WOBO: Search for words and phrases in the texts here...

, earl of Pembroke, was born at Wilton in Wiltshire, April 8, 1580, and admitted of Newcollege in Oxford in 1592, where he continued about two years. In 1601, he succeeded to his father’s honours and estate; was made knight of the garter in 1604; and governor of Portsmouth six years after. In 1626 he was elected chancellor of the university of Oxford, and about the same time made lord steward of the king’s houshold. He died suddenly at his house called Baynard’s-castle, in London, April 10, 1630; according, as Wood foolishly says, to the calculation of his nativity, made several years before by Mr. Thomas Allen, of Gloucester-hall. Clarendon, however, seriously relates, concerning this calculation, that some considerable persons connected with lord Pembroke being met at Maidenhead, one of them at supper drank a health to the lord steward: upon which another said, that he believed his lordship was at that time very merry; for he had now outlived the day, which it had been prognosticated upon his nativity he would not outlive; but he had done it now, for that was his birth-day, which had completed his age to fifty years. The next morning, however, they received the news of his death. Mr. Park remarks that had his lordship possessed a credulous mind, it might have been suspected that this astrological prediction had worked upon his feelings, and occasioned a temporary suspension of the animal faculties, which was too hastily concluded to be dissolution; for Mr. Granger states it as an accredited fact in the Pembroke family, that when his lordship’s body was opened in order to be embalmed, he was observed, immediately after the incision was made, to lift up his hand. This remarkable circumstance, adds Granger, compared with lord Clarendon’s account of his sudden death, affords a strong presumptive proof that his distemper was an apoplexy. Lord Pembroke was not only a great favourer of learned and ingenious men, but was himself learned, and endued with a considerable share of poetic genius. All that are extant of his productions in this way, were published with this title: “Poems written by William earl of Pembroke, &c. many of which are answered by way pf repartee by sir Benjamin Rudyard, with other poems written by them occasionally and apart,” 1660," 8vo.

, was a Spanish artist, but although he wrote his own life, the year and place of his birth remain uncertain. He was probably born about 1656, and was living in 1711. At Valencia, he tells us, he was called a Castilian; perhaps he was a Murcian, for in Mtircia he applied first to the art under Villacis and Gilarte: he then travelled to Rome, and under the direction of Giacinto Brand i was making considerable progress, when declining health hastened his return to the milder climate of Valencia, from whence, after a studious residence of some years, he advanced to Madrid, and in 1674 received the commission of decorating the cloisters of S. Felipe el Real with a series of paintings; a labour often interrupted by other numerous avocations, and protracted to 1711: in the twenty-four subjects of this extensive work, he shewed himself master of composition. Garcia was made painter to the court, and knight of S. Miguel, by Philip V.; and by the tribunal of the inquisition appointed censor of public paintings. His exertions in art were chiefly directed to the improvement of style and the acquisition of a classic taste in Spain; with this view he published, in 1691, his “Principios para estudiar el Nobilissimo Arte de la Pintura.”

In 1728, Mr. Hawkins Browne, then of LincolnVinn, who had always a just sense of Highmore’s talents and abilities, addressed to him a poetical epistle “Ou Design and Beauty;” and, some years after, an elegant Latin ode, both now collected in his poems. In the summer of 1732, Mr. Highmore visited the continent, in company with Dr. Pemberton, Mr. Benj. Robins, and two other friends, chiefly with a view of seeing the gallery of pictures belonging to the elector palatine at Dusseldorp, collected by Rubens, and supposed to be the best in Europe. At Antwerp also he had peculiar pleasure in contemplating the works of his favourite master. In their return they visited the principal towns in Holland. In 1734, he made a like excursion, but alone, to Paris, where he received great civilities from some of his countrymen, particularly the duke of Kingston, Dr, Hickman (his tutor), Robert Knight, esq. (the late cashier), &c. Here he had the satisfaction of being shewn, by cardinal de Polignac, his famous group of antique statues, the court of Lycomedes, then just brought from Rome, and since purchased by the king of Prussia, and destroyed at Charlottenbourg, in 1760, by the Russians. In 1742, he had the honour to paint Frederic prince and the princess of Wales, for the duke of Saxe Gotha; as he did some years after, the queen of Denmark, for that court. The publication of Pamela, ia 1744, gave rise to a set of paintings by Mr. Highmore, which were engraved by two French engravers, and published by subscription, in 1745. In the same year ha painted the only original of the late general Wolfe, then about 18. His Pamela introduced him to the acquaintance and friendship of the excellent author, whose picture he drew, and for whom he painted the only original of Dr. Young. In 1750 he had the great misfortune to lose his excellent wife. On the first institution of the Academy of Painting, Sculpture, &c. in 1753, he was elected one of the professors; an honour, which, on account of his many avocations, he desired to decline. In 1754 he published, “A critical examination of those two Paintings [by Rubens] on the cieling of the Banquetting-house at Whitehall, in which architecture is introduced, so far as relates to perspective together with the discussion of a question which has been the subject of debate among painters” printed in 4to, for Nourse. In the solution of this question he proved that Rubens, and several other great painters, were mistaken in the practice, and Mr. Kirby, and several other authors, in the theory and practice: and in the eighteenth volume of the “Monthly Review,” he animadverted (anonymously) on Mr. Kirby’s unwarrantable treatment of Mr. Ware, and detected and exposed his errors, even where he exults in his own superior science. Of the many portraits which Mr. Highmore painted, in an extensive practice of 46 years, (of which several have been engraved), it is impossible and useless to discuss particulars. His principal historical pictures were “Hin;ar and Ishmael,” a present to the Foundling-hospital “The Good Samaritan,” painted for Mr. Shepherd of Cainpsey Ash “The fin ding of Moses,” purchasedathis sale by gen. Lister: “The Harlowe Family,” as described in “Cianssn,” in the possession of Tiiomas Watkinson Payler, esq. at Heden in Kent: “Clarissa,” the portrait mentioned in that work “The Graces unveiling Nature,” drawn by memory from Rubens “The Clementina of Grandison,” and “the ^iueen-mother of Edward IV. with her younger son, &c. in Westminster-abbey:” the three last in the possession of his son.

, knight, lord chief justice of the court of King’s-bench in the reign of king William, was son of sir Thomas Holt, knight, serjeant at law; and born at Thame in Oxfordshire, 1642. He was educated at Abingdon-school, while his father was recorder of that town; and afterwards became a gentleman -commoner of Orielcollege, Oxford. In 1658 he entered himself of Gray’sinn, before he took a degree; some time after which he was called to the bar, where he attended constantly, and soon became a very eminent barrister. In the reign of James II. he was made recorder of London, which office he discharged with much applause for about a year and a half; but refusing to give his hand towards abolishing the test, and to expound the law according to the king’s design, he was removed from his place. In 1686 he was called to the degree of a serjeant at law, with many others. On the arrival of the prince of Orange, he was chosen a member of the convention parliament; and appointed one of the managers for the commons at the conferences held with the lords, about the abdication and the vacancy of the throne. He had here an opportunity of displaying his abilities; and as soon as the government was settled, he was made lord chief justice of the court of King’s-bench, and admitted into the king’s privy-council.

He married Anne, daughter of sir John Cropley, bart. whom he left without issue; and died in March 1709, after a lingering illness, in his 68th year. The following reports were published by himself, in 1708, fol. with some notes of his own upon them: “A Report of divers Cases in Pleas of the Crown, adjudged and determined, in the reign of the late King Charles the Second, with directions for justices of the peace, and others, collected by sir John Key ling, knight, late lord chief justice of his Majesty’s court of King’s-bench, from the original manuscript under his own hand. To which is added, The Report of three modern Cases, viz. Armstrong and Lisle; the King and Plumer; the Queen and Mawgridge.” A second edition was pretendedly published in 1739, but the title only was new.

Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, was the eldest son of Thomas, the third duke of Norfolk, lord high treasurer of England in the reign of Henry VIII. by Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Stafford, duke of Buckingham. He was born either at his father’s seat at Framlingham, in Suffolk, or in the city of Westminster, and being a child of great hopes, all imaginable care was taken of his education. When he was very young he was companion, at Windsor castle, with Henry Fitzroy, duke of Richmond, natural son to Henry VIII. and afterwards student in Cardinal college, now Christ Church, Oxford. In 1532 he was with the duke of Richmond at Paris, and continued there for some time in the prosecution of his studies, and learning the French language; and upon the death of that duke in July 1536, travelled into Germany, where he resided some time at the emperor’s court, and thence went to Florence, where he fell in love with the fair Geraldine, the great object of his poetical addresses, and in the grand duke’s court published a challenge against all who should dispute her beauty; which challenge being accepted, he came oft victorious. For this approved valour, the duke of Florence made him large offers to stay with him; but he refused them because he intended to defend the honour of his Geraldine in all the chief cities of Italy. But this design of his was diverted by letters sent to him by king Henry VIII. recalling him to England. He left Italy, therefore, where he had cultivated his poetical genius by the reading of the greatest writers of that country, and returned to his own country, where he was considered a one of the first of the English nobility, who adorned his high birth with the advantages of a polite taste and extensive literature. On the first of May, 1540, he was one of the chief of those who justed at Westminster, as a defendant, against sir John Dudley, sir Thomas Seymour, and other challengers, where he behaved himself with admirable courage, and great skill in the use of his arms, and, in 1542, served in the army, of which his father was lieutenant-genera!, and which, in October that year, entered Scotland, and burnt divers villages. In February or March following, he was confined to Windsor castle for eating flesh in Lent, contrary to the king’s proclamation of the 9th of February 1542. In 1544, upon the expedition to Boulogne, in France, he was field-marshal of the English army; and after taking that town, being then knight of the garter, he was in the beginning of September 1545, constituted the king’s lieutenant and captain-general of all his army within the town and country of Boulogne. During his command there in 1546, hearing that a convoy of provisions of the enemy was coming to the fort at Oultreau, he resolved to intercept it; but the Rhingrave, with' four thdusand Lanskinets, together with a considerable number of French under the marshal de Blez, making an obstinate defence, the Englisii were routed, anil sir Edward Poynings, with divers other gentlemen, killed, and the earl of Surrey himself obliged to fly; though it appears by a letter of his to the king, dated January 8, 1545-6, that this advantage cost the enemy a great number of men. But the king was so highly displeased with this ill success, that, from that time he contracted a prejudice against the earl, and, soon after, removed him from his command, appointing the earl of Hertford to succeed him. On this sir William Paget wrote to the earl of Surrey to advise him to procure some eminent post under the earl of Hertford, that he might not be unprovided in the town and field. The earl being desirous, in the mean time, to regain his former favour with the king, skirmished against the French, and routed them; but, soon after, writing over to the king’s council, that as the enemy had cast much larger cannon than had been yet seen, with which they imagined they should soon demolish Boulogne, it deserved consideration, whether the lower town should stand, as not being defensible, the council ordered him to return to England, in order to represent his sentiments more fully upon those points, and the earl of Hertford was immediately sent over in his room. This exasperating the earl of Surrey, occasioned him to let fall some expressions which savoured of revenge, and a dislike of the king, and an hatred of his counsellors; and was, probably, one great cause of his ruin soon after. His father, the duke of Norfolk, had endeavoured to ally himaelf to the earl of Hertford, and to his brother, sir Thomas Seymour, perceiving how much they were in the king’s favour, and how great an interest they were likely to have under the succeeding prince; and therefore he would have engaged his son, being then a widower (having lost his wife Frances, daughter of John earl of Oxford), to marry the earl of Hertford’s daughter, and pressed his daughter, the duchess of Richmond, widow of the king’s natural son, to marry sir Thomas Seymour. But though the earl of Surrey advised his sister to the marriage projected for her, yet he would nol consent to that designed for himself; nor did the proposition about himself take effect. The Seymours could not but perceive the enmity which the earl bore them; and they might well be jealous of the greatness of the Howard family, which was not only too considerable for subjects, of itself, but was raised so high by the dependence of th whole popish party, both at home and abroad, that they were likely to be very dangerous competitors for the chief government of affairs, if the king should die, whose disease was now growing so fast upon him that he could not live many weeks. Nor is it improbable, that they persuaded the king, that, if the earl of Surrey should marry the princess Mary, it might embroil his son’s government, and, perhaps, ruin him. And it was suggested that he had some such high project in his thoughts, both by his continuing unmarried, and by his using the arms of Edward the Confessor, which, of late, he had given in his coat without a diminution. To complete the duke of Norfolk’s and his son’s ruin, his duchess, who had complained of his using her ill, and had been separated from him about four years, turned informer against him. And the earl and his sister, the duchess dowager of Richmond, being upon ill terms together, she discovered all she knew against him; as likewise did one Mrs. Holland, for whom the duke was believed to have had an unlawful affection. But all these discoveries amounted only to some passionate expressions of the son, and some complaints of the father, who thought he was not beloved by the king and his counsellors, and that he was ill used in not being trusted with the secret of affairs. However, all persons being encouraged to bring informations against them, sir Richard Southwel charged the earl of Surrey in some points of an higher nature; which the earl denied, and desired to be admitted, according to the martial law, to fight, in his shirt, with sir Richard. But, that not being granted, he and his father were committed prisoners to the Tower on the 12th of December 1546; and the earl, being a commoner, was brought to his trial in Guildhall, on the 13th of January following, Jbefore the lord chancellor, the lord mayor, and other commissioners; where he defended himself with great skill and address, sometimes denying the accusations, and weakening the credit of the witnesses against him, and sometimes interpreting the words objected to him in a far different sense from what had been represented. For the point of bearing the arms of Edward the Confessor, he justified himself by the authority of the heralds. And when a witness was produced, who pretended to repeat some high words of his lordship’s, by way of discourse, which concerned him nearly, and provoked the witness to return him a braving answer; the qarl left it to the jury to judge whether it was probable that this man should speak thus to him, and he not strike him again. In conclusion, he insisted upon his innocence, but was found guilty, and had sentence of death passed upon him. He was beheaded on Tower-hill on the 19th of January 1546-7; and his body interred in the church of All Hallows Barking, and afterwards removed to Framlingham, in Suffolk.

"It is not precisely known at what period the earl of Surrey began his travels. They have the air of a romance. He made the tour of Europe in the true spirit of chivalry, and with the ideas of an Amadis: proclaiming the unparalleled charms of his mistress, and prepared to defend the cause of her beauty with the weapons of knight-errantry. Nor was this adventurous journey performed without the intervention of an enchanter. The first city in Italy which he proposed to visit was Florence, the capital of Tuscany, and the original seat of the ancestors of his Geraidine. In his way thither, he passed a few days at the emperor’s court ^ where he became acquainted with Cornelius Agrippa, a celebrated adept in natural magic. This visionary philosopher shewed our hero, in a mirror of glass, a living image of Geraidine, reclining on a couch, sick, and reading one of his most tender sonnets by a waxen taper. His imagination, which wanted not the flattering F represeniations and artificial incentives of illusion, was heated anew by this interesting and affecting spectacle. Inflamed wiih every enthusiasm of the most romantic passion, he hastened to Florence and on his arrival, immediately published a defiance against any person who could handle a lance and was in love, whether Christian, Jew, Turk, Saracen, or Canibal, who should presume to dispute the superiority of Geraldine’s beauty. As the lady was pretended to be of Tuscan extraction, the pride of the Flo-, rentines was flattered on this occasion: and the grand duke of Tuscany permitted a general and unmolested ingress into his dominions of the combatants of all countries, till this important trial should be decided. The challenge was accepted, and the earl victorious. The shield which he presented to the duke before the tournament began, is exhibited in Vertue’s valuable plate of the Arundel family, and was actually in the possession of the late duke of Norfolk.

It is truly wonderful that lord Orford and Mr. Warton, delighted as they were with the “romantic air” of lord Surrey’s travels, should by any enchantment have been prevented from inquiring whether the events which they have placed between 1536 and 1546, when lord Surrey died, were at all consistent with probability. Had they made the slightest inquiry into the age of lord Surrey, although the precise year and day of his birth might not have been recoverable, they could not have failed to obtain such information as would have thrown a suspicion on the whole story of his knight-errantry.

Mr. Warton observes, that “it is not precisely known at what period the earl of Surrey began his travels;” but this is a matter of little consequence in refuting the account usually given of those travels, because all his biographers are agreed that he did not set out before 1536, At this time he had ten years only of life before him, which have been filled up in a very extraordinary manner. First, he travels over a part of Europe, vindicating the beauty of Geraldine in 1540 he is celebrated at the justs at Westminster in 1542 he goes to Scotland with his father’s army in 1543 (probably) he is imprisoned for eating flesh in lent ^in 1544 5, he is commander at Boulogne and lastly, amidst all these romantic adventures, or serious events, he has leisure to marry the daughter of the earl of Oxford, and beget five children, which we may suppose would occupy at least five or six of the above ten years, and those not the last five or six years, for we find him a widower a considerable time before his death. Among other accusations whispered in the ear of his jealous sovereign, one was his continuing unmarried (an expression which usually denotes a considerable length of time) after the period when a second marriage might be decent, in order that he might marry the princess Mary, in the event of the king’s death, and so disturb the succession of Edward. The placing of these events in this series would render the story of his knight-errantry sufficiently improbable, were we left without any information respecting the date of Surrey’s marriage, but that event renders the whole impossible, if we wish to preserve any respect for the consistency of his character. Surrey was actually married before the commencement of his travels in pursuit or in defence of Geraldine’s beauty. His eldest son, Thomas, third duke of Norfolk, was eighteen years old when his grandfather died in 1554. He was consequently born in 1536, and his father, it is surely reasonable to suppose, was married in 1535. It would, therefore, be unnecessary to examine the story of Surrey’s romantic travels any farther, if we had not some collateral authorities which may still show that whatever may be wrong in the present statement, it is certain that there is nothing right in the common accounts, which have been read and copied without any suspicion.

If it be said that Surrey’s age is not exactly known, and therefore allowing 1536, the date of his travels, to be erroneous, it is possible that he might have been enamoured of Geraldine long before this, and it is possible that his travels might have commenced in 1526, or any other period founded on this new conjecture. This, however, is as improbable as all the rest of the story, for it can be decidedly proved that there was no time for Surrey’s gallantries towards Geraldine, except the period which his biographers, however absurdly, have assigned, namely, when he was a married man. The father of lady Elizabeth, the supposed Geraldine, married in 1519, one of the daughters of Thomas Grey, marquis of Dorset, and by her had five children, of whom Elizabeth was the fourth, and therefore probably not born before 1523 or 1524. If Surrey’s courtship, therefore, must be carried farther back, it must be carried to the nursery; for even in 1536, when we are told he was her knight-errant, she could not have been more than eleven or twelve years old. Let us add to this a few particulars respecting Geraldine’s husband. She married Edward lord C'linton. He was born in 1512, was educated in the court, and passed his youth in those magnificent and romantic amusements which distinguished the beginning of Henry VIII.'s reign, but did not appear as a public character until 1544, when he was thirty-two years of age, Geraldine about twenty-four, and Surrey within two years of his death, and most probably a widower. This earl of Lincoln had three wives; the date of his marriage with any of them is not known, nor how long they lived, but Geraldine was the third, the only one by whom he had no children, and who survived his death, which took place in 1584, thirty-eight years after the death of Surrey. Mr. Warton, in his earnest desire to connect her with Surrey, insinuates that she might have been either cruel, or that her “ambition prevailed so far over her gratitude as to tempt her to prefer the solid glories of a more splendid title and ample fortune, to the challenges and the compliments of so magnanimous, so faithful, and so eloquent a lover.” On this it is only necessary to remark, that the lady’s ambition might have been as highly gratified by marrying the accomplished and gallant Surrey, the heir of the duke of Norfolk, as by allying herself to a nobleman of inferior talents and rank. But of his two conjectures, Mr. Warton seems most to adhere to that of cruelty^ for he adds, that “Surrey himgelf outlived his amorous vows, and married the daughter of the earl of Oxford.” This, however, is as little deserving of serious examination, as the ridiculous story of Cornelius Agrippa showing Geraldine in a glass, which Anthony Wood found in Drayton’s “Heroical Epistle,” or probably, as Mr. Park thinks, took it from Nash’s fanciful “Life of Jack Wilton,” published in 1594, where, under the character of his hero, he professes to have travelled to the emperor’s court as page to the earl of Surrey. But it is unfortunate for this story, wheresoever borrowed, that Agrippa was no more a conjurer than any other learned man of his time, and that he died at Grenoble the year before Surrey is said to have set out on his romantic expedition. Drayton has made a similar mistake in giving to Surrey, as one of the companions of his voyage, the great sir Thomas More, who was beheaded in 1535, a year likewise before Surrey set out. Poetical authorities, although not wholly to be rejected, are of all others to be received with the greatest caution, yet it was probably Drayton’s “Heroical Epistle” which led Mr. Warton into so egregious a blunder as that of our poet being present at Flodden-field, in 1513. Dr. Sewell, indeed, in the short memoirs prefixed to his edition of Surrey’s Poems, asserts the same; tut little credit is due to the assertion -of a writer who at the same time fixes Surrey’s birth in 1520, seven years after that memorable battle was fought.

, earl of Nottingham, lord high admiral of England, was son of William lord Howard of Effingliam, and grandson of Thomas second duke of Norfolk/ He was born in 1536, and initiated early into the affairs of state, being sent in 1559, on the death of Henry II. king of France, with a compliment or condolence to his successor Francis II. and to congratulate him on "his accession to the throne, &c. On his return he was elected one of the knights of the shire for the county of Surrey in 1562, and in 1569 was general of the horse under the earl of Warwick, in the army sent against the earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, then in rebellion. The year following he went with a fleet of men of war to convoy the princess Anne of Austria, daughter of the emperor Maximilian, going into Spain, over the British seas; and in 1573, upon the death of his father, succeeded him in honours and estate. The same year he was installed knight of the garter, and likewise made lord chamberlain of the household; and in 1585 constituted lord high admiral of England.

, an English writer of some abilities and learning, born Jan. 1626, was a younger son of Thomas earl of Berkshire, and educated at Magdalen college, Cambridge. During the civil war he suffered with his family, who adhered to Charles I. but at the Restoration was made a knight, and chosen for Stockbridge in Hampshire, to serve in the parliament which began in May 1661. He was afterwards made auditor of the exchequer, and was reckoned a creature of Charles II. whom the monarch advanced on account of his faithful services, in cajoling the parliament for money. In 1679 he was chosen to serve in parliament for Castle Rising in Norfolk; and re-elected for the same place in 1688. He was a strong advocate for the Revolution, and became so passionate an abhorrer of the nonjurors, that he disclaimed all manner of conversation and intercourse with persons of that description. His obstinacy and pride procured him many enemies, and among them the duke of Buckingham; who intended to have exposed him under the name of Bilboa in the “Rehearsal,” but afterwards altered his resolution, and levelled his ridicule at a much greater name, under that of Bayes. He was so extremely positive, and so sure of being in the right upon every subject, that Shadwell the poet, though a man of the same principles, could not help ridiculing him in his comedy of the “Sullen Lovers,” under the character of Sir Positive At-all. Jn the same play there is a lady Vaine, a courtezan which the wits then understood to be the mistress of sir Robert, whom he afterwards married. He died Sept. 3, 1698. He published, 1. “Poems and Plays.” 2. “The History of the Reigns of Edward and Richard II. with reflections and characters of their chief ministers and favourites; also a comparison of these princes with Edward I. and III.” 1690, 8vo. 3. “A letter to Mr. Samuel Johnson, occasioned by a scurrilous pamphlet, entitled Animadversions on Mr. Johnson’s answer to Jovian,” 1692, 8vo. 4. “The History of Religion,” 1694, 8vo. 5. “The fourth book of Virgil translated,” 1660, 8vo. 6. “Statius’s Achilleis translated,” 1660, 8vo.

, a relation of the preceding, was the younger brother of sir Scroop Howe, of Nottinghamshire. In the convention-parliament, which met at Westminster Jan. 22, 1688-9, he served for Cirencester, and was constantly chosen for that borough, or as a knight of the shire for the county of Gloucester, in the three last parliaments of king William, and in the three first of queen Anne. In 1696 he was a strenuous advocate for sir John Fenwick; and his pleading in behalf of that unfortunate gentleman, shews his extensive knowledge of the laws, and aversion to unconstitutional measures. In 1699, when the army was reduced, it was principally in consideration of Mr. Howe’s remonstrances, that the House of Commons agreed to allow half-pay to the disbanded officers; and when the partition-treaty was afterwards under the consideration of that house, he expressed his sentiments of it in guch terms, that king William declared, that if it were not foi the disparity of their rank, he would demand satisfaction with the sword. At the accession of queen Anne, he was sworn of her privy-council April 21, 1702; and, on June 7 following, constituted vice-admiral of the county of Gloucester. Before the end of that year, Jan. 4, 1702-3, he was constituted paymaster-general of her majesty’s guards and garrisons. Macky says of him, “he seemed to be pleased with and joined in the Revolution, and was made vice-chamberlain to queen Mary; but having asked a grant, which was refused him, and given to lord Portland, he fell from the court, and was all that reign the most violent and open antagonist king William had in the house. A great enemy to foreigners settling in England; most clauses in acts against them being brought in by him. He is indefatigable in whatever he undertakes; witness the old East India company, whose cause he maintained till he> fixed it upon as sure a foot as the new, even when they thought themselves past recovery. He lives up” to what his visible estate can afford; yet purchases, instead of running in debt. He is endued with good natural parts, attended with an unaccountable boldness; daring to say what he pleases, and will be heard out; so that he passeth with some for the shrew of the house. On the queen’s accession to the throne he was made a privy-counsellor, and paymaster of the guards and garrisons. He is a tall, thin, pale-faced man, with a very wild look; brave in his person, bold in expressing himself, a violent enemy, a sure friend, and seems to be always in a hurry. Near fifty years old." Such is the character given of this gentleman in 1703. A new privy council being settled May 10, 1708, according to act of parliament, relating to the union of the two kingdoms, he was, among the other great officers, sworn into it. He continued paymaster of the guards and garrisons till after the accession of George I. who appointed Mr. Walpole to succeed him on Sept. 23, 1714: the privy council being also dissolved, and a new one appointed to meet on Oct. 1 following, he was left out of the list. Retiring to his seat at Stowell in Gloucestershire, he died there in 1721, and was buried in the chancel of the church of Stowell.

Lastly, he published, in 1649, “The late King’s Declaration in Latin, French, and English:” and in 1651, “Cottoni Posthuma, or divers choice Pieces of that renowned antiquary sir Robert Cotton, knight and baronet,” in 8vo. The print of him prefixed to some of his works was taken from a painting which is now at Landeilo house, in Monmouthshire, the seat of Richard Lewis, esq.

, a learned English critic, was born at Widehope, near Cockermouth, in Cumberland, 1662; and, after having been educated in grammar and classical learning by Jerome Hechstetter, who lived in that neighbourhood, was entered in 1676 of Queen’s-college, Oxford. Soon after he had taken the degree of M. A. in 1684, he removed to University-college, of which he was unanimously chosen fellow in March 1686, and became a most considerable and esteemed tutor. In April 1701, on the resignation of Dr. Thomas Hyde, he was elected principal keeper of the Bodleian library; and in June following, accumulated the degrees of B. and D. D. With this librarian’s place, which he held till his death, he kept his fellowship till June 1711, when, according to the statutes of the college, he would have been obliged to resign it; but he had just before disqualified himself for holding it any longer, by marrying Margaret, daughter of sir Robert Harrison, knight, an alderman of Oxford, and a mercer. In 1712, he was appointed principal of St. Maryby the chancellor of the university, through the interest of Dr. Radcliffe; and it is said, that to Hudson’s interest with^this physician, the university of Oxford is obliged for the very ample benefactions she afterwards received from him. Hudson’s studious and sedentary way of life, and extreme abstemiousness, brought him at length into a bad habit of body, which turning to a dropsy, kept him about a year in a very languishing condition. He died Nov. 27, 1719, leaving a widow, and one daughter.

“I remember when I was a scholar at Trin. Coll. Oxon. 1646, I heard Mr. Ralph Bathurst (now dean of Welles) say, that Ben: Johnson was a Warwyckshire man. ‘Tis agreed that his father was a minister; and by his epistle D. D. of Every Man to Mr. W. Camden, that he was a Westminster scholar, and that Mr. W. Camden was his schoolmaster. His mother, after his father’s death, married a bricklayer, and ’tis generally said that he wrought for some time with his father-in-lawe, and particularly on the garden wall of Lincoln’s inne next to Chancery lane; and that a knight, a bencher, walking thro‘, and hearing him repeat some Greeke verses out of Homer, discoursing with him and finding him to have a witt extraordinary, gave him some exhibition to maintain him at Trinity college in Cambridge, where he was: then he went into the Lowe Countryes, and spent some time, not very long, in the armie; not to the disgrace of [it], as you may find in his Epigrames. Then he came into England, and acted and wrote at the Greene Curtaine, but both ill; a kind of nursery or obscure playhouse somewhere in the suburbs (I think towards Shoreditch or Clerkenwell). Then he undertook again to write a play, and did hitt it admirably well, viz. Evtry Man which was his first good one. Sergeant Jo. Hoskins of Herefordshire was his Father. I remember his sonne (sir Bennet Hoskins, baronet, who was something poetical in his youth) told me, that when he desired to be adopted his sonne, No, sayd he, ’tis honour enough for me to be your brother I am your father’s sonne 'twas he that polished me I do acknowledge it. He was (or rather had been) of a clear and faire skin. His habit was very plain. I have heard Mr. Lacy the player say, that he was wont to weare a coate like a coachman’s coate, with slitts under the arm-pitts. He would many times exceede in drinke: Canarie was his beloved liquour: then he would tumble home to bed; and when he had thoroughly perspired, then to studie. I have seen his studyeing chaire, which was of strawe, such as old women used: and as Aulus Gellius is drawn in. When I was in Oxon: Bishop Skinner (Bp. of Oxford) who lay at our college was wont to say, that he understood an author as well as any man in England. He mentions in his Epigrames, a son that he had, and his epitaph. Long since in king James time, I have heard my uncle Davers (Danvers) say, who knew him, that he lived without Temple Barre at a combe- maker’s shop about the Elephant’s castle. In his later time he lived in Westminster, in the house under which you passe as you go out of the church-yard into the old palace; where he dyed. He lyes buried in the north-aisle, the path square of stones, the rest is lozenge, opposite to the scutcheon of Robert de Ros, with this inscription only on him, in a pavement square of blue marble, 14 inches square, O Rare Ben: Jonson: which was done at the charge of Jack Young, afterwards knighted, who walking there when the grave was covering, gave the fellow eighteen pence to cutt it.”

, a learned Spanish mathematician, knight of Malta, and commander of the band of gentlemen marine guards, was chosen, with Ulloa, to attend the French academicians, who went to Peru', for the purpose of measuring a degree on the meridian, in order to determine the earth’s figure. They embarked May 26, 1735. Ulloa undertook the historical part of the voyage, which appeared translated into French, Amsterdam, 1752, 2 vols. 4to; and D. George Juan the astronomical part, who accordingly published a large work on the earth’s figure, printed in Spanish. On his return he went to Paris, 171 where the academy of sciences admitted him a member. He died at Madrid, 1773, leaving several works in Spanish on naval affairs, a translation of which would be useful.

, nephew of the above, was born at Venice in 1408. He pursued his first studies under Guarini of Verona, and continued them at Padua, where he took his doctor’s degree. Notwithstanding he put on the senator’s robe at the age of nineteen, yet he still prosecuted his studies under Francis Philelphi and George de Trebisonde, whom he took into his house, and retained there, till pope Calixtus III. sent for him to Rome, and employed him in several commissions. Upon his return to Venice, he was sent ambassador to Lewis XI. of France, who made him a knight in 1461. He went afterwards several times ambassador to Rome from the republic; and, in 1467, was made commandant of Padua. He afterwards became a member of the council of ten, and bore the dignity of Sage Grand no hers than twenty times. In 1474, he was elected procurator of St. Mark, a post next to that of doge. He died in 1489.

Dr. Knight, whose attention appears to have been much directed to literary and ecclesiastical history, was an useful assistant to many authors of his time, and his assistance was acknowledged by Peck, Grey, Ward, and others. He had made collections for the lives of bishops Grosseteste, Overal, and Patrick. Whiston had the latter, which is probably in the hands of his grandson, Samuel Knight, esq. His own publications were the “Life of Erasmus,” 1724, 8vo, and of “Dean Colet,” 1726, 8vo. Neither of these are written with much animation or elegance, but they contain many curious and useful materials, and are now sold at very high prices, especially the Erasmus, on account of the numerous and well-engraven portraits and plates.

, author of an excellent History of the Turks, was born in Northamptonshire, and educated at Oxford, where he was admitted about 1560; but we are not told of what college, though it is said he was, after taking his degrees, chosen fellow of Lincoln college. When he had continued there some time, Sir Peter Manwood, of St. Stephen’s near Canterbury, “minding to be a favourer of his studies,” says Wood, “called him from the university, and preferred him to be master of the free-school at Sandwich in Kent,” where he applied himself with diligence, and produced many good scholars for the universities. For their use he composed “Grammaticae Latinae, Graccae, & Hebraicse, compendium, cum radicibus,” Lond. 1600: but his fame rests chiefly on his “History of the Turks,” which was first printed in 1610, folio, and which was the labour of twelve years. In the latter editions of this book, for there have been several, it has this title “The general History of the Turks, from the first beginning of that Nation, to the rising of the Ottoman Family,” &c. Some have suggested, that Knolles was not the sole author of this history, because there appear in it several translations from Arabic histories, which language they affirmed him not to have known: but such conjectures are not sufficient to deprive him of the credit which justly attends the work. It has been continued, since Knolles’s death, by several hands. One continuation was made, from the year 1628 to the end of 1637, collected out of the dispatches of sir Peter Wyche, knight, ambassador at Constantinople. But the best continuation of the Turkish history is made by Paul Ricaut, esq. consul of Smyrna, from 1623 to 1677, printed at London, 1680, in folio. Hicaut began his “History of the Turkish Empire,” from a period earlier than Knolles had left off; for he tells us, in his preface to the reader, that “the reign of sultan Amurat, being imperfectly written in Knolles’s history, consisting, for the most part, of abrupt collections, he had thought fit, for the better completing the reign of the sultan, and the whole body of our Turkish history, to deliver all the particular transactions thereof with his own pen.”

, an ancient Roman knight, who excelled in writing Mimes, or little satirical productions for the stage, died in 46 A. C. Though in his time men of birth made no scruple to furnish entertainments of the theatrical kind, yet it was highly disgraceful to represent them in their own persons. Julius Caesar, however, ordered Laberius to act one of his own Mimes; and though he made all the opposition he could, yet Caesar compelled him. The prologue to the piece is still extant, and Rollin thinks it one of the most beautiful morsels of antiquity. Laberius bemoans himself for the necessity he was under in a very affecting manner, but in the course of the piece glances several strokes of satire at Caesar, which were so well understood as to direct the eyes of the spectators upon him. Coesar, by way of revenge, gave the preference to Publius Syrius, who was his rival upon the same theatre; yet, when the Mimes were over, presented him with a ring, as if to re-establish him in his rank. The very small fragments which remain of Laberius, have been often collected and printed with those of Ennius, Lucilius, Publius Syrus, &c. The prologue above-mentioned is preserved in Aulus Gellius, and there is a good version of it in Beloe’s translation of that author.

, knt. lord chief baron of the exchequer, was born in the latter part of the sixteenth century, and was the son of Richard Lane of Courtenhall in Northamptonshire, by Elizabeth his wife, daughter of Clement Vincent of Harpole, in the same county. He studied law in the Middle Temple, with great success, and being called to the bar, became eminent in his profession. In the 5th Charles I. he was elected Lent reader of his inn, but the plague which broke out about that time, prevented his reading. In 1640 he was counsel for the unhappy earl of Strafford; and soon after was made attorney to prince Charles. As the Long-parliament grew more capricious and tyrannical in its proceedings, he began to be alarmed for his property, and entrusted his intimate friend Buistrode Whitlocke, with his chamber in the Middle Temple, his goods and library; and leaving London, joined the king at Oxford, where, in 1643, he was made serjeant at law, lord chief baron of the exchequer, a knight, and one of his majesty’s privy council. The university also conferred on him the degree of LL. D. “with more,” says Wood, “than ordinary ceremony.” In the latter end of the following year, he was nominated one of his majesty’s commissioners to treat of peace with the parliament at Uxbridge, and on Aug. 30, 1645, he had the great seal delivered to him at Oxford, on the death of Edward lord Littleton. In May and June 1646, he was one of the commissioners appointed to treat with the parliament for the surrender of the garrison of Oxford, apd soon alter went abroad to avoid the general persecution of the royalists which the parliament meditated. He died in the island of Jersey in 1650, or 1651, Wood tells a strange story of the fate of the goods he entrusted to Whitlocke. He says, that during sir Richard’s residence abroad, lm son applied to Whitlocke, who would not own that he knew such a man as sir Richard, and kept the goods. That this story is not without foundation, appears from Whitlocke’s receipt for his pension, &c. printed by Peck, to which he adds, “And I have likewise obtained some bookes and manuscripts, which were the lord Littleton’s; and some few bookes and manuscripts, which were sir Richard Lane’s; in all worth about So/.” Sir Richard Lane’s “Reports in the court of Exchequer in the reign of king James,” were published in 1657, folio.

