented as grouped in glasses, or vases of chrystal, half filled with water, and gave them so lively a look of nature, that it seemed scarcely possible to express them with greater truth or delicacy. In representing the drops of dew on the leaves of his subjects, he executed them with uncommon tnnsparence, and embellished his subjects with butterflies, bees, wasps, and other insects, which, Sandrart says, were superior to any thing of that kind performed by his contemporary artists. He likewise painted portraits with very great success.

, an engraver, was a native of France, and being invited to England by Nicholas Dorigny, assisted him for some time in engraving the cartoons of Raphael; and afterwards separating from Dorigny, he undertook to engrave the cartoons for the printsellers. He also engraved the duke of Marlborough’s battles, for which he received 80l. per plate; and, assisted first by Du Guernier, and afterwards by Beauvais and Baron, he completed them within two years, in 1717. He then became a printseller, and published, by subscription, the translation of Picart’s Religious Ceremonies. As an engraver, he possessed no great merit: his style is coarse and heavy, and the drawing of the naked parts of the figure in his plates is very defective. The “Continence of Scipio,” from a picture of Nicholas Poussin, in the Houghton collection, is one of his plates. He flourished in 1714.

, a French minister, and the greatest preacher in his time among the protestants, was son of William du Bosc, advocate to the parliament of Roan, and born at Bayeux, February 21, 1623. He made such progress, after having studied divinity eighteen months at Montauban, and three years at Saumur, that although he was but in his three and twentieth year, he was qualified to serve the church of Caen, to which he was presented Nov. 15, 1645, and received the imposition of hands Dec. 17, the same year. The merit of his colleagues, and above all that of Mr. Bochart, did not hinder Mr. du Bosc from acquiring speedily the reputation of one of the first men of his function; and his eloquence became so famous throughout the whole kingdom, that the church of Charenton would have him for their minister, and sent to desire him of his church, in the beginning of 1658. The strongest solicitations were made use of; but neither the eloquence of the deputies of Paris, nor the letters of persons of the greatest eminence in France amongst the protestants, could engage the church of Caen to part with him, nor him to quit his flock. It was impossible that such talents and fame should not give umbrage to the enemies of the protestant religion, which they shewed in 1664, by procuring a lettre de cachet, which banished him from Chalons till a new order, for having spoke disrespectfully of auricular confession. Mr. du Bosc, as he passed through Paris to go to the place of his banishment, explained to Mr. le Tellier his opinion on confession, and in what manner he had spoken of it, with which Le Tellier was satisfied, and told him that he had never doubted of the falseness of the accusation. Mr. du Bosc recovered the liberty of returning to his church October 15, 1664, and the joy which was at Caen among the brethren, when he came there, November 8, was excessive, A great many honourable persons of the other party congratulated him; and there was a catholic gentleman who celebrated the event in a very singular manner, as thus related by Du Bosc’s biographer. “A gentleman of the Roman religion, of distinction in the province, whose life was not very regular, but who made open profes&ion of loving the pastors who had particular talents, and seemed particularly enamoured with the merit of Mr. du Bosc, having a mind to solemnize the feast with a debauch, took two Cordeliers whom he knew to be honest fellows, and made them drink so much, that one of them died on the spot. He went to see Mr. du Bosc the next day, and told him that he thought himself obliged to sacrifice a monk to the public joy; that the sacrifice would have been more reasonable, if it had been a Jesuit; but that his offering ought not to displease him, though it was but of a Cordeiier. This tragical accident, of which he was only the innocent occasion, did not fail to disturb the joy which he had upon seeing himself again in his family and amongst his flock.” During the prosecutions of the protestant churches in 1665, he defended that of Caen, and many others of the province, against the measures of the bishop of Bayeux. The king having published in 1666 a severe proclamation against the protestants, all the chrrches sent deputies to Paris to make humble remonstrances to his majesty. The churches of Normandy deputed Mr. du Bosc, who departed from Caen July 3, 1668. As soon as he was arrived at Paris, the other deputies chose him “to draw up several memoirs. It being reported that the king would suppress some chambers of the edict, all the deputies ran to Mr. de Ruvigni, the deputy general, to speak with him about so important an affair, in hopes of procuring leave to throw themselves at his majesty’s feet; but Mr. du Bosc only was admitted to the audience. He harangued the king, who was alone in his closet, November 27, 1668; and after having ended his discourse, he had the courage to represent several things, and succeeded so well as to make all the court speak of his eloquence and prudence. After several conferences with Mr. le Tellier, and many evasions and delays, in April 1669, he obtained some relaxation of the declaration of 1666. After that time Mr. du Bosc went several journies about the churches’ affairs, and supported them, before the ministers of state and the intendants, with great force and ability, until he was commanded himself, by an act of the parliament of Normandy June 6, 1685, not to exercise his ministry any more in the kingdom. It was, however, universally acknowledged, t.iat if it had been possible to preserve the reformed church of France by the means of negotiation, he was more likely to succeed than any one that could be employed. He retired into Holland after his interdiction, and was minister of the church of Rotterdam, until his death, which happened January 2, 1692. He published some volumes of sermons; and after his death, P. Le Gendre, his son-in-law, published his” Life, Letters, Poems, Orations, Dissertations," and other curious documents respecting the history of the reformed churches in his time, Rotterdam, 1694, 8vo, dedicated to lord viscount Galloway.

, a Spanish poet, of a noble family, was born at Barcelona, about the end of the fifteenth century, and is supposed to have died about 1543. He was bred to arms, and, having served with distinction, was afterwards a great traveller. From the few accounts we have of him, as well as from what appears in his works, he seems to have been a very good classical scholar; and he is said to have been highly successful in the education of Ferdinand, the great duke of Alba, whose singular qualities were probably the fruit of our poet’s attention to him. He married Donna Anna Giron di Rebolledo, an amiable woman, of a noble family, by whom he had a very numerous offspring. Garcilaso was his coadjutor in his poetical labours, and their works were published together, under the title “Obras de Boscan y Garcilaso,” Medina, 1544, 4to, and at Venice, 1553, 12mo. The principal debt which Spanish poetry owes to Boscan, is the introduction of the hendecasyllable verse, to which it owes its true grace and elevation. His works are divided into three books, the first of which contains his poetry in the redondiglia metre, and the other two his hendecasyllables. In these he seems to have made the Italian poets his models, imitating Petrarch in his sonnets and canzoni; Dante and Petrarch in his terzine; Politian, Ariosto, and Bembo, in his ottave rime; and Bernardo Tasso, the father of Torquato, in his versi sciolti. It is said he also translated a play of Euripides, which is lost; but he has left us a prose translation, no less admirable than his poetry, of the famous II Cortegiano, or the Courtier of Castiglione. M. Conti, in his “Collecion de Poesias, &c.” or collection of Spanish poems translated into Italian verse, has given as specimens of Boscan, two canzoni, six sonnets, and a familiar epistle to Don Hurtado de Mendoza.

, a brave English admiral, the second son of Hugh, lord viscount Falmouth, was born in 1711, and having early embraced the naval service, arose, through the usual gradations, to be captain of the Shoreham of 20 guns, in 1740, and distinguished himself as a volunteer under admiral Vernon, in November, at the taking and destroying the fortifications of Porto Bello. At the siege of Carthagena in March 1741, he had the command of a party of seamen, who resolutely attacked and took a fascine battery of fifteen twenty-four pounders, though exposed to the fire of another fort of five guns, which they knew nothing of. Lord Aubrey Beauclerk being killed March 24, at the attack of Bocachica, capt. Boscawen succeeded him in the command of the Prince Frederic of 70 guns; and on the surrender of that castle, was entrusted with the care of its demolition.

In December following, after his return home, he married Frances, daughter of William Glanville, esq. of St Clere in Kent; and the same year was elected member of parliament for Truro in Cornwall. In 1744, he was made captain of the Dreadnought of sixty guns, and on the 29th of April, soon after war had been declared against France, he took the Medea, a French man of war of 26 guns and 240 men, commanded by M. Hoquart, being the first king’s ship taken that war. In January 1745, he was one of the court-martial appointed to inquire into the conduct of capt. Mostyn: and, during the rebellion, an invasion being apprehended, he commanded as commodore on board the Royal Sovereign at the Nore, whence he sent away several of the new-pressed men that were brought to him, in company with some experienced seamen, in frigates and small vessels, to the mouths of many of the creeks and rivers on the coasts of Kent and Sussex, to guard in those parts.

In November 1746, being then captain of the Namur, of seventy-four guns, he chased into admiral Anson’s fleet the Mercury, formerly a French ship of war, of fifty-eight guns, but then serving as an hospital ship to M. d'Anvilie’s squadron. On May 3, 1747, he signalized himself under the admirals Anson and Warren, in an engagement with a French fleet off Cape Finisterre, and was wounded in the shoulder by a musquet-ball. Here M. Hoquart, then commanding the Diamant of fifty-six guns, again became his prisoner, and all the French ships of war, ten in number, were taken. In July of the same year, he was appointed rear-admiral of the blue, and commander in chief of the land and sea-forces employed on an expedition to the East Indies. Nov. 4, he sailed from St. Helen’s, with six ships of the line, five frigates, and two thousand soldiers: and though the wind soon proved contrary, the admiral was so anxious of clearing the channel, that he rather chose to turn to the windward than put back. After refreshing his men some weeks at the Cape of Good Hope, where he arrived March 29, 1748, he made the island of Mauritius, belonging to the French, on June 23. But on reconnoitering the landing place, and finding it impracticable, without great loss, it was determined by a council of war, to proceed on the voyage, that not being the principal design of the expedition. July 29, he arrived at Fort St. David’s, where the siege of Pondicherry being immediately resolved on, the admiral took the command of the army, and marched with them, August 8th, and on the 27th opened trenches before the town: but the men growing sickly, the monsoons being expected, the chief engineer killed, and the enemy being stronger in garrison than the besiegers, the siege was raised Oct. 6th, and in two days the army reached for St. David’s, Mr. Boscawen shewing himself in the retreat as much the general as the admiral. Soon after the peace was concluded, and Madras delivered up to him by the French.

In April 1749, he lost in a violent storm his own ship the Namur, and two more, but was himself providentially on shore. In April 1750 he arrived at St. Helen’s, in the Exeter, having, in his absence, been appointed rear-admiral of the white. In June 1751, he was appointed one of the lords commissioners of the admiralty, and in July was chosen an elder brother of the Trinity -house. In May 1754, he was re-elected for the borough of Truro. In February 1755 he was appointed vice-admiral of the blue, and on April 19, he sailed from Spithead with a strong fleet, in order to intercept the French squadron bound to North America. June 10th, he fell in, off Newfoundland, with the Alcide and Lys, of sixty-four guns each, which were both taken by the Dunkirk and Defiance, being the first action of that war. On this occasion, it was very extraordinary, that M. Hoquart became a third time his prisoner. In November, the admiral arrived at Spithead with his prizes, and fifteen hundred prisoners. In 1756 he commanded the squadron in the Bay; and in December was appointed vice-admiral of the white. In 1757 he again commanded in the Bay; and in 1758 was appointed admiral of the blue, and commander in chief of the expedition to Cape Breton. Feb. 15, he sailed from St. Helen’s, and in conjunction with general (afterwards lord) Amherst, took the important fortress of Louisburgh, July 27th, with the islands of Cape Breton and St. John. On Nov. 1st. the admiral arrived at St. Helen’s with four ships, having fallen in, off Scilly, with six French ships from Quebec, which escaped him in the night; but in chacing one of them, the Belliqueux of sixty-four guns, having carried away her fore top-mast, was forced up Bristol Channel, where she was taken by the Antelope. December 12th, on his coming to the house of commons, the thanks of that august assembly, the greatest honour that can be conferred on any subject, were given him by the speaker.

In some French memoirs, admiral Boscawen is represented as having, at the siege of Louisburgh, wholly given himself up to the direction of a particular captain in that arduous and enterprising business. This, however, was not the case. Whoever knew Mr. Boscawen’s knowledge in his profession, with his powers of resource upon every occasion, his intrepidity of mind, his manliness and independence of conduct and of character, can never give the least degree of credit to such an assertion. The admiral, however, upon other occasions, and in other circumstances, deferred to the opinions of those with whom he was professionally connected. When once sent to intercept a St. Domingo fleet of merchantmen, and while waiting near the track which it was supposed they would take, one of his seamen came to tell him that the fleet was now in sight. The admiral took his glass, and from his superior power of eye, or perhaps from previous information, said, that the sailor was mistaken, and that what he saw was the grand French fleet. The seaman, however, persisted. The admiral desired some others of his crew to look through the glass; who all, with their brains heated with the prospect of a prize, declared, that what they saw was the St. Domingo fleet. He nobly replied, “Gentlemen, you shall never say that I have stood in the way of your enriching yourselves: I submit to you; but, remember, when you find your mistake, you must stand by me.” The mistake was soon discovered; and the admiral, by such an exertion of manffiuvres as the service has not often seen, saved his ship.

In 1759, being appointed to command in the Mediterranean, he sailed from St. Helen’s April 14th. The Toulon fleet, under M. de la Clue, having passed the Streights, with an intent to join that at Brest, the admiral, then at Gibraltar, being informed of it by his frigates, immediately got under sail, and on Aug. 18th, discovered, pursued, and engaged the enemy. His ship, the Namur, of ninety guns, having lost her mainmast, he instantly shifted his flag to the Newark, and, after a sharp engagement, took three large ships, and burnt two, in Lagos-bay. On Sept. 15th he arrived at Spithead with his prizes, and two thousand prisoners. In December of the following year, he was appointed general of the marines, with a salary of Sooo/. per annum, and was also sworn of his majesty’s most honourable privy-council. In the same year he commanded in the Bay, till relieved by admiral Hawke: and, returning home, died at his seat at Hatchland park, near Guildford, of a bilious fever, Jan. 10, 1761. A monument was afterwards erected to him in the church of St. Michael Penkevel in Cornwall, where he was buried, with an elegant inscription said to have been written by his widow.

This excellent officer was so anxious for the honour of the sea-service, and his own, that when lord Anson, then first lord of the admiralty, refused to confirm his promotion of two naval officers to the rank of post-captains, in consequence of their having distinguished themselves at the siege of Louisburgh (Laforey and Balfotir, if we mistake not), he threatened to give up his seat at the board of admiralty, and lord Anson, rather than lose the advice and experience of this great seaman, thought fit to retract his opposition. Admiral Boscawen was so little infected with the spirit of party, that when, on his return from one of his expeditions, he found his friends out of place, and another administration appointed, and was asked whether he would continue as a lord of the admiralty with them, he replied, “the country has a right to the services of its professional men: should I be sent again upon any expedition, my situation at the admiralty will facilitate the equipment of the fleet I am to command.” He probably thought, with his great predecessor, Blake, “It is not for us to mind state affairs, but to prevent foreigners from fooling us.” No stronger testimony of the merit of admiral Boscawen can be given, than that afforded by the late lord Chatham, when prime minister: “When I apply,” said he, “to other officers respecting any expedition I may chance to project, they always raise difficulties; you always find expedients.”

, an English miscellaneous writer, and poet of considerable merit, was nephew to the preced ng, being the younger son of general George Boscawen, third son of lord Falmouth. He was born August 28, 1752, and was sent to Eton school before he was seven years old, where he obtained the particular notice and favour of the celebrated Dr. Barnard. From school he was removed to Oxford, where he became a gentleman commoner of Exeter college, but left it, as is not unusual with gentlemen intended for the law, without taking a degree. He then studied the law, as a member of the Middle Temple, and the practice of special pleading under Mr. (afterwards judge) Buller: was called to the bar, and for a time went the Western circuit. Nor were his legal studies unfruitful, as he published an excellent work under the title of “A Treatise of Convictions on Penal Statutes; with approved precedents of convictions before justices of the peace, in a variety of cases; particularly under the Game Laws, the Revenue Laws, and the Statutes respecting Manufactures, &c.” 1792, 8vo. He was also appointed one of the commissioners of bankrupts, which situation he held till his death. On Dec. 19, 1785, he was appointed by patent to the situation of a commissioner of the victualling office, in consequence of which, and of his marriage in, April 1786, he soon after quitted the bar. He married Charlotte, second daughter of James Ibbetson, D. D. archdeacon of St. A 1 ban’s, and rector of Bushey. By Mrs. Boscawt'n, who died about seven years before him, he had a numerous family, five of whom, daughters, survived both parents.

Being an excellent classical scholar, and warmly attached to literary pursuits, he published, in 1793, the first volume of a new translation of Horace, containing the “Odes, Epodes, and Carmen Seculare.” This being much approved, was followed, in 1798, by his translation of the “Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry,” thus completing a work, which, though Francis’s translation still holds its popularity, is, in the judgment of all classical men, very greatly superior to it, in many essential points of merit. In 1801 he published a small volume of original poems, in which, if he does not take a lead among his contemporaries, he at least discovers an elegant taste, a poetical mind, and a correct versification. He was for several years before his death a constant and able assistant in the “British Critic.” He is also the supposed writer of“The Progress of Satire, an essay, in verse, with notes, containing remarks on ‘The Pursuits of Literature’,” 1798, and “A Supplement to the same,” 1799, two pamphlets occasioned by some freedoms taken with eminent characters in the “Pursuits.”

Mr. Boscawen’s constitution was delicate, and probably not improved by close confinement to the duties of his commissionership. He had, consequently, for several years suffered much by asthmatic affections of the lungs, which gradually exhausted the powers of life, and in the beginning of May, 1811, from an accidental accession of cold, proved fatal on the sixth of that month. The character of Mr. Boscawen, says a writer, whom we know to have been one of his intimate friends, could it be truly drawn, would exhibit a consummate picture of every thing that is amiable and estimable in human nature, improved by knowledge and exalted by religion. In every possible relation of life, whatever was kind, whatever was affectionate, whatever was benevolent, might with certainty be expected from him. That excellent institution, the Literary Fund, he considered almost as his child; and his affection to it was testified, not only by contributions, but by annual verses in its praise, and assiduous attendance on its meetings. Within five days of his death he wrote a copy of verses for its anniversary, and even contemplated the design of attending it. A new edition of his Horace, much improved by his long continued attention, is intended to be brought forward, accompanied by the original, and by many additional notes.

, an artist, was born at Antwerp, in 1675, and was placed under the care of one Thomas, whose subjects were apartments with figures, in the manner of Teniers; and he decorated the insides of those apartments with bustos, vases, pictures, and other curiosities, which sort of subjects were at that time in great request. Bosch studied the same manner of painting, and with great success; but the connoisseurs and his friends advised him to employ his pencil on subjects of a more elegant and elevated kind; because it seemed a little absurd, to see apartments designed with so much magnificence, and so richly ornamented, occupied by persons so mean and vulgar in their appearance as the figures generally represented. Bosch profited by the advice, and soon acquired a different style of design and elegance in his composition, which afforded more pleasure to the eye, and more value to his productions. He also painted portraits with a great deal of reputation, particularly a portrait of the duke of Marlborough on horseback, which gained him all the applause that he could possibly desire. The horse was painted by Van Bloemen. His paintings rose to a most extravagant price, and were at that time more dear than those of Teniers or Ostade. Some of his works have true merit, being very good in the composition and design, and also in respect of the colouring; and the forms of his figures were more elegant than most of his contemporaries. His subjects were judiciously chosen, and for the most part they were sculptors or painters, surrounded with pictures or bustos of marble, brass, or plaster, to which he gave abundance of variety, and a great degree of truth. His pencil is light, his touch spirited, and his figures are dressed in the mode of the time. However, notwithstanding he possessed so much merit, as is generally and justly ascribed to him, his works cannot enter into competition with those of Ostade or Teniers; nor is he now esteemed as he formerly had been, even by hi own countrymen. He died of excess, in 1715.

, an historical painter, was born at Florence, in 1553, and educated under Santi di Titi. He was the first person who had a just notion of the chiaro scuro, and used it successfully in the Florentine school; where, though it had been happily practised by Giorgione, at Venice, and also by Titian, it was not well understood before his time. He possessed great freedom of hand, and gave a surprising force of colour; and both in design and composition the grandeur of his style resembled that of his master. He studied after nature; and in his travels he drew sketches of any particular objects that struck him; but pursuing this practice at Loretto, with regard to the fortifications of the city, he was seized by the officers of justice, and condemned to be hanged; but he happily escaped, within a few hours of execution, by the interposition of signior Bandini, who explained to the chief magistrate his innocent intention. He was also an engraver; but the subjects of his plates are not specified either by Marolles or Florent le Comte. He died in 1606.

, one of the most eminent mathematicians and philosophers of the last century, was born May 11, 17.11, in the city of Ragusa, and studied Latin grammar in the schools of the Jesuits in his native city, where it soon appeared that he was endued with superior talents for the acquisition of learning. In the beginning of his fifteenth year, he had already gone through the grammar classes with applause, and had studied rhetoric for some months, and as it now became necessary to determine on his course of life, having an ardent desire for learning, he thought he could not have a better opportunity of gratifying it, than by entering the society of the Jesuits; and, with the consent of his parents, he petitioned to be, received among them. It was a maxim with the Jesuits to place their most eminent subjects at Rome, as it was of importance for them to make a good figure on that theatre; and as they had formed great expectations from their new pupil, they procured his being called to that city in 1725, where he entered his noviciate with great alacrity. After this noviciate (a space of two years) had passed in the usual probationary exercises, he studied in the schools of rhetoric, became well acquainted with all the classical authors, and cultivated Latin poetry with some taste and zeal.

After this he removed from the noviciate to the Roman college, in order to study philosophy, which he did for three years, and as geometry made part of that course, he soon discovered that his mind was particularly turned to this science, which he cultivated with such rapid success, as to excel all his condisciples, and had already begun to give private lessons in mathematics. According to the ordinary course followed by the Jesuits, their young men, after studying philosophy, were employed in teaching Latin and the belles lettres for the space of five years, as a step to the study of theology and the priesthood at a riper age; but as Boscovich had discovered extraordinary talents for geometrical studies, his superiors dispensed with the teaching of the schools, and commanded him to commence the study of divinity, which he did for four years, but without neglecting geometry and physics, and before that space was ended, he was appointed professor of mathematics, an office to which he brought ardent zeal and h'rst-rate talents. Besides having seen all the best modern productions on mathematical subjects, he studied diligently the antient geometricians, and from them learned that exact method of reasoning which is to be observed in all his works. Although he himself easily perceived the concatenation of mathematical truths, and could follow them into their most abstruse recesses, yet he accommodated himself with a fatherly condescension to the weaker capacities of his scholars, and made every demonstration clearly intelligible to thm. When he perceived that any of his disciples were capable of advancing faster than the rest, he himself would propose his giving them private lessons, that so they might not lose their time; or he would propose to them proper books, with directions how to study by themselves, being always ready to solve difficulties that might occur to them. He composed also new elements of arithmetic, algebra, plain and solid geometry, &c. and although these subjects had been well treated by a great many authors, yet Boscovich’s work will always be esteemed by good judges as a masterly performance, well adapted to the purpose for which ii was intended. To this be afterwards added a new exposition of Conic Sections, the only part of his works which lias appeared in English, It was within these few years translated, abridged, and somewhat altered, by the rev. Mr, Newton of Cambridge.

According to the custom of the schools, every class in the Roman college, towards the end of the scholastic year, gave puhlic specimens of their proficiency. With this view Boscovich published yearly a dissertation on some interesting physico-mathematical subject, the doctrine of which was publicly defended by some of his scholars, assisted by their master, and in the presence of a concourse of the most learned men of Rome. His new opinions in philosophy T. ere here rigorously examined and warmly controverted by persons well versed in physical studies: but he proposed nothing without solid grounds: he had foreseen all their objections, answered them victoriously, and always came off with great applause and increase of reputation. He published likewise dissertations on other occasions: and these works, though small in size, are very valuable both for matter and manner. It was in some of them that he first divulged his sentiments concerning the nature of body, which he afterwards digested into a regular theory, and which is justly become so famous among the learned.

Father Noceti, another Jesuit, and one of his early preceptors, had composed two excellent poems on the" rainbow and the aurora borealis, which were published in 1747, with learned annotations by Boscovich. His countryman, Benedict Stay, after having published the philosophy of Descartes in Latin verse t attempted the same with regard to the more modern and more true philosophy, and has executed it with wonderful success. The first two volumes of this elegant and accurate work were published in 1755, and 1760, with annotations and supplements by Boscovich. These supplements are short dissertations on the most important parts of physics and mathematics. In these he affords a solution of the problem of the centre of oscillation, to which Huygens had come by a wrong method; confutes Euler, who had imagined that the vis inertiæ was necessary in matter; and refutes the ingenious efforts of Riccati on, the Leibnitzian opinion of the forces called living.

Benedict XIV. who was a great encourager of learning, and a beneficent patron of learned men, gave Boscovich many proofs of the esteem he had for him; and both he and his enlightened minister, cardinal Valenti, consulted Boscovich on various important objects of public economy, the clearing of harbours, and the constructing of roads and canals. On one occasion, he was joined in a commission with other mathematicians and architects, invited from different parts of Italy, to inspect the cupola of St. Peter’s, in which a crack had been discovered. They were divided in opinion; but the sentiments of Boscovich, and of the marquis Poleni, prevailed. In stating, however, the result of the consultation, which was to apply a circle of iron round the building, Poleni forgot to refer the idea to its real author, and this omission grievously offended Boscovich, who was tenacious of fame, and somewhat irritable“in temper. About the same time other incidents had concurred to mortify his pride; and he became at last disgusted with his situation, and only looked for a convenient opportunity of quitting Rome. While in this temper of mind, an application was made by the court of Portugal to the general of the Jesuits, for ten mathematicians of the society to go out to Brazil, for the purpose of surveying that settlement, and ascertaining the boundaries which divide it from the Spanish dominions in America. Wishing to combine with that object the mensuration of a degree of latitude, Boscovich offered to embark in the expedition, and his proposition was readily accepted. But cardinal Valenti, unwilling to lose his services, commanded him, in the name of the pope, to dismiss the project, and persuaded him to undertake the same service at home in the Papal territory. In this fatiguing, and often perilous operation, he was assisted by the English Jesuit, Mayer, an excellent mathematician, and was amply provided with the requisite instruments and attendants. They began the work about the close of the year 1750, in the neighbourhood of Rome, and extended the meridian line northwards, across the chain of the Appennines as far as Rimini. Two whole years were spent in completing the various measurements, which were performed with the most scrupulous accuracy. The whole is elaborately described by Boscovich in a quarto volume, full of illustration and minute details’, and with several opuscules, or detached essays, which display great ingenuity, conjoined with the finest geometric taste. We may instance, in particular, the discourse on the rectification of instruments, the elegant synthetical investigation of the figure of the earth, deduce^ both from the law of attraction, and from the actual measurement of degrees, and the nice remarks concerning the curve and the conditions of permanent stability. This last tract gave occasion, however, to some strictures from D'Alembert, to which Boscovich replied, in a note annexed to the French edition of his works. The arduous service which Boscovich had now performed was but poorly rewarded. From the pope he received only a hundred sequins, or about forty-five pounds sterling, a gold box, and” abundance of praise." He now resumed the charge of the mathematical school, and besides discharged faithfully the public duties of religion, which are enjoined by his order. A trifling circumstance will mark the warmth of his temper, and his love of precedence. He had recourse to the authority of cardinal Valenti, to obtain admission into the oratory of Caravita, from which his absence excluded him, and which yet afforded only the bent-fit of a free, but frugal supper. In presiding at that social repast, the philosopher relaxed from the severity of his studies, and shone by his varied, his lively, and fluent conversation.

At this time a dispute arose between the little republic of Lucca, and the government of Tuscany, on the subject of draining a lake. A congress of mathematicians was called, and Boscovich repaired to the scene of contention, in order to defend the rights of the petty state. Having waited three months in vain, expecting the commissioners, and amused with repeated hollow promises, he thought it better for the interest of his constituents, to proceed at once to the court of Vienna, which then directed the affairs of Italy. The flames of war had been recently kindled on the continent of Europe, and Boscovich took occasion to celebrate the first successes of the Austrian arms, in a poem, of which the first book was presented to the empress Theresa; but the military genius of Frederic the Great of Prussia soon turned the scale of fortune, and our poet was reduced to silence. More honourably did he employ some leisure in the composition of his immortal work, “Theoria philosophise niituralis reducta ad unicam legem virium in natura existentium,” printed at Vienna, in 1758. This he drew up, it is alledged, in the very short space of thirty days, having collected the materials a considerable time before; yet we must regret the appearance of haste and disorder, which deforms a production of such rare and intrinsic excellence.

After a successful suit of eleven months at Vienna, Boscovich returned to Rome, and received from the senate of Lucca, for his zealous services, the handsome present of a thousand sequins, or abut 450l. Thus provided with the means of' gratifying his curiosity, he desired and obtained leave to travel. At Paris he spent six months, in the society of the eminent men who then adorned the French capital; and, during his stay in London, he was elected, in 1760, a fellow of the Royal Society, and he dedicated to that learned body his poem on eclipses, which contains a neat compendium of astronomy, and was published at London the same year. The expectation of the scientific world was then turned to the transit of Venus, calculated to happen in the following year. Boscovich, eager to observe it, returned through Holland and Flanders to Italy, and joined his illustrious friend, Correr, at Venice, from whence they sailed to Constantinople, having on their way, visited the famous plain of Troy. In Turkey, he scarcely enjoyed one day of good health, and his life was repeatedly despaired of by the physicians. After spending half a year in this miserable state, he returned in the train of sir James Porter, our ambassador at the Porte; and having traversed Bulgaria, Moldavia, and part of Poland, his intention was to penetrate into Russia, if the agitation which there prevailed, on the death of the emperor Peter, had not deterred him from executing the project. The diary of his journey, which he published in Italian and French, is inferior to any of his works, and contains many trifling and insipid remarks. The truth was, Boscovich began his travels at too late a period of life to profit much by them.

At Rome his arrival was welcomed, and he was again consulted on various plans of public improvement. But in the spring of 1764, he was called by the Austrian governor of Milan, to fill the mathematical chair in the university of Pavia. The honours which he received provoked the jealousy of the other professors, who intrigued to undermine his fame. He took tlfe most effectual mode, however, to silence them, by publishing his Dissertations on optics, which exhibit an elegant synthesis and well-devised set of experiments. These essays excited the more attention, as, at this time, the ingenuity of men of science was particularly attracted to the subject, by Dollond’s valuable discovery of achromatic glasses.

The expulsion of the Jesuits from the dominions of Spain prevented Boscovich from going to California, to observe the second transit of Venus, in 1769, and which expedition the royal society of London had strongly solicited him to undertake. And as his rivals began now to stir themselves again, he sought to dispel the chagrin, by a second journey into France and the Netherlands. At Brussels he met with a peasant, famous for curing the gout, and from whose singular skill he received most essential benefit. On his return to Italy in 1770, he was transferred from the university of Pavia to the Palatine schools at Milan, and resided with those of his order, at the college of Brera, where he furnished, mostly at his own expence, an observatory, of which he got the direction. But he was still doomed to experience mortification. Some young Jesuits, who acted as his assistants, formed a conspiracy, and, by their artful representations, prevailed with the government to exclude his favourite pupil and friend from holding a charge of trust. This intelligence was communicated to him at the baths of Albano, and filled him with grief and indignation. He complained to prince Kaunitz, but implored his protection in vain. To the governor of Milan he wrote, that he would not return, unless things were restored to their former footing. He retired to Venice, where, having staid ten months in fruitless expectation of obtaining redress, he meditated spending the remainder of his days in honourable retirement at his native city of Ragnsa. But while he waited for the opportunity of a vessel to convey him thither, he received the afflicting news of the suppression of his order in Italy. He now renounced his scheme, and seemed quite uncertain what step he should take. Having come into the Tuscan territory, he listened to the counsels and solicitation of Fabroni, who held forth the prospect of a handsome appointment in the Lyceum of Pisa. In the mean time he accepted the invitation of La Bord, chamberlain to Louis XV. accompanied him to Paris in 1773, and through his influence obtained the most liberal patronage from the French monarch; he was naturalized, received two pensions, amounting to 8000 livres, or 333l. and had an office expressly created for him, with the title of “Director of optics for the marine.” “Boscovich might now appear to have attained the pinnacle of fortune and glory; but Paris was no longer for him the theatre of applause, and his ardent temper became soured by the malign breath of jealousy and neglect. Such extraordinary favour bestowed on a foreigner could not fail to excite the envy of the sgavans, who considered him as rewarded greatly beyond his true merit The freedom of his language gave offence, his perpetual egotism became disgusting, and his repetition of barbarous Latin epigrams was most grating to Parisian ears. Besides, the name of a priest and a Jesuit did not now command respect; and the sentiments of austere devotion, which he publicly professed, had grown unfashionable, and were regarded as scarcely befitting the character of a philosopher”.

But, notwithstanding these discouragements, Boscovich applied assiduously to the improvement of astronomy and optics; revised and extended his former ideas, and struck out new paths of discovery. His solution of the problem to determine the orbit of a comet from three observations, is remarkable for its elegant simplicity; being derived from the mere elementary principles of trigonometry. Not less beautiful are his memoirs on the micrometer, and on achromatic telescopes. But his situation becoming more irksome, in 1783, he desired and obtained leave of absence. Two years he spent at Bassano, in the Venetian state, where he published his opuscules, in five volumes, 4to, composed in Latin, Italian, and French, and containing a variety of elegant and. ingenious disquisitions connected with astronomical and optical science. During that time he lived with his editor Remondini, and occupied himself in superintending the press. After finishing his task, he came to Tuscany, and passed some months at the convent of Valombrosa. Thence he went to Milan, and issued a Latin prospectus, in which he proposed to reprint the remaining two volumes of the philosophical poem of Stay, enriched with his annotations, and extended to ten, books. But very few subscribers appeared; his opuscules experienced a slow sale; and the Imperial minister neither consulted nor employed him in some mathematical operations which were carrying on; all symptoms that he was no more a favourite of the Italian public. These mortifications preyed upon his spirits, and made the deeper impression, as his health was much disordered by an inflammation of the lungs. He sunk into a stupid, listless melancholy, and after brooding many days, he emerged into insanity, but not without lucid intervals, during which religion suggested topics of consolation, and he regretted having spent his time in curious speculation, and considered the calamity with which he was visited as a kind of chastisement of heaven for neglecting the spiritual duties of his profession. In this temper of resignation, he expired on the 13th of February, 1787. He was interred decently, but without pomp, in the parochial church of S. Maria Pedone. “Such was the exit,” says Fabroni, “of this sublime genius, whom Rome honoured as her master, whom all Italy regarded as her ornament, and to whom Greece would have erected a statue, had she for want of space been obliged even to throw down some of her heroes.”

Boscovich was tall in stature, of a robust constitution, but pale complexion. His countenance, which was rather long, was expressive of cheerfulness and good humour. He was open, sincere, communicative, and benevolent. We have already noticed that with all these qualities, he was too irritable, and too sensible of what he thought a neglect, which gave him unnecessary uneasiness. He was a man of strict piety, according to his views of religion. His great knowledge of the works of nature made him entertain the highest admiration of the power and wisdom of the Creator. He saw the necessity and advantages of a divine revelation, and was sincerely attached to the Christian religion, having a sovereign contempt for the presumption and foolish pride of infidels.

Zamagna, his countryman, and also a Jesuit, published a panegyric on him in elegant Latin, and a short encomium of him is to be found in the “Estratto della Litteratura Europa;” and another, in the form of a letter, was directed by Lalande to the Parisian journalists. A more full life and eulogium is in Fabroni’s collection; another is in the Journal of Modena; a third was published at Milan by the abbate Ricca; and a fourth at Naples by Dr. Julius Bajamonte. Fabroni has given the most complete catalogue of his works.

, a native of Milan, and servitor of the order of Malta, lived about the end of the sixteenth century, when he was appointed agent for the religion of Malta at Rome, and discharged the duties of this office with fidelity. The knowledge he found it necessary to acquire, appears to have suggested the design of writing a history of that celebrated order, which was published under the title “Historia dell' ordine di S. Giovanni Gierosolimitano,” in three parts or volumes, the first two at Rome, 1594, and the third in 1602, a work in which he is said to have been assisted by two monks, and which contains many curious facts, that have been highly serviceable to the subsequent historians of Malta. It happened that Bosius resided with Petrochini at Rome, and when he was made cardinal by Sixtus V. Bosius attached himself to him, in hopes of being promoted to the same honour, when Petrochini should be pope; but the latter being overlooked at the next election for the papal chair, Bosius went home and passed the remainder of his days, how many we are not told, in exercises of devotion. He appears to have had much of the superstition of his order, and of the age in which he lived, as he wrote a history of the sacred cross on which our Saviour suffered, from its discovery in the reign of Constantine the great.; and decorated the church of St. Blaise with this choice morsel of authentic history. His nephew,

, and the inheritor of his property, was educated by him, studied law, and by his uncle’s interest was appointed agent to the order of Malta. He was a very little man, of a dark countenance, resembling that of his mother, who had been an African slave, whom his father married. In his youth he was very wild, but reformed, lest his uncle should disinherit him, and addicted himself to the study of antiquities, producing the “Roma Sottefanea,” Rome, 1632, fol. a description of the tombs and the epitaphs of the early Christians which are found in the catacombs at Rome. For this purpose he investigated them with great care, often remaining five or six days together under ground, but he did not live to put the finishing hand to the work, which was published by John Severani, a priest of the oratory. Father Aringhi, another of the oratory, translated and published it in Latin, 1651, 2 vols. fol. an edition in more request than the original, and more full and correct.

, an eminent philologer and historian, was born at Leipsic, June 17, 1626, and succeeded so rapidly in his first studies, that he was admitted to his bachelor’s degree in the college of his native city when he had scarcely attained his fifteenth year; and afterwards wrote and defended some theses, as is the custom at Leipsic. In 1643 he went to study at Wittemberg, lodging first with Balthasar Cellarius, and afterwards with J. C. Seldius, two learned men, by whose assistance he was enabled to improve what he heard from the public lecturers. In 1645 he returned to Leipsic, and again attended some of the able professors under whom he was first educated, particularly Muller and Rivinus; and the following year, after a public disputation, in which he acquitted himself with great applause, he was admitted to his master’s degree. In 1647 he went to Strasburgh, and studied divinity and ecclesiastical history, and the modern languages, until he was recalled to Leipsic, where, after two disputations on the solar spots, he was, in 1655, admitted assessor of philosophy. The following year he was invited to be professor of history at Jena, and acquired the greatest reputation as a teacher, while he employed his leisure ho-.irs in composing his own works, or editing some of those of the ancients, making considerable progress in an edition of Josephus, and some of the Byzantine historians. For five years he was dean, and, in 1661, rector of the college, and in 1672 he founded the society of inquirers, “Societas disquirentium,” at Jena. He died of repeated attacks of the gout, which had undermined his constitution, on April 29, 1674. Bosius was the particular friend of Heinsius and Graevius, both of whom speak highly of his talents. Among his works may be enumerated, 1. “Dissertatio de veterum adoratione,” Leipsic, 1646, 4to. 2. His edition of “Cornelius Nepos,” 1657, and again at Jena, 1675, 8vo, which gave such general satisfaction to the learned men of his day, that few subsequent editors ventured to depart from his text. 3. “Dissertatio de Pontificatu Maximo Imperatorum præcipue Christianorum,” Jena, 1657, 4to, reprinted by Grævius in the fifth vol. of his Thesaurus. 4. “De ara ignoti Dei ad Act. 17,” Jena, 1659, 4to. 5. “De Tiberio,” ibid. 1661. 6. “Exercitatio historica de Clinicis Ecclesiae Teteris,” ibid. 1664, 4to. 7. An edition of Tacitus, “De Vita Agricolae, Jena, 1664, 8vo. 8.” Schediasma de comparanda notitia Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum,“ibid, 1673, 4to, reprinted by Crenius in his” Tractatus de eruditibne comparanda,“Leyden, 1699, 4to, and by J. G. Walch, Jena, 1723, 8vo. After his death were published, 9.” Introductio in notitiam rerum publicarum,“with his Essay on the stale of Europe, Jena, 1676, 4to. 10.” Dissertatio Isagogica de comparanda prudentia civili, deque scriptoribus et libris ad earn rem maxime aptis,“ibid. 1679, 4to, and reprinted by Crenius. 11.” Ejusdem et Reinesii Epistolae mutuse,“ibid. 1700, 12mo. 12.” Petronii Satyriconpuritatedonatum cum fragmento Traguriensi et Albas Graecas, &c.“ibid. 1701, 8vo. 13.” Hispaniæ, Ducatus Mediolanensis, et Regni Neapolitani Notitia," Helmstadt, 1702, 4to.

