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Betterton got by this benefit 500l. and a promise was given him, that the favour should be annually repeated as long as he lived. Sept. 20, in the succeeding winter, he performed the part of Hamlet with great vivacity. This activity of his kept off the gout longer than usual, but the fit returned upon him in the Spring with greater violence, and it was the more unlucky, as this was the time of his benefit. The play he fixed upon was, the “Maid’s Tragedy,” in which he acted the part of Melanthns and notice was given thereof by his friend sir Richard Steele in the Tatler but the fit intervening, that he might not disappoint the town, he was obliged to submit to external applications, to reduce the swelling of his feet, which enabled him to appear on the stage, though he was obliged to use a slipper. “He was observed that day to have a more than an ordinary spirit, and met with suitable applause but the unhappy consequence of tampering with his distemper was, that it flew into his head, and killed him.” He died April 28, 1710, and was interred in Westminster-abbey. Sir Richard Steele attended the ceremony, and two days after published a paper in the Tatler to his memory. Mr. Booth, who knew him only in his decline, used to say, that he never saw him off or on the stage, without learning something from him; and frequently observed, that Betterton was no actor, that he put on his part with his clothes, and was the very man he undertook to be till the play was over, and nothing more. So exact was he in following nature, that the look of surprise he assumed in the character of Hamlet, astonished Booth (when he first personated the ghost) to such a degree, that he was unable to proceed in his part for some moments. The following dramatic works were published by Mr. Betterton, 1. a The Woman made a justice,“a comedy. 2.” The Unjust judge, or, Appius and Virginia,“a tragedy, written originally by Mr. John Webster, an old poet, who. fiourisiied in the reign of James I. It was only altered by Mr. Betterton. 3.” The Amorous widow, or the wanton wife," a play written on the plan of Moliere’s George Dandin.

, an elegant Italian poet of the last century, was born at Verona, July 16, 1732, and began his studies at the Jesuits’ college at Brescia, but was obliged, by bad health, to return home to complete them. The work on which his reputation chiefly rests is his poem on the silk- worm, “Del baco da seta, canti IV. con annotaziom,” Verona, 1756, 4to, in which he contrives to be original on a subject that had been amply treated in the sixteenth century, in the “La Sereide” of Tesauro. He dedicated this poem to the marquis Spolverini, the author of a didactic poem on the cultivation of rice, “La cold vazi one del Riso.” His poetical efforts were all directed to the object of his more serious labours, agriculture. His bust is in the hall of the academy of agriculture at Verona, of which he was the founder, and among other academies, he was a member of the Georgophiles of Florence. He wrote another poem, “Le Cascine,” with notes, but it does not appear to have been printed. He died at Verona in 1788.

, one of the most eminent Italian scholars of the last century, was born at Mantua, July 18, 1718. After having studied among the Jesuits in his own country and at Bologna, he entered that society as a noviciate in 1736. He then commenced a new course of studies, including the belles lettres, from 1739 to 1744, at Brescia, where cardinal Quirini, count Mazzuchelli, count Duranti, and other learned men, formed an illustrious academy, and there he became first noticed by some poetical compositions for scholastic exercises. When sent to Bologna to pursue his theological course, he continued to court his muse, and wrote for the theatre of the college, his tragedy of “Jonathas.” The number of literary characters in this city surpashed that which he had found at Brescia. The Institute recently founded by count Marsigli, the Clementine academy of design, the school of the astronomical poet Manfredi, and the growing reputation of his learned and ingenious pupils Zanotti, Algarotti, &c. contributed to fix the attention of the literary world on Bologna. In this society Bettinelli completed his education, and attained the age of thirty. In 1748, he went to Venice to teach rhetoric, and was frequently employed in a similar manner in other places. His superiors intended him for a display of his oratorical talents, but the weakness of his lungs obliged him to decline this. In 1751, he was appointed director of the college of nobles at Parma, and remained here superintending "their poetical and historical studies for eight years, occasionally visiting the principal vines of Italy, on business, or for health. In 1755, ne travelled through part of Germany, to Strasburgh and Nancy, and returned through Germany to Italy, bringing with him two young princes, the sons or nephews of the prince of Hohenlohe, who had intrusted him with their education. The following year he took a trip to France with the eldest of these princes, and resided at Paris, in the college of Louis-le-Grand. It was during this trip that he wrote the celebrated letters of Virgil which were printed at Venice with those of Frugoni and Algarotti. The opinions, and we may add, the literary heresies, very ingeniously urged in these letters against the reputation of the two great luminaries of Italian poetry, and especially against Dante, created him many enemies, and what gave him most uneasiness, involved him with Algarotti. (See Algarotii). From Paris he made several excursions into Normandy, Lorraine, &c. and paid a visit to Voltaire. From Geneva he went to Marseilles, &c. and arrived at Parma in 1759. The same year he went to Verona, where he resided until 1767, and resumed his offices of preaching and education. He was afterwards for some years at Modena, and when the order of the Jesuits was suppressed, he was appointed professor of rhetoric. On his return to his own country, he applied to his literary pursuits with fresh ardour, and published many works, and having regretted that he had published so much without writing any thing to please the fair sex, doubtless owing to his ecclesiastical character, he afterwards endeavoured to make up for this. in some respect by publishing his correspondence between two ladies, his letters to Lesbia, and lastly, his twenty-four dialogues on love. These he published in 1796, when the war raged in all parts of Italy, and when the siege of Mantua by the French obliged him to leave it. He then removed to Verona, but in 1797, after the surrender of Mantua, he returned again, and although now almost in his eightieth year, resumed his literary labours with his accustomed spirit. In 1799, he began a new edition of his works, which was completed at Venice in 1801, in 24 vols. 12mo. He still preserved his usual gaiety and health at the age of ninety, until Sept. 13, 1805, when he died after fifteen days illness, with the firmness, says his biographer, of a philosopher and a Christian.

His principal works, according to his own arrangement in the edition above mentioned are, 1. “Ragionamend filosofici” con anuotazioni,“a work both religious, moral, and philosophical. 2.” Dell' entusiasmo delle belle arti“the professed design of which was to maintain and revive the studies of imagination; but Bettinelli was not himself a decided enthusiast, and instead of the fire of imagination, we have here much of the coldness of method. 3. Eight” Dialoghi d'amore,“in which he expatiates on the influences which imagination, vanity, friendship, marriage, honour, ambition, science, &c. produce on that passion. In this work is an eloge on Petrarch, one of his most happy compositions. 4.” Risorgirnento negli stucii, nelle arti e ne' costumi dopo il mille.“This in Italy is considered as a superficial view of the revival of arts and sciences after the tenth century, and as interfering with Tiraboschi, who was then employed on the same subject, but to those who may think Tiraboschi’s work, what it certainly is, insufferably tedious, this will afford much useful information in a shorter compass. The dissertation on Italian poetry is particularly valuable. 5.” Delle lettere e delle arti Mantovane lettere ed arti Modenesi,“an excellent work as far as regards the literary history of Mantua, which was now, if we mistake not, written for the first time. 6.” Lettere dieci di Virgilio agli Arcadi.“Of these letters we have already spoken, and his attack on Dante and Petrarch, although not altogether without such a foundation as strict and cold criticism may lay, will not soon be forgiven in Italy. 7.” Letters on the Fine Arts from a lady to her friend, &c.“8. His” Poetry,“containing seven small poems, or” poemetti,“six epistles in familiar verse, sonnets, &c. In all these he is rather an elegant, easy, and ingenious poet, than a great one. His” Raccolte“is a spirited satire on the insipid collections of verses so common in Italy. 9.” Tragedies,“entitled Xerxes, Jonathan, Demetrius, Poliorcetes, and Rome saved, with some French letters, and an Italian dissertation on Italian tragedy. The” Rome saved“is a translation from Voltaire, indifferently performed. He also wrote three other tragedies, but inferior to the former, in which there is an evident attempt at the manner of Racine. 10.” Lettere a Lesbia Cidonia sopra gli epigrammi,“consisting of twenty-five letters, with epigrams, madrigals, and other small pieces, some translated and some original. 11. An” Essay on Eloquence,“with other essays, letters, miscellanies,” &c. As a poet, critic, metaphysician, and historian, Bettinelii’s merit is esteemed by his countrymen as of the first rate and with respect to the art of composition, they account him one of the purest and most elegant writers of the last century, one of the few who laboured to preserve the genuine Italian idiom from any foreign mixture.

, a French poet, was born at Paris in 1610, and at the age of fourteen had written a number of poetical pieces, both in French and Latin, which were extravagantly praised by Scarron and Colletet, but are now in request only by the collectors of curiosities. He applied himself very little to study, passing the principal part of his time in the pleasures of convivial society, which, however, did not hinder him from meddling with public affairs, for which he was thrown into the Bastille, as the author of the “Miliade,” a satire against cardinal Richelieu. Having proved his innocence, he was set at liberty, and resumed his loose life, which impaired his health, and deprived him of sight, in which condition he died Sept. 26, 1659. He wrote some dramas, and his poetical works were printed at Paris, 1631, 8vo.

, a celebrated printer of the sixteenth century, who was the first after those who printed the works of Ramus, that made a distinction in his printing between the consonants j and v, and the vowels i and u. Ramus was the inventor of this distinction, and employed it in his Latin grammar of 1557, but we do not find it in any of his works printed after that time. Beys adopted it first in Claude Mignaut’s Latin commentary on Horace. He died at Paris April 19, 1593. He married a daughter of the celebrated Plantin of Antwerp, by whom he had a son, who was probably the poet above-mentioned, as the following burlesque epitaph was written on him

Having related the more personal and private circumstances of Dr. Birch’s history, we proceed to his various publications. The first great work he engaged in, was “The General Dictionary, historical and critical” wherein a new translation of that of the celebrated Mr. Bayle was included and which was interspersed with several thousand lives never before published. It was on the 29th of April, 1734, that Dr. Birch, in conjunction with the rev. Mr. John Peter Bernard, and Mr. John Lockman, agreed with the booksellers to carry on this important undertaking; and Mr. George Sale was employed to draw up the articles relating to oriental history. The whole design was completed in ten volumes, folio; the first of which appeared in 1734, and the last in 1741. It is universally allowed, that this work contains a very extensive and useful body of biographical knowledge. We are not told what were the particular articles written by Dr. Birch but there is no doubt of his having executed a great part of the dictionary neither is it, we suppose, any disparagement to his coadjutors, to say, that he was superior to them in abilities and reputation, with the exception of Mr. George Sale, who was, without controversy, eminently qualified for the department he had undertaken. The next great design in which Dr. Birch engaged, was the publication of “Thurloe’s State Papers.” This collection, which comprised seven volumes in folio, came out in 1742. It is dedicated to the late lord chancellor Hardwicke, and there is prefixed to it a life of Thurloe but whether it was written or not by our author, does not appear. The same life had been separately published not long before. The letters and papers in this collection throw the greatest light on the pe'riod to which they relate, and are accompanied with proper references, and a complete index to each volume, yet was a work by which the proprietors were great losers. In 1744, Dr. Birch published, in octavo, a “Life of the honourable Robert Boyle, esq” which hath since been prefixed to the quarto edition of the works of that philosopher. In the same year, our author began his assistance to Houbraken and Vertue, in their design of publishing, in folio, the “Heads of illustrious persons of Great Britain,” engraved by those two artists, but chiefly by Mr. Houbraken. To each head was annexed, by Dr, Birch, the life and character of the person represented. The first volume of this work, which came out in numbers, was completed in 1747, and the second in 1752. Our author’s concern in this undertaking did not hinder his prosecuting, at the same time, other historical disquisitions: for, in 1747, appeared, in octavo,“His inquiry into the share which king Charles the First had in the transactions of the earl of Glamorgan.” A second edition ef the Inquiry was published in 1756, and it was a work that excited no small degree of attention. In 1751, Dr. Birch was editor of the “Miscellaneous works of sir Walter Raleigh” to which was prefixed the life of that unfortunate and injured man. Previously to this, Dr. Birch published “An historical view of the negociations between the courts of England, France, and Brussels, from 1592 to 1617; extracted chiefly from the ms State Papers of sir Thomas Edmondes, knight, embassador in France, and at Brussels, and treasurer of the household to the kings James I. and Charles I. and of Anthony Bacon, esq. brother to the lord chancellor Bacon. To which is added, a relation of the state of France, with the character of Henry IV. and the principal persons of that court, drawn up by sir George Carew, upon his return from his embassy there in 1609, and addressed to king James I. never before printed.” This work, which consists of one volume, in octavo, appeared in 1749; and, in an introductory discourse to the honourable Philip Yorke, esq. (the late earl of Hardwicke), Dr. Birch makes some reflections on the utility of deducing history from its only true and unerring sources, the original letters and papers of those eminent men, who were the principal actors in the administration of affairs; after which he gives some account of the lives of sir Thomas Edmondes, sir George Carew, and Mr. Anthorry Bacon. The “Historical View” is undoubtedly a valuable performance, and hath brought to light a variety of particulars relative to the subjects and the period treated of, which before were either not at all, or not so fully known. In 17.51, was published by our author, an edition, in two volumes, 8vo, of the “Theological, moral, dramatic, and poetical works of Mrs. Catherine Cockburn” with an account of her life. In the next year came out his “Life of the most reverend Dr. John Tillotson, lord archbishop of Canterbury. Compiled chiefly from his original papers and letters.” A second edition, corrected and enlarged, appeared in 1753. This work, which was dedicated to archbishop Herring, is one of the most pleasing and popular of Dr. Birch’s performances; and he has done great justice to Dr. Tillotsou’s memory, character, and virtues. Our biographer hath likewise intermixed with his narrative of the good prelate’s transactions, short accounts of the persons occasionally mentioned; a method which he has pursued in some of his other publications. In 1753, he revised. the quarto edition, in two volumes, of Milton’s prose works, and added a new life of that great poet and writer. Dr. Birch gave to the world', in the following year, his “Memoirs of the reign of queen Elizabeth, from the year 1581, till her death. In which the secret intrigues of her court, and the conduct of her favourite, Robert earl of Essex, both at home and abroad, are particularly illustrated. From the original papers of his intimate friend, Anthony Bacon, esq. and other manuscripts never before published.” These memoirs, which are inscribed to the earl of Hardwicke, give a minute account of the letters and materials from which they are taken and the whole work undoubtedly forms a very valuable collection in which our author has shewn himself (as in his other writings) to be a faithfnl and accurate compiler and in which, besides a full display of the temper and actions of the earl of Essex, much light is thrown on the characters of the Cecils, Bacons, and many eminent persons of that period. The book is now becoming scarce, and, as it may not speedily be republished, is rising in its value. This is the case, likewise, with regard to the edition of sir Walter Raleigh’s miscellaneous works. Dr. Birch’s next publication was “The history of the Royal Society of London, for improving of natural knowledge, from its first rise. In which the most considerable of those papers, communicated to the society, which have hitherto not been published, are inserted in their proper order, as a supplement to the Philosophical Transactions.” The twq first volumes of this performance, which was dedicated to his late majesty, appeared in 1756, and the two other volumes in 1757. The history is carried on to the end of the year 1687 and if the work had been continued, and had been conducted with the same extent and minuteness, it would have been a very voluminous undertaking. But, though it may, perhaps, be justly blamed in this respect, it certainly contains many curious and entertaining anecdotes concerning the manner of the society’s proceedings at their first establishment. It is enriched, likewise, with a number of personal circumstances relative to the members, and with biographical accounts of such of the more considerable of them as died in the course of each year. In 1760, came out, in one volume, 8vo, our author’s “Life of Henry prince of Wales, eldest son of king James I. Compiled chiefly from his own papers, and other manuscripts, never before published.” It is dedicated to his present majesty, then prince of Wales. Some have objected to this work, that it abounds too much with trifling details, and that Dr. Birch has not given sufficient scope to such reflections and disquisitions as arose from his subject. It must, nevertheless, be acknowledged, that it affords a more exact and copious account than had hitherto appeared of a prince whose memory has always been remarkably popular; and that various facts, respecting several other eminent characters, are occasionally introduced. Another of his publications was, “Letters, speeches, charges, advices, &c. of Francis Bacon, lord viscount St. AJban, lord chancellor of England.” This collection, which is comprised in one volume, 8vo, and is dedicated to the honourable Charles Yorke, esq. appeared in 1763. It is taken from some papers which had been originally in the possession of Dr. Rawley, lord Bacon’s chaplain, whose executor, Mr. John Rawley, having put them into the hands of Dr. Tenison, they were, at length, deposited in the manuscript library at Lambeth. Dr. Birch, speaking of these papers of lord Bacon, says, that it can scarcely be imagined, but that the bringing to light, from obscurity and oblivion, the remains of so eminent a person, will be thought an acquisition not inferior to the discovery (if the ruins of Herculaneum should afford such a treasure) of a new set of the epistles of Cicero, whom our immortal countryman most remarkably resembled as an orator, a philosopher, a writer, a lawyer, and a statesman. Though this, perhaps, is speaking too highly of a collection, which contains many things in it seemingly not very material, it must, at the same time, be allowed, that nothing can be totally uninteresting which relates to so illustrious a man, or tends, in any degree, to give a farther insight into his character. To this catalogue we have still to add “Professor Greaves’s miscellaneous works,” 1737, in two vols. 8vo. Dr. Cud worth’s “Intellectual System,” (improved from the Latin edition of Mosheim) his discourse on the true notion of the Lord’s Supper, and two sermons, with an account of his life and writings, 1743, in two vols. 4to. An edition of Spenser’s “Fairy Queen,” 1751, in three Vols. 4to, with prints from designs by Kent. “Letters between col. Robert Hammond, governor of the Isle of Wight, and the committee of lords and commons at Derbyhouse, general Fairfax, lieut.-general Cromwell, commissary general Ireton, &c. relating to king Charles I. while he was confined in Carisbrooke-castle in that island. Now first published. To which is prefixed a letter from John Ashburnham, esq. to a friend, concerning his deportment towards the king, in his attendance on his majesty at Hampton-court, and in the Isle of Wight,” 1764, 8vo. Dr. Birch’s last essay, “The life of Dr. Ward,” which was finished but a week before his death, was published by Dr. Maty, in 1766.