In 1726, he published his “Nummi Britan. Historia, or Historical Account of English Money.” A new edition, with large additions, was printed in 1745, dedicated to the duke of Suffolk. It is much to Mr. Leake’s honour, that he was the first writer upon the English coinage. From affectionate gratitude to admiral sir John Leake, and at the particular desire of his father, he had written a history of the life of that admiral, prepared from a great collection of books and papers relating to the subject which were in his possession. This he published in 1750, in large octavo. Fifty copies only were printed, to be given to his friends: this book is therefore very scarce and difficult to be obtained. Bowyer, in 1766, printed for him fifty copies of the Statutes of the Order of St. George, to enable him to supply each knight at his installation with one, as he was required to do officially. Ever attentive to promote science, he was constantly adding to the knowledge of arms, decents, honors, precedency, the history of the college, and of the several persons who had been officers of arms, and every other subject in any manner connected with his office. He also wrote several original essays on some of those subjects. These multifarious collections are contained in upward of fifty volumes, all in his own handwriting; which ms., with many others, he bequeathed to his son, John-Martin Leake, esq. He married Ann, youngest daughter, and at length sole- heiress of Fletcher Pervall, esq. of Downton, in the parish and county of Radnor, by Ann his wife, daughter of Samuel Hoole of London, by whom he had nine children, six sons and three daughters; all of whom survived him. He died at his seat at Mile-end at Middlesex, March 24, 1773, in the seventieth year of his age, and was buried in the chancel of Thorpe Soken church in Essex, of which parish he was long impropriator, and owner of the seat of Thorpe-hall, and the estate belonging to it, inheriting them from his father.

, a learned French writer, who spent a long life in the study of history and general literature, was born at Paris, March 28, 1736. Of his private life we have no account; and our authority apologizes for this by assuring us that it contained none of those incidents that are interesting in biography, and that he was known only by his numerous publications. He was, however, in the course of his life, professor of morals and history in the college of France, a member of the old academy of inscriptions and belles-lettres, a member of the institute of the class of ancient history, and a knight of the legion of honour. He died at Paris, March 12, 1812, leaving the following proofs of his talents and industry. 1. “Le reves d‘Aristobule, philosophe Grec, suivis d’un abrege de la vie de Formose, philosophe Francais,” Paris, 1761, 12mo. 2. “Choix-de poesies de Petrarque,” translated from the Italian, 1774, 8vo, reprinted in 1787, 2 vols. 12mo. This translation is faithful, but wants the spirit and graces of the original. 3. “L'homme moral,” Amst. 1775, a work which has been often reprinted, and is said to have been written at Petersburgh, for the use of the Russian youth. Its object seems to be to take a survey of man in the savage and social state, and during all the modifications of the latter; and its contents are a series of remarks on all subjects connected with happiness, not always profound, but often striking, lively, and agreeable. From its being printed oftener in Holland than in France, it is probable that this work, as well as the following, was written with more freedom of sentiment than was then agreeable. 4. “L‘homme pensant, ou Essai sur l’histoire de l'esprit humain,” Amst. 1779, 12mo. 5. “Histoire de Russie,” Paris, 1785, 5 vols. 12mo. This is esteemed a very accurate sketch of Russian history and was followed by a sequel, 6. “Histoire des differens peuples soumis a la domination des Russes,” 2 vols. Both were reprinted in 1800, with a continuation to the end of the reign of Catherine, 8 vols. 8vo. In this last, he offers a very able vindication of the conduct of that empress in the early part of her reign. 7. “Eloge historique de l'abbé Mably,” Paris, 1787, 8vo. This obtained the prize of the academy of inscriptions and belles lettres. 8. “La France sous les cinq premier Valois,” Paris, 1788, 4 vols. 12mo. 9. “Dictionnaire des arts, de peinture, sculpture, et gravure,” Paris, 1792, 5 vols. 8vo. He compiled this dictionary in conjunction with Watelet, to whom our authority attributes the principal merit of it. 10. A translation, highly praised, of “Thucydides,” Paris, 1795, 4 vols. 4to. Levesque also contributed various essays to the memoirs of the institute, and wrote many of the articles in that collection of the ancient moralists which was published by Didot and Debure. Not long before his death he published “L‘etude de l’histoire de la Grece,” 4 vols. 8vo; not, as is said, a learned work, but a popular introduction to the knowledge of Grecian history.

In 1609, being then a knight, sir James was made the king’s attorney in the court of wards. In 1620 he was created a baronet; in 1621, chief justice of the court of king’s bench, England; and in 1625, lord high treasurer. From this office he was removed, under pretence of his great age, to make room for sir Richard VVeston. Lord Clarendon seems to intimate that his disability as well as age might be the cause, and that upon these accounts there was little reverence shewn towards him. This, however, is scarcely reconcileable with the honours bestowed on him immediately afterwards, for he was not only created baron Ley, and earl of Marlborough, but soon after made president of the council. Lloyd says he had better abilities for a judge than a statesman. He died at Lincoln’sinn, March 14, 1628, and was buried in the church at Westbury, where a sumptuous monument was erected to his memory. We have noticed his attention to Irish history while in that country. Lloyd has given us another trait of his character while there, which is highly honourable to him. “Here he practised the charge king James gave him at his going over (yea, what his own tender conscience gave himself), namely, not to build his estate upon the ruins of a miserable nation, hut aiming, by the impartial execution of justice, not to enrich himself, but civilize the people. But the wise king would no longer lose him out of his own land, and therefore recalled him home about the time when his father’s inheritance, by the death of his five elder brethren, descended upon him.”

In the reign of Henry VIII. indeed, he appears to have Stood above all rivalship at the head of his profession; and he evinced his attachment to its interests, as well as to the public good, by various acts; but especially by founding two lectures on physic in the university of Oxford, and one in that of Cambridge. That at Oxford was left to Merton college, and the Cambridge lecture was given to St. John’s, at which college it is said by Wood and Knight that Linacre studied for some time. The endowment of both is the manor of Tracys, or Tracies, in Kent; but although he bequeathed these at his death in 1524, and the lectures were actually read even in his life-time, they were not established until December 1549, by Tunstall, bishop of Durham. Linacre also may be reputed the founder of the royal college of physicians in London. Regretting that there was no proper check upon illiterate monks and empirics, licences being easily obtained by improper persons, when the bishops were authorised to examine and license practitioners in an art of which they could not be competent judges, Linacre obtained letters patent in 1518 from Henry VIII. constituting a corporate body of regularly bred physicians in London, in whom was vested the sole right of examining and admitting persons to practise within the city, and seven miles round it; and also of licensing practitioners throughout the whole kingdom, except such as were graduates of Oxford or Cambridge, who by virtue of their degrees were independent of the college, except within London and its precincts. The college had likewise authority given to it to examine prescriptions and drugs in apothecaries’ shops. Linacre was the first president of the new college, and continued in the office during the remaining seven years of his life; and, at his death, he bequeathed to the college his house in Knight-rider-street, in which its meetings were held.

After receiving all these honours, as attestations and reyards of superior merit in his profession, he resolved to change it for that of divinity. To this study he applied himself in the latter part of his life; and, entering into the priesthood, obtained the rectory of Mersham, October 1509; but, resigning it within a month, he was installed into the prebend of Eaton in the church of Wells, and afterwards, in 1518, into another of York; he was alsa precentor in the latter church, but resigned it in half a year. He had other preferments in the church, some of which he received from archbishop Warham, as he gratefully acknowledges in a letter to that prelate. Dr. Knight informs us, that he was a prebendary of St. Stepiien’s, Westminster; and bishop Tanner writes, that he was also rector of Wigan, in Lancashire. He died of the stone, in great pain and torment, Oct. 20, 1524, and was buried in St. Paul’s cathedral; where a handsome monument was afterwards erected to his memory by his admirer and successor in fame, Dr. Caius.

, an ancient Scotch poet, descended from a noble family, was born in 1490, at Garmylton in Hadingtonshire, and received his early education probably at the neighbouring school of Coupar. In 1505 he was sent to the university of St. Andrew’s, which he is supposed to have left in 1509. He then entered into the service of the court, where, in 1512, he was an attendant, or page of honour to James V. then an infant. In this situation he continued until 1524, when, by the intrigues of the queen mother, the young king was deprived of his servants, Bellenden, Lindsay, and others, for whom he seems always to have entertained a just regard, and whom he dismissed with a pension, the payment of which his majesty was studious to enforce, while his means were few, and his power was little. From 1524 to 1528, Lindsay was a witness of the confusions and oppressions arising from the domination of the Douglasses over both the prince and his people. From that thraldom the king, at the age of sixteen, made his escape, by his own address and vigour, in July of 1528, after every other exertion had failed. Lindsay had now liberty and spirits to support him in the cultivation of his muse, and about the end of the year just mentioned, produced his “Dreme.” In the following year he presented his “Complaynt” to the king, and in 1530 he was inaugurated lion king of arms, and incidentally became a knight. In December of this year he published his satire on the clergy, called “The Complaynt of the Papingo.”

, a celebrated English judge, descended of an ancient family, was the eldest son of Thomas Westcote, of the county of Devon, esq. by Elizabeth, daughter and sole-heir of Thomas Littleton or Lyttleton, of Frankley in Worcestershire, in compliance with whom she consented that the issue, or at least the eldest son, of that marriage should take the name of Lyttleton, and bear the arms of that family. He was born about the beginning of the fifteenth century at Frankley. Having laid a proper foundation of learning at one of the universities, he removed to the Inner-Temple; and, applying himself to the law, became very eminent in that profession. The first notice we have of his distinguishing himself is from his learned lectures on the statute of Westminster, “de donis conditionalibus,” “of conditional gifts.” He was afterwards made, by Henry VI. steward or judge of the court of the palace, or marshalsea of the king’s household, and, in May 1455, king’s serjeant, in which capacity he went the Northern circuit as a judge of the assize. Upon the revolution of the crown, from the house of Lancaster to that of York) in the time of Edward IV. our judge, who was now made sheriff of Worcestershire, received a pardon from that prince; was continued in his post of king’s serjeant, and also in that of justice of assi/r for the same circuit. This pardon passed in 1462, the second year of Edward IV.; and, in 1466, he was appointed one of the judges of the court of Common Pleas. The same year, he obtained a writ to the commissioners of the customs of London, Bristol, and Kingston-upon-Hull, enjoining them to pay him a hundred and ten marks annually, for the better support of his dignity; a hundred and six shillings and eleven pence farthing, to furnish him whh a furred robe; and six shillings and six-pence more, for another robe called Li num. In 1473, we find him residing near St. Sepulchre’s church, London, in a capital mansion, the property of the abbot of Leicester, which he held on lease at the yearly rent of 1 <'>.-. In 1475 he was created, among others, knight of the Hath, to grace the solemnity of conferring that order upon the king’s eldest son, then prince of Wales, afterwards Edward V. He continued to enjoy the esteem of his sovereign and the nation, on account of his profound knowledge of the laws of England, till his death, Aug. 23, 1481, the day after the date of his will. He was then said to be of a good old age, but its precise length has not been ascertained. He was honourably interred in the cathedral church of Worcester, where a marble tomb, with his statue, was erected to his memory; his picture was also placed in the church of Frankley; and another in that of Hides-Owen, where his descendants purchased a good estate. He married, and had three sons, William, Richard, and Thomas. Kichard, bred to the law, became eminent in thut profession; and it was for his use that our judge drew up his celebrated treatise on tenures or titles, which will probably hand his name down to the latest posterity. The judge’s third son, Thomas, was knighted by Henry VII. for taking Lambert Simnel, the pretended earl of Warwick. His eldest son and successor, sir William Littleton, after living many years in great splendour, at Frankley, died in 1508; and from this branch the late celebrated lord Lyttelton of Frankley co. Worcester, who was created a baron of Great Britain, Nov. 1756, derived his pedigree; but who, owing to the alteration in the spelling of the name (which, however, appears unnecessary) will occur in a future part of this work.

, a celebrated Roman poet, was a native of Cordova, in Spain, where he was born Nov. lh> in the year 37. His father Annseus Mela, a Roman knight, a man of distinguished merit and interest in his country, was the youngest brother of Seneca the philosopher; and his mother, Acilia, was daughter of Acilius Lucanus, an eminent orator, from which our author took his name. When only eight months old he was carried to Rome and carefully educated under the ablest masters in grammar and rhetoric, a circumstance which renders it singular that critics have endeavoured to impute the defects in his style to his being a Spaniard; but it is certain that his whole education was Roman. His first masters were Palaemon, the grammarian, and Flavius Virginius, the rhetorician. He then studied under Cornutus, from whom he imbibed the sentiments of the stoic school, and probably derived the lofty and free strain by which he is so much distinguished. It is said he completed his education at Athens. Seneca, then tutor to the emperor Nero, obtained for him the office of quaestor: he was soon after admitted to the college of augurs, and considered to be in the full career of honour and opulence. He gave proofs of poetical talents at a very early age, and acquired reputation by several compositions; a circumstance peculiarly unfortunate for him, as it clashed with the vanity of the emperor, who valued himself on his powers as a poet and musician. On one occasion Lucan was so imprudent as to recite one of his own pieces, in competition with Nero; and as the judges honestly decided in favour of Lucan, Nero forbad him to repeat any more of his verses in public, and treated him with so much indignity that Lucan no more looked up to him with the respect due to a patron and a sovereign, but took a part in the conspiracy of Piso and others against the tyrant; which being discovered, he was apprehended among the other conspirators. Tacitus and other authors have accused him of endeavouring to free himself from punishment by accusing his own mother, and involving her in the crime of which he was guilty. Mr. Hayley has endeavoured to rescue his name from so terrible a charge; and it is more likely that it was a calumny raised by Nero’s party to ruin his reputation. Be this as it may, his confessions were ofno avail, and no favour was granted him but the choice of the death he would die; and he chose the same which had terminated the life of his uncle Seneca. His veins were accordingly opened; and when he found himself growing cold and faint through loss of blood, he repeated some of his own lines, describing a wounded soldier sinking in a similar manner. He died in the year 65, and in the twentyseventh year of his age. Of the various poems of Lucan, none but his Pharsalia remain, which is an account of the civil wars between Caesar and Pompey, but is come down to us in an unfinished state. Its title to the name of an epic poem has been disputed by those critics, who, from the examples of Homer and Virgil, have maintained that machinery, or the intervention of supernatural agency, is essential to that species of composition. Others, however, have thought it rather too fastidious to refuse the epic name to a poem because not exactly conformable to those celebrated examples. Blair objects, tliat although Lucan’s subject is abundantly heroic, he cannot be reckoned happy in the choice of it, because it has two defects, the one its being too near the times in which he lived, which deprived him of the assistance of fiction and machinery; the other that civil wars, especially when as fierce and cruel as those of the Romans, present too many shocking objects to be fit for epic poetry, gallant and honourable achievements being a more proper theme for the epic muse. But Lucan’s genius seems to delight in savage scenes, and he even goes out of his way to introduce a long episode of Marius and Sylla’s proscriptions, which abounds with all the forms of atrocious cruelty. On the merits of the poetry itself there are various opinions. Considered as a school book, Dr. Warton has classed it with Statins, Claudian, and Seneca the tragedian, authors into whose works no youth of genius should ever be suffered to look, because, by their forced conceits, by their violent metaphors, by their swelling epithets, by their want of a just decorum, they have a strong tendency to dazzle and to mislead inexperienced minds, and tastes unformed, from the true relish of possibility, propriety, simplicity and nature. On the other hand it has been said, that although Lucan certainly possesses neither the fire of Homer, nor the melodious numbers of Virgil, yet if he had lived to a maturer age, his judgment as well as his genius would have been improved, and he might have claimed a more exalted rank among the poets of the Augustan age. His expressions are bold and animated; his poetry entertaining; and it has been asserted that he was never perused without the warmest emotions, by any whose minds were in unison with his own.

, an ancient Latin poet, and a Roman knight, was born at Suessa, in the county of the Aurunci, about the year 148 B. C. He served under Scipio Africanus in the war with the Numantines, and was very much esteemed by him and Laelius. He wrote thirty books of “Satires,” in which he lashed several persons of quality by name, and with great severity; and if he was not the inventor of that kind of poem, he certainly was the first considerable satirist among the Romans. Horace says,

He appears to be the first sultan who was a lover of arts and sciences; and even cultivated polite letters. He often read the History of Augustus, and the other Caesars; and he perused those of Alexander, Constantine, and Theodosius, with more than ordinary pleasure, because these bad reigned in the same country with himself. He was fond of painting, music, and sculpture; and he applied himself to the study of agriculture. He was much addicted to astrology, and used to encourage his troops by giving out that the motion and influence of the heavenly bodies promised him the empire of the world. Contrary to the genius of his country, he delighted so much in the knowledge of foreign languages, that he not only spoke the Arabian, to which the Turkish laws, and the religion of their legislator Mahomet are appropriated, but also the Persian, the Greek, and the French, that is, the corrupted Italian. Landin, a knight of Rhodes, collected several letters which this sultan wrote in the Syriac, Greek, and Turkish languages, and translated them into Latin. Where the originals are is not known; but the translation has been published several times; as at Lyons, 1520, in 4to; at Basil, 1554, 12mo, in a collection published by Oporinus; at Marpurgh, 1604, in 8vo, and at Leipsic, 1690, in 12mo. Melchior Junius, professor of eloquence at Strasburg, published at Montbeliard, 1595, a collection of letters, in which there are three written by Mahomet II. to Scanderbeg. One cannot discover the least air of Turkish ferocity in these letters: they are written in as civil terms as the most polite prince in Christendom could have used.

Upon the Restoration he was made secretary of state for Scotland, and persuaded the king to demolish the forts and citadels built by Cromwell in Scotland; by which means he became very popular. He was likewise very importunate vfith his majesty for his supporting presbyterv in that kingdom; though his zeal, in that respect, did not continue long. In 1669, he was appointed lord commissioner for the king in Scotland, whither he was sent with great pomp and splendour to bring about some extraordinary points, and particularly the union of the two kingdoms. For this purpose he made a speech at the opening of the parliament at Edinburgh on the 19th of October that year, in which he likewise recommended the preservation of the church as established by law, and expressed a vast zeal for episcopal government. And now the extending of the king’s power and grandeur in that kingdom. was greatly owing to the management of his lordship although he had formerly been as much for depressing the prerogative; and from the time of his commission the Scots had reason to date all the mischiefs and internal commotions of that and the succeeding reign. Having undertaken to make his majesty absolute and arbitrary, he stretched the power of the crown to every kind of excess, and assumed to himself a sort of lawless administration, the exercise of which was supposed to be granted to him in consequence of the large promises he had made. In the prosecution of this design, being more apprehensive of other men’s officious interfering, than distrustful of his own abilities, he took care to make himself his majesty’s sole informer, as well as his sole secretary; and by this means, not only the affairs of Scotland were determined in the court of England, without any notice taken of the king’s council in Scotland, but a strict watch was kept on all Scotchmen, who came to the English court; and to attempt any access to his majesty, otherwise than by his lordship’s mediation, was to hazard his perpetual resentment. By these arrogant measures, he gradually made himself almost the only important person of the whole Scotch nation; and in Scotland itself assumed so much sovereign authority, as to name the privy-counsellors, to place and remove the lords of the session and exchequer, to grant gifts and pensions, to levy and disband forces, to appoint general officers, and to transact all matters belonging to the prerogative. Besides which, he was one of the five lords, who had the management of affairs in England, and were styled the Cabal, and in 1672, was made marquis of March, duke of Lauderdale, and knight of the garter. But these honours did not protect him from the indignation of the House of Commons; by whom, in November the year following, he was voted a *' grievance, and not fit to be trusted or employed in any office or place of trust.“And though his majesty thought proper on the 25th of June, 1674, to create him a baron of England by the title of Baron of Petersham in Surrey, and earl of Guildford, yet the House of Commons the next year presented an address to the king to remove him from all his employments, and from his majesty’s presence and counsels for ever; which address was followed by another of the same kind in May 1678, and by a third in May the year following. He died at Tunbridge Wells, August 24, 1682, leaving a character which no historian has been hardy enough to vindicate. In Clarendon, Burnet, Kennet, Hume, Smollet, &c. we find a near conformity of sentiment respecting his inconsistency, his ambition, and his tyranny . Mr. Laing observes, that” during a long imprisonment, his mind had been carefully improved by study, and impressed with a. sense of religion, which was soon effaced on his return to the world. His learning was extensive and accurate; in public affairs his experience was considerable, and his elocution copious, though unpolished and indistinct. But his temper was dark and vindictive, incapable of friendship, mean and abject to his superiors, haughty and tyrannical to his inferiors; and his judgment, seldom correct or just, was obstinate in error, and irreclaimable by advice. His passions were furious and ungovernable, unless when his interest or ambition interposed; his violence was ever prepared to suggest or to execute the most desperate counsels; and his ready compliance preserved his credit with the king, till his faculties were visibly impaired with age." The duke died without male issue, but his brother succeeded to the title of Earl, whose son Richard was the author of a translation of Virgil, which is rather literal than poetical, yet Dryden adopted many of the lines into his own translation.

In 1731 his first tragedy, called “Eurydice,” was performed at Drury-lane, and very unfavourably received; nor when revived thirty years after, and supported by Garrick and Mrs. Gibber, could the town endure it with patience. On this last occasion Dayies informs us that the author would not take the blame upon himself; “he sat in the orchestra, and bestowed his execrations plentifully upon the players, to whom he attributed the cold reception of his tragedy.” About this time we find him an inmate in Mr. Knight’s family at Gosfield, probably as tutor to Mr. Newsham, Mrs. Knight’s son by her first husband. Her third was the late earl Nugent. We shall soon have occasion to quote a very remarkable passage from a letter of Pope’s to this lady, respecting Mallet.

, a celebrated English traveller, was born at St. Alban’s, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, of a family whose ancestor is said to have come into England with William the Conqueror. Leland, who calls this knight Magdovillanus, affirms that he was a proficient in theology, natural philosophy, and physic, before he left England, in 1322, to visit foreign countries. He returned, after having been long reputed dead, at the end of thirty-four years, when very few people knew him; and went afterwards to Liege, where it seems he passed under the name of Joannes de Barbam, and where he died, according to Vossius, who has recorded the inscription on his tomb, Nov. 17, 1372. His design seems to have been to commit to writing whatever he had read, or heard, or knew, concerning the places which he saw, or has mentioned in his book. Agreeably to this plan, he has described monsters from Pliny, copied miracles from legends, and related, without quotation, stories from authors who are now ranked among writers of romances and apocryphal history, so that many or most of the falsehoods in. his work properly belong to antecedent relators, but who were certainly considered as creditable authors at the time he wrote.

Sir John Mandevile visited Tartary about half a century after Marco Polo, who was there in 1272. In this interval a true or fabulous account of that country, collected by a cordelier, one Oderic D'Udin, who set out in 1318, and returned in 1330, was published in Italian, by Guillaume de Salanga, in the second volume of Ramusio, and in Latin and English by Hakluyt. It is suspected that sir John made too much use of this traveller’s papers; and it is certain that the compilers of. the “Histoire Generale des Voyages” did not think our English knight’s book so original, or so worthy of credit, as to give any account of it in their excellent collection. Sir John indeed honestly acknowledges that his book was made partly of hearsay, and -'partly of his own knowledge; and he prefaces his most improbable relations with some such words as these, thei seyne, or men seyn^ but I have not sene it. His book, however, was submitted to the examination of the pope’s council, and it was published after that examination, with the approbation of the pope, as Leland thinks, of Urban V. Leland also affirms that sir John Mandevile had the reputation of being a conscientious man, and that he had religiously declined an honourable alliance to the Soldan-of Egypt, whose daughter he might have espoused, if he would have abjured Christianity. It is likewise very certain that many things in his book, which were looked upptv as fabulous for a long time, have been since verified beyond all doubt. We give up his men of fifty feet high r but his hens that bore wool are at this day very well known, under the name of Japan and silky fowls, &c. Upon the whole, there does not appear to be any very g.ood reason why sir John Mandevile should not be believed in any thing that he relates on his own observation. He was, as may be easily credited, an extraordinary linguist, and wrote his book in Latin, from which he translated it into French, and from French into English, and into Italian; and Vossius says that he knows it to be in Belgic and German. The English edition has the title of “The Voiyage and Travaile of Sir John Maundevile, knight, which treateth of the way to Hierusalem, and marvayles of lude,” &c. Lond. 1568, 4to, reprinted in 1684, same form, and again in 1727, 8vo. All these are in the British Museum, together with copies of the French, Spanish, Latin, and Italian. Of the last there are two editions, printed at Venice in 1537 and 1567, both in 8vo. The original English ms, is in the Cotton library. The English editions are the most valuable to us, as written in the very language used by our countrymen three hundred years ago^ at a time when the orthography of the English language was so little fixed, that it seems to have been the fashionable affectation of writers, to shew their wit and scholarship by spelling the same words in the greatest variety of ways imaginable. The reader will be amused by Addison’s pretended discovery of sir John Mandevile’s Mss. and the pleasant fiction of “the freezing and thawing of several short speeches which sir John made in the territories of Nova Zembla.” This occurs in the Tatler, No. 254, the note upon which has principally furnished us with the above account.

, an ancient Latin poet, and the model of epigrammatists, was born at Bilbilis, now called Bubiera, a town of the ancient Celtiberia in Spain, which is the kingdom of Arragon. He was born, as is supposed, in the reign of Claudius, and went to Rome when he was about twenty-one. He was sent thither with a view of prosecuting the law; but soon forsook that study, and applied himself to poetry. He excelled so much in the epigrammatic style, that he soon acquired reputation, and was courted by many of the first rank at Rome. Silius Italicus, Stella, and Pliny the younger, were his friends and patrons. Stertinius, a noble Roman, had so great an esteem for his compositions, that he placed > his statue in his library, while he was yet living; and the emperor Verus, who reigned with Antoninus the philosopher, used to call him his Virgil, which was as high an honour as could well be paid to him. We learn also from Pliny and Tacitus, as well as from several passages in his own writings, that he had honours and dignities bestowed upon him by some of the emperors. Domitian, whom it must be confessed he has flattered not a little, made him a Roman knight, and gave him likewise the “Jus trium liberorum,” the privileges of a citizen who had three children. He was also advanced to the tribunate. But though he was so particularly honoured, and had so many great and noble patrons, who admired him for his wit and poetry, it does not appear that he made his fortune among them. There is reason to think that, after the death of Domitian, his credit and interest declined at Rome; and if he had still remaining among the nobles some patrpns, such as Pliny, Cornelius Priscus, &c. yet the emperor Nerva took but little notice of him, and the emperor Trajan none at all. Tired of Rome, therefore, after he had lived in that city about four and thirty years, and grown, as himself tells us, grey-headed, he returned to his own country Bilbilis, where he took a wife, and had the happiness to live with her several years. He admired her much, as one who alone was sufficient to supply the want of every thing he enjoyed at Rome. She appears to have brought him a very large fortune; for, in one of his epigrams he extols the magnificence of the house and gardens he had received from her, and says, “that she had made him a little kind of monarch.” About three years after he had retired into Spain, he inscribed his twelfth book of Epigrams to Priscus, who had been his friend and benefactor; and is supposed to have died about the year 100. As an epigrammatist, Martial is eminently distinguished, and has been followed as a model by all succeeding wits. All his efforts, however, are not equally successful, and many of his epigrams are perhaps unjustly so called, being merely thoughts or sentiments without applicable point. He offends often by gross indelicacy, which was the vice of the times; but his style is in general excellent, and his frequent allusion to persons and customs render his works very interesting to classical antiquaries.

In order to make himself known, in 1750 he began to publish, in French, an account of the productions of the English press, printed at the Hague, under the name of the “Journal Britannique.” This humble, though useful labour, says Gibbon, “which had once been dignified by the genius of Bayle, and the learning of Le Clerc, was not disgraced by the taste, the knowledge, and the judgment of Maty; he exhibits a candid and pleasing view of the state of literature in England during a period of six years (Jan. 1750 December 1755); and, far different from his angry son, he handles the rod of criticism with the tenderness and reluctance of a parent. The author of the ‘ Journal Britannique’ sometimes aspires to the character of a poet and philosopher: his style is pure and elegant; and in his virtues, or even in his defects, he may be ranked as one of the last disciples of the school of Fontenelle.” This Journal, whatever its merits, answered the chief end he intended by it, and introduced him to the acquaintance of some of the most eminent literary characters in the country he had made his own; and it was to their active and uninterrupted friendship, that he owed the places he afterwards possessed. In 1758, he was chosen fellow, and, in 1765, on the resignation of Dr. Birch (who died a few months after, and made him his executor), secretary to the Royal Society. He had been appointed one of the under-librarians of the British Museum at its first institution in 1753, and became principal librarian at the death of Dr. Knight in 1772. Useful in all these posts, he promised to be eminently so in the last, when he was seized with a languishing disorder, which, in 1776, put an end to a life uniformly devoted to the pursuit of science, and the offices of humanity. His body being opened, the appearances which presented themselves were thought so singular as to be described before the Royal Society by Dr. Hunter, whose account is inserted in vol. LXVII. of the Philosophical Transactions.

His works, which contain some valuable facts and observations, not, however, unmixed with erroneous doctrines and superstitions, were published by Dr. Joseph Brown, at London, in 1701, fol. divided into two books. The first contains his “Consilia, epistolrc, & observationes” the second his “Pharmacopoeia, variteque medicamentorum formulae.” At the beginning of the book is placed the author’s portrait, such as it was in his 82d year, and under the print are words to this purpose: “Theo. Turquet. de Mayerne, knight, by birth a Frenchman, by religion a Protestant, and by dignity a baron; in his profession, a second Hippocrates: and, what has very seldom happened to any but himself, first physician to three kings; in erudition unequalled; in experience second to none; and, as the result of all these advantages, celebrated far and near.”

, a learned and eminent physician, was born at Forli, in Romagna, Sept 30, 1530. He was educated according to Niceron at Padua, and according to Eloy at Bologna. It seems, however, agreed that he received his doctor’s degree in 1555, and began to practice at Forli. In 1562 he was sent as ambassador to pope Pius IV. at Rome, where he was honoured with the citizenship, and upon a pressing invitation determined to reside in a place which presented so many opportunities for the pursuit of his favourite studies. During his abode at Rome, besides his professional concerns, he studied classical literature, and the monuments of antiquity, and produced a learned and elegant work, which acquired him much celebrity in the literary world, and which was first published at Venice in 1569, under the title of “De Arte Gymnastica Libri sex,” 4to. It was many times reprinted, and its merit occasioned his being appointed professor of medicine in the university of Padua. In 1573 he was called to Vienna by the emperor Maximilian II., to consult respecting a severe illness under which that personage laboured; and his treatment was so successful, that he returned loaded with valuable presents, and honoured with the dignities of a knight and count palatine. In 1587 he removed to a professorsip at Bologna, which has been partly attributed to a degree of dissatisfaction or self-accusation, in consequence of an error of judgment, which had been committed by him and Capivaccio, several years before, when they were called to Venice, in order to give their advice respecting a pestilential disorder which prevailed in that city. On this occasion both he and his colleague seem to have fallen into the mistake of several medical theorists, of denying the reality of contagion; and their counsels were said to have been productive of extensive mischief. Nevertheless his reputation appears to have suffered little from this error; for he was invited by Ferdinand, the grand duke of Tuscany, to settle at Pisa in 1599, where he was ordered a stipend of eighteen: hundred golden crowns, which was ultimately raised to two thousand. Here he died Nov. 9, 1606, and was interred, with great honours, in a chapel, which he had himself erected at Forli. He left a large property in money and effects, among which was a valuable collection of pictures; and he made a great number of charitable bequests.

Meston is said to have been one of the best classical scholars of his time, and by no means a contemptible philosopher and mathematician. His wit also was very lively, and shone particularly in jovial meetings, to which unhappily he was rather too strongly addicted. His poems were first published separately, as they were written, and doubtless by way of assisting him in his necessities. That called “the Knight/* appears to have been first printed in 1723; and, after it had received several corrections, a second edition was printed at London. The first decade of” Mother Grim’s Tales,“afterwards appeared; and next, the second part, by Jodocus, her grandson. Some years after, the piece called,” Mob contra Mob.“The whole were first collected in a small volume, 12 mo, at Edinburgh, in 1767, to which a short account of his life is prefixed, whence the present memoirs have been extracted. The Knight,” and several others of his poems, are in the style of Butler, whom he greatly adinired and imitated, perhaps too servilely, yet with some success. In the second decade, written under the name of Jodocus, there are several poems in Latin, and the title was in that language. It runs thus: “Decadem alteram, ex probatissimis auctoribus, in usum Juventutis Jinguse Latinse, prsesertim verse poeseos studiosse, selectam, et in scholis ad propagandam fidem legendam: admixtis subinde nonnullis, in gratiam Pulchrioris Sexus, vernaculis, subjunxit Jodocus Grimmus Aniculae nostrae pronepos.” His Latin poetry is of no great excellence.

, knight of the bath, and a distinguished ambassador at the court of Berlin, was the only child of the rev. William Mitchell, formerly of Aberdeen, but then one of the ministers of St. Giles’s, commonly called the high church of Edinburgh. The time of his birth is not specified, but he is said to have been married in 1715, when very young, to a lady who died four years after in child-birth, and whose loss he felt with so much acuteness, as to be obliged to discontinue the study of the law, for which his father had designed him, and divert his grief by travelling, amusements, &c. This mode of life is said to have been the original cause of an extensive acquaintance with the principal noblemen and gentlemen in North Britain, by whom he was esteemed for sense, spirit, and intelligent conversation. Though his progress in the sciences was but small, yet no person had a greater regard for men of learning, and he particularly cultivated the acquaintance of the clergy, and professors of the university of Edinburgh. About 1736 he appears to have paid considerable attention to mathematics under the direction of the celebrated Maclaurin; and soon after began, his political career, as secretary to the marquis of Tweedale, who Wc-s appointed minister for the affuirs of Scotland in 1741. He became also acquainted with the earl of Stair, and it was owing to his application to that nobleman that Dr. (afterwards sir John) Pringle, was in 1742 appointed physician to the British ambassador at the Hague.

Though the marquis of Tweedale resigned the place of secretary of state, in consequence of the rebellion in 1745, yet Mr. Mitchell still kept in favour. He had taken care, during that memorable period, to keep up a correspondence with some eminent clergymen in Scotland, and from time to time communicated the intelligence he received; which assiduity was rewarded wiih a seat in the House of Commons in 1747, as representative for the burghs of BamfF, Elgin, Cullen, Inverurie, and Kiiitore. In 1751 he was appointed his majesty’s resident at Brussels, where, continuing two years, he in 1753 came to London, was created a knight of the bath, and appointed ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary at the court of Berlin. There, by his polite behaviour, and a previous acquaintance with marshal Keith, he acquired sufficient influence with his Prussian majesty to detach him from the French interest. This event involved the court of France in the greatest losses, arising not only from vast subsidies to the courts of Vienna, Petersburg!], and Stockholm, but also from the loss of numerous armies. Sir Audrew generally accompanied the great Frederick through the course of his several campaigns, and when, on the memorable 12th of August, 1759, the Prussian army was totally routed by count SoltikofT, the Russian general, it was with difficulty that he could be prevailed upon to quit the king’s tent, even while all was in confusion.