, bishop of Lodeve, and afterwards of Montpellier, was one of the most learned French prelates in the seventeenth century. He was born at Narbonne, May 28, 1605, and studied atThoulouse. He was afterwards appointed judge royal of Narbonne, intendant of Guienne and Languedoc, solicitor general to the parliament of Normandy, and counsellor of state in ordinary. For his services in this last office he was promoted to the bishopric of Lodeve, Jan. 1650. When the affair of the five propositions was agitated at Rome, Bosquet was appointed deputy on the part of the king and clergy of France, and while there, the cardinal Este appointed him bishop of Montpellier. He was exemplary for piety, disinterestedness, and charity, and, like the best of his brethren at that time, practised rigorous austerities. He assisted at the general assembly of the clergy held at Paris in 1670, and was distinguished for his learning and eloquence. An apoplexy carried him off July 24, 1676, and he was interred in the cathedral, with an epitaph celebrating his many virtues. The first work he published was “Pselli Synopsis Legum,” 1632, apiece never before printed, and written in Greek verse by Pselius for the use of his pupil Michael Ducas,in the eleventh century. Bosquet translated it into Latin, and added notes to it. He then published, 2. “Ecclesiye Gallicanae Historiarum liber primus,” 1656, 4to. 3. “Pontificum Romanorum qui e Gallia oriundi in ea seclerunt, historia, ab anno 1315 ad ann. 1394 ex Mss. edita,” Paris, 1632, The second edition of his history of the Gallican Church, the one above mentioned "in 1636, was much enlarged, but some passages were omitted that had appeared in the first octavo edition, which archbishop Usher has transcribed. By these it appears that Bosquet was of opinion that the mistaken zeal of the monks was the chief cause of those fabulous traditions which have destroyed all confidence in the early history of the Gallican church, and while he makes some apology for the credulous believers of those stories, he makes none for those who originally invented them, a concession of great liberality from a prelate of the Romish church.

, a French engraver, was born at Tours, and gave the first lessons of perspective in the academy of painting at Paris. He had great judgement in that branch as well as in architecture. He left, 1. Three good tract on the manner of drawing the orders of architecture, 1684, folio; on the art of engraving, 1645, 8vo; on perspective, 1682, 8vo. 2. Representation of dirers human figures, with their measures, taken from the antiques at Rome, Paris, 1656; a pocket volume all engraved. His plates in aqua fortis, but in a peculiar method, are agreeable. The work of Bosse on the art of engraving was re-published some years ago, with the remarks and augmentations of M. Cochin the younger. Bosse died in his own country about the year 1660, according to Jombert. Bosse was a turbulent character,* and created many enemies, particularly owing to his having published some pieces of Desargues on perspective, and having adopted the opinions of this writer, which were adverse to those of Le Brim and the ablest academicians. This produced a controversy, in which he so displeased the academicians that they expelled him from their society.

, an Italian scholar and writer of considerable eminence, was born at Verona in 1427, and in 1451 entered the congregation of the regular canons of St. John of Lateran, where he bore several employments, as visitor of the order, procurator-general, and abbot of Fiesole in Tuscany. Cosmo de Medici, who had a high respect for him, spent seventy thousand crowns in the repairs of that monastery, and it was in the church belonging to it that Bosso delivered the ensigns of the cardinalship to John de Medici, afterwards pope Leo X. Sixtus VI. also employed him in many important affairs, particularly in reforming the religious houses of Genoa, and other neighbouring districts, and he thrice offered him a valuable bishopric, which he refused. He vigorously opposed the decree of pope Innocent VIII. which ordered all sorts of monks to pay part of their yearly revenues to the clerks of the apostolic chamber. Hermolaus Barbarus was his pupil and guest at Fiesole, and Picus of Mirandula, his friend. He died at Padua in 1502. Mr. Roscoe says he was a profound scholar, a close reasoner, and a convincing orator; and to these united a candid mind, an inflexible integrity, and an interesting simplicity of life and manners. His literary productions were, l.“De Instituendo Sapientia animo,” Bologna, 1495. 2. “De veris et salutaribus animi gaudiis,” Florence, 1491. 3, “Epistolar. Lib. tres,” or rather three volumes, printed 1493, 1498, 1502. Some orations of his are in the collection entitled “Recuperationes Fsesulanse,” a rare and beautiful book, said to have been printed in 1483. His whole works were published by P. Ambrosini, at Bologna, 1627, with the exception of the third book, or volume, of letterS| which, on account of its extreme rarity, was at that time unknown to the editor. His moral writings were very highly esteemed; and one of his pieces on female dress, “de vanis mulierum ornamentis,” excited a considerable interest. The editor of Fabricius throws some doubts on the date of the “Recuperationes,” and if there be letters in it dated 1492 and 1493, it is more probable that it is a typographical error for 1493.

, a distinguished French critic, was born at Paris, March 16, 1631. He began his studies at Nanterre, where he discovered an early taste for polite literature, and soon made surprising progress in all the valuable parts of learning In 1649 he left Nanterre, was admitted a canon regular in the abbey of St. Genevieve, and after a year’s probation took the habit in this abbey. Here he applied to philosophy and divinity, in which he made great proficiency, and took upon him priest’s orders in 1657; but, either from inclination, or in obedience to his superiors, he resumed the belles letters, and taught polite literature in several religious houses. After twelve years, being tired of the fatigue of such an employment, he gave it up, with a resolution to lead a quiet and retired life. Here he published his “Parallel, or comparison betwixt the principles of Aristotle’s natural philosophy, and those of Des Cartes,” Paris, 1674. His intention in tnis piece was not to shew the opposition betwixt these two philosophers, but to prove that they do not differ so much as is generally thought; yet this production of his was but indifferently received, either because these two philosophers differ too widely to be reconciled, or because Bossu had not made himself sufficiently acquainted with their opinions, and it is of little consequence now, since both have given way to a more sound system. The next treatise he published was that on “epic poetry,” which gained him great reputation: Boileau says it is one of the best compositions on this subject that ever appeared in the French language. Bossu having met with a piece wrote by St. Sorlin against this poet, he wrote a confutation of it, for which favour Boileau was extremely grateful; and it produced an intimate friendship betwixt them, which continued till our author’s death, March 14, 1680. He left a vast number of manuscript volumes, which are kept in the abbey of St. John de Chartres.

Bossu’s treatise on the epic was long thought a standard book, even in this country, being translated into English in 1719, 2 vols. 8vo, and there are, undoubtedly, many just remarks in it, but he is too visionary and fantastic for the present more refined state of public taste. His notion that Homer fixed on some moral truth or axiom, and then added a fable or story, in which it was of little consequence whether men or beasts were the heroes and speakers, has been acutely exposed by Drs. Blair and Warton. The first edition of this “Traité de poeme epique” was published at Paris in 1675, and it went through several other editions. There was one printed at the Hague in 17 14, which F. Le Courayer had the care of, and to which he prefixed a discourse to the abbé de Morsan, containing an account of the treatise, and some encomiums upon it, and some memoirs concerning Bossu’s life.

, bishop of Meaux, an eminent French writer and preacher, was born at Dijon, 27th of September 1627. He received the first rudiments of his education there, and in 1642 was sent to Paris to finish his studies at the college of Navarre. In 1652 he took his degrees in divinity, and soon after went to Metz, where he was made a canon. Whilst he resided here, he applied himself chiefly to the study of the scriptures, and the reading of the fathers, especially St. Augustine. In a little time he became a celebrated preacher, and was invited to Paris, where he had for his hearers many of the most learned men of his time, and several persons of the first rank at court. In 1669 he was created bishop of Condom, and the same month was appointed preceptor to the dauphin; upon which occasion, and the applause he gained in the discharge of so delicate an office, pope Innocent XI. congratulated him in a very polite letter. When he had almost finished the education of this prince, he addressed to him his “Discours surl'Histoire Universelle,” which was published in 1681, and is by far the best of his performances. About a year after he was made preceptor he gave up his bishopric, because he could not reside in his diocese, on account of his engagement at court. In 1680 the king appointed him first almoner to the dauphiness, and the year after gave him the bishopric of Meaux. In 1697 he was made counsellor of state, and the year following first almoner to the duchess of Burgundy. Nor did the learned world honour him less than the court; for he had been admitted a member of the French academy; and in 1695, at the desire of the royal college of Navarre, of which he was a member, the king constituted him their superior.

The writings of Bossuet gained him no less fame than his sermons. From the year 1655 he had entered the lists against the protestants; and the most famous piece he wrote against them was his “Refutation du catechisme de Paul Ferri.” In 1671 he wrote another, intituled “L‘exposition de la doctrine de l’église catholique sur les matieres de controverse.” This had the approbation of the bishops of France, as well as of the prelates and cardinals of Rome. Innocent XI. wrote him two letters on the subject, and the work was translated into most of the European languages: M. l'abbé Montague, a relation of the Sandwich family, was the author of the English translation. He is said to have brought back several to the Romish church who had embraced the protestant religion; and it was for the benefit of such that in 1682 he published his “Traite de la communion sous les deux espèces,” and his “Lettre pastorale aux nonveaux catholiques.” In 1686 he published his “Histoire des églises protestantes,” for which, as well as several other of his writings, he was successfully attacked by Mess. Jurieu, Burnet, Basnage, and several other protestant ministers. He always distinguished himself as a zealous advocate for the catholic religion; and so great was his desire to bring about a re-union of the protestants with the church of Rome, that for this purpose he voluntarily offered to travel into foreign countries. He formed several schemes for this purpose, which were approved of by the church of Rome, but the succeeding wars prevented his putting them in execution. His writings in controversy with the protestants, and against quietism, the religion of Madame Guion, Fenelon, and many of the pious French, make several volumes.

There are still extant several of his very celebrated funeral orations, particularly those on the queen-mother of France in 1667, on the queen of England 1669, on the dauphiness 1670, on the queen of France 1633, on the princess Palatine 1685, on chancellor le Tellier 1686, on the prince de Conde, Louis de Bourbon 16S7. These are printed in the “Recueil de Diverses Oraisons Funebres,” 5 vols. 1712, a neglected book, but containing the best specimens of French oratory. Nor, amidst all the great affairs in which he was employed, did he neglect the duty of his diocese. The “Statuts Synodaux,” which he published in 1691, and several other of his pieces, shew how attentive he was to maintain regularity of discipline. After having spent a life in the service of the church, he died at Paris, April 12, 1704, and was buried at Meaux; where his funeral was honoured with the presence of many prelates his friends, and an oration pronounced in his praise by father de la Rue the Jesuit. The same honour was likewise paid to his memory at Paris, in the college of Navarre, where cardinal Noailles performed the pontifical ceremonies, and the funeral oration was spoken by a doctor of the house. Nor was Rome silent in his praise; for an eulogium was spoken to his memory; and, what was unusual, was delivered in the Italian tongue, at the college De propaganda, by the chevalier Matfei, in presence of several cardinals, prelates, and other persons of the first rank. It was afterwards printed, and dedicated to his illustrious pupil the dauphin.

In estimating the character of this celebrated prelate, we must not be guided by d'Alembert’s desultory and artful Eloge, who, however, struggles in vain to conceal the truth, that Bossuet was, with all his taste and talents, a furious bigot in favour of the Catholic religion, and while he affected to dislike persecution, either submitted to the exercise of it, or promoted it by the asperity of his writings. We shall come nearer the truth by adopting Bossuet’s character as contrasted with that of Fenelon by the writer of the “Letters concerning Mythology,” who represents him as a prelate of vast parts, learned, eloquent, artful, and aspiring. By these qualities he rose to the first dignities in the Gallican church: while another of finer fancy and better heart (Fenelon), humble, holy, and sincere, was censured at Rome, and disgraced at the French court. Both were intrusted with the education of princes, and acquitted themselves of those duties in a very different manner. The one endeavoured to make his royal pupil noble, virtuous, and just, a father to his people, ana a friend to mankind, by the maxims of his inimitable Telemaque. The other in his discourses upon universal history, is perpetually turning his prince’s eyes from mankind to the church, as the sacred object of his care, from whose everlasting stem whoever separates is lost: and for whose interests, in the extirpation of heresy, and aggrandizement of her ministers, he is, like his father Lewis XIV. to exert all the power he has received from God.

His celebrated “Exposition of the Roman Catholic Faith,” mentioned above, was designed to show the protestants, that their reasons against returning to the Romish church might be easily removed, if they would view the doctrines of that church in their true light, and not as they had been erroneously represented by protestant writers. Nine years, however, passed before this book could obtain the pope’s approbation. Clement X. refused it positively; and several catholic priests were rigorously treated and severely persecuted, for preaching the doctrine contained in the exposition of Bossuet, which was likewise formally condemned by the university of Louvain in the year 1685, and declared to be scandalous and pernicious. All this we should have thought a proof of the merit of the work, if it had not been at length licensed and held up as unanswerable by the protestants. The artifice, however, employed in the composition of it, and the tricks that were used in the suppression and alteration of the first edition, have been detected with great sagacity by archbishop Wake in the introduction to his “Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England,” and in his two “Defences” of that Exposition, in which the perfidious sophistry of Bossuet is unmasked and refuted in the most satisfactory manner. There was also an excellent answer to Bossuet' s book by M. de la Bastide, one of the most eminent protestant ministers in France. Of this answer the French prelate took no notice during eight years: at the end of which he published an advertisement, in a new edition of his “Exposition,” which was designed to remove the objections of La Bastide. The latter replied in such a demonstrative manner, that the learned bishop, notwithstanding all his eloquence and art, was obliged to quit the field of controversy. There is a very interesting account of this insidious work of Bossuet, and the controversies it occasioned, in the “Bibliotheque des Sciences,” published at the Hague, vol. XV Ih. This account, which is curious, ample, accurate, and learned, was given partly on occasion of a new edition of the “Exposition” printed at Paris in 1761, and accompanied with a Latin translation by Fleury, and partly on occasion of Burigny’s “Lite of Bossuet,” published the same year at Paris.

Had the French press, however, remained open, the controversy between the catholics and protestants might have soon been brought to a conclusion: but other measures were to be adopted, more characteristic of the genius of popery. Bossuet has been praised by most French writers for his laudable attempts to promote an union between the catholic and reformed churches of France. The basis of this union was not very promising. The reformed were to give up every thing, the catholics nothing, and the subsequent practice was worse than this principle. In the “Memoirs pour servira I'histoire des Refugies Francois dans les etats du Roi,” or Memoirs of the French refugees in the dominions of the king of Prussia, by Messrs. Erman and Reclam, published at Berlin in 1782, we have a curious developement of the plan of union, as detected by the celebrated Claude. The reformed church of Paris, which was a considerable edifice, was to be surrounded with troops; the archbishop of Paris and the bishop of Meaux (Bosquet) accompanied with a train of priests and the lieutenant of the police, were to march thither in procession, during divine service: one of these prelates was to mount the pulpit and summon the congregation to submit to the mother church and re-unite; a number of Roman Catholics, posted for the purpose in different parts of the church, as if they belonged to it, were to answer the prelate’s summons, by crying out “re-union!” after which the other prelate was to give the congregation a public absolution from the charge of heresy, and to receive the new pretended converts into the bosom of the church; and this scandalous farce was to be imposed upon the world for an actual re-union. This plan affords a tolerable specimen of Bossuet as a prelate, and a man of candour; and it is worthy of notice, that his associate in this expedition, was the libertine Harlai, archbishop of Paris, whose life and death were so scandalous, that not a single curate could be found, among the most unprincipled part of the Romish clergy, who would undertake to preach his funeral sermon.

Bossuet’s works were published in 1743, in 20 vols, 4to, and some of them have been often reprinted in various forms. His controversial works are no longer read, but his Essay on universal history, and his Sermons, particularly the funeral orations above-mentioned, still preserve their reputation. In 1800 Mr. Jerningham translated and published some “Select Sermons,” and very recently the expectations of the French public were raised by the publication of some inedited pieces by Bossuet, which, however, are thought to be spurious.

, a monk of St. Edmund’s bury in the fourteenth century, and who is thought to have died in 1410, was one of the first collectors of the lives of English writers, and the precursor of Leland, Bale, and Pitts. He searched indefatigably all the libraries of the kingdom, and wrote a catalogue of the authors, with short opinions of them. Archbishop Usher had the most curious ms copy of this book, which became afterwards Mr. Thomas Gale’s property. Wood mentions another smaller catalogue of his writing. He wrote also “Speculum ccenobitarum,” in which he gives the origin and progress of monachism; and a history of his own monastery. “De rebus cœnobii sui,” which last is lost, but the former was printed at Oxford 1722, 8vo, by Hall at the end of “Trivet. Annal.”

, a popular and learned Scotch divine, was born in the town of Dunse, March 17, 1676, and educated at the grammar school of that place, where he was taught the elements of Latin, Greek, rhetoric, and arithmetic. In 1692, he went to the university of Edinburgh, where he went through the usual courses for three years, and entered on the study of divinity. In 1695, he returned home with ample testimonials of his diligence and good character. Next year he taught school at Glencairn for a short time, and then was appointed tutor to a young gentleman of family at Edinburgh, where he continued the study of divinity, until he accompanied his pupil into the country. In 1699, after the usual trials before the presbytery, he was licenced to preach the gospel, as a probationer for the ministry, agreeably to the forms of the church of Scotland, and in September of that year was ordained to the Jiving of Simprin, one of the smallest in Scotland. In the following year he married Katherine Brown, whom he describes as a woman possessed of many valuable qualifications. In May 1707, he exchanged the living of Simprin for that of Etterick, on which he remained until his death. About this time he began to improve his knowledge in the Hebrew, having before only read the Psalter, but 1771 was, according to his own account, “the happy year wherein he was first master (possessor) of a Hebrew Bible, and began the study of it;” and some day, which he forgot, in Oct 1712, was the Happiest day in his life, for he then borrowed “Cross’s Taghmical Art.” More than half his cares and anxieties alter this related to the Hebrew accents. About this time, he was one of the clergy of Scotland, who refused taking the oath of abjuration, and in dread of the penalty, made over his little property to one of his sons, and another person, but it does not appear that the penalty was ever levied. Returning in 1715 to the study of the “Taghmical Art,” after incredible pains, he found that he could make nothing of it; but still persevering, he became persuaded that the accents are the key to the true version of the Hebrew text, and the intrinsic light which illuminates it. Compared to this, as to him, the digging in the mines of Peru was but a trifle. From this time he began to write, as leisure permitted, a work on the accents, accompanying his labours with constant prayer, particularly that he might be instructed in the secrets of double accentuation, which he had not been able to comprehend. All this zeal and industry at length produced an “Essay on the Hebrew accentuation,” which he exhibited in manuscript to some learned friends, who gave him various degrees of encouragement, but he often met with delays and evasions which occasioned great uneasiness to the good man. It being supposed that there were few persons in Great Britain very much interested in the Hebrew accents, he was advised to translate it into Latin that it might circulate among the learned on the continent. Accordingly he began his translation, and as a help to his style, he mentions the following expedient, which perhaps others have made use of on similar occasions. “As I went on, I read something of Cicero, in my leisure hours, for the language, and noted in a book some terms and phraser, taken from him and others: particularly out of Calepin’s dictionary, which Providence had in the year 1724 laid to my hand, when 1 knew not for what use it was designed, and to this collection 1 had frequent recourse, while I wrote that book: and found it to be of good use to me. I had formerly, upon occasion of appearing in print, done the same as to the English tongue: by which means my style, that I had been careless of before, was now somewhat refined.” This work, which he pursued with uncommon enthusiasm, and which was to prove the antiquity and divine authority of the Hebrew accents, was occasionally interrupted by his public services, and the publication of some of his practical works, particularly “The Fourfold State,” in 1720. That on the Hebrew accents did not appear until 1738, when it was published at Amsterdam under the care of the learned David Mill, professor of Oriental languages in the university of Utrecht, in a quarto volume entitled “Thomæ Boston ecclesiæ Atricensis apud Scotos pastoris, Tractatus Stigmologicus Hebraeo-Biblicus,” dedicated to sir Richard Ellys, who had been very friendly to Boston in the prosecution of his studies on this subject. Mr. Boston died May 20, 1732. His works in practical divinity, which are still well known and popular in Scotland, were collected in a large fol. volume in 1768, and since that time others, particularly his “Body of Divinity,” 3 vols. 8vo. 1773, have been published from his Mss. but this last mentioned work is eked out by extracts from other authors witnout acknowledgment, a disingenuous artifice of which the author never would have been guilty. The most remarkable of his posthumous pieces is the “Memoirs of his Lite, Time, and Writings,” written by himself, a closely printed octavo volume, 1776. This is in the form of a diary, tedious and minute beyond all precedent, but evincing a wonderful simplicity of heart, ignorance of the world, and a mind continually harrassed by conscientious scruples about the merest trifles; much of it, however, may be interesting to curious inquirers, as exhibiting characteristics of the manners and sentiments of the Scotch clergy of the seventeenth and part of the eighteenth century.

, the friend and biographer of Dr. Johnson, was the eldest son of Alexander Boswell, lord Auchinleck, one of the judges in the supreme courts of session and justiciary in Scotland. He was born at Edinburgh, Oct. 29, 1740, and received the first rudiments of education in that city. He afterwards studied civil law in the universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. During his residence in these cities, he acquired by the society of the English gentlemen who were students in the Scotch colleges, that remarkable predilection for their manners, which neither the force of education, or national prejudice, could ever eradicate. But his most intimate acquaintance at this period was the rev. Mr. Temple, a worthy, learned, and pious divine, whose well-written character of Gray has been adopted both by Dr. Johnson and Mason in the life of that poet. Mr. Boswell imbibed early the ambition of distinguishing himself by his literary talents, and had the good fortune to obtain the patronage of the late lord Somerville. This pobleman treated him with the most flattering kindness; and Mr. Bosvvell ever remembered with gratitude the friendship he so long enjoyed with this worthy peer. Having always entertained an exalted idea of the felicity of London, in the year 1760 he visited that capital; in the manners and amusements of which he found so much that was congenial to his own taste and feelings, that it hecanie ever after his favourite residence, whither he always returned from his estate in Scotland, and from his various rambles in different parts of Europe, with increasing eagerness and delight; and we find him, nearly twenty years afterwards, condemning Scotland as too narrow a sphere, and wishing to make his chief residence in London, which he calls the great scene of ambition and instruction. He was, doubtless, confirmed in this attachment to the metropolis by the strong predilection entertained towards it by his friend Dr. Johnson, whose sentiments on this subject Mr. Boswell details in various parts of his life of that great man, and which are corroborated by every one in pursuit of literary and intellectual attainments.

The politeness, affability, and insinuating urbanity of manners, which distinguished Mr. Boswell, introduced him into the company of many eminent and learned men, whose acquaintance and friendship he cultivated with the greatest assiduity. In truth, the esteem and approbation of learned men seem to have been one chief object of his literary ambition; and we find him so successful in pursuing his end, that he enumerated some of the greatest men in Scotland among his friends even before he left it for the first time. Notwithstanding Mr. Boswell by his education was intended for the bar, yet he was himself earnestly bent at this period upon obtaining a commission in the guards, and solicited lord Auchinleck’s acquiescence; but returned, however, by his desire, into Scotland, where he received a regular course of instruction in the law, and passed his trials as a civilian at Edinburgh. Still, however, ambitious of displaying himself as one of the “manly hearts who guard the fair,” he visited London a second time in 1762; and, various occurrences delating the purchase of a commission, he was at length persuaded by lord Auchinleck to relinquish his pursuit, and become an advocate at the Scotch bar. In compliance, therefore, with his father’s wishes, he consented to go to Utrecht the ensuing winter, to hear the lectures of an excellent civilian in that university; after which he had permission to make his grand tour of Europe. The year 1763 may be considered the most important epocha in Mr. Boswell’s life, as he had, what he thought a singular felicity, an introduction to Dr. Johnson. This event, so auspicious for Mr. Boswel!, and eventually so fortunate for the public, happened on May 16, 1763. Having continued one winter at Utrecht, during which time he visited several parts of the Netherlands, he commenced his projected travels. Passing from Utrecht into Germany, he pursued his route through Switzerland to Geneva; whence he crossed the Alps into Italy, having visited on his journey Voltaire at Ferney, and Rousseau in the wilds of Neufchatel. Mr. Bosweli continued some time in Italy, where he met and associated with lord Mountstuart, to whom he afterwards dedicated his Theses Juridicae. Having visited the most remarkable cities in Italy, Mr. Bosweli sailed to Corsica, travelled over every part of that island, and obtained the friendship of the illustrious Pasquale de Paoli, in whose palace he resided during his stay at Corsica. He afterwards went to Paris, whence he returned to Scotland in 1766, and soon after became an advocate at the Scotch bar. The celebrated Douglas cause was at that time a subject of general discussion. Mr. Boswell published the “Essence of the Douglas cause;” a pamphlet which contributed to procure Mr. Douglas the popularity which he at that time possessed. In 1768 Mr. Bosweli published his “Account of Corsica, with memoirs of General Paoli.” Of this printed performance Dr. Johnson thus expresses himself: “Your journal is curious and delightful. I know not whether I could name any narrative by which curiosity is better excited or better gratified.” This book has been translated into the German, Dutch, Italian, and French languages; and was received with extraordinary approbation. In the following winter, the theatre-royal at Edinburgh, hitherto restrained by party -spirit, was opened. On this occasion Mr. Bosweli was solicited by David Ross, esq. to write a prologue.‘ The effect of this prologue upon the audience was highly flattering to the author, and beneficial to the manager; as it secured to the latter, by the annihilation of the opposition which had been till that time too successfully’exerted against him, the uninterrupted possession of his patent, which he enjoyed till his death, which happened in September 1790. Mr. Bosweli attended his funeral as chief mourner, and paid the last honours to a man with whom he had spent many a pleasant hour. In 1769, was celebrated at Stratford on Avon the jubilee in honour of Shakspeare. Mr. Boswell. an enthusiastic admirer of the writings of our immortal bard, a. id ever ready to join the festive throng, repaired thither, and appeared at the masquerade ay an armed Corsican chief; a character he was eminently qualified to support. This year he married miss Margaret Montgomery, a lady who, to the advantages of a polite education, united admirable good sense and a brilliant understanding. She was daughter of David Montgomery, esq. related to the illustrious family of Eglintoune, and representative of the antient peerage of Lyle. The death of this amiable woman happened in June 1790. Mr. Boswell has honoured her memory with an affectionate tribute. She left him two sons and three daughters; who, to use Mr. Boswell' s own words, “if they inherit her good qualities, will have no reason to complain of their lot. Dos magna parentum virtus.” In 1782 lord Auchinleck died. In 1783, Mr. Boswell published his celebrated Letter to the People of Scotland; which is thus praised by Johnson in a letter to the author; “I am very much of your opinion your paper contains very considerable knowledge of history and the constitution, very properly produced and applied.” Mr. Boswell communicated the pamphlet to Mr. Pitt, who naturally gave it his approbation. This first letter was followed by a second, in which I.Ii. Bosweil displayed his usual energy and political abilities. In 1785, Mr. Boswell published “A journal of a tour to the Hebrides” with Dr. Johnson; which met a success similar to his entertaining account of Corsica, and to which we owe his life of that illustrious character. This year Mr. Boswell removed to London, and was soon after called to the English bar, but his professional business was interrupted by preparing his most celebrated work, “The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.” which was published in 1790, and was received by the world with extraordinary avidity. It is a faithful history of Johnson’s life; and exhibits a most interesting picture of the character of that illustrious mom list, delineated with a masterly hand. The preparation of a second edition of this work was the last literary performance of Mr. Boswell. Mr. Boswell undoubtedly possessed considerable intellectual powers; as he could never have displayed his collection of the witticisms of his friend in so lively a manner as he has done, without having a picturesque imagination, and a turn for poetry as well as humour. He had a considerable share of melancholy in his temperament; and, though the general tenor of his life was gay and active, he frequently experienced an unaccountable depression of spirits. In one of these gloomy moods he wrote a series of essays under the title of “The Hypochondriac,” which appeared in the London Magazine, and end with No. 63 in 1732. These he had thoughts of collecting into a volume, but they would have added little to his reputation, being in general very trifling. Soon after his return from a visit to Auchinleck, he was seized with a disorder which put an end to his life, at his house in Portland-street, on the 19th of June 1795, in the 55th year of his age. Of his own character he gives the following account in his journal of the tour to the Hebrides: “I have given a sketch of Dr. Johnson. His readers may wish to know a little of his fellow-traveller. Think, then, of a gentleman of ancient blood; the pride of which was his predominant passion. He was then in his 33d year, and had been about four years happily married: his inclination was to be a soldier; but his father, a respectable judge, had pressed him into the profession of the law. He had travelled a good deal, and seen many varieties of human life. He had thought more than any body supposed, and had a pretty good stock of general learning and knowledge. He had all Dr. Johnson’s principles, with some degree of relaxation. He had rather too little than too much prudence; and, his imagination being lively, he often said things of which the effect was very different from the intention. He resembled sometimes * The best good maH, with the worstnatured muse.‘ He cannot deny himself the vanity of finishing with the encomium of Dr. Johnson, whose friendly partiality to the companion of this tour represents him as one ’ whose acuteness would help my enquiry, and whose gaiety of conversation, and civility of manners, are sufficient to counteract the inconveniencies of travel, in countries less hospitable than we have passed'.”

His character in all its lights and shades is, however, best delineated in his life of Dr. Johnson, a work of uncommon merit and of still increasing popularity. An anonymous biographer has justly said of it, that it was “found to exhibit an inimitably faithful picture of the mingled genius and weakness, of the virtues and the vices, the sound sense and the pedantry, the benignity and the passionate harshness, of the great and excellent, although not consummately perfect man, the train of whose life it endeavoured to untold. It appeared to be filled with a rich store of his genuine dictates, so eloquent and vvise^ that they need hardly shun comparison with the most elaborate of those works which he himself published. Johnson was seen in it^ not as a solitary figure, but associated with those groupes of his distinguished contemporaries with which it was his good fortune, in all the latter and more illustrious years of his life, often to meet and to converse. It displayed many fine specimens of that proportion, in which, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, literature and philosophical wisdom were liable to be carelessly intermingled in the ordinary conversation of the best company in Britain. It preserved a thousand precious anecdotical memorials of the state of arts, manners, and policy among us during this period, such as must be invaluable to the philosophers and antiquaries of a future age. It gave, in the most pleasing mode of institution, and in many different points of view, almost all the elementary practical principles both of taste and of moral science. It showed the colloquial tattle of Boswell duly chastened by the grave and rounded eloquence of Johnson. It presented a collection of a number of the most elaborate of Johnson’s smaller occasional compositions, which might otherwise perhaps have been entirely lost to future times. Shewing Boswell’s skill in literary composition, his general acquaintance with learning and science, his knowledge of the manners, the fortunes, and the actuating principles of mankind, to have been greatly extended and improved since the time when he wrote his account of Corsica, it exalted the character of his talents in the estimation of the world; and was reckoned to be such a master-piece in its particular species, as perhaps the literature of no other nation, ancient or modern, could boast. It did not indeed present its author to the world in another light than as a genius of the second class; yet it seemed to rank him nearer to the first than to the third. This estimation of the character of Boswell’s life of Johnson, formed by the best critics soon after its publication, seems to have been since fully confirmed.”

, an eminent physician of Piedmont, who flourished about the middle of the 16th century, was a disciple of Fallopius, and took his degree of doctor in medicine at Padua. It appears by his writings, that he was a diligent observer, and enjoyed a considerable share of practice. He was in succession physician and aulic counsellor to Charles IX. Henry II. of France, and to William prince of Orange. He was also skilled in the practice of surgery, and published, “De curandis vulneribus sclopetorum,” Venet. 1560, 8vo. This has been frequently reprinted, and continued, for a long time, to be esteemed the most useful manual that had been published on the subject. He wrote also “Commentarioli duo, alter de medici, alter de aegvoti, munere,” Lion. 1565, 8vo; containing rules for the conduct of the physician, the surgeon, and the apothecary, in their attendance upon the sick. But the work by which he is most known, and which produced an important revolution in the practice of medicine, is his “De curatione per sanguinis missione, de incidendae venae, cutis scarificandae, et hirudinum arrigendarum modo,” Antw. 1583, 8vo. Though bleeding had always been occasionally used in the cure of diseases, yet in his time it was nearly constantly superseded by purging medicines, or it was too sparingly used, and seldom repeated. Our author made frequent recourse to it, with complete success, he says, in diarrhoea, dysentery, in fever, the plague, and during pregnancy; and flattered with success, he became, as he advanced in life, more and more bold and free in the use of the lancet, and bleeding became a general remedy all over Europe; but in no country was it carried to such excess as in France, where the professors of medicine, for their too frequent recurrence to it, were held up to ridicule by Le Sage, in his inimitable novel of Gil Bias. The works of Botallus were collected, and published under the title of “Opera Omnia,” in 1660, at Leyden, by I. V. Home.

, were two eminent Dutch painters and engravers; John was born at Utrecht, in 1610, and was the disciple of Abraham Bloemart, who at the same time instructed Andrew; but to perfect themselves in a good taste of design, they went together to Rome, and resided there for a great many years. The genius of John directed him to the study of landscape, in which he rose almost to the highest perfection, making the style of Claude Lorraine his model; and by many his works are mentioned in competition even with those of Claude. The warmth of his skies, the judicious and regular receding of the objects, and the sweetness of his distances, afford the eye a degree of pleasure, superior to what we feel on viewing the works of almost any other artist. John and Andrew had very different talents, and each of them were admirable in their different way. The former excelled in landscape, the latter inserted the figures, which he designed in the manner of Bamboccio; and those figures are always so well adapted, that every picture seemed only the work of one master. The works of these associate brothers are justly admired through all Europe; they are universally sought for, and purchased at very large prices. Most of his pictures are, for size, between two and five feet long; but in those that are smaller, there is exquisite neatness. They generally express the sunny light of the morning, breaking out from behind woods, hills, or mountains, and diffusing a warm glow over the skies, trees, and the whole face of nature; or else a sun-set, with a lovely tinge in the clouds, every object beautifully partaking of a proper degree of natural illumination. And it is to be observed, that even the different hours of the day are perceptible in his landscapes, from the propriety of the tints which he uses. By some connoisseurs he is censured for having too much of the tawny in his colouring, and that the leafings of his trees are too yellow, approaching to saffron; but this is not a general fault in his pictures, though some of them, accidentally, may justly be liable to that criticism, for he corrected that fault; and many of his pictures are no more tinged with those colours, than truth and beautiful nature will justify; and his colouring obtained for him the distinction which he still possesses, of being called Both of Italy.

Descamps, in the life of Both, after having said that John painted landscapes, and Andrew figures, in the manner of Bamboccio, asserts that Andrew was drowned in a canal at Venice, and John returned to Utrecht; in which account he appears to follow Sandrart; though other writers agree, that it was the landscape-painter who was drowned, and Andrew, returning to his own country, painted conversations and portraits as long as he lived, of which the other was incapable. The two brothers mutually assisted each other till the death of John in 1650; and then Andrew retired from Italy, settled at Utrecht, and continued to paint sometimes portraits, sometimes landscapes, in the manner of his brother, and also conversations, and players at cards, in the manner of Bamboccio. Both of those masters had extraordinary readiness of hand, and a free, light, sweet pencil; and that they were expeditious, may be evident from the great number of pictures which they finished. Andrew, during the remainder of his life, had as much employment as he could possibly execute; but was so affected by the melancholy death of his brother, that he survived him only a few years, dying in 1656. Strutt mentions a few engravings by both these artists, but neither arrived at any great perfection in the art.

, or William Worcester, an ancient English writer, acquainted with history, antiquities, heraldry, physic, and astronomy, was born at Bristol about 1415; his father’s name was Worcester, and his mother’s Botoner, hence he often names himself William Wyrcester, alias Botoner; and hence the error in Pits, and others, of making two distinct persons of the two names. He studied at Hart-hall, Oxford, 1434. He had been exercised in wars above 44 years; and had so faithfully served sir John Fastolff that he left him one of his executors. He wrote many books, the first of which, that was printed, was his translation from the French, of “Cicero de Senectute,” which he addressed to William Wainfleet, bishop of Winchester. He tells us that he presented it to the bishop at Asher [JSsher] August 10, 1475, but received no reward (nullum regardum recepide episcopo). He wrote also “Antiquities of England;” “Abbreviations of the Learned;” “Medicinal collections;” a book of Astrology; another of Astronomy; besides a particular treatise, gratefully preserving the life and deeds of his master, under the title of “Acta Domini Johannis Fastolff;” “the Acts of John duke of Bedford;” “Polyandrium Oxoniensium, or memoirs of Oxford Students;” and other lesser pieces; of which see Tanner Bibl. Brit. p. 115. His “Annals of England” were printed by Hearne at the end of his “Liber Niger Scaccarii,” p. 424 451. His “Itinerary” was published from a ms. not improbably the original, in the library at Corpus Christi college, Cambridge, by Mr. James Nasmith, fellow of the said college, Cantab. 1778, 8vo. Fuller cites a book of Botoner’s, containing all the ancient gentry of the county of Norfolk, long preserved in the county, but not now extant. He also wrote something in poetry, as that htimoroirs ballad in Nasmith’s edition of his Itinerary, called " Comedia a<i Monasterium Hulme/' &c. and a long chronographical epitaph in verse, on the lady Milicent Fastoif; in the possession of Richard Poley, esq. late prothonotary of the common pleas. He is supposed to have died about 1490. The son of this Worcester, among other things, also made a collection of several authentic instruments relating to the English wars and government in France; which he dedicated to king Edward IV. containing a catalogue of the princes, dukes, earls, barons, bannerets, knights, and other persons of eminence, who were of the regent’s court. A copy of this collection, in quarto, was some time in the custody of the late Brian Fairfax, esq. one of the commissioners of the customs.

, an architect, who was born in France in 1670, of protestant parents, quitted his country early in life, and went into the service of William of Orange, afterwards king of Great Britain. After the death of that prince, he attached himself to the elector of Brandenbourg, who gave him a post of captain of the guards, which did not slacken his industry in architecture. His first edifice was the arsenal at Berlin, and he afterwards signalized himself by various monuments of his art. Frederic I. being dead, Bott conciliated the favour of Frederic William, who raised him to the rank of major-general. The fortifications of Wesel, of which place he was commandant, were constructed under his direction. In 1728 he went into the service of the king of Poland, elector of Saxony, in quality of lieutenant-general and chief of the engineers. In Dresden are several edifices of his erection, where he died in 1745, with great reputation for probity, intelligence, and valour.

, an English clergyman of ingenuity and learning, was descended from an ancient family in Staffordshire, and born at Derby in 1688. His grandfather had been a major on the parliament side in the civil wars; his father had diminished a considerable paternal estate by gaming; but his mother, a woman of great prudence, contrived to give a good education to six children. Thomas the youngest acquired his grammatical learning at Derby; had his education among the dissenters; and was appointed to preach to a presbyterian congregation at Spalding in Lincolnshire. Not liking this mode of life, he removed to London at the end of queen Anne’s reign, with a view of preparing himself for physic; but changing his measures again, he took orders in the church of England, soon after the accession of George I. and was presented to the rectory of Winburg in Norfolk. About 1725 he was presented to the benefice of Reymerston; in 1734, to the rectory of Spixworth; and, in 1747, to the rectory of Edgefield; all in Norfolk. About 1750, his mental powers began to decline; and, at Christmas 1752, he ceased to appear in the pulpit. He died at Norwich, whither he had removed, in 1753, with his family, Sept. 23, 1754, leaving a wife, whom he mafried in 1739; and also a son, Edmund Bott, esq. of Christ church in Hampshire, a fellow of the Antiquarian society, who published, in 1771, A collection of cases relating to the Poor laws. Dr. Kippis, who was his nephew by marriage, has given a prolix article on him, and a minute character, in which, however, there appears to have been little of the amiable, and in his religious opinions he was capricious and unsteady. His works were, 1. “The peace and happiness of this world, the immediate design of Christianity, on Luke ix. 56,” a pamphlet in 8vo, 1724. 2. A second tract in defence of this, 1730, 8vo. 3. “The principal and peculiar notion of a late book, entitled, The religion of nature delineated, considered, and refuted,” 1725. This was against Wollaston’s notion of moral obligation. 4. A visitation sermon, preached at Norwich, April 30th, 1730. 5. A 30th of January sermon, preached at Norwich, and printed at the request of the mayor, &c. 6. “Remarks upon Butler’s 6th chapter of the Analogy of Religion, &c. concerning Necessity,” 1730. 7. Answer to the first volume of Warburton’s Divine Legation of Moses.