, a political author in the seventeenth century, was the son of Richard Birkenhead, of Northwych, in the county of Cheshire, an honest saddler, who, if some authors may deserve credit, kept also a little ale-house. Our author was born about 1615, and having received some tincture of learning in the common grammar-schools, came to Oxford, and was entered in 1632, a servitor of Oriel college, under the tuition of the learned Dr. Humphrey Lloyd, afterwards bishop of Bangor. Dr. Lloyd recommended him to Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, as his amanuensis, and in that capacity he discovered such talents, that the archbishop, by his diploma, created him A. M. in 1639, and the year following, by letter commendatory from the same great prelate, he was chosen probationary fellow of All-souls college. This preferment brought him to reside constantly in Oxford, and on king Charles I. making that city his head-quarters during the civil war, our author was employed to write a kind of journal in support of the royal cause, by which he gained great reputation; and his majesty recommended him to be chosen reader in moral philosophy, which employment he enjoyed, though with very small profit, till 1648, when he was expelled by the parliament visitors. He retired afterwards to London, where adhering steadily to his principles, he acquired, among those of his own sentiments, the title of “The Loyal Poet,” and suffered, from such as had then the power in their hands, several imprisonments, which served only to sharpen his wit, without abating his courage. He published, while he thus lived in obscurity, and, as Wood says, by his wits, some very tart performances, which were then very highly relished, and are still admired by the curious. These were, like his former productions, levelled against the republican leaders, and were written with the same vindictive poignancy that was then fashionable. Upon the restoration of king Charles II. he was created April 6, 1661, on the king’s letters sent for that purpose, D. C. L. by the university of Oxford and in that quality was o'ne of the eminent civilians consulted by the convocation on the question “Whether bishops ought to be present in capital cases?” and with the rest, Keb. 2, 1661-2, gave it under his hand, they ought and might. He was, about the same time, elected a burgess, to serve in parliament for Wilton, in the county of Wilts, and continuing his services to his master, was by him promoted, on the first vacancy, to some office at court, which he quitted afterwards, and became master in the Faculty office. He was knighted November 14, 1662, and upon sir Richard Fanshaw’s going with a public character to the court of Madrid, sir John Birkenhead succeeded him as master of requests. He was also elected a member of the royal society, an honour at that time conferred on none who were not well known in the republic of letters, as men capable of promoting the truly noble designs of that learned body. He lived afterwards in credit and esteem with men of wit and learning, and received various favours from the court, in consideration of the past, and to instigate him to other services; which, however, drew upon him some very severe attacks from those who opposed the court. Anthony Wood has preserved some of their coarsest imputations, for what reason is not very obvious, as Wood is in general very partial to the loyalist writers. He died in Westminster, December 4, 1679, and was interred at St. Martin’s in the Fields, leaving to his executors, sir Richard Mason, and sir Muddiford Bamston, a large and curious collection of pamphlets on all subjects.

, a modern Latin poet, was born in 1617, near St. Paul’s cathedral, in London, and after having been educated under the famous Farnaby, was entered a commoner at Trinity college, Oxford, in 1633; admitted Scholar there, May 28, 1635, and soon after was seduced to become a member of the college of Jesuits, at St. Omer’s. He soon, however, returned to the church of England, and by the patronage of archbishop Laud, was elected fellow of All Souls, in 1638, being then bachelor of arts, and esteemed a good philologist. He proceeded in that faculty, was made senior of the act celebrated in 1641, and entered on the law faculty. He kept his fellowship during the usurpation, but resigned it after the restoration, when he became registrar of the diocese of Norwich. This too he resigned in 1684, and resided first in the Middle Temple, and then in other places, in a retired condition for many years. The time of his death is not mentioned but in the title of Trapp’s “Lectures on Poetry,” Henry Birkhead, LL. D. some time fellow of All Souls college, is styled “Founder of the poetical lectures,” the date of which foundation is 1707. He wrote 1. “Poemata in Elegiaca, lambica, Polymetra, &c. membranatim quadripartite,” 1656, 8vo. 2. “Otium Literarium, sive miscellanea quaedam Poemata,” 16=6, 8vo. He also published in 4to, with a preface, some of the philological works of his intimate friend Henry Jacob, who had the honour of teaching Selden the Hebrew language; and he wrote several Latin elegies on the loyalists who Suffered in the cause of Charles I. which are scattered in various printed books, and many of them subscribed H. G.

, late head-master of Merchant Taylors’ school, and a poet of considerable merit, was descended from a respectable family, originally of Worcestershire, and was born in St. John’s street, London, his father’s residence, Sept. 21, O. S. 1731. He was tender and delicate in his constitution, yet gave early indications of uncommon capacity and application, as appears from his having been called, when only nine years old, to construe the Greek Testament for a lad of fourteen, the son of an opulent neighbour. With this promising stock of knowledge, he was sent to Merchant Taylors’ school, June 1743, when between eleven and twelve years of age, and soon evinced a superiority over his fellows which attracted the notice and approbation of his masters. He read with avidity, and composed with success. His first essays, however imperfect, shewed great natural abilities, and an original vein of wit. History and poetry first divided his attention, but the last predominated. He not only acquired that knowledge of the Latin and Greek classics, which is usually obtained in a public seminary, but also became intimately acquainted with the best authors in our own language and some of his writings prove that he had perused Milton, Dryden, Pope, and Swift, at an early age, with much discrimination and critical judgment. In June 1750, he was elected to St. John’s college, Oxford, and admitted a scholar of that society, on the 25th of the same month. During his residence here, he not only corrected his taste by reading with judgment, but also improved his powers by habitual practice in composition. Besides several poetical pieces, with which he supplied his friends, he wrote a great number of college exercis.es, hymns, paraphrases of scripture, translations from the ancients, and imitations of the moderns.

, professor of canon law in the university of Bononia in Italy, in the sixteenth century, was descended from the earls of Fife in Scotland, and born in that county in the reign of James V. He was educated at St. Andrew’s, from whence he removed to Paris, and, having spent some time in that university, proceeded to Bononia, where he commenced doctor of laws, and was afterwards appointed professor of canon law. He continued in that office several years with great reputation, and died in 156S. He is said to have been not only a learned civilian, but an excellent poet, orator, and philosopher. He wrote “P. Bissarti opera omnia viz. poemata, orationes, lectiones feriales, &c.” Venice, 1565, 4to.

, a French poet and miscellaneous writer, was born at Konigsberg, Nov. 24, 1732, of a family of French refugees, of the protestant religion. After completing his education, he became a clergyman of that communion, and appears to have formed his taste for oratory and poetry from a frequent perusal of the Bible, the style of the historical part of which he much admired. He was a no less warm admirer of Homer. Although a Prussian by birth, he was a Frenchman at heart, and having accustomed himself to the language of his family, he felt a strong desire to reside in what he considered as properly his native country, conceiving at the same time that the best way to procure his naturalization would be through the medium of literary merit. As early as 1762, he published at Berlin a translation of the Iliad, which he called a free translation, and was in fact an abridgment and this served to introduce him to D'Alembert, who recommended him so strongly to the king, Frederick II. that he was admitted into the Berlin academy, received a pension, and afterwards visited France in order to complete his translation of Homer. A first edition had been printed in 1764, 2 vols. 8vo, but the most complete did not appear until 1780, and was followed by the Odyssey in 1785. Such was the reputation of both among his countrymen, that the academy of inscriptions admitted his name on their list of foreign members. Modern French critics, however, have distinguished more correctly between the beauties and defects of this translation. They allow him to have been more successful in his “Joseph,” a poem published first in 1767, and with additions in 1786, and now become almost a classic in France. It was translated into English in 1783, 2 vols. 12mo, but is certainly not likely to become a classic in this country, or where a taste prevails for simplicity and elegance. His “Joseph” was followed by “Les Bataves,” a poem of which some detached parts had appeared in 1773, under the title of “Guillaume de Nassau,” Amsterdam. This was reprinted in 1775, and again in 1796. During the war in 1793, as he attached himself to the French interest, he was struck off the list of the academy of Berlin, and his pension withdrawn but on the peace of Bale, his honours and his pension were restored. If his sovereign punished him thus for acting the Frenchman, he was not more fortunate with his new friends, who imprisoned him because he was a Prussian. On the establishment of the institute, however, Bitaube was chosen of the class of literature and the fine arts but gave a very bad specimen of his taste in translating the “Herman and Dorothea” of Goethe, and comparing that author with Homer, whose works, from this opinion, we should suppose he had studied to very little purpose. Some time before his death, which happened Nov. 22, 1808, he was admitted a member of the legion of honour. His other works were 1. “Examen de la Confession de Foi du Vicaire Savoyard,” 1763, a very liberal expostulation with Rousseau on account of his scepticism. 2. “De l'influence cles Belles-lettres sur la Philosophic,” Berlin, 1767, 8vo; and 3. “Eloge de Corneille,” 1769, 8vo none of which are in the collection of his works published at Paris in 1804, 9 vols. 8vo. Bitaub cannot be ranked among writers eminent for genius, nor is his taste, even in the opinion of his countrymen, of the purest standard; but his works procured him a considerable name, and many of the papers he wrote in the memoirs of the Paris academy discover extensive reading and critical talents. His private character appears to have been irreproachable, and his amiable manners and temper procured him many friends during the revolutionary successions.

, a very extraordinary poet, was born in 1721, at Annan in the county of Dumfries, in Scotland. His parents were natives of Cumberland, of the lower order, but industrious and well-informed. Before he was six months old he lost his sight by the small-pox, and therefore, as to all purposes of memory or imagination, may be said never to have enjoyed that blessing. His father and friends endeavoured to lessen the calamity by reading to him those books which might convey the instruction suitable to infancy, and as he advanced, they proceeded to others which he appeared to relish and remember, particularly the works of Spenser, Milton, Prior, Pope, and Addison. And such was the kindness which his helpless situation and gentle temper excited, that he was seldom without some companion who carried on this singular course of education, until he had even acquired some knowledge of the Latin tongue. It is probable that he remembered much of all that was read to him, but his mind began very early to make a choice. He first discovered a predilection for English poetry, and then, at the age of twelve, endeavoured to imitate it in various attempts, one of which is preserved in his works, but rather with a view to mark the commencement than the perfection of his talent.

With regard to his poetry, there seems no occasion to involve ourselves in the perplexities which Mr. Spence first created, and then injudiciously as well as ineffectually endeavoured to explain. The character of his poetry is that of sentiment and reason; his versification is in general elegant and harmonious, and his thoughts sometimes flow with an ardent rapidity that betokerte real genius. But it is impossible to ascribe powers of description to one who had seen nothing to describe; nor of invention to one who had no materials upon which he could operate. Where we find any passages that approach to the description of visible objects, we must surely attribute them to memory. As he had the best English poets frequently read to him, he attained a free command of the language of poetry, both in simple and compound words, and we know that all poets consider those as common property. It is not, therefore, wonderful, that he speaks so often of mountains, valleys, rivers, northathe appropriates to visible objects their peculiar characteristics, all which he must have heard repeated until they became fixed in his memory but as no man pursues long what affords little more than the exercise of conjecture, we are still perplexed to discover what pleasure Mr. Blacklock could take, first in a species of reading which could give him no ideas, and then in a species of writing in which he could copy, only the expressions of others. He has himself written a very long article on blindness in the Encyclopedia Britannica, but it affords no light to the present subject, containing chiefly reflections on the disadvantages of blindness, and the best means of alleviating them. His poems, however, especially where attempts are made at description, indicate powers which seem to have wanted the aid of sight only to bring them into the highest rank. We know that poetical genius is almost wholly independent of learning, and seems often planted in a soil where nothing else will flourish, but Blacklock’s is altogether an extraordinary case we have not even tertns by which we can intelligibly discuss his merits, and we may conclude with Denina in his Discorso della Literatura, that Blacklock will appear to posterity a fable, as to us he is a prodigy. It will be thought a fiction, a paradox, that a man blind from his infancy, besides having made himself so much a master of various foreign languages, should be a great poet in his own and without having hardly ever seen the light, should be so remarkably happy in description.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

, count of Scandiano, an Italian poet, was born at the castle of Scandiano, near Reggio in Lombardy, about the year 1434. He studied at the university of Ferrara, and remained in that city the greater part of his life, attached to the ducal court. He was particularly in great favour with the duke Borso and Hercules I. his successor. He accompanied Borso in a journey to Rome in 1471, and the year following was selected by Hercules to escort to Ferrara, Eleonora of Aragon, his future duchess. In 1481 he was appointed governor of Reggio, and was also captain-general of Modena. He died at Reggio, Dec. 20, 1494. He was one of the most learned and accomplished men of his time, a very distinguished Greek and Latin scholar, and at a time when Italian poetry was in credit, one of those poets who added to the reputation of his age and country. He translated Herodotus from the Greek into Italian, and Apuleius from the Latin. He wrote also Latin poetry, as his “Carmen Bucolicum,” eight eclogues in hexameters, dedicated to duke Hercules I. Reggio, 1500, 4 to Venice, 1528; and in Italian, “Sonetti e Canzoni,” Reggio, 1499, 4to; Tenice, 1501, 4to, in a style rather easy than elegant, and occasionally betraying the author’s learning, but without affectation. Hercules of Este was the first of the Italian sovereigns who entertained the court with a magnificent theatre on which Greek or Latin comedies, translated into Italian, were performed. For this theatre Boiardo wrote his “Timon,” taken from a dialogue of Lucian, which may be accounted the first comedy written in Italian. The first edition of it, according to Tiraboschi, was that printed at Scandiano, 1500, 4to. The one, without a date, in 8vo, he thinks was the second. It was afterwards reprinted at Venice, 1504, 1515, and 1517, 8vo. But Boiardo is principally known by his epic romance of “Orlando Innamorato,” of which the celebrated poem of Ariosto is not only an imitation, but a continuation. Of this work, he did not live to complete the third book, nor is it probable that any part of it had the advantage of his last corrections, yet it is justly regarded as exhibiting, upon the whole, a warmth of imagination, and a vivacity of colouring, which rendered it highly interesting: nor is it, perhaps, without reason, that the simplicity of the original has occasioned it to be preferred to the same work, as altered or reformed by Francesco Berni (See Brrni). The “Orlando Innamorato” was first printed at Scandiano, about the year 1495, and afterwards at Venice, 1500, which De Bure erroneously calls the first edition. From the third book where Boiardo 1 s labours cease, it was continued by Niccolo Agostini, and of this joint production numerous editions have been published.