However, Monk made no scruple of discovering every step taken by the cavaliers which came to his knowledge, even to the sending the protector this letter; and joined in promoting addresses to him from the army, one of which was received by the protector March 19, 1657, in which year Monk received a summons to Oliver’s house of lords. Upon the death of Oliver, Monk joined in an address to the new protector Richard, whose power, nevertheless, he foresaw would be but short-lived; it having been his opinion, that Oliver, had he lived much longer, would scarce have been able to preserve himself in his station. And indeed Cromwell himself began to be apprehensive of that great alteration which happened after his death, and fearful that the general was deeply engaged in those measures which procured it; if we may judge from a letter written by him to general Monk a little before, to which was added the following remarkable postscript: “There be that tell me, that there is a certain cunning fellow in Scotland, called George Monk, who is said to lie in wait there to introduce Charles Stuart; I pray you, use your diligence to apprehend him, and send him up to me.” It belongs to history to relate all the steps which led to the restoration of Charles II. and which were ably conducted by Monk. Immediately after that event, he was loaded with pensions and honours; was made knight of the garter, one of the privycouncil, master of the horse, a gentleman of the bedehamber, first lord-commissioner of the treasury; and soon after created a peer, being made baron Monk of Potheridge, Beauchamp, and Tees, earl of Torrington, and duke of Albemarle, with a grant of 7000Z. per annum, estate of inheritance, besides other pensions. He received a very peculiar acknowledgment of regard on being thus called to the peerage; almost the whole house of commons attending him to the very door of the house of lords, while he behaved with great moderation, silence, and humility. This behaviour was really to be admired in a man, who, by his personal merit, had raised himself within the reach of a crown, which he had the prudence, or the virtue, to wave: yet he preserved it to the end of his life: insomuch, that the king, who used to call him his political father, said, very highly to his honour, “the duke of Albemarle demeaned himself in such a manner to the prince he had obliged, as never to seem to overvalue the services of general Monk.*‘ During tRe remainder of his life he was consulted and employed upon all great occasions by the king, and a.t the same time appears to have been esteemed and beloved by his fellow-subjects. In 1664, on the breaking out of the first Dutch war, he was, by the duke of York, who commanded the fleet, intrusted with the care of the admiralty: and, the plague breaking out the same year in London, he was intrusted likewise, with the care of the city by the king, who retired to Oxford. He was, at the latter end of the year, appointed joint-admiral of the fleet with prince Rupert, and distinguished himself with great bravery against the Dutch. In September 1666, the fire of London occasioned the Duke of Albemarle to be recalled from the fleet, to assist in quieting the minds of the people; who expressed their affection and esteem for him, by crying out publicly, as he passed through the ruine’d streets, that,” if his grace had been there, the city had not been burned." The many hardships and fatigues he had undergone in a military life began to shake his constitution somewhat early; so that about his 60th year he was attacked with a dropsy; which, being too much neglected, perhaps on account of his having been hitherto remarkably healthy, advanced very rapidly, and put a period to his life, Jan. 3, 1669-7O, when he was entering his 62d year. He died in the esteem of his sovereign, and his brother the duke of York, as appears not only from the high posts he enjoyed, and. the great trust reposed in him by both, but also from the tender concern shewn by them, in a constant inquiry after his state during his last illness, and the public' and princely paid to his memory after his decease; for, his funeral was honoured with all imaginable pomp and solemnity, and his ashes admitted to mingle with those of the royal blood; he being interred, April 4, 1670, in Henry the Vllth’s chapel at Westminster, after his corpse had lain in state many weeks at Somerset-house.

At the accession of queen Anne he was dismissed from the council: and in the first parliament of her reign was again attacked by the Commons, and again escaped by the protection of the Lords. In 1704, he wrote an answer to Bromley’s speech against occasional conformity. He headed the inquiry into the danger of the church. In 1706, he proposed and negociated the union with Scotland; and wheu the elector of Hanover had received the garter, after the act had passed for securing the protestant successipr, he was appointed to carry the ensigns of the order to the electoral court. He sat as one of the judges of Sacheverell; but voted for a mild sentence. Being now no longer in favour, he contrived to obtain a writ for summoning the electoral prince to parliament as duke of Cambridge. At the queen’s death he was appointed one of the regency, during her successor’s absence from his kingdoms; and, as soon as George I. had taken possession of the throne, he was created earl of Halifax, installed knight of the garter, and expected to have been appointed lord high treasurer; but as he was only created first commissioner, he was highly chagrined, nor was he pacified by the above honours, or by the transfer of the place of auditor of the exchequer to his nephew. Inflamed, says Mr. Coxe, by disappointed ambition, he entered into cabals with the tory leaders, for the removal of those with whom he had so long cordially acted; but his death put an end to his intrigues. While he appeared to be in a very vigorous state of health, he was suddenly taken ill, May 15, and died on the 19th, 1715.

His retirement was not of long duration; and upon the nearer approach of the restoration, general Monk having procured him to be replaced in his former rank in the navy, he convoyed the king to England, who made him a knight of the garter, and soon afterwards created him baron Montague of St. Neots in Huntingdonshire, viscount Hinchinbroke in the same county, and earl of Sandwich in Kent, He was likewise sworn a member of the privy council, made master of the king’s wardrobe, admiral of the narrow seas, and lieutenant admiral to the duke of York, as lord high admiral of England. When the Dutch war 'began in 1664, the duke of York took upon him the command of the fleet as high admiral, and the earl of Sandwich commanded the blue squadron; and by his well-timed efforts, a great number of the enemy’s ships were taken. In the great battle, JuneS, 1665, when the Dutch lost their admiral Opdam, and had eighteen men of war taken, and fourteen destroyed, a large share of the honour of the victory was justly assigned to the earl of Sandwich, who also on Sept. 4, of the same year, took eight Dutch men of war, two of their best East India ships, and twenty sail of their merchantmen.

, an excellent portrait-painter, was born atLeyden, in 1656, and at first was a disciple of Gerard Douw, and afterwards of Abraham Vanden Tempel, whose death compelled him to return to Leyden from Amsterdam, where he studied awhile with Francis Mieris, and at last went to Dort, to practise with Godfrey Schalcken, to whom he was superior as a designer; but he coveted to learn Schalcken’s manner of handling. As soon as Moor began to follow his profession, the public acknowledged his extraordinary merit; and he took the most effectual method to establish his reputation, by working with a much itronger desire to acquire fame, than to increase his fortune. He painted portraits in a beautiful style, in some of them imitating the taste, the dignity, the force, and the delicacy of Vandyck; and in others, he shewed the striking effect and spirit of Rembrandt. In his female figures, the carnations were tender and soft; and in his historical compositions, the air of his heads had variety and grace. His draperies are well chosen, elegantly disposed in very natural folds, and appear light, flowing, and unconstrained. His pictures are always neatly and highly finished; he designed them excellently, and grouped the figures of his subjects with great skill. His works were universally admired, and some of the most illustrious princes of Europe seemed solicitous to employ his pencil. The grand duke :of Tuscany desired to have the portrait of DeMoor, painted by himself, to be placed in the Florentine gallery; and, on the receipt of it, that prince sent him, in return, a chain of gold, and a large medal of the same metal. The Imperial ambassador count Sinzendorf, by order of his master, engaged him to paint the portraits of prince Eugene, and the duke of Marlborough, on horseback; and in that performance, the dignity and expression of the figures, and also the attitudes of the horses, appeared so masterly, that it was beheld with admiration, and occasioned many commendatory poems, in elegant Latin verse, to be published to the honour of the artist; and the emperor, on seeing that picture, created De Moor a knight of the empire. He died in 1738, in his eighty-second year.

For his services abroad his lordship was declared general in Spain by Charles III. afterwards emperor of Germany; and, the war being thought likely to be concluded, he was appointed by queen Anne ambassador extraordinary, with power and instructions for treating and adjusting all matters of state and traffic between the two kingdoms. The king of Spain, however, having transmitted some charges against him, his conduct was examined by parliament, and cleared up to their entire satisfaction. The House of Lords, in particular, who were pleased with his justification, resolved, Jan. 12, 1710-11, “that his lordship, during the time he commanded the army in that kingdom, had performed many great and eminent services; and that, if the opinion, which he had given to the council of war at Valencia, had been followed, it might very probably have prevented the misfortunes that had since happened in Spain:” and upon this foundatiorrthey voted thanks to his lordship in the most solemn manner. In 1710 and 1711, Jie was employed in embassies to Vienna, Turin, and several of the courts in Italy. On his return to England, he was made colonel of the royal regiment of horse-guards; and being general of the marines, and lord-lieutenant of the county of Northampton, was, on August 4, 1713, installed at Windsor a knight of the garter. Soon after which he was sent ambassador extraordinary to the king of Sicily, and to negociate affairs with other Italian princes; and in March 1713-14, was made governor of the island of Minorca. In the reign of George I. he was general of all the marine forces in Great Britain, in which post he was liker wise continued by George II. He died in his passage to Lisbon, whither he was going for thp recovery of his health, Oct. 25, 1735, aged seventy-seven. A very interesting account of his last illness, which was excruciating, js given in vol. X. of Bowles’s edition of Pope’s Works.

, chancellor of England in the reign of Henry VIII. and one of the most illustrious characters of that period, was born in Milk-street, London, in 1480. He was the son of sir John More, knight, one of the judges of the king’s bench, and a man of great abilities and integrity. Sir John had also much of that pleasant wit, for which his son was afterwards so distinguished; and, as a specimen of it, Camden relates, that he would compare the danger in the choice of a wife to that of putting a man’s hand into a bag full of snakes, with only one eel in it; where he may, indeed, chance to light of the eel, but it is an hundred to one he is stung by a snake. It has been observed, however, that sir John ventured to put his hand three times into this bag, for he married three wives; nor was the sting so hurtful as to prevent his arriving at the age of ninety; and then he did not die of old age, but of a surfeit, occasioned by eating grapes. Sir Thomas was his son by his first wife, whose maiden name was Handcombe. He was educated in London, at a free-school of great repute at that time in Threadneedle-street, called St. Anthony’s, where archbishop Whitgift, and other eminent men, had been brought up; and here he made a progress in grammar-learning, suitable to his uncommon parts and application. He was afterwards placed in the family of cardinal Morton, archbishop of Canterbury, and chancellor of England: a method of education much practised in those times, but chiefly in the case of noblemen’s sons, with whom sir John More might be supposed to rank, from the high office he held. The cardinal was delighted with his ingenuous modesty, and with the vivacity and quickness of his wit, of which he gave surprising instances; one of which was, that while the players in Christmas holidays were acting there, he would sometimes suddenly step in among them, and, without any previous study, make a part of his own, to the great diversion of the audience. The cardinal indeed conceived so high an opinion of his favourite pupil, that he used frequently to say to those about him, that “More, whosoever should live to see it, would one day prove a marvellous man.”

Before More entered into the service of Henry VIII. he had been twice employed, with his majesty’s consent, at the suit of the English merchants, as their agent in some considerable disputes between them and the merchants of the Steel-yard; and, about 1516, he went to Flanders with Tonstal, bishop of Durham, and Dr. Knight, commissioners for renewing the treaty of alliance between Henry VIII. and Charles V. then only archduke of Austria. While at Bruges, a conceited scholar issued a challenge, that he would answer any question which could be proposed to him in any art whatsoever: upon which More caused this to be put up, “An averia capta in withernamia sint irreplegiabiliar” adding, that there was one of the English ambassador’s retinue, who was ready to dispute with him upon it. But the challenger, not understanding those terms of our common law, knew not what to answer, and so was made a laughing-stock to the whole city.

* “We think fit to relate here, as a part of the intricate plots of the interthing most remarkable, that on this reign, and likewise the perfidiousness 3^ of May, Mr. Moreland, chief com- of some who owM him, no doubt, the missioner under Mr. Thurloe, who was greatest fidelity in the world. The secretary of state unto Oliver Crom- kingreceiv'd him perfectly well, made well, his chief and most confident mi- him knight, and rendered him this nister of his tyranny, arrived at Breda, public testimony, that he had received where he brought divers letters and most considerable services frfm him. notes of very great importance, foras- for some years past.” Kennel’s Remuch as the king discovered there a gister, p. 135. time when he wrote an account of his life to archbishop Tenison. Two years before the death of Charles II. that sovereign sent him to France, “about the king’s waterworks;” but here too he appears to have lost more than he gained. On his return, king James restored to him his pensions, which had been, for whatever reason, withdrawn, and likewise granted him the arrears, but not without deducting the expences of the engine which sir Samuel constructed to supply Windsor castle with water. Water-engines of various sorts employed much of his attention and capital; and as far back as 1674, we iind in the “Journals of the House of Commons,” a notice of a bill to enable him to enjoy the sole benefit of certain pumps and waterengines invented by him.

When king William was upon the throne Nash was a member of the Middle Temple. It had been long customary for the inns of court to entertain our monarchs, upon their accession to the crown, or any remarkable occasion, with a revel and pageant. In the early periods of our history, poets were the conductors of these entertainments; plays were exhibited, and complimentary verses were then written but, by degrees, the pageant alone was continued^ sir John Davis being the last poet that wrote verses upon such an occasion, in the reign of James I. This ceremony, which has been at length totally discontinued, was last exhibited in honour of king William; and Nash was chosen to conduct the whole with proper decorum. He was then but a very young man; but at an early age he was thought proper to guide the amusements of his country, and be the arbiter elegantiarum of his time. In conducting this entertainment he had an opportunity of exhibiting all his abilities; and king William was so well satisfied with his performance, that he made him an offer of knighthood. This, however, he thought proper torefuse, which, in a person of his disposition, seems strange. “Please your majesty,” replied he, “if you intend to make me a knight, I wish it may be one of your poor knights of Windsor; and then I shall have a fortune, at least able to support my title.” Yet we do not find that the king took the hint of increasing his fortune; perhaps he could not; he had, at that time, numbers to oblige, and he never cared to give money without important services.

, an English poetical writer, was a native of Kent, descended from the ancient and honourable family of Nevil, was the son of Richard Nevil of the county of Nottingham, esq. by Anne Mantel, daughter of sir Walter Mantel, of Heyford in Northamptonshire, knight. He was born in 1544. If not educated at Cambridge, his name occurs as having received the degree of M. A. there, along with Robert earl of Essex, July 6, 1581. He was one of the learned men whom archbishop Parker retained in his family, and was his secretary at his grace’s death in 1575. It is no small testimony of his merit and virtues that he was retained in the same of-, fice by the succeeding archbishop, Grindal, to whom, as well as to archbishop Parker, he dedicated his Latin narrative of the Norfolk insurrection under Kett. To this he added a Latin account of Norwich, accompanied by an engraved map of the Saxon and British kings. These were both written in archbishop Parker’s time, who assisted Nevile in the latter. The title is, “Kettus, sive de furoribus Norfolciensium Ketto duce,” Lond. 1575, 4to. reprinted both in Latin and English the same year, in Latin in 1582, and in English in 1615 and 1623. Prefixed are some verses on the death of archbishop Parker, and the epistle dedicatory to Grindal, with a recommendatory Latin poem, by Thomas Drant, the first translator of Horace. His “Norvicus,” published with the preceding, is the first printed account of Norwich; the plates are by R. Lyne and Rem. Hogenbergius, both attached to the household of the learned and munificent Parker. There are copies of almost all the preceding editions in Mr. Cough’s library at Oxford. Strype has published, in the appendix to his Life of Parker, an elegant Latin letter from Nevile to Parker, which is prefixed to the “Kettus.” The first Latin edition, printed in 1575, is dedicated solely to -Parker: and the second, of the same year, which has the two dedications, has also a passage, not in the former, and probably struck out by Parker, which gave offence to the Welsh. It occurs at p. 132, “Sed enim Kettiani rati,” &c, to “Nam prosterquam quod,” &c. p. 133.

Shortly after his return in 1742, he was unanimously elected knight of the shire for the county of Middlesex; but, in the next parliament he was, on lord Cornbury’s being called up to the house of peers, elected in 1751 to succeed him as representative for the university of Oxford, an honour which few men knew better how to appreciate. In no place, and on no occasion, is the purity of election more sacredly guarded than in the choice of members to represent that university, where to make declarations, to canvass, to treat, or even to be seen within the limits of the university during a vacancy, would be, in any candidate, almost a forfeiture of favour. In the case of our worthy baronet, he remained ignorant of being proposed and elected, until he received a letter from the vicechancellor, Dr. Browne, master of University college, by one of the esquire beadles. In the same independent manner he was re-elected in 1754, 1761, 1768, and 1774, during which last year, he was in Italy. On the dissolution of parliament in 1780, being advanced in years, and desirous of repose, he solicited his dismission, retired from public life, and was succeeded by sir William Dolben. He died at his seat at Arbury, Nov. 25, 1806, in the eighty-seventh year of his age.

Sir Isaac Newton was buried with great magnificence, at the public expence. On March 28, he lay in state in the Jerusalem -chamber, and was buried from thence in WesN minster-abbey, near the entry into the choir. The spot is one of the most conspicuous in the abbey, and had been previously refused to different noblemen who had applied for it. The pall was supported by the lord high chancellor, the dukes of Montrose and Roxborough, and the earls of Pembroke, Sussex, and Macclesfield, being fellows of the Royal Society. The hon. sir Michael Newton, knight of the Bath, was chief mourner, and was followed by some other relations, and some eminent persons intimately acquainted with sir Isaac. The office was performed by the bishop of Rochester, Dr. Bradford, attended by the prebendaries and choir. A magnificent monument was afterwards erected to his memory, in the abbey, and, by the munificence of the late Dr. Robert Smith, master of Trinity college, the antichapel of that college contains an admirable full-length statue of sir Isaac, by Roubilliac. Medals also were struck to his memory, one by Croker of our mint; one by Dassier of Geneva; and another by Roettiers in France. The only portrait for which he ever sat was by Kneller, and is, if we mistake not, in the collection of the duke of Rutland.

, a learned Italian, was born at Verona, of a family that had produced several men of letters about the beginning of the sixteenth century. In early life he became introduced to John-Matthew Giberti, bishop of Verona, at whose house he had an opportunity of profiting by the conversation of various learned men. The Greek appears to have been his favourite study, and his fame was established by his able translations from that language. In September 1545, he was employed, with two other persons of consequence at Verona, to furnish provisions for that city, at a time when a scarcity was apprehended; but not long after we find him at the council of Trent, where he delivered an harangue that was published at the end of his “Apostolicae Institutiones.” In 1554, he was one of the ambassadors deputed by the city of Verona to compliment the doge of Venice on his accession; and on this occasion he was created a knight of that republic, On his return home, he was appointed president of the jurisdiction of silk-manufacturers, a corporation which was then established. He enjoyed the favour and esteem of many Italian princes, but of none more than of Guy Ubaldi, duke of Urbano, whom he accompanied to Rome, and was made commander of the ecclesiastical troops by pope Julius III. Here he had begun a translation of Ocellus Lucanus, when he was seized with a disorder which interrupted his studies and his attendance at court; but he was enabled to complete his translation in 1558, and it was printed the year following, in which year he died.

, an eminent geographer and traveller, was born at Gluckstadt in Holstein, Oct. 22, 1708. His father was a lieutenant-colonel of artillery, and himself was bred to arms. Being intended for the sea-service, he entered, in 1722, into the corps of cadets; a royal establishment, in which young men were instructed in the arts and sciences necessary to form good sea-officers. Here he is said to have made a great progress in the mathematics, ship-building, and drawing, especially in the last. He copied the works of the greatest masters in the art, to form his taste, and acquire their manner; but he took a particular pleasure in drawing from nature. The first person who noticed this rising genius, was M. de Lerche, knight of the order of the elephant, and grand master of the ceremonies. This gentleman put into his hands a collection of charts and topographical plans, belonging to the king, to be retouched and amended, in which Norden shewed great skill and care; but, considering his present employment as foreign to his profession, de Lerche, in 1732, presented him to the king, and procured him, not only leave, but a pension to enable him to travel: the king likewise made him, at the same time, second lieutenant. It was particularly recommended to him, to study the construction of ships, especially such gallies and rowing vessels as are used in the Mediterranean. Accordingly he set out for Holland, where he soon became acquainted with the admirers of antiquities and the polite arts, and with several distinguished artists, particularly De Reyter, who took great pleasure in teaching him to engrave. From Holland he went to Marseilles, and thence to Leghorn; staying in each place so long as to inform himself in every thing relating to the design of his voyage. At this last port he got models made of the different kinds of rowing vessels, which are still to be seen at the chamber of models at the Old Holm. In Italy, where he spent near three years in enlarging his knowledge, his great talents drew the attention of persons of distinction, and procured him an opportunity of seeing the cabinets of the curious, and of making his advantage of the great works of painting and sculpture, especially at Rome and Florence. At Florence he was made a member of the drawing academy, and while in this city he received an order from the king to go into Egypt.

, son of the preceding, had a learned education in the university of Cambridge. He had been made knight of the Bath as early as 1616, at the creation of Charles prince of Wales, and had stood as the eldest son of a peer, at the state in the house of lords, at sixty-three, and was an eminent instance of filial duty to his father, before whom he would not put on his hat, or sit down, unless enjoined to do it. He was bred in the best manner; for besides the court, and choicest company at home, he was sent to travel, and then into the army, and served as a captain under sir Francis Vere. He sat in many parliaments, until secluded by that which condemned the king. After this he lived privately in the country, at Tostock, in Suffolk; and towards the latter end of his life, entertained himself with justice-business, books, and (as a very numerous issue required) oeconomy. He published a little tract on that subject, entitled “Observations and advices Œconomical,” Lond. 1669, 12mo. Afterwards he published another tract, entitled “Passages relating to the Long Parliament,” with an apologetic, or rather recantation preface; for he had at first been active against the King. He wrote also the “History of the Life of Edward Lord North, the first Baron,” Lord Orford says, “sensibly, and in a very good style,” though this critic seems to think he fails in impressing the reader with much respect for his ancestor. After his death appeared a volume of essays, entitled “Light in the way to Paradise; with other occasionals,” Lond. 1682, 8vo. These essays shew that he was steadfast in his religion, that of the established church, and led an exemplary life. He outlived his father ten years, and died June 24, 1677. By his wife Anne, daughter and co-heir to sir Charles Montagu, he had a numerous family, of which six sons and four daughters lived to maturity. Three of his sons form the subject of the ensuing articles.

Some facts, however, may be added, which are admitted on all sides, and on which future information can throw very little new light. It may be added that lord North entered upon the war with America upon a principle recognized not only by the most decided majorities in parliament, but by the voice of the nation. To this last there was no exception but in the proceedings of a party in the metropolis, whose dissatisfaction arose from other causes, and who embraced this favourable opportunity to mix something national with the petty concerns of John Wilkes. On the other hand, no minister had ever to contend with so many difficulties; a question of right, which many disputed; the disaffection of the colonies, which was applauded and encouraged within his hearing in the house of commons; an army which, even if it had appeared at once in the field of battle, had to encounter physical difficulties; but which was sent out with hesitation, and in such divisions that the portion to be assisted was generally defeated before that which was to assist had arrived; a navy likewise incapable of coping with the numerous European enemies that combined against Great Britain, and as yet in the infancy only of that glory to which we have seen it arrive. Added to these, lord North had to contend in parliament with an opposition more ample in talents and personal consequence than perhaps ever appeared at one time, and with the uninterrupted hostility of the corporation of London to all his measures, and to the court itself. For such a force of opposition lord North was not in all respects qualified. Even Burke, whose irritating language during tfye American war seemed beyond all endurance, could allow, that “lord North wanted something of the vigilance and spirit of command that the time required.” Yet with all these discouragements, it was only the actual failure of the measures of subjugation that lessened his majorities, and turned the tide of popular sentiment. It was not conviction, but disappointment, which made the war obnoxious; and the “right of taxation,” the “ingratitude of the colonies,” “unconditional submission,” ana even the epithet “rebellion,” applied to their resistance, never ceased to be urged until repeated failures prescribed a different language, and made thousands question the principle as well as the policy of the war, who at its commencement did not entertain a doubt on the subject. It was now that the ministry of lord North was charged with misconduct and incapacity; and such misconduct and incapacity being but too obvious in the blunders of those who had to execute his orders, it was not wonderful that the supporters of the war should gradually desert the ministerial standard, and that ministers should sink under the accumulated weight of parliamentary and popular odium. After a few faint efforts, therefore, to which he seemed rather impelled than inclined, lord North gave in his resignation in March 1732. That he had lately acted under the influence to which we formerly alluded, seemed to he about this time more generally believed, for some of the last endeavours of the opposition to procure his dismissal, had the “influence of the crown” for their avowed object; and as they approached nearer the accomplishment of their wishes, their threats to bring this guilty minister to his trial became louder. When, however, he made way for his successors, they not only granted him fu-ll indemnity for the past, but at no great distance of time, associated with him in a new administration, a measure to which the public could never be reconciled. The coalition which placed lord North and Mr. Fox in the same cabinet was more repugnant to general feeling than any one, or perhaps the aggregate, of lord North’s measures, when in the plenitude of his power. When the voice of the nation, and the spirit of its sovereign, had dismissed this administration, lord North returned no more to power, and took 110 very active part in politics, except on two occasions, when he maintained the consistency of his former political life, by opposing the repeal of the test act, and a scheme for the reform of parliament. In 1790 he succeeded his father in the earldom, but survived him only two years, during which he had the misfortune to lose his sight. He passed his last days in the calmness and endearments of domestic privacy, to which his cheerful and benign temper m was peculiarly adapted. His lordship died August 5, 1792. He was at this time, ranger and warden of Busby Park; chancellor of the university of Oxford; a knight of the garter; lord lieutenant and custos rotulorum of the county of Somerset; recorder of Gloucester and Taunton, one of the elder brethren of the Trinity-house; president of the Foundling-hospital and the Asylum, and governor of the Turkey company and Charter-house.

Warwickshire, and secondly of John Knight, esq. of Bellowes, or Belhouse, or Gosfield-hall, in Essex. Much of Pope’s correspondence with this lady is inserted in the supplementary volume of the last edition of that poet’s works. Earl Nugent died Oct. 13, 1788.

He was styled by the pope “The invincible doctor;” by others “The venerable preceptor;” “The singular doctor;” and “The unparalleled doctor.” He was chosen minister provincial of the friars minors of England, and afterwards diffinitor of the whole order of St. Francis, and in that capacity was present at the general chapter held at Perusium in Tuscany in 1322, where the fathers declared their adherence to the decree of pope Nicholas III. maintaining the poverty of Christ and his apostles, and that they had “nihii propria.” This doctrine gave rise to that pleasant question called the bread of the Cordeliers; which consisted in determining, whether the dominion of things consumed in the using, such as bread and wine, belonged to them, or only the simple use of them, without the dominion? Their rule not permitting them to have any thing as property, pope Nicholas III. who had been of their order, devised a method to enrich them, without breaking their rule. To this end he made an ordinance, that they should have only the usufruct of the estates which should be given to them, and that the soil and fund of all such donations should belong to the church of Rome. By this means he put them into possession of an infinite number of estates in the name of the church of Rome: but, for that reason, pope Nicholas’s bull was revoked by John XXII. who condemned the use without the dominion, by his “Extravaganta ad Conditorem.” He also condemned, by another “Extravaganta cum inter,” the doctrine concerning the possession of estates by Christ and his apostles, Occam, however, persisted in defending his opinions, and so greatly offended the pope that he was obliged to fly from Avignon, in 1328, to Lewis of Bavaria, who assumed the title of emperor, and refusing the pope’s order to return, was excommunicated in 1329. Lewis, his protector, was under the same circumstance, aud Occam is reported to have said to him, “Oh emperor, defend me with your sword, and I will defend you with my pen.” He at last, it is said, returned to his duty, and was absolved. He died at Munich, the capital of Bavaria, and was buried in the convent of his order, as appears by the following inscription on his tomb in the choir, on the right hand of the altar; viz. “Anno Domini 1347, 7mo Aprilis obijt eximius Doctor Sacrae Theologise Fr. Gulielmus dictus Occham de Anglia.” He wrote a Commentary upon the Predicables of Porphyry, and the Categories of Aristotle, and many treatises in scholastic theology and ecclesiastical law; which, if they be admired for their ingenuity, must at the same time be censured for their extreme subtlety and obscurity. But whatever may be thought of these, he deserves praise for the courage with which he opposed the tyranny of the papal over the civil power, in his book “De Potestate Ecclesiastica et Seculare.” Of this, or a part of it, “A dialogue between a knight and a clerke, concerning the Power Spiritual and Temporal,” the reader will find an account in Oldys’s “Librarian,” p. 5. It was printed by Berthelet, with Henry VIII.'s privilege. Fox, in his Martyrology, says that Occam was “of a right sincere judgment, as the times would then either give or suffer.” He was the only schoolman whom Luther studied, or kept in his library.

, a very industrious adventurer in literary speculations, was born in or near Edinburgh in November 1600. He was of an ancient family in that country; but his father, having spent the estate, became a prisoner in the King’s Bench, and could give his son but little education. The youth, however, being very industrious, acquired some little knowledge of Latin grammar; and afterwards got so much money, as not only to release his father from the gaol, but also to bind himself apprentice to one Draper, a dancing-master in London. He had not been long under this master before he made himself perfect in the art, and by his obliging behaviour to the scholars, acquired money enough from them to buy out the remainder of his time. He now began teaching on his own account, and being soon accounted one of the best masters in the profession, he was selected to dance in the duke of Buckingham’s great masque; in which, by an unlucky step in high capering, the mode of that time, he hurt the inside of his leg, which occasioned some degree of lameness, but did not prevent his teaching. Among others, he taught the sisters of sir Ralph, afterwards lord Hopton, at Wytham in Somersetshire and at leisure hours he learned of that accomplished knight how to handle the pike and musket. In 1633, when Wentworth earl of Stafford became lord deputy of Ireland, he took him into his family to teach his children; and Ogilby, writing an excellent hand, was frequently employed by the earl to transcribe papers for him.

, knight of the military order of Christ, and gentleman of the king of Portugal’s household, was born at Lisbon, May 21, 1702. His father, Joseph de Oliveyra e Souza, held a principal post in the exchequer of Portugal, and was for twenty five years secretary of embassy at the courts of London, the Hague, and Vienna. No expence was spared on the education of his son, whom he procured to be admitted into the exchequer at an early age, and who, in recompense for his own as well as his father’s services, was in Dec. 1729, invested with the order of knighthood. In 1732 he visited Madrid, and was introduced at the Spanish court. On his father’s death, which happened at Vienna in 1734, he was appointed to succeed him as secretary of embassy, and during his residence in this city, first began to perceive the absurdities of the popish superstition, from the difficulty that he found (as he has himself expressed) in defending it from the attacks of some Lutheran friends in occasional conversation.

, one of the finest poets of the Augustan age, was the son of a Roman knight, and a native of Sulmo, a town in the county of the Peligni, now Abruzzo. He was born in the year of Rome 7 Jo; that memorable year when the consuls, Hirtius and Pansa, were slain in the battle of Mutina against Antony. From his youth, his inclinations lay towards poetry; which, however, upon his father’s entreaties, he forsook, and, with a view to the practice of the law, studied eloquence under those eminent masters, Aurelius Fuscus and Porcius Latro, whose characters Seneca has drawn, and also mentions Ovid’s improvements under them. Such was his diligence and success, that he determined several private causes very judiciously, and frequently pleaded with great force of eloquence in the court of the centumviri. He was likewise made one of the triumviri, who were magistrates of great authority, and tried capital causes.

Parker (Henry) Lord Morley, a nobleman of literary taste in the reign of Henry VIII. was the son and heir of sir William Parker, knight, by Alice, sister and heir of Henry Lovel, and daughter of William Lovel, a younger son of William lord Lovel of Tichmersh, by Alianore, daughter and heir of Robert Morley, lord Morley, who died 21 Henry Vlth. He was educated at Oxford, but at what college, or at what time, does not appear. After leaving the university, he retired to his estate in Northamptonshire, and in the 21st year of the reign of Henry VIII. was summoned to parliament by the title of lord Morley. He was one of the barons, who, in the year following, signed the memorable declaration to pope Clement Vji. threatening him with the loss of his supremacy in England, unless he consented to the king’s divorce, but he still remained a bigoted adherent to the popish religion. In the 25th of the same reign, having a dispute for precedence with lord Dacre of Gillesland, his pretensions were confirmed by parliament. Anthony Wood says, that “his younger years were adorned with all kind of superficial learning, especially with dramatic poetry, and his elder with that which was divine.” Wood adds, that he was living, “an ancient man, and in esteem among the nobility, in the latter end of Henry VIII.” But from his epitaph, which is inserted in Collins’s Peerage, it appears that he died in Nov. 1556, aged eighty. His great grandson, Edward lord Morley, who married Elizabeth, sole daughter and heir of William Stanley, lord Montegle, had issue Mary, who by her husband Thomas Habington, of Henlip in Worcestershire, was mother of William Habington the poet, and was supposed to have been the person who wrote to her brother William, lord Morley and Montegle, the famous letter of warning respecting the gun-powder plot.

Concerning his learning and zeal for the promotion of learning, there is no difference of opinion. His skill in ancient liturgies was such, that he was one of the first selected to draw up the Book of Common Prayer; and when he came to be placed at the head of the church, he laboured much to engage the bishops, and other learned men, in the revisal and correction of the former translations of the Bible. This was at length undertaken and carried on under his direction and inspection, who assigned particular portions to each of his assistants, which he afterwards perused and corrected, and spared no pains in getting it completed. It was first published in 1568, and has usually been called the “Bishop’s Bible,” and ran its course with the Geneva translation, until the present version was executed, in the reign of king James. He also published a "Saxon homily on the Sacrament,“translated out of Latin into that language, by Ælfric a learned abbot of St. Alban’s, about 900 years before; with two epistles of the same, in which is not the least mention of the doctrine of transubstantiation. He was the editor also of editions of the histories of Matthew of Westminster and Matthew of Paris, and of various other works, enumerated by Tanner; some of which were either composed by him, or printed at his expence. The work on which he is thought to have spent most time was that” De Antiquitate Britanniæ Ecclesiæ;“but his share in this is a disputed point among antiquaries. In his letter to the lord treasurer, to whom he presented a copy, he speaks of it as his own collection, which had been the employment of his leisure hours. Dr. Drake likewise, in the preface to his edition of it, quotes a letter of the archbishop’s in the college-library, in which he expressly styles it,” My book of Canterbury Predecessors;“and archbishop Bramhall was of opinion, that the conclusion of the preface proved Parker himself to have been the author. But notwithstanding these testimonies, the matter is doubtful. Selden was the first who called it in question, although without giving his reasons; and sir Henry Spelman considered Dr. Ackworth to have been either the author or collector of the work. Archbishop Usher thinks that Ackworth wrote only the first part, concerning the British antiquities; and he, Selden, and Wharton, ascribe the lives of the archbishops to Josselyn, and make Parker little more than the director or encourager of the whole. And this certainly seems to be confirmed by the copy now in the Lambethlibrary. This copy, which originally belonged to that library, but was missing from the year 1720, was replaced in 1757 by Dr. Trevor, bishop of Durham, who found it in the Sunderland-library. This, which Dr. Ducarel thought the only perfect one existing, contains many manuscript papers, letters, and notes, respecting archbishop Parker and the see of Canterbury; and, among these, some proofs that Ackworth and Josselyn had a considerable share in the composition of the work. At the beginning of St. Augustine’s life we find this note:” These 24 pages of St. Augustine’s life were thus begun by George Acworth Dr. of laws, at the appointment of Matthew Parker Abp.of Cant, and the lives of all the archbishops should have in this course been perfected—(some words not intelligible)—but deth prevented it.“This Dr. Ackworth, as we have mentioned in our account of him (vol. I.) was alive in 1576, but how long after is not known, but as this is a year after our prelate’s death, there seems some difficulty in understanding the latter part of this note, without adopting archbishop Usher’s opinion above mentioned. We also find in the Lambeth copy, on the title-page of the history, the following note:” This Historie was collected and penned by John Josselyn, one of the sons of sir Thomas Josselyn, knight, by the appointment and oversight of Matthew Parker archbishop of Cant. the said John being entertained in the said archb. house, as one of his antiquaries, to whom, besides the allowance afforded to him in his howse, he gave to hym the parsonage of Hollinborn in Kent," &c.

After the death of Edward VI. he joined the exiles abroad, and took up his residence at Zurich, where he remained till the death of queen Mary. Here he met with his pupil Jewell, and on the change of affairs in England they intended to have returned together, but Parkhurst, thinking that Jewell had not chosen the safest route for his travels, left him and went by himself, the consequence of which was that Parkhurst was robbed of all he had on the road, and Jewell arrived safe in England, and had the satisfaction of relieving the wants of his former benefactor. Soon after Parkhurst arrived, he was elected to the see of Norwich April 13, 1560, and consecrated by archbishop Parker, &c. on Sept. 1. He held the living of Cleve for some time after this along with his bishopric. He now married Margaret, daughter of Thomas Garnish, of Kenton in Suffolk, esq. by Margaret his wife, daughter of sir Hugh Francis, of Giffard’s Hall in Suffolk, knight. In 1566, by virtue of a commission from the principal ministers of the university of Oxford, directed to Laurence Humphrey, the queen’s divinity professor, he and four other bishops were created doctors of divinity, Oct. 30, in the house of one Stephen Medcalf in London, in the presence of William Standish, public notary and registrar of the university, and others.