Among other learned acquaintance of Mr. Bott was Dr. Samuel Clarke, of whom he relates, that he was not only of a cheerful, but of a playful disposition. Once, when Mr. Bott called upon him, he found him swimming upon a table. At another time, when several of them were amusing themselves with diverting tricks, Dr. Clarke, looking out of the window, and seeing a grave blockhead approaching, called out, “Boys, boys, be wise; here comes a fool.” We have heard the like of Dr. Clarke from other quarters, and are not sure that the “grave blockhead” may not have been the most decorous character.

, a very learned prelate of the court of Rome, was born at Florence, Jan. 15, 1689, and became early distinguished for the purity of his style, and his intimate knowledge of the Tuscan dialect. He studied rhetoric and Latin uiuier Antonio-Maria Biscioni, who was afterwards dictator of the Mediceo-Lorenzian library. (See Biscioni). He then studied philosophy, divinity, mathematics, and Greek, the latter under the learned Salvini. His proficiency in these branches of knowledge soon made him noticed, and he was appointed by the academy della Crusca, to superintend the new edition of their dictionary, in which labour he was assisted by Andrea Alamaorni and Rosso Martini. He had afterwards the direction of the printing-ofBce belonging to the Grand Duke, from which several of his works issued. Clement XII. made him librarian of the Vatican, in which he arranged a cabinet of medals, which that pope wished to be considered as a part of the library. On his death, Bottari entered the conclave Feb. 6, 1740, with the cardinal Neri Corsini. Next year was published by P. Marmoreus, the edition of Virgil^ Rome, 1741, fol. a fac-simile of the famous Codex Vaticanus, to which Bottari prefixed a learned preface. He was the first who had the curiosity to examine this valuable manuscript, which belonged formerly to Pontanus, afterwards to Bembus, and lastly to Fulvius Ursinus, who deposited it in the Vatican, when he became librarian there. Benedict XIV. being elected pope, who had long been the friend of Bottari, he conferred on him the canonry of St. Maria-Transteverini, and that he might reside in his palace, appointed him his private almoner. He was also a member of all the principal academies of Italy; and Fontanini, Apostolo Zeno, Gori, and others, have written his eloges, having all profited, in the publication of their works, by his valuable communications. His long and studious life terminated June 3, 1775, in his eighty-sixth year. Among his works, of which Mazzuchelli has given a long list, are, 1. Vita di Francesco Sacchetti,“Vicenza (Naples) 1725, with Sacchetti’s” Novelle,“8vo. 2.” L'Ercolano, dialogodi Benedetto Varchi,“Florence, 1730, 4to. 3.” Lezione tre sopra il tremuoto,“Rome, 1733 and 1748, 4to. 4.” Sculture, e Pitture sacre estratte dai cimeteri di Roma, &c.“Rome, 1737, 1747, 1753, 3 vols. fol. 5.” Vocabularia della Crusca,“Florence, 1738, 6 vols. 6. The Virgil already noticed. 7.” De Museo Capitolino,“1750, 3 vols fol. 8.” Raccolta di lettere sulla Pittura, Sculrura, ed Architettura,“Rome, 1754, 1757, and 1759, 3 vols. 4to; and again, an enlarged edition at Naples, 1772. 9.” Dialog hi sopra tre arti del Disegno," Lucca, 1754, 4to. He also contributed to a new edition oi Vasari and Passori’s Lives of the Painters.

an Italian painter and engraver, was born at Florence, in 1437; and being placed as a disciple with Filippo Lippi, he imitated that master, as well in his design as colouring. He performed several considerable works at Florence, and several at Rome, by which he gained great reputation; at the former, a Venus rising from the sea, and also a Venus adorned by the graces; and at the latter, he painted sacred subjects from the New Testament, which at that time were very much commended. He obtained great honour by his performances in the chapel of Sixtus IV. for which he was very amply rewarded; and for the family of the Medici he finished some portraits, and many historical compositions. It was customary with this master to introduce a great number of figures in all the subjects he designed, and he disposed them with tolerable judgment and propriety; but in one of his designs, representing the Adoration of the Magi, the variety and multitude of his figures are astonishing. He received large sums of money for his works, all of which he expended, and died in 1515 in great distress, and far advanced in years.

Mr Strutt has introduced him in chap. VI. of his “Origin and Progress of Engraving,” to which we refer the reader. Baldini, according to the general report, communicated to him the secret of engraving, then nt-wiy discovered by their townsman Finiguerra. The curious edition of Dante printed at Florence in 1481 (or 1488) and to which, according to some authors, Botticelli undertook to write notes, was evidently intended to have been ornamented with prints, one for each canto: and these prints (as many of them as were finished) were designed, if not engraved, by Botticelli. Mr. Roscoe, however, says, that they were designed by Botticelli, and engraved by Baldini. It is remarkable, that the first two plates only were printed upon the leaves of the book, and for want of a blank space at the head of the first canto, the plate belonging to it is placed at the bottom of the pag'e. Blank spaces are left for all the rest, that as many of them as were finished might be pasted on. Mr. Wilbraham possesses the finest copy of this book extant in any private library; and the number of prints in it amounts to nineteen, the first two, as usual, printed on the leaves, and the rest pasted on; and these, Mr. Strutt thinks, were all that Botticelli ever executed. Mr. Roscoe describes another copy as in his possession, formerly in the Pinelli library.

, a physician, descended of an illustrious family of Parma, was born at Padua in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and in 1555 became professor of medicine in that city, where he was esteemed for his talents and success as a practitioner. He died in 1596, leaving behind him an immense property, an elegant house, &c. He published, l.“De Vita conservanda,” Padua, 1582, 4to. 2. “De morbis muliebribus,” ibid. 1585, and twice reprinted, besides in the collections of Bauhine and Spachius. 3. “Consilia medica,” Francfort, 1605, 4to. in Lautenbach’s collection. 4. “De modo discurrendi circa morbos eosdem curandi tractatus,” ibid. 1607, 12mo. with the Pandects of John George Schenck. An edition was afterwards published at Francfort in 1695, 8vo, with the title, “Methodus medicinales duae,” &c.

, the son of Nicholas Bottom, a celebrated philosopher and physician of Leontini, in Sicily, was born the 6th of October 1641, and received his education under Peter Castello. In 1658, he was admitted to the degree of doctor, and was soon after made physician to the marquis De Villa Franca, viceroy of Sicily, physician to the royal hospital of Messina, and superintendant of the physicians there, with a pension of 50 crowns per month. He afterwards enjoyed a similar situation under the viceroy of Naples. In 1697, he was made corresponding jor honorary member of the royal society of London, to which he had previously sent his “Idea historico-physica tie magno trinacrisc terras motu,” which is published in their transactions. He was the first Sicilian physician who had received that honour. He wrote also “Pyrologia topograpuica, id est, de igne dissertatio, juxta loca, cum eorun. doscriptione,” Neapoli, 1692, 4to. “Febris rheumaticse malignae, historia medica,” Messina, 1712, 8vo. “Preserve salutari contro il contagioso malore,” Messina, 1621, 4to. He died about the year 1731.

, a French sculptor, was the son of a sculptor and architect, and born at Chaumont in Bassigni in 1698. He was drawn by an irresistible passion for these two arts, but confined himself at length to the former. After having passed some time at Paris under the younger Coustou, and obtained the prize at the academy in 1722, he was carried to Rome at the king’s expence. Upon his return from Italy, where his talents had been greatly improved, he adorned Paris with his works: a list of them may be seen in a life of him, published in 1762, 12mo, by the count de Caylus, but some of them no longer exist, particularly his fine equestrian statue of Louis XV. formerly in the square named after that monarch. In 1744 he obtained a place in the academy; and, two years after, a professorship. He died July 17, 1762, a loss to the arts, and much lamented; for he is described as a man of great talent, disinterested spirit, and of most amiable manners. Music was his object in the hours of recreation, and his talents in this way were very considerable. Count Caylus, in his “Tableaux tires de l‘Iliade et de l’Odysse d'Homere,” mentions Bouchardon, with honour, among the tew artists who borrowed their subjects from Homer, and relates the following anecdote: “This great artist having lately read Homer in an old and detestable French translation, came one day to me, his eyes sparkling with fire, and said, * Since I have read this book, men seem to be fifteen feet high, and all nature is enlarged in my sight'.” This anecdote, however, does not give a very high idea of the education of a French artist, and a professor of the art.

, a law-writer of great reputation in France, was born at Paris, April 16, 1719, of an honourable family. His father, who was also a lawyer, spared no expence in his education. From the age of sixteen he studied jurisprudence with such perseverance and success as to be admitted to a doctor’s degree in 1747. Being employed to prepare the articles on jurisprudence and canon law for the Encyclopaedia, he wrote those on council, decretals, &c. but, for what reason we are not told, they gave offence to the encyclopedists, who became on that account his enemies, and prevented him for some time from attaining the rank of professor, which wag the object of his ambition. Bouchaud, however, consoied himself by cultivating a taste for modem poetry. He translated several of the dramas of Apostolo Zeno into French, and published them in 1758, 2 vols. 12mo, and in 1764 he translated the English novel of “Lady Julia Mandeville.” In the interval between these two, he published “Essai sur la poesie rhythmique,” 1763, which was thought a work of great merit. This was followed by the first of his more professional labours, “Traité de Timpot du vingtieme sur les successions, et de l'impot sur les marchandises chez les Romains,” a very curious history of the taxes which the ancient emperors imposed. In 1766, on the death of M. Hardron, he was elected into the French academy, notwithstanding the opposition of the encyclopedists, whose dislike seems not ill calculated to give us a favourable idea of the soundness of his principles. This was followed by a law professorship, and some years after he was advanced to the professorship of the law of nature and nations in the royal college of France. He was nominated to this by the king in 1774, and was the first professor, it being then founded. On this he wrote in the memoirs of the academy, a curious paper concerning the societies that were formed hy the Roman publicans for the receipt of the taxes. The body of the publicans was taken from the order of knights, and had great influence and credit. They were called by Cicero “the ornament of the capital,” and the “pillars of the state.” Th“knights, though rich, entered into associations, when the taxes of a whole province were farmed out by the senate, because no individual was opulent enough to be responsible for such extensive engagements; and the nature of these societies or associations, and the various conventions, commercial a>id pecuniary engagements, occupations, and offices, to which they gave rise, form the subject of this interesting paper, which was followed by various others on topics of the same nature. In 1777 he published his” Theorie des traits de commerce entre les nations,“the principles of which seem to be founded on justice and reciprocal benefits. In 1784 appeared another curious work on the ancient Roman laws and policy, entitled,” Recherches historiques surla Police des Romains, concernant les grands chemins, les rues, et les marches.“His” Commentaire sur les lois des clouze tables," first published in 1767, was reprinted in 1803, with improvements and additions, at the expense of the French government, and he was employed in some treatises intended for the national institute, when he died, Feb. 1, 1804, regretted as aprofound and enlightened law-writer. It is remarkable that in his essay on commercial treaties abovementioned, he contends for our Selden’s Mare Clausum, as the opinion of every man who is not misled by an immoderate zeal for his own country.

, first painter to Louis XV. was born at Paris in 17u6, and was educated under Le Moine, after which he studied at Rome. On his return to Paris, he employed himself on every species of the art, but especially in the light and agreeable. His Infant Jesus sleeping, is finely coloured, and designed with a most flowing contour. The Shepherd asleep on the knees of his shepherdess, is a little landscape of singular merit. Many of his other landscapes are peculiarly happy. His other most noted pieces are pastorals for the manufacture of tapestry, at Beauvais; the muses in the king’s library; the four seasons, in the figure of infants, for the ceiling of the council-room at Fontainbleau; a hunt of tigers, &c. He was usually called the painter of the graces, and the Anacreon of painting; but his works did not justify these high encomiums, and seem to have rather sunk in the estimation of his countrymen. He died of premature old age in 1770.

, a learned English clergyman and philologer, was horn at Blencogo, in the county of Cumberland, March 12, 1738; and after receiving his education at Wigton, under the rev. Joseph Blaine, went in his sixteenth year to North America. At the proper age he returned to England to be ordained, previously to which, in 1761, the vestry of the parish of Hanover, in the county of King George, Virginia, had nominated him to, the rectory of that parish. He afterwards exchanged this for the parish of St. Mary’s in Caroline county, Virginia. When the late sir Robert Eden, bart. became governor of Maryland, he appointed Mr. Boucher rector of St. Anne’s in Annapolis, and afterwards of Queen Anne’s in Prince George’s county, where he faithfully and zealously discharged the duties of a minister of the church until 1775.

Of his exemplary conduct in the discharge of his ministerial functions in the western hemisphere, abundant proof is furnished by a work published by him in the year 1797, intituled, “A View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution, in thirteen discourses, preached in North America between the years 17t.3 and 1775.” In the preface to that work, which contains anecdotes and observations respecting the writers and most eminent persons concerned in the American Revolution, he observes, that, “cast as his lot was by Providence, in a situation of difficult duty, in such an hour of danger, it would have been highly reproachful to have slept on his post. Investigations on the important subjects of religion and government, when conducted with sobriety and decorum, can never be unseasonable; but they seem to be particularly called for in times like those in which these discourses were written times when the kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers took counsel against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bonds asunder^ and cast away their cords from us.” He adds, in the words of Bishop Wetenhall’s preface to his Royal Sermons, printed in Ireland in 1695, that his Discourses in America were preached by him “with a sincere intention of conscientiously performing his duty, and approving himself to God, in his station, by doing what lay in him (at a time of exigence) to confirm the wavering, to animate the diffident, to confirm, excite, and advance all in their loyalty and firm adhesion to. his gracious majesty, our present, alone, rightful liege lord and sovereign.” Indeed, these sermons unequivocally demonstrate that their pious author was not to be deterred, by the personal difficulties in which the schism and faction that then pre^ vailed had placed him, from maintaining, with undaunted resolution, those doctrines, political and religious, in which he had been educated.

In 1784, long after his return to England, he was presented by the rev. John Parkhurst, editor of the Greek and Hebrew Lexicons, to the vicarage of Epsom in Surrey; but the same year he had the misfortune to lose his first wife, who was a native of Maryland, of genteel connections, and of the same name and family as the celebrated Joseph Addison, whom in many of the great points of his character she resembled. Through life Mr. Boucher enjoyed the society and friendship of men of erudition and science; and on various occasions employed his pen, not only in defence of those political principles on which the British monarchy is founded, but in critical inquiries, and in theological duties. Of his discourses from the pulpit in Great Britain, two Assize Sermons, preached in 1798, have been printed, and fully justify the request of the Grand Juries to whom we are indebted for their publication. He vas also an ample contributor to Mr. Hutchinson’s History of Cumberland. The account of the parish of Bromfield, and the very interesting biographical sketches of eminent Cumberland men, published in the same work, and marked “Biographia Cumbriensis,” were written by him. Mr. Boucher was a patriot in the best sense of the word: he was ever anxious to promote the happiness of his fellow countrymen; and in many instances personally contributed, either by pecuniary or literary exertions, to meliorate the condition pf society. In 1792, he published an anonymous pamphlet, ^ubscribed “A Cumberland Man,” which was reprinted in the Appendix to sir Frederick Morton Eden’s “State of the Poor,” published in 1797. This pamphlet is addressed to the inhabitants of Cumberland, and has for its object the improvement of that county in every point which can render a country opulent and happy.

During the last fourteen years of his life, Mr. Boucher’s literary labours were chiefly dedicated to the compilation of a Glossary of Provincial and Archaeological words, intended as a “Supplement to Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary,” the proposals for which he issued in 1802, under the title of “Linguæ Anglican Veteris Thesaurus.” The printed aid which he collected for this work appeared sufficiently by the library he left, and which was sold by auction after his death. Few collections are more copious in early printed literature. A part of this undertaking was published in 1807, containing words under the letter A. by which it appeared that the author’s plan, including Scotch words, was more extensive than originally intended. The encouragement given to this specimen has not been sufficient to induce his relatives to publish more, or to encourage any gentleman of adequate talents to attempt the completion of the work. Mr. Boucher died April 27, 1804, leaving eight children by his second wife Mrs. James, widow of the rev. Mr. James, rector of Arthuret, &c. in Cumberland, whom he married in 1789.

, a lady, who merits some notice as a specimen of French female piety in former days, was born Jan. 8, 1618. Her parents, who were of noble rank, and distinguished for their piety, gave her a suitable education, and from the age of five she was brought up with one of her aunts in the abbey royal of the Holy Trinity at Caen. When eleven, at her own earnest request, she was admitted to take the habit, and such was her wise conduct, that only four years after, she was appointed mistress of the novices. She was soon after chosen prioress, and then commenced her great work, the “Annee Benedictine,” or lives of the saints, the application to which, however, did not make her relax from the duties of her office. One of the consequences of her biographical labours, was a more enlarged sense of what, in her opinion, she ought to do, and to be, after the example of the Saints whose lives she was writing. She blushed, we are told, to praise and to record what she did not practise (not a common feeling among biographers), and although she knew that the kingdom of heaven was not to be gained by abstinence from certain meats, yet she firmly believed that in order to be the exact imitator of St. Benedict, she must join that privation to her other rules: and had an occasion to bring her principles to the test, when the duchess of Mecklenburgh formed the design of a new establishment at Chatillon of the female Benedictines of the Holy Sacrament, and requested her to be one of the number. Madame Bouette assented, although then sixty years old, and from the rank of prioress in the abbey of St. Trinity, condescended to the humble state of a novice in this new establishment, and afterwards preferred the lowest place in it to the rank of abbess which was afterwards offered to her. In her last days, her strength, bodily and mental, decayed: she became blind, and lame, and lost the use of speech, in which state she died March 24, 1696, leaving the following momuments of her industry: 1. “L‘ Annie Benedictine, ou, Les Vies des Saints de l’ordre de St. Benoit,” Paris, 1667, 7 vols. 4to. 2. “Eloges de plusieurs personnes illustres en piete de l'ordre de St. Benoit,” 2 vols. 4to. 3. “Vie de Fourrier de Matin court.” 4. “Exercices de la Mort.” 5. “Vies des Saintes,” 2 vols. fol. 6. “Monologue historique de la Mere de Dieu,” Paris, 1682, 4to. These works are written with some degree of elegance of style, but her lives are replete with those pious fables which amused the religious houses, and those superstitious austerities which regulated their conduct in former times.

, peer and maréchal, distinguished in the French history, was born Jan. 10, 1644. His dispositions for the art of war having displayed themselves at a very early period, he was chosen in 1669 to be colonel of a regiment of dragoons, at the head of which he demonstrated his bravery under the marechal de Crequi, and under Turenne. He received a dangerous wound at the battle of Voerden; and another in the affair of Entsheim, to the capture whereof he contributed much, by the confession of Turenne. After several signal exploits, he gained immortal renown by the defence of Lille in 1708. The siege lasted near four months. Bouflers said to his officers, “Gentlemen, I trust to you; but I answer for myself.” Prince Eugene carried on the siege with so much vigour that it was obliged to submit. “I am very vain,” said he to Bouflers, “on having taken Lille; but I had rather still have the glory of having defended it like you.” The king rewarded him for this service as if he had gained a battle. He was created a peer of France; had the honours of first gentleman to the king, and the reversion of the government of Flanders for his eldest son. When he entered the parliament for his first reception in it, turning to a crowd of officers who had defended Lille with him, he said, “It is to you that I am indebted for all the favours that are heaped upon me, and on you I reflect them I have nothing to glory in but the honour of having been at the head of so many brave men.” During the siege, one of his party having proved tojiim that he could easily kill prince Eugene, “Your fortune is made,” returned Bouflers, “if you can take him prisoner: but you shall be punished with the utmost severity if you make an attempt on his life; and if I but suspected that you had any such intention, I would have you shut up for the rest of your life.” This generosity, which formed a part of his character, induced him to ask permission to serve under the orders of marechal de Villars, though he was his senior. At the battle of Malplaquet in 1709, he made the retreat in such good order, that he left behind him neither cannon nor prisoners. The marquis de Bouflers united the virtues of a good citizen with the activity of a general; serving his prince as the ancient Romans served their republic; accounting his life as nothing when the safety of his country was in question. The king having ordered him to go and succour Lille, and having left to himself the choice of his lieutenants; he set out that instant, without settling his affairs, or taking leave of his family, and chose for his officers a man that had been disgraced, and a prisoner of the Bastille. His magnificence was equal to his love for his country and his sovereign. When Louis XIV. formed the camp of Compiegne, to serve as a lesson to his grandson the duke of Burgundy, and as a spectacle to the court, Bouflers lived there in such a splendid style, that the king said to Livri, his maitre-d'hotel, “The duke of Burgundy must not keep a table; we cannot outdo the marechal; the duke of Burgundy shall dine with him when he goes to the camp.” This patriot general died at Fontainbleau, Aug. 22, 1711, aged 68. “In him (writes madame de Maintenon) the heart died last.” We read in the continuation of the history of England by Rapin, an anecdote too honourable to the memory of this great man to be passed over here in silence. King William having taken Namur, in 169, made Bouflers prisoner, in violation of the articles that had been agreed on. Surprised at so unjust a proceeding, the marechal, fresh from the glorious defence he had made, demanded the reason of this perfidious treatment. He was answered that it was by way of reprisals for the garrison of Dixmude and of Deinse, which the French had detained contrary to capitulation. “If that be the case (said Bouflers), then my garrison ought to be arrested, and not I.” “Sir (he was answered), you are valued at more than ten thousand men.”

, born at Paris Dec. 1, 1722^ was educated with great care. His talents thus improved procured him celebrity at an early period, and obtained for him the places most flattering to literarymen at Paris. He became pensionary and secretary to the royal academy of inscriptions, member of the French academy, and some other foreign societies, censor-royal, keeper of the hall of antiquities at the Louvre, and one of the secretaries in ordinary to the duke of Orleans. His extraordinary industry impaired his health, and brought on premature old age, of which he died at the chateau de Loches, June 22, 1763, at the age of forty-one. His talents and personal virtues acquired him zealous patrons and affectionate friends. In his writings, as in his man­'ners, all was laudable, and yet nothing shewed the desire of being praised. With the talents that contribute to fame, he principally aspired at the honour of being useful. Nevertheless, literary ambition, which is not the weakest of ambitions, found him not insensible. Accordingly he was desirous of being admitted of the French academy; he made vigorous application to Duclos, at that time secretary; mentioning, among other things, that he was afflicted with a disorder that was sapping his constitution, and that consequently his place would soon be vacant again; the secretaiy, an honest man, but of a hard and rough character, replied, with more wit than feeling, that it was not the business of the French academy to administer extreme unction. He wrote, 1. A translation of the AntiLucretius of the cardinal de Polignac, 2 vols. 8vo, or one vol. 12mo, preceded by a very sensible preliminary discourse. 2. Parallel between the expedition of Kouli Khan in the Indies, and that of Alexander, a work of great learning, abounding in ideas, flights of imagination and eloquence; but sometimes rather bombastic. He also wrote several papers of very superior merit in the Memoirs of the French Academy. In his twenty-fifth year he wrote a tragedy on the death of Philip, father of Alexander, which is said to evince considerable talents for poetry; and in the Magazin Encyclopedique was lately published a metrical translation by him of the Hymn of Cleanthes, which appears to have suggested to Pope his Universal Prayer.

, a French historian and miscellaneous writer, was born at Quimper, Nov. 4, 1690, and entered among the Jesuits in 1706. In 1710, after finishing his course of philosophy, he taught Latin at Caen, and afterwards rhetoric at iSevers. From that time he remained principally in the college of Louis le Grand at Paris, until his death, Jan. 7, 1743, employing himself in writing. Besides the part which he took for many years in the “Memoires de Trevoux,” he wrote: i. “Anacr^on and Sappho,” dialogues in Greek verse, Caen, 1712, 8vo. 2. “Recueil d' observations physiques tirees des meilleurs ecrivains,” Paris, 1719, 12mo, to which were added two more volumes, 1726 and 1730, by Grozelier. 3. “Histoire des guerres et des negociations qui precederent le traite de Westphalie sous le regne de Louis XIII. &c.” 1727, 4to, and 2 vols. 12mo, taken from the Memoirs of count d'Avaux, the French ambassador. This history still enjoys high reputation in F.rance. 4. “Exposition de la Doctrine Chretienne par demandes et par reponses,” 1741, 4to, and some other theological tracts that are now forgotten. 5. “Histoire du traite de Westphalie,” 2 vols. 4to, and 4 vols. 12mo, a superior work to that mentioned before, and highly praised by all French historians. It did not appear until after his death, in 1744. Besides these he wrote several pieces of a lighter kind, as an ingenious romance, entitled “Voyage Merveilleux du prince FanFeredin dans la Romancie, &c.” 1735, 12mo “Amusement philosophique sur le Langagedes Betes,”1739,12mo, which, being censured for its satire, the author was banished for some time to la Fleche, and endeavoured to defend himself in a letter to the abbe Savaletta. He wrote also some comedies of very little merit, but his reputation chiefly rests on his historical works.

, a French biographer, descended from an honourable family in Provence, was a priest of the oratory, and born at Aix in 1680, where he was also educated. The love of a retired life induced him to become a member of the congregation of the oratory, where he taught the belles lettres with fame and success, and filled the several posts of his profession with great credit. Happening to be at Marseilles during the plague in 1719 and 1720, he risked his life in administering relief to the diseased. He appears to have been in that city also in 1726, but some time after came to Paris, where he passed his life in the house belonging to his order, in high esteem with all who knew him. He died of a stroke of apoplexy, March 19, 1753. Just before his death he had prepared for the press his lives of the illustrious men of Provence, which was to have formed four volume?, 4to, and was to be published by subscription, but we do not find that the scheme was carried into execution by his friends. During his life he published in the literary journals, various memoirs of eminent men, and, in separate publications, the Life of Gassendi, Paris, 1737, of John Peter Gibert, ibid. 1737, 12mo; and apart of his great work, under the title of “Memoires pour servir a l'histoire des homines illustres de Provence,” ibid. 1752, 12mo, containing fourteen lives.

, a celebrated French mathematician, was born at Croisic, in Lower Bretagne, the 10th of February 1698. He was the son of John Bouguer, professor royal of hydrography, a tolerable good mathematician, and author of “A complete Treatise on Navigation.” Young Bouguer was accustomed to learn mathematics from his father, from the time he was able to speak, and thus became a very early proficient in those sciences. He was sent soon after to the Jesuits’ college at Vannes, where he had the honour to instruct his regent in the mathematics, at eleven years of age. Two years after this he had a public contest with a professor of mathematics, upon a proposition which the latter had advanced erroneously; and he triumphed over him; upon which the professor, unable to bear the disgrace, left the country. Two years after this, when young Bouguer had not yet finished his studies, he lost his father, whom he was appointed to succeed in his office of hydrographer, after a public examination of his qualifications, being then only fifteen years of age; an occupation which he discharged with great respect and dignity at that early age.

In 1727, at the age of twenty-nine, he obtained the prize proposed by the academy of sciences, for the best way of masting of ships. This first success of Bouguer was soon after followed by two others of the same kind; he successively gained the prizes of 1729 and 1731; the former, for the best manner of observing at sea the height of the stars, and the latter, for the most advantageous way of observing the declination of the magnetic needle, or the variation of the compass. In 1729, he gave an “Optical Essay upon the Gradation of Light;” a subject quite in which he examined the intensity of light, and determined its degrees of diminution in passing through different pellucid mediums, and particularly that of the sun in traversing the earth’s atmosphere. JVIairati gave an extract of this first essay in the Journal des Savans, in 1730. In this same year, 1730, he was removed from the port of Croisic to that of Havre, which brought him into a nearer connection with the academy of sciences, in which he obtained, in 1731, the place of associate geometrician, vacant by the promotion of Maupertuis to that of pensioner; and in 1735 he was promoted to the office of pensioner-astronomer. The same year he was sent on the commission to South America, along with messieurs Godin, Condamine, and Jeussieu, to determine the measure of the degrees of the meridian, and the figure of the earth. In this painful and troublesome business, of ten years duration, chiefly among the lofty Cordelier mountains, our author determined many other new circumstances, beside the main object of the voyage such as the expansion and contraction of metals and other substances, by the sudden and alternate changes of heat and cold among those mountains; observations on the refraction of the atmosphere from the tops of the same, with the singular phenomenon of the sudden increase of the refraction, when the star can be observed below the line of the level; the laws of the density of the air at different heights, from observations made at different points of these enormous mountains; a determination that the mountains have an effect upon a plummet, though he did not assign the exact quantity of it; a method of estimating the errors committed by navigators in determining their route; a new construction of the log for measuring a ship’s way; with several other useful improvements. Other inventions of Bouguer, made upon different occasions, were as follow: the heliometer, being a telescope with two object-glasses, affording a good method of measuring the diameters of the larger planets with ease and exactness: his researches on the figure in which two lines or two long ranges of parallel trees appear his experiments on the famous reciprocation of the pendulum and those upon the manner of measuring the force of the light &c. &c.

The close application which Bouguer gave to study, undermined his health, and terminated his life the 15th of August 1758, at 60 years of age. His chief works, that have been published, are, 1. “The Figure of the Earth, determined by the observations made in South America,” 1749, in 4to. 2. “Treatise on Navigation and Pilotage,” Paris, 1752, in 4to. This work was abridged by M. La Caille, in 1 vol. 1768, 8vo, and was reprinted in 1769 and 1781, and in 1792 with the notes of Lalande. 3. '“Treatise on Ships, their construction and motions,” 1756, 4to. 4. “Optical treatise on the Gradation of Light,” first in 1729; then a new edition in 1760, in 4to.

His papers that were inserted in the Memoirs of the Academy, are very numerous and important. They appear in their volumes from 1726 to 1757.

In his earlier years, Mr. Bouguer had lived in a state of seclusion from general intercourse with the world, and he had thus acquired a cast of temper, which marked his character in more advanced life. Although he was universally acknowledged to possess superior talents, and to be distinguished by an assiduity and zeal, no less successful than indefatigable, in various departments of useful science, he indulged a degree of suspicion and jealousy, with regard to his reputation, which disgusted some of those with whom he was under a necessity of associating, and which disquieted his own mind. Fully sensible of the importance and utility of his own performances, he was apt to consider others, who were engaged in similar pursuits, as competitors with himself, and to grudge them the reputation which they justly acquired, from an apprehension that his own credit would be thus diminished. Hence arose his disputes with La Condamine, one of the companions of his voyage, and associate in his labours in America; and the mortification he experienced from the public suffrage that seemed to have been bestowed on that academician. His character in other respects was distinguished for modesty and simplicity. The truths of religion were instilled into him along with the first principles of geometry, and had made such an impression upon his mind, r r to regulate and adorn his moral conduct. On his death-bed he cherished the same views which had thus guided him through life, and he closed his career with philosophical fortitude, and with a piety and resignation truly Christian. In the year 1784, a very singular book was published at Paris, entitled “Relation de la conversion et de mort de Bouguer,” by P. La Berthonie. His piety naturally offended Lalande, who, in noticing this book, ascribes his piety to fear; this was a common opinion with the French deists, and had very pernicious influence on the minds of their disciples. Laiande, however, if our information be not incorrect, lived to experience the fear he once ridiculed.

, president a mortier of the parliament of Dijon, and a member of the French academy, was born March 16, 1673. He began his studies under the direction of his father (who was also president a mortier of the same parliament) at the Jesuits’ college of Dijon, and finished them in 1638 with great approbation. Being as yet too young for the law schools, he studied the elements of that science in private, and perfected himself at the same time in the Greek language. He also learned Italian, Spanish, and acquired some knowledge of the Hebrew. After two years thus usefully employed, he went through a course of law at Paris and Orleans; and in 1692 he became counsellor of the parliament of Dijon. In 1704 he was appointed president, the duties of which office he executed until 1727, and with an assiduity and ability not very common. In this latter year he was elected into the academy, on the condition that he would quit Dijon and settle at Paris, to which condition he acceded, but was unable to perform his promise, for want of health. Though remote, however, from the capital, he could not remain in obscurity; but from the variety and extent of his learning‘, he was courted and consulted by the literati throughout Europe: and many learned men, who had availed themselves of his advice, dedicated their works to him. At length, his constitution being worn out with repeated attacks of the gout, he died March 17, 1746. A friend approaching his bed, within an hour of his death, found him in a seemingly profound meditation. He made a sign that he wished not to be disturbed, and with difficulty pronounced the words J’epie la mort “I am watching death.” Notwithstanding his business and high reputation as a lawyer, he contrived to employ much of his time in the cultivation of polite literature, and wrote many papers on Critical and classical subjects in the literary journals. Separately he published, 1. A poetical translation, not inelegant, but somewhat careless, of Petronius on the Civil War between Coesar and Pompey, with two epistles of Ovid, &c. Amst. 1737, 4to. Alluding to the negligence which sometimes appears in his poetry, his wife, a very ingenious lady, used to say, “Confine yourself to thinking, and let me write.” 2. “Remarques sur les Tusculanes de Ciceron, avec une dissertation sur Sardanapale, dernier roi d'Asyrie,” Paris, 1737, 12mo. 3. “Des Lettres sur les Therapeutes,” 1712. 4. “Dissertations sur Herodote,” with memoirs of the life of Bouhier, 1746, Dijon, 4to. 5. “Dissertation sur le grand pontifical des empereurs Remains,” 1742, 4to. 6. “Explications de quelques marbres antiques,” in the collection of M. Le Bret, 1733, 4to. 7. “Observations sur la Coutume de Bourgogne,” Dijon, 2 vols. fol. A complete edition of his law works was published in 1787, fol. by M. de Bevy. He wrote a very learned dissertation on the origin of the Greek and Latin letters, which is printed in Montfaucon’s Palaeography, Paris, 1708, p. 553 and his “Remarques sur Ciceron” were reprinted at Paris in 1746.

, a celebrated French critic, was born at Paris in 1628; and has by some been considered as a proper person to succeed Malherbe, who died about that time. He entered into the society of Jesuits at sixteen, and was appointed to read lectures upon polite literature in the college of Clermont at Paris, where he had studied; but he was so incessantly attacked with the head-ach, that he could not pursue the destined task. He afterwards undertook the education of two sons of the duke of Longueville, which he discharged to the entire satisfaction of the duke, who had such a regard for him, that he would needs die in his arms; and the “Account of the pious and Christian death” of this great personage was the first work which Bouhours gave the public. He was sent to Dunkirk to the popish refugees from England; and, in, the midst of his missionary occupations, found time to compose and publish many works of reputation. Among these were “Entretiens d‘Ariste & d’Eugene,” a work of a critical nature, which was printed no less than five times at Paris, twice at Grenoble, at Lyons, at Brussels, at Amsterdam, at Leyden, &c. and embroiled him with a great number of critics, and with Menage in particular; who, however, lived in friendship with our author before and after. There is a passage in this work which gave great oifence in Germany, where he makes it a question, “Whether it be possible that a German could be a wit” The fame of it, however, and the pleasure he took in reading it, recommended Bouhours so effectually to the celebrated minister Colbert, that he trusted him with the education of his son, the marquis of Segnelai. The Remarks and Doubts upon the French language has been reckoned one of the most considerable of our author’s works; and may be read with great advantage by those who would perfect themselves in that tongue. Menage, in his Observations upon the French language, has given his approbation of jt in the following passage: “The book of Doubts,” says he, “is written with great elegance, and contains many fine observations. And, as Aristotle has said, that reasonable doubt is the beginning of all real knowledge; so we may say also, that the man who doubts so reasonably as the author of this book, is himself very capable of deciding. For this reason perhaps it is, that, forgetting the tide of his work, he decides oftener than at first he proposed.” Bouhours was the author of another work, “The art of pleasing in conversation,” of which M. de la Grose, who wrote the eleventh volume of the Bibliotheque Universelle, has given an account, which he begins with this elogium upon the author “A very little skill,” says he, “in style and manner, will enable a reader to discover the author of this work. He will see at once the nice, the ingenious, and delicate turn, the elegance and politeness of father Bouhours. Add to this, the manner of writing in dialogue, the custom of quoting himself, the collecting strokes of wit, the little agreeable relations interspersed, and a certain mixture of gallantry and morality which is altogether peculiar to this Jesuit. This work is inferior to nothing we have seen of father Bouhours. He treats in twenty dialogues, with an air of gaiety, of every thing which can find a way into conversation; and, though he avoids being systematical, yet he gives his reader to understand, that there is no subject whatever, either of divinity, philosophy, law, or physic, &c. but may be introduced into conversation, provided it be done with ease, politeness, and in a manner free from pedantry and affectation.” He died at Paris, in the college of Clermont, upon the 27th of May 1702; after a life spent, says Moreri, under such constant and violent fits of the head-ach, that he had but few intervals of perfect ease. The following is a list of his works with their dates: 1. “Les Entretiens d‘Ariste et d’Eugene,” 1671, 12ro. 2. “Remarques et Doutes sur la langue Franchise,” 3 vols. 12mo. 3. “La Manier de bien penser sur les ouvrages d' esprit,” Paris, 1692, 12mo. 4. “Pensees ingenieuses des anciens et des modernes,” Paris, 1691, 12mo. In this work he mentions Boileau, whom he had omitted in the preceding; but when he expected Boileau would acknowledge the favour, he coolly replied, “You have, it is true, introduced me in your new work, but in very bad company,” alluding to the frequent mention of some Italian and French versifiers whom Boileau despised. 5. “Pensees ingenieuses des Peres de l'Eglise,” Paris, 1700. This he is said to have written as an answer to the objection that he employed “too much of his time Oh profane literature. 6.” Histoire du grandmaitre d'Aubusson,“1676, 4to, 1679, and lately in 1780. 7. The lives of St. Ignatius, Paris, 1756, 12mo, and of St. Francis Xavier, 1682, 4to, or 2 vols. 12mo. Both these are written with rather more judgment than the same lives by Ribadeneira, but are yet replete with the miraculous and the fabulous. The life of Xavier was translated by Dryden, and published at London in 1688, with a dedication to king James II. 's queen. Dryden, says Mr. Malone, doubtless undertook this task, in consequence of the queen, when she solicited a son, having recommended herself to Xavier as her patron saint. 8.” Le Nouveau Testament," translated into French from the Vulgate, 2 vols. 1697 1703, 12mo.