, an eminent French poet, usually called by his countrymen Despreaux, was born on November 1, 1636. His parents were Gilles Boileau, register of the great chamber, and Ann de Nielle, his second wife; but it is uncertain whether he was born at Paris or Crone. In his early years, he was the reverse of those infantine prodigies who often in mature age scarcely attain to mediocrity; on the contrary, he was heavy and taciturn; nor was his taciturnity of that observing kind which denotes sly mischief at the bottom, but the downright barren taciturnity of insipid good-nature. His father, on comparing him with his other children, used to say, “as for this, he is a good-tempered fellow, who will never speak ill of any one.” In his infancy, however, he ap“pears to have been of a very tender constitution, and is said to have undergone the operation for the stone at the age of eight. Through compliance with the wishes of his family, he commenced with being a counsellor; but the tlryness of the Code and Digest soon disgusted him with this profession, which, his eulogist thinks, was a loss to the bar. When M. Dongois, his brother-in-law, register of parliament, took him to his house in order to form him to the style of business, he had a decree to draw up in an important cause, which he composed with enthusiasm, while he dictated it to Boileau with an emphasis which shewed how much he was satisfied with the sublimity of his work; but when he had finished, he perceived that Boileau was fallen asleep, after having written but few words. Transported with anger, he sent him back to his father, assuring him he” would be nothing but a blockhead all the rest of his life." After this he began to study scholastic divinity, which was still less suited to his taste, and at length he became what he himself wished to be a Poet; and, as if to belie, at setting out, his father’s prediction, he commenced at the age of thirty, with satire, which let loose against him the crowd of writers whom he

Boileau knew how to procure a still more powerful protection at court than the duke de Montausier’s, that of Lewis XIV. himself. He lavished upon this monarch praises the more flattering, as they appeared dictated by the public voice, and merely the sincere and warm expression of the nation’s intoxication with respect to its king. To add value to his homage, the artful satirist had the address to make his advantage of the reputation of frankness he had acquired, which served as a passport to those applauses which the poet seemed to bestow in spite of his nature; and he was particularly attentive, while bestowing praises on all those whose interest might either support or injure him, to reserve the first place, beyond comparison, for the monarch. Among other instances, he valued himself, as upon a great stroke of policy, for having contrived to place Monsieur, the king’s brother, by the side of the king himself, in his verses, without hazard of wounding the jealousy of majesty; and for having celebrated the conqueror of Cassel more feebly than the subduer of Flanders. He had however the art, or more properly the merit, along with his inundation of praises, to convey some useful lessons to the sovereign. Lewis XIV. as yet young and greedy of renown, which he mistook for real glory, was making preparations for war with Holland. Colbert, who knew how fatal to the people is the most glorious war, wished to divert the king from his design. He engaged Boileau to second his persuasions, by addressing to Lewis his first epistle, in which te proves that a king’s true greatness consists in rendering his subjects happy, by securing them the blessings of peace. But although this epistle did not answer the intentions of the minister or the poet, yet so much attention to please the monarch, joined to such excellence, did not remain unrecompensed. Boileau was loaded with the king’s favour, admitted at court, and named, in conjunction with Racine, royal historiographer. The two poets seemed closely occupied in writing the history of their patron; they even read several passages of it to the king; but they abstained from giving any of it to the public, in the persuasion that the history of sovereigns, even the most worthy of eulogy, cannot be written during their lives, without running the risk either of losing reputation by flattery, or incurring hazard by truth. It was with repugnance that Boileau had undertaken an office so little suited to his talents and his taste. “When I exercised,” said he, “the trade of a satirist, which I understood pretty well, I was overwhelmed with insults and menaces, and I am now dearly paid for exercising that of historiographer, which I do not understand at all/' Indeed,” far from being dazzled by the favour he enjoyed, he rather felt it as an incumbrance. He often said, that the first sensation his fortune at court inspired in him, was a feeling of melancholy. He thought the bounty of his sovereign purchased too dearly by the Joss of liberty a blessing so intrinsically valuable, which all the empty and fugitive enjoyments of vanity are unable to compensate in the eyes of a philosopher. Boileau endeavoured by degrees to recover this darling liberty, in proportion as age seemed to permit the attempt; and for the last ten or twelve years of his life he entirely dropped his visits to court. “What should I do there?” said he, “I can praise no longer.” He might, however, have found as much matter for his applauses as when he lavished them without the least reserve. While he attended at court^ he maintained a freedom and frankness of speech, especially on topics of literature, which are not common among courtiers. When Lewis asked his opinion of some verses which he had written, he replied, “Nothing, sire, is impossible to your majesty; you wished to make bad verses, and you have succeeded.” He also took part with the persecuted members of the Port-royal; and when one of the courtiers declared that the king was making diligent search after the celebrated Arnauld, in order to put him in the Bastile, Boileau observed, “His majesty is too fortunate; he will not find him:” and when the king asked him, what was the reason why the whole world was running after a preacher named le Tourneux, a disciple of Arnauld, “Your majesty,” he replied, “knows how fond people are of novelty: this is a minister who preaches the gospel.” Boileau appears from various circumstances, to have been no great friend to the Jesuits, whom he offended by his “Epistle on the Love of God,” and by many free speeches. By royal favour, he was admitted unanimously, in 1684, into the French academy, with which he had made very free in his epigrams; and he was also associated to the new academy of inscriptions and belles-lettres, of which he appeared to be a fit rnember, by his “Translation of Longinus on the Sublime.” To science, with which he had little acquaintance, he rendered, however, important service by his burlesque “Arret in favour of the university, against an unknown personage called Reason,” which was the means of preventing the establishment of a plan of intolerance in matters of philosophy. His attachment to the ancients, as the true models of literary taste and excellence, occasioned a controversy between him and Perrault concerning the comparative merit of the ancients and moderns, which was prosecuted for some time by epigrams and mutual reproaches, till at length the public began to be tired with their disputes, and a reconciliation was effected by the good offices of their common friends. This controversy laid the foundation of a lasting enmity between Boileau and Fontenelle, who inclined to the party of Perrault. Boileau, however, did not maintain his opinion with the pedantic extravagance of the Daciers; but he happily exercised his wit on the misrepresentations of the noted characters of antiquity, by the fashionable romances of the time, in his dialogue entitled “The Heroes of Romance,” composed in the manner of Lucian. In opposition to the absurd opinions of father Hardouin, that most of the classical productions of ancient Rome had been written by the monks of the thirteenth century, Boileau pleasantly remarks, “I know nothing of all that; but though I am not very partial to the monks, I should not have been sorry to have lived with friar Tibullus, friar Juvenal, Dom Virgil, Dom Cicero, and such kind of folk.” After the death of Racine, Boileau very much retired from court; induced partly by his love of liberty and independence, and partly by his dislike of that adulation which was expected, and for which the dose of Lewis’s reign afforded more scanty materials than its commencement. Separated in a great degree from society, he indulged that austere and misanthropical disposition, from which he was never wholly exempt. His conversation, however, was more mild and gentle than his writings; and, as he used to say of himself, without “nails or claws,” it was enlivened by occasional sallies of pleasantry, and rendered instructive by judicious opinions of authors and their works. He was religious without bigotry; and he abhorred fanaticism and hypocrisy. His circumstances were easy; and his prudent economy has been charged by some with degenerating into avarice. Instances, however, occur of his liberality and beneficence. At the death of Colbert, the pension which he had given to the poet Corneille was suppressed, though he was poor, old, infirm, and dying. Boileau interceded with the king for the restoration of it, and offered to transfer his own to Corneille, telling the monarch that he should be ashamed to receive his bounty while such a man was in want of it. He also bought, at an advanced price, the library of Patru, reduced in his circumstances, and left him in the possession of it till his death. He gave to the poor all the revenues he had received for eight years from a benefice he had enjoyed without performing the duties of it. To indigent men of letters his purse was always open; and at his death he bequeathed almost all his possessions to the poor. Upon the whole, his temper, though naturally austere, was on many occasions kind and benevolent, so that it has been said of him, that he was “cruel only in verse;” and his general character was distinguished by worth and integrity, with some alloys of literary jealousy and injustice. Boileau died of a dropsy in the breast, March 11, 1711, and by his will left almost all his property to the poor. His funeral was attended by a very numerous company, which gave a woman of the lower class occasion to say, “He had many friends then I yet they say that he spoke ill of every body.”

Boileau 1 s character as a poet is now generally allowed to be that of taste, judgment, and good sense, which predominate in the best of his works as they do in the most popular of Pope’s writings. The resemblance between these two poets is in many respects very striking, and in one respect continues to be so; they are, in France and England, more read and oftener quoted than any other poets. Both were accused of stealing from the ancients; but says an elegant critic of our nation, those who flattered themselves that they should diminish the reputation of Boileau, by printing, in the manner of a commentary at the bottom of each page of his works, the many lines he has borrowed from Horace and Juvenal, were grossly deceived. The verses of the ancients which he has turned into French with so much address, and which he has happily made so homogeneous, and of a piece with the rest of the work, that every thing seems to have been conceived in a continued train of thought by the very same person, confer as much honour on him, as the verses which are purely his own. The original turn which he gives to his translations, the boldness of his expressions, so little forced and unnatural, that they seem to be born, as it were, with his thoughts, display almost as much invention as the first production of a thought entirely new. The same critic, Dr. Warton, is of opinion that Boileau’s “Art of Poetry” is the best composition of that kind extant. “The brevity of his precepts,” says this writer, “enlivened by proper imagery, the justness of his metaphors, the harmony of his numbers, as far as alexandrine lines will admit, the exactness of his method, the perspicuity of his remarks, and the energy of his style, all duly considered, may render this opinion not unreasonable. It is to this work he owes his immortality, which was of the highest utility to his nation, in diffusing a just way of thinking and writing, banishing every species of false wit, and introducing a general taste for the manly simplicity of the ancients, on whose writings this poet had formed his taste.”

, dean of Carlisle, was born in London in April 1697, and was the only surviving child of Mr. John Bolton, a merchant in that city, whom he lost when he was but three years old. He was first educated in a school at Kensington, and was admitted a commoner at Wadham college, Oxford, April 12, 1712. He was afterwards elected a scholar of that house, where he took his degree of B. A. in 1715, and of M. A. June 13, 1718, expecting to be elected fellow in his turn; but in this he was disappointed, and appealed, without success, to the bishop of Bath and Wells, the visitor. In July 1719 he removed to Hart Hall; and on the 20th December following, was ordained a deacon, in the cathedral church of St. Paul, by Dr. John Robinson, bishop of London. He then went to reside at Fulham, and seems to have passed two years there: for he was ordained priest by the same bishop in the chapel of Fulham palace, April 11, 1721. While at Fulham he became acquainted with Mrs. Grace Butler of Rowdell in Sussex, on whose daughter Elizabeth he wrote an epitaph, which is placed in Twickenham church-yard, where she was buried. This epitaph gave occasion to some verses by Pope, which appear in Uuff'head’s life of that poet, and were communicated to the author by the hon. Mr. Yorke, who probably did not know that they first appeared in the Prompter, a periodical paper, No. VIII. and afterwards in the works of Aaron Hill, who by mistake ascribes the character of Mrs. Butler to Pope.

, a distinguished Latin scholar and poet, was born at Perugia in 1555, became a disciple of the celebrated Muretus, and afterwards principal teacher of the schools of Perugia. He appears next to have been professor of eloquence at Bononia, keeper of the Ambrosian library, and professor of rhetoric at Pisa, where he had the misfortune to lose his sight. During his career of teaching, his father, who was a poor shoemaker, having lost his wife, had an inclination to join the society of the Jesuits, and lest he should be rejected for his ignorance of Latin, became one of his son’s scholars, and made very considerable proficiency. Bonciarius died Jan. 9, 1616, leaving many works, which are very scarce, except his Latin Grammar, which, being adopted in the schools, was frequently reprinted. His “Epistolse” were first printed in 1603, 8vo, and reprinted 1604, at Marpurg, of which last edition Freytag gives an analytical account. They are written in an elegant style. His Latin poems are among the “Carmina Poetarum Italorum,” Florence, 1719, vol. II.

, an eminent Italian lawyer, poet, and historian, was born in 1547, at Rovigo in the state of Venice, and educated at Padua, where, during his lawstudies, he composed some pieces for the theatre which were much approved. After marrying at Trevisa, or Trevigni, Elizabeth Martinagi, the daughter and heiress of Marc Antonio, he settled in that place, of which he wrote the history, and acquired so much reputation that the republic of Venice bestowed on him the office of judge’s counsellor or assessor, the duties of which he executed with great probity; and during his holding it wrote his law tracts. In 1588, he published his commentary on the feudal law of Venice. After the death of his wife, he married a lady of Padua, where he was admitted to the rank of citizenship, and where he resided for the remainder of his life. He died June 23, 1635, at a very advanced age, and was buried in the church of St. James, with a modest inscription written by himself in 1630. His principal writings are, 1. “Storia Trevigiana,” Trevisi, 1591, 4to, but a better edition, Venice, 1744, 4to. 2. “Letiere Famigliari,” Rovigo, 1624, 4to. 3. “Orazione &c. per dirizzare una Statua a Celio Ricchiero Rodigino,” ibid. 1624, 4to. 4. “Lezione sopra im Sonetto del Petrarca,” ibid. 1624, 4to. 5. “Lezione sopra un altro Sonetto del Petrarca,” ibid. 1625, 4to. 6. “L'arte de Cenni,” Vicenza, 1616, 4to, one of the earliest attempts to instruct the deaf and dumb. 7. “Discorso del modo di ben formare a questo tempo una Tragedia,” Padua, 1624, 4to. 8. “Discorso sopra la sua Impresa neli' Accademia Filarmonica,” ibid. 1624, 4to. 9. “La Re^ publica delle Api, con la quale si dimostra il modo di ben formare un nuovo Governo Democratico,” Rovigo, 1627, 4to. 10. “Comentario sopra la legge dell' Senato Veneta, &c.” ibid. 1624, 4to. Freher also mentions “Comment, de Furtis, et de componendis Epitaphiis,” but without giving the exact titles or dates.