, an English divine, was the son of Richard Parr, likewise a divine, and was born at Fermoy, in the county of Cork, where, we presume, his father was beneficed, in 1617; and this singularity is recorded of his birth, that his mother was then fifty-five years of age. He was educated in grammar at a country school, under the care of some popish priests, who were at that time the only schoolmasters for the Latin-tongue. In 1635, he was sent to England, and entered as a servitor of Exeter college, Oxford, where his merit procured him the patronage of Dr. Piideaux, the rector, by whose interest, as soon as he had taken his bachelor’s degree in arts, in 1641, he was chosen chaplain-fellow of the college. He found here another liberal patron and instructor in the celebrated archbishop Usher, who, in 1643, retired to this college from the tumult then prevailing through the nation and observing the talents of Mr. Parr as a preacher, made him his chaplain; and, about the end of that year, took him with him to Glamorganshire. On his return with this prelate, he obtained the vicarage of Ryegate in Surrey, on the presentation of Mr. Roger James, gent, son of sir Roger James, knight, whose sister he married, a widow lady of considerable property. In doctrinal points he appears to have concurred with the assembly of divines, who were mostly Calvinists; but it seems doubtful whether he ever took the Covenant. In 1649, he resigned his fellowship of Exeter college, and continued chaplain to archbishop Usher, while that prelate lived. In 1653, he was instituted to the living of Camberweli in Surrey, and appears to have been some time rector of Bermondsey, where his signature occurs in the register of 1676, and he is thought to have resigned it in 1682. At the Restoration he was created D. D. and had the deanery of Armagh, and an Irish bishopric, offered to him, both which he refused; but accepted a canonry of Armagh. He remained vicar of Camberweli almost thirty-eight years, and was greatly beloved and followed. Wood, in his quaint way says, “He was so constant and ready a preacher at Camberweli, that his preaching being generally approved, he broke two conventicles thereby in his neighbourhood that is to say, that by his out- vying the Presbyterians and Independents in his extemporarian preaching, their auditors would leave them, and flock to Mr. Parr.” All who speak of him indeed concur in what is inscribed on his monument, that <c he was in preaching, constant in life, exemplary in piety and charity, most eminent a lover of peace and hospitality and, in fine, a true disciple of Jesus Christ.“He died at Camberweli Novembers, 1691, and was buried in the church-yard, where the above monument was erected to his memory. His wife died before him. Dr. Parr wrote” Christian Reformation: being an earnest persuasion to the speedy practice of it: proposed to all, but especially designed for the serious consideration of his dear kindred and countrymen of the county of Cork in Ireland, and the people of Ryegate and Camberweli in Surrey,“Lond. 1660, 8vo. He published also three occasional sermons; but the most valuable present he made to the publick was his” Life of Archbishop Usher," prefixed to that prelate’s Letters, printed in folio, 1686. It is the most ample account we have of Usher; and few men could have enjoyed better opportunities of knowing his real character. Wood mentions Dr. Thomas Marshall’s intention of enlarging this, as noticed in oiir account or' him.

On his arrival in London, by the recommendation of his Paris friends, he was introduced to the acquaintance of Dr. Mead, sir Hans Sloane, and Dr. James Douglas. This great anatomist made use of his assistance, not only in his anatomical preparations, but also in his representations of morbid and other appearances, a list of several of which was in the hands of his friend Dr. Maty; who had prepared an eloge on Dr. Parsons, which was never used, but which, by the favour of Mrs. Parsons, Mr. Nichols has preserved at large. Though Dr. Parsons cultivated the several branches of the profession of physic, he was principally employed in midwifery. In 1738, by the interest of his friend Dr. Douglas, he was appointed physician to the public infirmary in St. Giles’s. In 1739 he married miss Elizabeth Reynolds, by whom he had two sons and a daughter, who all died young. Dr. Parsons resided for many years in Red Lion-square, where he frequently enjoyed the company and conversation of Dr. Stukeley, bishop Lyttleton, Mr. Henry Baker, Dr. Knight, and many other of the most distinguished members of the royal and antiquarian societies, and that of arts, manufactures, and commerce; giving weekly an elegant dinner to a large but select party. He enjoyed also the literary correspondence of D'Argenville, Button, Le Cat, Beccaria, Amb. Bertrand, Valltravers, Ascanius, Turberville Needham, Dr. Garden, and others of the most distinguished rank in science. As a practitioner he was judicious, careful, honest, and remarkably humane to the poor; as a friend, obliging and communicative; cheerful and decent in conversation; severe and strict in his morals, and attentive to fill with propriety all the various duties of life. In 1769, finding his health impaired, he proposed to retire from business and from London, and with that view disposed of a considerable number of his books and fossils, and went to Bristol. But he returned soon after to his old house, and died in it after a week’s illness, on the 4th of April, 1770, much lamented by his family and friends. By his last will, dated in October 1766, he gave his whole property to Mrs. Parsons; and, in case of her death before him, to miss Mary Reynolds, her only sister, “in recompence for her affectionate attention to him and to his wife, for a long course of years, in sickness and in health.” It was his particular request that he should not be buried till some change should appear in his corpse; a request which occasioned him to be kept unburied 17 days, and even then scarce the slightest alterution was perceivable. He was buried at Hen don, in a vault which he had caused to be built on the ground purchased on the death of his son James, where his tomb had a very commendatory inscription. A portrait of Dr. Parsons, by Mr. Wilson, is now in the British Museum; another, by Wells, left in the hands of his widow, who died in 1786; with a third unfinished; and one of his son James; also a family piece, in which the same son is introduced, with the doctor and his lady, accompanied by her sister. Among many other portraits, Mrs. Parsons had some that were very fine of the illustrious Harvey, of bishop Burnet, and of Dr. John Freind; a beautiful miniature of Dr. Stukeley; some good paintings, by her husband’s own hand, particularly the rhinoceros which he described in the “Philosophical Transactions.” She possessed also his Mss. and some capital printed books; a large folio volume entitled “Figure quaedam Miscellaneae qu0e ad rem Anatomicam Historiamque Naturalem spectant quas propria adumbravit manu Jacobus Parsons, M. D. S S. R. Ant.” &c. another, called “Drawings of curious Fossils, Shells,” &c. in Dr. Parsons’s Collection, drawn by himself;" &c. &c. Mrs. Parsons professed herself ready to give, on proper application, either to the royal or antiquarian society, a portrait of her husband, and a sum of money to found a lecture to perpetuate his memory, similar to that established by his friend Mr. Henry Baker.

His works are, 1. “A brief Discourse, containing the Reasons why Catholics refuse to go to Church,” with a Dedication to Queen Elizabeth, under the fictitious name of John Howlet, dated Dec. 15, 1530. 2. “Reasons for his coming into the Mission of England, &c.” by some ascribed to Campian. 3. “A brief Censure upon two Books, written against the Reasons and Proofs.” 4.“A Discovery of John Nichols, misreported a Jesuit” all written and printed while the author was in England. 5. “A Defence of the Censure given upon his two Books, &c.” 1583. 6. “De persecutione Anglicana epistola,” Rome and Ingolstadt, 1582. 7. “A Christian Directory,” 1583. 8. “A Second Part of a Christian Directory, &c.” 1591. These two parts being printed erroneously at London, Parsons published an edition of them under this title: “A Christian Directory, guiding men to their Salvation, &c. with m.my corrections and additions by the Author himself.” This book is really an excellent one, and was afterwards put into modern English by Dr. Stanhope, dean of Canterbury; in which form it has gone through eight or ten editions. 9. “Responsio ad Eliz. Reginse edictum contra Catholicos,” Romae, 1593, under the name of And. Philopater. 10. “A Conference about the next Succession to the Crown of England, &c.” 1594, under the feigned name of Doleman. This piece was the production of cardinal Allen, Inglefield, and others, who furnished the materials, which Parsons, who had a happy talent this way, put into a proper method. Parsons’s style is among the best of the Elizabethan period. 11. “A temperate Wardword to the turbulent and seditious Watchword of sir Fr. Hastings, knight, 7 ' &c. 1599, under the same name. 12.” A Copy of a Letter written by a Master of Arts at Cambridge, &c.“published in 1583. This piece was commonly called” Father Parsons’s Green Coat,“being sent from abroad with the binding and leaves in that livery, but there seems reason to doubt whether this was his (see Ath. Ox. vol. II. new edit, note, p. 74). 13.” Apologetical Epistle to the Lords of her Majesty’s Privy Council, &c.“1601. 14.” Brief Apology, or Defence of the Catholic Ecclesiastical Hierarchy erected by pope Clement VIII. &c.“St. Omers, 1601. 15.” A Manifestation of the Folly and bad Spirit of secular Priests,“1602. 16.” A Decachordon often Quodlibetical Questions/' 1602. 17. “De Peregrinatione.” 18. “An Answer to O. E. whether Papists or Protestants be true Catholics,” 1603. 19. “A Treatise of the three Conversions of Paganism to the Christian Religion,” published (as are also the two following) under the name of N. D. (Nicholas Doleman), in 3 *6ls. 12mo, 1603, 1604. 20. “A Relation of a Trial made before the king of France in 1600, between the bishop of Evreux and the lord Plessis Mornay/' 1604. 21.” A Defence of the precedent Relation, &c.“22.” A Review of ten public Disputations^ &c. concerning the Sacrifices and Sacrament of the Altar,“1604. 23.” The Forerunner of Bell’s Downfall of Popery,“1605. 24.” An Answer to the fifth Part of the Reports of Sir Edward Coke, &c.“1606, 4to, published under the name of a Catholic Divine. 25.” De sacris alienis non adeundis, questiones duae,“1607. 26.” A Treatise tending to Mitigation towards Catholic subjects in England, against Thomas Morton (afterwards bishop of Durham),“1607. 27.” The Judgment of a Catholic Gentleman concerning king James’s Apology, &c.“1608. 28.” Sober Reckoning with Thomas Morton,“1609. 29.” A Discussion of Mr. Barlow’s Answer to the Judgment of a Catholic Englishman concerning the Oath of Allegiance,“1612. This book being left not quite finished at the author’s death, was afterwards completed and published by Thomas Fitzherbert. The following are also posthumous pieces: 30.” The Liturgy of the Sacrament of the Mass,“1620. 31.” A Memorial for Reformation, &c.“thought to be the same with” The High Court and Council of the Reformation,“finished after twenty years’ labour in 1596, but not published till after Parsons’s death; and republished from a copy presented to James II. with an introduction and some animadversions by Edward Gee, under the title of,” The Jesuits Memorial for the intended Reformation of the Church of England under their first Popish Prince,“1690, 8vo. 32. There is also ascribed to him,” A Declaration of the true Causes of the great Troubles pre-supposed to be intended against the Realm of England, &c. Seen and allowed, anno 1581.“33. Parsons also translated from the English into Spanish,” A Relation of certain Martyrs in England,“printed at Madrid 1590, 8vo.Several of his Mss. are preserved in Baliol college library, particularly a curious one entitled” Epitome controversiarum, hujus temporis."

Our prelate had a brother John Patrick, preacher at the Charter-house, according to Wharton, and one of the translators of Plutarch. Dr. Samuel Patrick, the editor of an edition of Ainsworth’s Dictionary was also at the Charterhouse, but whether a relation does not appear. Wharton also says he had a son, who wasted an estate left him by his father, and it was sold, after his death, “for debts and portions.” Mrs. Catherine Patrick, a maiden lady of eightytwo years old, said to be our prelate’s grand-daughter, died at Bury in 1792. Whiston speaks of a life of bishop Patrick, written by himself, which he had read, and which was in Dr. Knight’s hands, but where now, is not known.

He informs us also of his skill in painting; that he could take likenesses, and on one occasion took his majesty’s (James I.) as he sat at dinner. He also made, perhaps engraved, a map of Cambridge. Lord Orford mentions his engraving of a good print, after Holbein, of sir Thomas Cromwell, knight, afterwards earl of Essex. From his “Gentleman’s Exercise” we learn that he either kept school, or had private pupils. Lord Orford says that he was tutor to the children of the earl of Arunde), whom he accompanied to the Low Countries. In the same work, Peacham says he translated king James’s “Basilicon Doron” into Latin verse, and presented it to prince Henry, to whom he also dedicated his “Minerva Britannica” in 1612. He also published in 1615, “Prince Henry revived; or a poem upon the birth of prince H. Frederick, heir apparent to Frederick Count Palatine of the Rhine.” The only other particulars we derive from his own hints are, that he lived for some time in St. Martin’s in the Fields, and was addicted to melancholy. It is said that he was reduced to poverty in his old age, and wrote penny pamphlets for bread. This last is asserted in a ms note by John Gibbon, Bluemantle, on a copy of one of Peacham’s tracts sold at Mr. West’s sale. It is entitled ' A Dialogue between the cross in Cheap and Charing crosse. Comforting each other, as fearing their fall, in these uncertain times. By Ryhen Pameach" (Henry Peacham). The chief merit of this, Mr. Gough says, is that its wooden frontispiece exhibits the ruined shaft of Charing Cross, and the entire cross of Cheap. It has no date. Cheapside cross, we know, was taken down in 1640.

, secretary to the admiralty in the reigns of Charles II. and James II. and an eminent benefactor to the literature of his country, was a descendant of the ancient family -of the Pepys’s of Cottenham in Cambridgeshire, and probably the son of liichard Pepys, who was lord chief justice in Ireland in 1654. He was born, according to Collier, in London; but Knight, in this particular a better authority, says he was born at Brampton in Huntingdonshire, and educated at St. Paul’s school. Thence he was removed to Magdalen-college, Cambridge. How long he remained here, we are not told, but it appears by the college-books, that on June 26, 1660, he was created M. A. by proxy, he being then on board of ship as secretary to the navy. He appears to have been related to general Montague, afterwards earl of Sandwich, who first introduced him into public business, and employed him first in various secret services for Charles II. and then as secretary in the expedition for bringing his majesty from Holland. His majesty being thus restored, Mr. Pepys was immediately appointed one of the principal officers of the navy, by the title of clerk of the acts. In this employment he continued until 1673; and during those great events, the plague, the fire of London, and the Dutch war, the care of the navy in a great measure rested on him alone.

“At length,” continues lord Woodhouselee, “comes into the field, a hardy but most uncourteous knight, who, with a spirit very opposite to that of the heroes of chivalry, blasts at once the fair fame of the virtuous Laura, and the hitherto unsullied honour of her lover; and, proudly throwing down his gauntlet of defiance, maintains that Laura was a married woman, the mother of a numerous family; that Petrarch, with all his professions of a pure and honourable flame, had no other end in his unexampled assiduity of pursuit, than what every libertine proposes to himself in the possession of a mistress; and that the lovely Laura, though never actually unfaithful to her husband’s bed, was sensible to the passion of her Cicisbeo, highly gratified by his pursuit, and while she suffered on his account much restraint and severity from a jealous husband, continued to give him every mark of regard, which, without a direct breach of her matrimonial vow, she could bestow upon him.” Such is the hypothesis of M. de Sade, in his “Memoires pour la Vie de Petrarque,” 3 vols. 4to, which he published at Amsterdam, in 1764 67. He also asserts that Laura was the wife of one of his own predecessors, Hugh de Sade, and the mother of eleven children; that she was the daughter of Audibert de Noyes, was born in 1307 or 1308, at Avignon, and died there in 1348, having been married in 1325.

In 1666, sir William drew up his treatise, called “Verbum Sapienti,” containing an account of the wealth and expences of England, and the method of raising taxes in the most equal manner; shewing likewise, that England can bear the charge of four millions per annum, when the occasions of the government require it! The same year, 1666, he suffered a considerable loss by the fire of London; having purchased, several years before, the earl of Arunders house and gardens, and erected buildings in the garden, called Token-house, which were for the most part destroyed by that dreadful conflagration. In 1667, he married Elizabeth, daughter to sir Hardresse Waller, knight, and relict of sir Maurice Fenton, bart. and afterwards set up iron works, and a pilchard-fishery, opened lead- mines, and commenced a timber trade in Kerry, which turned to very good account; and with all these employments he found time to consider other subjects of general utility, which he communicated to the Royal Society, He composed a piece of Latin poetry, and published it at London in 1679, in two folio sheets, under the name of ' Cassid. Aureus Manutius,“with the title of” Colloquium Davidis cum anima sua.“His patriotism had before led him to use his endeavours to support the expence of the war against the Dutch, and he felt it necessary also to expose the sinister practices of the French, who were at this time endeavouring to raise disturbances in England, increase our divisions, and corrupt the parliament at this time. With this vievr he published, in 1680, a piece called” The Politician Discovered,“&c. and afterwards wrote several essays in political arithmetic; in which, from a view of the natural strength both of England and Ireland, he suggests a method of improving each by industry and frugality, so as to be a match for, or even superior to, either of her neighbours. Upon the first meeting of the Philosophical Society at Dublin, after the plan of that at London, every thing was submitted to his direction; and, when it was formed into a regular society, he was chosen president, Nov. 1684. UpoiKthis occasion he drew up a” Catalogue of mean, vulgar, cheap, and simple Experiments,“proper for the infant state of the society, and presented it to them; as he did also his” Supellex Philosophica," consisting of fortyfive instruments requisite to carry on the design of their institution. But, a few years after, all his pursuits were determined by the effects of a gangrene in his foot, occasioned by the swelling of the gout, which put a period to his life, at his house in Piccadilly, Westminster, Dec. 16, 1687, in his sixty-fifth year. His body was carried to Rumsey, and there interred, near those of his parents. There was laid over his grave only a flat stone on the pavement, with this short inscription, cut by an illiterate workman:

"I remember there was a great difference between him and sir (Hierom Sankey), one of Oliver’s knights, about 1660. They printed one against the other. * The knight had been a soldier, and challenged sir William to fight with him. Sir William is extremely short-sighted, and being the cballengee it belonged to him to nominate place and weapon. He nominates for the. place a dark cellar, and the weapon to be a great carpenter’s axe. This turned the knight’s challenge into ridicule, and it came to nought Sir William can be an excellent droll, if he has a mind to it, and will preach extempore incomparably, either in the presbyterian way, independent, capucin friar, or Jesuit.

, a learned English divine and martyr, was the son of sir Peter Philpot, knight of the Bath, and twice sheriff of Hampshire. He was born at Compton in. that county, and educated at Winchester school, whence he was admitted of New college, Jan. 27, 1534, was made fellow, and took the degree of bachelor of laws. In a manuscript list of persons educated in that college, preserved in the Bodleian library, he is termed, “constans martyr pro verbo Dei, regnante Maria regina,” a faithful martyr for the word of God in queen Mary’s reign. He was, according to Wood, esteemed a good civilian, and admirably well skilled in the Greek and Hebrew tongues. Strype says, that when at college, “he profited in learning so well, that he laid a wager of twenty-pence with John Harpsfield, that he would make two hundred verses in one night, and not make above two faults in them. Mr. Thomas Tuchyner, schoolmaster, was judge; and decreed the twenty-pence to Mr. Philpot.”

In 1541 his fellowship became void, /probably by his setting out on his travels through Italy. He returned in the beginning of king Edward’s reign, and was collated to the archdeaconry of Winchester by Dr. Ponet, or Poynet, the first protestant bishop of that see. He was not unknown to Gardiner, Ponet’s predecessor, who had often forbidden his preaching in king Henry’s reign, and on one occasion cited him to his house, before certain justices, and called him rogue. Catching hold of this abusive epithet, Philpot said, “Do you keep a privy sessions in your own house for me, and call me rogue, whose father is a knight, and may spend a thousand pounds within one mile of your nose? And he that can spend ten pounds by the year, as I can, I thank God, is no vagabond.”

, one of the most celebrated sculptors that France has produced, was born at Paris in 1714, the son of a joiner, and by his talents became not only sculptor to the king, but chancellor of the academy of painting, and knight of the order of St. Michael. He did not manifest any early disposition for designing; he loved to model, but set about it awkwardly, and finished nothing but by means of indefatigable labour. A visit to Italy gave him that facility which he could not acquire at home. He there studied the works of the great artists, and returned thoroughly inspired with their genius. He died at Paris, Aug. 20, 1785. His most known works are, 1. “A Mercury and a Venus,” which he made by order of Louis XV. and which were presented to the king of Prussia. The king, who was delighted with them, was desirous to see the sculptor; and Pigalle, some time after, went to Berlin, but, being announced as the author of the Mercure de France, could not obtain an audience. When Frederic understood the mistake, he was very anxious to repair it; but Pigalle was already gone in some digust. Pigalle maintained that none of the heads of Frederic did justice to his physiognomy, which, in point of spirit, was the finest he had ever seen; and much regretted that he had not been allowed to model it. 2. The monument of marechal Saxe, in which the beauty of the whole obliterates all objections to the parts. 3. The pedestrian statue of Louis *XV. executed in bronze for the city of Rheims. 4. The statue of Voltaire. 5. A little boy holding a cage. '6. A girl taking a thorn from her foot. 7. Several busts of men of letters who were his friends. If Pigaile cannot be ranked among the men of the first genius in his art, the good sense of his designs, and the soundness of his taste, afford him a place in the very next class.

, or P0MPEIUS (CNEius), surnamed Magnus, or the Great, was of a noble Roman family, the son of Pompeius Strabo, and Lucilia. He was born the same year with Cicero, but nine months later, namely, in the consulship of Csepio and Serranus, 105 years before the Christian sera. His father was a general of great abilities, and under him he learned the art of war. When he was only twenty-three he raised three legions, which he led to Sylla. Three years after, he drove the opponents of Sylla from Africa and Sicily. Young as he was, he had already won the soldiers sufficiently, by his mildness and military talents, to excite the jealousy of Sylla, who therefore recalled him to Rome. His soldiers would have detained him in spite of the dictator’s orders, but he obeyed, and was rewarded on his arrival by the name of Magnus, given him by Sylla, and soon after confirmed unanimously by his countrymen. He obtained also the honours of a triumph, which the dictator permitted rather unwillingly, and was the first instance of a Roman knight, who had not risen to any magistracy, being advanced to that elevation. This was in 81 B. C. In a short time, he had obtained as much power by the voluntary favour of the people, as Sylla had before by arms and after the death of that extraordinary man, obliged Lepidus to quit Rome, and then undertook the war against Sertorius in Spain, which he brought to a fortunate conclusion. For this victory he triumphed a second time, B. C. 73, being still only in the rank of a knight. Not long afterwards he was chosen consul. In that office he re-established the power of the tribunes; and, in the course of a few years, exterminated the pirates who infested the Mediterranean, gained great advantages against Tigranes and Mithriclates, and carried his victorious arms into Media, Albania, Iberia, and the most important parts of Asia; and so extended the boundaries of the Roman empire, that Asia Minor, which before formed the extremity of its provinces, now became, in a manner, the centre of them. When he returned to receive a triumph for these victories, he courted popularity by dismissing his troops and entering the city as a private citizen. He triumphed with great splendour but not feeling his influence such as he had hoped, he united with Caesar and Crassus to form the first triumvirate. He strengthened his union with Ccesar by marrying his daughter Julia; he was destined nevertheless to find in Caesar not a friend, but too successful a rival. While Caesar was gaining in his long Gallic wars a fame and a power that were soon to be invincible, Pompey was endeavouring to cultivate his popularity and influence in Rome. Ere long they took directly contrary parties. Pompey became the hope and the support of the patricians and the senate, while Caesar was the idol of the people. On the return of the latter from Gaul, in the year 51 A. C. the civil war broke out, which terminated, as is well known, by the defeat of Pompey in the battle of Pharsalia, A. C. 49, and the base assassination of him by the officers of Ptolemy in Egypt. It appears that Pompey had not less ambition than Caesar, but was either more scrupulous, or less sagacious and fortunate in his choice of means to gratify that passion. He was unwilling to throw off the mask of virtue and moderation, and hoped to gain every thing by intrigue and the appearance of transcendant merit. In this he might have been successful, had he not been opposed to a man whose prompt and decisive measures disconcerted his secret plans, drove things a once to extremities, and forced him to have recourse to the decision of arms, in which victory declared against him. The moderate men, and those who were sincerely attached to the republic of Rome, dreaded, almost equally, the success of Pompey and of Caesar. Cato, who took the mourning habit on the breaking out of the civil war, had resolved upon death if Caesar should be victorious, and exile if sue* cess should declare for Pompey.

Sir Thomas Pope was thrice married. His first wife was Elizabeth Gunston, from whom he was divorced July 11, 1536. His second was Margaret Dodmer, widow, to whom he was married July 17, 1536. Her maiden name was Townsend, a native of Stamford in Lincolnshire, and the relict of Ralph Dodmer, knight, sheriff and lord-mayor of London. By sir Thomas Pope she had only one daughter, Alice, who died very young, but she had two sons by her former husband, whom sir Thomas treated as his own. She died in 1538, after which, in 1540, he married Elizabeth the daughter of Walter Blount, esq. of Blount’s Hall, in Staffordshire. She was at that time the widow of Anthony Basford, or Beresford, esq. of Bently, in Derbyshire, by whom she had one son, but no children by sir Thomas Pope. After Sir Thomas’s death she married sir Hugh Powlett, of Hinton St. George, in Somersetshire, the son of sir Amias Powlett, who was confined in the Temple by the order of cardinal Wolsey. Sir Hugh joined her cordially in her regard and attentions to the college, of which she was now styled the foundress. She died at an advanced age, Oct. 27, 1593, at Tyttenhanger, in Hertfordshire, the favourite seat of sir Thomas Pope, and was interred, in solemn pomp, in the chapel of Trinity college.

From this time, instead of lectures, it is said he turned his thoughts to publication; but before this, he had been a contributor to some of the literary journals, of articles which displayed his critical acumen. In the 3d vol. of Maty’s Review, he published a criticism on Schutz’s JEschylus“, dated from Trinity college, May 29, 1783. His other criticisms in that Review are, Brunck’s Aristophanes, vol. IV. Hermesianax, by Weston, vol. V. Huntingford’s Apology for” his Monostrophics, vol. VI. He also furnished Mr. Maty with a transcript of the letters of Bentley and Le Cierc, vol, IX. p. 253. He was an occasional contributor to the Monthly Review, the Gentleman’s Magazine, and, it is believed, to other publications. The account of Robertson’s Parian Chronicle, inthe Monthly Review, was written by him; and the review of Knight’s Essay on the Greek Alphabet, January 1. 1794, has, from internal evidence, been given to him. Of the ironical defence of Sir John Hawkinses Life of Johnson he was unquestionably the writer: this was comprised in three humourous letters inserted in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1787, under the signature of Sundry Whereof. Some letters upon the contested verse, 1 John, v. 7, appeared subsequently in the same work; which at lengtn caused the publication of his letters to Archdeacon Travis, in which he is thought by many to have completely invalidated the authority of that much-disputed text. Not long after he had taken his first degree, it was in the contemplation of the syndics of the university press at Cambridge to publish Æschylus, with Stanley’s commentaries, in ms. in the public library of that university. Mr. Porson offered to undertake the work, if allowed to conduct it according to his own ideas of the duty of an editor but this offer was rejected, and in a manner so discouraging, that we are told it in a great measure operated, for a short period, to extinguish in him that ardent love of fame which is, generally speaking, the concomitant of learning and the emanation of genius. We shall find hereafter how much he had at heart the elucidation of this very difficult author, and in the mean time he was not reluctant to employ his pen in similar undertakings. In 1785, when Nicholson, the bookseller of Cambridge, was preparing a new edition of Xenophon’s ft Anabasis," he prevailed upon Mr. Porson to furnish him with some assistance, which he accordingly did to the extent of twenty-eight pages of addenda, which, although avowedly written in hatete, attest the hand of a master. In the year 1787, he communicated to the delegates of the Clarendon press some notes upon Toup’s Emendations on Suidas, which appeared with that important work in 1790. These notes were probably composed by him at the request of his friend Mr. Tyrwhitt; a gentleman of whose learning and genius he had the highest opinion, and not only used to mention the talents and acuteness of Mr. T. with approbation, but with reverence.

, an ancient Roman poet, was born at Mevania, a town in Urnbria, as we learn from his own writings, and probably about the year of Rome 700. Some say, his father was a knight, and a man of considerable authority; who, becoming a partizan with Antony, on the capture of Perusia, was made prisoner, and killed by Augustus’s order, at the altar erected to Caesar when his estate was forfeited of course. This which happened when the poet was very young, he alludes to in one of his elegies, and laments the ruin of his family in that early season of his life. His wit and learning soon recommended him to the patronage of Maecenas and Gallus; and among the poets of his time, he was very intimate with Ovid and Tibullus. We have no particular account of his life, or the manner of his death; only he mentions his taking a journey to Athens, probably in company with his patron Maecenas, who attended Augustus in his progress through Greece. Those that make him live the longest carry his age no higher than forty-one. His death is usually placed B. C. 10. The great object of his imitation was Callimachus Mimnermus and Philetas were two others, whom he likewise admired and followed in his elegies. Quintilian tells us, that Propertius disputed the prize with Tibullus, among the critics of his time and the younger Pliny, speaking of Passienus, an eminent and learned elegiac poet of his acquaintance, says, that this talent was hereditary and natural for that he was a descendant and countryman of Propertius. Propertius however was inferior to Tibullus in tenderness, and to Ovid in variety of fancy, and facility of expression still it must be granted that he was equal in harmony of numbers, and certainly gave the first specimen of the poetical epistle, which Ovid afterwards claimed as his invention.

, a Polish knight, and Socinian writer, was born about 1592, and studied at Altdorf, until his adherence to the Socinian tenets obliged him to remove to Leyden. On his return to Poland, he was advanced to several posts of honour, and made use of his influence to encourage the Socinians in propagating their opinions, and establishing churches in the Polish territories. He also wrote “A History of their Churches,” but the work was lost, when, in 1658, his disciples were banished from their country. Przipcovius procured an asylum with the elector of Brandenburg, who gave him the appointment of privy-counsellor; and in 1663 a synod of Unitarians, held in Silesia, selected him as their correspondent with their brethren in other nations, with a view of promoting the interests of the community. He died in 1670, at the age of 78. His works were published in 1692, folio, and may be considered as the seventh volume of the collection entitled “Bibliotheca Fratrum Poionorum.”

, a late English poet, was descended from a very ancient and respectable family, who are stated to have come into England with the Conqueror, and settled at a place called the Meerd in Herefordshire. His greatgreat-grandfather was auditor of the exchequer to James I. His son, sir Robert Pye, a knight also, married Anne, the eldest daughter of John Hampden, the patriot, of whom the subject of this article was consequently the representative by the female line. The last male heir left the estate in Herefordshire, and the name, to the Trevors, descended from the second daughter; but sir Robert Pye purchased Faringdon in Berkshire, which county he twice represented in Parliament. Our author’s father, Henry Pye, esq. who occasionally resided there, was elected no less than five times, without opposition, for the same county.

, an eminent Spanish satirist, was born at Madrid in 157O; and was a man of quality, as appears from his being styled knight of the order of St. James, which is the next in dignity to that of the Golden Fleece. He was one of the best writers of his age, and excelled equally in verse and prose. He excelled too inall the different kinds of poetry his heroic pieces, says Antonio, have great force and sublimity his lyrics great beauty and sweetness and his humorous pieces a certain easy air, pleasantry, and ingenuity of tone, which is delightful to a reader. His prose works are of two sorts, serious and comic the former consist of pieces written npon moral and religious subjects the latter are satirical, full of wit, vivacity, and humour, but not without a considerable portion of extravagance. All his printed works, for ie wrote a great deal which was never printed, are comprised in 3 vols. 4to, two of which consist of poetry, a third of pieces in prose. The “Parnasso Espagnol, or Spanish Parnassus,” under which general title all his poetry is included, was collected by the care of Joseph Gonzales de Salas, who, besides short notes interspersed throughout, prefixed dissertations to each distinct species. It was first published at Madrid, in 1650, 4to, and has since frequently been printed in Spain and the Low Countries. The humorous part of his prose-works has been translated into English, particularly “The Visions,” a satire upon corruption of manners in all ranks which has gone through. several editions. The remainder of his comic works, containing, “The Night Adventurer, or the Day-Hater,” “The Life of Paul the Spanish Sharper,” “”The Retentive Knight and his Epistles,“”The Dog and Fever,“”A Proclamation by Old Father Time,“” A Treatise of allThings whatsoever,“” Fortune in her Wits, or the Hour of all Men,“were translated from the Spanish, and published at London, in 1707, 8vo. Stevens, the translator, seems to have thought that he could not speak too highly of his author; he calls him” the great Quevedo, his works a real treasure the Spanish Ovid, from whom wit naturally flowed without study, and to whom it was as easy to write in verse as in prose." The severity of his satires, however, procured him many enemies, and brought him into great troubles. The count d'Olivares, favourite and prime minister to Philip IV. of Spain, imprisoned him for making too free with his administration and government; nor did he obtain his liberty till that minister was disgraced. He died in 1645, according to some; but, as others say, in 1647. He is said to have been very learned; and it is affirmed by his intimate friend, who wrote the preface to his volume of poems, that he understood the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, and French languages.

Quien de la Neufville (James Le), a good historian, was born May 1, 1647, at Paris, and was the son of Peter Le Quien, a captain of horse, descended from an ancient Boulenois family. He made one campaign as a cadet in the regiment of French guards, and then quitted the service, meaning to attend the bar; but a considerable disappointment, which his father met with, deranged his plans, and obliged him to seek a resource in literary pursuits. By M. Pelisson’s advice, he applied chiefly to history, and published in 1700, a “General History of Portugal,” 2 vols. 4to, a valuable and well-written work, which obtained him a place in the academy pf inscriptions, 1706. This history is carried no farther than the death of Emmanuel I. 152 1.“M. de la Clede, secretary to the marechal de Coigni, published a” New History of Portugal,“1735, 2 vols. 4to, and 8 vols. 12mo, that comes down to the present time; in the preface to which he accuses M. Le Quien of having omitted several important facts, and passed slightly over many others. M. le Quien afterwards published a treatise on the origin of posts, entitled” L' Usage des Postes chez les Anciens et les Modernes," Paris, 1734, 12mo. This treatise procured him the direction of part of the posts in Flanders, and in France. He settled at Quesnoy, and remained there till 1713, when the abbe de Mornay, being appointed ambassador to Portugal, requested that he might accompany him, which was granted, and he received the most honourable marks of distinction on his arrival; the king of Portugal settled a pension of 1500 livres upon him, to be paid wherever he resided, created him a knight of the order of Christ, which is the chief of the three Portuguese orders, and worn by himself. His majesty also consulted him respecting the academy of history which he wished to establish, and did establish shortly after at Lisbon. Le Quien, flattered by the success of his Portuguese history, was anxious to finish it; but his too close application brought on a disorder, of which he died at Lisbon, May 20, 1728, aged 81, leaving two sons, the elder of whom was knight of St. Louis, and major of the dauphin foreign regiment, and the younger postmaster general at Bourdeaux.

The subsequent course of his life received its direction from his friendship and connections with this prelate. Feiielon had been preceptor to the duke of Burgundy, heirapparent, after the death of his father the dauphin, to the crown of France; yet neither of them came to the possession of it, being survived by Lewis XIV. who was succeeded by his great grandson, son to the duke of Burgundy, and now Lewis XV. Ramsay, having been first governor to the duke de Charteau-Thiery and the prince de Turenne, was made knight of the order of St. Lazarus; and afterwards was invited to Rome by the chevalier de St. George, styled there James III. king of Great Britain, to take the charge of educating his children. He went accordingly to that court in 1724; but the intrigues and dissentions, which he found on his arrival there, gave him so much uneasiness, that, with the Pretender’s leave, he presently returned to Paris. Thence he returned to Scotland, and was kindly received by the duke of Argyle and Greenwich; in whose family he resided some years, and employed his leisure there in writing several of his works. In 1730 he had the degree of doctor of law conferred on him at Oxford, being admitted for this purpose of St. Mary hall in April of that year, and presented to his degree by the celebrated tory Dr. King, the principal of that house. After his return to France, he resided some time at Pontoise, a seat of the prince de Turenne, duke de Bouillon with whom he continued in the post of intendant till his death, May 6, 1743, at St. Germaiu-en-Laie, where his body was interred; but his heart was deposited in the nunnery of St. Sacrament at Paris.

d, and received sentence of death. Tindal’s Contin. of Rapin, IV. 666. Cambridge. He was perpetual curate of Surfleef, of which he gave an account to the Spalcling Society; and curate of Cowbitt, which is a chapel to Spalding, in the gift of trustees. His hermitage of osiers and willows there was celebrated, by William Jackson of Boston, in a ms heroic poem. He communicated to the Royal Society an account of a water-spout raised off the land in Deeping fen, printed in their “Transactions,” vol. XLVII. p. 447, and of an ancient coin, to “Gent. Mag. 1744.” There are several dissertations by him in that miscellany. He was secretary to the Spalding society in 1735. Mr. Pegge, about 1758, had a consultation with Dr. Taylor, residentiary of St. Paul’s, and a friend of Ray’s, to get him removed to a better situation, and the doctor was inclined to do it; but, on better information and mature consideration, it was thought then too late to transplant him. He died a bachelor at Spalding in 1760. See his communications to the society, in the Reliquiae Galeanae, pp. 57, 58, 3. He also communicated, in ms. “The Truth of the Christian Religion demonstrated from the Report that was propagated throughout the Gentile World about the Birth of Christ, that a Messiah was expected, and from the Authority of Heathen Writers, and from the Coins of the Roman Emperors to the beginning of the second general persecution under Domitian,” in ten sections, never printed. Also a ms catalogue of household goods, furniture, and ten pictures, removed out of the presence-chamber, 26 Charles II. 14 Dec. 1668, from Mr. Brown, and of others taken out of the cupboard in the chamber, 25 Dec. 1668, by Mr. Church. These were in number 69. (Percy Church, esq. was some time page of honour and equerry to the queen-mother Henrietta Maria.) A ms catalogue of Italian princes, palaces, and paintings, 1735, now in the Society’s Museum. In 1740, a large and well-written history of the life and writings of the great botanist, his namesake, by Mr. Dale, which was read, and approved. John Ray’s account of Cuba, where he was on shore some months. Mr. Johnson calls him his kinsman, and says, in honour of him, he finds an inscription on the lower ledge of an altar-tomb, on which lies a mutilated alabaster knight in armour and mail in Gosberkirke, alias Gosberton chapel, now a school at Surfleet, to belong to Nicolas Rie, who was sheriff of Lincolnshire 5 and 6 Edw. I. 1278, and died 1279 or 80.