, a French nobleman, and officer of bravery and honour, was a native of Auvergne, and a relative of the marquis La Fayette. After having served in the dragoons, he became colonel of the regiment of Vexin infantry. Having attained the rank of majorgeneral, the king appointed him governor-general of the Windward islands. In 1778 he took possession of Dominica, St. Eustatk, and soon after St. Christopher’s, Nevis, and Montserrat. His conduct while in that command was allowed by the English commanders to be honourable and disinterested. On his return, he was made lieutenantgeneral. On the breaking out of the revolution in 1789, finding that he commanded in the three bishoprics, he brought back to its duty the revolted garrison of Metz, and on that occasion saved the life of M. de Pont, intendant of the province. He afterwards caused Francois de Neufchateau, and two other electors, arrested by order of the king’s attorney, to be set at liberty. On the 5th of September the same year, the national assembly was informed by one of its members, Gregoire, that M. de Bouille had not administered the civic oath individually, and a decree was passed obliging him to do so. In 1790, he was commissioned to bring under subjection the garrison of Nancy, which had risen against its chiefs; accordingly he advanced upon the town with four thousand men, and succeeded in this enterprize, in which he shewed much bravery, and which at first gained him great praises from the national assembly, and afterwards as many reproaches. Being chosen by the unfortunate Louis XVI. to facilitate his escape from Paris in June 1791, he marched at the head of a body of troops to protect the passage of the royal family; but this design failed from reasons now well known, and which he has faithfully detailed in his memoirs: and the marquis himself had some difficulty in making his escape. From Luxembourg he wrote his memorable letter to the assembly, threatening, that if a hair of the king’s head were touched, he would not leave one stone upon another in Paris. This served only to irritate the revolutionists, who decreed that he should be tried for contumacy; but he was fortunately out of their reach. From Vienna whither he had at first gone, he passed to the court of Sweden, where he was favourably received by Gustavus III. but after his death, M. de BoniHe“found it necessary to retire to England, where he passed the remainder of his days in security, and much esteemed for his fidelity to his sovereign. He died in London Nov. 14, 1800. In 1797 he published in English,” Memoirs relating to the French Revolution," 8vo; one of those works of which future historians may avail themselves in appreciating the characters and events connected with that important period of French history.

, a French medical writer, was born at Servian, in the diocese of Beziers, May 14, 1690, and created doctor in medicine, at Montpellier, in 1717. Enjoying, during the course of a long life, a considerable portion of reputation, he was, in succession, made professor in mathematics, and secretary to the academy at Beziers, member of the royal society at Montpeliier, and corresponding member of the academy of sciences at Paris. He was also author of several ingenious dissertations: “On the properties of Rhubarb,” published at Beziers, 1717, 4to, probably his “Inaugural Thesis.” “Sur la cause de la Pesanteur,” 1720, 12mo, which obtained for him a prize from the academy at Bourdeaux; “Avis et remedes, contre la Peste,” Beziers, 1721, 8vo. “On Asthma and on the Gout,” in which complaints he recommends the Venice soap as a powerful auxiliary; “Sur la maniere de traiter la Petite Verole,” Beziers, 1736, 4to; and some years after, “On the best method of preserving the district of Beziers from that disease;” “Recueil des lettres, et autres pieces pour servir a I'histoire de Pacademie de Beziers,” 1736, 4to, with several other publications. He died in 1770, leaving a son, Henry Nicholas Bouillet, who was made doctor in medicine at Montpeliier, and member of the academy of Beziers. He published, in 1759, in 4to, “Observations sur l'anasarque, le hydropesies de poitrine, des pericarde, &c.”

, the historian of the university of Paris, was born at St. Ellier or Helier, and became professor of rhetoric in the college of Navarre, and afterwards register, historiographer, and rector of the university of Paris, where he died Oct. 16, 1678. Of all his works, his history of the university of Paris, “Historia Universitatis Parisiensis,” 6 vols. 1665 1673, fol. contributed most to his fame. The publication of this vast undertaking was at first interrupted by some objections from the theological faculty of Paris, who carried their remonstrances to the king; but the commissioners, whom his majesty employed to inspect the work, having reported that they saw no reason why it should not be continued, he proceeded to its completion, and in 1667 published an answer to their objections, entitled “Notue ad censuram.” Not entirely satisfied with this triumph, he also published a poetical satire against them, with the title of “Ad Zoilosycopuantam, sive Bulaeistarum obtrectatorem,” a work of considerable spirit and elegance of style. His history is an useful repository of facts and lives of learned men connected with the revival of literature, and especially the progress of learning in that eminent university, and is blameable only for the fabulous accounts, in which our own university-historians have not been wanting, respecting the early history of schools of learning. Boulai’s other writings are, 1. “Tresor des antiquues Romanies,” Paris, 1650, fol. 2. “Speculum eloquentia?,” ibid. 1658, 12mo. S. “De Patronis quatuor nationum universitatis Parisiensis,” Paris, 1662, 8vo. 4. “Remarques sur la dignite, rang, preseance, autorite, et jurisdiction du recteur de Tuniversite de Paris,” ibid. 1668, 4to. 5. “Recueil des Privileges de PUniversite de Paris accordes par les rois de France depuis sa fondation., &c.” ibid. 1674, 4to. 6. “Fondation de l'universite, &e,” 1675, 4to. Boulai was frequently involved in disputes with the members of the university respecting the election of officers, &c. which occasioned the publication of many papers on these subjects, which, if we may judge from his extensive labours, he must have understood very accurately; and from these disputes, and the general bent of his researches, he appears to have very closely resembled the celebrated historian of the university of Oxford.

, comte de St. Saire, where he was born October 21, 1658, of a noble and ancient family, was educated at Juilli, by the rithers of the oratory, and gave proofs of genius and abilities from his childhood. His chief study was history, which he afterwards cultivated assiduously. He died January 23, 1722, at Paris, having been twice married, and left only daughters. He was author of a History of the Arabians, and Mahomet, 12mo, “Memoires sur l'ancien Governement de France; ou 14 lettres sur les anciens Parlemens de France,” 3 vols. 12mo; “Histoire de France jusqu'a Charles VIII.” 3 vols. 12mo; and “l'Etatde la Fiance,” 6 vols. 12mo, in the Dutch edition, and eight in the edition of Trevoux, “Memoire presente a M. le due d‘Orleans, sur l’Administration des Finances,” 2 vols. 12mo “Histoire de la Pairie de France,” 12mo “Dissertations sur la Noblesse de France,” 12mo. Ah his writings on the French history have been collected in 3 vols. fol. They Sire riot written (says M. de Montesquieu) with all the free-. dom and simplicity of the ancient nobility, from which he descended. M. Boulainvilliers left some other works in ms. known to the learned, who have, with great reason, been astonished to find, that he expresses in them his doubts of the most incontestable dogmas of religion, while he blindly gives credit to the reveries of juticial astrology an inconsistency common to many other infjdels. Mosheim informs us that Boulainvilliers was such an admirer of the pernicious opinions of Spinosa, that he formed the design of expounding and illustrating it, as is done wth respect to the doctrines of the gospel in books of piety, accommodated to ordinary capacities. This design he attually executed, but in such a manner as to set the atheim and impiety of Spinosa in a clearer light than they hid ever appeared before. The work was published by lenglet du Fresnoy, who, that it might be bought with avdity, and read without suspicion, called it a Refutation of theErrors of Spinosa, artfully adding some separate pieces, to which this title may, in some measure, he thought applicabk. The whole title runs, “Refutation des Erreurs de Beioit de Spinosa, par M. de Fenelon, archeveque de Cambay, par le Pere Lauri Benedictin, et par M. Le Comte de Bulainvilliers, avec la Vie de Spinosa, ecrite par Jean COerus, minister de l‘Eglise Lutherienne de la Haye, augnsntée de beaucoup de particularites tirees d’une vie manucrite de ce philosophe, fait par un de ses amis,” (Luczs, the atheistical physician), Brussels, 1731, 12mo. The account and defence of Spinosa, given by Boulainviliers, under the pretence of a refutation, take up the greatest part of this book, and are placed first, and not last in order, as the title would insinuate and the volume concludes with what is not in the title, a defence of Spinosa by Iredenburg, and a refutation of that defence by Orobio. a Jew of Amsterdam. It remains to be noticed, that his Life of Mahomet, which he did not live to complete, vas published at London and Amsterdam, in 1730, 8vo and about the same time an English translation of it appeared His letters, also, on the French parliaments, were translated and published at London, 1739, 2 vols.-8vo.

, one of the earliest French infidels, who assumed the name of philosophers was born at Paris in 1722, and died therein 1759, aged only thirty -seven. During his education, he is said to have come out of the college of Beauvais almost as ignorant as he went in; hut, struggling hard against his inaptitude to study, he at length overcame it. At seventeen years of age he began to apply himself to mathematics and architecture; and,n three or lour years made such progress as to be usefrl to the baron of Thiers, whom he accompanied to thearmy in quality of engineer. Afterwards he had the supervision of the highways and bridges, and executed severa public works in Champagne, Burgundy, and Lorrain. Ii cutting through mountains, directing and changing tie courses of rivers, and in breaking up and turning ov<r the strata of the earth, he saw a multitude of different substances, which (he thought) evinced the great antiquity of it, and a long series of revolutions which it must hav undergone. From the revolutions in the globe, he passei to the changes that must have happened in the manner?of men, in societies, in governments, in religion and fomed many conjectures upon all these. To be farther saisfied, he wanted to know what, in the history of ages, lad been said upon these particulars; and, that he might be informed from the fountain-head, he learned first latin, and then Greek. Not yet content, he plunged into clebrew, Syriac, Chaldaic, and Arabic and from these studies accumulated a vast mass of singular and paradoxical opinions which he conveyed to the public in the followng works: 1. “Traite du Despotisme Oriental,” 2 vols. 2mo, 2. “L'antiquite devoile, par ses usages,” 3 vols. 12mo. This was posthumous. 3. Another work, entitle! “Le Christianisme demasqu6,” 8vo, is attributed to Hm, but it is not certain that he was the author of it. 4. le furnished to the Encyclopedic the articles Deluge, C-rvde, and Societe. 5. A dissertation on Elisha and Eioch. 6. He left behind him in ms. a dictionary, which my be regarded as a concordance in antient and modern Jjnguages. Voltaire, the baron D'Holbach, and other disgminators of infidelity, made much use of Boulanger’s works, and more of his name, which, it is supposed, they prefixed to some of their own compositions. Barruel gives some reason for thinking that Boulanger retracted his opinions before his death. His name, however, still remained of consequence to the party; and as late as 1791, an edition of his works, entitled the Philosophical Library, was published at the philosophic press in Swisserland.

, an engraver, who flourished about the year 1657, was a native of France. His first manner of engraving was partly copied from that of Francis de Poilly; but he afterwards adopted a manner of his own, which, though not original, he greatly improved; and, accordingly, he finished the faces, hands, and all the naked parts of his figures very neatly with dots, instead of strokes, or strokes and dots. This style of engraving has been of late carried to a high degree of perfection, particularly in England. Notwithstanding several defects in the naked parts of his figures, and in his draperies, his best prints are deservedly much esteemed. Such are “A Holy Family,” from Fran. Corlebet; “Virgin and Child,” from Simon Vouet; “The Pompous Cavalcade,” upon Louis the XlVth coming of age, from Chauveau; “The Virgin with the infant Christ,” holding some pinks, and therefore called “The Virgin of the Pinks,” from Raphael; “The Virgin de Passau,” from Salario;“” Christ carrying his Cross,“from Nicolas Mignard;” A dead Christ, supported by Joseph of Arimathea." He also engraved many portraits, and, among others, that of Charles II. of England. He likewise engraved from Leonardo de Vinci, Guido, Champagne, Stella, Coypel, and other great masters, as well as from his own designs.

There was another John Boulanger, a painter, who was born in 1606, and died in 1660. Mr. Fuseli informs us that he was a pupil of Guido, became painter to the court of Modena, and master of a school of art in that city. What remains of his delicate pencil in the ducal palace, proves the felicity of his invention, the vivid harmony of his colour, and in the attitudes a spirit bordering on enthusiasm. Such is the Sacrifice (if it be his, as fame asserts) of Iphigenia; though the person of Agamemnon is veiled in a manner too whimsical to be admitted in a heroic subject. Of his scholars, Tomaso Costa of Sassuolo, and Sigismondo Caula a Modenese, excelled the rest. Costa, a vigorous colourist, laid his hand indiscriminately ori every subject of art, greatly employed at Reggio, his usual residence, and much at Modena, where he painted the cupola of S. Vicenzo. Caula left his home only to improve himself at Venice, and returned with a copious and welltoned style bat sunk to a more languid one as he advanced in life.

, the elder, painter to the king, and professor in the French academy, was born at Paris in 1609, and was principally distinguished for his ability in copying the works of the most famous ancient painters, which he did with astonishing fidelity. Tbere are also in the church of Notre Dame at Paris three pictures of his own of considerable merit. He died at Paris in 1674, leaving the two following sons:

, eldest son of the preceding, was born at Paris in 1649, and acquired the principles of painting from his father, whom he resembled in his talent of imitating the works of the greatest masters. After a residence of five years in Italy, he was admitted into the academy, of which he became a professor, and employed by Louis XIV. at Versailles and Trianon. He excelled in history and portrait; his designs were accurate, and his colouring good. Besides his paintings in fresco, in two of the chapels of the Invalids, he painted several pieces for the churches and public buildings of Paris, several of which have been engraved. We have alsothree etchings done by him, from his own compositions, viz. a species of “Almanack;” “St. John in the Desert” and “St. Bruno in a landscape” its’ companion. He died at Paris in 1717. His brother Louis de Boullongne the younger, was born at Paris in 1654, and educated under his father, by whose instruction he made such improvement, that he obtained the prize of the academy at 18. His studies were completed at Rome, where he particularly studied the works of Raphael, and from his copies which were sent home, the Gobelin tapestries were executed. After his return he was received into the academy in 1680; and his works in the churches of Notre Dame and the Invalids, and particularly his frescos in the chapel of St. Augustin, were so much esteemed, that Louis XIV. honoured him with his special patronage, allowing him a considerable pension; conferring upon him the order of St. Michael; choosing him designer of medals to the academy of inscriptions, after the death of Anthony CoypeJ; appointing him his principal jminter, and ennobling him and all his descendants. The academy of painting also chose him first for its rector, and afterwards director, which place he occupied till his death. He chiefly excelled in historical and allegorical subjects. From his performances it appeared, that he had carefully studied the most eminent masters; his colouring was strong, his composition was in a good style, the airs of his heads had expression and character, and his figures were correctly designed. His regular attendance at the academy, and his advice to the students, commanded respect: and the general mildness and affability of his disposition engaged esteem among those who knew him. He raised a considerable fortune by his profession, and died in 1734. Two sisters of this family, “Genevieve” and “Magdalen,” painted well, and were members of the royal academy in 1669.

, D. D. archbishop of Armagh, primate and metropolitan of all Ireland, was born in or near London, Jan. 4, 1671, of a reputable and opulent family, received his first rudiments] of learning at Merchant-Taylor’s school, and was admitted from thence a commoner of Christ-church, Oxford, some time before the Revolution. His merit became so conspicuous there, that immediately after that great event, he was elected a demi of Magdalencollege, with the celebrated Mr. Addison, and Dr. Joseph Wilcox, afterwards bishop of Rochester and dean of Westminster, from whose merit and learning Dr. Hough, who was then restored to the presidentship of that college (from which he had been unwarrantably ejected in the reign of king James II.) used to call this election by the name of the golden election, and the same respectful appellation was long after made use of in common conversation in the college*, Mr. Boulter was afterwards made fellow of Magdalen-college. He continued in the university till he was called to London, by the invitation of sir Charles Hedges, principal secretary of state in 1700, who made him his chaplain;

* Dr. Welsted, a physician, was also The primate maintained a son of the of this golden election, and when he doctor’s, as a commoner, at Hart-halt became poor in the latter part of his in Oxford; and would effectually have life, the archbishop, though he was no provided for him, if the young gentlerelation, gave him, at the least, two man had not died before he had taken hundred pounds a year, till his death, a degree. Dr. Welsted was one of the Nor did his grace’s kindness to the editors of the Oxford Pindar, and doctor’s family end with his decease-, esteemed an excellent Greek scholar. and some time after he was preferred to the same honour by Dr. Thomas Tenison, archbishop of Canterbury. In these stations he was under a necessity of appearing often at court, where his merit obtained him the patronage of Charles Spencer, earl of Sunderland, principal secretary of state, by whose interest he was advanced to the rectory of St. Olave in Southwark, and to the archdeaconry of Surrey. The parish of St. Olave was very populous, and for the most part poor, and required such a liberal and vigilant pastor as Dr. Boulter, who relieved their wants, and gave them instruction, correction, and reproof. When king George I. passed over to Hanover in 1719, Dr. Boulter was recommended to attend him in quality of his chaplain, and also was appointed tutor to prince Frederic, to instruct him in the English tongue; and for that purpose drew up for his use “A set of Instructions.” This so recommended him to the king, that during his abode at Hanover, the bishopric of Bristol, and deanery of Christchurch, Oxford, becoming vacant, the king granted to him that see and deanery, and he was consecrated bishop of Bristol, on the fifteenth of November, 1719. In this last station he was more than ordinarily assiduous in the visitation of his diocese, and the discharge of his pastoral duty; and during one of these visitations, he received a letter by a messenger from the secretary of state, acquainting him, that his majesty had nominated him to the archbishopric of Armagh, and primacy of Ireland, then vacant by the death of Dr. Thomas Lindsay, on the 13th of July, 1724-, and desiring him to repair to London as soon as possible, to kiss the king’s hand for his promotion. After some, consultation on this affair, to which he felt great repugnance, he sent an answer by the messenger, refusing the honour the king intended him, and requesting the secretary to use his good offices with his majesty, in making his excuse, but the messenger was dispatched back to him. by the secretary, with the king’s absolute commands that he should accept of the post, to which he submitted, though not without some reluctance, and soon after addressed himself to his journey to court. Ireland was at that juncture not a little inflamed, by the copper-coin project of one Wood, and it was thought by the king and ministry, that the judgment, moderation, and wisdom of the bishop of Bristol would tend much to allay the ferment. He arrived in Ireland on the third of November, 1724, had no sooner passed patent for the primacy, than he appeared at all the public boards, and gave a weight and vigour to them; and, in every respect, was indefatigable in promoting the real happiness of the people. Among his other wise measures, in seasons of great scarcity in, Ireland, he was more than once instrumental in averting a pestilence and famine, which threatened the nation. When the scheme was set on foot for making a navigation, by a canal to be drawn from Lough -Neagh to Newry, not only for bringing coal to Dublin, but to carry on more effectually an inland trade in the several counties of the north of Ireland, he greatlv encouraged and promoted the design, not only with his counsel but his purse. Drogheda is a large and populous town within the diocese of Armagh, and his grace finding that the ecclesiastical appointments were not sufficient to support two clergymen there, and the cure over-burthensome for one effectually to discharge, he allotted out of his own pocket a maintenance for a second curate, whom he obliged to give public service every Sunday in the afternoon, and prayers twice every day. He had great compassion for the poor clergy of his diocese, who were disabled from giving their children a proper education, and maintained several of the sons of such in the university, in order to qualify them for future preferment, He erected four houses at Drogheda for the reception of clergymen’s widows, and purchased an estate for the endowment of them, after the model of primate Marsh’s charity; which he enlarged in one particular: for as the estate he purchased for the maintenance of the widows, amounted to twenty-four pounds a year more than he had set apart for that use, he appointed that the surplus should be a fund for setting out the children of such, widows apprentices, or otherwise to be disposed of for the benefit of such children, as his trustees should think proper. He also by his will directed, which has since been performed, that four houses should be built for clergymen’s widows at Armagh, and endowed with fifty pounds a year. During his life, he contracted for the building of a stately market-house at Armagh, which was finished by his executors, at upwards of eight hundred pounds expence. He was a benefactor also to Dr. Stevens’s hospital in the city of Dublin, erected for the maintenance and cure of the poor. His charities for augmenting small livings, and buying of glebes, amounted to upwards of thirty thousand pourids, besides what he devised by his will for the like purposes in England. Though the plan of the incorporated society for promoting English protestant working schools, cannot be imputed to primate Boulter, yet he was the chief instrument in forwarding the undertaking, which he lived to see carried into execution with consider, able success. His private charities were not less munificent, but so secretly conducted, that it is impossible to give any particular account of them: it is affirmed by those who were in trust about him, that he never suffered an object to leave his house unsupplied, and he often sent them away with considerable sums, according to the judgment he made of their merits and necessities. With respect to his political virtues, and the arts of government, when his health would permit him he was constant in his attendance at the council-table, and it is well known what weight and dignity he gave to the debates of that board. As he always studied the true interest of Ireland, so he judged, that the diminishing the value of the gold coin would be a means of increasing silver in the country, a thing very much wanted in order to effect which, he supported a scheme at the council- table, which raised the clamours of unthinking people, although experience soon demonstrated its wisdom. He was thirteen times one of the lords justices, or chief governors of Ireland; which office he administered oftener than any other chief governor on record. He embarked for England June 2, 1742, and after two days illness died at his house in St. James’s place, Sept. 27, and was buried in Westminster-abbey, where a stately monument has been erected to his memory. His deportment was grave, his aspect venerable, and his temper meek and humble. He was always open and easy of access both to rich and poor. He was steady to the principles of liberty, both in religion and politics. His learning was universal, yet more in substance than shew; nor would his modesty permit him to make any ostentation of it. He always preserved such an equal temper of mind that hardly any thing could ruffle, and amidst obloquy and opposition, steadily maintained a resolution of serving his country, embraced every thing proposed for the good of it, though by persons remarkable for their opposition to him: and when the most public-spirited schemes were introduced by him, and did not meet with the reception they deserved, he never took offence, but was glad when any part of his advice for the public good was pursued, and was always willing to drop some points, that he might not lose all; often saying, “he would do all the good to Ireland he could, though they did not suffer him to do all he would.” His life was mostly spent in action, and therefore it is not to be expected that he should have left many remains of his learning behind him nor do we know of any thing he bath written, excepting a few Charges to his clergy at his visitations, which are grave, solid, and instructive, and eleven Occasional Sermons, printed separately. In 1769, however, were published, at Oxford, in two volumes 8vo, “Letters written by his excellency Hugh Boulter, D. D. lord primate of all Ireland, &c. to several ministers of state in England, and some others. Containing an account of the most interesting transactions which passed in Ireland from 1724 to 1738.” The originals, which are deposited in the library of Christ church, in Oxford, were collected by Ambrose Philips, esq. who was secretary to his grace, and lived in his house during that space of time in which they bear date. They are entirely letters of business, and are all of them in Dr. Boulter’s hand-writing, excepting some few, which are fair copies by his secretary. The editor justly remarks, that these letters, which could not be intended for publication, have been fortunately preserved, as they contain the most authentic history of Ireland, for the period in which they were written: “a period,” he adds, “which will ever do honour to his grace’s memory, and to those most excellent princes George the first and second, who had the wisdom to place confidence in so worthy, so able, and so successful a minister; a minister who had the rare and peculiar felicity of growing still more and more into the favour both of the king and of the people, until the very last day of his life,” It is much to be regretted that in some of his measures, he was opposed by dean Swift, particularly in that of diminishing the gold coin, as it is probable that they both were actuated by an earnest desire of serving the country. In one affair, that of Wood’s halfpence, they appear to have coincided, and in that they both happened to encourage a public clamour which had little solid foundation. The writer of archbishop' Boulter’s Life in the Biog. Brit, seems to doubt whether he assisted Ambrose Philips in the paper called the “Freethinker;” but of this we apprehend there can be no doubt. It was published while he held the living of St. Olave’s.

His widow died March 3, 1754. On the contingency of his having no issue by her, which was the case, he had bequeathed five hundred pounds to Magdalen- college in Oxford, to be applied towards rebuilding the same; and a thousand pounds to Christ-church in the same university, to be applied to the purchase of an estate for founding five exhibitions of equal value, to be distributed among five of the poorest and most deserving of the commoners of that college, to be enjoyed by them for four years from the time of their election; and directed, that no commoner of above three years standing should be elected into the said exhibitions. Fie vested the said election in the dean and canons of that house, and directed that the exhibitioners should be chosen upon a public examination in the hall, and recommended the sons of clergymen to be in the first place, cesteris paribus, considered. He also bequeath* d the further sum of five hundred pounds to the last mentioned college, to buy an estate, to be distributed in equal exhibitions to five servitors of the said college, of whom none were to be capable of election who were of above two years standing, nor to enjoy the exhibition longer than for three years and he vested the right of election in the dean and chapter.

, who justly ought to be classed among public benefactors, the son of Matthew Boulton, by Christian, daughter of Mr. Peers, of Chester, was born at Birmingham Sept. 3, 1728, and was principally educated at a private grammar school, kept by the rev. Mr. Ansted. He learned drawing under Worlidge, and mathematics under Cooper, and laid in a stock of that useful knowledge by which he was enabled so highly to improve the manufactures of his country.' So early as the year 1745, Mr. Boulton invented and brought to great perfection, the inlaid steel, buckles, buttons, watch chains, &c. Great quantities of these were exported to France, from- whence they were re-purchased with avidity by the English, as the offspring of French ingenuity. His manufactory at Birmingham, however, being inadequate to his extensive improvements, and further experiments, he, in 1762, purchased a lease of the Soho, at Handsworth, in the county of Stafford, distant about two. miles; at that time, a barren heath, on the bleak summit of which stood a naked hut, the habitation of a warrener. These extensive tracts of common were converted by Mr. Boulton into the present superb ^manufactory, which was finished in 1765, at the expence of 9000l.; and in the year 1794, he purchased the fee simple of Soho, and much of the other adjoining lands.

Impelled by an ardent attachment to the arts, and by the patriotic ambition of bringing his favourite Soho to the highest perfection, the ingenious proprietor soon established a seminary of artists, for drawing and modelling; and men of genius were sought for, and liberally patronized, which shortly led to the successful establishment of an extensive manufactory of ornaments, in what the French call or moulu; and these ornaments not only found their way into the apartments of his majesty, but also into those of the nobility and curious of this kingdom, France, and the greatest part of Europe.

Finding that the mill which he had erected fell infinitely short, even with the aid of horses, of the force which was necessary for the completion of his vast designs, Mr. Boulton, in 1767, had recourse to that master- piece of human ingenuity, the steam engine. This wonderful machine was yet in its infancy, and did not at first answer the expectations that had been formed of it. In 1769, Mr. James Watt, of Glasgow, obtained a patent for a prodigious improvement in the steam engine. This induced Mr. Boulton to form connexions with Mr. Watt, and invited him to settle at Soho, to which the latter consented. In 1775, parliament granted a prolongation of the patent for twenty-five years; and Messrs. Boulton and Watt entering into a partnership, established a very extensive manufactory of these engines at Soho, whence most of the great mines and manufactories in England continue to be supplied, and they are now applied in almost every mechanical purpose, where great power is requisite.

Amongst the various applications of the steam engine, that of coining seems to be of considerable importance, as by its powers, all the operations are concentrated on the same spot. It works a number of coining machines with greater rapidity and exactness by a few boys from twelve to fourteen years of age, than could be done by a great number of strong men, without endangering their fingers, as the machine itself lays the blanks upon the die perfectly concentral with it, and, when struck, displaces one piece and replaces another. The coining mill, which was erected in 1788, and has since been greatly improved, is adapted to work eight machines, and each is capable of striking from sixty to an hundred pieces of money in a minute, the size of a guinea, which is equal to between 30,000 and 40,000 per hour, and at the same blow, which strikes the face and reverse, the edge of the piece is also struck, either plain or with an inscription.

About the year 1773, the ingenious art of copying pictures in oil colours, by a mechanical process, was invented at Soho; and was brought to such a degree of perfection that the copies were taken for originals by the most experienced connoisseurs. This art was brought to perfection under the management of the late ingenious Mr. F. Eginton, who was no less celebrated for his paintings on glass.

In 1788, Mr. Boulton struck a piece of gold, the size of a guinea, as a pattern, the letters of which were indented instead of a relief; and the head and other devices, although in relief, were protected from wear by a flat border; and from the perfect rotundity of shape, &c. with the aid of a steel guage, it may with great ease and certainty, by ascertaining its specific gravity, be distinguished from any base metal. Previous to his engagement to supply government with copper pence, in order to bring his apparatus to perfection, he exercised it in coining silver money for Sierra Leone and the African Company; and copper for the East India Company and Bermuda. Various beautiful medals, also, of superior workmanship to any of the modern money of this country, of our celebrated naval and other officers, have, from tune to time, been struck here by Mr. Boulton, for the purpose of employing and encouraging ingenious artists to revive that branch of sculpture.

Since the demise of the late empress Catherine of Russia, Mr. Boulton presented her successor, the late emperor Paul I. with some of the curious articles of his’manufactory, and in return received a polite letter of thanks and Approbation, together with a splendid collection of medals, minerals from Siberia, and specimens of all the modern money of Russia. Among the medals which, for elegance of design and beauty of execution, have never yet been equalled in this or any other country, is a massy one of gold, impressed with a striking likeness, it is said, of that monarch. This unrivalled piece was struck from a die engraved by the present empress dowager, who has, from her youth, taken great delight in the art of engraving on steel.

With a view of still further improving and facilitating the manufactory of steam engines, Messrs. Boulton and Watt have lately, in conjunction with their sons, established a foundery at Smethwick, a short distance from Soho. Here that powerful agent is employed, as it were, to multiply itself, and its various parts are fabricated and adapted together with the same regularity, neatness, and expedition, which distinguish all the operations of their manufactory. Those engines are afterwards distributed to all parts of the kingdom by the Birmingham canal, which communicates with a wet dock belonging to the foundery.

In a national view, Mr. Boulton’s undertakings have been highly valuable and important. By collecting around him artists of various descriptions, rival talents have been called forth; and, by successive competition, have been multiplied to an extent highly beneficial to the public. A barren heath has been covered with plenty and population; and these works, which in their infancy were little known and attended to, now cover several acres, give employment to more than six hundred persons, and are indubitably the first of their kind in Europe. No expence has been spared to render these works uniform and handsome in architecture, as well as neat and commodious. The same liberal spirit and taste have been displayed on the adjoining gardens and pleasure grounds, which at the same time that they form an agreeable separation from the proprietor’s residence, render Soho a much admired scene of picturesque beauty. As his great and expanded mind formed and brought to perfection the wonderful works thus briefly described, so he felt no greater felicity, than that of diffusing happiness to all around him. Mr. Boulton was not only a fellow of the royal societies of London and Edinburgh, but likewise of that which bears the title of the free and ceconomical at St. Petersburg, and many other foreigrt institutions of the highest celebrity in Europe. He died in his eighty-first year, at Soho, August 17, 1809, regretted as an illustrious contributor to the wealth and fame of his country, and a man of amiable and generous character. He was succeeded in estate and talents by his only son, the present proprietor of Soho, in conjunction with his partners.

, an eminent French historian and antiquary, was a Benedictine of the congregation of St. Maur, and born at Amiens, Aug. 6, 1685. After finishing his course of philosophy and divinity, he studied the learned languages with great success, and his superiors observing his decided taste for literature, made him librarian of St. Germain- des-prez. He afterwards assisted the celebrated Montfaucon in some of his works, and undertook himself an edition of Josephus. When, however, he had made considerable progress in this, he understood that a man of learning in Holland was employed on a similar design, and therefore, with a liberality not very common, sent to him all the collections he had formed for the work. On the death of father Le Long, of the oratory, in 1721, Bouquet was employed in making a collection of the historians of France. Of this important work, a brief account will not be uninteresting.

The first who attempted a collection of the kind was the famous Peter Pithou. It was his intention to have published a complete body of French historians, extracted from printed books and Mss. but he died in 1596, having published only two volumes on the subject, one in 8vo, the other in 4to. These carried the history no lower than the year 1285. Nothing more was done till 1635, when Du Chesne, who is called the Father of French history, took up the subject again, and published a prospectus for a history, to be comprised in fourteen volumes fol. and end with the reign of Henry II. The first two volumes accordingly came out in 1636, but the author died whilst the two next were in the press. These, however, were published in 1641, by his sou, who added a fifth volume, ending with the life of Philippe le Bel, in 1649. The next attempts were vain, though made under the auspices of such men as Colbert, Louvois, and chancellor D'Aguesseau: the plan proposed by the first miscarried through the obstinacy of the famous Ducange (who would have the work done in his own way, or have nothing to do with it) and the modesty of Mabillon. Another was, as we have just mentioned, put a stop to by the death of Le Long, who, having pointed out the materials in his “Bibliotheque Historique de la France,” was the fittest to have made use of them. In this state of things the Benedictine congregation of St. Maur recommended Bouquet, who accordingly went to work under the inspection of a society of teamed men named by the chancellor, in whose presence the plan of the work, and the materials fit to be made use of, were discussed. Bouquet was so assiduous in his labour, that about the end of the year 1729 he was ready with two volumes; but, owing to his removal to the abbey of St. John de Laon, they were not published until 1738, when the chancellor D'Aguesseau called him to Paris, and he then proceeded so rapidly, that the eighth was published in 1752. He had begun the ninth, in which he hoped to have completed what regarded the second race of the French kings; but, in 1754, was seized with a violent disorder, which proved fatal in tour days, April 6. He was a man of extensive learning, connected with all the learned men and learned societies of his time, and beloved for his personal virtues. For many years the work was continued by the congregation of St. Maur, but without the name of any editor. Seven more volumes have appeared since Bouquet’s death, and the sixteenth is now in the press, and almost ready for publication.

, a Latin poet of France, was born in 1503 at Vandeuvrt, near Langres, the son of a rich forge-master. Margaret de Valois appointed him preceptor to her daughter Jane d'Albret de Navarre, mother of Henry IV. He retired afterwards to Conde“, where he had a benefice, and died there about 1550. Bourbon left eight books of epigrams, and a didactic poem on the forge entitled” Ferrarie,“1533, 8vo;” De puerorum moribus,“Lyons, 1536, 4to, a series of moral distichs, with a commentary by J. de Caures. He was extremely well acquainted with antiquity and the Greek language. Erasmus praises his epigrams, and he appears to have been the friend and correspondent of Erasmus, Scaliger, Latimer, Carey, Harvey, Saville, Norris, Dudley, &c. having frequently visited England, where he was patronized by Dr. Butts, the king’s physician, and William Boston, abbot of Westminster, an hospitable man, with whom he speaks of having passed many pleasant hours in archbishop Cranmer’s garden at Lambeth. He treats sir Thomas More with great asperity in one of his epigrams, from which we may probably conclude that he inclined to protestantism, although this is not consistent with his history. His epigrams were published under the title of” Nugarumlibriocto," Paris, 1533, and often reprinted, particularly by Scaliger, 1577 in 1608 by Passerat, with notes; and lastly, by the abbe Brochard in 1723, a handsome quarto edition, printed at Paris.

, nephew to the above, and superior to him as a Greek and Latin poet, was the son of a physician. He taught rhetoric in several colleges at Paris, and cardinal du Perron appointed him professor of eloquence at the royal college. He was also canon of Langres, and one of the forty of the French academy. He retired at last among the fathers of the oratory, where he died August 7, 1644, aged seventy. Bourbon is justly considered as one of the greatest Latin poets whom France has produced. His poems were printed at Paris, 1651, 12mo. The “Imprecation on the Parricide of Henry IV.” is his chef-d'ceuvre. He wrote the two beautiful lines which are upon the gate of the arsenal at Paris, in honour of Henry the Great:

, lord Berners, was born about 1467, son and heir of sir Humphrey Bourchier by Elizabeth, daughter and heir of sir Frederick Tilney (widow of sir Thomas Howard), which Humphrey was killed at Barnet-field, on Edward IVth’s part, and buried in Westminster abbey, during the life of his father, who was sir John Bourchier, K. G. fourth son of William earl of Ewe, and baron Berners, by marriage with Margery, daughter and heir of Richard lord Berners. Lord Bourchier succeeded his grandfather, May 16, 1474, being then only seven years old. He was educated in Baliol college, Oxford, and afterwards travelled abroad, and returned a master of seven languages, and a complete gentleman. In 1405 he obtained the notice of Henry VII. by his valour in quelling the fury of the rebels in Cornwall and Devonshire, under the conduct of Michael Joseph, a blacksmith. In 1513 he was captain of the pioneers at the siege of Therouenne. In 1514, being made chancellor of the king’s exchequer for life, he attended the lady Mary, the king’s sister, into France, to her marriage with king Lewis XII. and in 1527 obtained i grant from the king of several manors. Afterwards he vas made lieutenant of Calais and the marches adjoining to France, and spending most of his time there, wrot< several learned works in that situation. There he made his will, March 3, 1532, bequeathing his body to be bur'ud in the chancel of the parish church of our lady, within the town of Calais, and appointing that an honest priest shouldsing mass there for his soul, by the space of three years, ie died March 16th following, leaving by Katherine his wie, daughter of John duke of Norfolk, Joane his daughter nd heir, married to Edmund Knyvet of Ashwelthorpe inNorfolk, esq.

Lord Berners is now principally known r his translation of “Froissart’s Chronicle,” which he mdertook by command of the king, and was published by 'inson, 1523 1525, 2 vols. fol. It is unnecessary to add h w much this translation has been superseded by that of Thmas Johnes, esq. which lately issued from the Hafod pre>, and has passed through two editions since 1803. Ofers of lord Berners’s works were a whimsical medley of ranslations from the French, Italian, and Spanish novels, hich seem to have been the mode then, as they were afterv.rds in the reign of Charles II. These were, “The Life f Sir Arthur, an Armorican Knight” “The famousesploits of sir Hugh of Bourdeaux” “Marcus Aureliui” and the “Castle of Love.” He also composed a bo: “Of the duties of the inhabitants of Calais,” and a comfy entitled “Ite in Vineam.” Of all these an ample account may be seen in our authorities.

, archbishop of Canterbury in the successi^eio-ns of Henry VI. Edward IV. Edward V. Richard III. tf Henry VII. was son of William Bourchier earl of Ewe in Normandy, and the countess of Stafford, and brother of Henry earl of Essex, and, consequently, related to the preceding lord Berners. He had his education in Neville’s-inn at Oxford, and was chancellor of that university three ears viz. from 1433 to 1437. His first dignity in the church was that of dean of the collegiate church of St. Martin’s in London; from which, in 1433, he was advanced, by pope Eugenius IV. to the see of Worcester but his consecration was deferred to May 15, 1436, by reason (as is supposed) of a defect in age. He had not sat a full year, before he was elected by the monks of Ely bishop of that see, and confirmed by the pope: but, the king refusing his consent, Bourchier did not dare to comply with the election,' for fear of incurriig the censure of the laws, which forbad, under very sevtfe penalties, the receiving the pope’s bull without the khg’s leave. Nevertheless, seven or eight years after, the see of Ely still continuing vacant, and the king consenting, he was translated thither, the 20th of December 1443. The author of the “Historia Eliensis” speaks very disadvantageously of him, as an oppressor, and neglectfi of his duty during his residence on that see, which was ten years twenty-three weeks and five days. At last he was elected archbishop of Canterbury, in the room of John Kemp, the 23d of April 1454. This election was the irre remarkable, as the monks were left entirely to trir liberty of choice, without any interposition either frc the crown or the papal chair. On the contrary, pof Nicolas Vth’s concurrence being readily obtained, t> archbishop was installed with great solemnity. In the m^th of December following, he received the red hat from vome, being created cardinal-priest of St. Cyriacus in Ttemis, but Bentham thinks this was not till 1464, The next ear, he was made lord high chancellor of England, but‘esigned that office in October the year following. So’ after his advancement to the see of Canterbury, he be^aia visitation in Kent, and made several regulations fothe government of his diocese. He likewise publish* 3 - constitution for restraining the excessive abuse of papa'rovisions, but deserved most highly of the learned world, r being the principal instrument in introducing the no 2 art of printing into England. Wood’s account^ althou not quite correct, is worth transcribing. Bourchier being informed that the inventor, Tossan^ alias John -ithenberg, had set up a press at Harlem, was extremely desirous that the English might be made masters of s^ 6116 ^ ^ an art. To this purpose he persuaded fcino Henry VI. to dispatch one Robert Tournour, belong to the wardrobe, privately to Harlem. This man, f ur ed with a thousand marks, of which the archbishop suried three hundred, embarked for Holland, and, to disise the matter, went in company with one Caxton, a, nnhant of London, pretending himself to be of the same profession. Thus concealing his name and his business, he went first to Amsterdam, then to Leyden, and at last settled at Harlem where having spent a -great deal of time and money, he sent to the king for a fresh supply, giving his Highness to understand, that he had almost compassed the enterprize. In short, he persuaded Frederic Corselli, one of the compositors, to carry off a set of letters, and embark with him in the night for London. When they arrived, the archbishop, thinking Oxford a more convenient place for printing than London, sent Corselli down thither. And, lest he should slip away before he had discovered the whole secret, a guard was set upon the press. And thus the mystery of printing appeared ten years sooner in the university of Oxford than at any other place in Europe, Harlem and Mentz excepted. Not long after, there were presses set up at Westminster, St. Alhan’s, Worcester, and other monasteries of note. After this manner printing was introduced into England, by the care of archbishop Bourchier, in the year of Christ 1464, and the third of king Edward IV."