, or Bonnefonius, a Latin poet, was born in 1554, at Clermont in Auvergne, and rilled the post of lieutenant-general of Bar-sur-Seine. His “Paricharis,” in the style of Catullus, is of all modern performances, the nearest to the graces, the easy pencil, the delicacy and softness of that ancient poet. La Bergerie has translated the Pancharis into French verse, very inferior to the Latin. The poems of Bonnefons are at the end of those of Beza, in the edition of that author given at Paris by Barbou, 1757, 12mo. There is also one of London, 1720 and 1727, 12mo. Bonnefons died in 1614, leaving a son, who likewise cultivated Latin poetry, but his performances, enumerated by Moreri, are in less request.

, a nonjuring clergyman of great piety and learning, son of the rev. John Bonwicke, rector of Mickleham in Surrey, was born April 29, 1G52, and educated at Merchant Taylors school. Thence he was elected to St. John’s college, Oxford, in 1668, where he was appointed librarian in 1670; B.A. 1673; M. A. March 18, 1675; was ordained deacon May 21, 1676; priest, June 6 (Trinity Sunday), 1680; proceeded B. D. July 21, 1682; and was elected master of Merchant Taylors school June 9, 1686. In 1689, the college of St. John’s petitioned the Merchant Taylors company, that he might continue master of the school (which is a nursery for their college) for life; but, at Christmas 1691, he was turned out for refusing to take the oath of allegiance, and was afterwards for many years master of a celebrated school at Headley, near Leatherhead in Surrey, where he had at one time the honour of having the poet Fenton for his usher, and Bowyer (who was afterwards the learned printer) for a scholar.

The evidence of a poet is certainly inconclusive, and although the “personal accomplishments and warlike talents” may be proved, and have not been lessened, yet they weigh little against those crimes which stand uncontradicted, and form one of the vilest characters in history.

Besides Dr. Borlase’s literary connections with Dr. Lyttelton and Dr. Milles, before mentioned, he corresponded with most of the ingenious men of his time. He had a particular intercourse of this kind with Mr. Pope; and there is still existing a large collection of letters, written by that celebrated poet to our author. He furnished Mr. Pope with the greatest part of the materials for forming his grotto at Twickenham, consisting of such curious fossils as the county of Cornwall abounds with: and there might have been seen, before the destruction of that curiosity, Dr. Borlase’s name in capitals, composed of crystals, in the grotto. On. this occasion a very handsome letter was written to the Doctor by Mr. Pope, in which he says, “I am much obliged to you for your valuable collection of Cornish diamonds. I have placed them where they may best represent yourself, in a shade, but shining;” alluding to the obscurity of Dr. Borlase’s situation, and the brilliancy of his talents. The papers which he communicated at different times to the Royal Society are numerous and curious.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

, earl of Cork and Orrery, a nobleman who added fresh lustre to his name and family, was the only son and heir of Charles, the fourth earl of Orrery (the subject of the preceding article), by the lady Elizabeth Cecil, daughter of John earl of Exeter. He was born on the 2d of January, 1706-7, and put early under the tuition of Mr. Fenton, the author of Mariamne, and one of the coadjutors of Mr. Pope in the translation of the Odyssey, by whom he was instructed in English; and carried through the Latin tongue from the age of seven to thirteen. Between this amiable poet and his noble pupil a constant friendship subsisted; and his lordship always spoke of him after his decease, and often with tears, as “one of the worthiest and modestest men that ever adorned the court of Apollo.” After passing through Westminster school, lord Boyle was admitted as a nobleman at Christ-church, Oxford, of which college, as we have already seen, his father had been a distinguished ornament. One of his first poetical essays was an answer to some verses by Mrs. Howe, on an unsuccessful attempt to draw his picture.

In the summer of 1732 the earl of Orrery went over to Ireland to re-establish his affairs, which were much embarrassed by the villainy of his father’s agent. As the family seat at Charleville had been burnt to the ground by a party of king James’s army in 1690, his lordship resided sometimes with a friend at that place, and sometimes at Cork. Whilst he was in this city, he met with a most severe affliction, in the loss of his countess, who died on the 22d of August, 1732. The character of this amiable lady has been drawn by lord Orrery himself, in his Observations on Pliny. The countess was interred with her ancestors, at Taplow, in Bucks; and Mr. S. Wesley, in a poem on her death, fully displayed her excellent qualities and virtues. Mr. Theobald did the same, in his dedication of Shakspeare’s Works to the earl. The dedication, it seems, was originally intended for her ladyship; and therefore lord Orrery is represented as succeeding to it by the melancholy right of executorship. Mr. Theobald professes to have borrowed many hints from hearing his patron converse on Shakspeare; and adds, “Your lordship may reasonably deny the loss of the jewels which I have disparaged in the unartful setting.” Such language, however, must be considered as partly complimentary; for if the earl of Orrery had contributed any material criticisms upon our great dramatic poet, they would undoubtedly have been distinctly specified. Some pathetic verses on the death of the countess, dated Marston, Dec. 17, 1734, were addressed by his lordship to Mrs. Rowe, who lived in his neighbourhood, and with whom he had an intimate friendship during the latter part of her life. How much this ingenious and excellent lady valued his esteem and regard, is evident from her observing, that “his approbation would be her vanity and boast, if she could but persuade herself she deserved it.” The house where she was born belonged to him; and he always passed by it, after her decease, with the utmost veneration. It appears from Mrs. Rowe’s posthumous letter to his lordship, that he had charged her with “a message to his Henrietta (Harriet), when she met her gentle spirit in the blissful regions.”

In October 1733, lord Orrery returned to England, and having now no attachment to London, he disposed of his house in Downing-street, Westminster, as likewise of his seat at Britwell, near Windsor, and retired to his seat at Marston, in Somersetshire. As this place had been much neglected by his ancestors, and was little more than a shell of a large old house, he amused himself in building offices, in fitting out and furnishing apartments, and laying out gardens and other plantations. Study and retirement being his principal pleasures, he took care to supply the loss he had sustained from his father’s will, by furnishing his library anew with the best authors. In the summer of 1734, probably in his way to France, where he sometimes went, he visited the tomb of his ancestors, Roger Boyle, esq, and Joan his wife, in Preston church, near Feversham. This monument, when the title of earl of Cork devolved upon him, he intended to have repaired, if his life had been prolonged. In the middle of the year 1735, we find him again in Ireland. On the 31st of October, in the same year, an amiable relation, and a most promising youth, Edmund duke of Buckingham, died at Rome, upon which melancholy event, lord Orrery paid a just tribute to the memory of the young nobleman, in an elegiac poem. It was printed in 1736, and is one of the most pleasing specimens which our author has afforded of his poetical abilities. In the winter of 1735-6, the duke of Dorset being then lord lieutenant of Ireland, the eail of Orrery neglected no opportunity of endeavouring to render his administration easy. If Dr. Swift is to be credited, Ireland was about that time in a wretched condition. As a proof of it, the dean asserted in a letter to Mr. Pope, that lord Orrery had 3000l. a year in the neighbourhood of Cork, and that more than three years rent was unpaid. In April 1737, his lordship, who was then at Cork, earnestly pressed Dr. Swift to accompany him to England; but the doctor, who never saw Marston, did not accept the invitation. Lord Orrery took over with him to Mr. Pope all the letters of that great poet to Swift, which the dean had preserved or could find, which were not more in number than twenty-five. About this time, our noble author, that his sons might be educated under his own eye, and also have the benefit of attending Westminster-school, took a small house in Duke-street, Westminster. On the 30th of June, 1738, the earl of Orrery, after having been six years a widower, married, in Ireland, Mrs. Margaret Hamilton, only daughter and heiress of John Hamilton, esq. of Caledon, in the county of Tyrone, grand-daughter of Dr. Dopping, bishop of Meath, and niece of Dr. Dopping, bishop of Ossory. Swift, in a letter to Miss Hamilton, on her intended nuptials, after pretending a prior claim, as she had made so many advances to him, and confessed “herself to be nobody’s goddess but his,” archly waves it, and politely “permits lord Orrery to make himself the happiest man in the world; as I know not,” he adds, “any lady in this kingdom of so good sense or so many accomplishments.” He gives a great character of her, likewise, in his last printed letter to Mr. Pope. In this lady, the earl of Orrery, with gratitude to Heaven, acknowledged that the loss of his former countess was repaired. In 1739 he published a new edition, 2 vols. 8vo, of the dramatic works of his great-grandfather. Though these volumes cannot be particularly valuable, they are now become exceedingly scarce. In 1741 he published separately, in folio, “The first Ode of the first book of Horace imitated, and inscribed to the earl of Chesterfield;” and “Pyrrha, an imitation of the fifth Ode of the first book of Horace.” In the preface to the last, lord Orrery characterises Dacier’s and Sanadon’s translations, and makes some observations on Horace, which shew that he entered with taste and spirit into the peculiar excellencies of that poet. In 1742 he published in one volume, folio, the “State Letters” of his great-grandfather, the first earl; to which were prefixed Morrice’s memoirs of that eminent statesman. On the 25th of August, 1743, his lordship was presented by the university of Oxford to the honorary degree of D. C. L.; and he was, likewise, F.R. S. Lord Boyle, in 1746, being settled at Oxford, and Mr. Boyle in the college at Westminster, their father quitted London, and fixed his residence at Caledon, in Ireland. During one of his occasional visits to England, after the publication of the second volume of the Biographia Britannica, he thanked Dr. Campbell, “in the name of all the Boyles, for the honour he had done to them, and to his own judgment, by placing the family in such a light as to give a spirit of emulation to those who were hereafter to inherit the title.” Lord Orrery resided in Ireland, with very little intermission, from 1746 to 1750; happy in that domestic tranquillity, that studious retirement and inactivity, from which, as he himself expressed it, he was scarcely ever drawn, but with the utmost reluctance. “Whenever,” as he observed in a private letter, “we step out of domestic life in search of felicity, we come back again disappointed, tired, and chagrined. One day passed under our own roof, with our friends and our family, is worth a thousand in any other place. The noise and bustle, or, as they are foolishly called, the diversions of life, are despicable and tasteless, when once we have experienced the real delight of a fire-side.” These sentiments, which do so much honour to the rectitude of his lordship’s understanding, and the goodness of his heart, reflect, at the same time, a just reproach on the absurd and criminal dissipation that prevails for the most part among persons of rank and fortune. During the earl of Orrery’s residence in Ireland, he employed his leisure in laying out gardens and plantations at Caledon, and in improving and adorning its fine situation. On his return to Marston, he continued his alterations and improvements in the house and gardens at that place, many of the plans for which were designed by lord Boyle, who had a taste for architecture. In the mean while, the amusement of our noble author’s winter evenings was his translation of “The Letters of Pliny the Younger, with observations on each letter, and an Essay on Pliny’s life, addressed to Charles lord Boyle.” The essay is dated Leicester-fields, January 27, 1750-1; and, together with the translation, was published at London, in the following April, in 2 vols. 4to. This work met with so good a reception from the public, that three editions of it in octavo have since been printed. In the summer of the same year, lord Orrery addressed to his second son Hamilton a series of letters, containing “Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Swift, dean of St. Patrick’s, Dublin.” This work gave rise to many strictures and censures on his lordship for having professed himself Swift’s friend while he was exposing his weaknesses. Subsequent inquiries into Swift’s character have proved that the portrait he drew was not unfaithful. To this, however, we shall have occasion to recur in our account of Swift.

, the only son of the preceding, and whose life affords an excellent moral, was born in the year 1708, and after receiving the rudiments of education in a private school in Dublin, was sent at the age of eighteen to the university of Glasgow. His father’s int?ntion was, that he might cultivate the studies that are preparatory to entering into the ministry, but before he had resided many months at Glasgow, he contracted an attachment for a Miss Atchenson, the daughter of a tradesman in that city, and married her about a year after, probably without the consent of the parents on either side. By this imprudent match his studies were in some measure interrupted, and his expenses increased. The family of his wife were either unwilling or unable to support their new relation, and he soon found it necessary to repair to Dublin in hopes of receiving assistance from his father. On this expedition he was accompanied by his wife and her sister; but notwithstanding this additional incumbrance, and tue general levity of his conduct, his father received him with kindness, and out of the scanty and precarious income which he derived from his congregation by voluntary subscriptions, and from a small estate of eighty pounds a year in Yorkshire, endeavoured to maintain his son, and to reclaim him to the prosecution of his studies. Tenderness like this, however, which only to mention is to excite gratitude, produced no corresponding effects on t>ur poet, who abandoned his mind and time" to dissipation and idleness, without a thought of what he owed to his father or to himself. In this course too he was unhappily encouraged by the girl he married, who, while she imposed upon the good old man by a show of decency, and even sanctity, became in fact devoid of all shame, and at length shared her favours with other men, and that not without the knowledge of her husband, who is said to have either wanted resolution to resent her infidelity, or was reconciled by a share of the profits of his dishonour. Such a connection and such a mind, at an age when the manly and ingenuous feelings are usually strongest, may easily account for the miseries of his subsequent life.

The Ode on the British Nation, mentioned here, is a translation from Van Haren, a Dutch poet, from whose works he translated some other passages. The “part of Stowe” was a part of his poem on lord Cobham’s gardens.

Such was the life of a man whose writings, as far as we have been able to discover them, are uniformly in favour of virtue, remarkable for justness of sentiment on every subject in which the moral character is concerned, and not unfrequently for the loftiness and dignity which mark the effusions of a pure and independent mind. To reconcile such a train of thought with his life, with actions utterly devoid of shame or delicacy, or to apologize for the latter with a view to remove the inconsistency between the man and his writings, if not impossible, must at least be left to those who have no scruple to tell us that genius is an apology for all moral defects, and that none but the plodding prudent sons of dulness would reveal or censure the vices of a favourite poet. Such is already the influence of this perversion of the powers of reasoning, that if it is much longer indulged, no men will be thought worthy of compassion or apology, but those who err against knowledge and principle, who act wrong and know better. The life of Boyse, however, as it has been handed down to us, without any affected palliation, will not be wholly useless if it in any degree contribute to convince the dissipated and thoughtless of what dissipation and thoughtlessness must inevitably produce. It is much to be regretted, that they who mourn over the misfortunes of genius have been too frequently induced by the artifice of partial biographers, to suppose that misery is the inseparable lot of men of distinguished talents, and that the world has no rewards for those by whom it has been instructed or delighted, except poverty and neglect. Such is the propensity of some to murmur without reason, and of others to sympathize without discrimination, that this unfair opinion of mankind might be received as unanswerable, if we had no means of looking more closely into the lives of those who are said to have been denied that extraordinary indulgence to which they laid claim. Where the truth has been honestly divulged, however, we shall find that of the complaints which lenity or affectation have encouraged and exaggerated in narrative, some will appear to have very little foundation, and others to be trifling and capricious. Men of genius have no right to expect more favourable consequences from imprudence and vice than what are common to the meanest of mankind. Whatever estimate they may have formed of their superiority, if they pass the limits allotted to character, happiness, or health, they must not hope that the accustomed rules of society are to be broken, or the common process of nature is to be suspended, in order that they may be idle without poverty, or intemperate without sickness. Yet the lives of men celebrated for literary and especially for poetical talents, afford many melancholy examples of these delusions", which, if perpetuated by mistaken kindness, cannot add any thing to genius but a fictitious privilege, which it is impossible to vindicate with seriousness, or exert with impunity.