Of the family of bishop Reynolds we find mention of his son Edward, who was educated at St. Paul’s school, and a fellow of Magdalen-college, Oxford, archdeacon of Norwich, and prebendary of Worcester. He was also for forty years rector of St. Peter’s Northampton, and died in his sixty-ninth year, June 28, 1698. He was buried in Kingsthorpe chqrch, near Northampton, where is a monument and inscription to his memory. Dr. Knight says, he was “a very able and judicious divine, and a very worthy son of so good a father.” Some notices of two of the bishop’s descendants may be found in Cumberland’s life.

, a celebrated cardinal and minister of France, was the third son of Francis du Plessis, seigneur de Richelieu, knight of the king’s orders, and grand provost of France, and was born Sept. 5, 1585, at Paris. He was admitted into the Sorbonne at the age of twenty-two, obtained a dispensation from pope Paul V. for the bishopric of Lucon, and was consecrated at Rome in 1607. On his return, he acquired considerable interest at court, and was appointed by Mary de Medicis, then regent, her grand almoner; and in 1616 was raised to the post of secretary of state. After the death of one of his friends, the marshal D'Ancre, in 1617, when Mary was banished to Blois, he followed her thither; but, the duke de Luynes becoming jealous of him, he was ordered to retire to Avignon, and there he wrote his “Method of Controversy,” on the principal points of faith.

, a celebrated naval commander, was the second son of Henry Rodney, esq. of Walton on Thames, and Mary, eldest daughter and coheir to sir Henry Newton, knight, envoy- extraordinary to Genoa, LL. D. judge of the high-court of admiralty, and chancellor of the diocese of London. His father, as a naval officer, commanded the yacht in which king George I. attended by the duke of Chandos, used to embark in going to or coming from Hanover, and in consequence, asked leave that his son might be called George Brydges. He was born in Dec. 1717. At the desire, or by the command, of his royal and noble god-fathers, he entered early into the navy, and in 1742 he was lieutenant in the Namur, commanded by admiral Matthews. In November of the same year, he was promoted by the admiral to the command of ili Plymouth, of shrty gtttts; on returning home he was removed into the Sheerness, a small frigate; and in 174i he was npp.iinied to the command of the Lucliowcastle, of furty-iour guns. In this ship he does not appear to have continued long, for in May 1746, he was captain of the Eagle, a new ship of sixty guns, then employed as a cruiser on the Irish station. While here he captured two large privateers. He continued in the Eagle during the remainder of the war, and was one of the commanders under the orders of rear-admiral Hawke, when in 1747 he defeated L'Etendiere’s squadron. On this occasion capt. Rodney behaved with much spirit, and may be said to have then laid the foundation of that popularity he afterwards in so high a degree possessed. On the conclusion of the war he was, in March 1749, appointed to the Rainbow, a fourth rate, and in May following was nominated governor and commander-in-chief in and over the island of Newfoundland. Immediately afterwards he proceeded thither with the small squadron annually sent there in time of peace, for the protection of the fishery. Some time after his return in 1753 he married Miss Compton, daughter of Charles Compton, esq. and sister to Spencer, then earl of Northampton. In 1757 he was engaged, under the command of admirals Hawke and Boscawen, to attempt a descent on the coast of France, near Rochefort; and in 1759 he was advanced rear-admiral of the blue. In this same year he was sent to bombard Havre de Grace, where a large force was collected for the purpose of attempting an invasion of this country. He executed the trust committed to him so completely, that the town itself was several times on fire, and the magazines of stores and ammunition burnt with fury upwards of six hours, notwithstanding the exertions used to extinguish it. Thus had admiral Rodney the happiness of totally frustrating the design of the French court; and so completely did he destroy their preparations, that the fort itself, as a naval arsenal, was no longer during the war in a state to annoy Great Britain. In 1761 admiral Rodney was very instrumental in the capture of the islands of St Pierre, Granada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent, when the whole Caribbees came into the possession of the English. For his skill and bravery in the war, he was, after the conclusion of it, raised to the dignity of a baronet. In 1768, after an expensive, and to sir George Rodney a ruinous, contest with Mr. Howe, he was elected member of parliament for Northampton. In the month of October 1770 he was progressively advanced to be vice-admiral of the white and red squadrons, and in the month of August 1771, to be rear-admiral of Great Britain. In the very arly part of this year he resigned the mastership of Greenwich hospital, to which he had been appointed in 1765, and was immediately after made commander-in-chief on the Jamaica station, whither he repaired, having his flag on board the Princess Amelia of 80 guns. The appointment of this ship to that service was intended as a particular and pointed compliment, it being extremely unusual to send a three-decked ship on that station, except in time of actual war. It is said the command in India was offered to him, which he declined, entertaining hopes of being appointed governor of Jamaica in case of the death of sir William Trelawney; but in this he was disappointed. After his return to England at the expiration of the time allotted for the continuance of his command, he retired to France, where he lived some years in obscurity, hoping to retrieve the losses he had suffered at the Northampton election. It is said that the French king wished to take advantage of his pecuniary embarrassments, and through the duke de Biron made him the most unbounded offers if he would quit the English for the French service. In reply to this proposal he said,“My distresses, sir, it is true, have driven me from the bosom of my country, but no temptation can estrange me from her service. Had this offer been voluntary on your part, I should have deemed it an insult, but I am glad to learn it proceeds from a source that can do no wrong.” The duke was so struck with the patriotism of the admiral, that he became attached to him as a friend, and is said to have advanced him a sum of money to revisit England, and solicit a command.

, a brave naval officer, was born in Kent, 1650, of an ancient and honourable family. His father, sir William Rooke, knight, qualified him by a proper education for a liberal profession but was at last obliged to give way to his inclination to the navy. His first station was that of a volunteer, from which his merit raised him by regular steps to be vice-admiral, and one of the council to prince George of Denmark, lord high admiral. He had the command of several expeditions in the reigns of William and Anne, in which his conduct and courage were eminently displayed. The former appeared in his behaviour on the Irish station, when he was sent as commodore with a squadron to assist in the reduction of that kingdom; in his wise and prudent management when he preserved so great a part of the Smyrna fleet, which fortune had put into the hands of the French, who suffered themselves to be deprived of an immense booty by the superior skill of this admiral; but more particularly in the taking of Gibraltar, which was a project conceived and executed in less than a week, though it has since endured sieges of not only months but years, and more than once baffled the united forces of France and Spain. Of his courage he gave abundant testimonies, but especially in burning the French ships at La Hogue, and in the battle of Malaga, where he behaved with all the resolution of a British admiral; and, as he was first in command, was first also in danger; and all times must preserve the memory of his glorious action at Vigo.

, a French poet, was born in 1672, at Marseilles, and employed twenty years as editor of the Mercure de France, in which he acquired considerable reputation. He died October 3, 1744, at Paris. He wrote the words of the operas, viz. “Medée et Jason,” and “Theonoe,” though they pass for the abbe Pellegrin’s, and made a very valuable collection of prints, &c. a curious catalogue of which was given by the late M. Gersaint. M. de la Roque was created knight of the military order of St. Louis after the battle of Malplaquet, where he was wounded, having taken the post, which one of the king’s guards had just quitted, from a presentiment that he should be killed in it. His brother John de la Roque assisted him in the “Mercury,” from 1722, wheM he first undertook it, and died at Paris, December 28, 1745, aged eighty-four. He had travelled into the East, and left the following works “Vo'iage de la Palestine,” 12mo; “Voyage de Syrie, et du Mont Liban, avec un Abrege de la Vie de M. du Chasteuil,” 2 vols. 12mo. He had aiso promised to publish his “Voyage Litteraire de Normandie,” but it has not appeared.

, an eminent physician, whose treatment df Linna3Us we have already noticed (see Linnaeus, p; 297), was born Feb. 1, 1706, at a village near Gottenburgh, and was sent to the college of that place in 1718. His father was a divine, and he was intended for the same profession, biit gave a decided preference to medicine, whidh he studied at Lund tinder Kilian Stobseus. After residing four years at this university he went to Stockholm, and became tutor in a nobleman’s family. la 1728, when the assessor Martin died at Upsal, Rosen became substitute professor of physic; but before he took tipon him this office^ he made a tour through Germany, Switzerland, France, and Holland, and took his doctor’s degree at Harderwyk in 1730. In the spring of the following year he entered on his professorship at Upsal, became member of the academy of sciences there, and was received a member of the royal academy of Stockholm in 1739. In 1740 he became ordinary professor in room of Rudbeck; in 1757, he was created a knight of the order of the polar star, and was ennobled in 1762, when queen Louisa Ulrica gave him the name of Rosenstein. He gairied great celebrity as physician to the royal family of Sweden, and received in 1769^ for his inoculation of some of them for the small pox, a reward of 100,000 rix dollars from the states of the kingdom. In his last illness, his animosity to Linnreus was so subdued, that he requested the medical assistance of that celebrated man. He died July 16, 1773. The academy of Stockholm struck a medal to his memory, with the inscription, “Sscculi decus incferlibile nostri.” He had a brother, who was also eminent as a physician and botanist; and in honour of both, Thunberg named a plant Rosenia. Dr. Nicholas Rosen’s principal works, which were all published in the Swedish language, are, “A medical repository of Domestic Medicine,” published by order of the queen dowager, &c. “A Treatise on the Diseases of Children,” which has been translated into German, English, Dutch, French, and Italian. He contributed likewise several papers to the memoirs of the academy of Stockholm.

, a very conspicuous racter during the republican state of England, descended from an ancient family in Devonshire, was the younger son of sir Anthony Rons, knight, by Elizabeth, his first wife, daughter of Thomas Southcote, gent. He was born at Halton, in Cornwall, in 1570, and entered a commoner of Broadgate-hall, now Pembroke-college, Oxford, where he took a bachelor’s degree in arts. He afterwards studied the law, and there is a report that he took orders, and preached at Saltash; but for this there was probably no other foundation than what his works afforded, which would not have disgraced many of the divines of that period. It is evident that he had studied religious controversy with, more attention than laymen usually bestow on such subjects. His destination, however, was to make a figure in political history. In the first parliament called by Charles I, he was returned for Truro in Cornwall, for Tregony in the third, and for Truro again in the 15th and 16th of that reign; in all which he proved one of the most zealous enemies to the established church, and a vehement declaimer. against what he termed innovations and abuses both in church and state, and particularly against Arminianism, which was also the subject of some of his works. He was one of the few laymen appointed by the Commons to sit in the Assembly of Divines at Westminster. In the parliament called in 1653, he was one of the representatives for Devonshire, and at that time was first chosen chairman, and then speaker for a month; but continued, during the whole sitting, to forward Cromwell’s plans. He procured a vote, that Cromwell, Lambert, Harrison, Disbrowe, and Tomlinson, should sit in that house as members; and afterr wards proposed, that the parliament should resign the govertment into Cromwell’s hands, with the title of Protector. His original intention was to form the English commonwealth after the model of the Jewish; but as a theocracy was rejected, he made the above proposal in favour of Cromwell, whom he affected to look upon as a compound of the characters of Moses and Joshua. In gratitude for this, he was declared one of Jus highness’ s privy-council. In 1656, he was returned one of the members for Cornwall; and in the year following was seated in the House of Lords. He had been made provost of Eton in 1643, and had a college- lease, which together were worth 1200l. per annum. He died at Acton, near London, Jan, 7, 1659, and was buried with great pomp at Eton, and a standard-­pennon, with other things relating to a baron, were erected over his grave, but these were taken away at the Restoration. We have omitted to notice, that he was principal trier and approver of public preachers, and a commissioner for the ejectment of “scandalous and ignorant ministers.” He founded three fellowships in Pembroke college, and bequeathed other property to pious uses. Lord Clarendon and other contemporaries undervalue his abilities, which certainly did not appear to much advantage in parliament, where his speeches were rude, vulgar, and enthusiastic, both in style and sentiment, yet perhaps not the worse adapted to the understandings of his hearers. Wood has given a long catalogue of his writings, the principal of which relating to subjects of religions controversy, or general piety, were collected in a folio printed at London in 1657, under the title of “The Works of Francis Rous, esq. or treatises and meditations dedicated to the saints, and to the excellent throughout the three nations.” This has Faithorne’s fine print from the picture in Pembroke college. He published also, a tract, “The Lawfulness of obeying the present Government,” 1649, 4to, and “Mel la Patrum,” a thick octavo, 1650, containing what may he termed the beauties of the fathers of the first three centuries; “Jnteriora regni Dei,” 1665, 12mo, and a translation of the Psalms into English metre, printed in 1645, by order of the House of Commons. His son Francis was a young physician of great talents, but died early in life in 1643. When at Merton college, he was distinguished for classical attainments, and published a work on Greek antiquities, “Archaeologiae Atticae libri tres,” Oxon. 1637, which Wood says went through several impressions.

, third son of the king of Bohemia, by the princess Elizabeth, eldest daughter of James I. of England, was born 1619, and educated, like most German princes, for the army and those who have been least inclined to favour him, admit that he was well adapted, both by natural abilities and acquired endowments, to form a great commander. On the commencement of the rebellion, which happened when he was scarcely of age, he offered his services to Charles I. and throughout the whole war behaved with great intrepidity. But his courage was of that kind which is better calculated for attack than defence, and is less adapted to the land service than that of the sea, where precipitate valour, Granger observes, is in its element. He seldom engaged but he gained the advantage, which he generally lost by pushing it too far. He was better qualified to storm a citadel, or even mount a breach, than patiently to sustain a siege, and would have been an excellent assistant to a general of a cooler head. In consideration of his services, for which we refer to the general histories of the times, and on account of his affinity to him, king Charles made him a knight of the garter, and a free denizen, and advanced him to the dignity of a peer of England, by the title of earl of Holdernesse and duke of Cumberland.

, was eldest son of Francis fourth earl of Bedford, by Catharine, sole daughter and heir of Giles Bridges, lord Chandois, and was born in 1614. He was educated in Magdalen college, Oxford, and was made knight of the bath at the coronation of king Charles I. He was a member of the Long-parliament, which met at Westminster, November 3, 1640; and May 9 following, upon the death of his father, succeeded him in his honours and estate. In July 1642, having avowed his sentiments against the measures pursued by the court, he was appointed by the parliament general of the horse, in the army raised in their defence against the king; and the marquis of Hertford being sent by his majesty into the West to levy forces, iti order to relieve Portsmouth, the earl of Bedford inid the command of seven thousand foot, and eight full troops of horse, to prevent his success in those parts; and marched with such expedition, that he forced the marquis out of Somersetshire, where his power and interest were believed unquestionable, and thus destroyed all hopes of forming an army for the king in the West. He afterwards joined the eari of Essex, and in the battle of Edgehill commanded the reserve of horse, which saved the whole army, when the horse of both wings had been defeated, and, after doing great execution on the king’s infantry, brought off their own foot; so that it became doubtful who had the victory, this reserve being the only body of forces that stood their ground in good order. In 1643, he, and the earls of Holland and Clare, conferred with the earl of Essex, who became dissatisfied with the war; and they had so much influence in the House of Lords, that, on the 5th of August the same year, that House desired a conference with the Commons, and declared to them their resolution of senclHig propositions for peace to the king, and hoped they would join with him. But by the artin'ce of Pennington, lord mayor of London, who procured a petition from the common-council of that city against the peace, such tumults were raised to terrify these lords, that they left the town, the Commons refusing to agree to their propositions. The earls of Bedford and Holland resolved therefore to go to Oxford; but their purpose being discovered or suspected, they with some difficulty got into the king’s garrison at Wallingford, from whence the governor sent an account of their arrival to the council at Oxford. The king was then at the siege of Gloucester, and the council divided in their opinions, in what manner to receive them; but his majesty upon his return determined on a middle way, by allowing them to come to Oxford, and every person to treat them there as they thought fit, while himself would regard them according to their future behaviour. Accordingly the two earls came, and, together with the earl of Clare, entered into the king’s service in Gloucestershire, waited upon his majesty throughout his march, charged in the royal regiment of horse at the battle of Newbury with great bravery, and in all respects behaved themselves well. Upon the king’s return to Oxford, he spoke to them on all occasions very graciously; but they were not treated in the same manner by others of the court, so that the earl of Holland going away first, the earls of Bedford and Clare followed, and came to the earl of Essex at St. Alban’s on Christmas-day, 1643. Soon after this, by order of parliament, the earl of Bedford was taken into custody by the black rod, and his estate sequestered, as was likewise the earl of Clare’s, tili the parliament, pleased with their successes against % the king in 1644, ordered their sequestrations to be taken off, and on the 17th of April the year following, the earl of Bedford, with the earls of Leicester and Ciare, and the lords Paget, Rich, and Convvay, who had left Oxford, and joined the parliament at London, took the covenant before the commissioners of the great-seal. He did not, however, interpose in any public affairs, till the House of Peers met in 1660, when the earl of Manchester, their speaker, was ordered by them to write to him to take his place among them; which he accordingly did, being assured of their design to restore the king and on the 27th of April that year, he was appointed one of the managers of the conference with the House of Commons, “to consider of some ways and means to make up the breaches and distractions of the kingdom” and on the 5th of May was one of the committee of peers “for viewing and considering, what ordinances had been made since the House of Lords were voted useless, which now passed as acts of parliament, and to draw up and prepare an act of parliament to be presented to the House to repeal what they should think fit.”

After the restoration of king Charles II. the earl of Bedford, notwithstanding his past conduct, was so far in his favour, that at the solemnity of his coronation, on April 23, 1661, he had the honour to carry St. Edward’s scepter; and, on May 29, 1672, was elected a knight of the most noble order of the garter. When the prince and princess of Orange came to the throne, he was sworn one of their privy council and at their coronation, on April 11, 1689, carried the queen’s scepter with the dove. They constituted his lordship, on May 10, 1689, lord lieutenant of the counties of Bedford and Cambridge; and, on March 1, 1691, lord lieutenant and custos rotulorum for the county of Middlesex, and the liberties of Westminster. He sought for no other honours or employments; but their majesties, on May 11, 1694, created him marquis of Tavistock and duke of Bedford, and, in enumerating his merits in the patent it is expressed, “That this was not the least, that he was father to the lord Russel, the ornament of his age, whose great merits it was not enough to transmit by history to posterity; but they were willing to record them in their royal patent, to remain in the family, as a monument consecrated to his consummate virtue; whose name could never be forgot, so long as men preserved any esteem for sanctity of manners, greatness of mind, and a love to their country, constant even to death. Therefore to solace his excellent father for so great a loss, to celebrate the memory of so noble a son, and to excite his worthy grandson, the heir of such mighty hopes, more cheerfully to emulate and follow the example of his illustrious father, they intailed this high dignity upon the earl and his posterity.”

In 1679, when the king found it expedient to ingratiate himself with the whigs, lord William Russel was appointed one of his new council; but this could not last long, for in the following year he promoted the bill for the exclusion of the duke of York from the throne, the debate upon which was opened by him on the 26th of October, with a declaration of his opinion, that the life of his majesty, the safety of the nation, and the protestant religion, were in great danger from popery; and that either that parliament must suppress the growth and power thereof, or else popery would soon destroy, not only parliaments, but all that was dear and valuable to them, for which reason he moved, that they might in the first place take into consideration, how to suppress popery, and prevent a popish successor. The bill being accordingly passed in the House of Commons, his lordship, on the J5th of November, carried it up to the peers; who rejecting it, the Commons were exasperated at this, and lord Russel in particular said, that if ever there should happen in this nation any such change, as that he should not have the liberty to live a protestant, he was resolved to die one; and therefore would not willingly have the hands of their enemies strengthened. But these, and similar speeches from other members, having disgusted the court, the parliament was prorogued on the 10th of January, 1680-1. However, the necessity of the king’s affairs requiring the meeting of another parliament, his majesty called one, which assembled at Oxford on the 21st o March following; in which lord Russel served again as knight of the shire for the county of Bedford. But another bill of exclusion being moved for by sir Robert Clayr ton, who was seconded -.hy. his lordship, that parliament was soon after dissolved, and no other called during the reign of king Charles II. who now seemed determined to govern without one.

, sieur de Malesais, a native of Marcigny, in JViaconois, was gentleman in ordinary of the king’s bedchamber, and knight of the holy sepulchre, in the 17th century. He resided a long time at Constantinople in his majesty’s service, was French consul in Egypt, learnt the Turkish and Arabic languages, and died soon after his return to France. His works are, “A Turkish Grammar,” in Latin, Paris, 1630, 4to; A French “Translation of the Koran,” 1649, 12mo, reprinted at Amsterdam, 1770, 2 vols. 12mo, but this work is not esteemed, the author having injudiciously blended the reveries of the Mahometan commentators with the text of Mahomet; A French translation of “Gulistan, or the empire of the Roses,” written by Sadi, chief of the Persian poets, Paris, 1634, 8vo. Gentius has translated the same book into Latin, under the title of “Rosarium poeticum.”

Having by these productions established the reputation of being the best poet in his time, he laid down his pen, and assumed the character of the statesman, in which he also became very eminent. He found leisure, however, to make the tour of France and Italy; and was on some account or other in prison at Rome, when the news arrived of his father sir Richard Sackville’s death in 1566. Upon this, he obtained his release,‘ returned home, ente’red into the possession of a vast inheritance, and soon after was promoted to the peerage by the title of lord Buckhurst. He enjoyed this accession of honour and fortune too liberally for a while, but soon saw his error. Some attribute his being reclaimed to' the queen,- but others say, that the indignity of being kept in waiting by an alderman, of whom he had occasion to 1 borrow money, made so deep an impression oft him,“ibat he resolved from that moment to be an eeconomisi. By the queen he was received into particalar favour, and employed in many very important affairs- In 1587 he was sent ambassador to the United Provinces’,” upon 1 their complaints against the earl of Leicester 'j and y though he discharged that nice and hazardous trust with- great integrity, yet the favourite prevailed with his mistress to call him home, and confine him to his house for nine Or ten months; which command lord Buckhurst is said to have submitted to so obsequiously, than in all the time he never would endure, openly or secretly, by day or by night, to see either wife or child. His enemy, however, dying, her majesty’s favour returned to him more strongly than ever. He was made knight of the garter in 1590; and chancellor of Oxford in 1591, by the queen’s special interposition. In 1589 he was joined with the treasurer Burleigh in negotiating a peace with Spain; and, upon the death of Burleigh the same year, succeeded him in his office; by virtue of which he became in a manner prime minister, and as such exerted himself vigorously for the public good and her majesty’s safety.

In the same year, 1540, he lost his patron Cromwell, who was beheaded; but he retained his favour with Henry, and in 1541 was again sent to Scotland, to detach the king from the pope and the. popish clergy, and to press upon him the propriety of a personal meeting with Henry. This however the king of Scotland appears to have evaded with considerable address, and died the following year of a broken heart, in consequence of hearing of the fatal battle of Solway. The crown was now left to James V.'s infant daughter Mary; and sir Ralph Sadler’s next employment was to lend his aid to the match, projected by Henry VIII. between his son Edward and the young queen. But this ended so unsuccessfully, that Sadler was obliged to return to England in Dee 1543, and Henry declared war against Scotland. In the mean time he was so satisfied with Sadler’s services, even in this last negociation, that he included him, by the title of sir Ralph Sad ley r, knight, among the twelve persons whom he named as a privy-council to the sixteen nobles to whom, in his will, he bequeathed the care of his son, and of the kingdom. When this will was set aside by the protector duke of Somerset, and it became necessary to reconcile the king’s executors and privy-counsellors, by wealth and honours, sir Ralph Sadler received a confirmation of all the church-lands formerly assigned to him by Henry, with splendid additions.

When the war with Scotland was renewed, sir Ralph so distinguished himself at the battle of Pinkie, that he was on the field raised to the degree of knight banneret; but we hear nothing more of him during the reign of Edward VI. except that in a grant, dated the 4th of that king’s reign, he is termed master of the great wardrobe. In Mary’s reigo, although he appears to have been in her favour, he retired to his estate at Hackney, and resigned the office of knight of the hamper,;-.nich had been conferred on him by Henry VIII. On the accession of Elizab^th, he again appeared at court, was called to the privy council, and retained to his death a great portion of the esteem of that princess. He was a member of her first parliament, as one of the knights of the shire for the county of Hertford, and continued to be a representative of the people during the greater part, if not the whole, of her reign. When queen Elizabeth thought proper to favour the cause of the reformation in Scotland, and to support the nobility who were for it against Mary, sir Ralph Sadler was her principal agent, and so negotiated as to prepare the way for Elizabeth’s great influence in the affairs of Scotland. He was also concerned in the subsequent measures which led to the death of queen Mary, and was appointed her keeper in the castle of Tutbury; but such was Elizabeth’s jealousy of this unfortunate princess, that even Sadler’s watchfulness became liable to her suspicions, and on one occasion, a very heavy complaint was made against him, that he had permitted Mary to accompany him to some distance from the castle of Tutbury, to enjoy the sport of hawking. Sir Ralph had been hitherto so subservient to his royal mistress, in all her measures, and perhaps in some which he could not altogether approve, that this complaint gave him great uneasiness, and he answered it rather by an expostulation than an apology. He admitted that he had sent for his hawks and falconers to divert " the miserable life'- which he passed at Tutbury, and that he had been unable to resist the solicitation of the prisoner, to permit her to see a sport in which she greatly delighted. But he adds; that this was under the strictest precautions for security of her person; and he declares to the secretary Cecil, that rather than continue a charge which subjected him to such misconstruction, were it not more for fear of offending the queen than dread of the punishment, he would abandon his present charge on coitdition of surrendering himself prisoner to the Tower for all the days of his life, and concludes that he is so weary of this life, that death itself would make him more happy. Elizabeth so far complied with his intimation as to commit Mary to a new keeper, but she did not withdraw her confidence from sir Ralph in other matters, and after the execution of Mary, employed him to go to the court of James VI. to dissuade him from entertaining thoughts of a war with England on his mother’s account, to which there was reason to think he might have been excited. In this sir Ralph had little difficulty in succeeding, partly from James’s love of ease, and partly from the prospect he had of succeeding peaceably to the throne of England. This was the last time sir Ralph Sadler was employed in the public service, for soon after his return from Scotland, he died at his lordship of Standon, March 30, 1587, in the eightieth year of his age, and was buried in the church of Standon, where his monument was decorated with the king of Scotland’s standard, which he took in the battle of Musselburgh. He left behind him twenty-two manors, several parsonages, and other great portions of land, in the several counties of Hertford, Gloucester, Warwick, Buckingham, and Worcester. He married Margaret Mitchell, a laundress in the family of his first patron, Thomas Cromwell, earl of Essex, in the life-time, though in the absence, of her husband, Matthew Barre, a tradesman in London, presumed to be dead at that time, and he afterwards procured an act of parliament, 37 Henry VIII. for the legitimation of the children by her, who were three sons, and four daughters; Anne, married to sir George Horsey of Digswell, knight; Mary, to Thomas Bollys aliter Bowles Wallington, esq. Jane, toEdward Baesh, of Stanstead, esq. (which three gentlemen appear to have been sheriffs of the county of Hertford, 14, 18, and 13 Eliz.); and Dorothy, to Edward EIryngton of Berstall, in the county of Bucks, esq. The sons were, Thomas, Edward, and Henry. Thomas succeeded to Standon, was sheriff of the county 29 and 37 Eliz. was knighted, and entertained king James there two nights on his way to Scotland. He had issue, Ralph and Gertrude married to Walter the first lord Aston of the kingdom of Scotland; Ralph, his son, dying without issue, was succeeded in his lordship of Standon and other estates in the county of Hertford, by Walter, the second lord Aston, eldest surviving son of his sister Gertrude lady Aston. The burying-place of the family is in tire chancel of the church at Standon. Against the south wall is a monument for sir Ralph Sadler, with the effigies of himself in armour, and of his three sons and four daughters,' and three inscriptions, in Latin verse, in English verse, and in English prose against the north wall i& another for sir Thomas, with the effigies of himself in armour, his lady, son and daughter, and an epitaph in Ertglish prose. There are also several inscriptions for various persons of the Aston family.

Upon the calling of a new parliament in November, he was chosen knight of the shire for the county of Berks, and also burgess for Wotton-Basset; but made his election for the former. He appeared now upon a scene of action, which called forth all his abilities. He sustained almost the whole weight of the business of the peace of Utrecht, which however he was not supposed to negotiate to the advantage of his country: and therefore had an ample share of the censure bestowed on that treaty ever since. The real state of the case is, that “the two parties,” as he himself owns, “were become factions in the strict sense of the word.” He was of that which prevailed for peace, against those who delighted in war for this was the language of the times and, a peace being resolved on by the English ministers at all risks, it is no wonder if it was made with less advantage to the nation. He owns this, yet justifies the peace in general: “Though it was a duty,” says he, “that we owed to our country, to deliver her from the necessity of bearing any longer so unequal a part in so unnecessary a war, yet was there some degree of merit in performing it. I think so strongly in this manner, I am so incorrigible, that, if I could be placed in the same circumstances again, I woflld take the same resolution, and act the same part. Age and experience might enable me to act with more ability and greater skill; but all I have suffered since the death of the queen should not hinder me from acting. Notwithstanding this, I shall not be surprised if you think that the peace of Utrecht was not answerable to the success of the war, nor to the efforts made in it. I think so myself; and have always owned, even when it was making and made, that I thought so. Since we had committed a successful folly, we ought to have reaped more advantage from it than we did.”

After nine weeks confinement in the Marshalsea, he was set at liberty, by the intercession of sir Thomas Holcroft, knight-marshal. This, however, was not accomplished without much difficulty, and so intent was Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, on bringing Sandys to the stake, that it required some management on the part of sir Thomas before he could succeed; and no sooner was Sandys liberated than Gardiner, being told that he had set at liberty one of the greatest heretics in the kingdom, procured orders to be issued to all the constables of London to search for, and apprehend him. In Sandys* s final escape, as related by his late biographer, the hand of Providence was strikingly visible. While he was in the Tower, wanting a pair of new hose, a tailor was sent for, who, not being permitted to measure him, had made them too long, and While he was now concealed at the house of one Hurleston, a skinner in Cornhill, he sent them, as Hurleston’s own, to a tailor to be shortened. This happened to be honest Benjamin the maker, a good protestant, who immediately recognized his own handy work, and required to be shown, to the house where Dr. Sandys was, that he might speak with him for his good. At midnight he was admitted, and informed Dr. Sandys, that all the constables of the city, of whom he himself was one, were employed to apprehend him, thai it was well known that his servant had provided two geldings, and that he meant to ride out at Aldgate tomorrow. “But,” said he, “follow my advice, and, by God’s grace, you shall escape. Let your man walk all the day to-morrow in the street where your horses are stabled, booted and prepared for a journey. The servant of the man of the house shall take the horses to Bethnalgreen. The man himself shall follow, and be booted as if he meant to ride. About eight in the morning I will be with you, and here we will break our fast. It is both term and parliament time, and the street by that hour will be full of people; we will then go forth look wildly, and, if you meet your own brother in the street, do not shun, but outface him, and assure him that you know him not.” Dr. Sand3's accordingly complied, and came out at the appointed hour, clothed in all respects as a layman and a gentleman. Benjamin carried him through bye-lanes to Moorgate, where the horses were ready, and Hurleston as his man. That night he rode to his father-in-law’s house, but had not been there two hours, when intelligence was brought, that two of, the guard had been dispatched to apprehend him, and would be there that night. He was then immediately conducted to the house of a farmer near the sea-side, where he remained two days and two nights in a solitary chamber. Afterwards he removed to the house of one James Mower, a ship-master, near Milton-shore, where was a fleet of merchant-men awaiting a wind for Flanders. While he was there, Mower gathered a congregation of forty or fifty seamen, to whom he gave an exhortation, with which they were so much delighted, that they promised to defend him at the expence of their lives. On Sunday May 6, he embarked in the. same vessel with Dr. Coxe, afterwards bishop of Ely, and the ship was yet in sight, when two of the guard arrived on the shore to apprehend Dr. Sandys.

At Worcester began the inquietudes and vexations which pursued bishop Sandys through his latter days. The papists in his diocese hated him, and he was at no pains to conciliate them. At Hartlebury, in particular, it was his misfortune to have for his neighbour sir John Browne, a bigoted papist, who took every opportunity to insult the bishop, and to deride his wife (for he had by this time married Cecily, sister of sir Thomas Wilford), by calling her " My Lady‘,’ 7 a style which in the novelty of their situation, some of the bishop’s wives really pretended to; so that in conclusion a great affray took place between the bishop’s servants and those of the knight, in which several were wounded on both sides. At Worcester Dr. Sandys remained till 1570, when on the translation of his friend Grindal to York, he succeeded him in the see of London, a station for which he was eminently qualified by his talents as a preacher, and as a governor. During this period, he had interest to procure for his kinsman Gilpin, a nomination to the bishopric of Carlisle, but Gilpin refused it. At London, Dr. Sandys sat six years, when he was translated to York, on the removal of Grindal to Canterbury.

, a most learned man, and a great benefactor to the learning of his country, was the son of Henry Savile of Bradley, in the township of Stainland, in the parish of Halifax, Yorkshire, by Ellen, daughter of Robert Ramsden. He was born at Bradley, Nov. 30, 1549, and first entered of Brasen-nose college, Oxford, whence he was elected to Merton-college in 1561, where he took the degrees in arts, and was chosen fellow. When he proceeded master of arts in 1570, he read for that degree on the Almagest of Ptolemy, which procured him the reputation of a man wonderfully skilled in mathematics and the Greek language; in the former of which, he voluntarily read a public lecture in the university for some time. Having now great interest, he was elected proctor for two years together, 1575 and 1576, an honour not very common, for as the proctors were then chosen out of the whole body of the university, by the doctors and masters, and the election was not, as now, confined to particular colleges, none but men of learning, and such as had considerable interest, durst aspire to that honour. In 1578 he visited the continent, became acquainted with various learned foreigners, and obtained many valuable Mss. or copies of them. He is said to have returned a man of high accomplishment*, and was made tutor in the Greek tongue to queen Elizabeth, or, as it is otherwise expressed, he read Greek and mathematics with her majesty, who had a great esteem for him. In 1585 he was made warden of Mertoncollege, which he governed six and thirty years with great credit, and greatly raised its reputation for learning, by a judicious patronage of students most distinguished for talents and industry. In 1596, he was chosen provost of Eton-college, of which society also he increased the fame by rilling it with the most learned men, among whom was the ever-memorable John Hales. It is said, however, that he incurred some odium among the younger scholars by his severity, and his dislike of those who were thought sprightly wi s. He used to say, “Give me the plodding student. If I would look for wits, I would go to Newgate, there be the wits.” John Earte, afterwards bishop of Salisbury, was the only scholar he ever accepted on the recommendation of being a wit. James 1. upon his accession to the crown of England, expressed a particular regard for him, and would have preferred him either in church or state; but sir Henry declined it, and only accepted the honour of knighthood from his majesty at Windsor on Sept. 21, 1604. His only son dying about that time, he devoted his fortune entirely to the promoting of learning. In 1619 he founded two lectures, or professorships, one in geometry, the other in astronomy, in the university of Oxford; which he endowed each with a salary of 160l. a year, besides a legacy of 600l. for purchasing more lands for the same use. In the preamble of the deed, by which a salary was annexed to these two professorships, it is expressly said that “geometry was almost totally unknown and abandoned in England.” Briggs was his first professor of geometry; but Aubrey says, on the authority of bishop Ward, that he first sent for Gunter for that purpose, who, coming with his sector and quadrant, “fell to resolving of triangles and doing a great many fine things. Said the grave knight, ‘ Do you call this reading of Geometric This is shewing of tricks, man,’ and so dismissed him with scorne, and sent for Brings.” Sir Henry also furnished a library with mathematical hooks near the mathematical school, for the use of his professors; and gave 100l. to the mathematical chest of his own appointing; adding afterwards a legacy of 4C/. a year to the same chest, to the university and to his professors jointly. He likewise gave 120l. towards the new-building of the schools; several rare manuscripts and printed books to the Bodleian library; and a good quantity of matrices and Greek types to the printingpress at Oxford. Part of the endowment of the professorships was the manor of Little Hays in Essex. He died, at Eton -college, Feb. 19, 1621-2, and was buried in the chapel there, on the south side of the communion table, near the body of his son Henry, with an inscription on a black marble stone. The university of Oxford paid him the greatest honours, by having a public speech and verses made in his praise, which were published soon after in 4to, under the title of “Ultima Linea Savilii,” and a sumptuous honorary monument was erected to his memory on the south wall, at the upper end of the choir of Merton- college chapel. Sir Henry Savile, by universal consent, ranks among the most learned men of his time, and the most liberal patrons of learning; and with great justice the highest encomiums are bestowed on him by all the learned of his time: by Isaac Casaubon, Mercerus, Meibomius, Joseph Scaliger, and especially the learned bishop Montagu; who, in his “Diatribes” upon Selden’s “History of Tithes,” styles him “that magazine of learning, whose memory shall be honourable amongst not only the learned, but the righteous for ever.”