Bourchier, we are told, was strangely imposed upon by the specious pretences of Richard duke of Gloucester, when he undertook to persuade the queen to deliver up the duke of York, her son, into the protector’s hands. He presided over the church thirty-two years, in the most troublesome times of the English government, those of Henry VI. and Edward IV. He also performed the marriage ceremony between Henry VII. and the daughter of Edward IV.; and had the happiness to be contemporary with many prelates of distinction in English history. He was certainly a man of learning; though nothing written by him has come down to us, if we except a few Sy nodical decrees. Dart tells us, he founded a chantry, which was afterwards surrendered to king Henry VIII. Archbishop Bourchier died at his palace of Knowle, on Thursday the thirtieth of March 1486, and was buried on the north side of the choir of his cathedral, by the high altar, in a tomb of marble, on which is an inscription merely recording the event.

Archbishop Bourchier’s benefactions are stated by Mr. Bentham as follows: He gave to the prior and convent of Christ Church in Canterbury, the alien priory of Cranfield in Essex, a grant of which he had obtained from the crown in the time of Edward the Fourth. To the church of Canterbury, besides the image of the Trinity, he bequeathed twenty-seven copes of red tissue, and left to his successor, in recompence for dilapidations, 2000l.; also 12 5l. to each of the universities, to be kept in chests, for the support of the poor scholars. The chest at Cambridge, which was united with Billingford’s, was in being in 1601, when 100l. was borrowed out of it for the use of the university; but this fund was afterward embezzled, through the iniquity of the times. The archbishop left also legacies to several monasteries.

, a Jesuit, and one of the most eloquent preachers France ever produced, was born at Bourges, Aug. 20, 1632, and entered the society of the Jesuits in 1648. After having passed some years in teaching grammar, rhetorick, philosophy, and divinity, his talents pointed him out for the office of preacher, and the extraordinary popularity of his sermons in the country, determined his superiors to call him to Paris in 1669, to take the usual course of a year’s preaching in their church of St. Louis, which soon became crowded with multitudes of both sexes both from the court and city; nor was this a transient impression, as whoever heard him once wished to hear him again, and even Louis XIV. listened with pleasure, although he appears to have introduced subjects in his discourses which could not be very acceptable in his court. On the revocation of the edict of Nantz, the king sent him into Languedoc to strengthen the new or pretended converts from the heresies of the protestant faith, and we are told the effect of his eloquence was great. His eloquence was undoubtedly superior to that of his contemporaries, and he has justly been praised for introducing a more pure style than was customary in the French pulpips. One effect of his preaching was, that great numbers of his hearers requested him to take their souls into his hands, and be the director of their consciences, in other words, to turn father confessor, with which he complied, and frequently sat five or six hours in the confessional, completing there, says his biographer, what he had only sketched in the pulpit. He was yet more admired for his charitable attentions and the sick and poor, among whom he passed much of his time, in religious conference and other acts of humanity. He died at Paris May 13, 1704, universally lamented and long remembered as the most attractive and eloquent of preachers. He had preached thirty -four years at court and in Paris. Father Bretonneau published two editions of his works, the first of 16 vols. 8vo. 1716, reckoned the best, or at least, the most beautifully printed; and the second in 18 vols. 12rrio. Comparisons have been formed between him and Massillon, but several are still inclined to give him the preference. There is warmth, zeal, and elegance in his style and reasoning, but he is frequently declamatory and verbose. It is difficult, however, for English critics to appreciate the merits of his sermons, calculated as they were for a class of hearers with whose taste we are unacquainted. Of his catholic spirit we have an instance on record, that in an interview with bishop Burnet at Paris, he told the English prelate that he believed “all honest protestants would be saved.”

, better known by the name of Brantôme, of which he was abbot, added to that title those of lord and baron of Richemont, chevalier, gentleman of the chamber to the kings Charles IX. and Henry III. and chamberlain to the duke of Alençon. He had the design of being created a knight of Maltha in a voyage he made to that isle during the time of the siege in 1565. He returned to France, where he was fed with vain expectations; but he received no other reward (as he tells us himself) than being welcomed by the kings his masters, great lords, princes, sovereigns, queens, princesses, &c. He died July 5, 1614, at the age of 87. His memoirs were printed in ten volumes, 12mo, viz. four of the French commanders; two of foreign commanders two of women of gallantry one of illustrious ladies; and one of duels. There is another edition of the Hague, 1741, 15 vols. 12mo, on account of the supplement, which makes five, and also a Paris edition 1787, 8 vols. 8vo. These memoirs may be of some use, if read cautiously, by those who would know the private history of Charles IX. of Henry III. and of Henry IV. Here the man is more represented than the prince. The pleasure of seeing these kings in their peculiarities in private life, added to the simplicity of Brantome’s style, renders the reading of his memoirs extremely agreeable. But some of his anecdotes are grossly indecent, and many of them fictions.

“Brantome,” (says M. Anquetil) “is in the hands of every body. All the world pretends to have read him; but he ought particularly to be put into the hands of princes, that they may learn how impossible it is for them to hide themselves they they have an importance in the eyes of their courtiers, which draws attention to all their actions; and that, sooner or later, the most secret of them are revealed to posterity. The reflections that would occur, on seeing that Brantome has got together all the little transactions, all the idle words that have escaped them, all the actions pretended to be indifferent, which were thought to be neglected and lost, and which nevertheless mark the character, would render them more circumspect. In reading Brantome a problem forces itself on the mind, which it is difficult to solve. It is very common to see that author joining together the most discordant ideas in regard to morals. Sometimes he will represent a woman as addicted to the most infamous refinements of libertinism, and then will conclude by saying that she was prudent, and a good Christian. So likewise of a priest, of a monk, or any other ecclesiastic, he will relate anecdotes more than wanton; and will tell us very gravely at the end, that this man lived regularly according to his station. Almost all his memoirs are full of similar contradictions in a sort of epigram. On which 1 have this question to propose: Was Brantome a libertine; who, in order to sport more securely with religion and morals, affects in the expression a respect to which the very matter of the recital gives the lie? or, Was he one of those persons who generally go under the name of amiable fops; who, without principles as without design, confound virtue and vice, making no real difference between one character and another? Whatever judgment we may form of him, we must always blame him for omitting to observe a proper reverence for decorum in his writings, and for frequently putting modesty to the blush. We perceive in Brantome the character of those young men, who, making a part of the court by their birth, pass their lives in it without pretensions and without desires. They amuse themselves with every thing: if an action has a ridiculous side, they seize it; if it has not, they give it one. Brantome only skims along the surface of a subject; he knows nothing of diving into an action, and unfolding the motives that gave it birth. He gives a good picture of what he has seen, relates in simple terms what he has heard; but it is nothing uncommon to see him quit his main object, return to it, quit it a and conclude by thinking no more of it. With all this irregularity he pleases, because he amuses.”

, grand-nephew of the former, comte de Montresor., attached to Gaston of Orleans, both while he was in favour, and when he had lost it, was several times deprived of his liberty for serving that prince. Disgusted with the tumult and the Artifices of the court, he took up the resolution of enjoying the sweets of privacy. He died at Paris in 1663. He left memoirs, known under the name of Montresor, 2 vols. 12mo, which are curious, as containing many particulars of the history of his time. Montresor makes no scruple of relating the projects he formed against the life of cardinal Richelieu.

, a learned French critic, who distinguished himself in the republic of letters by writing notes upon Lucian, Petronius, and Heliodorus, lived at the end of the 16th, and in the beginning of the 17th century, was of a good family of Sens, and educated with care. He applied himself to the study of the belles lettres and of the learned languages; and Baillet tells us, that he passed for a great connoisseur in the oriental tongues, and in the knowledge of manuscripts. These pursuits did not hinder him from being consummate in the law. He exercised the office of advocate to the parliament of Paris in 1627, when Mary of Medicis, hearing of his uncommon merit, made him master of the requests. He died suddenly at Paris in 1638. His edition of Heliodorus, which is one of the best, was published in 1619, 8vo That of Lucian at Paris, 1615, fol. with the notes of Micyllus, Guerinus, Marsilius, and Cognatus, and some short and learned ones by himself, at that time a very young man. Among the sources from which Bourdelot professes to have compiled his edition, are two ancient Mss. in the royal library at Paris, the existence of which Faber (ad Luciani Timonem, c. 1.) denies in the most positive terms. His Petronius was first published at Paris, 12mo, in 1618, a very scarce edition, and reprinted in 1645, 1663, and 1677.

, nephew to the above, and educated by him, was a very celebrated physician at Paris, where he died Feb. 9, 1685, aged seventy-six. In 1634, he obtained leave to adopt the name of Bourdelot, pursuant to his uncle’s desire, who on that condition left him his library and fortune. He wrote some treatises on “the Viper,” on “Mount Etna,” “La relation des appartmens de Versailles,” &c. with three volumes of “Conferences,” which were published by M. le Gallois.

, physician in ordinary to Louis XIV. and first physician to the duchess of Burgundy, was sister’s son to the preceding P. Michon Bourdelot, who enjoined him to change his name from Bonnet to Bourdelot, on the same terms that himself adopted that name, viz. his library and fortune. P. Bonnet Bourdelot was a skilful physician, and a man of general literature. He wrote some useful notes on the “Bibliotheque choisie de M. Colomies,” which were added to the Paris edition of 1731, and left a manuscript catalogue of all printed medical works, with lives and criticisms on the authors. He wrote also some papers on the history of music, which were used by his brother Bonnet in his “Histoire de la Musique,” 1715. He died in 1709, aged fifty-four.

, a very celebrated French painter, was born at Montpellier in 1616. His father, who was a glass-painter, gave him the first instructions in his art. When only seven years old, one of his uncles brought him to Paris, and placed him with a very indifferent painter, whose defects, however, were supplied by young Bourdon’s natural genius. Returning to Bourdeaux at the age of fourteen, he painted the cieling of a neighbouring chateau, and then went to Toulouse. Finding here no employment, he went into the army; but his captain, a man of some taste, judging that he would one day excel in his profession as an artist, gave him his discharge. He was eighteen when he went to Italy, and became acquainted with Claude Lorrain, whose manner, as well as that of Saccbi, Caravagio, and Bamboccio, he imitated with great success. After a residence of three years here, he happened to have a difference with a painter, who threatened to inform against him as a Calvinist, and Bourdon immediately set out for Venice, and thence to France. At the age of twenty-seven he painted his famous Crucifixion of St. Peter for the church of Notre Dame at Paris, which could not fail to raise his reputation. Du Guernier, a miniature painter, much employed at court, and whose sister he married, assisted him with his advice, and procured him work. But the civil wars interrupting the progress of the fine arts, in 1652 he went to Sweden, where queen Christina appointed him her first painter. While employed on many works for her, chiefly portraits, she mentioned to him one day some pictures which the king her father had found when he took Prague; these had till now remained unpacked, and she desired Bourdon to examine them. Bourdon reported favourably of them, particularly of some by Corregio, on which the queen requested he would accept them as a present from her. Bourdon, with corresponding liberality and disinterestedness, represented that they were some of the finest paintings in Europe, and that her majesty ought never to part with them, as a fit collection for a crowned head. The queen accordingly kept them, and took them with her to Rome when she abdicated the throne. After her death, the heirs of Don Livio Odeschalchi, who had purchased them, sold them to the regent duke of Orleans; and they afterwards made part of the fine collection known in this country by the name of the Orleans Collection.

Bourdon, however, not finding much exercise for his genius in Sweden, and the queen having become Roman catholic after her abdication, he returned to France, then more favourable to the arts, and soon had abundance of employment. Among his first performances after his return, were a “Dead Christ,” and the “Woman taken in adultery.” Some business occasioning him to go to Montpellier, during his short stay there he painted several portraits of persons of fashion. An anecdote is told, that, when in this place, a taylor who had a great esteem for him, and knew he was not rich, sent to him, by the hand of one Francis, a painter, a complete suit of clothes, cloak, and bonnet. Bourdon, in return, sent him his portrait dressed in this suit; but Francis, thinking it a very fine specimen of the art, presented the taylor with a copy, and kept the original. In 1663 he returned to Paris, where he continued to execute many fine pictures, until his death in 1671.

He had an uncommon readiness of hand, though he was frequently incorrect, and was particularly so in the extremities of his figures. As a proof of his expeditious manner of painting, it is reported, that in one day he painted twelve portraits afterlife, as large as nature, and those not the worst of his performances. His touch is extremely light, his colouring good, his attitudes are full of variety, v and sometimes graceful, and his expression is lively and animated. However, it must be confessed, that his conceptions were often extravagant, nor would many of his compositions abide a critical examination. His landscapes are in the taste of Titian, but they seem rather designed from imagination than after nature; yet, in several of them, the product of that imagination has a beautiful effect; and he usually enriched his pastoral scenes with a great number of figures and animals. His pictures are seldom finished, and those which appear most so, are not always his best. The most esteemed work of Bourdon is the Martyrdom of St. Peter, in the church of Notre Dame at Paris, which is considered as a curiosity. Sir Joshua Reynolds had his “Return of the Ark from captivity,” which he bequeathed to sir George Beaumont. Sir Joshua in his fourteenth discourse speaks very highly of this picture. As a proof of the value of Sebastian Bourdon’s piv-tures in this country, we may mention that in 1770, a holy family by him was sold by the late Mr. Christie, for 34 1l. 5s.

Sebastian Bourdon has also a place among engravers. His etchings, which are numerous, are executed in a bold, masterly style; and convey a clear idea of his manner of painting. The lights are broad, the draperies are formed with great taste, and the folds well marked, though sometimes too dark and hard upon the lights; the heads are very expressive; the back-grounds are finely conceived, and executed in a grand style. Some of the principal from his own compositions are the following; the “Seven acts of mercy;” the “Flight into Egypt,” and the “Return from thence;” several subjects of the “Virgin and Child;” in one of which is seen a woman washing linen, hence distinguished by the name of the washer-woman the “Return of the ark,” from the above-mentioned picture, said to be very scarce the “Baptism of the eunuch” “Twelve large landscapes,” very spirited and fine prints.

, veterinary surgeon, was a native of Lyons, and in his youth a soldier, after which he studied law, but quitted that pursuit on being appointed chief of the riding-school of Lyons, where he seems to have discovered the employment for which he was best fitted. From this time he applied himself to the principles of horsemanship, which he detailed in his “Nouveau Newcastle, ou Traite de Cavalerie,” Lausanne, 1747, 8vo. He laboured no less assiduously to rescue the veterinary art from the hands of ignorance and empiricism, and with that view published in 1750, his “Elemens d'hippiatrique, ou Nouveaux principes sur la connoissance des chevaux,” Lyons, 3 vols. 8vo. The knowledge he displayed in this work probably rendered it easy for him to obtain the leave of government to establish a veterinary school at Lyons, of the great utility of which the public soon became sensible, and many able scholars educated under Bourgelat extended this new branch of the medical art to every part of the kingdom. In 1765, he published his “Matiere medicale raisonnee a Tusage de l'ecole veterinaire,” Lyons, 8vo. His success at Lyons induced the government to invite him to Paris, and he founded a second school at Alford, near Charenton, and published several elementary treatises for the use of his scholars, such as “Cours theorique et pratique des bandages” “Traite de la ferrure,” 1776, 12mo; “L'Anatomie compared de tous les animaux,” and “Memoire sur les maladies contagieuses du betail,” 1776, 4to. After a life spent on this important science, he died in 1779, aged sixty-seven. At his death he bore the titles of inspector-general of the veterinary schools, and commissary-general of the stud. Besides his favourite pursuit, he was a man of general knowledge.

, knight of the Polish order of Merit, and an artist of distinguished reputation, was the descendant of a considerable family in Switzerland, but was born in London in 1756. His early destination was the army, under the patronage of lord Heathfield, who was his father’s - friend but having been instructedwhi|p a child in the rudiments of painting, by a foreigner of inconsiderable merit as a horse-painter, he became so attached to the study, as soon to relinquish the military profession, and devote himself wholly to the pencil. For this purpose he was placed under the tuition of Loutherbourg, and having, from his connexions and acquaintance, access to many of the most distinguished collections, he soon acquired considerable reputation by his landscapes and sea-pieces. In 1776, he travelled through Italy, France, and Holland, where his correct knowledge of the language of each country, added to the politeness of his address, and the pleasures of his conversation, procured him an introduction to the best society, and most valuable repositories of the arts on the continent. At his return to England, he exhibited several specimens of his studies at the royal academy, which obtained him reputation and patronage. In 1791 he was appointed painter to the king of Poland, whose brother, the prince primate, had been much pleased with his performances during his residence in this country; and at the same time he received the honour of knighthood of the order of Merit, which was afterwards confirmed by his present majesty, who, in 1794, appointed him landscapepainter to the king. Previous to this he had, in 1792, been elected a member of the royal academy. Some time before his death, by the will of the late Noel Desenfans, esq. an eminent picture-dealer, he became possessed of sufficient property to render a laborious application to his profession no longer necessary, and from that time he lived in the circle of his friends, highly respected for his talents and agreeable manners. He died Jan. 8, 1811, at his house in Portland- street, bequeathing his fine collection of pictures, and his fortune, to Dirlwich college. According to the terms of his will, he leaves the whole of these pictures, besides 10,000l. to keep them in due preservation, and 2,000/ for the purpose of repairing the gallery ki the college for their reception. He also bequeathed legacies of lOOOl. each to the master of the college, and to the chaplain and the fellows of the college are to be the residuary legatees, and are to possess, for its advantage, all the rest of his property, of every denomination. Most part of this will, however, does not take effect until after the death of Mrs. Desenfans, the widow of his benefactor; and after that event he directs that the body of the late Noel Desenfans, which is now deposited in a sarcophagus within a mausoleum in a chapel, attached to his late house in Charlotte-street, Portland-place, shall be removed, together with his own body (which has, by his desire, been deposited in the same mausoleum), and entombed in a sarcophagus, to be "placed in the chapel of Dulwich college. So singular a will, with respect at least to the place chosen for this collection, excited much surprise. The following circumstances, however, which have been communicated by an intimate friend of the testator, may in some measure account for it. After sir Francis became possessed of the Desenfans collection, by the owner’s friendly will in his favour, he wished to purchase the fee simple of his fine house in Charlotte-street, enlarge it, and endow it as a perpetual repository for the collection, easily accessible to the public, and particularly to students as a school of art; but unluckily, his landlord, a nobleman lately deceased, refused his consent, although he afterwards expressed an inclination to grant it, when too late. Sir Francis then conceived the design of hequeathing the collection to the British Museum, but did not execute it, from a fear that the pictures might not be kept entire and unmixed, he being told that it was in the power of the trustees to dispose of what might appear superfluous or inferior. Such was his respect for his deceased friend, that his only ambition was to discover a place where the collection might be kept together, and known in perpetuum, not as his, but as the Desenfans Collection. By whom Dulwich college, an hospital for poor men and women, remote from the residence of artists and men of taste, was suggested, we know not. It was a place sir Francis had probably never before seen; but, having once visited it, and been informed that his terms might be complied with there, without risk of alteration, he disposed of his property as we have related.

As an artist, sir Francis may be placed in the second rank. He was a close imitator of Loutherbourg. His conception of his subject, as well as the grouping of his figures, was happy, and in conformity with nature; but he was often defective in his finishing, and so much a mannerist in his colouring, that his paintings may be recognized by a very distant glance.

, was born at the village of Beaumains near Falaise, in the diocese of Seez, in 1724. He was educated at the grammar-school at Caen, whence he was removed to that university, and pursued his studies with great diligence and success till 1745, when he became a Benedictine monk of the abbey of St. Martin de Seez, then en regie, that is, under the direction of a conventual abbot. Some time after this, Dom Bourget was appointed prior claustral of the said abbey, and continued six years in that office, when he was nominated prior of Tiron en Perche; whence being translated to the abbey of St. Stephen at Caen, in the capacity of sub-prior, he managed the temporalities of that religious house during two years, as he did their spiritualities for one year longer; after which, according to the custom of the house, he resigned his office. His superiors, sensible of his merit and learning, removed him thence to the abbey of Bee, where he resided till 1764. He was elected an honorary member of the society of antiquaries of London, Jan. 10, 1765; in which year he returned to the abbey of St. Stephen at Caen, where he continued to the time of his death. These honourable offices, to which he was promoted on account of his great abilities, enabled him not only to pursue his favourite study of the history and antiquities of some of the principal Benedictine abbie.s in Normandy, but likewise gave him access to all their charters, deeds, register-books, &c. &c. These he examined with great care, and left behind him in ms. large and accurate accounts of the abbies of St. Peter de Jumieges, St. Stephen, and the Holy Trinity at Caen (founded by William the Conqueror and his queen Matilda), and a very particular history of the abbey of Bee. These were all written in French. The History of the royal abbey of Bee (which he presented to Dr. Ducarel in 1764) is only an abstract of his larger work. This ancient abbey, (which has produced several archbishops of Canterbury and other illustrious prelates of this kingdom) is frequently mentioned by our old historians. The death of this worthy Benedictine (which happened on new-year’s day, 1776) was occasioned by his unfortunate neglect of a hurt he got in his leg by falling down two or three steps in going from the hall to the cloister of the abbey of St. Stephen at Caen, being deceived by the ambiguous feeble light of a glimmering and dying lamp that was placed in that passage. He lived universally esteemed, and died sincerely regretted by all those who were acquainted with him and was buried in the church of the said abbey, Jan. 3, 1776.

, who was born at Nimes in 1678, became celebrated for his proficiency in natural history. The revocation of the edict of Nantes having forced his family to go and seek an asylum in Switzerland, Zurich was indebted to them for its manufactures of stockings, muslins, and several silk stuffs. Young Bourguet went through a course of study there; afterwards married at Berne, and settled at Neufeh&tel, where he became professor of philosophy and mathematics. He died Dec. 31, 1742, at the age of 64, after publishing, 1. A Letter on the formation of salts and crystals; Amsterdam, 1729, 12mo. 2. “La bibliotheque Italique,” 16 vols. 8vo. This journal, begun at Geneva in 1728, found a welcome reception among the learned, as a solid and useful book deserving to be continued, although deficient in style, and hastily written. He wrote also, “Traite des petrifactions,” Paris, 1742, 4to, and 1778, 8vo. Many of his learned papers on subjects of natural history were inserted in the literary journals, and his eloge is in the Helvetic Journal for 1745.

, a famous female enthusiast, was born Jan. 13, 1616, at Lisle in Flanders. She came into the world so very deformed, that a consultation was held in the family some days about stifling her as a monstrous birth. But if she sunk almost beneath humanity in her exterior, her interior seems to have been raised as much above it. For, at four years of age, she not only took notice that the people of Lisle did not live up to the principles of Christianity which they professed, but earnestly desired to be removed into some more Christian country; and her progress was suitable to this beginning. Her parents lived unhappily together, Mr. Bourignon using his spouse with too much severity, especially in his passion: upon which occasions, Antoinette endeavoured to soften him by her infant embraces, which had some little effect; but 'the mother’s unhappiness gave the daughter an utter aversion to matrimony. This falling upon a temper strongly tinctured with enthusiasm, she grew a perfect devotee to virginity, and became so immaculately chaste, that, if her own word may be taken, she never had, in all her life, not even by temptation or surprise, the least thought unworthy of the purity of the virgin state: nay, she possessed the gift of chastity in so abundant a manner, that her presence and her conversation shed an ardour of continence over all who knew her.

Her father, however, to whom all this appeared unnatural, considered her as a mere woman and, having found an agreeable match, promised her in marriage to a Frenchman. Easter-day, 1636, was fixed for the nuptials; but, to avoid the execution, the young lady fled, under the disguise of a hermit, hut was stopped at Blacon, a village of Hainault, on suspicion of her sex. It was an officer of horse quartered in the village who seized her; he had observed something extraordinary in her, and mentioning her to the archbishop of Cambray, that prelate came to examine her, and sent her home. But being pressed again with proposals of matrimony, she ran away once more: and, going to the archbishop, obtained his licence to set up a small society in the country, with some other maidens of her taste and temper. That licence, however, was soon retracted, and Antoinette obliged to withdraw into the country of Liege, whence she returned to Lisle, and passed many years there privately in devotion and great simplicity. When her patrimonial estate fell to her, she resolved at first to renounce it; but, changing her mind, she took possession of it; and as she was satisfied with a few conveniences, she lived at little expence: and bestowing no charities, her fortune increased apace. For thus taking possession of her estate, she gave three reasons: first, that it might not come into the hands of those who had no right to it; or secondly, of those who would have made an ill use of it; thirdly, God shewed her that she should have occasion for it to his glory. And as to charity, she says, the deserving poor are not to be met with in this world. This patrimony must have been something considerable, since she speaks of several maid servants in her house. What she reserved, however, for this purpose, became a temptation to one John de Saulieu, the son of a peasant, who resolved to make his court to her; and, getting admittance under the character of a prophet, insinuated himself into the lady’s favour by devout acts and discourses of the most refined spirituality. At length he declared his passion, modestly enough at first, and was easily checked; but finding her intractable, he grew so insolent as to threaten to murder her if she would not comply. Upon this she had recourse to the provost, who sent two men to guard her house; and in revenge Saulieu gave out, that she had promised him marriage, and even bedded with him. But, in conclusion, they were reconciled; he retracted his slanders, and addressed himself to a young devotee at Ghent, whom he found more tractable. This, however, did not free her from other applications of a similar nature. The parson’s nephew of St. Andrew’s parish near Lisle fell in love with her; and as her house stood in the neighbourhood, he frequency environed it, in order to force an entrance. Our recluse threatened to quit her post, if she was not delivered f*om this troublesome suitor, and the uncle drove himrom his house upon which he grew desperate, and someimes discharged & musquet through the nun’s chamber, giung out that she was his espoused wife. This made a nose in the city; the devotees were offended, and threatined to affront Bourignon, if they met her in the streets. At length she was relieved by the preachers, who publisied from their pulpits, that the report of the marriage wis a scandalous falsehood.

Some time afterwards she quitted her huse, and put herself as governess at the head of an hospitl, where she locked herself up in the cloister in 1658, havng taken the order and habit of St. Austin. But here agai, by a very singular fate, she fell into fresh trouble. Hetnospital was found to be infected with sorcery so much, hat even all the little girls in it had an engagement wit the devil. This gave room to suspect the governess; mo was accordingly taken up by the magistrates of LisU and examined but nothing could be proved against er. However, to avoid further prosecutions, she retire to Ghent in 1662 where she no sooner was, than she prdessed that great secrets were revealed to her. About thistime she acquired a friend at Amsterdam, who proved iithful to her as long as he lived, and left her a good esUe at his death his name was De Cordt he was one of te fathers of the oratory, and their superior at Mechlin, an was director also of an hospital for poor children. Th proselyte was her first spiritual birth, and is said to ha> given her the same kind of bodily pangs and throes as natural labour, which was the case also with her other siritual children and she perceived more or less of thespains, according as the truths which she had declared ojrated more or less strongly on their minds. Whence ancter of her disciples, a certain archdeacon, talking with D<Cordt before their mother on the good and new resolutionvhich they had taken, the latter observed, that her pain were much greater for him than for the former the archdicon, looking upon De Cordt, who was fat and corplent, whereas he was a little man himself, said, smiling, It is no wonder that our mother has had a harder labour fcyou than for me, since you are a great, huge child, wheas I am but a little one;" which discomposed the gravity of all the faces presei t: This has been recorded as a proof that our Antoinette’s disciples sometimes descended from the sublimity of ther devotion to the innocent raillery of people of the world

Our prophetess staid longer than she intended at Amsterdam, where sta published her book of “The light of the world,” and sme others; and finding all sorts crowd to visit her, sheentertained hopes of seeing her doctrine generally embrced but in that she was sadly deceived. For, notwithsanding her conversationswith heaven were, as it is said, requent, 90 that she understood a great number of thingsby revelation, yet she composed more books there than he had followers. The truth is, her visions and revelati*ns too plainly betrayed the visionary and enthusiastic toiper of her mind, and many of them were too grossly incbcent to proceed from a mind that was not tainted wit insanity. She had likewise some qualities not Yery well alculated to attract proselytes; her temper was morose an peevish; and she was extremely avaricious and greedy ofamassing riches. This quality rendered her utterly unchritable as to the branch of almsgiving, and so implacably nforgiving to such poor peasants as had robbed her of an trifle, that she used to prosecute them with the utmost rigour.

Her stay at Amsterdam was chiefly owing to the happiness she had in her dear De Cordt: that proselyte had advanced almost all his estate to some relations, in order to drain the island of Noordstrandt in Holstein, by which means he had acquired some part of the island, together with the tithes and government of the whole. He sold also an estate to madame Bourignon, who prepared to retire thither in 1668; but she rejected the proposal of Labadie and his disciples to settle themselves there with her. It seems they had offered De Cordt a large sum of money to purchase the whole island, and thereby obtained his consent to their settlement in it: this was cutting the grass under her feet, an injury which she took effectual care to prevent. Accordingly De Cordt dying on the 12th of Novemer 1669, made her his heir: which inheritance, however, brought her into new troubles. Many law-suits were raised to hinder her from enjoying it: nor were her doctrine and religious principles spared on the occasion. However, she left Holland in 1671, to go into Noordstrandt.

But stopping in her way at several places of Holstein, where she dismissed some disciples (who followed her, she found, for the sake of interest) she plied her pen, which was so prolific that she found it convenient to provide herself with a press, where she printed her books in French, Dutch, and German. Among others she answered all her adversaries, in a piece entitled, “The testimony of truth,” in which she handled the ecclesiastics in a severe manner. In these controversial pieces she" demonstrated her want of the first fundamental of all religion both natural and revealed, humility. Two Lutheran ministers raised the alarm against her by some books, in which they declared, that people had been beheaded and burnt for opinions more supportable than hers. The Labbadists also wrote against her, and her press was prohibited. In this distress she retired to Hensberg in 1673, but was discovered, and treated so ill by the people under the character of a sorceress, that she was very happy in getting secretly away. Afterwards, being driven from city to city, she was at length forced to abandon Holstein, and went to Hamburgh in 1676, as a place of more security; but her arrival was no sooner known, than they endeavoured to seize her. On this she lay hid for some days, and then went to East Friesland, where she got protection from the baron of Latzbourg, and was made governess of an hospital.

It is observable, that all other passions have their holidays, but avarice never suffers its votaries to rest. When our devotee accepted the care of this charity, she declared that she consented to contribute her industry both to the building and to the distribution of the goods, and the inspection of the poor, but without engaging any part of her estate; for which she alleged two reasons, one, that her goods had already been dedicated to God for the use of those who sincerely sought to become true Christians; the other, that men and all human things are very inconstant. On this principle, she resolved never to part with any thing, but refer all donations to her last will and testament; and accordingly, when she had distributed among these poor people certain revenues of the place annexed to this hospital by the founder, being asked if she would not contribute something of her own, she returned an answer in writing, that because these poor lived like beasts, who had no souls to save, she had rather throw her goods, which were consecrated to God, into the sea, than leave the least mite there. It was on this account that she found persecutors in East Friesland, notwithstanding the baron de Latzbourg’s protection; so that she took her way to Holland in 1680, but died at Franeker, on the 30th of October the same year.

We have already mentioned the crookedness of her outward form, which probably was the reason why she would never suffer her picture to be taken: however, her constitution was so tough, that, 'in spite of all the fatigues and troubles of her life, she seemed to be but forty years of age, when she was above sixty: and, though she was almost continually wearing her eyesight, both by reading and writing, yet she never made use of spectacles. She was lucky enough to have the three most remarkable periods of her life, as her birth, her arriving to the rank of an author, and her death, characterised by comets; a circumstance greatly favourable to a prophet and a teacher of a new religion. Her writings were voluminous, but it would be impossible to draw from them an accurate and consistent scheme of religion; for the pretended “Divine light,” that guides people of this class, does not proceed in a methodical way of reasoning and argument; it discovers itself by flashes, which shed nothing but thick darkness in the minds of those who investigate truth with the understanding, and do not trust to the reports of fancy, that is so often governed by sense and passion. Madame Bourignon’s intellect was probably in a disordered state. One of her principal followers was Peter Poiret, a man of bold and penetrating genius, who was a great master of the Cartesian philosophy, and who proves in his own example, that knowledge and ignorance, reason and superstition, are often divided by thin partitions, and that they sometimes not only dwell together in the same person, but also, by an unnatural and unaccountable union, afford mutual assistance, and thus engender monstrous productions.

Antoinette Bourignon had more disciples in Scotland than in any other country perhaps of the world. Not only laymen, but some of their ecclesiastics, embraced Bourignonism: and one of Antoinette’s principal books was published, entitled “The light of the world,” in English, in 1696; to which the translator added a long preface, to prove that this maid ought at least to pass for an extraordinary prophetess. Her tenets at one time gained so much ground in Scotland, as to become an object of great jealousy with the church, and measures were adopted by the General Assembly for checking the growth of this blasphemous heresy. Dr. George Garden, a minister of Aberdeen, was deposed in 1701, for teaching its “damnable errors,” and all candidates for orders are to this day required to abjure and renounce the Bourignian doctrine. Mr. Charles Lesley, in the preface to the second edition of his “Snake in the grass,” observed the errors of this sect and they were refuted at large by Dr. Cockburn, iti a piece entitled, Bourignonism detected, against messieurs Poiret, De Cordt, and the English translator of the “Lux Mundi,” who endeavoured to shew that she was inspired, and had received a commission from God to refoi'm Christianity. This was answered by the Bourignonists in an apology for their leader who has still a remnant left in. some parts of North Britain.

, the son of a clergyman, was born in Northamptonshire, Dec. 27, 1590, and was educated at Christ church, Oxford, where he took his master’s degree in 1616. About that time he preached under Dr. Piers, rector of St. Christopher’s, Threadneedle-street, London, and was much encouraged in his studies and profession by sir Samuel Tryon, knt. and inhabitant of that parish. In 1622, he got the living of Ashover, in Derbyshire, which he retained many years. During the rebel- 1 ­lion, he sided with the predominant party, and removed to London, where he became preacher of St. Sepulchre’s, and was much followed. In- 1656, he became rector of Waltham in Leicestershire, and having conformed at the restoration, was instituted to the rectory of Ailston in the same county. Wood says he was well acquainted with the fathers and schoolmen. He died Dec. 27, 1672, and was buried in the chancel of the church of Ailston. Besides some occasional sermons, he published, 1. “A Light from Christ, &c.” or a preparatory to the Sacrament, London, 1645, 8vo. 2. “Defence of Scriptures,” ibid. 1656, 4to. 3. “Defence and justification of ministers’ maintenance by tithes, &c.” against the Anabaptists and Quakers, ibid. 1659, 4to. 4. “A, Gold Chain of directions with twenty Gold Links of love to preserve firm love between husband and wife,” ibid. 1669, 12mo.

, an elegant Latin poet, and a very amiable man, of whom we regret that our memoirs are so scanty, was admitted a scholar of Westminsterschool in 1710, from whence he was elected to the university of Cambridge in 1714, where, in Trinity college, he took his degree of A. B. 1717, and A.M. 1721, and obtained a fellowship. He was afterwards for several years an usher in Westminster-school, and died of a lingering disorder December 2, 1747. He married; and in a letter which he wrote to his wife a few weeks before his death, gives the following reasons why he did not take orders “Though I think myself in strictness answerable to none but God and my own conscience, yet, for the satisfaction of the person that is dearest to me, I own and declare, that the importance of so great a charge, joined with a mistrust of my own sufficiency, made me fearful of undertaking it; if I have not in that capacity assisted in the salvation of souls, I have not been the means of losing any; if I have not brought reputation to the function by any merit of mine, I have the comfort of this reflection, I have given no scandal to it, by my meanness and unworthiness. It has been my sincere desire, though not my happiness, to be as useful in' my little sphere of life as possible-: my own inclinations would have led me to a more likely way of being serviceable, if I might have pursued them: however, as the method of education I have been brought up in was, I am satisfied, very kindly intended, I have nothing to find fault with, but a wrong choice, and the not knowing those disabilities I have since been truly conscious of: those difficulties I have endeavoured to get over; but found them insuperable. It has been the knowledge of theee discouragements, that has been the chief subject of my sleeping, as well as my waking thoughts, a fear of reproach and contempt.” While we admire the conscientious motives which induced him to contemplate, with reverential awe, the duties of a clergyman, we must regret the concurrence of events which, according to the conclusion of this letter, seems to have led him into a way of life not agreeable to his inclinations. Cowper, however, in one of his excellent letters, throws some light on those peculiar habits, which were not certainly very happily adapted to his situation as a public teacher. “I love,” says Cowper, “the memory of Vinny Bourne. I think him a better Latin poet thaa Tibullus, Propertius, Ausonius, or any of the writers in his way, except Ovid, and not at all inferior to him. I love him too, with a love of partiality, because he was usher of the fifth form at Westminster when I passed through it. He was so good-natured, and so indolent, that I lost more than I got by him; for he made me as idle as himself. He was such a sloven, as if he had trusted to his genius as a cloak for every thing that could disgust you in his person; and indeed in his writings he has almost made amends for all. His humour is entirely original he can speak of a magpie or a cat, in terms so exquisitely appropriated to the character he draws, that one would suppose him animated by the spirit of the creature he describes. And with all his drollery, there is a mixture of rational, and even religious reflection, at times, and always an air of pleasantry, good nature, and humanity, that makes him, in my mind, one of the most amiable writers in the world. It is not common to meet with an author who can make you smile, and yet at nobody’s expence; who is always entertaining, and yet always harmless; and who, though always elegant and classical, to a degree not always found in the classics themselves, charms more by the simplicity and playfulness of his ideas, than by the neatness and purity of his verse: yet such was poor Vinny. I remember seeing the duke of Richmond set fire to his greasy locks, and box his ears to put it out again.”

His writings, thus characterised, were published in 1772, under the title of “Miscellaneous Poems, consisting of originals and translations,” 4to, and certainly will be a lasting testimony of his talents. He was, perhaps, at the jtirue he wrote, the best Latin poet in Europe. Most of the pieces in this volume had been printed in his life-time, if we mistake not, in a smaller volume. Dr. Beattie, after noticing that Boileau did not know that there were any good poets in England, till Add i son made him a present of the “Musae Anglican*,” remarks that “those foreigners must entertain a high opinion of our pastoral poetry, who have seen the Latin translations of Vincent Bourne, particularly those of the ballads of ‘ Tweedside,’ ‘ William and Margaret,’ and Rowe’s * Despairing beside a clear stream,' of which it is no compliment to say, that in sweetness of numbers, and elegant expression, they are at least equal to the originals, and scarce inferior to any thing in Ovid or Tibullus.”