As a poet, his reputation has been chiefly fixed on the production entitled “Deity,” which, although irregular and monotonous, contains many striking proofs of poetical genius. The effort indicates no small elevation of mind, even while we must allow that success is beyond all human power. His other pieces may be regarded as curiosities, as the productions of a man who never enjoyed the undisturbed exercise of his powers, who wrote in circumstances of peculiar distress, heightened by the consciousness that he could obtain only temporary relief, that he had forfeited the respect due to genius, and could expect to be rewarded only by those to whom he was least known. We are told that he wrote all his poems with ease and even rapidity. That many of his lines are incorrect will not, therefore, excite surprize, especially when we consider that he wrote for immediate relief, and not for fame, and that when one piece had produced him a benefaction, he generally dismissed it from his mind, and began another, about which he had no other care than that it might answer the same purpose.

, an Italian poet of some celebrity, known by the name of Bracciolini Dell’ Api, a surname given him by the pope, was born at Pistoia, in Tuscany, 1566, and was fellow-student with Maffei Barberini, whose love of poetry and polite literature resembled his own, and increased their friendship. When Barberini was afterwards appointed nuncio in France, under the pontificate of Clement VIII. he engaged Bracciolini as his secretary, who accepted the office in hopes that his patron might become a cardinal, and serve his interest more essentially, for Bracciolini was not free from the unpoetical failing of avarice; but this event not taking place so soon as he expected, he retired to Pistoia, where he composed a part of his works. Barberini, however, being not only made cardinal, but also pope in 1622, under the title of Urban VIII. Bracciolini waited upon him with a poem of congratulation, amounting to twenty-three books, which the pope liked so well, that he ordered him to adopt the surname Dell' Api, and to add to his arms three bees, which are the arms of the Barberini family. He gave him at the same time more substantial rewards, and placed him as secretary under his brother, cardinal Antonio Barberini. After the death of Urban VIII. in 1644, Bracciolini again retired to Pistoia, where he died the following year. He wrote a great number of poems of every species, epics, tragedies, comedies, pastorals, lyrics, satires, and burlesque verses. Of these, the only ones worthy of notice, seem to be: 1. “La Croce Racquistata,” a heroic poem in fifteen cantos, Paris, 1605, 12mo; and again, enlarged and divided into thirty-five cantos, Venice, 1611, 4to. This, his countrymen once did not hesitate to rank immediately after the works of Ariosto and Tasso, but modern critics have placed a greater distance between them. 2. “Lo Scherno degli Dei,” a mock-heroic, in ridicule of the heathen mythology, Florence, 1618, 4to, a better edition in 1625, 4to. This poem has given him some title to the invention of the mock-heroic, because in the preface it is asserted that the “Lo Scherno” although printed some years after Tassoni’s “La Secchia Rapita,” was written many years sooner. It is, however, a poem of considerable merit in that style.

, an early English poet, was a native of Chester, where he was born about the middle of the fifteenth century. Discovering an early propensity to religion and literature, he was received, while a boy, into the monastery of St. Werbergh, in that city; and having there imbibed the rudiments of his education, he was sent afterwards to Gloucester college (now Worcester) in the suburbs of Oxford, where, for a time, he studied theology, with the novices of his order, and then returned to his convent at Chester: here in the latter part of his life, he applied himself chiefly to the study of history, and wrote several books. He died either in 1508, or in 1513. Before the year 1500, he wrote the “Life of St. Werburgh,” in English verse, declaring that he does not mean to rival Chaucer, Lydgate, Barklay, or Skelton, which two last were his contemporaries, and his versification is certainly inferior to Lydgate’s worst manner. This piece was first printed by Pinson in 1521, 4to. a volume of great rarity^ but amply analysed by Mr. Dibdin in his second volume of Typographical Antiquities, who thinks that he may stand foremost in the list of those of the period wherein he wrote. His descriptions are often happy as well as minute: and there is a tone of moral purity and rational piety in his thoughts, enriched by the legendary lore of romance, that renders many passages of his poem exceedingly interesting. It comprehends a variety of other subjects, as a description of the kingdom of the Mercians, the lives of St. Ethelred and St. Sexburgh, the foundation of the city of Chester, and a chronicle of our kings.

, an English divine of good parts and learning, the son of Nicholas Brady, an officer in the king’s army in the civil wars of 1641, was born at Bandon, in the county of Cork, Oct. the 28th, 1659; and continued in Ireland till he was 12 years of age. Then he was sent over to England to Westminster-school; and from thence elected stuJent to Christ-church in Oxford. After continuing there about four years, he went to Dublin, where his father resided; at which university he immediately commenced B. A. When he was of due stanuing, his diploma for the degree of D. D. was, on account of his uncommon merit, presented to him by that university while he was in England; and brought over by Dr Pratt, then senior travelling fellow, afterwards provost of that college. His first ecclesiastical preferment was to a prebend in the cathedral of St. Barry, at Cork; to which he was collated by bishop Wettenhal, whose domestic chaplain he was. He was a zealous promoter of the revolution, and in consequence of his zeal suffered for it. In 1690, when the troubles broke out in Ireland, by his interest with king Tatnes as general, M'Carty, he thrice prevented the burning of the town of Bandon, after three several orders given by that prince to destroy it. The same year, having been deputed by the people of Bandon, he went over to England, to petition the parliament for a redress of some grievances they had suffered while king James was in Ireland; and afterwards quitting his preferments in Ireland, he settled in London; where, being celebrated for his abilities in the pulpit, he was elected minister of St. Catherine Cree church, and lecturer of St. Michael’s Wood-street. He afterwards became minister of Richmond in Surry. and Stratford upon Avon in Warwickshire, and at length rector of Clapham in Surry; which last, together with Richmond, he held till his death. His preferments amounted to 600l. a year, but he was so little of an Œconomist as to be obliged to keep a school at Richmond. He was also chaplain to the duke of Ormond’s troop of horse-guards, as he was to their majesties king William and queen Mary. He died May 20, 1726, aged 66, leaving behind him the character of being a person of an agreeable temper, a polite gentleman, an excellent preacher, and a good poet. He has no high rank, however, among poets, and would have long ere now been forgotten in that character, if his name was not so familiar as a translator of the new version of the “Psalms,” in conjunction with Mr. Tate, which version was licensed 1696. He translated also the Æneids of Virgil,“published by subscription in 1726, 4 vols. 8vo,­and a tragedy, called” The Rape, or the Innocent Impos-­tors,“neither performances of much character. His prose works consist of” Sermons," three volumes of which were published by himself in 1704, 1706, and 1713, and three others by his eldest son, who was a clergyman at Tooting, in Surry, London, 1730, 8vo.

, of a noble family of Florence, in the fifteenth century, was surnamed Lippus, on account of the loss of his sight, which did not, however, prevent his becoming a scholar of much reputation, and an orator, musician, and poet. His fame procured him an invitation from Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, to teach oratory, which he accepted, and taught at the university of fiada. After returning to Florence, he took the habit of the friars of St. Augustin, was made priest some time after, and preached to numerous auditories. He died of the plague at Rome, in 1497. Wonders are told of his powers of extempore versification, and he is classed among the first of the improvisator!. As to his preaching, Bosso says that those who heard him might fancy they listened to a Plato, an Aristotle, and a Theopfcrastus; he is yet more extravagant in noticing his extempore effusions. The circumstance, says he, which placed him above all other poets, is, that the verses they compose with so much labour, he composed and sang impromptu, displaying all the perfections of memory, style, and genius. At Verona, on one occasion, before a numerous assemblage of persons of rank, he took up his lyre, and handled every subject proposed in verse of every measure, and being asked to exert his improvisitation on the illustrious men of Verona, without a moment’s consideration or hesitation, he sang the praises, in beautiful poetry, of Catullus, Cornelius Nepos, and Pliny the elder; nay, he delivered in the same extempore manner all the subjects in Pliny’s thirty-seven books of natural historj r without omitting any one circumstance worthy of notice. Whatever credit may be given to these prodigies, his works prove him to have been a man of real learning. The principal of these are: 1. “Libri duo paradoxorum Chris ­tianorum,” Basil, 1498, Rome, 1531, Basil, 1543, and Cologn, 157,3. 2. “Dialogus de humanae vitae conditione et toleranda corporis aegritudine,” Basil, 1493, and 1543, and Vienna, 1541. 3. “De ratione scribendi Epistolas,” Basil, 1498, 1549, Cologn, 1573. Among his manuscripts, which are very numerous, Fabricius mentions one “de laudibus musicae.” Julius Niger mentions also some works of his on the laws commentaries on St. Paul’s epistles, and the Bible histories, in heroic verse, but, whether printed, does not appear.

, a lawyer, poet, and historian, was born at Strasburgh, in 1448, and after prosecuting his first studies in that city, removed to Basil, where he took his master’s degree in arts, and superintended the education of youth, as public professor, both at Basil and Strasburgh. Here he arrived at the highest honours of the law, being made count Palatine, and counsellor and chancellor of Strasburgh. He died in 1520, leaving a great many works on subjects of law and'divinity, some volumes of poetry, and the celebrated “Ship of Fools,” which has chiefly perpetuated his memory. It was originally written in the German language. Locher, his disciple, tran shite d it into Latin, Strasburgh, 1497, 4to. A French translation of it by Bouchet and Riviere, was published at Paris, in small folio, in the same year, entitled “La nef des folz du monde.” Our countryman Alexander Barclay (See Barclay) was the author of the English metrical version printed by Pynson in 1509. The bibliographical history of Brandt’s work may be seen in our authorities.

, whom Warton calls one of the minor pastoral poets of the reign of James I. was the second son of Thomas Brathwaite, of Warcop, near Appleby, in Westmoreland, descended of a respectable family. He was born in 1588, and at the age of sixteen became a commoner of Oriel-college, Oxford, being matriculated as a gentleman’s son, and a native of Westmoreland. While he continued in that college, which was at least three years, Wood informs us, that “he avoided as much as he could the rough paths of logic and philosophy, and traced those smooth ones of poetry and Roman history, in which, at length, he did excel.” He afterwards removed to Cambridge, where he spent some time “for the sake of dead and living authors,” and then going into the north, his father gave him the estate of Barnside, where he lived many years, having a commission in the militia, and being appointed deputylieutenant in the county of Westmoreland, and a justice of peace. In his latter days he removed to Appleton, near Richmond, in Yorkshire, where he died May 4, 1673, and was buried in the parish church of Catterick, near that place, leaving behind him, says Wood, the character of a “well-bred gentleman, and a good neighbour.” Wood has enumerated as his publications: 1. “Golden Fleece, with other poems,” Lond. 1611, 8vo. 2. “The Poet’s Willow, or the passionate shepherd,” ibid. 1614, 8vo. 3. “The Prodigal’s Tears, or his farewell to vanity,” 1614, 8vo. 4. “The Scholar’s Medley, or an intermixt discourse upon historical and poetical relations, &c.” 1614, 4to. 5. “Essays upon the Five Senses,” 1620, 8vo, 1635, 12mo. 6. “Nature’s Embassy, or the wild man’s measures, danced naked by twelve Satyrs,” 1621, 8vo. To these are added, Divine and moral essays, Shepherds’ tales, Odes, &c. 7. “Time’s curtain drawn: divers poems,” 1621, 8vo. 8. “The English Gentleman,” 1630, 1633, 1641, 4to. 9. “The English Gentlewoman,” 1631, 1633, 4to; 1641, fol. 10. “Discourse of Detraction,” 1635, 12mo. 11. “The Arcadian Princess, or the triumph of justice,” 1635, 8vo. 12. “Survey of History, or a nursery for gentry; a discourse historical and poetical,” 1638, 4to. 13. “A spiritual Spicery, containing sundry sweet tractates of devotion and piety,” 1638, 12mo. 14. “Mercurius Britannicus, or the English intelligencer,” a tragi-comedy, acted at Paris, and a satire upon the republicans, 16-H, second edit. 4to. 15. “Time’s Treasury, or Academy for the accomplishment of the English gentry in arguments of discourse, habit, fashion, &c.” 1655, 1656, 4to. 16. “Congratulatory poem on his Majesty, upon his happy arrival in our late discomposed Albion,” 1660, 4to. 17. “Regicidium,” a tragi-comedy, 1665, 8vo. To these Mr. Ellis has added “Panedone, or health from Helicon,” 1621, 8vo; and Mr. Malone thinks that “The description of a Good Wife, or a rare one among women,” 1619, 8vo, was also his. Specimens of the former are given by Mr. Ellis, and of the latter, by Mr. Park, in the Censura Literaria. Mr. Ellis’s specimens of Brathvvaite’s powers as a poet are, perhaps, less favourable than some given by Mr. Dibdin in his Bibliomania, from the “Arcadian Princess.” It appears to us, that in his poetry, as in his prose, he excels’most as a painter of manners, a subject which he had studied all his life, and of which he delivered some of the earliest precepts. His style, however, must still render his works more acceptable to the curious, than to the common reader.

, a French poet, was born at Torigniin Lower Normandy, 1618. He was distinguished chiefly by a translation of Lucan; which, notwithstanding its inflated style, its numerous antitheses, and its various false brilliancies, continued to be long admired. It engaged attention and applause so powerfully at first, that cardinal Mazarine made great promises of advancement to the translator; but died without fulfilling them. But the l>est and the most popular of his works is, the first book of Lucan travestied, an ingenious satire upon the great, who are described as never losing a moment’s sight of their greatness and titles; and upon the meanness and servility of those who, with a view of making their fortunes, submit to flatter them as gods. It is said of Brebeuf,. that he bad a fever upon him for more twenty years. He died in 1661, aged 4S; and, if the last anecdote of him be true, it is somewhat marvellous that he lived so long.