, an Italian, eminent as a statesman and man of letters, when letters were just reviving in Europe, was born about 1424, some say 1430. He was only the son of a miller but, going early to Florence, he fell under the notice of Cosmo de Medici who, observing uncommon parts in him and a turn for letters, took him under his protection, and gave him an education. He studied the law; and, taking a doctor’s degree in that faculty, frequented the bar. After the death of Cosmo in 1464, Peter de Medici shewed the same regard for him; and Scala, through his means, was trusted by the republic in the most important negociations. In 1471, the freedom of the city was conferred on him and his Descendants; and the year after he obtained letters of nobility; he was then secretary or chancellor of the republic. In 1484, the Florentines sent a solemn embassy to Innocent VIII, to congratulate him on his being raised to the pontificate; when Scala, one of the embassy, delivered a speech so very pleasing to the pope, that he was made by him a knight of the golden spur, and senator of Rome. In 1436, he was made holy-standard-bearer to the republic. He died at Florence in 1497; and left, among other children, a daughter, named Alexandra, who afterwards became famous for her learning and skill in the Greek and Latin tongues.

When the prince of Orange was almost ready for his expedition into England, marshal Schomberg obtained leave of the elector of Brandenbourg to accompany his highness in that attempt; and, after their arrival at London, he is supposed to have been the author of that remarkable stratagem for trying the affections of the people, by raising an universal apprehension over the kingdom of the approach of the Irish with fire and sword. Upon the prince’s advancement to the throne of England, he was appointed master of the ordnance, and general of his majesty’s forces; in April 1689, knight of the garter, and the same month naturalized by act of parliament; and, in May, was created a baron, earl, marquis, and duke of this kingdom, by the name and title of baron Teys, earl of Brentford, marquis of Harwich, and duke of Schomberg. The House of Commons likewise voted to him 100,000l. for the services which he had done; but he received only a small part of that sum, the king after his death paying his son 5000l. a year for the remainder. In Aug. 1689 he sailed for Ireland, with an army, for the reduction of that kingdom; and, having mustered all his forces there, and finding them to be not above 14,000 men, among whom there were but 2000 horse, he marched to Dundalk, where he posted himself; king James being come to Ardee. within five or six miles of him, with above thrice his number. Schomberg, therefore, being disappointed of the supplies from England, which had been promised him, and his army being so greatly inferior to the Irish, resolved to keep himself on the defensive. He lay there six weeks in a rainy season; and his men, for want of due management, contracted such diseases that almost one half of them perished.

, duke of Somerset, and uncle to Edward VI. was eldest son of sir John Seymour of Wolfhall, in the county of Wilts, knt. by Elizabeth daughter of sir Henry Wentworth, of Nettlested in Suffolk. He was educated at the university of Oxford, whence returning to his father at court, when martial achievements were encouraged by Henry VIII. he joined the army, and accompanying the duke of Suffolk in his expedition to France in 1533, was knighted by him Nov. 1, of that year. Upon his sister’s marriage with the king in 1536, he had the tide of viscount Beauchamp bestowed upon him, in consequence of his descent from an heir female of that house; and in Oct. 1537 was created earl of Hertford. In 1540 he was sent to France to dispute the limits of the English borders, and on his return was elected knight of the garter. In 1542 he attended the duke of Norfolk in his expedition into Scotland, and the same year was made lord great chamberlain of England for life. In 154-4, being made lieutenant-general of the north, he embarked for Scotland with two hundred sail of ships, on account of the Scots refusing to marry their young queen to prince Edward; and landing in the Frith, took Leith and Edinburgh, and after plundering and burning them, marched by land into England. In August of the same year, he went to the assistance of the king at the siege of Boulogne, with several German and Flemish troops; and after taking it, defeated an army of 14,000 French, who lay encamped near it. By the will of Henry VIII. he was appointed one of the sixteen persons, who were to be his majesty’s executors, and governors of his son, till he should be eighteen years of age. Upon Edward’s accession to the crown, it was proposed in council, that one of the sixteen should be chosen, to whom the ambassadors should address themselves, and who should have the chief direction of affairs, though restrained from acting without the consent of the major part of the rest. The lord chancellor Wriothesly, who thought the precedence in secular affairs belonging to him by his office, opposed this strongly, and urged, that it was changing the king’s will, who had made them equal in power and dignity; and if any was raised above the rest in title, it would be impossible to keep him within just bounds, since greater titles made way for exorbitant power. But the earl of Hertford had so prepared his friends, that he was declared governor of the king’s person, and protector of the king*, dom, with this restriction, that he should not act without the advice and consent of the rest. In consequence of this measure, two distinct parties were formed; the one headed by the new protector, and the other by the chancellor; the favourers of the reformation declaring for the former, and the enemies of it for the latter. On Feb. 10, 1547-8, the protector was appointed lord treasurer, and the next day created duke of Somerset, and on the 17th of that month, had a grant of the office of earl marshal of England for life. On March 12th following, he had a patent for the office of protector and governor of the king and his realms. By this patent he had a negative in the council, but they had none on him; and he could either bring his own adherents into it, or select a cabinet-council out of it at pleasure; while the other executors,' having thus delivered up their authority to him, were only privy-counsellors like the rest, without retaining any authority peculiar to themselves, as was particularly provided by Hemy Vlllth’s will. In August 1548 the protector took a commission to be general, and to make war in Scotland, and accordingly entered that kingdom, and, on Sept. 10, gained a complete victory at Musselburgh, and on the 29th returned to England triumphantly, having, with the loss of but sixty men in the whole expedition, taken eighty pieces of cannon, bridled the two chief rivers of the kingdom by garrisons, and gained several strong places.

He retired, some years before his death, to a house in Stratford, of which it has been thought important to give the history. It was built by sir Hugh Clopton, a younger bro her of an ancient family in that neighbourhood. Sir Hugh was sheriff of London in the reign of Richard III. and lord mayor in the reign of Henry VII. By his will he bequeathed to his elder brother’s son his manor of Clopton, &c, and his house, by the name of the Great House) in Stratford. A good part of the estate was in possession of Edward Clopton, esq. and sir Hugh Clopton, knight, in 1733. The principal estate had been sold out of the Clopton family for above a century, at the time when Shakspeare became the purchaser, who having repaired and modelled it to his own mind, changed the name to New Place y which the mansion-house afterwards erected, in the room of the poet’s house, retained for many years. The house and lands belonging to it continued in the possession of Shakspeare’s descendants to the time of the Restoration, when they were re-purchased by the Clopton family. Here, in May 1742, when Mr. Garrick, Mr. Macklin, and Mr. Delane, visited Stratford, they were hospitably entertained under Shakspeare’s mulberry-tree, by sir Hugh Clopton. He was a barrister at law, was knighted by king George I. and died in the eightieth year of his age, in December 1751. His executor, about 1752, sold New Place to the Rev. Mr. Gastrell, a man of large fortune, who resided in it but a few years, in consequence of a disagreement with the inhabitants of Stratford. As he resided part of the year at Lichfield, he thought he was assessed too highly in the monthly rate towards the maintenance of the poor; but, being very properly compelled by the magistrates of Stratford to pay the whole of what was levied on him, on the principle that his house was occupied by his servants in his absence, he peevishly declared, that that house should never be assessed again: and soon afterwards pulled it down, sold the materials, and left the town. He had some time before cut down Shakspeare’s mulberry-tree , to save himself the trouble of showing it to those whose admiration of our great poet led them to visit the classic ground on which it stood. That Shakspeare planted this tree appears to be sufficiently authenticated. Where New Place stood is now a garden. Before concluding this history, it may be necessary to mention, that the poet’s house was once honoured by the temporary residence of Henrietta Maria, queen to Charles I. Theobald has given an inaccurate account of this, as if she had been obliged to take refuge in Stratford from the rebels, which was not the case. She marched from Newark, June 16, 1643, and entered Stratford triumphantly, about the 22nd of the same month, at the head of 3000 foot and 1500 horse, with 15o waggons, and a train of artillery. Here she was met by prince Rupert, accompanied by a large body of troops. She rested about three weeks at our poet’s house, which was then possessed by his grand-daughter Mrs. Nash, and her husband.

, a celebrated traveller, second son of Thomas Shirley of Weston, in Sussex, was born in 1565. He studied at Hart-hall, Oxford, where he took his bachelor’s decree in 1581, and in the same year was elected probationer fellow of All Souls College. Leaving the university, he spent some time in one of tru 1 inns of court, after which he travelled on the continent, and joined the English troops, which, at that time, were serving in Holland. In 1596 he was one of the adventurers who went against the Spaniards in their settlements in the West Indies; and on his return, the earl of Essex, with whom he was a great favourite, employed him in the wars in Ireland, for his services in which he was knighted. After this he was sent by the queen into Italy, in order to assist the people of Ferrara in their contest with the pope: but finding that before he arrived, peace had been, signed, he proceeded to Venice, and travelled from thence to Persia, where he became a favourite with Shah Abbas, who sent him as his ambassador to England in 1612. By the 'emperor of Germany he was raised to the dignity of count, and by the king of Spain he was appointed admiral of the Levant seas. Such honours excited the jealousy of James I. who ordered him to return, but this he thought proper to disobey, and is supposed to have died in Spain about the year 1630. There is an account of his West Indian expedition in the third volume of Hakluyt’s collection, under the following title: “A true Relation of the Voyage undertaken by Sir Anthony Shirley, Knight, in 1596, intended for the island San Tome, but performed to St. Jago, Dominica, Margarita, along the Coast of Tien a Firma to the Isle of Jamaica, the Bay of Honduras, thirty leagues up Rio Dolce, and homewards by Newfoundland, with the memorable Exploits achieved in all this Voyage.” His travels into Persia are printed separately, and were published in London in 1613, 4to; and his travels over the Caspian sea, and through Russia, were inserted in Purchas’s Pilgrimages.

, a very accomplished English gentleman, and one of the greatest ornaments of the court of queen Elizabeth, was born Nov. 29, 1554, at Penshurst in Kent. He was the grandson of sir William Sidney, knight banneret, and chamberlain and steward of the household to Henry VIII. His father, Henry Sidney, was from his infancy the companion and bosom friend of Edward VI., who conferred upon him the honour of knighthood, constituted him ambassador to France, and afterwards promoted him to several appointments near his person. He was at this time universally beloved and admired, as the most ac^ complished gentleman in the court of the youthful monarch, who expired in his arms. Sir Henry, after this melancholy event, retired to his seat at Penshurst. He afterwards enjoye'd the favour of queen Mary, and gave his son the name of Philip, in compliment to her husband the king of Spain. In Elizabeth’s reign his abilities were more immediately called forth, and proved him a brave soldier, a consummate general, an able counsellor, and a wise legislator, while in private life he was no less estimable as a husband, father, and a friend; firmly attached to the church of England, and adorning his Christian profession by his temperance and exemplary piety. He was lord president of Wales, and for the space of eleven years discharged the administration of lord deputy of Ireland, with extraordinary justice and probity, and left to provincial governors an example of integrity, moderation, and wisdom, which was never surpassed. The mother of Philip Sidney, was Mary, the eldest daughter of the unfortunate duke of Northumberland, a lady no less illustrious and amiable than her husband.

, a Florentine artist, born at Corfcona in 1439, was the scholar of Piero della Francesca. He was an artist of spirit and expression, and one of the first in Tuscany, who designed the naked with anatomical intelligence, though still with some dry ness of manner, and too much adherence to the model: the chief evidence of this is in the Duomo of Orvieto, where in the mixed imagery of final dissolution and infernal punishment, he has scattered original ideas of conception, character, and attitude, in copious variety, though not without remnants of gothic alloy. The angels, who announce the impending doom or scatter plagues, exhibit, with awful simplicity, bold fore-shortenings; whilst the St. Michael presents only the tame heraldic figure of a knight all cased in armour. In the expression of the condemned groups and daemons, he chiefly dwells on the supposed perpetual renewal of the pangs attending on the last struggles of life with death, contrasted with the inexorable scowl or malignant grin of fiends methodizing torture; a horrid feature, reserved by Dante for the last pit of his Inferno. It has been first said by Vasari, who exulted in his relation to Luca, that Michael Angelo, in certain parts of his Last Judgment, adopted something of the conduct and the ideas of his predecessor. This is true, because Michael Angelo could not divest himself of every impression from a work he had so often seen: his originality consisted in giving consequence to the materials of Luca, not in changing them; both drew from the same sources, with the same predilections and prejudices, and differed less in the mode than the extent of their conception.

The father of Mr. Stneaton was an attorney, and wished to bring him up to the same profession. Mr. Smeaton therefore, came up to London in 1742, and attended the courts in Westminster-hull; but, finding that the law did not suit the bent of his genius, he wrote a strong memorial on the subject to his father, who had the good sense to allow him from that time to pursue the path which nature pointed for him. Early in 1750 he had lodgings in Turnstile, Holborn, and was commencing the business of a mathematical-instrument-maker. In 1751 be invented a machine to measure a ship’s way at sea, and a compass of peculiar construction, touched by Dr. Knight’s artificial magnets: and made two voyages with Dr. Knight, to ascertain the merit of his contrivances. In 1753 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and the number of his papers inserted in the Transactions of that body sufficiently evinces how highly he deserved that distinction. In 1759 he received, by an unanimous vote, their gold medal, for his pape/ entitled “An Experimental Enquiry concerning the natural Powers of Wind and Water to turn Mills, and other MacJiines depending on a circular Motion.” This paper, he says, was the result of experiments made on working models, in 1752 and 1753, but not communicated to the society till 1759; before which time he had not an opportunity of putting the effect of these experiments into real practice, in a variety of cases, and for various purposes, so as to assure the society that he had found them to answer. These experiments discovered that wind and water could be made to do one-third more than was before known, and they were made, we may observe, in his 27th anil 28th years.

He died in 1710, in his forty-second year, at the seat of George Ducket, esq. called Hartham, in Wiltshire; and was buried in the parish church there. Some time before his death, he engaged in considerable undertakings; and raised expectations in the world, which he did not live to gratify. Oldisworth observes, that he had seen of his about ten sheets of Pindar, translated into English; which, he says, exceeded any thing in that kind he could ever hope for in our language. He had drawn out a plan for a tragedy of Lady Jane Grey, and had written several scenes of it; a subject afterwards nobly executed by Mr. Rowe. But his greatest undertaking was a translation of Longinus, to which he proposed a large addition of notes and observations of his own, with an entire system of the art of poetry in three books, under the titles of “thoughts, diction, and figure.” He intended also to make remarks upon all the ancients and moderns, the Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and English poets; and to animadvert upon their several beauties and defects. Oldisworth has represented Smith as a man abounding with qualities both good and great; and that may perhaps be true, in some degree, though amplified by the partiality of friendship. He had, nevertheless, some defects in his conduct one was an extreme carelessness in the particular of dress which singularity procured him the name of “Captain Rag.” The ladies, it is said, at once commended and reproved him, by the name of the “handsome sloven.” It is acknowledged also, that he was much inclined to intemperance which was caused perhaps by disappointments, but led to that indolence and loss of character, which has been frequently destructive to genius, even of a higher order than he appears to have possessed. Dr. Johnson thus draws up his character: “As his years advanced, he advanced in reputation; for he continued to cultivate his mind; but he did not amend his irregularities, by which, he gave so much offence, that, April 24, 1700, the dean and chapter declared ' the place of Mr. Smith void, he having been convicted of riotous misbehaviour in the house of Mr. Cole, an apothecary; but it was referred to the dean when and upon what occasion the sentence should be put in execution. Thus tenderly was he treated; the governors of his college could hardly keep him, and yet wished that he would not force them to drive him away. Some time afterwards he assumed an appearance of decency; in his own phrase, he whitened himself, having a desire to obtain the censorship, an office of honour and some profit in the college; but when the election came, the preference was given to Mr. Foulkes, his junior; the same, I suppose, that joined with Freind in an edition of part of Demosthenes; it not being thought proper to trust the superintendance of others to a man who took so little care of himself. From this time Smith employed his malice and his wit against the dean, Dr. Aldrich, whom he considered as the opponent of his claim. Of his lampoon upon him, I once heard a single line too gross to be repeated. But he was still a genius and a scholar, and OxtV-rd was unwilling to lose him: he was endured, with all his pranks and his vices, two years longer; but on December 20, 1705, at the instance of all the canons, the sentence declared five years before was put in execution. The execution was, I believe, silent and tender; for one of his friends, from whom I learned much of his life, appeared not to know it. He was now driven to London, where he associated himself with the whigs, whether because they were in power, or because the tories had expelled him, or because he was a whig by principle, may perhaps be doubted. He was, however, caressed by tnen of great abilities, whatever were their party, and was supported by the liberality of those who delighted in his conversation. There was once a design, hinted at by Oldisvvorih, to have made him useful. One evening, as he was sitting with a friend at a tavern, he was called down by the waiter, and, having stayed some time below, came up thoughtful. After a pause, said he to his friend, ‘ He that wanted me below was Addison, whose business was to tell me that a history of the revolution was intended, and to propose that I should undertake it. I said, ’ What shall I do with the character of lord Sunderland?‘ And Addison immediately returned, ’ When, Rag, were you drunk last?' and went away. Captain Rag was a name that he got at Oxford by his negligence of dress. This story I heard from the late Mr. Clark, of Lincoln’s Inn, to whom it was told by the friend of Smith. Such scruples might debar him from some profitable employments; but as they could not deprive him of any real esteem, they left him many friends; and no man was ever better introduced to the theatre than he, who, in that violent conflict of parties, had a prologue and epilogue from the first wits on either side. But learning and nature will now-and-then take different courses. His play pleased the critics, and the critics only. It was, as Addison has recorded, hardly heard the third night. Smith had, indeed, trusted entirely to his merit; had insured no band of applauders, nor used any artifice to force success, and found that naked excellence was not sufficient for its own support. The play, however, was bought by Lintot, who advanced the price from fifty guineas, the current rate, to sixty; and Halifax, the general patron, accepted the dedication. Smith’s indolence kept him from writing the dedication, till Lintot, after fruitless importunity, gave notice that he would publish the play without it. Now, therefore, it was written; and Halifax expected the author with his book, and had prepared to reward him with a place of three hundred pounds a year. Smith, by pride, or caprice, or indolence, or bashful ness, neglected to attend him, though doubtless warned and pressed by his friends, and at last missed his reward by not going to solicit it. In 1709, a year after the exhibition of Phaedra, died John Philips, the friend and fellow-collegian of Smith, who, on that occasion, wrote a poem, which justice must place among the best elegies which our language can shew, an elegant mixture of fondness and admiration, of dignity and softness. There are some passages too ludicrous; but every human performance has its faults. This elegy it was the mode among his friends to purchase fora guinea-, and, as his acquaintance was numerous, it was a very profitable poem. Of his ‘ Pindar,’ mentioned by Oldisworth, I have never otherwise heard. His ‘ Longinus’ he intended to accompany with some illustrations, and had selected his instances of * the false Sublime,’ from the works of Blackmore. He resolved to try again the fortune of the stage, with the story of * Lady Jane Grey.' It is not unlikely that his experience of the inefficacy and incredibility of a mythological tale might determine him to choose an action from English history, at no great distance from our own times, which was to end in a real event, produced by the operation of known characters. Having formed his plan, and collected materials, he declared that a few months would complete his design; and, that he might pursue his work with fewer avocations, he was, in June, 1710, invited by Mr. George Ducket, to his house at Hartham in Wiltshire. Here he found such opportunities of indulgence as did not much forward his studies, and particularly some strong ale, too delicious to be resisted. He ate and drank till he found himself plethoric: and then, resolving to ease himself by evacuation, he wrote to an apothecary in the neighbourhood a prescription of a purge so forcible, that the apothecary thought it his duty to delay it till he had given notice of its danger. Smith, not pleased with the contradiction of a shopman, and boastful of his own knowledge, treated the notice with rude contempt, and swallowed his own medicine, which, in July 1710, brought him to the grave. He was buried at Hartham. Many years afterwards, Ducket communicated to Oldmixon, the historian, an account, pretended to have been received from Smith, that Clarendon’s History was, in its publication, corrupted by Aldrich, Smalridge, and Atterbury; and that Smith was employed to forge and insert the alterations. This story was published triumphantly by Oldmixon, and may be supposed to have been eagerly received: but its progress was soon checked for, finding its way into the journal of Trevoux, it fell under the eye of Atterbury, then an exile in France, who immediately denied the charge, with this remarkable particular, that he never in his whole life had once spoken to Smith; hrs company being, as must be inferred, not accepted by those who attended to their characters. The charge was afterwards very diligently refuted by Dr< Burton of Eton a man eminent for literature, and, though not of the same party with Aldrich and Atterbury, too studious of truth to leave them burthened with a false charge. The testimonies which he has collected have convinced mankind that either Smith or Ducket were guilty of wilful and malicious falsehood. This controversy brought into view those parts of Smith’s life which with more honour to his name might have been concealed. Of Smith I can yet say a little more. He was a man of such estimation among his companions, that the casual censures or praises which he dropped in conversation were considered, like those of Scaliger, as worthy of preservation. He had great readiness and exactness of criticism, and by a cursory glance over a new composition would exactly tell all its faults and beauties. He was remarkable for the power of reading with great rapidity, and of retaining with great fidelity what he so easily collected. He therefore always knew what the present question required; and, when his friends expressed their wonder at his acquisitions, made in a state of apparent negligence and drunkenness, he never discovered his hours of reading or method of study, but involved himself in affected silence, and fed his own vanity with their admiration and conjectures. One practice he had, which was easily observed: if any thought or image was presented to his mind that he could use or improve, he did not suffer it to be lost; but, amidst the jollity of a tavern, or in the warmth of conversation, very diligently committed to paper. Thus it was that he had gathered two quires of hints for his new tragedy; of which Howe, when they were put into his hands, could make, as he says, very little use, but which the collector considered as a valuable stock of materials. When he came to London, his way of life connected him with the licentious and dissolute; and he affected the airs and gaiety of a man of pleasure; but his dress was always deficient: scholastic cloudiness still hung about him, and his merriment was sure to produce the scorn of his companions. With all his carelessness, and all his vices, he was one of the murmurers at form tie; and wondered why he was suffered to be poor, when Addison was caressed and preferred: nor would a very little have contented him; for he estimated his wants at six hundred pounds a year. In his course of reading it was particular, that he had diligently perused, and accurately remembered, the old romances of knight-errantry. He had a high opinion of his own merit, and something contemptuous in his treatment of those whom he considered as not qualified to oppose or contradict him. He had many frailties; yet it cannot but be supposed that he had great merit, who could obtain to the same play a prologue from Addison, and an epilogue from Prior; and who could have at once the patronage of Halifax, and the praise of Oldisworth.”

In 1575, we find sir Thomas better employed in procuring an act of parliament for the two universities and the two colleges of Eton and Winchester, ordering that a third part of the rent upon leases made by colleges should be reserved in corn, &c. Fuller observes, that “sir Thomas Smith was said by some to have surprized the house therein; where many could not conceive how this would be at all profitable to the colleges, but still the same on the point, whether they had it in money or wares. But the knight took the advantage of the present cheapness, knowing hereafter grain would grow dearer, mankind daily multiplying, and licence being lately given for transportation. So that at this day much emolument redoundeth to the colleges in each university by the passing of this act; and though their rents stand still, their revenues do increase.” In truth the present prosperity, we may almost say, existence of the universities, is owing to this wise and useful precaution.

, herald and antiquary, was born in Cheshire, and descended from the Smiths or Smyths of Oldhough. He was educated at Oxford, but in what college Wood has not ascertained, there being several of the same names about the latter part of the sixteenth century. When he left the university, we cannot trace his progress, but on his application at the Heralds’ college for the office of Rouge- Dragon, it was said that he had been a merchant and traveller. He was recommended by sir George Carey, knight marshal; and “The Society of Arms finding, by many, that he was honest, and of a quiet conversation, and well languaged,” joined in the supplication, which gained him this office. Anstis says, that he had long resided abroad, and had kept an inn, at Nuremburgh, in Germany, the sign at the door of which was the Goose. He wrote a description of Cheshire, which, with his historical collections made about 1590, or a copy of them, falling into the hands of sir Randolph Crew, knt. lord chief justice of the King’s bench, his grandson, sir Randolph Crew, gave them to the public. These materials, and the labours of William Webb, form the bulk of “King’s Vale-Royal,” published in fol. 1656. He made a great number of collections, relative to families in England and Germany. He wrote a description of this kingdom, embellishing it with drawings of its chief towns, Many of his books are in Philipot’s press, in the College at Arms. He composed an Alphabet of Arms, which the late respected Mr. Brooke supposed to have been the origin or basis of such kind of books. The original was lodged in King’s-college library, in Cambridge, to which it had been given by Dr. Richard Roderick. It was copied in 1744, by the rev. William Cole, M. A. of Milton, and is now with his other Mss. in the British Museum. The late rev. Samuel Peggye, the antiquary, had a manuscript copy, improved by him, of Derbyshire, as visited by Glover. This skilful and indefatigable officer at arms died, without farther promotion, Oct. 1, 1618. In the Bodleian library are two Mss. by Smith, the one “The Image of Heraldrye, &c.” a sort of introduction to the science, which forrrierly belonged to Anstis the other, “Genealogies of the different potentates of Europe, 1578,” formerly Peter Le Neve’s. A new edition, with additions, of the “Vale-Royal,” was published at Chester, 1778, 2 vols. 8vo.

, an architect very famous in France, particularly for his plan of the beautiful church of St. Genevieve at Paris, was born in 1713, at Trenci near Auxerre. His family was engaged in commerce, but he very early shewed a strong disposition for the arts, and particularly for architecture. It is related of him, as of our countryman Smeaton, that, from his earliest childhood, he was more delighted by attending to workmen than any other amusement; and, like him, was so strongly directed by the bent of his genius to the profession in which he afterwards excelled, as to frustrate the wishes of his father to place him in his own business. The father of Soufflot, however, did not yield to his son’s inclination, and he was obliged to quit his home in order to indulge it. He immediately, with a small stock of money, set out for Italy, but paused at Lyons, where, by working under the artists of that place, he improved at once his knowledge and his finances. He then visited Rome and every part of Italy. Having improved himself under the best artists, and by modelling from the finest antiques, he returned to France, and for a time to Lyons, where he had made himself beloved in his former visit. He was soon employed by the magistrates of that city to build the exchange and the hospital, the latter of which edifices extended his reputation throughout France. Madame Pompadour heard of him, and having obtained for her brother the piace of director of the royal buildings, &c. engaged Sou/Hot and Cochin to attend him into Italy. Returning from that engagement, he quitted Lyons, and established himself at Paris; where he was successively comptroller of the buildings of Marli and the Tuilleries, member of the academies of architecture and painting, knight of the order of St. Michael, and lastly, superintendant of the royal buildings. With respect to the dome of his great work, the church of St. Genevieve, he met with so many contradictions, and so much opposition excited by envy, that though be had demonstrated the possibility of executing it, they threw great obstacles in his way and are thought to have shortened his life hy the severe vexation he experienced from them. After languishing for two years, in a very infirm state, he died August 29, 1780, at the age of sixtyseven.

In May 1783 he received his first preferment since coming to London, the small rectory of Little Steeping in Lincolnshire, from the duke of Ancaster; and the following year he was appointed assistant librarian of the British Museum, on the death of Dr. Giftbrtl. In 1786 he became, by the death of a near relation, possessor of an estate of 100l. a year in Whitechapel; and in H'Jo his income was farther increased by the valuable living of Warsop, in the diocese of York, and county of Nottingham, to which he was presented by John Gaily Knight, of Langold, esq. son of his old friend Dr. Gaily. These promotions came late, but in time to afford him for a few years the only enjoyments he prized, that of exerting his benevolence among his poor parishioners, and that of adding to his library and collection of coins. In the same year he became a member of the society for propagating Christian knowledge; and of the society for the support of the widows and orphans of the clergy within the bills of mortality and the county of Middlesex. In 171H he was elected a fellow of the society of Antiquaries, and was afterwards made a member of the Linneean society. He died Jan. 25, 1795, in the sixtysixth year of his age, and was interred in St. Giles’s church, where a marble tablet is inscribed to his memory.

The last labour of sir Henry Spelman was his treatise on ft The original growth, propagation, and condition of Tenures by knight service in England," a remarkable proof of mental vigour at his very advanced age, for he was now approaching to eighty. His last days he passed with his son-in-law, sir Ralph Whitfield, in Barbican, at whose house he died in 1641, in the eighty-first year of his age. He was interred with great solemnity, by order of the king, in Westminster abbey, in the south isle, near the door of St. Nicholas chapel, at the foot of the pillar, opposite to the monument of his friend Camden.

It appears certain that these three books of the “Faerie Queene” were written in Ireland. In a conversation, extracted from his friend Ludowick Bryskett’s “Discourse of Civill Life,” and which is said to have passed in that country, Spenser is made to say, “I have already undertaken a work in heroical verse, under the title of a Faerie Queene, tending to represent all the moral virtues, assigning to every virtue a knight, to be patron and defender the same; in whose actions feats of armes and chivalry, the operations of that virtue, whereof he is the protector, are to be expressed and the vices and unruly appetites that oppose themselves against the same, to be beaten downe and overcome.”

, an Italian scholar of great eminence in the sixteenth century, was born at Padua April 12, 1500, of noble parents. After finishing his studies at Bologna, under the celebrated Pomponatius, he returned to Padua, and took a doctor’s degree in philosophy and medicine. He also was made professor of logic, and afterwards of philosophy in general; but soon after he had obtained the chair of philosophy, he was so diffident of his acquirements that he returned to Padua for farther improvement under his old master, and did not return to hi% professorship until after the death of Pomponatius. In 1528, however, the death of his father obliged him to resign his office, and employ his time on domestic affairs. Yet these, a marriage which he now contracted, the lawsuits which he had to carry on, and some honourable employments he was engaged in by^the government, did not prevent him from cultivating his literary talents with such success, that there were few men in his time who could be compared with him in point of learning, eloquence, and taste. In 1560 he was deputed to go to Rome by the duke of Urbino, under the pontificate of Pius IV. and there obtained the esteem of the learned of that metropolis, and received marks of high favour from the pope and his nephew Charles Borromeo, who invited him to those literary assemblies in his palace, which were called “Vatican nights.” On his departure, after four years residence, the pope gave him the title and decorations of a knight. When he returned home he was equally honoured by the dukes of Urbino and Ferrara, but certain lawsuits, arising from his family affairs, induced him to remove again to Rome, about the end of 1573, and he did not return until five years after, when he took up his final residence at Padua. He had flattering invitations to quit his native city from various princes, but a private life had now more charms for him. He died June 12, 1588, having completed his eighty- eighth year. His funeral was performed with every circumstance of respect and magnificence. His works form no less than 5 vols. 4to, elegantly printed at Venice in 1740; but there had been editions of individual parts printed and reprinted often in his life-time. His range of study was extensive. He was equally conversant in Greek and Latin, sacred and profane literature, and displayed on every subject which employed his pen, great learning and judgment. Among his works, are dialogues on morals, the belles lettres, rhetoric, poetry and history. He wrote also both serious and burlesque poetry. His prose style is among the best of his age, and has fewer faults than arc to be found among the Italian writers o! the sixteenth century. He wrote a tragedy, “Canace et Macareus,” which had its admirers and its critics, and occasioned a controversy on its merits.

, an eminent medical writer, was born at Brussels in 1578, and studied at Louvain and Padua. He was afterwards appointed state-physician in Moravia, which, in 1616, he quitted for the professorship of anatomy and surgery at Padua. There he acquired a high refutation, was made a knight of St. Mark, and decorated with a collar of gold. He died April 7, 1625. His most valuable works are “De formato Fosiu, liber singularis” and “De Humani Cor­ poris Fabrica,” fol. It appears from the collected edition of his works by Vander Linden, 1645, 2 vols. fol. that he was well acquainted with every branch of the medical science.

On the accession of George II. in 1727, whom he had served with steadiness for thirteen years, lord Chesterfield seemed to have a right to expect particular favour. In this he was disappointed, owing to his having paid his court to the king’s mistress lady Suffolk, instead of applying to the queen, which her majesty, as well as the king, who always preserved a high respect for the queen, resented; but in 1728 he was appointed ambassador to Holland, in which station he was determined to distinguish himself, and his efforts were perfectly successful. Mr. Slingeland, then the grand pensionary of Holland, conceived a friendship for him, and much advanced his diplomatic education. Having by his address preserved Hanover from a war, he received high marks of his majesty’s favour in being made high steward of the household, and knight of the garter. He came over in the summer of 1730, to be installed at Windsor, and then returned to his embassy. He was recalled in 1732, on the plea of health; and when he recovered, began again to distinguish himself in the House of Lords; and in the same year, on the occasion of the excise-bill, went into strong opposition against sir Robert Walpole. He was immediately obliged to resign his office of high steward, and so ill received at court that he desisted from attending it; He continued in opposition, not only to the end of sir Robert’s ministry in 1742, but even against the men with whom he had acted in the minority. It was not till the coalition of parties in 1744, by what was called “the broad-bottomed treaty,” that he was admitted into the cabinet, and then very much against the will of the king, who now had long considered him as a personal enemy. In the course of this long opposition he had frequently distinguished himself by his speeches; but particularly on the occasion of the bill for putting the theatres under the authority of a licenser, which he opposed in a speech of great animation, still extant in his works. During the same period we find him engaging in marriage with Melosina de Schulenburg, countess of Walsingham, to whom he was united in September 1733; but still constantly attentive to the education of his natural son by a former connection at the Hague. By his wife he had no children. In 1741 and 1742 he was obliged to pay temporary visits to the continent on account of his health, at which time it appears that he wrote regularly to his son, then only ten years old.

, an accomplished scholar and poet, connected, though in an oblique line, with the illustrious family of Derby, was the descendant of a natural son, Thomas Stanley, of Edward earl of Derby. His father was sir Thomas Stanley of Laytonstone, in Essex, and Cumberlow, in Hertfordshire, knight, by his second wife, Mary, daughter of sir William Hammond, of St. Alban’s-court in the parish of Nonington between Canterbury and Deal. He was born in 1625, and was educated in his father’s house, under the tuition of William Fairfax, son of Edward Fairfax, of Newhall, in the parish of Ottley, in Yorkshire, the celebrated translator of Tasso. From thence he was sent in 1639 as a fellow-commoner to Pembroke-hall, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself by his proficiency in polite learning; having still, as he had in more advanced years, the advantage of Mr. Fairfax’s society, as the director of his studies. In 1641, the degree of M. A. was conferred on him per gratiam, along with prince Charles, George duke of Buckingham, and others of the nobility.

His publications were, 1. “The second volume of Dr. John Lightfoot’s works,” 1684, fol. 2. “Life of Archbishop Cranmer,” 1694, fol. 5. “The Life of Sir Thomas Smith,” 1698, 8vo. 4. “Lessons for Youth and Old Age,” 1699, 12mo. 5. “The Life of Dr. John Elmer, bishop of London,” 1701, 8vo. 6. “The Life of Sir John Cheke,” 1705, 8vo. 7. “Annals of the Reformation,” 4 vols vol. I. 1709, (reprinted 1725); vol.11. 1725; vol.111. 1728; vol. IV. 1731. 8. “Life of Archbishop Grindal,” 17 10, fol. 9. “Life and Letters of Archbishop Parker,” 1711, fol. 10. “Life of Archbishop Whitgift,” 1718, folio. 11. “An accurate edition of Stow’s Survey of London,” 1720, 2 vols. folio, for which he was eighteen years collecting materials. 12. “Ecclesiastical Memorials,” 1721, 3 vols. fol. He also published a sermon at the assizes at Hertford, July 8, 1689; and some other single sermons, in 1695, 1699, 1707, 1711, 1724. He kept an exact diary of his own life, which was once in the possession of Mr. Harris; and six volumes of his literary correspondence were lately in the possession of the rev. Mr. Knight, of Milton, in Cambridgeshire. The materials for many of his works, part of the Lansdowne library, are now ID the British Museum. Dr. Birch observes, that “his fidelity and industry will always give a value to his numerous writings, however destitute of the graces, and even uniformity of style, and the art of connecting facts.” We should be sorry, however, to see the simple and artless style of honest Strype exchanged for any modernizing improvements. There is a charm in his manner which seems to bring us close to the periods of which he is writing, and renders his irregular and sometimes digressive anecdotes extremely interesting. We can remember the time when Strype’s works were much neglected, and sold for little more than waste-paper; but it is much to the credit of the present age, that they have now risen vt ry high in value, and are yet purchased with eagerness. A new edition of his life of Cranmer, with some important additions, has lately issued from the Clarendon press, and is to be followed by the lives of the other archbishops, and his “Annals.”

, an ancient Roman poetess, the wife of Calenus, flourished about the year 90, and was so admired as to be thought worthy of the title of the Roman Sappho. We have nothing left of her but a satire, or rather fragment of a satire, against Domitian, who published a decree for the banishment of the philosophers from Rome. This satire was published at Strasburgh, with other poems, by G. Merula,! 509, 4to, and may be found in other collections, but has usually been printed at the end of the “Satires of Juvenal,” to whom, as well as to Ausonius, it has been attributed by some critics. Grainger likewise added it to his “Tibullus,” with a translation and notes. From the invocation it should seem, that she was the author of many other po.ems, and the first Roman lady who taught her sex to vie with the Greeks in poetry. Her language is easy and elegant, and she seems to have had a happy talent lor satire. She is mentioned by Martial and Sidonius Apollinans, and is said to have addressed to her husband Calenus, who was a Roman knight, “A poem on conjugal love,” but this is lost. Her satire has been reprinted by Wernsdorf in the third volume of the “Poetae Minores Latini,” where may be seen some useful remarks respecting her works.