, a French dramatic writer and satirist, was born in 1638, at Mussi-l'évêque in Burgundy. He was not brought up at school, and could only speak the rude provincial dialect of his country, when he came to Paris in 1651, yet, by the perusal of good books, with his good memory, he was soon able to converse and to write elegantly in French. Having composed, by order of Louis XIV. a book of no great merit, entitled “Of the proper study of sovereigns,” 1671, 12mo, the king was so well pleased with it, that he would have appointed him sub-preceptor to Monseigneur, if Boursault had been master of the Latin language. The duchess of Angouleme, widow of a natural son of Charles IX. having taken him to be her secretary, he was engaged to turn every week the gazette into rhyme, which procured him a pension of 2000 livres. Louis XIV. and his court were much entertained with him; but, having employed his satire against the Franciscans and the Capuchins, he was silenced. The queen’s confessor, a Spanish cordelier, caused both the gazette and the pension to be suppressed; and would have had him imprisoned, had it not been for the interest exerted in his behalf by his patrons. He shortly after obtained a new licence, and published his gazette under the title of the “Merry Muse;” but it was again suppressed. He afterwards got into favour once more, and was made receiver of the excise at Montlugon, where he died of a violent colic, aged 63, Sept. 5, 1701. He wrote several theatrical pieces, and other works. The chief of them are, “Æsop in the city,” and “Æsop at court;” which long remained to the stage. These two pieces and the following are an agreeable satire on the ridiculous manners or the several ages and conditions of life. His verse in general is harmonious, but his style sometimes negligent, yet in general easy and suitable to the subject. 2. The “Mercure galante,” or “La comedie sans titre,” in which he ingeniously ridicules the rage for getting a place in the Mercure galaut. 3. “La satyre des satyres,” in one act. Boiltau’s satirical notice of Boursault, to avenge Moliere, with whom he had had a difference, gave occasion to this piece, which Boileau had interest enough and meanness enough to prevent being played. The satirist being some years afterwards at the baths of Bourbon, Boursault, at that time receiver of the excise at Montluc/>n, repaired thither on purpose to offer him his purse and his services. At this act of generosity Boileau was much affected; and they immediately engaged in a mutual friendship, of which Boursault was highly deserving by the gentleness of his manners, and the cheerfulness of his disposition. He behaved with less tolerance, however, towards his other censors; and was able sometimes to chastise them with effect. A cabal having prevented the success of the first representation of “Æsop in the city,” the author added to it a fable of the dog and the ox, applying the moral of it to the pit; which so effectually silenced the cabal, that the piece had a run of forty-three nights without interruption. Thomas Cornell le had a sincere regard for Boursault, whom he used to call his son, and insisted on his applying to be admitted a member of the academy. Boursault desired to be excused on account of his ignorance, adding with his usual simplicity, “What would the academy do with an ignorant and illiterate (ignare & non Lettre) member, who knows neither Latin nor Greek?” “We are not talking (returned Corneille) of a Greek or Latin academy, but of a French academy; and who understands French better than you?” There are likewise by him, 1. Some romances, “The marquis de Chavigny,” “The prince de Conde” which are written with spirit “Artemisia and Polyanthus and,” We should only believe what we see.“2. A collection of letters on subjects of respect, obligation, and gallantry; known under the name of” Lettres a Babet;“now forgotten. 3.” Lettres nouvelles,“with fables, tales, epigrams, remarks, bon-mots, &c. 3 vols. 12mo, several times reprinted, though mostly written in a loose and inelegant style: a miscellany, which was very popular when ii first came out; but is much less at present, as the tales and bon-mots which Boursault has collected, or put into verse, are found in many other books. His fables have neither the simplicity of those of La Fontaine, nor the elegant precision of Phaedrus. There is an edition of the” Theatre de Boursault," in 3 vols. 1746, 12mo.

, doctor of the Sorbonne, was born at Ecoven in the diocese of Paris, in 1679, and died at Paris in 1749, at the age of 70. He published, 1. “L'action de Dieu-sur les creatures,” Paris, 2 vols. 4to, or 6 vols. 12mo. This treatise, in which he endeavours to establish physical premotion by argument, was attacked by Malebranche; but it discovers the powers of a profound metaphysician. 2. A memoir presented to Peter the Great by the doctors of Sorbonne for the reunion of the Greek and Latin churches.- When the tzar appeared in the Sorbonne, Boursier addressed him on the subject of this memoir. The monarch immediately answered, that he Was but a soldier. Boursier replied, that he was a hero and that, as a prince, he was a protector of religion. “This re-union is not so easy a matter (said the tzar); there are three points that divide us: the pope, the procession of the Holy Ghost” As he had forgot the third point, which is the unleavened bread and the cup, Boursier recalled it to his mind. “As for that article,” returned the emperor, “we shall have no difficulty in coming to an agreement.” At the end of the conversation, the Russian sovereign asked for a memorandum of it: it was given him; but nothing more was ever heard of it. 3. An enormous quantity of publications on subjects of ecclesiastical controversy, enumerated by Moreri. There was another of the name, almost a contemporary, Philip Boursier, deacon of Paris, where he was born in 1693, and died in 1768, aged 77. He was the first author, in 1727, of the “Nouvelles ecclesiastiques;” in which work he had several coadjutors, as Messrs. d'Etemare, de Fernanville, Bergfer, de Russye, de Troya, Fontaine. But he alone composed the greatest part of the discourses that annually precede this periodical work.

, physician and doctor regent of the faculty of Paris, and associate-veteran of the academy of sciences, was born at Chartres Jan. 11, 1717. Many of his ancestors having been physicians, he determined on the same profession, which he practised at Paris with so much success that no physician was more consulted; yet this did not prevent his being jealous of Tronchin, Bordeu, and some others, of whom he spoke very illiberally, but he was a man otherwise of great kindness and benevolence. One anecdote is recorded as characteristic. A banker, who had experienced some heavy losses, was taken ill, and Bouvart, who was called in, suspected that this weighed on his mind, but could not obtain the secret from him. The banker’s wife, however, was more communicative, and told him that her husband had a payment of twenty thousand livres to make very shortly, for which he was unprovided. Bouvart, without making any professions of sorrow or assistance, went immediately home and sent the money to his patient, who recovered surprisingly. Bouvart wrote only two or three small tracts: one a critique on Tronchin’s book, “de colica Pictonum,” 1758, 8vo; a “Consultation sur une naissance tardive,” against the anatomists Petit and Bertin, 1765, 8vo; and a “Memou/e au sujet de l'honoraire des medicines,” 1768, 4to, all written in a keen, controversial style. He was also an opponent of inoculation for the small pox. He introduced the use of the polygala of Virginia in cases of the bite of venomous reptiles, and this was the subject of the only paper he contributed to the academy; but the remedy, although said to be successful in his hands, fell into disrepute. He died Jan. 19, 1787.

, a person of a very celebrated, but dubious character, was a native of Scotland, born on the 17th of January 1686 at or near Dundee, of an ancient family, by his own account, which had been for several hundred years possessed of an estate in the county of Angus in Scotland. In September 1702, at the age of sixteen, he was sent to the Scots college of Douay, where he studied until the year 1706, to the end of his tirst year of philosophy. From thence he was removed to Rome, and on the 9th day of December 1706, was admitted into the order of Jesus. After a noviciate of two years, he went, in the year 1712, to Fano, where he taught humanities during the space of two years. He then removed to Fermo, and resided there three years, until the year 1717, when he was recalled to Rome to study divinity in the Roman college. There he remained until the year 1721, when he was sent to the college of Arezzo, where he staid until the year 1723, and became reader of philosophy, and consultor to the rector of the college. He then was sent to Florence, where he remained but a short time, being in the same year removed to Macerata, at which place he continued until the year 1726. Between the two latter periods it seems probable that he made his last vows, his own account fixing that event in the month of March 1722, at Florence; though, as he certainly was that year at Arezzo, it is most likely to have been a year later.

Having thus been confirmed in the order of the Jesuits, and arrived at the age of almost forty years, it was reasonable to suppose that Mr. Bower would have passed through life with no other changes than such as are usual with persons of the same order; but this uniformity of life was not destined to be his lot. To whatever cause it is to be ascribed whether, according to his own account, to his disgust at the enormities committed by the inquisition, in which he performed the office of counsellor; or, as his enemies assert, to his indulgence of his passions, particularly with a nun to whom he was ghostly father; certain it is, that in the year 1726 he was removed from Macerata to Pe-r rugia, and from thence made his escape into England, where he arrived at the latter end of June or July, after various adventures, which it now becomes our duty to communicate to the reader, and which we shall do in his own wards premising, however, that the truth of the narrative has been impeached in several very material circumstances. Having determined to put into execution his design of quitting the inquisition and bidding for ever adieu to Italy, he proceeds: “To execute that design with seme safety, I purposed to beg leave of the inquisitor to visit the” Virgin of Loretto, but thirteen miles distant, and to pass a week there; but in the mean time to make the best of my way to the country of the Grisons, the nearest country to Macerata, out of the reach of the inquisition. Having therefore, after many conflicts with myself, asked leave to visit the neighbouring sanctuary, and obtained it, 1 set out on horseback the very next morning, leaving, as I purposed to keep the horse, his full value with the owner. I took the road to Loretto, but turned out of it at a small distance from llecanati, after a most violent struggle with myself, the attempt appearing to me, at that juncture, quite desperate and impracticable; anvl the dreadful doom reserved for me, should I miscarry, presenting itself to my mind in the strongest light. But the reflection that I had it in my p.ower to avoid being taken alive, and a persuasion that a man in my situation might lawfully avoid it, when every other means failed him, at the expence of his life, revived my staygered resolution and all my fears ceasing at once, 1 steered my course, leaving Loretto behind me, to Calvi in the dukedom of Urbino, and from thence through the Romania into the Boionese, keeping the by-roads, and at a good distance from the cities of Fano, Pisaro, Rimini, Forlu Faenza, and Imola, through which the high road passed. Thus I advanced very slowly, travelling, generally speaking, in very bad roads, and often in places where there was no road at all, to avoid not only the cities and jtowns, but even the- villages. In the mean time I^eldom had any other support than some coarse provisions, and a very small quantity even of them, that the poor shepherds, the countrymen, or wood cleavers, I met in those unfrequented by-places, could spare me. My horse fared not much better than myself; but in choosing my sleepingplace I consulted his convenience as much as my own; passing the night where I found most shelter for myself, and most grass for him. In Italy there are very few solitary farm-houses or cottages, the country people there all living together in villages; and I thought it far safer to lie where I could be any way sheltered, than to venture into any of them. Thus I spent seventeen days before I got out of the Ecclesiastical State; and I very narrowly escaped being taken or murdered on the very borders of that state. It happened thus:

"I had passed two whole days without any kind of subsistence whatever, meeting nobody in the by-roads that would supply me with any, and fearing to come near any house, as I was not far from the borders of the dominions of the pope I thought I should be able to hold out till I got into the Modenese, where I believed I should be in less danger than while I remained in the papal dominions; but finding myself about noon of the third day extremely weak, and ready to faint, I came into the high road that leads from Bologna to Florence, at a few miles distance from the former city, and alighted at a post house that stood quite by itself. Having asked the woman of the house whether she had any victuals ready, and being told that she had, I went to open the door of the only room in the house (that being a place where gentlemen only stop to change horses), and saw, to my great surprise, a placard pasted on it with a most minute description of my whole person, and the promise of a reward of 800 crowns, about 200l. English money, for delivering me up alive to the inquisition, being a fugitive from the holy tribunal, and 600 crowns for my head. By the same placard all persons were forbidden, on the pain of the greater excommunication, to receive, harbour, or entertain me, to conceal or to screen me, or to be any way aiding and assisting to me in making my escape. This greatly alarmed me, as the reader may well imagine; but I was still more affrighted when entering the room I saw two fellows drinking there, who, fixing their eyes upon me as soon as I came, continued looking at me very steadfastly. I strove, by wiping my face, by blowing- my nose, by looking out at the window, to prevent their having a full view of me. But one of them saying, ‘ The gentleman seems afraid to be seen,’ I put up my handkerchief, and turning to the fellow said boklly, ‘ What do you mean, you rascal? Look at me; I am not afraid to be seen.’ He said nothing, but, looking again steadfastly at me, and nodding his head, went out, and his companion immediately followed him. I watched them; and seeing them with two or three more in close conference, and, no doubt, consulting whether they should apprehend me or not, I walked that moment into the stable, mounted my horse unobserved by them, and, while they were deliberating in an orchard behind the house, rode off full speed, and in a few hours got into the Modenese, where I refreshed both with food and with rest, as I was there in no immediate danger, my horse and myself. I was indeed surprised to find that those fellows did not pursue me; nor can I any other way account for it but by supposing, what is not improbable, that as they were strangers as well as myself, and had all the appearUnce of banditti or ruffians fly ing out of the dominions of the pope, the woman of the house did not care to trust them with her horses. From the Modenese I continued my journey more leisurely through the Parmesan, the Milanese, and part of the Venetian territory, to Chiavenna, subject, with its district, to the Grisons, who abhor the very name of the inquisition, and are ever ready to receive and protect all who, flying from it, take refuge, as many Italians do, in their dominions. However, as I proposed getting as soon as I could to the city of Bern, the metropolis of that great protestant canton, and was informed that my best way was through the cantons of Ury and Underwald, and part of the canton of Lucern, all three popish cantons, I carefully concealed who I was and from whence I came. For though no inquisition prevails among the Swiss, yet the pope’s nuncio, who resides at Lucern, might have persuaded the magistrates of those popish cantons to stop me as an apostate and deserter from the order.

"Having rested a few days at Chiaveuna, I resumed my journey quite refreshed, continuing it through the country of the Grisons, and the two small cantons of Ury and Underwald to the canton of Lucern, There I missed my way, as I was quite unacquainted with the country, and discovering a city at a distance, was advancing to it, but very slowly, as I knew not where I was; when a countryman whom I met informed me that the city before me was Lucern. Upon that intelligence, I turned out of the road as soon as the countryman was out of sight; and that night I passed with a good r natured shepherd in his cottage, who supplied me with sheep’s milk, and my horse with plenty of grass. I set out very early next morning, making the best of my way westward, as I knew that Bern lay west of Lucern. But after a few miles the country proved very mountainous; and having travelled the whole day over mountains, I was overtaken amongst them by night. As I was looking out for a place where I might shelter myself during the night against the snow and rain, for it both snowed and rained, I perceived a light at a distance; and, making towards it, got into a kind of footpath, but so narrow and rugged that I was obliged to lead my horse and feel my way with one foot, having no light to direct me, before I durst move the other. Thus wita much difficulty I reached the place where the light was, a poor little cottage; and, knocking at the door, was asked by a man within who I was, and what I wanted. I answered that I was a stranger, and had lost my way. ‘Lost your way!’ replied the man; ‘there is no way here to lose.’ I then asked him in what canton I was; and upon his answering that I was in the canton of Bern, ‘I thank God,’ I cried out, transported with joy, ‘that I am.’ The good man answered, ‘And so do I.’ I then told him who I was, and that I was going to Bern, but had quite lost myself by keeping out of all the high roads to avoid falling into the hands of those who sought my destruction. He thereupon opened the door, received and entertained me with all the hospitality his poverty would admit of, regaled me with sour-krout and some new-laid eggs, the only provisions he had, and clean straw with a kind of rug for my bed, he having no other for himself and his wife. The good woman expressed as much satisfaction and good-nature in her countenance as her husband, and said many kind things in the Swiss language, which her husband interpreted for me in the Italian; for that language he well understood, and spoke so as to be understood, having learnt it as he told me in his youth while servant in a public-house on the borders of Italy, where both languages are spoken. I never passed a more comfortable night; and no sooner did I begin to stir in the morning, than the good man and his wife came both to know how I rested, and wishing they had been able to accommodate me better, obliged me to breakfast on two eggs, which Providence, they said, had supplied them with for that purpose. I then took leave of the wife, who, with her eves lifted up to heaven, seemed most sincerely to wish me a good journey. As for the husband, he would by all means attend me to the high road leading to Bern; which road, he said, was but two miles distant from that place. But he insisted on my first going back with him to see the way I had come the night before, the only way, he said, I could have possibly come from the neighbouring canton of Lucern. I saw it, and shuddered at the danger I had escaped; for I found that I had walked and led my horse a good way along a very narrow path on the brink of a dreadful precipice. The man made so many pious and pertinent remarks on the occasion, as both charmed and surprised me. I no less admired his disinterestedness than his piety: for, upon our parting, after he had attended me till I was out of all danger of losing my way, I could by no means prevail upon him to accept of any reward for his trouble. He had the satisfaction, he said, of having relieved me in the greatest distress, which was in itself a sufficient reward, and he cared for no other.

"I reached Bern that night, and purposed staying some time there; but being informed by the principal minister of the place, to whom I discovered myself, that boats went frequently down the Rhine at that time of the year with goods and passengers from Basil to Holland and advised by him to avail myself of that opportunity, I set out accordingly the next day, and crossing the popish canton of Soleurre in the night, but very carefully avoiding the town of that name, I got early the next morning to Bsil. There I met with a most friendly reception from one of the ministers of the place, having been warmly recommded to him by a letter I brought with me from his brotbr at Bern. As a boat was to sail in two days, he entertaiisd me very elegantly during that time at his house and embarked the third day, leaving my horse to my host inreturn for his kindness.

"The company in the boat consisted of a few traders, of a great many vagabonds, the very refuse of the neighbouring nations, and some criminals flying from justice, but I was not long with them for the boat striking again a rock not far from Strasburgh, I resolved not to wait till was refitted as it was not my design to go to Holland, but to pursue my journey partly in the common diligence stage coach, and partly on, post-horses, through France into Flanders.

"And here I must inform the reader, that thogh the cruelties of the inquisition had inspired me with great horror at their being encouraged under the name of religion, and I had thereupon begun to entertain many doub concerning other doctrines that I had till that time implicitly swallowed, as most Italian catholics do, without examination; nevertheless, as I had not thoroughly examined them, nor had an opportunity of examining them, being employed in studies of a quite different nature, I was not yet determined to quit either that church or the order. Having therefore got safe into French Flanders, I there repaired to the college of the Scotch Jesuits at Douay and discovering myself to the rector, I acquainted him with the cause of of my sudden departure from Italy, and begged him to give immediate notice of my arrival, as well as the raot^s of my flight, to Michael Angelo Tamburini, general of e order, and my very particular friend. My repairing tig to a college of Jesuits, and putting myself in their power is a plain proof, as may be observed here by the way, thar it was not because I was guilty of any crime, or to avoid tl punishment due to any crime, that I had fled from Italy for, had that been the case, no man can think that instead of repairing to Holland or England, as I might have easily done, and bid the whole order defiance, I would have thus delivered myself up to them, and put it in their power to inflict on me what punishment soever they pleased.

"The recor wrote, as I had desired him, to the general and the genral, taking no notice of my flight in his answer (for he could not disapprove it, and did not think it safe to appove it), ordered me to continue where I was till further-orders. I arrived at Douay early in May, and continued here till the latter end of June or the beginning of July, when the rector received a second letter from the general, acquainting him, that he had been commanded by the congregation of the inquisition to order me, wherever I was, back to Italy; to promise me in their name full pardon and forgiveness, if I obeyed; but if I did not obey, to treat ie as an apostate. He added, that the same order had bee transmitted soon after my flight to the nuncio* at the efferent Roman catholic courts; and he therefore advisedne to consult my own safety without farther delay. It’s to be observed here, that it is deemed apostacy in a prson of any religious order to quit his habit, and withdiw, without the knowledge of his superiors, from the c<lege, convent, or monastery, in which they have placechim; and that all bishops are not only impowered, but bind to apprehend such an apostate within the limits of tlir respective jurisdictions, and deliver him up to his supeors to be punished by them. As I had quitted the habi and withdrawn from the college of Macerata, without‘ave from my superiors who had placed me there, I shold have been treated as an apostate, had I been disco^red in my flight in a Roman catholic country, even wh’e no inquisition prevailed. But my returning voluntay, and resuming the habit, cleared me from the guilt oipostacy at the general’s tribunal, nay, and at that of tl inquisition itself. However, the congregation of the inquisition had it still in their power to oblige the general trecal me to Italy, and to treat me as an apostate if I d not obey; disobedience to an express command of a wful superior being deemed apostacy, and punished as ach with close confinement, and with bread and water for jod till the order is complied with. That order the geneal received; but his friendship forme, of which he had *iven me some remarkable instances, and his being fully convinced of my innocence, the inquisitor himself -having nothing to lay to my charge but my flight, prompted him to warn me of the danger that threatened me. Indeed I thought myself quite sate in the dominions of France; and should accordingly have lived there unmolested by the inquisition, what crime soever I had been guilty of cognizable by that tribunal alone; but as I had belonged to it, and was consequently privy to their hellish proceedings, they were apprehensive I should discover them to the world; and it was to prevent me from ever discovering them, that they obliged the general to order me back to Italy, and promise me, in their name, a free pardon if I complied, but to confine me for life it' I did not comply with the order.

"Upon the receipt of the general’s kind letter, the rector was of opinion, that I should repair by all means, and without loss of time, to England, not only as the safest asylum I could fly to in my present situation, but as a place where I should soon recover my native language, and be usefully employed, as soon as I recovered it, either there or in Scotland. I readily closed with the rector’s opinion, being very uneasy in my mind, as my old doubts in point of religion daily gained ground, and new ones aroseupon my reading, which was my only employment, :the books of controversy I found in the library of the college. The place being thus agreed on, and it being at the same time settled between the rector and me that I should set out the very next morning, I solemnly promised, at his request and desire, to take no notice, after my arrival in England, of his having been any ways privy to my flight, or of the general’s letter to him. This promise I have faithfully and honourably observed; and I should have thought myself guilty of the blackest ingratitude if I had not observed it, being sensible that, had it been known at Rome that either the rector or general had been accessary to my flight, the inquisition would have resented it severely on both. For though a Jesuit in France or in Germany is out of the reach of the inquisition, the general is not; and the high tribunal not only have it in their power to punish the general himself, who resides constantly at Rome, but may oblige hiuri to inflict what punishment they please on any of the order obnoxious to them.

“The rector went that very night out of town and in his absence, but not without his privity, I took one of the horses of vhe college early next morning, as if I were going for change of air, being somewhat indisposed, to pass a few days at Lisle. But steering a different course, I reached Aire that night, and Calais the next day. I was there in no danger of being stopped and seized at the prosecution of the inquisition, a tribunal no less abhorred in France than in England. But being informed by the general, that the nuncios at the different courts had been ordered, soon after my flight, to cause me to be apprehended in the Roman catholic countries through which I might pass, as an apostate or deserter from the order, I was under no small apprehension of being discovered and apprehended as such even at Calais. No sooner, therefore, did I alight at the inn, than I went down to the quay; and there, as I was very little acquainted with the sea, and thought the passage much shorter than it is, I endeavoured to engage some fishermen to carry me that very night in one of their small vessels over to England. This alarmed the guards of the harbour; and I should certainly have been apprehended, as guilty or suspected of some great crime, flying from justice, had not lord Baltimore, whom I had the good luck to meet at the inn, informed of my danger, and pitying my condition, attended me that moment with all his company to the port, and conveyed me immediately on board his yacht. There I lay that night, leaving every thing I had but the clothes on my back in the inn; and the next day his lordship set me on shore at Dover, from whence I came in the common stage to London.”

This is the narrative which, after thirty years, Mr. Bower gave the public as a genuine account. Whether owing to the inaccuracy of those who had formerly heard it, to the variations to which a tale frequently repeated is always liable, or to the neglect of veracity in the writer, it certainly differed from accounts which had been orally given by him too much not to furnish some suspicions of the author. On his arrival in England it appears to have been his first object to procure att introduction to some persons of respectability in the country destined for his’ future residence. He had heard of Dr. Aspinwall soon after his arrival; and that divine having formerly belonged to the order of Jesuits, he waited on him, and was kindly received. By this gentleman he was introduced to Dr. Clarke; and to them both he opened, as he says, his mind, without disguise, respecting his doubts relative to his faith. After several conferences with these gentlemen, and some with Berkeley, the bishop of Cloyne, then dean of Londonderry, added to his own reading and reasoning, he obtained, as he says, the fullest conviction that many of the favourite doctrines of Rome were not only evidently repugnant to scripture and reason, but wicked, blasphemous, and utterly inconsistent with the attributes of the supreme and infinite being. He therefore withdrew himself from the communion of the church without further delay, took leave of the provincial, quitted the order, and broke off all connection with those of the communion. This happened in the month of November, 1726.

He did not, however, become immediately a member of any other church. “I declined,” says he, “conforming to any particular church; but, suspecting all alike, after I had been so long and so grossly imposed upon, I formed a system of religion to myself, and continued a protestant for the space, I think, of six years, but a protestant of no particular denomination. At last I conformed to the church of England, as free in her service as any reformed church from the idolatrous practices and superstitions of popery, and less inclined than many others to fanaticism and enthusiasm.”

By Dr. Aspinwall’s means he was introduced to all that gentleman’s friends and acquaintance; and among others to Dr. Goodman (physician to king George the first), who procured him to be recommended to lord Aylmer, who wanted a person to assist him in reading the classics. With this nobleman he continued several years on terms of the greatest intimacy; and was by him made known to all his lordship’s connections, and particularly to the family of lord Lyttelton, who afterwards became his warm, steady, and to the last, when deserted by almost every other person, his unalterable friend.

During the time he lived with lord Aylmer, he undertook, for Mr. Prevost, a bookseller, the “Historia Literaria,” a monthly publication in the nature of a review, the first number of which was published in the year 1730. He wrote the preface to that work, and several of the articles, in Italian; not being, as he asserts, yet sufficiently acquainted with the English to write in that language. In the mean time he closely applied to the study of the English tongue, and after six months began to think that he had no further occasion for a translator, and he employed him no more.

While he was yet engaged in writing the Historia Literaria, the proprietors of the “Universal History” would have engaged him in that undertaking. But though some advantageous offers were made him, he declined them, until the Historia Literaria was relinquished in 1734. In the next year he agreed with the proprietors of the “Universal History,” and was employed by them to 1744, being the space of nine years.

While he was engaged in the “Universal History,” he undertook, at the request of Mr. Charlton, of Apley castle, in Shropshire, the education of young Mr. Thompson, son of Mr. Thompson, of Cooley, in Berkshire: but the bad state of his health at that time did not allow him to continue more than a twelvemonth in that family; and upon his recovery, lord Aylmer engaged him to educate two of his children, one of whom afterwards became a captain in colonel Lee’s regiment, and the other a prebendary of Bristol.

By the emoluments arising from his tuition and his writings, it appears that in the year 1740 he had saved the sum of 1100l. in the Old South Sea annuities, with which he had resolved to purchase a life-annuity. In the disposition of this money he was engaged in a negociation for the loan of it, which afterwards proved fatal to his character. We shall again have recourse to Mr. Bower’s own account. Having determined to purchase this annuity, he proceeds in this manner: “This resolution I imparted to several of my protestant friends; and, among the rest, to sir Thomas Mostyn’s lawyer, and to sir Thomas himself, offering at the same time the above-mentioned sum to him, as he well remembers, and is ready to attest. But neither sir Thomas, nor any of my other protestant friends, caring to burthen their estates with a life-rent, I left my money in the funds till August 1741, when being informed that an act of parliament had passed for rebuilding a church in the city of London, St. Botolph’s Aldgate, upon life-annuities, at seven per cent I went upon that information into the city, with a design to dispose of my money that way. That this was my intention, Mr. Norris, eldest son to the late sir John Norris, with whom I advised about it at the time, still remembers, and is ready if required to declare. But I came too late, and found the subscription was closed. This disappointment I mentioned to Mr. Hill, whom I accidentally met in Will’s coffee-house, near the Royal Exchange; and upon his offering me the same interest that was given by the trustees of the above-mentioned church, the bargain was concluded in a few meetings, and the sum, of 1100l. transferred, Aug. 21, 1741, not to Mr. Sbirburn, as is said in the letter from Flanders, p. 64, but to Mr. Wright, Mr. Hill’s banker, as appears from the books of the Old South Sea annuities. Mr. Hill was a Jesuit, but transacted money matters as an attorney, and was in that way a very noted man, bore the character of a fair dealer, and dealt very largely in affairs of that nature with protestants as well as with papists. It was with him I immediately dealt; as is manifest from the orders on his banker or cashier, Mr. Wright, in p. 72 of the libel, which were all signed by him, and by nobody else; and he paid me so punctually, that some time after I added 2501. to the sum already in his hands, and received for the whole 94l. 10.s. a year. I afterwards resolved to marry; and it was chiefly upon that consideration, though not upon that alone, I applied to Mr. Hill to know upon what terms he would return me the capital. The terms ho proposed were as easy as I could expect: for he agreed' at once to repay it, only deducting what I had received over and above the common interest of four per cent, during the time it had been in his hands; and he did so accordingly, as soon as he conveniently could. Thus did this money transaction begin wth Mr. Hill, was carried on by Mr. Hill, and with Mr. Hill did it end.”

The Account of this transaction given by his opponents is materially different. By them it is asserted, that after a time he wished to return into the arms of the church he had renounced, and therefore, in order to recommend himself to his superiors, he had recourse to a method which he thought would effectually prove his sincerity towards them. He proposed to father Shirburn, then provincial in England, to give up to him, as representative of the society, the money he then possessed, on condition of being paid for it, during his life, an annuity at the rate of seven per cent. This offer was accepted; and on the 2Ist of August 175-1, he paid to father Shirbwn liOOl.; and on the 27th of February 1741-2, he paid to the same person 150l. more upon the same conditions. Nor did his confidence rest here; for, on the 6th of August 1743, he added another 100l. to the above sums, now augmented to 1350l. when the several annuities were reduced into one, amounting to )4l. 10s. for which a bond was given. This negotiation had the wished effect; and our author was re-admitted in a formal manner into the order of Jesus, at London, about the end of 1744 or beginning of 1745.

It seems difficult to assign a sufficient reason why, after having been re-admitted to the order, he should again grow dissatisfied with his situation; though some conjectures have been offered to account for it. Certain it is, however, he once more determined to break with the Jesuits, and obtain his money again. To accomplish this point, he engaged in the correspondence which afterwards was so much canvassed. It answered, however, his purpose; and he received his money back from the borrowers on the 20th of June 1747.

The success of the “Universal History” in its first edition, encouraged the proprietors to venture on a second and they had recourse, unluckily for themselves and the credit of the work, to the aid of Mr. Bower, to revise and correct it. For this service he received the sum of 300l. though it is asserted he did very little to the work; and that even upon collating the two editions, so far as Mr. Sale wrote, where;ie professed to have done much, it appeared he had not made a single alteration, only substituted in a few places the Hebrew chronology in the room of the Samaritan.

Being thus disengaged from his literary employment, though he had not then received back his money from the Jesuits, he, on the 25th of March 1747, put forth the proposals for his “History of the Popes;” a work, winch, he says, he undertook some years since at Rome, and then brought it down to the pontificate of Victor, that is, to the close of the second century. In the execution of this work at that period he professes to have received the first unfavourable sentiments of the pope’s supremacy. On the 13th of May 1748, he presented to the king the first volume; and on the death of Mr. Say, keeper of queen Caroline’s library (10th of September), one of his friends (Mr. Lyttelton, afterwards lord Lyttelton) applied to Mr. Pelham for that place for him, and obtained it. The next year, 1749, on the 4th of August, he married a niece of bishop Nicolson, and daughter of a clergyman of the church of England, a younger son of a gentleman’s family in Westmoreland, who had a fortune of 4000l. sterling, and then had a child by a former husband; which child he afterwards deposed on oath was no way injured by his marriage. He had been engaged in a treaty of marriage, which did not take effect, in 1745. In 1751, the second volume of the History of the Popes made its appearance. In the same year, 1751, Mr. Bower published by way of supplement to his second volume, seventeen sheets, which were delivered to his subscribers gratis; and about the latter end of 1753 he produced a third volume, which brought down his history to the death of pope Stephen, in 757. His constant friend Mr. Lyttelton, at this time become a baronet, in April 1754 appointed him clerk of the buck warrants, instead of Henry Read, esq. who held that place under the earl of Lincoln. This office was probably of no great emolument. His appointment to it, however, serves to shew the credit he was in with his patron.

It was in this year the first serious attack was made upon him on account of his “History of the Popes,” in a pamphlet printed at Douay, entitled “Remarks on the two first volumes of the late Lives of the Popes. In letters from a gentleman to a friend in the country,” 8vo; and written, as Mr. Bower asserted, by a popish priest, Butler, one of the most active and dangerous emissaries of Rome in this kingdom. His correspondence with the Jesuits at last came to light; and falling into the hands of a person who possessed both the sagacity to discover, and the industry to pursueand drag to public notice the practices of our historian, the warfare began in 1756, and ended in the total disgrace of Mr. Bower. After a careful perusal of the controversy, a list of which is here added in a note, we are compelled to believe that our author (who, shocking as it may be to observe, made an affidavit, denying the authenticity of letters we think fully proved) was clearly convicted of the material charges alleged against him. He repelled the attack, however, made on him, with great spirit; and continued to assert his innocence, and to charge his enemies with foul practices, long after his <c History of the Popes," as well as his own veracity, had fallen into contempt. We find, in the course of this controversy, he ran some hazard of being brought on the stage by Mr. Garrick, on account of the manner in which he mentioned that incomparable actor and his lady in one of his works.

From this period his whole time seems to have been spent in ineffectual attacks upon his enemies, and equally vain efforts to recover the reputation of himself and his “History of the Popes” which points he pursued with great spirit, considering the age to which he had then attained. Before the controversy had ended, he published his fourth volume; and in 1757 an abridgment of the first four volumes of his work was published in French at Amsterdam. In 1761 he seems to have assisted the author of “Authentic Memoirs concerning the Portuguese Inquisition, in a series of letters to a friend,” 8vo and about the same time produced the fifth volume of his History of the Popes. To this volume he annexed a summary view of the controversy between himself and the papists, in 180 pages; a performance, which, from the virulence of his abuse, was more calculated to impress the reader wikh the conviction of his guilt, than to arlbrd any satisfaction of his innocence.

Whether through the neglect of the work by the public, or his age, declining abilities, or to whatever other cause it is to be ascribed, the remainder of his history did not make its appearance until just before the author’s death, when the sixth and seventh volumes were published together, and these in so hasty and slovenly a manner, that the whole period from 16OO to 1758 was comprehended in twenty-six pages. He died on the 3d September 1766, at the age of eighty years, and was buried in Mary-le-bone church-yard, with an inscription maintaining his purity and innocence. By his will, made on the 1st of August 1749, which does not contain, as might be expected, any declaration of his religious principles, he bequeathed all his property to his wife, who, some time after his death, attested his having died in the protestant faith

, an ingenious scholar, who, from his Attachment to Spanish literature, was usually called by his friends Don Bowle, was a descendant from Dr. John Bowle, bishop of Rochester in the early part of the seventeenth century. He was born in 1725, and educated at Oriel college, Oxford, where he took his master’s degree in 1750, and having entered into holy orders, was presented to the vicarage of Idmiston, Wiltshire. In 1776 he was elected F. S. A. He was a man of great erudition, and muca respected for his various researches in antiquity, and varios other lucubrations in obscure literature. He had the honour or being one of the first detectors of Lauder’s forgeries, and according to Dr. Douglas’s account, had the juste-st claim to be considered as the original detector o! thai unprincipled impostor. In 1765, he was editor of “Miscellaneous pieces of ancient English Poesie,” containing Shakspeare’s “King John,” and some of the satires of Marston. To a very accurate and extensive fund of classical learning, he had added a comprehensive knowledge of most of the modern languages, particularly of the Spanish, Italian, and French; and in the course of his reading contracted a fondness for Cervantes’ admirable romance, which could scarcely be said to be kept within reasonable bounds. Don Quixote himself did not sally forth with more enthusiasm than Mr. Bowie, when in 1777 he published “A Letter to the rev. Dr. Percy, concerning a new and classical edition of Historia del valoroso CavaU lero Don Quixote de la Mancha, to be illustrated by annotations and extracts from the historians, poets, and romances of Spain and Italy, and other writers ancient and modern, with a glossary and indexes, in which are occasionally interspersed some reflections on the learning and genius of the author, with a map of Spain adapted to the history, and to every translation of it,” 4to. He gave also an outline of the life of Cervantes in the Gent. Mag. for 1731, and circulated proposals to print the work hy subscription at three guineas each copy. It appeared accordingly in 1781, in six quarto volumes, the first four consisting of the text, the fifth of the annotations, and the sixth is wholly occupied by the index, but the work did not answer his expectations. The literary journals were either silent or spoke slightingly of his labours; and the public sentiment seemed to be that annotations on Cervantes were not quite so necessary as on Shakspeare. He appears, however, to have taken some pains to introduce them to the public in a favourable light. In 1784 (Gent. Mag. LIV. p. 565) we find him lamenting certain “unfair practices respecting the admission of an account of the work into two periodical publications to which he had some reason to think he was entitled.” He adds, that the perpetrators of these practices were “a false friend, and another, whose encomium he should regard as an affront and real slander the one as fond of the grossest flattery, as the other ready to give it, and both alike wholesale dealers in abuse and detraction.” Nor was this all; in 1785 he published “Remarks on the extraordinary conduct of the Knight of the Ten Stars and his Italian Squire, to the editor of Don Quixote. In a letter to I. S. D. D.” 8vo. This produced an answer from the “Italian Squire,” Baretti, not of the most gentleman-like kind, entitled “Tolondron. Speeches to John Bowie, about his edition of Don Quixote,” 8vo, 1786, and with this the controversy ended. Mr. Bowie contributed many valuable hints and corrections to Granger’s History, and many criticisms and illustrations to Johnson and Steevens’s edition of Shakspeare, and Warton’s History of Poetry. His course of reading well qualified him for literary aid of this description. In the Archaeologia, vol. VI. VII. and VIII. are four papers by him, on the ancient pronunciation of the French language; on some musical instruments mentioned in “Le Roman de la Rose;” on parish registers; and on cards. He was also, under various signatures, a frequent contributor to the Gentleman’s Magazine, but as a divine he was not known to the public. He died Oct. 26, 1788.

, the most learned English printer of whom we have any account, was born in Dogwelt-court, White Fryars, London, on the 19th of December, 1699. His father, whose name was also William, was of distinguished eminence in the same profession; and his maternal grandfather (Thomas Dawks) was employed in printing the celebrated Polyglott Bible of bishop Walton. At a proper age, he was placed, for grammatical education, under the care of Mr. Ambrose Bonwicke, a non-juring clergyman of known piety and learning, who then lived at Headley, near Leatherhead in Surrey. Here Mr. Bowyer made such advances in literature as reflected the highest credit both on himself and his preceptor; for whose memory, to his latest years, he entertained the sincerest respect; and to whose family he always remained an useful friend. The attachment, indeed, was mutual; and the following instance of the good school-master’s benevolence made an indelible impression on the mind of his pupil. On the 30th of January, 1712-13, the whole property of the elder Mr. Bowyer was destroyed by a dreadful fire; on which occasion, Mr. Bonwicke, with great generosity, and no less delicacy (endeavouring to conceal its being his own act of kindness), took upon him, for one year, the expences of his scholar’s board and education. In June 1716, young Mr. Bowyer was admitted as a sizar at St. John’s college, Cambridge, of which Dr. Robert Jenkin was at that time master. The doctor had been a benefactor to the elder Mr. Bowyer in the season of his calamity; and the son, at the distance of sixty years, had the happiness of returning the favour to a relation of the worthy master, in a manner by which the person obliged was totally ignorant to whom he was indebted for the present he received, Mr. Bowyer continued at Cambridge under the tuition, first, of Dr. Anstey, and afterwards of the rev. Dr. John Nevvcome, till June 1722, during which time he obtained Roper’s exhibition, and wrote, in 1719, what he called “Epistola pro Sodalitio a rev. viro F. Roper mihi legato;” but it does not appear that he took his degree of bachelor of arts. Notwithstanding an habitual shyness of disposition, which was unfavourable to him at his first appearance, the regularity of his conduct, and his application to study, procured him the esteem of many very respectable members of the university. Here it was that he formed an intimacy with Mr. Markland and Mr. Clarke, two learned friends with whom he maintained a regular correspondence through life and their letters contain a treasure of polite literature and sound criticism. On the death of Mr. Bonwicke, his grateful scholar had an opportunity of requiting, in some measure, the obligations he had received, by officiating, for a time, in the capacity of a schoolmaster, for the benefit of the family; but before this, he had entered into the printing business, together with his father, in June 1722; and one of the first bucks which received the benefit of his correction, was the complete edition of Selden by Dr. David Wilkins, in three volumes, folio. This edition was begun in 1722, and finished in 1726; and Mr. Bowyer’s great attention to it appeared in his drawing up an epitome of Selden “de Synedriis,” as he read the proof-sheets, and tue several memoranda from “The privileges of the Baronage” and “Judicature in Parliament,” &c. which are now printed in his “Miscellaneous Tracts.” In 1727, the learned world was indebted to him for nn admirable sketch of William Baxter’s Glossary of the Roman Antiquities. The sketch was called “A View of a Book, entitled, * Reliquiae Baxtevianae.' In a Letter to a Friend;” a single sheet, 8vo. Very few copies were printed; and, having never been published, it is seldom found with the Glossary; but it was reprinted in the “Miscellaneous Tracts.” Dr. Wotton and Mr. Clarke were highly pleased with this first public proof given by Mr. Bowyer of his literary abilities. On the 20th of December, 1727, he lost an affectionate mother, upon which occasion he received a letter of pious consolation, from Mr. Chishull, the learned editor of the “Antiquitates Asiaticae.”