, whom Meister calls the greatest reformer of the Swiss schools which the last century produced, was born at Zurich March 1, 1701, and after going through a course of academical instruction, was admitted into orders in 1720. The space which usually intervenes between the ordination of young ministers and their establishment in a church, he employed principally in the study of the ancient authors, familiarizing himself with their language and sentiments, an employment which, like Zuinglius, he did not think unworthy of the attention of an ecclesiastic. Persius was his favourite poet, whom, he studied so critically as to furnish the president Bouhier with some happy elucidations, which the latter adopted, Breitinguer, however, was not merely a verbal critic, and considered such criticism as useful only in administering to higher pursuits in philosophy and the belles-lettres. The “Bibliotheque Helvetique” which he and Bodmer wrote, shews how criticism and philosophy may mutually assist each other. He formed an intimacy with Bodmer in early life, (see Bodmer), and both began their career as reformers of the language and taste of their country. Breitinguer found a liberal patron in the burgomaster Escher, who himself proved that the study of the Greek language is a powerful counterpoise to a bad taste, and was the person who encouraged Breitinguer principally to produce a new edition of the Septuagint translation. In 1731 he was chosen professor of Hebrew, and in ordeir to facilitate the study of that language to his pupils, he wrote his treatise on the Hebrew idioms. Some time after he was appointed vice-professor of logic and rhetoric, and from that time began the reformation which he thought much wanted in the schools, with a treatise “De eo quod nimium est in studio grammatico,” and a system of logic in Latin and German, which soon took the place of that ofWendelin. He contributed also various papers to the “Tempe Helvetica,” and the “Musaeum Helveticum,” and at the request of the cardinal Quirini drew up an account of a ms. of the Greek psalms which was found in the canons’ library. He published also the “Critical art of Poetry.” His biographer bestows great praise on all those works, and different as the subjects are, assures us that he treated each as if it had been the exclusive object of his attention. His literary acquaintance was also very extensive, and he numbered among his correspondents the cardinals Passionei and Quirini, the president Bouhier, the abbe“Gerbert de St. Blaise, with Iselin, Burmann, Crusius, le Maitre, Vernet, Semler, Ernesti, &c. But he chiefly excelled as a teacher of youth, and especially of those intended for the church, having introduced two regulations, the benefit of which his country amply acknowledges. The one was that young divines should preach, in turn, twice a week, on which occasion the sermon was criticised by the whole body of students, aided also by Breitinguer’s remarks. The other respects an institution or society of Ascetics, as they were called. This was composed of the clergy, who assembled at stated hours, to discuss subjects relative to their profession, and compose sermons, prayers, hymns, &c. Some of them also were employed in visiting the hospitals, others qualified for schoolmasters, and all were to assist the poor with advice or pecuniary aid. Breitinguer also prepared a catechism for the young, on an improved plan, and a little before his death, published” Orationes Carolina? d'Hottinguer,“dedicated to Semlin. He continued his active exertions almost to the last hour of his life, being present at an ecclesiastical council, on Dec. 13, 1776, but on his return was seized with an apoplexy, of which he died the following day. Breitinguer had as much learning as Bodmer, though not as much natural fire; and was an excellent critic. To the works already noticed, we may add his” Diatribe historico-Jiteraria in versus obscurissimos a Persio Satir. I citatos," 1740, 8vo. His edition of the Septuagint, in 4 vols. 4to, wa.t published at Zurich, (TigUnim,) 1730. The text is accurately compiled from the Oxford edition of Grabe: to which are added at the bottom of each page the various readings of the Codex Vaticanus. Nothing is altered except a few typographical errors, and some emendations of Grabe, which did not coincide with the editor’s opinion. The clearness of the type and beauty of the paper recommend it to the reader’s attention; and the care, accuracy, and erudition displayed throughout the work, may entitle it to bear, away the palm even from Grabe’s edition. Such at least is the opinion of Masch.

, who appears to have had a taste for poetry and biography in the infancy of those studies, was born at or near to Caversham in Oxfordshire, but descended from the Brighams of Yorkshire. He was educated at Hart-hall, Oxford, as Wood conjectures, and afterwards studied at one of the inns of court. Having a turn for poetry, he passed his hours in the perusal of the best poets, and his admiration of Chaucer led him to be at the expence of beautifying the monument of that eminent poet in 1556, removing it to a more conspicuous place in Westminster abbey, where we now find it. He died in his prime, Dec. 1559, leaving, l.“De venationibus rerum rnemorabilium,” a collection of notices of characters and events, of which Bale has made much use. 2. “Memoirs,” by way of Diary, in 12 bocks. 3. Miscellaneous Poems. But none of these are probably now m existence.

, a German lawyer and poet, was born at Lubeck, Sept. 22, 1680, and after having studied and taken his degrees in the civil and canon law, settled and practised at Hamburgh, where his merit soon raised him to the senatorial dignity, to which the emperor, without any solicitation, added the rank of Aulic counsellor, and count Palatine. These counts Palatine were formerly governors of the imperial palaces, and had considerable powers, being authorized to create public notaries, confer degrees, &c. Brockes published in five parts, from 1724 to 1736, 8vo, “Irdisches Vergnugen in Gott, &c.” or “Earthly Contentment in God,” consisting of philosophical and moral poems, which were much praised by his countrymen. He also published translations from Marini, and other Italian poets, into German, and had some thoughts of translating Milton, as he had done Pope’s Essay on Man, a proof at least of his taste for English poetry. His works form a collection of 9 vols. 8vo, and have been often reprinted. He appears to have carefully divided his time between his public duties and private studies, and died much esteemed and regretted, Jan. 16, 1747.

, an English poet, has the reputation of ably assisting the royal party in the time of Charles I. and of even having no inconsiderable hand in promoting the restoration. Of his personal history, we have only a few notices in the Biographia Dramatica. He was born in 1620, and died June 30, 1666. He was an attorney in the lord mayor’s court, and through the whole of the protectorship, maintained his loyalty, and cheered his party by the songs and poems in his printed works, most of which must have been sung, if not composed, at much personal risk. How far they are calculated to excite resentment, or to promote the cause which the author espoused, the reader must judge. His songs are in^neasures, varied with considerable ease and harmony, and have many sprightly turns, and satirical strokes, which the Roundheads must have felt. Baker informs us that he was the author of much the greater part of those songs and epigrams which were published against the rump. Phillips styles him the “English Anacreon.” Walton has draxvn a very favourable character of him in the eclogue prefixed to his works, the only one of the commendatory poems which seems worthy of a republication; Mr. Ellis enumerates three editions of these poems, the first in 1660, the second in 1664, and the third in 1668. That, however, used in the late edition of the English Poets is dated 1661. In 1660 he published “A Congratulatory Poem on the miraculous and glorious Return of Charles II.” which we have not seen. Besides these poems he published a “Translation of Horace,” by himself, Fanshaw, Holliday, Hawkins, Cowley, Ben Jonson, &c. and had once an intention to translate Lucretius, In 1654 he published a comedy entitled “The Cunning Lovers,” which was acted in 1651 at the private house in Drury Lane. He was also editor of the plays of Richard Brome, who, however, is not mentioned as being related to him.

, an English clergyman, was a native of Shropshire, but where educated is not known. In the beginning of king James II.'s reign he was curate of St. Giles’s in the Fields, London, but afterwards turned Roman catholic, and was employed as a corrector of the press in the king’s printing-house, which afforded him a comfortable subsistence. When obliged to quit that, after the revolution, he undertook a boarding-school for the instruction of young gentlemen, some of whom being the sons of opulent persons, this employment proved very beneficial. His biographer informs us that Pope, the celebrated poet, was one of his pupils. He afterwards travelled abroad with some young gentlemen, as tutor, but retired at last to his own country, where he died Jan. 10, 1717. He published only a translation of the “Catechism of the Council of Trent,” Lnhd. 1687, 8vo.

As a poet, he delights his readers principally by occasional flights of a vivid imagination, but has in no instance given us a poem to which criticism may not suggest many reasonable objections. The greater part of his life, he lived remote from the friends of whose judgment he might have availed himself, and by whose taste his own might have been regulated. His first production, Universal Beauty, has a noble display of fancy in many parts. It is not improbable that Pope, to whom he submitted it, gave him some assistance, and he certainly repaid his instructor by adopting his manner; yet he has avoided Pope’s monotony, and would have done this with more effect, if we did not perceive a mechanical lengthening of certain lines, rather than a natural variety of movement. On the other hand, the sublimity of the subject, by which he was inspired and which he hoped to communicate, sometimes betrays him into a species of turgid declamation. Harmony appears to be consulted, and epithets multiplied to please the ear at the expence of meaning.

was born in Cheshire, as is said, of very mean parents. Of the place of his birth, or the first part of his life, we have not been able to gain any intelligence. He was educated upon the foundation at Eton, and was captain of the school a whole year, without any vacancy, by which he might have obtained a scholarship at King’s college. Being by this delay, such as is said to have happened very rarely, superannuated, he was sent to St. John’s college by the contributions of his friends, where he obtained a small exhibition. At his college he lived for some time in the same chamber with the well-known Ford, by whom Dr. Johnson heard him described as a contracted scholar and a mere versifier, unacquainted with life, and unskilful in conversation. His addiction to metre was then such, that his companions familiarly called him Poet. When he had opportunities of mingling with mankind, he cleared himself, as Ford likewise owned, from great part of his scholastic rust.

Of Broome, says Dr. Johnson, though it cannot be said that he was a great poet, it would be unjust to deny that he was an excellent versifier; his lines are smooth and sonorous, and his diction is select and elegant. His rhymes are sometimes unsuitable, but such faults occur but seldom, and he had such power of words and numbers as fitted him for translation; but in his original works, recollection seems to have been his business more than invention. His imitations are so apparent, that it is a part of his reader’s employment to recall the verses of some former poet. What he takes, however, he seldom makes worse; and he cannot be justly thought a mean man, whom Pope chose for an associate, and whose co-operation was considered by Pope’s enemies as so important, that he was attacked by Henley with this ludicrous distich:

, of France, was born at Lyons in 1671. He was at first a Jesuit, but afterwards an advocate, a member of the academy of Lyons, and librarian of the public library there. In 1716, he published the works of Boileau, in 2 vols. 4to, with historical illustrations: and, after that, the works of Regnier. He reformed the text of both these authors from the errors of the preceding editions, and seasoned his notes with many useful and curious anecdotes of men and things. His only fault, the fault of almost all commentators, is, that he did not use the collections he had made with sufficient sobriety and judgment; and has inserted many things, no ways necessary to illustrate his authors, and some that are even frivolous. He wrote also “L'Histoire abrege*e de la ville de Lyon,” with elegance and precision, 1711, 4to; and died there in 1746. He had a friendship and correspondence with many of the literati, and particularly with Rousseau the poet, and Voltaire. The latter used to tell him, that he “resembled Atticus. who kept terms, and even cultivated friendship, at the same time with Caesar and Pompey.” The enmity between Rousseau and Voltaire is well known.

, an eminent classical scholar and editor, was born at Tanay, a small village of the Nivernois, in 1722, and died at Paris, Feb. 12, 1789, at the age of 67. In his youth he made it his practice to write notes in every book that he read; and the margins of severaHn his library were entirely filled with them. Until his last moment he pursued the same 'method of study. All these he arranged wonderfully in his memory; and if it had been possible after his death to have put his papers in that order which he alone knew, they would have furnished materials for several curious volumes. With this method, and continued labour for twelve hours a day, the abbé Brotier acquired an immense stock of various knowledge. Except the mathematics, to which it appears he gave little application, he was acquainted with every thing; natural history, chemistry, and even medicine. It was his rule to read Hippocrates and Solomon once every year in their original languages. These he said were the best books for curing the diseases of the body and the mind. But the belles lettres were his grand pursuit. He had a good knowledge of all the dead languages, but particularly the Latin, of which he was perfectly master: he was besides acquainted with most, of the languages of Europe. This knowledge, however extensive, was not the only part in which he excelled. He was well versed in ancient and modern history, in chronology, coins, medals, inscriptions, and the customs of antiquity, which had always been objects of his study. He had collected, a considerable quantity of materials for writing a new history of France, and it is much to be regretted that he was prevented from undertaking that work. The akl>6 Brotier recalls to our remembrance those laborious writers, distinguished for their learning, Petau, Sirmond, Labbu, Cossart, Hardouin, Souciet, &c. who have done so much honour to the college of Louis XIV. in which he himself was educated, and where fre lived several years as librarian; and his countrymen say he is the last link of that chain of illustrious men, who have succeeded one another without interruption, for near two centuries. On the dissolution of the order of Jesuits, the abbe Brotier found an asylum equally peaceful and agreeable in the house of Mr. de la Tour, a printer, eminent in his business, who has gained from all connoisseurs a just tribute of praise for those works which have come from his press. It was in this friendly retirement that the abbe Brotier spent the last twenty-six years of his life, and that he experienced a happiness, the value of which he knew how to appreciate, which arose from the care, attention, and testimonies of respect, bestowed upon him both by Mr. and Mrs. de la Tour. It was there also that he published those works which will render his name immortal; an edition of Tacitus, enriched not only with notes and learned dissertations, but also with supplements, which sometimes leave the reader in a doubt, whether the modern writer is not a successful rival of the ancient: this was first published in 1771, 4 vols. 4to, and reprinted in 1776, in 7 vols. fcvo. He published also in 1779, 6 vols. 12mo, an edition of Pliny the naturalist, which is only a' short abridgment of what he had prepared to correct and enlarge the edition of Hardouin, and to give an historical series of all the new discoveries made since the beginning of this century; an immense labour, which bespeaks the most extensive erudition. To these two editions, which procured the abbe Brotier the applauses of all the literati in Europe, he added in 1778, 8vo, an edition of Rapin on gardens, at the end of which he has subjoined a history of gardens, written in Latin with admirable elegance, and abounding in the most delightful imagery: for the abbe was not one of those pedants, according to the expression of the poet, “herisses de Grec & de Latin;” he possessed a lively imagination, and a fine taste, with clearness and perspicuity; and above all, a sound judgment, which never suffered him to adopt in writing any thing that was not solid, beautiful, and true. His other works are, 1. “Examen de PApologie de M. I 7 Abbe de Prades,” 1753, 8vo. 2. “Conclusiones ex universa Theologia,” 1754, 4to. 3. “Traite des Monnoies Romanies, Grecques, et Hebr. compares avec les Monnoies de France, pour l'intelligencederEcriture Sainte, et de tous les auteurs Grecs, et Remains,” 1760, 4to. 4. “Prospectus d'une edit. Lat. de Tacite,” 1761,5 vols. 4to. 5, “Supplementa, lib. 7. loAnnal. Taciti,” 17 v 55, 8vo. 6.“Cl. viri de la Caille vita”7 1763, 4to. 7. “Phaedri Fabularum, lib. v. cum notis et suppl. access. Parallela J. de la Fontaine Fabulse,” 1785, 12mo. 8. “Memoire du Levant” 1780, and an edition of“Brumoy’s Theatre,” 1785, 13 vols. 8vo. In 1790 his nephew published his “Parolles Memorables,” a work of which Mr. Seward has made great use in his “Anecdotes.”

Dr. Brown was a man of uncommon ingenuity, but unfortunately tinctured with an undue degree of self-opinion, and perhaps the bias of his mind to insanity will assign this best cause, as well as form the best excuse, for this. genius was extensive; for, besides his being so elegant a prose writer in various kinds of composition, he was a poet, a musician, and a painter. His learning does not, however, appear to have been equal to his genius. His invention was, indeed, inexhaustible; and hence he was led to form magnificent plans, the execution of which required a greater depth of erudition than he was possessed of. In divinity, properly so called, as including an extensive knowledge of the controverted points of theology, and a critical acquaintance with the Scriptures, he was not deeply conversant. All we can gather from his sermons is, that his ideas were liberal, and that he did not lay much stress on the disputed doctrines of Christianity. His temper, we are told, was suspicious, and sometimes threw him into disagreeable altercations with his friends; but this arose, in a great measure, if not entirely, from the constitutional disorder described above, a very suspicious turn of mind being one of the surest prognostics of lunacy. He has been charged with shifting about too speedily, with a view to preferment; and it was thought, that his “Thoughts on Civil Liberty, Licentiousness, and Faction,” seemed to have something of this appearance. He, however, in that performance endeavoured to remove the objection, by observing, that, if he had indirectly censured those whom he had formerly applauded, he never was attached to men, but measures; and that, if he had questioned the conduct of those only who were then out of power, he had heretofore questioned their conduct with the same freedom, when in the fulness of their power. Upon the whole, Dr. Brown’s defects, which chiefly arose from a too sanguine temperament of constitution, were compensated by many excellencies and virtues. With respect to his writings, they are all of them elegant. Even those which are of a more temporary nature may continue to be read with pleasure, as containing a variety of curious observations; and in his Estimate are many of those unanswerable truths that can never be unseasonable or unprofitable.