, the co-founder of Brasen-nose college, Oxford, descended from the ancient family of the Suttons of Sutton near Macciestield in the county palatine of Chester, was the younger son of sir William Sutton, knight. Of the time or place of his birth, we have no cer tain account, nor whether he was educated in the university to which he became so bountiful a benefactor. He practised as a barrister of the Inner Temple, and probably with success. In 1490 he purchased some estates in Leicestershire, and afterwards increased his landed property in different counties. In 1498, if not earlier, he was a member of Henry Vllth’s privy council, and attended the court for many years after. In 1505, he was one of the governors of the Inner Temple, and was in other years chosen to this annual office.

, a name mentioned with distinguished honour in the English annals, was second son to Richard lord Talbot, and was born at Blechmore in Shropshire, in the reign of king Richard II. His first summons to parliament was in the eleventh year of the reign of king Henry IV. He married Maud, the eldest of the two daughters and coheiresses of sir Thomas Nevil, by Joan, sole daughter and heiress to William lord Furnival. In the first year of Henry V. he was committed to the Tower, but far what reason we are not informed. He was, however, soon released, and constituted, in Feb. following, lord lieutenant of Ireland, and had letters of protection sent him thither by the name of sir John Talbot, knight, lord Furnival. While in this office, he took Donald Mac Murghe, an Irish rebel of considerable note and power: and afterwards brought him prisoner to the Tower of London.

He was first buried at Roan in France, together with his eldest son, and the inscription for him is thus translated “Here lyeth the right noble knt. John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, earl of Wexford, Waterford, and Valence, lord Talbot of Goderich and Orchenfield, lord Strange of Blackmere, lord Verdon of Alton, lord Cromwell of Wingfield, lord Lovetofte of Worsop, lord Furnival of Sheffield, lord Faulconbridge, knight of the noble orders of the garter, St. Michael, and the golden fleece, great marshal to Henry VI. of his realm of France, who died in the battle of Bourdeaux, 1453.”

As soon as the departure of the prince of Salerno was known, he, and all his adherents, were declared rebels to the state; and Torquato Tasso, though but nine years of age, was included by name in that sentence. Bernardo, following the prince of Salerno into France, committed his son to the care of his friend and relation Maurice Cataneo, a person of great ability, who assiduously cultivated the early disposition of his pupil to polite literature. After the death of Sanseverino, which happened in three or four years, Bernardo returned to Italy, and engaged in the service of Guglielmo Gonzaga, duke of Mantua, who had given him a pressing invitation. It was not long before Ije received the melancholy news of the decease of his wife Portia, which determined him to send for his son, that they might be a mutual support to each other in their affliction. He was now his only child, for his wife, before her death, had married his daughter to Martio Sersale, a gentleman of Sorrento. He was greatly surprised, on his son’s arrival, to see the vast progress he had made in his studies. Although but twelve years of age, he had, according to the testimony of the writers of his life, entirely completed his knowledge in the Latin and Greek tongues: he was well acquainted with the rules of rhetoric and poetry, and completely versed in Aristotle’s ethics. Bernardo soon determined to send him to the university of Padua, to study the laws, in company with the young Scipio Gonzaga, afterwards cardinal, nearly of the same age as himself. With this nobleman Tasso, then seventeen years of age, contracted a friendship that never ended but with hi life. He prosecuted his studies at Padua with great diligence and success: at the same time employ ing his leisure hours upon philosophy and poetry, he soon gave a public proof o/ his talents, by his poem of f< Rinaldo,“which he published in the eighteenth year of his age. This poem, which is of the romance kind, is divided into twelve books in ottava rima, and contains the adventures of Rinaldo, the famous Paladin of the court of Charlemain, who makes so principal a figure in Ariosto’s work, and the first achievements of that knight for the love of the fair Clarice, whom he afterwards marries. The action of this poem precedes that of the” Orlando Furioso.“It was composed in ten months, as the author himself informs us in the preface, and was first printed at Venice in 1562. Paolo Beni speaks very highly of this performance, which undoubtedly is not unworthy the early efforts of that genius which afterwards produced the” Jerusalem."

After this, Terence went into Greece, where he stayed about a year, in order, as it is thought, to collect some of Menander’s plays. He fell sick on his return from thence, and died at sea, according to some; at Stymphalis, a town in Arcadia, according to others. From the above account, we cannot have lost above one or two of Terence’s plays; for it is impossible to credit what Suetonius reports from one Consemius, an unknown author, namely, that Terence was returning with above an hundred of Menander’s plays, which he had translated, but that he lost them by shipwreck, and died of grief for the loss. Terence was of a middle size, very slender, and of a dark complexion-. He left a daughter behind him, who was afterwards married to a Roman knight. He left also a house and gardens on the Appian way, near the Villa Martis, so that the notion of his dying poor is very improbable. If he could be supposed to have reaped no advantages from the friendship of Scipio and Lselius, yet his plays must have brought him in considerable sums. He received eight thousand sesterces for his “Eunuch,” which was acted twice in one day; a piece of good fortune which perhaps never happened to any other play, for plays with the Romans were never designed to serve above two or three times. There is no doubt that he was well paid for the rest; for it appears from the prologue to the “Hecyra,” that the poets used to be paid every time their play was acted. At this rate, Terence must have made a handsome fortune before he died, for most of his plays were acted more than once in his life- time. It would be endless to mention the testimonies of the ancients in his favour, or the high commendations hestowed upon him by modern commentators and critics. Menander was his model, and from him he borrowed many of his materials. He was not content with a servile imitation of Menander, but always consulted his own. genius, and made such alterations as seemed to him expedient. His enemies blamed his conduct in this; but in the prologue to the “Andria,” he pleads guilty to the charge, and justifies what he had done by very sufficient reasons. The comedies of Terence were in great repute among the Romans; though Plautus, having more wit, more action, and more vigour, was sometimes more popular upon the stage. Terence’s chief excellence consists in these three points, beauty of characters, politeness of dialogue, and regularity of scene. His characters are natural, exact, and finished to the last degree; and no writer, perhaps, ever came up to him for propriety and decorum in this respect. If he had laid the scene at Rome, and made his characters Roman, instead of Grecian; or if there had been a greater variety in the general cast of his characters, the want of both which things have been objected to him; his plays might have been more agreeable, might have more affected those for whose entertainment they were written; yet in what he attempted he has been perfectly successful. The elegance of iiis dialogue, and the purity of his diction, are acknowledged by all: by Caesar, Cicero, Paterculus, and Quintilian, among the ancients; and by all the moderns. If Terence could not attain all the wit and humour of Menander, yet he fairly equalled him in chasteness and correctness of style.

Theodore was a knight of the Teutonic order, had successively been in the service of several German princes, had seen Holland, England, France, and Portugal; gained the confidence of the great at Lisbon, and passed there for a chargé des affaires from the emperor. This extraordinary man, with an agreeable person, had resolution, strong natural parts, and was capable of any enterprise. He was about fifty years of age. Upon his first landing, the chiefs of the Corsicans publicly declared to the people, that it was to him they were to be indebted for their liberties, and that he was arrived in order to deliver the island from the tyrannical oppressions of the Genoese. The general assembly offered him the crown, not as any sudden act into which they had been surprised, but with all the precaution that people coujd take to secure their freedom and happiness under it. Theodore, however, contented himself with the title of governor-general. In this quality he assembled the people, and administered an oath for preserving eternal peace among themselves; and severely did he exact obedience to this law.

The conversation became close and animated. Colonel Thompson, invited, in consequence, to dine with the prince, found there a number of French officers against whom he had fought in America. The conversation turned on the events of that war. The colonel sent for his portfolio, which contained exact plans of all the principal actions, of the strong places, of the sieges, and an excellent collection of maps; every one recognized the places where events interesting to himself had happened. The conversation lasted a great while, and they parted, promising to see one another again. The prince was an enthusiast in his profession, and passionately fond of instruction. He invited the colonel next day. They resumed the conversation of the evening with the same ardour; and when the traveller at last took his leave, the prince engaged him to pass through Munich, and gave him a letter of recommendation to his uncle the elector of Bavaria. The season was far advanced, and he was in haste to arrive in Vienna. He intended to stop at Munich two or three days at most. He remained fifteen, and quitted, not without regret, that city, where the testimonies of the favour of the sovereign, and the partialities of the different classes of society, had been lavished upon him with that cordial frankness, which so eminently distinguishes the Bavarian character. At Vienna, in the same manner he met with the most flattering reception, and was presented at court, and in the first companies, He spent there a part of the winter; and, learning that the war against the Turks would not take place, he yielded to the attraction of the recollections of Munich, and passing through Venice, where he stopped some weeks, and through the Tyrol, he returned to that residence toward the end of the winter of 1784. He now received from the elector a positive invitation to enter into his service; and instead of returning to Vienna, he set out for London with the intention of soliciting permission from the king to accept the offers of the elector palatine. Not only was -that favour granted him, but the king joined to it ah honourable distinction, by creating him a knight. He accordingly returned to Bavaria sir Benjamin Thompson; and was on his arrival appointed colonel of the horse, and general aid-de-camp to the sovereign who wanted to secure his services. Sir Benjamin employed the four first years of his abode at Munich in acquiring the political and statistical knowledge necessary for realizing the plans which his philanthropy suggested to him for improving the condition of the lower orders, he did not neglect in the mean time his favourite studies; and it was in 1786, in a journey to Manheim, that he made his first experiments on heat. Political and literary honours poured in upon him during that interval. In 1785 he was made chamberlain of the elector, and admitted a member of the academies of science of Munich and Manheim. In 178C he received from the kin<4 of Poland the order of St. Stanislaus; in 1787 he made a journey in Prussia, during which he was elected a member of the academy of Berlin. In 1788 he was appointed Major-general of cavalry and privy counsellor of state. He was placed at the head of the war department, and particularly charged with the execution of the plans which he had proposed for improving the state of the Bavarian army.

, Earl of Worcester, a patron of learning, and one of the few literary ornaments of England in the fifteenth century, was born at Everton, or Eversten, in Cambridgeshire, and educated at Baliol college, Oxford. He was son of the lord Tibetot, or Tiptoft, and Powys, and was created a viscount and earl of Worcester by king Henry VI. and appointed lord deputy of Ireland. By Edward IV. he was made knight of the garter, and constituted justice of North Wales for life. Dugdale says, he was soon after made constable of the Tower for life, and twice treasurer of the king’s exchequer, but other historians say he was twice lord high constable, and twice lord treasurer: the first time, according to Lud. Carbo, at twenty-five years old; and again deputy of Ireland for the duke of Clarence. But whatever dispute there may be about his titles in the state, there is no doubt that he was eminently at the head of literature, and so masterly an orator, that he drew tears from the eyes of pope Pius II. otherwise Æneas Sylvius, a munificent patron of letters. This was on pronouncing an oration before the pontiff when he visited Rome, through a curiosity of seeing the Vatican library, after he had resided at Padua and Venice, and made great purchases of books. He is said to have given Mss. tonne value of 500 marks to duke Humphrey’s library at Oxford. He was about this time on his return from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which expedition is partly attributed to the suspence of his lordship’s mind between gratitude to king Henry and loyalty to king Edward; but he seems not to have been much influenced by the former, in the opinion of lord Orford. It is certain that Richard Nevil, earl of Warwick, did not ascribe much gratitude to him, nor did Worcester confide much in any merit of that sort; for, absconding during the short restoration of Henry, and being taken concealed in a tree in Wey bridge-forest in Huntingdonshire, he was brought to London, accused of cruelty in his administration of Ireland, particularly towards two infant sons of the earl of D^mon.il, and condemned and beheaded at the Tower in 1470. For his imputed offences, some authors are inclined to allow a foundation, but in these turbulent times malice and political intrigue are supposed to have frequently had a share in fallen greatness. Pennant, however, is of opinion that all his love for the sciences did not protect him from imbibing the temper of the unhappy times he lived in.

In 1771, he went to Cambridge for the purpose of taking the degree of M. A. which was granted to him, although opposed by some of the members, and particularly by the afterwards celebrated Dr. Paley. He now returned, and mixed, as much as he could, in the temporary politicks of the day. It would be as tedious as useless to revive the memory of all his newspaper effusions. The most finished specimen of his composition is probably to be found in two or three letters written in answer to the attacks of Junins: and he had the honour, which in those days was deemed no inconsiderable one, of being the only knight that returned with his lance unbroken from a combat with that unknown but terrible champion. If he wants the exquisite polish and the brilliant invective of his adversary, that dexterous malignity which comes in with such effect to blacken a character by insinuation, after invective has exhausted its powers; and above all, that well-sustained tone of austere dignity which gives to Junins the air and authority of a great personage in disguise; he is superior to him in facility, vivacity, and that appearance of plainness and sincerity which is of such importance in controversial writings. Soon after these controversies he resigned his living at Brentford, and, as far as he could, the clerical character. That he could not do so altogether, evidently soured his temper for the rest of his life, and prompted him to those sallies of profaneness, and that general conduct, which showed his contempt for the profession and every thing that belonged to it. He now studied the law, with an intent to practise; and while thus employed, an incident occurred which was important to his future fortune. This was his rendering a service to a Mr. Tooke of Purley in Surrey, in the case of an inclosure-bill, who, in gratitude, made him his heir; but he did not reap the full benefit of this intention, and it is said that first and last all he received from Mr. Tooke amounted to no more than 8000l. It was on this account, however, that some time afterwards, he assumed the name of Tooke. The particulars of this cause are related with so little attention to facts by most of his biographers, that we have not thought it necessary to attempt reconciling the different accounts of a matter now of comparative insignificance.

After the death of this pontiff he returned to his own country, and married a relation, Blanche Trissina, by whom he had a third son, Ciro; but Leo’s successor, Clement VII. soon recalled him to Rome, and gave him equal proofs of his esteem a-nd confidence, by sending him as his ambassador to Charles V. and to the senate of Venice. Some of his biographers say that he was created a knight of the golden fleece, either by Charles V. or by Maximilian, but Tiraboschi thinks that he never was admitted into that order, although he might have permission to add the fleece to his arms, and even take the title of chevalier. Voltaire’s blunders about Trissino are wholly unaccountable. Hie makes him archbishop of Benevento at the time he wrote his tragedy; and having this probably pointed out to him, he endeavoured to correct the error by asserting in a subsequent publication that bishop Trissino, by the advice of the archbishop of Benevento, chose Sophonisba for a subject, although Trissino never was either bishop or archbishop, nor an ecclesiastic of any rank.

, one of a family of Oxford antiquaries, was the grandson of sir Brian Twyne, of Long Parish, in Hampshire, knight, and was born at Bolingdon, in the same county. He was educated at New Inn hall, Oxford, and admitted to the reading of the institutions in 1524, at a time when that society could boast of many excellent civilians. After he left the university he was appointed head master of the free-school at Canterbury, and in 1553 rose to be mayor of the city, in the time of Wyat’s rebellion. By the school he became so rich as to be able to purchase lands at Preston and Hardacre, in Kent, which he left to his posterity. He was a good Greek and Latin scholar, and devoted much of his time to the study of history and antiquities. He was held in great esteem by men able to judge of his talents, particularly by Leland, who introduces him among the worthies of his time in his “Encomia,” and by Camden, who speaks of him in his “Britannia” as a learned old man. Holinshed also mentions him as a learned antiquary, in the first edition of hia “Chronicle;” but this notice is for some reason omitted in the edition of 1587. It is said he was a violent papist, but Tanner has produced evidence of a charge more disgraceful to his character as a tutor and magistrate. This appears in a ms. in Bene't college library, Cambridge, No. CXX. “Anno 1560, Mr. Twyne, school- master, was ordered to abstain from riot and drunkenness, and not to intermeddle with any public office in the town.” He died in an advanced age, Nov. 24, 1581, and was buried in the chancel of the church of St. Paul, Canterbury, with an inscription, in which he is styled armiger. His only publication, which, however, did not appear until after his death, was his work “De rebus Albionicis, Britannicis atque Anglicis commentariorum libri duo,” Lond. 1590, 8vo. His Mss. which are on subjects of history and antiquities, were given by his grandson, Brian Twyne, to the library of Corpus Christi college, Oxford. Mr. Gough mentions his collections for a history of Canterbury, as being lost. Bishop Kennet says that he wrote an epistle prefixed to the“History of king Boccus and Sydracke,” 1510, 4to, a very rare book, of which there is a copy in St. John’s library, Oxford.

, otherwise named Hitchins, one of the first publishers of the Holy Scriptures in English, was born in 1500, about the borders of Wales, in what county is not mentioned. He was brought up from a child in grammar, logic, and philosophy at Oxford, for the most part in St. Mary Magdalen’s hall, where there is still a painting of him, but accounted an indifferent performance. Here he imbibed the doctrine of Luther, and privately taught it to some of the junior fellows of Magdalen college, and to other scholars. His behaviour was such, at the same time, as gained him a high reputation both for morals and learning, so that he was admitted a canon of cardinal Wolsey’s new college, now Christ-church. But as he made his opinions too public to remain here in safety, and, according to Tanner and Wood, was ejected, he retired to Cambridge, where he pursued his studies, and took a degree. After some time he went and lived at Little Sudbury, in Gloucestershire, with sir John Welch, knight, who had a great esteem for him, and appointed him tutor to his children. Here he embraced every opportunity to propagate the new opinions. Besides preaching frequently in and about Bristol, he engaged in disputation with many abbots and dignified clergymen, whom he met at sir John’s table, on the most important points of religion, which he explained in a way to which they had not been accustomed, and by references to the Scriptures, which they scarcely dared to search. Unable to confute him, they complained to the chancellor of the diocese, who dismissed him after a severe reprimand, accompanied with the usual threatenings against heresy.

Having formed the plan of a History of England, he came to reside chiefly at Shotover, near Oxford, for the sake of easy access to the libraries in the university; and the remainder of his life appears to have been devoted to that and his other literary pursuits. He died in 1718, in his seventy-sixth year, and was buried in Oakeley church. He married Mary daughter and heir of sir Michael Hutchinson, of Fladbury in Worcestershire, knight, by whom he had lieutenant-general James Tyrrell, of Shotover, esq. governor of Gravesend and Tilbury Fort, &c. who died in August 1742, leaving his estate from the Tyrrell family to his kinsman Augustus Schutz.

, a celebrated professor of physic at Padua, was born May 3, 1661, at the old castle of Trasilico in Modena, of a noble and ancient family. He distinguished himself among the learned, with whom he held a very extensive correspondence, and was admitted a member of many learned societies; among others of our Royal Society. He practised and taught physic with great reputation, was honorary physician to the emperor, and created a knight by the duke of Modena. He died January 28, 173O, aged sixty-nine. His works on insects, natural history, and physic, are numerous, and were printed at Venice, in 1733, 3 vols, folio, in Italian. They are curious, learned, and much esteemed. He left a son, who was a physician also, and the editor of his father’s works.

This work was quickly followed by another, on the problems called by geometricians, '“problems of situation.” Leibnitz was of opinion, that the analysis made use of in his time, by the geometricians, was not applicable to all questions in the physical sciences; and that a new geometry should be invented, to calculate the relations of positions of different bodies, in space; this he called “geometry of situation.” Excepting, however, one application, made by Leibnitz himself, to the i game of solitaire, and which, under the appearance of an object of curiosity, scarcely worthy the sublimity and usefulness of geometry, is an example for solving the most elevated and important questions, Euler was almost the only one who had practised this geometry of situation. He had resorted to it for the solution of a problem called the cavalier, which, also, appeared very familiar at first sight, and was also pregnant with useful and important applications. This problem, with the vulgar, consisted merely in running through all the cases of the chess-board, with the knight of the game of chess; to the profound geometrician, however, it was a precedent for tracing the route which every body must follow, whose course is submitted to a known law, by conforming to certain required conditions, through all the points disposed over a space, in a prescribed order. Vandermonde was chiefly anxious to find in this species or analysis, a simple notation, likely to facilitate the making of calculations; and he gave an example of this, in a short and easy solution "of the same problem of the cavalier, which Euler had rendered famous.

, lord chief justice of the commonpleas, was born in Cardiganshire, Sept. 14, 1608, and educated at Worcester school, whence he entered Christ Church, Oxford, in 1623, but left it without taking a degree, in 1626, and went to the Inner Temple for the study of the law. This, according to Wood, he neglected for some time, and was addicted to poetry and philosophy, until becoming acquainted with SeWen, he was advised to apply more diligently to his profession. In this he soon made such a figure as to be returned to the parliament of 1640, as member for the town of Cardigan. It is said that he was in his heart an enemy to monarchy, but never engaged in open hostility to Charles I. On the contrary, when the rebellion broke out he retired to his own country, and lived there principally until the restoration. He was then elected knight of the shire of Cardigan, in the parliament which began in 1661, and was much noticed by Charles II. In 1668 his majesty conferred the honour of knighthood upon him, and on May 22 of that year he was sworn serjeant-at-law, and the day following, lord chief justice of the common-pleas. He died Dec. 10, 1674, and was buried in the Temple church, near the grave of his friend Selden, who had appointed him one of his executors, and whose friendship for him is recorded on sir John’s monument.

, Lord Vaux of Harwedon, an English poet, was the eldest son of Nicholas, the first lord Vaux, and was born in 1510. In 1527 he was among the attendants in Wolsey’s stately embassy, when that prelate went to treat of a peace between the emperor Charles V. and the kings of England and France; and in January 1530, he took his place in parliament as a baron. In 1532 he waited on the king in his splendid expedition to Calais and Boulogne, a little before which time he is said to have had the custody of the persecuted queen Catherine. In the following year he was made a knight of the bath, at the coronation of Anne Boleyn. He appears to have held no public office but that of the captain of the island of Jersey, which he surrendered in 1536. He died early in the reign of Philip and Mary.

, an able anatomist, was born in 1598, at Minden, in Westphalia, and studied the classics, philosophy, and medicine, at Vienna. After he had applied to thelatter for some time, he undertook a voyage to the Levant, in pursuit of natural history, remained a considerable time at Egypt, and finished by going to Jerusalem, where he was made a knight of the holy sepulchre. He then returned to Venice, and in 1608 gave private lectures on anatomy and botany, with such success that the regular professors were soon deserted. The republic, sensible of the services of so able a man, made him, in 1632, first professor of anatomy at Padua, a chair which was then vacant, and which he Ijded with increasing reputation, although he was a little deaf, and had impediments of speech which rendered him rather difficult to be understood. But these defects were soon overlooked, and he was also appointed to lecture on surgery and botany, until finding so many labours too much for his health, he obtained leave, in 1638, to con* fine himself to surgery and botany only, with the care of the botanic garden. Here he was in his element, for botany had always been his favourite study; and in order to render the garden at Padua the best in Europe, he solicited permission to pay another visit to the Levant, in 1648. The fatigues of this voyage, however, undermined, his constitution, and soon after his return he died, Aug. 30, 1649. His works, all of which were esteemed valuable, are, 1. “Observationes et notse ad Prosperi Alpini librum de plantis Ægyptii, cum additamentis aliarum plantarum ejusdem regionis,” Padua, 1638, 4 to. Of this work, Ray availed himself. 2 “Syntagma Anatomicum,” his principal work, of which there Inve been many editions, the best by Blasius, at Utrecht, 1696, 4to. It was also translated into Dutch and German, and into English by Culpepper, 1653, fol. 3. “Catalogns plantarum horti Patavini,” Padua, 1642, 12mo, reprinted with additions in 1644. 4. “Opobalsami veteribus cogniti vmdicias,” ibid. 1644, 8vo. 5. “A very curious work, compiled from his Mss. after his death,” De pullitione vEgyptioruin, et alias Observationes Anatomicae, et Epistolae medics posthurme," Hafnise, (Copenhagen), 1664, 8vo.

The king began to be weary of his favourite, the earl of Somerset; and many of the courtiers were sufficiently angry and incensed against him, for being what they themselves desired to be. These, therefore, were pleased with the prospect of a new favourite; and, oat of their zeal to displace Somerset, did all they could to promote Villiers. Their endeavours, concurring with the inclinations of the king, made the promotion of Villiers advance so rapidly, that in a few days after his first appearance at court, he was made cup-bearer to the king. Soon after he was made a gentleman of the bed-chamber, and knight of the order of the garter. In a short time, “very short,” says lord Clarendon, “for such a prodigious ascent,” he was made a baron, a viscount, an earl, a marquis; he became lord high admiral of England, lord warden of the Cinque-ports, master of the horse; and entirely disposed of the favours of the king, in conferring all the honours and all the offices of the three kingdoms without a rival. In this he shewed the usual partialities of personal and family ambition, and raised almost all of his own numerous family and dependents, without any other merit than their alliance to him; which equally offended the ancient nobility and people of all conditions, who saw the flowers of the crown every day fading and withered, while the revenues of it were sacrificed to the aggrandizement of a private family.

, duke of Buckingham, and a very distinguished personage in the reign of Charles II. was the son of the preceding, by his wife lady Catherine Manners, and was born at Wallingford-house, in the parish of St. Martin in the Fields, January 30, 1627, which being but the year before the fatal catastrophe of his father’s death, the young duke was left a perfect infant, a circumstance which is frequently prejudicial to the morals of men born to high rank and affluence. The early parts of his education he received from various domestic tutors; after which he was sent to the university of Cambridge, where having completed a course of studies, he, with his brother lord Francis, went abroad, under the care of one Mr. Aylesbury. Upon his return, which was not till after the breaking-out of the rebellion, the king being at Oxford, his grace repaired thither, was presented to his majesty, and entered of Christ-church college. Upon the decline of the king’s cause, he attended prince Charles into Scotland, and was with him at the battle of Worcester in 1651; after which, making his escape beyond sea, he again joined him, and was soon after, as a reward for his attachment, made knight of the Garter. Desirous, however, of retrieving his affairs, he came privately to England, and in 1657 married Mary, the daughter and sole heiress of Thomas lord Fairfax, through whose interest he recovered the greatest part of the estate he had lost, and the assurance of succeeding to an accumulation of wealth in the right of his wife. We do not find, however, that this step lost him the royal favour; for, after- the restoration, at which time he is said to have possessed an estate of 20,000l. per annum, he was made one of the lords of the bed-chamber, called to the privy -council, and appointed lord-lieutenant of Yorkshire, and master of the horse. All these high offices, however, he lost again in 1666; for, having been refused the post of president of the North, he became disaffected to the king, and it was discovered that he had carried on a secret correspondence by letters and other transactions with one Dr. Heydon (a man of no kind of consequence, but a useful tool), tending to raise mutinies among his majesty’s forces, particularly in the navy, to stir up seditioa among the people, and even to engage persons in a conspiracy for the seizing the Tower of London. Nay, to sucii base lengths had he proceeded, as even to have given money to villains to put on jackets, and, personating seamen, to go about the country begging, and exclaiming for want of pay, while the people oppressed with taxes were cheated of their money by the great officers of the crown. Matters were ripe for execution, and an insurrection, at the head of which the duke was openly to have appeared, on the very eve of breaking-out, when it was discovered by means of some agents whom Heydon had employed to carry letters to the duke. The detection of this affair so exasperated the king, who knew Buckingham to be capable f the blackest designs, that he immediately ordered him to be seized; but the duke finding means, having defended his house for some time by force, to make his escape, his majesty struck him out of all. his commissions, and issued out a proclamation, requiring his surrender by a certain day. This storm, however, did not long hang over his head; for, on his making an humble submission, king Charles, who was far from being of an implacable temper, took him again into favour, and the very next year restored him both to the privy-council and bed-chamber. But the duke’s disposition for intrigue and machination was not lessened; for, having conceived a resentment against the duke of Ormond, because he had acted with some severity against him in the last-mentioned affair, he, in 1670, was supposed to be concerned in an attempt made on that nobleman’s life, by the same Blood who afterwards endeavoured to steal the crown. Their design was to have conveyed the duke to Tyburn, and there have hanged him; and so far did they proceed towards the putting it in execution, that Blood and his son had actuallyforced the duke out of his coach in St. James’s-street, and carried him away beyond Devonshire-house, Piccadilly, before he was rescued from them. That there must hare been the strongest reasons for suspecting the duke of Buckingham of having been a party in this villainous project, is apparent from a story Mr. Carte relates from the best authority, in his “Life of the duke of Ormond,” of the public resentment and open menaces thrown out to the duke on the occasion, by the earl of Ossory, the duke of Onnond’s son, even in the presence of the king himself. But as Charies II. was more sensible of injuries done to himself than others, it does not appear that this transaction hurt the duke’s interest at court; for in 1671 he was installed chancellor of the university of Cambridge, and sent ambassador to France, where he was very nobly entertained by Lewis XIV. and presented by that monarch at his departure with a sword and belt set with jewels, to the value of forty thousand pistoles; and the next year he was employed in a second embassy to that king at Utrecht. However, in June 1674, he resigned the chancellorship of Cambridge, and about the same time became a zealous partizan and favourer of the nonconformists. On February 16, 1676, his grace, with the earls of- Salisbury and Shaftesbury, and lord Wharton, were committed to the Tower, by order of the House of Lords, for a contempt, in refusing to retract the purport of a speech which the duke had made concerning a dissolution of the parliament; but upon a petition to the king, he was discharged thence in May following. In 1680, having sold Wallingfordhouse in the Strand, he purchased a house at Dowgate, and resided there, joining with the earl of Shaftesbury in all the violences of opposition. About the time of king Charles’s death, his health became affected, and he went into the country to his own manor of Helmisley, in Yorkshire, where he generally passed his time in hunting and entertaining his friends. This he continued until a fortnight before his death, an event which happened at a tenant’s house, at Kirkby Moorside, April 16, 1688, after three days illness, of an ague and fever, arising from a cold which he caught by sitting on the ground after foxhunting. The day before his death, he sent to his old servant Mr. Brian Fairfax, to provide him a bed at his own house, at Bishophill, in Yorkshire; but the next morning the same man returned with the news that his life was despaired of. Mr. Fairfax came; the duke knew him, looked earnestly at him, but could not speak. Mr. Fairfax asked a gentleman there present, a justice of peace, and a worthy discreet man in the neighbourhood, what he had said or done before he became speechless: who told him, that some questions had been asked him about his estate, to which he gave no answer. This occasioned another question to be proposed, if he would have a Popish priest; but he replied with great vehemence, No, no! repeating the words, he would have nothing to do with them. The same gentleman then askod him again, if he would have the minister sent for; and he calmly said, “Yes, pray seud for him.” The minister accordingly came, and did the office enjoined by the church, the duke devoutly attending it, and received the sacrament. In about an hour

Among these are, 1. “A Letter to the author of the late Letter out of the country, occasioned by a former Letter to a member of the House of Commons, concerning the bishops lately in the Tower, and now under suspension.” 2. “An Answer to a late pamphlet entitled Obedience and Submission to the present Government demonstrated from bishop Overall’s Convocation Book: with a postscript in answer to Dr. Sherlock’s Case of Allegiance,” London, 1690. 3. “An Answer to Dr. Sherlock’s Vindication of the Case of allegiance due to sovereign powers, which he made in reply to an Answer to a late pamphlet entitled Obedience and Submission to the present government demonstrated from bishop Overall’s Convocation book, with a postscript in answer to Dr. Sherlock’s Case of Allegiance, &c,” London, 1692. 4. “An Answer to a Letter to Dr. Sherlock written in vindication of that part of Josephus’s History, wtiicb gives the account of Jaddas’s submission to Alexander, against the Answer to the piece entitled Obedience and Submission to the present Government,” Lond. 1692. 5. “A Letter out of Suffolk to a friend in London, giving some account of the late sickness and death of Dr. William Sancroft late lord archbishop of Canterbury,” London, 1694. 6. “A Letter out of Lancashire to a friend in London, giving some account of the tryals there. Together with some seasonable and proper remarks upon it; recommended to the wisdom of the Lords and Commons assembled in parliament,” London, 1694. 7. “A Letter to a gentleman elected a knight of the shire to serve in the present parliament,” London, 1694. 8. “Remarks on some late Sermons, and in particular on Dr. Sherlock’s sermon at the Temple December the 30th, 1694, in a letter to a friend. The second edition, with additions. Together with a letter to the author of a pamphlet entitled A Defence of the archbishop’s Sermon, &c. and several other Sermons, &c.” London, 1695. 9. “An account of the proceedings in the House of Commons, in relation to the recoining the clipped money, and falling the price of guineas. Together with a particular list of the names of the members consenting and dissenting; in answer to a Letter out of the country,” London, 1696. 10. “A Vindication of king Charles the Martyr; proving that his majesty was the author of ' Eixav BawiAjw, against a memorandum said to be written by the earl of Anglesey, and against the exceptions of Dr. Walker and others. To which is added a preface, wherein the bold and insolent assertions published in a passage of Mr.JBayle’s Dictionary relating to the present controversy are examined and confuted. The third edition, with large additions together with some original letters of king Charles the First, &c.” Lond. 1711, in 4to. The two former editions were in 8vo, the first printed in 1693, and the second in 1697. 11. “A Defence of the Vindication of king Charles the Martyr; justifying his majesty’s title to Efxcuv 'BacriMw, in answer to a late pamphlet entitled Amyntor,” London, 1699. Mr. Wagstaffe also wrote prefaces before, I. “Symmons’s Restitutus: containing two epistles, four whole sections or chapters, together with a postscript, and some marginal observations, &c. which were perfectly omitted in the first edition of Mr Symmons’s book, entitled” A Vindication of king Charles I. and republished by Dr Hollingworth,“London, 1693. 2.” The devout Christian’s Manual, by Mr. Jones,“London, 1703. 3.” A Treatise of God’s Government, and of the justice of his present dispensations in this world. By the pious, learned, and most eloquent Sulvian, a priest of Marseilles, who lived in the fifth century. Translated from the Latin by R. T. presbyter of the church of England,“London, 1700. These two pamphlets are also of Mr. Wagstaffe’s writing, 1.” The present state of Jacobitism in England,“ibid. 1700;” A second part in answer to the first“which was written by the bishop of Salisbury, &c. &c. Wagstaflfe derived most credit from his endeavours to prove the” Eikon Basilike“to be the genuine production of king Charles; but on this subject we must refer our readers to the life of bishop Gauden, and especially the authorities there quoted. Mr. Wagstaffe had a son who resided at Oxford in the early part of his life, but afterwards went abroad, and resided at Rome many years in the character of protestant chaplain to the chevalier St. George, and afterwards to his son. He was there esteemed a man of very extensive learning. Dr. Townson was acquainted with him at Rome, both on his first and second tour in 1743 and 1768. He lived in a court near a carpenter’s shop, and upon Dr. Townson’s inquiring for him, the carpenter knew of no such person.” He did live somewhere in this yard some years ago.“” I have lived here these thirty years, and no person of such a name has lived here in that time.“But on farther explanation, the carpenter exclaimed,” Oh, you mean // Predicatore; he lives there,“pointing to the place. This Mr. Wagstaffe died at Rome, Dec. 3, 1770, aged seventy-eight. Mr. Nichols has preserved some jeux d‘esprits, and some epitaphs written by him, and there is a letter of his to Tom Hearne, in the ’.' Letters written by Eminent Persons,” lately published at Oxford, 1813, 3 vols. 8vo.

In Oct. 1688, he married Miss Ethelred Hovel, daughter and coheiress of sir William Hovel, of Illington, in the county of Norfolk, knight. As he was a favourer of the revolution, he was, after that event, appointed deputy clerk of the closet to king William. In July 168.9, according to Wood, he accumulated his degrees in divinity at Oxford, but another account says that he was created D. D. having been the preceding month preferred to a canonry of Christ-church, in the room of Dr. Aldrich, appointed dean. With a view to contribute to a defence of the doctrine and government of the church of England, against the adversaries of its hierarchy, be published in 1693, “An English Version of the genuine Epistles of the Apostolical Fathers, with a preliminary discourse concerning the use of those Fathers.” Of this excellent volume he published a new edition in 1710, with so many improvements, as almost to make it a new work, and a fourth edition appears about the time of his death, in 1737. The reasons why he lays great stress on the authority of these fathers are; “that they were contemporary with the apostles, and instructed by them that they were men of an eminent character in the church, and therefore could not be ignorant of what was taught in it; that they were careful to preserve the doctrine of Christ in its purity, and to oppose such as went about to corrupt it: that they were men not only of a perfect piety, but of great courage and constancy, and therefore such as cannot be suspected to have had any design to prevaricate in this matter; that they were endued with a large portion of the Holy Spirit, and as such could hardly err in what they delivered as the gospel of Christ; and that their writings were approved by the church in these days, which could not be mistaken in its approbation of them.” In July of the same year, he was preferred to the rectory of St. James’s Westminster.