Very highly to his own and his father’s satisfaction, he entered, on the 9th of October, 1728, into the marriage state, with Anne Prudom, his mother’s niece. His happiness, however, with this accomplished woman, lasted bait little more than three years; he being deprived of her, by death, on the 17th of October, 1731. Of two sons, venom he had by her, William died an infant, and Thomas survived him. His friends Mr. Clarke and Mr. Chishull wrote him very affectionate and Christian letters on this melancholy event. In 1729, he ushered into the world a curious treatise, entitled “A Pattern for young Students in the University, set forth in the Life of Mr. Ambrose Bonwicke, some time scholar of St. John’s college, Cambridge.” (See Bonwicke). This little volume was generally ascribed to our learned printer, though it was in reality the production of Mr. Amtyruse Bonwicke the elder, but the preface was probably Mr. Buwyer’s. About the same time, it appears, from a letter of Mr. Clarke, that Mr. Bowyer had written a pamphlet against the Separatists; but neither the title nor the occasion of it are at present recollected. Through the friendship of the right honourable Arthur Onslow, he was, likewise, appointed, in 1729, printer of the Votes of the House of Commons; an office which he held, under three successive speakers, for nearly fifty years. In 1730, he was avowedly the editor of “A Discourse concerning the Confusion of Languages at Babel, proving it to have been miraculous, from the essential difference between them, contrary to the opinion of M. Le Clerc and others. With an Enquiry into the primitive language before that wonderful event. By the late learned William Wotton, D. D. &c.” In 1731, he took part in a controversy occasioned by a sermon of Mr. Bowman, a clergyman in Yorkshire, entitled “The Traditions of the Clergy destructive of Religion, with an Enquiry into the Grounds and Reasons of such Traditions.” This performance, which was charged with containing some of the sentiments that had been advanced by Dr. Tindal in his “Rights of the Christian Church,” and by Mr. Gordon in his “Independent Whig,” excited no small degree of offence; and several answers were written to it, and strictures made upon it, both of a serious and ludicrous nature. Mr. Bowyer, upon this occasion, printed a pamphlet, called “The Traditions of the Clergy not destructive of Religion; being Remarks on Mr. Bowman’s Sermon; exposing that gentleman’s deficiency in Latin and Greek, in ecclesiastical history, and true reasoning.” The dispute, like many others of a similar kind, is now sunk into oblivion. In 1733, he published “The Beau and Academick,” two sheets, in 4to; a translation from “Bellus Homo & Academicus, &c.” a poem recited that year at the Cornitia in the Sheldonian theatre, and afterwards printed in his Tracts. On the 7th of July, 1736, Mr. Bowyer was admitted into the Society of Antiquaries, of which he had been chosen printer in May preceding; and he was an active, as well as an early member of that respectable body, regularly attending their meetings, and frequently communicating to them luatters of utility and curiosity, which were reprinted in his “Tracts.” In conjunction with Dr. Birch, he was, also, materially concerned in instituting “The Society for the Encouragement of Learning.” Of this Mr. Nichols has given an interesting account. It was certainly well-meant, but injudicious, and became dissolved by its own insufficiency. On the 27th of December, 1737, Mr. Bowyer lost his father, at the age of seventy-four; and it is evident, from his scattered papers, that he severely felt this affliction; applying to himself the beautiful apostrophe of Æneas to Anchises, in Virgil:

His friend Mr. Clarke again addressed to him a letter of sympathy and consolation. In 1741, Mr. Bowyer corrected, and put into a convenient form, Heuset’s “Selectæ è Veteri Testamento Historiæ,” and “Selectæ ex Profanis, &c.” The prefaces to both these volumes were translated by Mr. Bowyer, and are inserted in his “Miscellaneous Tracts.” In 1742, he published a translation of Trapp’s “Latin Lectures on Poetry,” with additional notes. In translating this work, he had not only the advice, but the assistance, of his friend Mr. Clarke: and yet this gentleman had no high opinion of the original performance. He thought it a very superficial book; and was particularly offended with Trapp for affecting to find fault with Vossius on every little occasion.

Though it is not our intention to notice the works printed by Mr. Bowyer, excepting when he himself contributed to them by prefaces, notes, or other additions, yet we shall mention his having been the printer, in 1742, of the additional book of the Dunciad; as he received, on this occasion, testimonies of regard both from the great poet and his learned commentator. Among other friendly expressions of Dr. Warburton, he says, “I have never more pleasure when there (in London), than when I loll and talk with you at my ease, de qualibet ente, in your diningroom:” And again, “The Greek I know will be well printed in your edition, notwithstanding the absence of Senblerus” The same celebrated writer had long before told Mr. Bowyer, “No one’s thoughts will have greater weight with me than your own, in whom I have experienced so much candour, goodness, and learning.” It is not, however, to be concealed, that a difference afterwards arose between them, in which, as is commonly the case, each party was confident that he was right. Mr. Bowyer, who thought himself slighted, used often to remark, that, “after the death of the English Homer, the letters of his learned friend wore a different complexion.” “But, perhaps,” as Mr, Nichols candidly and judiciously observes, “this may be one of the many instances, which occur through, life, of the impropriety of judging for ourselves in cases which affect our interest or our feelings.” Mr. Bowyer, indeed, had a great sensibility of temper with regard to any neglects which were shewed him by his literary friends, in the way of his business. This did not proceed from a principle of avarice, but from a consciousness of the respect which was due to him from his acquaintance, as the first of his profession: for he expressed his resentment as strongly in cases where profit could be no material object, as he did in more important instances. Dr. Squire, then, dean of Bristol, not having appointed him to print a sermon which had been preached before the house of commons, on the general fast day, Feb. 13, 1761, Mr. Bowyer wrote to the doctor, upon the occasion, an expostulatory letter. Nor was this the only evidence he gave how much he was offended, when he thought that a slight had been put upon him from a quarter where he imagined he had a natural claim to favour.

In 1744, Mr. Bowyer is supposed to have written a small pamphlet on the present state of Europe, taken principally from Pufendorff. In 1746, he projected, what during his whole life he had in view, a regular edition of Cicero’s Letters, in a chronological order, on a plan which it is to be lamented that he did not complete; as an uniform series thus properly arranged would have formed a real history of Tully’s life, and those which cannot be dated might be thrown to the end without any inconvenience. In the same year he published “The Life of the Emperor Julian,” translated from the French of M. Bleterie, and improve^ with twelve pages of curious notes, and a genealogical table. The notes were not entirely Mr. Bowyer’s, but were drawn up, in part, by Mr. Clarke and other learned men. The translation, by Miss Anne Williams (Dr. Johnson’s inmate), and the two sisters of the name of Wilkinson, was made under Mr. Bowyr’s immediate inspection. In this year also, he printed, and is supposed to have assisted in thp composition of, “A Dissertation, in which the objections of a late pampinet (by bishop Ross) to the writings of the anci nits, after the mariner of Mr. Maryland, are clearly answered: those passages in Tuily corrected, on which some of the objections are founded; with Amendments of a few pieces of criticism in Mr. Maryland’s Epistola Critica,” 8vo. On the 2d of August, 1747, Mr. Bowyer entered a second time into the matrimonial state, with a most benevolent and worthy woman, Mrs. Elizabeth Bill, by whom he had no children. In 1750, he had the honour of sharing, with Dr. Burton, in the invectives most liberally bestowed by Dr. King, in his “Elogium Famse inserviens Jacci Etouensis, sive Gigantis: or, the Praises of Jack of Eaton, commonly called Jack the Giant.” Dr. King’s abuse was probably owing to his having heard that our learned printer had hinted, in conversation, his doubts concerning the doctor’s Latiriity. Mr. Bowyer drew up strictures in his own defence, which he intended to insert at the conclusion of a preface to Montesquieu’s Reflections, &c.; but, in consequence ol Mr. Clarke’s advice, they were omitted. In the same year, a prefatory critical dissertation, and some valuable notes, were annexed, by our author, to Kuster’s Treatise “De vero usu Verborum Mediorum;” a new edition of which work, with further improvements, appeared in 1773. He wrote, likewise, about the same time, a Latin preface to Leedes’s “Veteres Poeta? citati, &c.” Being soon after employed to print an edition of colonel Bladen’s translation of Cæsar’s Commentaries, that work received considerable improvements from. Mr. Bowyer’s hands, and the addition of such notes in it as are signed Typogr. In the subsequent editions of this work, though printed by another person, and in our author’s life-time, the same signature, contrary to decorum, and even justice, was still retained. In 1751, he wrote a long preface to Montesquieu’s “Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Rouian Empire;” translated the Dialogue between Sylla and Socrates; made several corrections to the work from the Baron’s “Spirit of Laws,” and improved it with his own notes. A new edition, with many; new notes, was printed in 1759. He gave likewise to the public, in 1751, with a preface, the first translation that was made of Rousseau’s paradoxical oration on the effects of the arts and sciences, which gained the prize at the academy of Dijon, in 1750; and which first announced that singular genius to the attention and admiration of Europe. On the publication of the third edition of lord Orrery’s “Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Swift,” in 1752, Mr. Bowyer wrote and printed, but never published, “Two Letters from Dr. Bentley in the shades below, to lord Orrery in a land of thick darkness.” The notes signed B, in the ninth quarto volume of Swift’s works, are extracted from these Letters, which are reprinted at large in his “Tracts.” In 1752, when Bp. Clayton published his “Vindication of the Histories of the Old and New Testament, in answer to the Objections of Lord Bolingbroke,” Mr. Bowyer drew up an analysis of the same, with an intention of sending it to the Gentleman’s Magazine: it is now printed in Mr. Nichols’s “Anecdotes.” In 1753, to allay the ferment occasioned by the Jew bill, he published, in quarto, “Remarks on a Speech made in Common Council, on the Bill for permitting persons professing the Jewish Religion to be naturalized, so far as Prophecies are supposed to be affected by it.” The design of this sensible little tract, which was written with spirit, and well received by those who were superior to narrow prejudices, was to shew, that whatever political reasons might be alleged against the Bill, Christianity would in no degree be prejudiced by the indulgence proposed to be gVanted to the Jews. In the same year, some of Mr. Bowyer’s notes were annexed to bishop Clayton’s translation of “A Journal from Grand Cairo to Mount Sinai, and back again.” In 1754, with a view of lessening his fatigue, he entered into partnership with a relation; but some disagreements arising, the connection was dissolved in 1757, and he resumed the active part of business. In 1760 he superintended a second edition of Arnald’s “Commentary on the Book of Wisdom,” and enriched it with the remarks of Mr. Markland. Upon the death of Mr. Richardson, in 1761, Mr. Bowyer, through the patronage of the late earl of Macclesfield, was appointed printer to the Royal Society; and, under the friendship of five successive presidents, had the satisfaction of continuing in that employment till his death. In the same year (1761), appeared “Verses on the Coronation of their late majesties, king George the Second and queen Caroline, October 4, 1727, spoken by the Scholars of Westminster school (some of them now the ornaments of the Nation) on January 15th following, being the Day of the Inauguration of Queen Elizabeth, their foundress with a Translation of all the Latin copies The whole placed in order of the transactions of that important day. Adorned with the Coronation Medals pf the Royal Pair, and a bust of our present king. To which is subjoined the Ceremonial of the august Procession, very proper to be compared with the approaching one; and a Catalogue of the Coronation Medals of the Kings and Queens of England.” The original part of this pamphlet, in which a great deal of humour is displayed, was entirely Mr. Bowyer' s: the Latin verses were translated partly by him, but principally by Mr. Nichols. Our learned printer’s next publication was of a more serious and weighty nature, an excellent edition of the Greek Testament, in two volumes, 1763, 12mo, under the following title: “Novum Testamentum Greecum, ad Fidem GrascorUm solum Codicum Mss. nunc primum expressum, adstipulante Joanne Jacobo Wetstenio, juxta Sectiones Jo. Albert! Bengelii divisum; et nova Interpunctione saepius illustratum. Accessere in altero Volumine Emendationes conjecturales virorum doctorum undecunque collectse.” This sold with great rapidity; though Mr. Bowyer, in his advertisements of it in the public papers, was pleased to add, that it boasted neither elegance of type nor paper, but trusted to other merits. The conjectural emendations are a very valuable addition to the Greek Testament, and were extremely well received by the learned. In a letter of thanks, from the president and fellows of Harvard college, in Cambridge, New-England, to Mr. Bowyer, in 1767, for several benefactions of his to that college, they express themselves as follows: “It is a particular pleasure to us to mention your very curious edition of the Greek Testament, in two volumes, with critical notes, and many happy conjectures, especially as to the punctuation, an affair of the utmost importance as to ascertaining the sense. This work, though small in bulk, we esteem as a rich treasure of sacred learning, and of more intrinsic value than many large volumes of the commentators.” A second edition of the Conjectures on the New Testament, with very considerable enlargements, was separately published, in one volume, 8vo, in 1772, a third in 4to, 1782, and a fourth from the interleaved -copy of Dr. Owen, which he bequeathed to the honourable and right reverend Dr. Shute Barrington, bishop of Durham, is just published (1812). Bishop Wavbnrton having censured apassage in the first edition, Mr. Bowyer sent him a copy of the second, with a conciliatory letter. In 1765, at the request of Thomas Hollis, esq. our learned printer wrote a short Latin preface to Dr. Wallis’s “Grammatica Linguae Anglicanse.” A larger English preface, which was written by him, and intended for that work, is printed in his “Tracts.” Some copies of this book were sent by him to the rev. Edward Clarke, when, chaplain to the earl of Bristol at Madrid, to be given to the Spanish literati. Towards the latter end of the same year, in consequence of overtures from a few respectable friends at Cambridge, Mr. Bowyer had some inclination to have undertaken the management of the University press, by purchasing a lease of its exclusive privileges. He went, accordingly, to Cambridge for this purpose; but the treaty proved fruitless, and he did not much regret the disappointment. In the beginning of 1766, by engaging in a partnership with Mr. Nichols, he was again enabled to withdraw, in some degree, from that close application, which had begun to be prejudicial to his health. His new associate had been trained by him to the profession, and had assisted him several years in the management of business. He was very happy in this connection; and it is unnecessary to add how successfully Mr. Nichols has trod in the steps of his worthy and learned friend and partner. In, that year (1766) Mr. Bowyer wrote an excellent Latin preface to “Joannis Harduini, Jesuitae, ad Censuram Scriptorum veterum Prolegomena; juxta Autographum.” In this preface he gives an account of the nature of the work, and of the manner in which it had been preserved. Mr. De Missy’s remarks on the celebrated Jesuit’s extraordinary production were published about the same time, in a letter to Mr. Bowyer, written in Latin. In 1767, he was appointed to print the Journals of the House of Lords, and the Rolls of Parliament. The noble peer to whom he was indebted for this appointment, and his gratitude to whom is testified in the inscription which he left behind him, to be placed in Stationers Hall, was the earl of Marchmont. Mr. Bowyer was now compelled, from the want of sufficient room, to exchange White Fryars for Red Lion-passage; and it was not without reluctance that he quitted a residence to which he had been accustomed from his infancy. His new printing-house was opened with the sign of his favourite Cicero’s Head: under which was inscribed, “M, T, Cicero, A Quo Primordia Preli,” in allusion to the well-known early editions of Tally’s Offices. Having printed this year Mr. Clarke’s excellent and learned work on “The Connexion of the Roman, Saxon, and English Coins,” he wrote some notes upon it, which are interspersed throughout the volume with those of the author. Part of the dissertation on the Roman Sesterce was, likewise, Mr. Bowyer’s production; and the index, which is an uncommonly good one, and on which he did not a little pride himself, was drawn up entirely by him. On the 14th of January, 177 J, he lost his second wife, who died at the age of seventy. His old friend, Mr. Clarke, who had administered consolation to him, on a similar occasion, nearly forty years before, again addressed him with tenderness on this event. In the Philosophical Transactions for 1771, was printed a very ingenious “Enquiry intothe value of the antient Greek and Roman Money,” by the late Matthew Raper, esq. The opinions advanced by this respectable gentleman, on these subjects, not coinciding with those of Mr. Bowyer, he printed a small pamphlet, entitled, “Remarks, occasioned by a late Dissertation on the Greek and Roman Money.” The pamphlet was intended as an appendix to Mr. Clarke’s Treatise on Coins. The opinions of many excellent writers in Germany and France having been ably controverted in that elaborate work, Mr. Bowyer transmitted a copy of it to the French king’s library, and inscribed his little appendix,

He was very desirous that Mr. Clarke’s book should be translated and reprinted in France; and he took some pains, though without success, to get it accomplished. In 1773, three little tracts were published by him, under the title of “Select Discourses 1. Of the Correspondence of the Hebrew months with the Julian, from the Latin of Professor Michaelis. 2. Of the Sabbatical years, from the same. 3. Of the years of Jubilee; from an anonymous writer, in Masson’s Histoire Critique de la Republique des Lettres.” In 1774, he corrected a new edition of Schrevelius’s Greek Lexicon, to which he added a number of words (distinguished by an asterisk) he had himself collected in the course of his own studies. Considerable additions, which are still in manuscript, were made by him to the Lexicons of Hederic and of Buxtorf, the Latin ones of Faber and of Littleton, and the English Dictionary of Bailey; and he left behind him many other proofs of his critical skill in the learned languages. His Greek and Latin grammars in general are filled with such curious explanatory notes, as bear the most convincing proofs of consummate critical knowledge in those languages, and that knowledge he applied particularly to the advancement of sacred learning. It was his constant custom, in the course of his reading, to note down every thing which he thought might contribute to illustrate any passage of Scripture, esper cially of the Greek Testament. In pursuance of this method, it is hardly to be conceived what a number of useful and curious remarks stand inserted in the margins of his theological books, which may greatly contribute to improve future editions. In 1774, was published “The Origin of Printing, in two essays. 1. The substance of Dr. Middleton’s Dissertation on the Origin of Printing in England. 2. Mr. Meerman’s Account of the Invention of the Art at Harlem, and its progress to Mentz, with occasional remarks; and an appendix.” (See Richard Atkins.) The original idea of it was Mr. Bowyer’s; but it was completed by Mr. Nichols. The two learned friends, whose assistance is acknowledged in the preface, were the rev. Dr. Henry Owen, and the late Mr. Cæsar de Missy. Though this work appeared without a name, it was immediately judged to be Mr. Bowyer’s, and was well received in the world of letters, and justly spoken of in terms of great commendation, both at home and abroad. A second edition, with very considerable improvements, was published in 1776, and a Supplement in 1781. When Mr. Nichols was engaged in printing the “Original Works of Dr. King of the Commons,” and the “Supplement to Swift,” Mr. Bowyer, by suggesting useful hints, and adding some illustrations, assisted him in both these undertakings. Our eminent printer now drew to the end of his literary career, which he closed with a new edition, in 1777, of Dr. Bentley’s “Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris.” Dr. Bentley was a writer whom he had always held in the highest estimation. In the republication of this great critic’s Dissertation, Mr. Bowyer inserted the remarks which had occurred to him in the course of many years attention to the subjects there treated of; and ascribed them to the respective authors irom whose books or personal communication they were selected. He was much indebted, on this occasion, to the friendly assistance of Dr. Salter and Dr. Owen.

Mr. Bowyer had always been subject to a bilious colic; and during the last ten years of his life, he was afflicted with the palsy and the stone. But, notwithstanding these infirmities, he preserved, in general, a remarkable cheerfulness of disposition; and received great satisfaction from the conversation of a few literary friends, by whom he continued to be visited. The faculties of his mind, though somewhat impaired, were strong enough to support the labour of almost incessant reading, which had ever been his principal amusement; and he regularly corrected the learned works, and especially the Greek books, which came from his press. This he did till within a very few weeks of his death; which happened on the 18th of November, 1777, when he had nearly completed his 78th year. The publications of Mr. Bowyer are an incontrovertible evidence of his abilities and learning; to which may be added that he was honoured with the friendship and patronage of many of the most distinguished ornaments of his age. We already have had occasion to mention the earls of Macclesfield and Marchmont, Dr. Wotton, Mr. Pope, Mr. Chishull, Mr. Clarke, Mr. Markland, bishop Warburton, the right honourable Arthur Onslow, Mr. Hollis, Dr. Salter, Mr, De Missy, Dr. Owen, and Dr. Heberden. To these, among other respectable names, might be added those of archbishop Seeker, bishop Kennett, bishop Tanner, bishop Sherlock, bishop Hoadly, bishop Lyttelton, bishop Pearce, bishop Lowth, bishop Barrington, bishop Hurd, bishop Percy, lord Lyttelton, lord Sandys, dean Prideaux, doctors Robert and John Freind, dean Freind, dean Milles, the very learned Dr. Taylor, chancellor of Lincoln, Dr. Barnard, Dr. Powell, Dr. Wilkins, Mr. Maittaire, Messrs. R. and S. Gale, Mr. Browne Willis, Mr. Spelman, Mr. Morant, Dr. Ducarel, Dr. Pegge, Mr. Garrick, and most of the distinguished scholars and antiquaries of his time. His connec^ tion with the late eminent and excellent Richard Gough, esq. so well known by his acquaintance with British topography and antiquities, is apparent from his last will; where his obligations to Dr. Jenkin, dean Stanhope, and Mr. Nelson, are acknowledged. The late excellent Dr. Robert Clayton, bishop of Clogher, so highly esteemed his friendship, that he not only honoured him by a regular epistolary intercourse, but presented him with the copy-right of all his valuable writings. Mr. Bowyer stood unrivalled, for more than half a century, as a learned printer; and some of the most masterly productions of this kingdom have undoubtedly appeared from his press. To his literary and professional abilities, he added an excellent moral character. His regard to religion was displayed in his publications, and in the course of his life and studies; and he was particularly distinguished by his inflexible probity, and an uncommon alacrity in assisting the necessitous. His liberality in relieving every species of distress, and his endeavours to conceal his benefactions, reflect great honour on his memory. Though he was naturally fond of retirement, and seldom entered into company, excepting with men of letters, he was, perhaps, excelled by few in the talent of justly discriminating the real characters of mankind. He judged of the persons he saw by a sort of intuition; and his judgments were generally right. From a consciousness of literary superiority, he did not always pay that particular attention tQ the booksellers which was expedient in the way of his business. Too proud to solicit the favours in that way which he believed to be his due, he was often disappointed in his expectations. On the other hand, he' frequently experienced friendships in cases where he had much less reason to have hoped for them so that, agreeably to his own expression, “in what he had received, and what he had fyeen denied, he thankfully acknowledged the will of Heaven.” The two great objects of Mr. Bowyer’s view, in the decline of his life, were to repay the benefactions his father had met with, and to be himself a benefactor to the meritorious of his own profession. These purposes are fully displayed in his last will: for which reason, and because it illustrates the turn of his mind in other respects, we shall insert it at large. After a liberal provision for his son, among other legacies are these “I likewise give to my son all my plate; except the small silver cup which was given to my father (after his loss by fire) by Mrs. James, and which I give to the Company of Stationers in London, hoping they will preserve it as a memorial. Having committed my body to the earth, I would testify my duty and gratitude to my few relations and numerous benefactors after my father’s loss by fire. I give and bequeath to my cousin Scott, lately of Westminster, brewer, and to his sister, fifty pounds each. I give and bequeath to my relations Mr. Thomas Linley and his wife one thousand pounds four per cent, consolidated annuities, to be transferred to them, or to the survivor of them; and which I hope they will take care to settle, at their deaths, for the benefit of their son and daughter. I give to the two sons and one daughter of the late reverend Mr. Maurice of Gothenburgh iuSweden, who married the only daughter of Mr. Richard Williamson, bookseller (in return for her father’s friendship to mine), one thousand pounds four per cent, consolidated annuities, to be divided equally between them. Among my father’s numerous benefactors, there is not, that I can hear of, one alive: to several of them I made an acknowledgement. But one respectable body I am still indebted to, the University of Cambridge; to whom I give, or rather restore, the sum of fifty pounds, in return for the donation of forty pounds made to my father at the motion of the learned and pious master of Saint John’s college, doctor Robert Jenkin: to a nephew of his I have already given another fifty pounds, as appears by his receipt of the thirty-first of May, one thousand seven hundred and seventy. The benefactions which my father received from Oxford I can only repay with gratiiude; as he received them, not from the university as a body, but from particular members. I give thirty pounds to the dean and chapter of Canterbury, in gratitude for the kindness of the worthy doctor Stanhope (sometime dean of Canterbury) to my father; the remembrance of which amongst the proprietors of his works I have long out-lived, as I have experienced by not being employed to print them: the like I might say of the works of Mr. Nelson, another respectable friend and patron of my father’s, and of many others. I give to doctor William Heberden my little cabinet of coins, with H ickes’s Thesau rus, Tristan, and the odd volume, Spanheim’s Numismata, Harduin’s Opera Selecta, in folio, Nummi Populorum et Urbium, in quarto, and any other of my books he chooses to accept: to the reverend doctor Henry Owen, such of my Hebrew books and critical books on the New Testament, as he pleases to take: to Richard Gough, esq. in like manner, my books on topographical subjects: to Mr. John Nichols, all books that relate to Cicero, Livy, and the Roman history, particularly the * Cenotaphia' of Noris and Pighius, my grammars and dictionaries, with Swift’s and Pope’s works: to my son, whatever books (not described above) he thinks proper to take. And now I hope I may be allowed to leave somewhat for the benefit of printing. To this end, I give to the master and keepers or wardens and commonalty of the mystery or art of a stationer of the city of London, such a sum of money as will purchase two thousand pounds three per cent, reduced Bank annuities, upon trust, to pay the dividends and yearly produce thereof, to be divided for ever equally amongst three printers, compositors or pressmen, to be elected from time to time by the master, wardens, and assistants, of the said company, and who at the time of such election shall be sixty-three years old or upwards, for their respective lives, to be paid half-yearly; hoping that such as sha.ll be most deserving will be preferred. And whereas I have herein before given to my son the sum of three thousand pounds four per cent, consolidated annuities, in case he marries with the consent of my executors: Now, I do hereby give and bequeath the dividends and interest of that sum, till such marriage take place, to the said company of stationers to be divided equally between six other printers, compositors or pressmen, as aforesaid, in manner as aforesaid; and, if my said son shall die unmarried, or married without such consent as aforesaid, then I give and bequeath the said capital sum of three thousand pounds to the company of stationers, the dividends and yearly produce thereof to be divided for ever equally amongst six other such old printers, compositors or pressmen, for their respective lives, to be qualified, chosen, and paid in manner as aforesaid. It has long been to me matter of concern, that such numbers are put apprentices as compositors without any share of school-learning, who ought to have the greatest: in hopes of remedying this, I give and bequeath to the said company of stationers such a sum of money as will purchase one thousand pounds three per cent, reduced bank annuities, for the use of one journeyman compositor, such as shall hereafter be described; with this special trust, that the master, wardens, and assistants, shall pay the dividends and produce thereof half-yearly to such compositor: the said master, wardens, and assistants of the said company, shall nominate for this purpose a compositor who is a man of good life and conversation, who shall usually frequent some place of public worship every Sunday unless prevented by sickness, and shall not have worked on a newspaper or magazine for four years at least before such nomination, nor shall ever afterwards whilst he holds this annuity, which may be for life, if he continues a journeyman; he shall be able to read and construe Latin, and at least to read Greek fluently with accents; f which he shall bring a testimonial from the rector of St. Martin’s Ludgate for the time being: I could wish that he shall have been brought up piously and virtuously, if it be possible, at Merchant Taylors, or some other public school, from seven years of age till he is full seventeen, and then to serve seven years faithfully as a compositor, and work seven years more as a journeyman, as I would not have this annuity bestowed on any one under thirty -one years of age: if after he is chosen he should behave ill, let him be turned out, and another be chosen in his stead. And whereas it may be many years before a compositor may be found that shall exactly answer the above description, and it may at some times happen that such a one cannot be found; I would have the dividends in the mean time applied to such person as the master, wardens, and assistants, shall think approaches nearest to what I have described. And whereas the above trusts will occasion some trouble: I give to the said company, in case they think proper to accept the trusts, two hundred and fifty pounds.” It is almost superfluous to add, that the trust was accepted, and is properly executed.

Mr. Bowyer, agreeably to his own direction, was buried at Low Leyton in Essex, where aneat monument is erected in the church to his father’s memory and his own, with a Latin inscription written by himself. A bust of him is placed in Stationers’ Hall, with a good portrait of his father, and another of his patron Mr. Nelson; all which, with good portraits of Steele and Prior, were presented to the Company of Stationers by Mr. Nichols.

Early in 1778, Mr. Nichols printed twenty copies of some short “Biographical Memoirs of Mr. Bowyer,” an octavo pamphlet of fifty-two pages, which were given in presents to his friends, and reprinted in the Gent. Mag. vol. XLVIII. These memoirs, although interesting in themselves, were not sufficient to grat:fy the friends and contemporaries of Mr. Bowyer, who foresaw that, with continued industry and research, Mr. Nichols might erect a more sumptuous monument to the memory of his learned predecessor. Accordingly from many valuable materials in his possession, and the aid of some literary friends, he produced in 1782, in a handsome quarto volume, closely printed, “Biographical and Literary Anecdotes of William Bowyer, Printer, F. S. A. and of many of his learned friends, containing au incidental view of the progress and advancement of literature in this kingdom from the beginning of the present century to the end of the year 1777.” The importance of this work was soon acknowledged by men of learning and curiosity. It contained memoirs of several hundreds of eminent scholars who had been unnoticed or imperfectly notice;! in biographical compilations, and opened so many new and rich sources of information and inquiry, that the author was further urged to extend his labours, and improve upon his own plan so as to include a larger portion of literary history. With this view, during the intervals he could spare from an extensive business, and the publication of many useful works, among which his elaborate ‘ History of Leicestershire’ stands prominent, amidst too his indefatigable attention to the affairs of the corporation of London, of which he was for many years a distinguished member, he was enabled in the present year to publish a new edition of his Memoirs of Bowyer, under the title of “Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century; comprizing Biographical Memoirs of William Bowyer,” &c. extended to six copious and closely printed volumes in octavo, illustrated by a series of engraved portraits. Of this work the editor of this Dictionary, or of any compilation of the kind, cannot speak without gratitude. It will appear, indeed, by our references, that our obligations are numerous and important, nor should we be content with this brief acknowledgment, but from a motive of delicacy, it being known to our readers that the author to whom we are so much indebted is at the same time the medium of conveying our praises to the public. We cannot help adding, however, that where we refer to Mr. Nichols’s “Anecdotes,” we wish it to be understood that it is for the purpose of more ample information than we have usually extracted, and that no book has perhaps ever been published in this or any country by which literary curiosity is so much excited, or so pleasingly gratified.

, an eminent philologer, historian, and antiquary, born Sept. 12, 1612, was the son of James Zuerius, minister at Bergen-op-Zoom, by Anne Boxhorn, the daughter of Henry Boxhorn, a minister of Breda, originally a Roman Catholic, but who embracing the reformed religion, became minister first in the duchy of Cleves, then at Woorden in Holland, and lastly at Breda, which place he left in 1625 when the Spaniards took it, and retired to Leyden: here he superintended the education of his grandson, the subject of the present article, who lost his father when only six years old, and as he had no male children, gave young Zuerius his name of Boxhorn. Under his tuition, the youth made great progress in his studies, and in 1629 published some good poetry on the taking of Boisleduc, and some other victories which the Dutch had gained. This was when he was only seventeen years old, and he was but twenty when he published some more considerable works, as will appear in our list, which induced the curators of the university of Leyden in the same year, 1632, to promote him to the professorship of eloquence. His reputation extending, chancellor Oxenstiern, the Swedish ambassador, made him great offers in queen Christina’s name, but preferring a residence in his own country, he was afterwards appointed professor of politics and history in the room of Daniel Heinsius, now disabled by age. For some time he carried on a controversy with Salmasius, but they were afterwards apparently reconciled. Besides his numerous works, he contributed frequently to the labours of his learned friends: his career, however, was short, as he died, after a tedious illness, at Leyden, Oct. 3, 1653, at the age of only forty -one. How industriously this time was employed will appear from the following list of his publications. 1. “Poemata,” 1629, 12mo. 2. “Granatarum encomium,” Amsterdam, 1631, 4to. 3. “Historian Augustas Scriptores,” a new edition with his notes, Leyden, 1631, 4 vols. 12mo, which Harwood calls beautiful but incorrect. 4. “Theatrum, sive Descriptio Comitatus et Urbium Hollandiae,” ibid. 1632, 4to. and translated into German the!-ame year by Peter Montanus. 5. An edition of “Plinii Panegyricus,” Leyden, 1632 and 1648, Amsterdam, 1649, 12mo. 6. A nimadversiones ad Suetonium Tranquillum,“Leyden, 1632 and 1645, 12mo. 7.” Poetae Satiric! minores, cum Commentariis,“ibid. 1632, 8vo. 8.” Respublica Leodiensium,“ibid. 1633, 24mo. 9.” Apologia pro Navigationibus Hollandorum, adversus Pontum Heuterum,“ibid. 1633, 24mo, and reprinted at London, 1636, 8vo. 10.” Emblemata Politica, et Dissertationes Politicae,“Amsterdam, 1634 and 1651, 12mo. 11.” Julii Csesaris Opera, cum commentariis variorum,“ibid. 16:34, fol. 12.” Grammatica regia, &c. pro Christina Succor um regina,“Holm. 1635, 12nio, Leyden, 1650. 13.” Catonis Disticha, Gr. Lat. cum Notis,“Leyden, 1635, 8vo. 14.” Orationes duae de vera Nobilitate et ineptiis sseculi,“ibid. 1635, fol. 15.” Oratio inauguralis de maj estate eioqueuti Romanae,“ibid. 1636, 4to. 16. 44 Orationes Tres, de theologia paganorum, fabulis poetarum, et animarum immortalitate,” ibid. 1636, 4to. 17. “Oratio funebris in obitum Dominici Molini,” ibid. 1636, fol. 18. “Character causarum Patroni,” ibid. 1637, 4to. 19. ' Character Amoris,“ibid. 1637, 4to. 20.” Panegyricus Principi Fred. Henrico, post Bred am oppugnatam dictus,“Leyden, 1637, fol. 21.” Quaestiones Roman se, cum Plutarchi qucetionibus Romanis, commentario uberrimo explicatis,“ibid. 1637, 4to, and reprinted in Graevius, vol. V. 22.” Monumenta illustrium virorum seri incisa et elogia,“ibid. 1633, fol. 23.” JuStinus, cum notis,“Amsterdam, 1638. 24.” Panegyricus in classem Hispanorum profligatam,“Leyden, 1639, fol. 25.” Oratio de Somniis,“ibid. 1639, 4to. 26.” Historia obsidionis Bredanae, &c.“ibid. 1640, fol. 27.” De Typographies artis inventione et inventoribus, Dissertatio,“ibid. 1640, 4to. In this he is inclined to think that the art of printing was first discovered at Haerlem, and not at Mentz, as he first supposed. 28. “Dissertatio de Trapezitis, vulgo Longobardis,” ibid. 1640, 8vo, and Groningen, 1658, 4to. 29. “Panegyricus in Nuptias principis Arausionensium Gulielmi, et Mariae, Britanniae regis filiae,” Leyden, 1641, fol. 30.” Oratio in excessum Cornelii Vander Myle,“ibid. 1642, fol. 31.” Oratio qua Ser. Henricae Mariae, magnae Britannise reginae urbem Leydensem subeuntis adventum veneratur,“ibid. 1642, fol. This compliment to our exiled queen, and a subsequent publication, Bayle informs us, was disliked by some republicans. 32.” Oratio in excessum principis Const. Alexandri,“ibid. 1642, fol. 33.” Commentarius in vitam Agricolae Corn. Taciti,“ibid. 1642, 12mo, and an Apology for this edition,” adversus Dialogistam,“Amsterdam, 1643, 12mo. 34.” Animadversiones in Corn. Taciturn, Amsterdam,“1643, and often reprinted. 35. The Belgic History to the time of Charles V. in Dutch, Leyden, 1644, 1649, 4to. 36.” Chronicon Zelandiae,“Middleburgh, 1644, 4to. 37. On the worship of the goddess Nehalennia, in Dutch, Leyden, 1647, 4to. 38.” Plinii Epistolae cum ejus Panegyrico,“ibid. 1648, and Amsterdam, 1659, 12mo. 39.” Dissertatio de Amnestia,“ibid. 1648, 12mo. 40.” Dissertatio de successione etjure primogenitorum, in adeundo principatu, ad Carolum II. Magnse Britanniae regem,“ibid. 1649, 4to. 41.” De Majestate Regum, Principumque liber singularis,“a defence of the former, ibid. 1649, 4to. 42.”Com.mentariolusde Statu Fcederatarum Provinciarum Belgii, Hague, 1649. Somi offence taken by the States of Holland obliged the author to alter part of this work in the edition 1650. 43. “Oratio funebris in excessum Adriani Falkoburgii Med. Doct.” Leyden, 1650, 4to. 44. “Hayraonis Hist, ecclesiastics Breviarium,” ibid. 1650, 12mo. 45. “Disquisitiones Politicae, ex omni historia selectae,” Hague, 1654, Erfurt, 1664, 12mo. 46. “Dissertatio de Groecse, Romanae, et Germanics? Linguarum harmonia,” Leyden, 1650. 47. “Historia Universalis Sacra et Profana a nato Christo ad annum 1650,” ibid. 1651, 1652, 4to, and Leipsic, 1675, 4to. Mencke, the continuator, speaks of this as an excellent account of theorigin and rights of nations. 48. “Orationes varii argumenti,” Amst. 1651, 12mo. 49. “Oratio in excessum Gul. principis Arausiee, comitis Nassovii, Leyd. 1651, fol. 50.” Metamorphosis Anglorurn,“Hague, 1653, 12mo. 51.” Originum Gallicaruna liber,“Amst. 1654, 4to. This critical history of ancient Gaul procured him much reputation. He was employed on it in his latter days, but did not live to publish it. The following are also posthumous 52.” Ideae orationum e selection materia modern! status politici desumptae,“Leyden, 1657, ]2mo, and Leipsic, 1661, 12mo. 53.” Institutionum seu disquisitionum Politicarum Libri Duo,“Leipsic, 1659, Amst. 1663. 54.” Chronologia sacra et prophana,“edited by Bosius, Francf. 1660, fol. 55.” Epistolae et Poemata,“Amst. 1662, 12mo, with his life written by James Baselius, a Calvinist minister, and reprinted at Leipsic in 1679, with a preface by Thomasius. 56.” Dissertatio de Imperio Romano," Jena, 1664, 12mo.

, an eminent English musician, chapel-master and organist to George II. and III. was the son of William Boyce, a joiner and cabinet-maker, and housekeeper of Joiners’-hall, where our musician was born, B'eb. 7, 1710. He was at first a singing-boy at St. Paul’s, and afterwards apprenticed to the celebrated Dr. Greene, who bequeathed to him his manuscripts. In 1734 he was a candidate for the place of organist of St. Michael’s church, Cornhill, with Froud, Young, James Worgan, and Kelway; but though unsuccessful in this application, Kelway being elected, he was appointee! the same year to the place of organist of Oxford chapel and in 1736, upon the death of Weltlon, when Kelway being elected organist of St. Martin' sin the Fields, resigned his place at St. Michael’s Cornhill, Boyce was not only elected organist of that church, but organist and composer in the chapel royal. The same year he set David’s “Lamentation over Saul and Jonathan,” which was performed at the Apollo Society. About the year 1743, he produced his serenata of “Solomon,” which was not only long and justly admired as a pleasing and elegant composition, but still affords great delight to the friends of English music whenever it is performed. His next publication was “Twelve Sonatas or Trios for two violins and a base,” which were longer and more generally purchased, performed, and admired, than any productions of the kind in this kingdom, except those of CorelH. They were not only in constant use, as chamber music, in private concerts, for which they were originally designed, but in our theatres, as act-tunes, and public gardens, as favourite pieces, during many years.