, esq. F. R. S. and a very ingenious and elegant poet of the last century, was born at Burton-upon-Trent, January 21, 1705-6; and was the son of the rev. William Browne, minister of that parish, where he chiefly resided, vicar of Winge, in Buckinghamshire, and a prebendary of Litchfield, which last preferment was given him by the excellent bishop Hough. He was possessed, also, of a small paternal inheritance, which he greatly increased by his marriage with Anne, daughter of Isaac Hawkins, esq. all whose estate, at length, came to his only grandson and heir-at-law, the subject of this article. Our author received his grammatical education, first at Litchfield, and then at Westminster, where he was much distinguished for the brilliancy of his parts^ and the steadiness of his application. The uncommon rapidity with which he passed through the several forms or classes of Westminster school, attracted the notice, and soon brought him under the direction of the head master, Dr. Freind, with whom he was a peculiar favourite. Mr. Browne stayed above a year in the sixth, or head form, with a view of confirming and improving his taste for classical learning and composition, under so polite and able a scholar. When he was little more than sixteen years of age, he was removed to Trinity-college, Cambridge, of which college his father had been fellow. He remained at the university till he had taken his degree of M. A. and though during his residence there he continued his taste for classical literature, which through his whole life was his principal object and pursuit, he did not omit the peculiar studies of the place, but applied himself with vigour and success to all the branches of mathematical science, and the principles of the Newtonian philosophy. When in May 1724, king George the First established at both universities, a foundation for the study of modern history and languages, with the design of qualifying young men for employments at court, and foreign embassies, Mr. Browne was among the earliest of those who were selected to be scholars upon this foundation. On the death of that prince, he wrote an university copy of verses, which was the first of his poems that had been printed, and was much admired. About the year 1727, Mr. Browne, who had been always intended for the bar, settled at Lincoln’s-inn. Here he prosecuted, for several years, with great attention, the study of the law, and acquired in it a considerable degree of professional knowledge, though he never arrived to any eminence in the practice of it, and entirely gave it up long before his death. He was the less solicitous about the practice of his profession, and it was of the less consequence to him, as he was possessed of a fortune adequate to his desires; which, by preserving the happy mean between extravagance and avarice, he neither diminished nor increased.

Mr. Browne’s application to the law did not prevent his occasionally indulging himself in the exercise of his poetical talents. It was not long after his settlement at Lincoln’s-inn that he wrote his poem on “Design and Beauty,” addressed to Highmore the painter, for whom he had a great friendship. In this, one of the longest of his poems, he shews an extensive knowledge of the Platonic philosophy; and pursues, through the whole, the idea of beauty advanced by that philosophy. By design is here meant, in a large and extensive sense, that power of genius which enables the real artist to collect together his scattered ideas, to range them in proper order, and to form a regular plan before he attempts to exhibit any work in architecture, painting, or poetry. He wrote several other poetical pieces during the interval between his fixing at LincolnVinn and his marriage one of the mostpleasing and popular of which was his “Pipe of Tobacco,” an imitation of Gibber, Ambrose Philips, Thomson, Young, Pope, and Swift, who were then all living; the peculiar manner of these several writers is admirably hit off by our author, who evidently possessed an excellent imitative genius. Indeed, nothing but a nice spirit of discrimination, and a happy talent at various composition, could have enabled him to have succeeded so well as he hath done in the “Pipe of Tobacco.” The imitation of Ambrose Philips was not written by our poet, but by an ingenious friend, the late Dr. John Hoaclly, chancellor of the diocese of Winchester, and second son of -the bishop. Dr. Hoadlyy however, acknowledged that his little imitation was altered so much for the better by Mr. Browne, that he fairly made it his own.

, vicar of Olney in Buckinghamshire, and chaplain of Morden college, was born in 1703, and was originally a pen-cutter. Early in life he distinguished himself by his, poetical talents, and when only twenty years of age, published a tragedy called “Polidus,” and a farce called “All-bedevilled,” which were played together at a private theatre in St. Alban’s-street, neither of much merit. He became afterwards a frequent contributor to the Gentleman’s Magazine, and carried off several of the prizes which Cave, the printer and proprietor of that Magazine, then offered for the best compositions. When, Cave published a translation of Du Halde’s China, he inscribed the different plates to his friends, and one to “Moses Browne,” with which familiar designation Browne thought proper to be offended, and Cave, to pacify him, directed the engraver to introduce Mr. with a caret under the line. In 1729, he published his “Piscatory Eclogues,” without his name, which were reprinted in 1739, among his “Poems on various subjects,” 8vo, and again in an extended form, with notes, in 1773. For along time, however, even after his abilities were known, he remained in poverty, and in 1745, when it appears he had a wife and seven children, we find him applying to Dr. Birch for the situation of messenger, or door-keeper, to the royal society. In 1750, he published an edition of Walton and Cotton’s Angler, with a preface, notes, and some valuable additions, which was republished in 1759 and 1772, and in the former year drew him into a controversy with sir John Hawkins, who happened to be then publishing an improved edition of the same work. From his poems, as well as from the scattered observations in the “Angler,” he appears to have been always of a religious turn; and in 1752 published in verse, a series of devout contemplations, entitled “Sunday Thoughts,” which went through a second edition in 1764, and a third in 1781. In 1753, having some prospect of encouragement in the church, he took orders, and soon after his ordination was presented by the earl of Dartmouth to the vicarage of Olney in Buckinghamshire, on the cession of Mr. Wolsey Johnson. In 1754 he published a sermon, preached at Olney, on Christmas day, entitled “The Nativity and Humiliation of Jesus Christ, practically considered.” In 1755, he published a small quarto poem, entitled “Percy Lodge,” a seat of the duke and duchess of Somerset, written by command of their late graces, in 1749. In what year he was presented to the vicarage of Sutton, in Lincolnshire, we are not informed; but in 1763, he was elected to the chaplainship of Morden college in Kent, and some time after appointed the late rev. John Newton for his curate at Olney. In 1765 he published a sermon “preached to the Society for the Reformation of Manners,” and a few years after, a “Visitation Sermon,” delivered at Stony Stratford. Besides these, Mr. Browne is said to have published one or two political tracts; and in 1772, a translation of a work of John Liborius Zimmerman, entitled “The Excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ,” London, 12mo. He died at Morden college, Sept. 13, 1787, aged eighty-four. His wife died in 1783. Mr. Browne was a man of some learning and piety, but as a poet, we fear he cannot be allowed to rank higher than among versifiers.

, an ingenious English poet, was the son of Thomas Browne of Tavistock in Devonshire, gent, who, according to Prince, in his Worthies of Devon, was most probably a descendant from the knightly family of Browne of Brownes-Ilash in the parish of Langtree near Great Torrington in Devonshire. His son was born in 1590, and became a student of Exeter college, Oxford, about the beginning of the reign of James I. After making a great progress in classical and polite literature, he removed to the Inner Temple, where his attention to the study of the law was frequently interrupted by his devotion to the muses. In his twenty -third year (1613) he published, in folio, the first part of his “Britannia’s Pastorals,” which, according to the custom of the time, was ushered into the world with so many poetical eulogies, that he appears to have secured, at a very early age, the friendship and favour of the most celebrated of his contemporaries, among whom we find the names of Selden and Drayton. To these he afterwards added Davies of Hereford, Ben Jonson, and others. That he wrote some of these pastorals before he had attained his twentieth year, has been conjectured from a passage in Book I. Song V.; but there is sufficient internal evidence, independent of these lines, that much of tham was the offspring of a juvenile fancy. In the following year, he published in 8vo, “The Shepherd’s Pipe,” in seven eclogues. In the fourth of these he laments the death of his friend Mr. Thomas Manwood, under the name of Philarete, the precursor, as some critics assert, of Milton’s Lycidas.

After leaving the university with, lord Caernarvon, hefound a liberal patron in William earl of Pembroke, of whom likewise we have a most elaborate character in Clarendon, some part of which reflects honour on our poet.­“He was a great lover of his country, and of the religion and justice, which he believed could only support it: and his friendships were only it ith men of those principles. And as his conversation was most with men of the most pregnant parts and understanding; so towards any such, who needed support, or encouragement, though unknown, if fairly recommended to him, he was very liberal.” This nobleman, who had a respect for Browne probably founded on the circumstances intimated in the above character, took him into his family, and employed him in such a manner, according to Wood, that he was enabled to purchase an estate. Little more, however, is known of his history, nor is the exact time of his death ascertained. Wood finds that one of both his names, of Ottery St. Mary in Devonshire, died in the winter of 1645, but knows not whether this be the same. He hints at his person in these words, “as he had a little body, so a great mind;” a high character from this biographer who had no indulgence for poetical failings.

, or Robert Mannyng, the first English poet who occurs in the fourteenth century, was born probably before 1270, as he was received into the order of black canons at Brunne, about 1288. Malton appears to have been his birth-place, but what Malton is doubtful. He was, as far as can be discovered, merely a translator. His first work, says Warton, was a metrical paraphrase of a French book, written by Robert Grosthead, bishop of Lincoln, called “Manuel Pecche” (Manuel des Péchés), being a treatise on the decalogue, and on the seven deadly sins, which are illustrated with many legendary stories. It was never printed, but is preserved in the Bodleian library, Mss. No. 415, and in the Harleian Mss. No. 1701. His second and more important work is a metrical chronicle of England, in two parts, the former of which (from Æneas to the death of Cadwallader) is translated from Wace’s “Brut d'Angleterre,” and the latter (from Cadwallader to the end of the reign of Edward I.) from a French chronicle written by Peter de Langtoft, an Augustine canon of Bridlington in Yorkshire, who is supposed to have died in the reign of Edward II. and was therefore contemporary with his translator. Hearne has edited Robert de Brunne, but has suppressed the whole of his translation from Wace, excepting the prologue, and a few extracts which he found necessary to illustrate his glossary. Mr. Ellis, to whom we are indebted for this article, has given some specimens of de Brunne’s work.

, a Latin historian and poet, was born at Egra in Bohemia, 1518. He was devoted to books from his childhood, and especially to poetry; in which he so happily succeeded, that he could make a great number of verses, and those not bad ones, extempore. He began early to publish some of them on several subjects; and acquired so much reputation, that he attained to the poetical crown, to the dignity of poet laureat, and of count palatine, which honour he received at Vienna from Ferdinand of Austria, king of the Remaps, in 1552. His business in that city was to present a work to Maximilian, king of Hungary, which he had dedicated to him, the “First century of the German monasteries.” In his return from Vienna, he stopped at Passau; where, finding a patron in Wolfgang bishop of Salms, he resolved to settle, and to remove his library and family. He hoped that he could better go on there with a great work he had undertaken, which was, “The history of all the bishoprics and bishops of Germany.” He had travelled much, and looked into several records *and libraries, to gather materials for his purpose. How long he staid there does not appear; but he was at Basil in June 1553, and lived in the citadel of Oporin. Arx Oporina: the usual way of speaking of that famous printer’s house, which stood on a rising ground. Here he published writings he had finished at Passau, some in prose, and others in verse. Bruschius was married, but had no children. He was far from being rich; but his poetical patrons assisted him, and he received presents also from the abbots and abbesses, whose monasteries he described. He was particularly well received by the abbess of the convent of Caczi, and obtained some presents from her, which, Melchior Adam says, was owing to his having described the antiquities of that convent. The liberalities of some abbots, while he was with Oporin at Basil, enabled him to buy a new suit of clothes; but when he found that appearing well dressed in the streets procured him many marks of respect from the vulgar, he tore his new finery to pieces, “as slaves (says the same author) that had usurped their master’s honours.”

, an English poet and warrior, was born of a genteel family, educated at Oxford, and afterwards spent some time in travelling abroad. In 1522, he attended, in a military capacity, the earl of Surrey on his expedition to the coast of Britany, and commanded the troops in the attack of the town of Morlaix, which he took and burnt. For this service he was knighted on the spot by the earl, which Tanner says took place in Germany, 1532, instead of Britany, 1522. In 1528 he was in Spain, but in what service is doubtful. In 1529 he was sent ambassador to France, and the following year ta Rome on account of the king’s divorce. He had also been therein 1522, in the same capacity, when cardinal Wolsey’s election to the holy see was in agitation. In 1533 he was one of those sent by Henry to be witnesses to the interview between the pope and the king of France at Marseilles. He was gentleman of the privy chamber to Henry VIII. and to his successor Edward VI. in the beginning of whose reign he marched with the protector against the Scots, and after the battle of Musselborough in 1547, in which he commanded the light horse with great bravery, he was made banneret. In 1549 he was appointed chief governor of Ireland, by the title of lord chief justice, and there he married the countess of Ormond. He appears to have died in 1550, and was buried at Walerford. He was nephew to John Bourchier, lord Berners, the translator of Froissart.