Sir Wilfem Waller was elected a member of the long parliament for Andover; and having suffered under the severity of the star-chamber, on the occasion of a private quarrel with one of his wife’s relations, as well as imbibed in the course of his foreign service early and warm prejudices in favour of the presbyterian discipline, he became a determined opponent of the court. While employed at the head of the parliamentary forces, under the earl of Essex, he was deputed to the command of the expedition against Portsmouth, when colonel Goring, returning to his duty, declared a resolution of holding that garrison for his majesty. In this enterprise, sir William conducted himself with such vigour and ability, that he reduced the garrison in a shorter time and upon better terms than could have been expected; and afterwards obtained the direction of several other expeditions, in which he likewise proved remarkably successful. After many signal advantages, however, he sustained some defeats by the king’s, forces, particularly at Roumlway Down near the Devizes, and at Cropready-bridge in Oxfordshire. On each or those occasions, the blame was thrown by him on the jealousy of other officers; and neither the spirit nor the judgment of his own operations were ever questioned. The independents, who weie becoming the strongest party, both in the army and the parliament, had wished him to become their general, on terms which, either from conscience or military honour, he could not comply with. By the famous self-denying ordinance he was removed from his command, but still maintained so great an influence and reputation in the army, as rendered him not a little formidable to the rising party; and he was thenceforth considered as a leader of the presbyterians against the designs of the independents. He was one of the eleven members impeached of high treason by the army. This forced him to withdraw for some time; but he afterwards resumed his seat in parliament, until, in 1648, with fifty others, he was expelled by the army, and all of them committed to ifferent prisons, on suspicion of attachment to the royal cause. He was afterwards committed to custody on suspicion of being engaged in sir George Booth’s insurrection, m Aug. 1658, but in November was released upon bail. In Feb. 1659 he was nominated one of the council of state, and was elected one of the representatives of Middlesex, in the parliament which began April 25, 1660. He died at Osterley-park in Middlesex, Sept. 19, 1668, and was buried in the chapel in Tothill-street, Westminster. Mr. Seward very erroneously says he was buried in the Abbey-chnrch at Bath. It is his first wife who was buried there, but there is a monumental statue of sir William, as well as of the lady, which perhaps occasioned the mistake. There is a tradition that when James II, visited the Abbey, he defaced the nose of sir William upon this monument, which Mr. Warner in his “History of Bath” allows to be defaced, but Mr Seward asserts that “there appear at present no traces of any disfigurement.” Of a circumstance so easily ascertained, it is singular there should be two opinions. Anthony Wood gives, as the literary performances of sir William Waller, some of his letters and dispatches respecting his victories, but the on,ly article which seems to belong to that class is his “Divine meditations upon several occasions; with a daily directory,” Lond. 1680, 8vo. These were written during his retirement, and give a very faithful picture of his honest sentiments, and of his frailties and failings. Wood also mentions his “Vindication for taking up arms against the king,” left behind in manuscript, in which state it remained until 17y3, when it was published under the title of “Vindication of the Character and Conduct of sir William Waller, knight; commander in chief of the parliament forces in the West: explanatory of his conduct in taking up arms against king Charles I. Written by himself And now first published from the original manuscript. With an introduction by the editor,” 8vo. The ms. came from one of the noble families descended from him. It appears to be written with great sincerity, as well as precision, and contains many interesting particulars, relative to the democratical parties which struggled for superiority after the king had fallen into their power. The style seems to bear a stronger resemblance to that of the age of James the First, or his immediate predecessor, than to the mode of composition generally practised in England about the middle of the last century. If any thing can confirm the declaration that sir William was actuated solely by disinterested motives, it is the veneration which he professes to entertain for the constitution of his country. He avows himself a sincere friend to the British form of government, consisting of king, lords, and commons; and it appears, that, from the beginning, his imputed apostacy from the cause of public freedom, or rather of democratical tyranny,- ought justly to he ascribed to the cabals of the republican leaders, and not to any actual change which had ever taken place in his own sentiments. The volume, indeed, is not only valuable as an ingenuous and explicit vindication, but as a composition abounding with shrewd observation’s, and rendered interesting by the singular manner, as well as the information of the author, who seems to have been no less a man of vivacity and good sense, than of virtue and learning.

It was not long before he acquired full ministerial power, being appointed first lord commissioner of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer; and, when the king went abroad in 1723, he was nominated one of the lords justices for the administration of government, and was sworn sole secretary of state. About this time he received another distinguished mark of the royal favour; his eldest son, then on his travels, being created a peer, by the title of Baron Walpole of Walpole. In 1725 he was made knight of the bath; and, the year after, knight of the garter. Into any detail of the measures of his administration, during the Jong time he remained prime or rather sole minister, it would be impossible to enter in a work like this. They are indeed so closely involved in the history of the nation and of Europe, as to belong almost entirely to that department. His merit has been often canvassed with all the severity of critical inquiry and it is difficult to discern the truth through the exaggerations and misrepresentations of party. But this difficulty has been lately removed in a very great measure by Mr. Coxe’s elaborate “Memoirs of sir Robert Walpole,” a work admirably calculated to abate the credulity of the public in the accounts of party-writers. Although sir Robert had been called “the father of corruption” (which, however, he was not, but certainly a great improver of it), and is said to have boasted that he knew every man’s price *, yet, in 1742, the opposition

, an English critic and poet, was the son of Joseph Walsh of Abberley in Worcestershire, esq. and born about 1663, for the precise time does not appear. According to Pope, his birth happened in 1659; but Wood places it four years later. He became a gentleman-commoner of Wadham-college in Oxford in 1678, but left the university without a degree, and pursued his studies in London and at home. That he studied, in whatever place, is apparent from the effect; for he became, in Dryden’s opinion, “the best critic in the nation.” He was not, however, merely a critic or a scholar. He was likewise a man of fashion, and, as Dennis remarks, ostentatiously splendid in his dress. He was likewise a member of parliament and a courtier, knight of the shire for his native county in several parliaments, in another the re* presentative of Richmond in Yorkshire, and gentleman of the horse to queen Anne under the duke of Somerset. Some of his verses shew him to have been a zealous friend to the Revolution; but his political ardour did not abate his reverence or kindness for Dryden, to whom, Dr. Johnson says, he gave a Dissertation on Virgil’s Pastorals; but this was certainly written by Dr. Chetwood, as appears by one of Drydeu’s letters. In 1705 he began to correspond with Pope, in whom he discovered very early the power of poetry, and advised him to study correctness, which the poets of his time, he said, all neglected. Their letters are written upon the pastoral comedy of the Italians, and those pastorals which Pope was then preparing to publish. The kindnesses which are first experienced are seldom forgotten. Pope always retained a grateful memory of Walsh’s notice, and mentioned him in one of his latter pieces among those that had encouraged his juvenile studies.

Of the remainder of sir Francis Walsingham' s life we have few particulars. It appears, that, in 1589, he entertained queen Elizabeth at his house at Barn Elms, and, as was usual in all her majesty’s visits, her whole court. Previously to this visit, the queen had taken a lease of the manor of Barn- Elms, which was to commence after the expiration of sir Henry Wyai’s, in 160O. Her interest in this lease she granted by letters patent, bearing date the twenty-first year of her reign, to sir Francis Walsingham and his heirs. Sir Francis, in addition to his other dignities, was a knight of the garter, and recorder of Colchester. He passed his latter days mostly in this retirement at Barnes, and when any of his former gay companions came to see him and told him he was melancholy, he is said to have replied, “No, I am not melancholy; I am serious; and 'tis fit I should be so. Oh! my friends, while we laqgh, all things are serious round about us: God is serious, who exerciseth patience towards us: Christ is ser,ious, who shed his blood for us: the Holy Spirit is serious, in striving against the obstinacy of our hearts: the holy scriptures bring to our ears the most serious things in the world: the holy sacraments represent the most serious and awful matters: the whole creation is serious in serving God and us: all that are in heaven and hell are serious: how then can we be gay?”

, a celebrated writer on the art of angling, and the author of some valuable lives, was born at Stafford in August 1593. His first settlement in London, as a shopkeeper, was in the Royal Burse in Cornhill, built by sir T. Gresharn, and finished in 1567. In this situation he could scarcely be said to“have had elbow-room; for, the shops over the Burse were but seven feet and a half long, and five wide; yet he carried on his trade till some time before 1624, when” he dwelt on the north side of Fleet- street, in a house two doors west of the end of Chancery-lane, and abutting on a messuage known by the sign of the Harrow;“by which sign the old timber -house at the south-west corner of Chancery-lane, in Fleet-street, till within these few years, was known. A citizen of this age would almost as much disdain to admit of a tenant for half his shop, as a knight would to ride double; though the brethren of one of the most ancient orders of the world were so little above this practice, that their common seal was the device of two riding one horse. He married probably about 1632; for in that year he lived in a house in Chancery-lane, a few doors higher up on the left hand than the former, and described by the occupation of a sempster or milliner. The former of these might be his own proper trade; and the latter, as being a feminine occupation, might be carried on by his wife: she, it appears, was Anne, the daughter of Mr, Thomas Ken, of Furnival’s-inn, and sister of Thomas, afterwards Dr. Ken, bishop of Bath and Wells. About 1643 he left London, and, with a fortune very far short of what would now be called a eompetencv, seems to have retired altogether from business. While he continued in London, his favourite recreation was angling, in which he was the greatest proficient of his time; and, indeed, so great were his skill and experience in that art, that there is scarcely any writer on the subject since his time who has not made the rules and practice of Walton his very foundation. It is, therefore, with the greatest propriety that Langbaine calls him” the common father of all anglers." The river that he seems mostly to have frequented for this purpose was the Lea, which has it source above Ware in Hertfordshire, and falls into the Thames a little below Blackwall; unless we will suppose that the vicinity of the New River to the place of his habitation might sometimes tempt him out with his friends, honest Nat. and R. Roe, whose loss he so pathetically mentions, to spend an afternoon there. In 1662 he was by death deprived of the solace and comfort of a good wife, as appears by a monumental inscription in the cathedral church of Worcester.

, an upright statesman, was the son and heir of sir George Wandesforde, knight, of Kirklington, in Yorkshire, and was born at Bishop Burton, in the East Riding of that county, in Sept. 1592. His family was very ancient and honourable, the pedigree beginning with Geoffrey de Clusters, of Kirklington, in the reign of Henry II. He was taught by his virtuous mother the rudiments of the English tongue, and of the Christian religion, and sent, as soon as it was proper, to the free-school of Wells, and there instructed in due course in the Latin and Greek languages. About the age of fifteen he was judged fit for the university, and admitted of Clare-hall, Cambridge, under the tuition of Dr. Milner. Here, it is supposed,his acquaintance commenced with Mr. Wentwortb, afterwards earl of Strafford, which grew into the strictest friendship and fraternal affection. Mr. Wandesforde is said to have made great progress at college in the arts and sciences, and the knowledge of things natural, moral, and divine; but applied himself closely at the same time to the study of the classics, and particularly to oratory, as appears from his subsequent speeches in parliament. At the age of nineteen he was called from the university by his father’s death, to a scene of important business, the weighty regulation of family affairs, with an estate heavily involved; his necessary attention to which prevented him from pursuing the studies preparatory to the church, which he had originally chosen as a profession, and now relinquished.

Mr. Warburton married twice: one of his wives was a widow with children, for he married her son, when a minor, to one of his daughters. Amelia, another, married Oct. 23, 1750, to captain John Elphinston, afterwards viceadmiral and commander-in-chief of the Russian fleet, who died very greatly respected by the late empress, Catherine IL who created him knight of the order of St. George: he was deservedly honoured and beloved by all who knew him. This gallant officer died in November 1789, at Cronstat, after a short illness. By his last wife, our author had John Warburton, esq. who resided many years in Dublin, and was pursuivant to the court of exchequer in Ireland: he married, in 1756, Ann-Catherine, daughter of the rev. Edward-Rowe Mores, rector of Tunstal in Kent, and sister of Edward-Rowe Mores, esq. M.A. and F.R. and A. S., so well known for his skill in antiquity, and the large collections of choice Mss. and books he left at his death, which were sold by Mr. Paterson in 1779. This Mr. W T arbarton, leaving Dublin, became one of the exons belonging to his majesty’s yeomen of the guard at St. James’s. Mr. Noble says, that going into France since the troubles in that kingdom, he was one of the few English who fell victims to the sanguinary temper of the usurpers, being guillotined for a pretended sedition, by order of the national convention committee at Lyons, in December 1793; but a correspondent in the Gentleman’s Magazine says that the Mr. Warburton, who was guillotined, was the nephew and not the son of the herald.

, knight of the order of the polar star, secretary to the royal academy of sciences at Stockholm, F. R. S. one of the eight foreign members of the academy of sciences at Paris, and member of the academies of St. Petersburg, Upsal, Gottingen, Copenhagen, and Drontheim, was born Sept. 22, 1717, and became secretary to the Stockholm academy in 1749. In this country he is probably most known from his tables for computing the eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites, which are annexed to the Nautical Almanac of 1779. We know not that he has published any separate work but in the “Transactions of the Stockholm Academy,” are 52 memoirs by him, besides several in the “Philosophical Transactions,” and in the “Acta Societatis Upsaliensis.” He died at the observatory at Stockholm, Dec. 13, 1783.

He was the warm friend and generous patron of Erasmus, to whom, besides many letters, he sent his portrait, which Dr. Knight suppose* to have been a copy of that at Lambeth by Holbein; Erasmus, in return, sent him his own. He also dedicated his edition of St. Jerome to the archbishop, and in other parts of his works, bestows the highest encomiums on him. He calls him his only M*aeeenas, and says that his generosity and liberality extended not to bim only, but to all men of letters. Erasmus gives us a very pleasing account of Warham’s private life. “That,” says he, “which enabled him to go through such various cares and employments, was, that no part of his time, nor no degree of his attention, was taken up with hunting, or gaming, in idle or trifling conversation, or in luxury or voluptuousness. Instead of any diversions or amusements of this kind, he delighted in the reading of some good and pleasing author, or in the conversation of some learned man. And although he sometimes had prelates, dukes, and earls as his guests, he never spent more than an hour at dinner. The entertainment which he provided for his friends was liberal and splendid, and suitable to the dignity of his rank; but he never touched any dainties of the kind himself. He seldom tasted wine; and when he had attained the age of seventy years, drank nothing, for the most part, but a little small beer. But notwithstanding his great temperance and abstemiousness, he added to the cheerfulness and festivity of every entertainment at which he was present, by the pleasantness of his countenance, and the vivacity and agreeableness of his conversation. The same sobriety was seen in him after dinner as before. He abstained from suppers altogether: unless he happened to have any very familiar friends with him, of which number I was; when he would, indeed, sit down to table, but then could scarcely be said to eat any thing. If that did not happen to be the case, he employed mr time by others usually appropriated to suppers, in study or devotion. But as he was remarkably agreeable and facetious in his discourse, but without biting or buffoonery, so he delighted much in jesting freely with his frit-lids But scurrility, defamation, or slander, he abhorred, and avoided as he would a snake. In this manner did this great man make his days sufficiently long', of the shortness of which many complain.”!

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

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

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

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

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

He was twice married; first to a lady whose name was Avisia or Avis, but whose family is unknown. She died in 1557 without issue, and was buried, with great pomp and ceremony, in the parish church of St. Mary Aldermanbury. His second wife was Joan, one of the daughters and coheiresses of John Lake of London, gent, the widow of sir Ralph Warren, knight, twice lord mayor of London, by whom she had children. She survived sir Thomas, and died in 1573, and was buried by her first husband in the church of St. Bennet Sherehog, London. There is a portrait of him in the town-hall of Leicester, habited as lord mayor of London, with a gold chain, and collar of S S. a black cap, pointed beard, his gloves in his right hand, and on the little finger of his left, a ring. There are similar portraits in the town-hall at Salisbury, at Reading, Merchant Taylors’, and St. John’s college.

As to call in question the natural immortality of the human soul was understood to imply atheism, White’s treatise had certainly a tendency to weaken the arguments for that immortality, by weakening the common proofs of the soul’s consciousness in a future state; but there was nothing else in his work which could justly be construed as being of an atheistical nature. It does not appear that the bill against atheism and profaneness ever passed, or that the Commons proceeded farther in their censures of White and Hobbes. White was also obnoxious to the politicians of the time on another account. “To understand this,” says archdeacon Blackburne, “it will be necessary to observe, that White was a disciple of sir Kenelm Digby, not only in philosophy, but also in politics. The knight has been accused, and upon very authentic evidence, of intriguing with Cromwell, to the prejudice of the exiled Stuarts. Whether White was in the depth of the secret or not, it is probable that he knew something of the transaction, and that Digby might set him to work with his pen, in favour of Cromwell’s government. Be this as it might, White wrote a book, about that time, intituled,” The Grounds of Obedience and Government;" wherein he held, ‘That the people, by the evil management, or insufficiency of their governor, are remitted to the force of nature to provide for themselves, and not bound by any promise made to their governor; that the magistrate, by his miscarriages, abdicateth himself from being a magistrate, proveth a brigand or robber, instead of a defender; that if he be innocent, and wrongfully deposed, and totally dispossessed, it were better for the common good to stay as they are, than to venture the restoring him, because of the public hazard.’

, a learned English lawyer, was descended of a good family near Oakingham, in Berkshire, and born in London, November the 28th, 1570. He was educated in Merchant Taylors’ school, elected scholar of St. John’s college, in Oxford, in 1588, and July 1, 1594, took the degree of bachelor of civil law. He afterwards settled in the Middle Temple, became summer-reader of that house in the 17th year of king James I. a knight, member of parliament for Woodstock in 1620, chief justice of Chester, and at length one of the justices of the king’s bench. Kitig Charles I. said of him, that he was “a stout, wise, and learned man, and one who knew what belongs to uphold magistrates and magistracy in their dignity.” In Trinity term 1632, he fell ill of a cold, which so increased upon him that he was advised to go in the country; on which he took leave of his brethren the judges and serjeants, saying, “God be with you, I shall never see you again;” and this without the least disturbance or trouble of his thoughts; and soen after he came into the country he died, June 22. “On his death,” says his son, “the king lost as good a subject, his country as good a patriot, the people as just a 'judge, as ever lived. Ail honest men lamented the loss ui huri: no man in his age left behind him a more honoured memory. His reason was clear and strong, and his learning deep and general. He had the Latin tongue so perfect, that sitting judge of assize at Oxford, when some foreigners, persons of quality, being there, and coming to the court to see the manner of our proceedings in matters of justice, this judge caused them to sit down, and briefly repeated the heads of his charge to the grand jury in good and elegant Latin, and thereby informed the strangers and the scholars of the ability of our judges, and the course of our proceedings in matters of law and justice. He understood the Greek very well, and the Hebrew, and was versed in the Jewish histories, and exactly knowing in the history of his own country, and in the pedigrees of most persons of honour and quality in the kingdom, and was much conversant in the studies of antiquity and heraldry. He was not excelled by, any in the knowledge of his own profession of the common law of England^ wherein his knowledge of the civil law (whereof he was a graduate in Oxford) was a help to him. His learned arguments both at the bar and bench will confirm ­this truth.” He was interred at Fawley near High Wyr comb in Bucks, where a monument was erected to him by his son. There are extant of his: 1. Several speeches in parliament, particularly one in a book entitled “The Sovereign’s Prerogative and the Subject’s Privileges discussed, &c. in the 3d and 4th year of king Charles I. London, 1657, in fol. 2. Lectures or readings in the Middle Temple hall, August the 2d, 1619, and on the statute on 21 Henry VIII. c. 13. in the Ashmolean library at Oxford. 3. Of the antiquity, use, and ceremony of lawful combats in England, formerly in the library of Ralph Sheldon, of Beoly, esq. and since printed with other pieces by him, among Hearne’s” Curious Discourses."

Whitelocke accordingly set out from London on this embassy Nov. 2, 1653, and a very few weeks after his departure, Cromwell assumed the supreme authority under the title of lord protector. Whitelocke was received in Sweden with great respect, and supported his character with dignity. Queen Christina, who shewed him many civilities, entertained him not only with politics, but with philosophy; and created him knight of the order of Araarantha, and hence he is sometimes styled sir Bulstrode. He displayed great abilities for negotiation, and concluded a firm alliance between England and Sweden about the beginning of May 1654. In 1772, Dr. Morton, secretary of the Royal Society, published the history of this embassy, under the title of “'A Journal of the Swedish Ambassy, in the years 1653 and 165 4-. From, the commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Written by the ambassador the lord commissioner Whhelockv. With an Appendix of Original Papers,” 2 vols. 4to, These papers Dr Morton received from Whitelocke’s grandson, Carieton Whitelocke, of Prior’s wood, near Dublin, esq. This very cunious work may be considered as a necessary addition to his “Memorials,” and contains a large assemblage of facts and characteristic anecdotes illustrative of the times and the principal personages, printed literally from the author’s manuscript.

Wieland was the author of a prodigious number of works (of which there is an edition extending to forty-two volumes, quarto), both in prose and verse, poems of all kinds, and philosophical essays, dialogues, tales, &c. Of these, the “Oberon,” (by Mr. Sotheby’s elegant translation) the “Agathon,” and some others, are not unknown, although they have never been very popular, in this country. In what estimation he is held in his own, may appear from one of the many panegyrics which German critics have pronounced on his merit: “No modern poet has written so much, or united so much deep sense with so much wit, such facility and sweetness. It may be truly said of him, that he has gone through the wide domain of human occupations, and knows all that happens in heaven and in earth. A blooming imagination and a creative wit; a deep, thinking, philosophical mind; fine and just sense, and a thorough acquaintance with both the moderns and ancients, are discernible in all his various writings. Re knows how to make the most abstract metaphysical ideas sensible, by the magic of his eloquence; he can make himself of all times and all countries; he observes the customs of every country, and knows how to join truth with miracles, sensible with spirited imagery, and romance with the most profound morality. In the `Agathon' he seems a Grecian; and in the `Fairy Tales’ a knight-errant; who wanders amidst fairies, vizards, and monsters. All his tales abound in portraits, comparisons, and parallels, taken from old and modern times, full of good sense and truth. The understanding, the heart, and the fancy, are equally satisfied. His verse is easy; there is not a word too much, or an idle false thought. He is as excellent in comical portraits as in the delineations of manners. The knowledge of Epicurus, the muses of frolic and satire, of romance and fairy land; the solidity of Locke, and the deep sense of Plato; Grecian eloquence, and Oriental luxuriance, what excites admiration in the writings of the best masters, are united in his immortal works.” Such is the opinion of his countrymen; to which, however, it is our duty to add, that in many of his works the freethinkingsystem is predominant, and that the moral tendency of others is very doubtful.

On the death of his father in 1733, he was elected member of parliament for the county of Monmouth, and uniformly supported the administration of sir Robert Walpole, whom he idolized; he received from that minister many early and confidential marks of esteem, and in 1739 was was appointed by him paymaster of the marines. His name occurs only twice as a speaker, in Chandler’s debates: but the substance of his speech is given in neither instance. Sprightliness of conversation, ready wit, and agreeable manners, introduced him to the acquaintance of men of the first talents: he was the soul of the celebrated coterie, of which the most conspicuous members were, lord Hervey, Winnington, Horace Walpole, late earl of Orford., Stephen Fox, earl of Ilchester, and Henry Fox, lord Holland, with whom, in particular, he lived in the strictest habits of intimacy and friendship. At this period he distinguished himself by political ballads remarkable for vivacity, keenness of invective, and ease of versification. In 1746 he was installed knight of the Bath, and soon after, appointed envoy to the court of Dresden, a situation which he is said to have solicited, that its employments might divert his grief for the death of his friend Mr. Winnington. The votary of wit and pleasure was instantly transformed into a man of business, and the author of satirical odes penned excellent He was well adapted for the office of a foreign minister, and the lively, no less than the solid, parts of his character, proved useful in his new employment; flow of conversation, sprightliness of wit, politeness of demeanour, ease of address, conviviality of disposition, together with the delicacy of his table, attracted persons of all descriptions. He had arv excellent tact for discriminating characters, humouring the foibles of those with whom he negotiated, and conciliating those by whom the great were either directly or indirectly governed.

The lord keeper made use of his influence with the king, in behalf of several noblemen who were under the royal displeasure and in confinement. He prevailed with his majesty to set at liberty the earl of Northumberland, who had been fifteen years a prisoner in the Tower. He procured also the enlargement of the earls of Oxford and Arundel, both of whom had been a considerable time under confinement. He employed likewise his good offices with the king, in behalf of many others of inferior rank, particularly some clergymen who offended by their pulpit freedoms. One instance we shall extract from his principal biographer, as a proof of his address, and knowledge of king James’s peculiar temper. A Mr. Knight, a young divine at Oxford, had advanced in a sermon somewhat which was said to be derogatory to the king’s prerogative. For this he was a long time imprisoned, and a charge was about to be drawn up against him, to impeach him for treasonable doctrine. One Dr. White, a clergyman far advanced in years, was likewise in danger of a prosecution of the same kind. Bishop Williams was very desirous of bringing both these gentlemen off, and hit on the following contrivance. Some instructions had been appointed to be drawn up by his care and direction, for the performance of useful and orderly preaching; which being under his hand to dispatch, he now besought his majesty that this proviso might pass among the rest, that none of the clergy should be permitted to preach before the age of thirty years, nor after three-score. “On my soul,” said the king, “the devil, or some fit of madness is in the motion; for I have many great wits, and of clear distillation, that have preached before me at Royston and Newmarket to my great liking, that are under thirty. And my prelates and chaplains, that are far stricken in years, are the best masters of that faculty that Europe affords.” “I agree to all this,” answered the lord keeper, “and since your majesty will allow both young and old to go up into the pulpit, it is but justice that you shew indulgence to the young ones if they run into errors before their wits be settled (for every apprentice is allowed to mar some work before he be cunning in the mystery of his trade), and pity to the old ones, if some of them fall into dotage when their brains grow dry. Will your majesty conceive displeasure,' and not Jay it down, if the former set your teeth on edge sometimes, before they are mellow- wise and if the doctrine of the latter be touched with a blemish, when they begin to be rotten, and to drop from the tree?” “This is not unfit for consideration,” said the king, “but what do you drive at?” “Sir,” replied Williams, “first to beg your pardon for mine own boldness; then to remember you that Knight is a beardless boy, from whom exactness of judgment could not be expected. And that White is a decrepit, spent man, who had not a fee-simple, but a lease of reason, and it is expired. Both these that have been foolish in their several extremes of years, I prostrate at the feet of your princely clemency.” In consequence, of this application, king James readily granted a pardon to both of them.

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

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

, an Englishman, eminent for learning and politics, was descended from a gentleman’s family by both parents, and was born at Boughton-hall in Kent, March ^0, 1568. The Wottons were of no inconsiderable distinction, having possessed this lordship for nearly three centuries. Sir Edward Wotton,“our statesman’s grandfather, was treasurer of Calais, and of the privycouncil to king Henry VIII. and was elder brother to the celebrated Dr. Nicholas Wotton, dean of Canterbury, the subject of our next article. Sir Robert Wotton, the father of these, was entrusted by king Edward i V. with the lieutenancy of Guisnes, and was knight-porter and comptroller of Calais; where he died and lies buried. Sir Henry’s elder brother, who was afterwards raised by king James J. to the peerage by the title of lore) Wotton, was in 1585 sent by queen Elizabeth ambassador to that monarch in Scotland; and Dr. Robertson speaks of him, as” a man, gay, well-bred, and entertaining; who excelled in all the exercises, for which James had a passion, amused the young king by relating the adventures which he had met with, and the'obseYvations h,e had made during a long residence in foreign countries; but under the veil of these superficial qualities,“Dr. Robertson adds, that” he concealed a dangerous and intriguing spirit. He soon grew in favour with James, and while he was seemingly attentive only to pleasure and diversions, he acquired influence over the public councils, to a degree, which was indecent for strangers to possess."

Sir Henry was the only son of the second marriage of his father Thomas Wotton, esq. with Eleanora, daughter of sir William Finch, of Eastwell in Kent (ancestor to lord Winchelsea), and widow of Robert Morton, of the same county, esq. He was educated first under private tutors, and then sent to Winchester-school whence, in 1584, he was removed to New- college in Oxford. Here he was entered as a gentleman-commoner, and had his chamber in Hart-hall adjoining; and, for his chamber-fellow, Richard Baker, his countryman, afterwards a knight, and author of the well known “Chronicle” which goes by his name. Wotton did not continue long there, but went to Queen’s-college, where he became well versed in logic Uid philosophy-, and, being distinguished for his wit, was solicited to write a tragedy for private acting in that society, The name of it was “Tancredo” and Walton relates, “that it was so interwoven with sentences, and for the method and exact personating those humours, passions, and dispositions, which he proposed to represent, so performed, that the gravest of the society declared^ he had in a slight employment given an early and solid testimony of his future abilities.” In 1588 he supplicated the congregation of regents, that he might be admitted to the reading of any of the books of Aristotle’s logic, that is, be admitted to the degree of bachelor of arts; but “whether he was admitted to that or any other degree doth not appear,” says Wood, ^from the university registers;“although Walton tells us, that about his 20th year he proceeded master of arts, and at that time read in Latin three lectures de oculo, on the blessing of sight, which he illustrated by some beautiful passages aud apt reflexions. In 1589 he lost his father, and was left with no other provision than a rent-charge of 100 marks a-year. Soon after, he left Oxford, betook himself to travel, and went into France, Germany, and Italy. He stayed but one year in France, and part of that at Geneva; where he became acquainted with Beza and Isaac Casaubon. Three years he spent in Germany, and five in Italy, where both in Rome, Venice, and Florence, he cultivated acquaintance with the most eminent men for learning and all manner of fine arts; for painting, sculpture, chemistry, and architecture; of all which he was an amateur and an excellent judge. After having spent nine years abroad, he returned to England highly accomplished, and with a great accumulation of knowledge of the countries through which he had passed. His wit and politeness so effectually recommended him to the earl of Essex that he first admitted him into his friendship, and afterwards made him one of his secretaries, the celebrated Mr. Henry Cuff being the other. (See Cuff.) He personally attended all the councils and employments of the earl, and continued with him till he was apprehended for high treason. Fearing now lest he might, from his intimate connexion, be involved in his patron’s ruin, he thought proper to retire, and was scarcely landed in France, when he heard that his master Essex was beheaded, and his friend Cuff hanged. He proceeded to Florence, and was received into great confidence by the grand duke of Tuscany. This place became the more agreeable to him, from his meeting with signor Vietta, a gentleman of Venice, with whom he had been formerly intimately acquainted, and who was now the grand duke’s secretary. It was during this retreat that Mr. Wotton drew up his” State of Christendom, or a most exact and curious discovery of many secret passages, and hidden myteries of the times." This was first printed, a thin fol. in 1657, and afterwards in 1677, with a small alteration in the title. It was here also that the grand duke having intercepted letters which discovered a design to take away the life of James VI. of Scotland, dispatched Wouon thither to give him notice of it. Wotton was on this account, as well as according to his instructions, to manage this affair with all possible secrecy: and therefore, having parted from the duke, he took the name and language of an Italian; and to avoid the line of English intelligence and danger, he posted into Norway, and from that country to Scotland, He found the king at Stirling, and was admitted to him under the name of Octavio Baldi. He delivered his message and his letters to the king in Italian: then, stepping up and whis^ pering to his majesty, he told him he was an Englishman, requested a more private conference with him, and that he might be concealed during his stay in Scotland. He spent about three months with the king, who was highly entertained with him, and then returned to Florence, where, after a few months, the news of queen Elizabeth’s death, and of king James’s accession to the crown of England, arriyep!.

, a noted English mathematician, who flourished in the latter part of the sixteenth century and beginning of the seventeenth, is thus characterised in a Latin paper in the library of Gonvile and Caius college, Cambridge: “This year (1615) died at London, Edward Wright, of Garveston, in Norfolk, formerly a fellow of this college; a man respected by all for the integrity and simplicity of his manners, and also famous for his skill in the mathematical sciences; so that he was not undeservedly styled a most excellent mathematician by Richard Hackluyt, the author of an original treatise of our English navigations. What knowledge he had acquired in the science of mechanics, and how usefully he employed that knowledge to ths public as well as to private advantage, abundantly appear both from the writings he published, and from the many mechanical operations still extant, which are standing monuments of his great industry and ingenuity. He was the first undertaker of that difficult but useful work, by which a little river is brought from the town of Ware in apew canal, to supply the city of London with water but by the tricks of others he was hindered from completing the work he had begun. He was excellent both in contrivance and execution, nor was he inferior to the most ingenious mechanic in the making of instruments, either of brass or any other matter. To his invention is owing whatever advantage Hondius’s geographical charts have above others; for it was Wright who taught Jodocus Horn dius the method of constructing them, which wa.s till then unknown; but the ungrateful Hondius concealed the name of the true author, and arrogated the glory of the invention to hjmself. Of this fraudulent practice the good man could nqt help complaining, and justly enough, in the preface to his treati.se of the” Correction of Errors in the art of Navigation;“which he composed with excellent judgment and after long experience, to the great advancement of naval affairsi For the improvement of this art he was appointed mathematical lecturer by the East India company, and read lectures in the house of that worthy knight sir Thomas Smith, for which he had a yearly salary of fifty pounds, This office he discharged with great reputation, and much to the satisfaction of his hearers. He published in English a book on the doctrine of the sphere, and another concerning the construction of sun-dials. He also prefixed an ingenious preface to the learned Gilbert’s book on the loadstone. By these and other his writings, he has transmitted his fame to latest posterity. While he was yet a fellow of this college, he could not be concealed in his private study, but was called forth to the public business of the nation by the queen, about 1593. He was ordered to attend the earl of Cumberland in some maritime expeditions. One of these he has given a faithful account of, in the manner of a journal or ephemeris, to which he has prefixed an elegant hydrographical chart of his own contrivance. A little before his death he employed himself about an English translation of the book of logarithms, then lately discovered by lord Napier, a Scotchman, who had a great affection for him. This posthumous work of his- was published soon after by his only son Samuel Wright, who was also a scholar of this college. He had formed many other useful designs, but was hindered by death from bringing them to perfection. Of him it may truly be said, that he studied more to serve the public than himself; and though he was rich in fame, and in the promises of the great, yet he died poor, to tfie scandal of an ungrateful age.” So far the memoir; other particulars concerning him are as follow:

Lord Orford informs us that in Vertue’s manuscript collections he found that Vertue was acquainted with a Mr. Wyat, who lived in Charterhouse-yard, and was the representative descendant of that respectable family. In 1721, and at other times, Vertue says, at that gentleman’s house, he saw portraits of his ancestor for seven descents, and other pictures and ancient curiosities . Sir Thomas has usually been termed sir Thomas Wyat the elder, to distinguish him from sir Thomas Wyat, his son, who suffered death for high treason in the reign of queen Mary., His lady, according to Wood, was Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Brooke, lord Cobham . His son left issue, by Jane his wife, daughter and co-heir of William Hawte of Bourne, knight, a son named George Wyat of Boxley in Kent, restored 13 Elizabeth.

, an eminent statesman, chancellor of the exchequer in the reign of queen Anne, was descended from a very ancient family, which derives its descent from Ailwardus, an eminent Saxon, in the county of Norfolk, soon after the Norman conquest, who being possessed of lands in Wymondham, or Wyndham, in that county, assumed his surname thence. Sir John Wyndham, who was knighted at the coronation of king Edward VI. had the estate of Orchard, in the county of Somerset, in right of his wife, Elizabeth, daughter and co-heir of John Sydenham, of Orchard, esq. His great grandson John married Catharine, daughter of Robert Hopton, esq. sister and co-heir to Ralph lord Hopton, by whom he had issue sir William Wyndham, advanced to the dignity of a baronet by king Charles II. whose eldest son, Edward, married Catharine, daughter of sir William Levison Gower, bart. and by that lady had one daughter, Jane, wife of sir Richard Grosvenor, of Eton, in Cheshire, bart. and an only son, the subject of this article, who was born about 1687; and upon the decease of his father, while he was very young, succeeded to the title and estate. He was educated at first at Eton school, and thence removed to Christ Church, Oxford, where his excellent genius soon discovered itself, and afterwards received great advantage from his travels into foreign countries. Upon his return to England he was chosen knight of the shire for the county of Somerset, in which station he served in the three last parliaments of queen Anne, and all the subsequent ones till his death. This public scene of action soon called forth his eminent abilities, and placed him in so conspicuous a point of light, that, after the change of the ministry under that queen in the latter end of 1710, he was first appointed master of her majesty’s hart and buck hounds, then secretary at war, and at last, about August 1713, was advanced to the important post of chancellor of the exchequer. In this station he had an opportunity of appearing in his judicial capacity in a cause of Dr/Hooper, bishop of Bath and Wells, in which he gave sentence, and at the same time explained the grounds of it with a perspicuity, force of reasoning, and extent of knowledge worthy the most experienced judge. In May the year following he brought into the House of Commons, and carried successfully through it, the “Bvll to prevent tae growth of schism, and for the future security of the Church of England,” &c. and was appointed to carry it up to the House of Lords, where also it passed. Upon the breach between the earl of Oxford, lord high treasurer, and lord Bolidgbroke, secretary of state, in July 1714, sir William adhered to the interests of the latter.