In 1749, he set the ode written by the rev. Mr. Mason, for the installation of the late duke of Newcastle, as chancellor of the university of Cambridge, at which time he was honoured with the degree of doctor in music by that university. Soon after this event, he set the “Chaplet,” a musical drama, written by the late Mr. Mendez, for Drury-lane theatre, which had a very favourable reception, and long run, and continued many years in use. Not long after the first performance of this drama, his friend Mr. Beard brought on the same stage the secular ode, written by Dryden, and originally set by Dr. Boyce for Hickford’s room, or the Castle concert, where it was first performed, in still life. This piece, though less successful than the Chaplet, by the animated performance and friendly zeal of Mr. Beard, was many times exhibited before it was wholly laid aside. These compositions, with occasional single songs for Vauxhall and Ranelagh, disseminated the fame of Dr. Boyce throughout the kingdom, as a dramatic and miscellaneous composer, while his choral compositions for the king’s chapel, for the feast of the sons of the clergy at St. Paul’s, and for the triennial meetings at the three cathedrals of Worcester, Hereford, and Gloucester, at the performances in all which places he constantly presided till the time of his death, established his’ reputation as an ecclesiastical composer, and able master of harmony. Dr. Boyce was one of the few of our church composers, who neither pillaged or servilely imitated Handel. There is an original and sterling merit in his productions, founded as much on the study of our own old masters, as on the best models of other countries, that gives to all his works a peculiar stamp and character of his own, for strength, clearness, and facility, without any mixture of styles, or extraneous and heterogeneous ornaments. On the decease of Dr Greene, in 1757, he was appointed by the duke of Devonshire, master of the king’s band; and, in 1758, on the death of Travers, organist of the chapel-royal. He published, at a great expence to himself, three volumes of cathedral music, being a collection in score of the most valuable compositions for that service by the several English masters of the preceding two centuries, which was designed to have been published by Dr. Greene: and in this Dr. Boyce was assisted by the first Dr. Hayes, of Oxford, and by Dr. Howard. Dr. Boyce died, of repeated attacks of the gout, Feb. 7, 1779, and was interred in St. Paul’s cathedral. An anonymous biographer records a very singular circumstance in Dr. Boyce’s history, namely, that he was from his youth incurably deaf.

, a writer who would scarcely have deserved notice, if he had not been obtruded on the public as the author of Junius’s Letters, was the second son of Alexander Macauley, esq. of the county of Antrim, in Ireland. He was born in 1746; was educated at Trinity college, Dublin; and was designed for the bar; but, instead of prosecuting his original views, came over to London, where, under the patronage of Mr. Richard Burke, he soon became known both in the literary and fashionable world. A propensity to extravagance had already reduced him to considerable embarrassments, when, in 1777, he married a lady of good fortune; but this relief was only temporary; for the same expensive habits still continued, and at length obliged him to accompany lord Macartney to Madras, in the capacity of a second secretary. He remained there after his lordship’s return, and died in 1791, having for some years previously to his death, held the lucrative office of master attendant, with little advantage to his circumstances. He wrote in Ireland, a political periodical paper, called “The Freeholder,” in 1772; an Introduction to lord Chatham’s speeches on the American war, reported and published by him; and the “Whig,” published in Almon’s newspaper, the London Courant, in 1780. In I?y4, he also wrote a few periodical essays called “The Indian Observer,” published at Madras. These were reprinted in an 8vo volume, in 1798, by thejate Mr. Laurence Dundas Campbell, with a view to establish an assertion which Almon first made, if we mistake not, purporting that Mr. Boyd was the author of Junius; but unfortunately the reader has “the bane and antidote” both before htm in this volume, and few attempts of the kind can be conceived more injudicious than a comparison between the styles of Boyd and Junius. Boyd wrote after Junius, and, like most political writers, aims at his style; and the only conclusion which his friends have arrived at amounts tu this absurdity, that an imitator must be an original writer; and even this in the case of Mr. Boyd is peculiarly unfortunate, for his imitations are among the most feeble that have been ever attempted. Mr. Campbell returned to the charge, however, in 1800, with a publication of “The miscellaneous works of Hugh Boyd, the author of the Letters of Junius: with an account of his Life and Writings,” 2 vols. 8vo.

, a Scotch writer of considerable reputation in the sixteenth century, the son of Robert Boyd, of Pinkill in Ayrshire, was born Jan. 13, 1562. Having lost his father early, he was educated under the inspection of his uncle, Mr. James Boyd, of Trochrig, who, with the then unpopular title of “Archbishop of Glasgow,” performed the offices of minister of the Barony parish in that city. Young Boyd, in his nature lively and headstrong, soon grew weary of academical discipline, quarreled with his preceptors, renounced his studies, and, eager to become a man of the world, presented himself at court. It is not unlikely that in this scheme ae relied chit fly on the patronage of liobert, fourth lord Boyd, who was probably the cousin-gernran of Boyd’s father. All, however, that we learn of his proficiency at cm:;c is, that he fought one duel, and was engaged in numberless broils. His relations advised him to follow the profession of arms in the Low Countries, for they could not tolerate his impetuous and unruly temper, and perhaps they were little inclined or little able to support him in a manner of life which had no determined object or aim. Boyd readily consented to become a soldier; but he chose France rather than the Low Countries, for the theatre of his future achievements. He went therefore to Paris, furnished with a small stock of money, all of which he soon lost at dice. This the author of his life ascribes to some secret fate, “occulto veluti fato” but says his more recent biographer, lord Hailes, we may absolve fate, for when the raw and self-sufficient go amongst sharpers, they ought to ascribe their ruin to folly.

Boyd, observing that young persons of quality, and even military men, were wont to attend academical lectures at Paris, resumed his studies. The teachers to whom he attached himself were, J. Marius d'Amboise, professor of philosophy; J. Passerat, professor of eloquence, not only a scholar, but a wit also, and a poet; and Gilb. Franc. Genebrand, professor of the Hebrew language, who afterwards by his zeal for the French league, tarnished the reputation that he had gained by his literary abilities. Guillonius also is mentioned amongst the professors under whom Boyd studied. He next resolved to apply himself to the civil law, and went to the university of Orleans, where that science was taught by J. Robertas, a man principally known for having dared to become the rival of Cujacius. But he soon quitted Orleans, and went to the university of Bourges. Cujacius, who taught the civil law there, received him with kindness, and possibly, not with the less kindness because his new scholar had quitted Orleans and professor Robertus. It was said that Boyd obtained the friendship of Cujacius, by writing some verses in the obsolete Latin language. Perhaps that learned man liked those verses best which approached nearest to the standard of the Twelve Tables.

While at Bourges, however, Boyd applied his mind to serious study, with more earnestness than could have been looked for from a person of his age and desultory temper. Btrt unfortunately his studies were interrupted, not by the constitutional fickleness of his own disposition, but by a public calamity. The plague broke out at Bourges, and Boyd, dreading the infection, fled to Lyons, and on its appearance at Lyons, he went into Italy. There he became acquainted with a person whom he calls Cornelius Varus, but having been seized with an ague, he returned to Lyons for change of air. It is said that the being deprived of the conversation and salutary advices of his friend Varus was the only regret which he had in quitting Italy. Varus flattered him with all the extravagance of Italian hyperboles, and finding that Boyd prided himself on the excellence of his Latin poetry, addressed some verses to him in which he asserts that Boyd surpassed Buchanan and all other British poets in a greater degree than Virgil surpassed Lucretius, Catullus, and all other Roman poets.

In 1587, a numerous army, composed of mercenary Germans and Swiss, invaded France, in support of the king of Navarre. Boyd joined the troops that marched from Auvergne to reinforce the army of Henry III. His commander was a Greek by birth, an officer of cavalry. Boyd mentions not his name; but describes him as one who, with the specious advantages of elocution, and a noble figure, was volatile, forward, easily provoked, and of ungovernable passion. The'temerity of this commander exposed his soldiers to more hazards in skirmishes with the peasants, than they would have found in storming of towns. Boyd received a shot in the ancle, and this is all we know, with certainty, of his military services.

In 1588, Boyd fixed his residence at Toulouse, and again applied himself to the study of the civil law under Fr. Rouldes, a celebrated professor. It appears that, about this time, he wrote some tracts on that science, and projected others; and that he even had it in view to compose a system of the law of nations. Toulouse having, about this time, by means of a popular insurrection, fallen into the hands of the faction of the league, Boyd, who had assisted the royal cause, was thrown into prison and, from the hatred of the Jesuits, was in great danger of his life. When he had obtained his liberty, which was granted him at the solicitations of the learned men of Toulouse, he went first to Bourdeaux, and thence to Rochelle. In this last journey he was attacked by robbers, and with difficulty escaped being assassinated by them, after having lost all the property he had with him. Disliking the air of Rochelle, he retreated to the borders of Poictou, where he enjoyed an agreeable rural retirement; devoting his time partly to polite literature, and partly to the aid of his friends, when they were occasionally exposed to the incursions of their enemies. He so equally applied himself te the study of learning and war, that it was not easy to say which he most preferred; but his character appears now to have been more decided than when in youth. Among men of the sword he appeared to be the accomplished soldier, and as eminently the scholar among those of the gown. In his person he was tall, compact, and well proportioned; his countenance was beautiful, sprightly, and engaging; and there was a singularly noble air in his discourse, aspect, voice, aud gesture. He was polite, pleasant, acute, courteous, a ready speaker, and entirely free from envy and avarice. He could easily bear with the boasting of the ignorant, but extremely disliked the abusive manner of writing which prevailed so much among the learned of his time. He thought it unworthy of a Christian, in a literary controversy, to throw out any thing, either in speech or writing, which should hurt the reputation of an adversary. In injuries of an atrocious nature, he chose to do himself justice by having recourse to the laws of arms. Among the ancients, Xenophon was his favourite as a philosopher, Cæsar as an historian, and Virgil as a poet. So admirably was he skilled in the Greek language, that he could write, dictate, and converse in it, with copiousness and elegance. He despised the centos, which were then not a little in fashion; and said, that however learned the authors of them might be, they were dull and ignorant men. Besides his epistles after the manner of Ovid, and his hymns, he wrote a variety of Latin poems, which have not been printed. He was the author of notes upon Pliny, and published an excellent little book, addressed to Lipsius, in defence of cardinal Bembo and the ancient eloquence. He translated, likewise, Cæsar’s Commentaries into Greek, in the style of Herodotus; but would not permit his translation to appear in public. He afterwards applied himself to the cultivation of poetry in his native Ianguage, and arrived at considerable excellence in it. In all his compositions, genius was more apparent than labour.

Boyd, at length, returned into Scotland, where he soon after died, of a slow fever, in April 1601, at Pinkill, his father’s seat, in the 38th or 39th year of his age; and was buried with his ancestors in the church of Dalie or Darlie. Among the manuscripts which he left behind him, the following were in sir Robert Sibbald’s possession: “In Institutiones Imperatoris Commenta,” 1591, folio. “L‘Estat du Royaume d’Escosse a present,” foj. “ Politicus, ad Joannem Metellanum, cancellariutn Scotiae.” w Scriptum de Jurisconsulto, ad Franciscum Balduinum.“”Poeta, ad Cornelium Varum Florentinum.“” Poemata varia.“” Epistolae.“But of these, the only works now known are his” Epistolae Heroidum,“and his” Hymni.“These are inserted in the” Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum,“Amst. 1637, in two volumes 12mo; and a great character has been given of them by several authors. His biographer questions whether any of the ancients have excelled him in elegiac poetry, and is positive that none of the Latins have equalled his hymns. Olaus Borrichius, an eminent critic, in his” Dissertationes Academic de Poetis,“says,” In Marco Alexandra Bodio, Scoto, redivivum spectamus Nasonem; ea est in ejusdem Epistolis Heroidum, lux, candor, dexteritas." The same critic speaks as highly of Boyd’s Hymns, but modern taste will not coincide with these praises. Boyd undoubtedly was a man of genius and elegant accomplishments, yet we learn this rather from his history than his writings.

, a nobleman of Scotland, of whose early years we have no account, began to make a figure in public life towards the end of the reign of James II. of Scotland. Being a man of great penetration and sound judgment, courteous and affable, he acquired the esteem and confidence of all ranks of people, as well as of his prince, who created him a baron by the title of lord Boyd, of Kilmarnock. In 1459, he was, with several other noblemen, sent to Newcastle, with the character of plenipotentiary, to prolong the truce with England, which had just fhen expired. On the death of James II. who was killed at the siege of Roxburgh, lord Boyd was made justiciary, and one of the lords of the regency, in whose hands the administration was lodged during the minority of the young king. His lordship had a younger brother who had received the honour of knighthood, sir Alexander Boyd of Duncow, a man in great credit with the king, whom he was appointed to teach the rudiments of military discipline; and between them, the two brothers found means to engross most of the places and preferments about the court. Sir Alexander began to instil into the young king, then twelve years old, that he was now capable of governing without the help of guardians and tutors, and that he might free himself from their restraint. This advice was readily listened to, and the king resolved to take upon himself the government, which, however, was no other than transferring the whole power, from the other regents, to the Boyds. The king was at this time at Linlithgow, and it was necessary to remove him to Edinburgh, to take upon him the regal government, which the Boyds effected, partly by force, and partly by stratagem. Haying got the king- to Edinburgh, lord Boyd began to provide for his own safety, and to avert the danger which, threatened him and his friends, for what they had done in the face of an act of parliament; and accordingly prevailed upon the king to call a parliament at Edinburgh, in October 1466; in which lord Boyd fell down upon his knees before the throne, where the king sat, and in an elaborate harangue, complained of the hard construction put upon the king’s removal from Linlithgow, and how ill this was interpreted by his enemies, who threatened that the advisers of that affair should one day suffer punishment; humbly beseeching his majesty to declare his own sense and pleasure thereupon, and that if he conceived any illwill or disgust against him for that journey, that he would openly declare it. The king, after advising a little with the lords, made answer, that the lord Boyd was not his adviser, but rather his companion in that journey; and therefore that he was more worthy of a reward for his courtesy, than of punishment for his obsequiousness or compliance therein; and this he was willing to declare in a public decree of the estates, and in the same decree provision should be made, that this matter should never be prejudicial to the lord Boyd or his companions. His lordship then desired, that this decree might be registered in the acts of the assembly, and confirmed by letters patent under the great seal, which was also complied with. At the same time also the king, by advice of his council, gave him letters patent, whereby he was constituted sole regent, and had the safety of the king, his brothers, sisters, towns, castles, and all the jurisdiction over his subjects, committed to him, till the king himself arrived to the age of twenty-one years. And the nobles then present solemnly promised to be assistant to the lord Boyd, and also to his brother, in all their public actions, and that they would be liable to punishment, if they did not carefully, and with faithfulness, perform what they then promised, to which stipulation the king also subscribed. Lord Boyd next contrived to be made Jord great chamberlain, and after this had the boldness to procure the lady Mary Stewart, the late king’s eldest daughter, in marriage for his son sir Thomas Boyd, notwithstanding the care and precaution of the parliament. The lord Boyd’s son was a most accomplished gentleman, and this match and near alliance to the crown, added to his own distinguished merit, raised him to a nearer place in the affection as well as confidence of his sovereign, by whom he was soon after created earl of Arran, and was now himself considered as the fountain from whence all honours and preferments must flow. The lord chamberlain, by this great accession of honour to his family, seemed to have arrived at the highest pinnacle of power and grandeur; but what seemed to establish his power, proved the very means of its overthrow. About this time, a marriage having been concluded, by ambassadors sent into Denmark for that purpose, between the young king of Scotland, and Margaret, a daughter of the king of Denmark, the earl of Arran was selected to go over to Denmark, to espouse the Danish princess in the king his brother-in-law’s name, and to conduct her to Scotland. The earl of Arran, judging all things safe at home, willingly accepted this honour; and, in the beginning of the autumn of 1469, set sail for Denmark with a proper convoy, and a noble train of friends and followers. This was, however, a fatal step, for the lord chamberlain, the earl’s father, being now much absent from the court in the necessary discharge of his office, as well as through age and infirmities, which was the case also of his brother sir Alexander Boyd; the earl of Arran had no sooner set out on his embassy, than every endeavour was tried to alienate the king’s affection from the Boyds. Every public miscarriage was laid at their door; and the Kennedies, their ancient enemies, industriously spread abroad reports, to inflame the people likewise against them. They represented to the king, that the lord Boyd had abused his power during his majesty’s minority; that his matching his son, the earl of Arran, with the princess Mary, was staining the royal blood of Scotland, was an indignity to the crown, and the prelude to the execution of a plot they had contrived of usurping even the sovereignty itself; for they represented the lord chamberlain as an ambitious, aspiring man, guilty of the highest offences, and capable of contriving and executing the worst of villanies: with what justice, history does not inform us. Buchanan only says the Boyds were the occasion of the king’s degeneracy into all manner of licentiousness, by their indulgence of his pleasures. The king, however, young, weak, credulous, and wavering, and naturally prone to jealousy, began to be alarmed, and was prevailed on to sacrifice, not only the earl of Arran, but all his family, to the resentment of their enemies, notwithstanding their ancestors’ great services to the crown, and in spite of the ties of blood which united them so closely. At the request of the adverse faction, the king summoned a parliament to meet at Edinburgh, the 20th of November, 1469, before which lord Boyd, the earl of Arran, though in Denmark, and sir Alexander Boyd of Duncow, were summoned to appear, to give an account of their administration, and answer such charges as should be exhibited against them. Lord Boyd, astonished at this sudden blow, betook himself to arms; but, finding it im-r possible to stem the torrent, made his escape into England; but his brother, sir Alexander, being then sick, and trusting to his own integrity, was brought before the parliament, where he, the lord Boyd, and his son the earl of Arran, were indicted of high-treason, for having laid hands on the king, and carried him, against an act of parliament, and contrary to the king’s own will, from Linlithgow to Edinburgh, in 1466. Sir Alexander alleged in his defence, that they had not only obtained the king’s pardon for that'offence in a public convention, but it was even declared a good service by a subsequent act of parliament; but no regard was had to this, because it was obtained by the Boyds when in power, and masters of the king’s person: and the crime being proved against them, they were found guilty by a jury of lords and barons; and sir Alexander Boyd, being present, was condemned to lose his head on the Castle-hill of Edinburgh, which sentence was executed accordingly. The lord Boyd would have undergone the same fate, if he had not inade his escape into England, where, however, he did not long survive his great reverse of fortune, dying at Alnwick in 1470. The earl of Arran, though absent upon public business, was declared a public enemy, without being granted a hearing, or allowed the privilege of defending himself, and his estates confiscated. Things were in this situation, when he arrived from Denmark, with the espoused queen, in the Frith of Forth. Before he landed he received intelligence of the wreck and ruin of his family, and resolved to retire into Denmark; and without staying to attend the ceremonial of the queen’s landing, he took the opportunity of one of those Danish ships which convoyed the queen, and were under his command, and embarking his lady, set sail for Denmark, where he met with a reception suitable to his high birth. From thence he travelled through Germany into France, and went to pay a visit to Charles duke of Burgundy, who received him most graciously, and being then at war with his rebellious subjects, the unfortunate lord offered him his service, which the duke readily accepted, and finding him to be a brave and wise man, he honoured and supported him and his lady, in a manner becoming their rank. But the king their brother, not yet satisfied with the miseries of their family, wrote over to Flanders to recal his sister home; and fearing she would not be induced to leave him, he caused others to write to her, and give her hopes that his anger towards her husband might be appeased, and that if she would come over and plead for him in person, there was no doubt but she might prevail with her brother to restore him again to his favour. The countess of Arran, flattered with these hopes, returned, and was no sooner arrived in Scotland, than the king urged her to a divorce from her husband, cruelly detained her from going back to him, and caused public citations, attested by witnesses, to be fixed up at Kilmarnock, the seat of the Boyds, wherein Thomas earl of Arran was commanded to appear in sixty days, which he not doing, his marriage with the king’s sister was declared null and void, and a divorce made (according to Buchanan), the earl still absent and unheard; and the lady Mary was compelled, by the king, to marry James lord Hamilton, a man much inferior to her former husband both in point of birth and fortune. This transaction was in 1474; and the earl of Arran, now in the last stage of his miseries, and borne down with the heavy load of his misfortunes, soon al'ter, died at Antwerp, and was honourably interred there. The character of him and of his father is variously represented. That they were ambitious, and regardless of the means of gratifying that ambition, cannot well be denied, nor are we permitted to censure with great asperity their enemies who effected their ruin by similar measures and with similar motives. Their fall undoubtedly holds out an useful lesson, but the experience of others, especially of examples in history, seldom checks the progress of that ambition that has once commenced in success.

, a descendant of the preceding, and fourth and last earl of Kilmarnock, was born in 1704, and was but thirteen years old when his father died: he discovered early a genius not unequal to his birth, but found the family estate pretty much encumbered, and great part of the patrimony alienated, which was by no means answerable to his lordship’s generous and noble disposition. It was also his misfortune to be too soon let loose among the gaieties and pleasures of life. As he grew up, instead of applying himself to study, he launched out into the world in pursuit of pleasures which were more expensive than his fortune could support, and by this means considerably reduced his estate, which, from the most probable conjecture, was the true reason of his taking up arms against the king. Indeed, his lordship himself owns in his confession to Mr. Foster (while under sentence), that his rebellion was a kind of desperate scheme, proceeding originally from his vices, to extricate himself from the distress of his circumstances; for he says, “the true root of all was his careJess and dissolute life, by which he had reduced himself to great and perplexing difficulties; that the exigency of his affairs was in particular very pressing at the time of the rebellion; and that, besides the general hope he had of mending his fortune by the success of it, he was also tempted by another prospect of retrieving his circumstances, by following the Pretender’s standard.” It does not appear that his lordship was in the original design of the rebellion: on the contrary, he declared both in his speech at the bar of the house of lords, and in his petition to the king after his sentence, that it was not tilt after the battle of Preston Pans that he became a party in it, having, till then, neither influenced his tenants or followers to assist or abet the rebellion; but, on the contrary, influenced the inhabitants of the town of Kilmarnock, and the neighbouring boroughs, to rise in arms for his majesty’s service, which had so good an effect, that two hundred men from Kilmarnock very soon appeared in arms, and remained so all the winter at Glasgow and other places. It is said, that when the earl joined the Pretender’s standard, he was received by him with great marks of esteem and distinction; was declared of his privy-council, made colonel of the guards, and promoted to the degree of a general (though his lordship himself says, he was far from being a person of any consequence among them). How he behaved in these stations (quite new to him, and foreign from his former manner of life), we cannot determine; but common fame says, he displayed considerable courage till the fatal battle of Culloden, when he was taken, or rather surrendered himself, prisoner, to the king’s troops, though involuntarily, and with a design to have facilitated his escape: for he acknowledged to Mr. Foster, whilst under sentence, that when he saw the king’s dragoons, and made towards them, he thought they had been Fitz-James’s horse; and that if he could have reached them by mounting behind one of the dragoons, his escape would have been more certain, than when he was on foot. Yet, in his speech to the house of lords, he made a merit of having surrendered himself, at a time when he said he could easily have made his escape, and in this he owned, when in a state of repentance, that he had not spoken truth. His lordship was brought to the Tower, and on Monday the 28th of July, 174-6, was, together with the earl of Cromartie, and lord Balmerino, conducted to Westminster-hall, and at the bar of the lord high-steward’s court, arraigned, and pleaded guilty to his indictment, submitting himself to his majesty’s mercy and clemency. On the Wednesday following, the three lords were again brought from the Tower to receive sentence, when the lord Kilmarnock being asked by the lord high-steward, if he had any thing to offer why sentence of death should not be passed upon him, his lordship, addressing himself to his grace and the whole august assembly, then consisting of an hundred and thirty-six peers, delivered an eloquent speech, after which, sentence of death was pronounced upon him, and he returned to the Tower. After this, he presented petitions to the king, the prince of Wales, and duke of Cumberland, wherein he set forth his family’s constant attachment to the revolution interest, and that of the illustrious house of Hanover; his father’s zeal and activity in support of both in the rebellion in 1715, and his own appearing in arms (though then but young) under his father, and the whole tenour of his conduct ever since that time. But the services of his forefathers could not satisfy the public demand for justice, nor avail him so far as to procure him pardon. He was beheaded on Towerhill, August 18, 1746, and was interred in the Tower church, with this inscription upon his coffin, viz. “Gulielmus Comes de Kilmarnock, decollat. 18 Augusti, 1746, aetat. suae 42.” His lordship’s whole deportment, from the time he was condemned till his execution, was suitable to one in his unhappy circumstances. He gave the most lively marks of a sincere humiliation and repentance for all his miscarriages, and his behaviour in the hour of death was resigned, but strictly decent and awful. He had himself observed, with great truth, that for a man who had led a dissolute life, and yet believed the consequences of death, to put on an air of daringness and absolute intrepidity, must argue him either to be very stupid or very impious. He was a nobleman of fine address and polite behaviour; his person was tall and graceful; his countenance mild, but his complexion pale; and he had abilities, which, if they had been properly applied, might have rendered him capable of bringing an increase of honour to his family, instead of ruin and disgrace. His lordship lived and died in the public profession of the church of Scotland, and left behind him a widow (who was the lady Anne Livingston, daughter of James earl of Linlithgow and Callander (attainted in 1715), with whom he had a considerable fortune), and three sons, the eldest of whom his lordship had educated in the principles of duty and loyalty to his majesty, and in whose service he fought against the rebels. He succeeded, upon the death of Mary, countess of Errol, in 1758, to her estate and honours, his mother having been undoubted heir of line of that noble family, and he was the sixteenth earl of Errol. He died June 3, 1778, leaving issue.

, an eminent Scotch divine, of the same family as the preceding, being a descendant of Robert Boyd, earl of Arran, sometime protector of Scotland, from whom descended James Boyd, baron of Trochrig, the father of the subject of this article. He was born in 1578, and educated at the university of Edinburgh, where he took his master’s degree. In 1604, according to the custom of the times, he travelled into France, and studied for some time under Rivet, improving himself in Greek and Hebrew, and in French, which he spoke with great fluency. He was afterwards invited by tt:e university of Montauban to be professor of philosophy, and in the mean time himself studied divinity, dnd was ordained according to the forms of the French reformed church. In 1608 he was removed to a professorship at Saumur, which he filled until 1614, and both as a preacher and teacher was much admired and eagerly followed. His fame reaching the ears of his sovereign, king James, he sent him a pressing invitation to fill the divinity chair in the university oi Glasgow, in consequence of which he removed thither in 1615, to the great sorrow of his friends at SaumiT, and the university at large. He was enabled soon, in conjunction with some able colleagues, to raise the reputation of the Glasgow university, the mode of study in which he reformed from the useless and disputatious modes of the schools. His situation, however, afcerwards became embarrassed from the disputes which arose respecting the scheme of king James to assimilate the churches of England and Scotland, which was highly unpopular in the latter country. Boyd’s education, and especially his associations abroad, had inclined him to the presbyterian form of church government, and finding that he could not under such circumstances retain his situation as preacher and professor at Glasgow, he resigned both, and went to live privately on an estate which he possessed. Endeavours were made to fix him in Edinburgh, and afterwards to recall him to Glasgow, but these not being successful, he finally retired from public life to Carrick, his estate, where he died Jan. 5, 1627. He wrote in very elegant Latin, a commentary on the epistle to the Ephesians, which was published under the title “Roberti Bodii Scoti Praelectiones in Epistolam ad Ephesios,” Lond. 1652, fol.

, a liberal patron of the arts, and an honour to his country, was born at Stanton in Shropshire, Jan. 19, 1719. His grandfather was the rev. John Boydell, D. D. vicar of Ashbourne, and rector of Mapleton in Derbyshire, whose son Josiah married Mary Milnes, eldest daughter of Samuel Milnes, esq. of Ash-house near Turnditch, Derbyshire, Jan. 22, 1718. Dr. Boydell was an excellent scholar, and for some time superintended the education of his grandson, intending him for the church, but dying in 1731, the youth was brought up by hisfatlver, a land-surveyor, who very naturally intended him for his own profession, and as a taste for drawing generally discovers itself very early, he might probably foresee great advantages from his son’s possessing this talent. Fortunately, however, for young Boydell, and for the arts, a trifling accident gave a more decided direction to his mind, and led him to aim at higher efforts in the art than the mere mechanism of ground-plans and outlines. This was no other than the sight of a print by Toms, a very indifferent artist, of sir John Glynne’s seat and the old castle attached to it, in “Baddeley’s Views of different Country Seats.” An exact delineation of a building that he had so often contemplated, afforded him pleasure, and excited some reflections which gave a new turn to his ambition. Considering it as an engraving, and from the copper of which might be taken an almost indefinite number of impressions, he determined to quit the pen, and take up the graver, as an instrument which would enable him to disseminate whatever work he could produce, in so much wider a circle. This resolution was no sooner made, than it was put in execution; for, with that spirit and perseverance which he manifested in every succeeding scene of life, he, at twenty-one years of age, walked up to the metropolis, and bound himself apprentice for seven years to Mr. Toms, the engraver of the print which had so forcibly attracted his attention. These, and accidents equally trifling, sometimes attract men of strong minds into the path that leads direct to fame, and have been generally considered as proving that they were born with some peculiar genius for some peculiar study. Sir J. Reynolds had the first fondness for his art excited by the perusal of “Richardson’s Treatise on Painting” and Mr. Boydell was induced to learn the art of engraving, by a coarse print of a coarse artist, representing a mis-shapen gothic castle.

This step, however, gave his father no little uneasiness, and every argument and remonstrance of himself and his friends were employed to divert him from a pursuit which they considered as likely to be very unprofitable. But this producing no effect, his father took into business with him a younger son, Thomas, who succeeded him, and who died a few years before the subject of the present article, at Trevallyn Hall, Denbighshire, where his father had lived before him, but did not live long enough to witness the success of his son John, in the pursuit he so much disapproved.

His conduct during his apprenticeship was eminently assiduous. Eager to attain all possible knowledge of an art on which his mind was bent, and of every thing that could be useful to him, and^impelled by an industry that seemed inherent in his nature, he, whenever he could, attended the academy in St. Martin’s-lane to perfect himself in drawing; his leisure hours in the evening were devoted to the study of perspective, and to the learning of French without the aid of a master. After very steadily pursuing his business for six years, and finding himself a better artist than his teacher, he bought from Mr. Toms the last year of his apprenticeship, and became his own master. In 1745 or 1746 he published six small landscapes, designed and engraved by himself. This publication, from his having in most of the views chosen a situation in which a bridge formed part of the scenery, was entitled “The Bridge book,” and sold for a shilling. Small as this sum was, he sometimes spoke with apparent pleasure of a silversmith in Duke’s-court, St. Martin’s lane, having sold so many, that when he settled his annual account, he thought it would be civil to take a silver pint mug in part of payment, and this mug he retained until his dying day. He afterwards designed and engraved many other views, generally of places in and about London, and published the greater part of them at the low price of one shilling each. But even at this early period he was so much alive to fame, that after having passed several months in copying an historical sketch of Coriolanus by Sebastian Concha, he so much disliked his own engraving, that he cut the plate to pieces. Besides these, he engraved many prints from Brocking, Berchem, Salvator ilosa, &c. The manner in which many of them are executed, is highly respectable; and, being done at a time when the artist had much other business to attend to, displays an industry rarely to be paralleled, and proves that had he devoted all his time to engraving, he wcmld have ranked high in the profession. His facility of execution, and unconquerable perseverance, having thus enabled him to complete one hundred and fifty-two prints, tie collected the whole in one port-folio, and published it at fi,ve guineas. He modestly allowed that he himself had not at that time arrived at any eminence in the art of engraving, and that those prints are now chiefly valuable from a comparison of them with the improved state of the art within the last fifty years. In fact, there were at that time no eminent engravers in England, and Mr. Boydell saw the necessity of forcing the art by stimulating men of genius with suitable rewards. With the profits of the folio volume of prints above-mentioned, he' was enabled to pay very liberally the best artists of his time, and thus presented the world with English engravings from the works of the greatest masters. The encouragement that he experienced from the public was equal to the spirit and patriotism of his undertaking, and soon laid the foundation of an ample fortune. He used to observe, that he believed the book we have alluded to was the first that had ever made a lord mayor of London; and that when the smallness of the work was compared with what had followed, it would impress all young men with the truth of what he had often held out to them, “that industry, patience, and perseverance, if united to moderate talents, are certain to surmount all difficulties.” Mr. Boydell, though he never himself made any great progress as an engraver, was certainly the greatest encourager of the art that this country ever knew. The arts were at the time he began, at a very low ebb in this country. Wotton’s portraits of hounds ^nd horses, grooms and squires, with a distant view of the dog-kennel and stable; and Hudson’s portraits of gentlemen in great coats and jockey caps, were in high repute. Inferior prints from poor originals were almost the only works our English artists were thought capable of performing; and, mortifying as it must be to acknowledge it, yet it must be admitted, that (with the exception of the inimitable Hogarth, and two or three others) the generality of them were not qualified for much better things. The powers of the artists were, however, equal to the taste of a great majority of their customers; and the few people of the higher order who had a relish for better productions, indulged it in the purchase of Italian and Flemish pictures and French prints; for which, even at th?t time, the empire was drained of immense sums of money. To check this destructive fashion, Mr. Boydell sought for an English engraver who could equal, it not excel them; and jn Woollett he found one. The Temple of Apollo, from Claude, and two premium pictures from the Smiths of Chichester, were amongst the first large works which this excellent artist engraved; but the Niobe and the Phaeton, from Wilson, established his fame. For the first of them the alderman agreed to give the engraver fifty guineas, and when it was completed paid him a hundred. The second, the artist agreed to engrave for fifty guineas, and the alderman paid him one hundred and twenty. The two prints were published by subscription, at five shillings each. Proof prints were not at that time considered as having any particular value; the few that were taken off to examine the progress of the plate were delivered to such subscribers as chose to have them, at the subscription price. Several of these have since that time been sold at public auctions, at ten and eleven guineas each. By these and similar publications he had the satisfaction to see in his own time the beneficial effects of his exertions. We have before observed, that previous to his establishing a continental correspondence for the exportation of prints, immense sums were annually sent out of the country for the purchase of those that were engraved abroad; but he changed the course of the current, and for many of the later years of his life, the balance of the print-trade with the continent was very much in favour of Great Britain.

On the 5th of August 1732, Mr. Boy dell was chosen alderman of London, for the ward of Cheap, in the room of alderman Crichton, deceased. In the year 1785 he served the office of sheriff; and in 1790, was chosen lord mayor of London, an office of which he discharged the duties and the honours with a diligence, uprightness, and liberality, that may be equalled, but will rarely be exceeded.

Having been so successful in promoting the art of engraving in this country, he resolved to direct his next efforts to the establishing an English school of historical painting; and justly conceiving that no subject could be more appropriate for such a national attempt than England’s inspired poet, and great painter of nature, Shakspeare, he projected, and just lived to see completed, a most splendid edition of the works of that author, illustrated by engravings from paintings of the first artists that the country could furnish, and of which the expence was prodigious. These paintings afterwards formed what was termed “The Shakspeare gallery,” in Pall Mall; and we believe there are few individuals possessed of the least taste, or even curiosity, who have not inspected and been delighted by them.

It is always interesting to trace the origin of a great undertaking. The Shakspeare gallery arose from a conversation at the dining-table of Mr. Josiah Boydell (the alderman’s nephew and successor) in November 1786, in the presence of Mr. West, Mr. Romney, and Mr. P. Sandby, artists^ and Mr. Hayley, Mr. Hoole, Mr. Braithwaite, Mr. Nicol, and the alderman. The literary part of the company were joining with the professional gentlemen in complimenting the alderman on having lived to see the whole tide of the commerce in prints with the continent entirely changed from importing to exporting, and that effected in the space of one life, by the alderman’s great and munificent exertions. The only answer the alderman made to these compliments was, that he was not yet satisfied with what he had done; and that, old as he was, he should like to wipe away the stigma which all foreign critics threw on this nation, “that we had no genius for historical painting.” He said he was certain from his success in encouraging engraving, that Englishmen wanted nothing but proper encouragement and subjects to excel in historical painting, and this encouragement he himself would endeavour to find, if a proper subject was pointed out. Mr. Nieol (his majesty’s bookseller, and afterwards the alderman’s nephew by marriage) replied that there was one great national subject, concerning which there could be no difference of opinion, and mentioned Shakspeare 1 The proposition was received with acclamation by the alderman and the whole company; and on December 1 of the same year, the plan being considered, was laid before the public in a printed prospectus.

After having expended in his favourite plan of advancing the fine arts in England no less a sum than 350,000l. this worthy and venerable character was necessitated, by the stoppage of his foreign trade during a dozen years of war, to apply to parliament, in the beginning of 1804, for permission to dispose of the Shakspeare gallery, and his other collections of pictures and prints, by way of lottery. His letter to sir John William Anderson, bart. on the occasion of his introducing a petition for that purpose to the house of commons, is a document of too much curiosity and interest to the feelings to be omitted. We have therefore thrown it into a note.

The act of parliament being passed to sanction this lottery, the worthy alderman had the gratification of living to see every ticket sold. We are, at first sight, inclined to lament that he did not live to see the prizes drawn, and the whole terminated. But for him to have witnessed his gallery transferred to other hands, hesides a number of pictures, for the painting of which he had paid immense sums, scattered like the Sybili’s leaves, might possibly have given him many a heart-rending pang. It may be sufficient in this place to notice that the gallery of paintings, in one lot, and consequently the highest prize, became the property of Mr. Tassie, of Leicester-square, nephew to the late well-known imitator of ancient cameos and intaglios, and by him the pictures were afterwards sold by auction.

"You will excuse, I am sure, my clear Sir, some warmth in an old man on this subject, when I inform you that this unhappy revolution has cut tip by the roots that revenue from the continent which, enabled me to undertake such considerable works in this country. At the same time, as I am laying my case fairly before you, it should not be disguised, that my natural enthusiasm for promoting the fine arts (perhaps buoyed up by success) made me improvident. For had I laid by but ten pounds out of every hundred pounds my -plates produced, I should not now have had occasion to trouble my friends, or appeal to the public; but, on the contrary, I flew with impatience to employ some new artist, with the whole gains of my former undertakings. I see too late my error; for I have thereby decreased my ready money, and increased my stock of copper-plates to such a size, that ait the print-sellers in Europe could not purchase it, especially at these times, so unfavourable to the arts.

"Having thus candidly owned my error, I have but one word to say in extenuation. My receipts from abroad had been so large, and continued so tegular, that I at all times found them fully adequate to support my undertakings at home. I could not calculate on the present crisis, which has totally annihilated them. I certainly calculated on some defalcation of these rec- i;j!s, by a French or Spanish war, or both but with France or Spain I carried on but little commerce. Flanders, Holland, and Germany, (and these countries no doubt supplied the rest of Europe) were the great marts; but, alas! they are now no more. The convulsion that has disjointed and ruined the whole continent I did not foresee I know no man that did. On that head, therefore, though it has nearly ruined me and mine, I can take but little blame to myself.

"I know of no means by which that can be effected, just now, but by a Lottery; and if the legislature will have the goodness to grant a permission for that purpose, they, will at least have the assurance of the even tenour of a long life, that it will be fairly and honourably conducted. The objects of it are my pictures, galleries, drawings, &c. &c. which, unconnected with my copper-plates and trade, are much more than sufficient to pay, if properly disposed of, all I owe in the world.

“I hope you, my dear Sir, and every honest man, at any age, will feel for my anxiety to discharge my debts; but at my advanced age, of eighty-five, I feel it becomes doubly desirable.” I am, Dear Sir, with great regard,

Your obedient and obliged Servant, John Boydell." in his attendance on public business, he arrived at the sessions-house in the Old Bailey, ^n Friday the 7th December, 1804, before any of the other magistrates, and before the fires were lighted. Standing near a grate while this was done, the damps were drawn out, and he took a cold: this produced an inflammation of the lungs, which terminated his life on the Tuesday following. He was interred with great civic pomp (the spontaneous result of private friendship and public respect), on the 19th of the same month, in the church of St. Clave, Jewry; leaving behind him for the instruction of mankind a striking example to what heights of fame and fortune men may attain by the united efforts of persevering industry, prudent enterprize, and honourable dealing.