, a Scottish historian, and Latin poet, of great eminence, and uncommon abilities and learning, was descended from an ancient family, and was born at Killairn, in the shire of Lenox, in Scotland, in the month of February 1506. His father died of the stone in the prime of life, whilst his grandfather was yet living; by whose extravagance the family, which before was but in low circumstances, was now nearly reduced to the extremity of want. He had, however, the happiness of a very prudent mother, Agnes, the daughter of James Heriot of Trabrown, who, though she, was left a widow with five sons and three daughters, brought them all up in a decent manner, by judicious management. She had a brother, Mr. James Heriot, who, observing the marks of genius which young George Buchanan discovered when at school, sent him to Paris in 1520 for his education. There he closely applied himself to his studies, and particularly cultivated his poetical talents but before he had been there quite two years, the death of his uncle, and his own ill state of health, and want of money, obliged him to return home. Having arrived in his native country, he spent almost a year in endeavouring to re-escablish his health; and in 1523, in order to acquire some knowledge of military affairs, he made a campaign with the French auxiliaries, who came over into Scotland with John duke of Albany. But in this new course of life he encountered so many hardships, that he was confined to his bed by sickness all the ensuing winter. He had probably much more propensity to his books, than to the sword; for early in the following spring he went to St. Andrews, and attended the lectures on logic, or rather, as he says, on sophistry, which were read in that university by John Major, or Mair, a professor in St. Saviour’s college, and assessor to the dean, of Arts, whom he soon after accompanied to Paris. After struggling for about two years with indigence and ill fortune, he was admitted, in 1526, being then not more than twenty years of age, in the college of St. Barbe, where he took the degree of B. A. in 1527, and M. A. in 1528, and in 1529 was chosen procurator nationis, and began then to teach grammar, which he continued for about three years. But Gilbert Kennedy, earl of Cassils, a young Scottish nobleman, being then in France, and happening to fall into the company of Buchanan, was so delighted with his wit, and the agreeableness of his manners, that he prevailed upon him to continue with him five years. According to Mackenzie, he acted as a kind of tutor to this young nobleman; and, during his stay with him, translated Linacre’s Rudiments of grammar out of English into Latin; which was printed at Paris, by Robert Stephens, in 1533, and dedicated to the earl of Cassils. He returned to Scotland with that nobleman, whose death happened about two years after; and Buchanan had then an inclination to return to France: but James V. king of Scotland prevented him, by appointing him preceptor to his natural son, James, afterwards the abbot of Kelso, who died in 1548, and not, as some say, the earl of Murray, regent of that kingdom. About this time, he wrote a satirical poem against the Franciscan friars, entitled, “Somnium;” which irritated them to exclaim against him as a heretic. Their clamours, however, only increased the dislike which he hud conceived against them on account of their disorderly and licentious lives; and inclined him the more towards Lutheranism, to which he seems to have had before no inconsiderable propensity. About the year 1538, the king having discovered a conspiracy against himself, in which he suspected that some of the Franciscans were concerned, commanded Buchanan to write a poem against that order. But he had probably already experienced the inconveniency of exasperating so formidable a body; for he only wrote a few verses which were susceptible of a double interpretation, and he pleased neither party. The king was dissatisfied, that the satire was not more poignant; and the friars considered it as a heinous offence, to mention them in any way that was not honourable. But the king gave Buchanan a second command, to write against them with more seventy; which he accordingly did in the poem, entitled, “Franciscanus;” by which he pleased the king, and rendered the friars his irreconcileable enemies. He soon found, that the animosity of these ecclesiastics was of a more durable nature than royal favour: for the king had the meanness to suffer him to feel the weight of their resentment, though it had been chiefly excited by obedience to his commands. It was not the Franciscans only, but the clergy in general, who were incensed against Buchanan: they appear to have made a common cause of it, and they left no stone unturned till they had prevailed with the king that he should be tried for heresy. He was accordingly imprisoned at the beginning of 1539, but found means to make his escape, as he says himself, out of his chamber-window, while his guards were asleep. He fled into England, where he found king Henry the Eighth persecuting both protestants and papists. Not thinking that kingdom, therefore, a place of safety, he again went over into France, to which he was the more inclined because he had there some literary friends, and was pleased with the politeness of French manners. But when he came to Paris, he had the mortification to find there cardinal Beaton, who was his great enemy, and who appeared there as ambassador from Scotland. Expecting, therefore, to receive some ill offices from him, if he continued at Paris, he withdrew himself privately to Bourdeaux, at the invitation of Andrew Govea, a learned Portuguese, who was principal of a new college in that city. Buchanan taught in the public schools there three years; in which time he composed two tragedies, the one entitled, “Baptistes, sive Calurania,” and the other “Jephthes, Votum;” and also translated the Medea and Alcestig of Euripides. These were all afterwards published;-but they were originally written in compliance with the rules of the school, which every year required some new dramatic exhibition; and his view in choosing these subjects was, to draw off the youth of France as much as possible from the allegories, which were then greatly in vogue, to a just imitation of the ancients; in which he succeeded beyond his hopes. During his residence at Bourdeaux, the emperor Charles V. passed through that city; upon which Buchanan presented his imperial majesty with an elegant Latin poem, in which the emperor was highly complimented, and at which he expressed great satisfaction. But the animosity of cardinal Beaton still pursued our poet: for that haughty prelate wrote letters to the archbishop of Bourdeaux, in which he informed him, that Buchanan had fled his country for heresy; that he had lampooned the church in most virulent satires; and that if he would put him to the trial, he would find him a most pestilentious heretic. Fortunately for Buchanan, these letters fell into the hands of some of his friends, who found means to prevent their effects: and the state of public affairs in Scotland, in consequence of the death of king James V. gave the cardinal so much employment, as to prevent any farther prosecution of his rancour against Buchanan.

Mr. Granger’s opinion of the probable advancement he might have made in poetry, has been opposed by the late Dr. Kippis in the Biographia Britaunica. but in a manner which evinces that the learned doctor was a very incompetent judge. He says Bunyan “had the invention, but not the other natural qualifications which are necessary to constitute a great poet.” Now, we believe it is the universal opinion of all critics, since criticism was known, that invention is the first qualification of a poet, and the only one which can be called natural, all others depending upon the state of refinement and education in the age the poet happens to live. Hence it is that our early poets are in general so exceedingly deficient in the graces of harmony, and that many of our modern poets have little else. With respect to Patrick’s Pilgrim, mentioned above, it is necessary to observe that (besides its being doubtful which was first published, Bunyan’s or Patrick’s) the question is not, whether Bunyan might not have been preceded by authors who have attempted something like the Pilgrim’s Progress: far less is it necessary to inquire, whether he be entitled to the merit of being the first who endeavoured to convey religious instruction in allegory. It is sufficient praise that when his work appeared, all others which resembled it, or seemed to resemble it, became forgotten; and the palm of the highest merit was assigned to him by universal consent. It was, therefore, to little purpose that a small volume was lately published, entitled “The Isle of Man, or the legal proceedings in Man-shire against Sin,” by the rev. R. Bernard, from which Bunyan was “supposed” to have taken the idea of his Pilgrim. Bunyan’s work so far transcends that and every similar attempt, that he would have been very much to blame (allowing, what cannot be proved, that he took the idea from Bernard) had he not adopted a plan which he was qualified to execute with such superior ability.

In the early part of life, he not only applied himself to sculpture and painting, but to every branch of knowledge connected in any way with those arts, and gave himself up so much to application, that he in a great degree withdrew from society. From this disposition he became habituated to solitude, and, happy in his pursuits, he was more contented to be alone than in company, by which he obtained the character of being a proud and an odd man. When his mind was matured, he attached himself to men of learning and judgment, and in the number of his most intimate friends were ranked the highest dignitaries in the church, and the most eminent literary characters of his time. Among the authors he studied and delighted in most, were Dante and Pttrarch; of these it is saidhe could nearly repeat all their poems, and many of his sonnets (now reprinted in his life by Mr. Duppa) shew how much he desired to imitate the poet of Vaucluse. He also studied with equal attention the sacred writings of the Old and New Testament. His acquirements in anatomy are manifest throughout his works, and he often proposed to publish a treatise upon that subject for the use of painters and sculptors; principally to shew what muscles were brought into action in the various motions of the human body, and was only prevented, from fearing lest he should not be able to express himself so clearly and fully as the nature of the subject required. Of perspective he knew as much as was known in the age in which he lived; but this branch of knowledge was not then reduced to a science, nor governed by mathematical principles.

, an Italian poet, was better known under this name than by that of Dominico, which was his true one. Authors differ concerning his country and the time of his birth. The opinion most followed is that he was born at Florence about 1380. As to the epocha of his death, it seems more certain: he died at Rome in 1448. This poet was a barber at Florence, and his shop the common rendezvous of all the literati of that town. His poems, which mostly consist of sonnets, and often very freely written, are of the comic and burlesque species; but so truly original, that some poets who came after him have endeavoured to imitate him by composing verses alia Burcbiellesca. They are however full of obscurities and aenigmas. Some writers have taken the pains to make comments on them, and, among others, le Doni; but the commentary is scarcely less obscure than the text. Burchiello nevertheless holds a distinguished place among the Italian poets of the satirical class. He may be censurable for not having had sufficient respect for good manners; but the licence of this poetical barber was much in the general taste of the times. The best editions of his poems are those of Florence, 1552 and 1568, 3vo. His sonnets were printed for the first time at Venice, 1475, 4to.

, a German poet of considerable celebrity in his own country, and known in this by several translations of one of his terrific tales, was born in 1748, at Wolmerswende, in the principality of Halberstadt. His father was a Lutheran minister, and appears to have given him a pious domestic education; but to school or university studies young Burger had an insuperable aversion, and much of his life was consumed in idleness and dissipation, varied by some occasional starts of industry, which produced his poetical miscellanies, principally ballads, that soon became very popular from the simplicity of the composition. In the choice of his subjects, likewise, which were legendary tales and traditions, wild, terrific, and grossly improbable, he had the felicity to hit the taste of his countrymen. His attention was also directed to Shakspeare and our old English ballads, and he translated many of the latter into German with considerable effect. His chief employment, or that from which he derived most emolument, was in writing for the German Almanack of the Muses, and afterwards the German Musaeum. In 1787 he lectured on the critical philosophy of Kant, and in 1789 was appointed professor of belles-lettres in the university of Gottingen. He married three wives, the second the sister of the first, and the third a lady who courted him in poetry, but from whom, after three years cohabitation, he obtained a divorce. Her misconduct is said to have contributed to shorten his days. He died in June 1794. His works were collected and published by Reinhard, in 1798—99, 4 vols. 8vo, with a life, in which there is little of personal history that can be read with pleasure. Immorality seems to have accompanied him the greater part of his course, but he was undoubtedly a man of genius, although seldom under the controul of judgment. His celebrated ballad of “Leonora” was translated into English in 1796, by five or six different poets, and for some time pleased by its wild and extravagant horrors; and in 1798, his " Wild Huntsman’s Chase' 7 appeared hi an English dress; but Burger’s style has obtained, perhaps, more imitators than admirers, among the former of whom may be ranked some caricaturists.

, the third and youngest son of the bishop, had an education equally advantageous with that of his two elder brothers. When he had acquired a sufficient preparation of grammatical learning, he was sent to the university of Oxford, where he becam^a commoner of Merton-college. After this, he studied two years at Leyden, from whence he seems to have made a tour through Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. Having chosen the profession of the law, he was entered at the Temple, where he appears to have contracted wildness of disposition, and irregularity of conduct. To this part of his character there are frequent allusions in the satirical publications of the times; and particularly in Dr. Arbuthnol’s notes and memorandums of the six days preceding the death of a right reverend prelate. Mr. Thomas Burnet was even suspected of being one of the Mohocks mentioned in the Spectator, whose extravagant and cruel exploits made much noise, and excited no small degree of terror at that period. Swift, in one of his letters to Stella, has the following passage: “Young Davenant was telling us, how he was set upon by the Mohocks, and how they ran his chair through with a sword. It is not safe being in the streets at night. The bishop of Salisbury’s son is said to be of the gang. They are all whigs. A great lady sent to me, to speak to her father, and to lord treasurer, to have a care of them, and to be careful likewise of myself; for she heard they had malicious intentions against the ministry and their friends. I know not whether there be any thing in this, though others are of the sante opinion.” The report concerning Mr. Burnet might be groundless; but it is certain that his time was not wholly spent in dissipation; for, being warmly devoted to the cause of the whigs, he commenced political writer against the administration of the four last years of queen Anne. No less than seven pamphlets of this kind, though without his name, were written by him, in 1712 and 1713. His first was entitled “A Letter to the People, to be left for them at the Booksellers; with a word or two of the Bandbox Plot.” This small tract is drawn up in short paragraphs, after the manner of Mr. Asgill; but not in ridicule of that author, who is spoken of in terms of high commendation. Another piece of Mr. Burnet’s was: “Our Ancestors as wise as we, or ancient Precedents for modern Facts, in answer to a Letter from a noble Lord;” which was followed by “The History of Ingratitude, or a second Part of ancient Precedents for modern Facts,” wherein many instances are related, chiefly from the Greek and Roman histories, of the ungrateful treatment to which the most eminent public characters have been exposed; and the whole is applied to the case of the duke of Marlborough. A subsequent publication, that had likewise a reference to the conduct of the ministry towards the same great general, and which was dedicated to him, was entitled “The true Character of an honest Man, especially with relation to public Affairs.” Another of Mr. Burnet’s tracts, which was called “Truth, if you can find it; or a Character of the present Ministry and Parliament,” was entirely of an ironical nature, and sometimes the irony is well supported. But our author’s principal political pamphlet, during the period we are speaking of, was, “A certain Information of a certain Discourse, that happened at a certain Gentleman’s House, in a certain County: written by a certain Person then present; to a certain Friend now at London; from whence you may collect the great Certainty of the Account.” This is a dialogue in defence of the principles and conduct of the whigs; and it gave such offence to queen Anne’s Tory ministry, that on account of it, Mr. Burnet was taken into custody in January 1712—13. He wrote, also, “Some new Proofs by which it appears that the Pretender is truly James the Third;” in which, from the information, we suppose, of his father, he gives the same account, in substance, of the Pretender’s birth, that was afterwards published in the bishop’s History of his own Time. What Mr. Burnet endeavours to make out is, that three supposititious children Vol. VII. C c were introduced; and consequently, that the “Pretender was James the Third;” or, to put it more plainly, “the third pretended James.” Whilst our young author, notwithstanding his literary application and engagements, still continued his wild courses, it is related, that his father one day seeing him uncommonly grave, asked what he was meditating. “A greater work,” replied the son, “than your lordship’s History of the Reformation.” “What is that, Tom?” “My own reformation, my lord.” “I shall be heartily glad to see it,” said the bishop, “but almost despair of it.” This, however, was happily accomplished, though, perhaps, not during the life of the good prelate, and Mr. Burnejt became not only one of the best lawyers of his time, but a very respectable character. After the accession of king George the First, he wrote a letter to the earl of Halifax, on “the Necessity of impeaching the late Ministry,” in which he urges the point with great zeal and warmth, and shews the utmost dislike of treating with any degree of lenity, a set of men whose conduct, in his opinion, deserved the severest punishment. He insists upon it, that the makers of the treaty of Utrecht ought to answer for their treasons with their heads. The letter to the earl of Halifax, which appeared with Mr. Burnet’s name, was followed by an anonymous treatise, entitled “A second Tale of a Tub; or the History of Robert Powel the Puppet-Showman.” This work, which is a satire on the earl of Oxford and his ministry, and is far from being destitute of wit and humour, hath never had the good fortune (nor, indeed, did it deserve it,) of being read and admired like the original “Tale of a Tub.” The author himself, in the latter part of his life, wished it to be forgotten; for we are well informed that he sought much for it, and purchased such copies as he could meet with, at a considerable price. Soon after his father’s death, he published “A Character of the right reverend father in God, Gilbert lord bishop of Sarum; with a true copy of his last Will and Testament.” In ridicule of this publication, was printed in Hudibrastic verse, and with a very small portion of merit, “A certain dutiful Son’s Lamentation for the Death of a certain right reverend; with the certain Particulars of certain Sums and Goods that are bequeathed him, which he will most certainly part with in a ctrtain time.” In 1715, Mr. Burnet, in conjunction with Mr. Ducket, wrote a truvestie of the first book of the Iliad, under the title of “Homerides;” which exposed him to the lash of Mr. Pope, and occasioned that great poet to give him a place, though not with remarkable severity, in the Dunciad. He was likewise concerned in a weekly paper, called “The Grumbler.” He was, however, soon, taken from these literary occupations, by being appointed his majesty’s consul at Lisbon, where he continued several years. Whilst he was in this situation, he had a dispute with lord Tyrawley, the ambassador, in which the merchants sided with Mr. Burnet. During the continuance of the dispute, the consul took an odd method of affronting-' his antagonist. Employing the same taylor, and having learned what dress his lordship intended to wear on a birthday, Mr. Burnet provided the same dress as liveries for his servants, and appeared himself in a plain suit. It is said, that in consequence of this quarrel (though how truly, may, perhaps, be doubted), the ambassador and consul were both recalled. Upon Mr. Burnet’s return to his country, he resumed the profession of the law. In 1723, he published, with a few explanatory notes, the first volume of his father’s “History of his own Time;” and, in 1732, wrote some remarks in defence of that history, in answer to lord Lansdowne’s letter to the author of the “Reflections historical and political.” When Mr. Burnet gave to the public, in 1734, the second volume of the bishop’s history, he added to it the life of that eminent prelate. In Easter term 1736 he was called to the degree of serjeant at law; and, in May 1740, was appointed king’s serjeant, in the room of serjeant Kyre > deceased. When, in 1741, judge Fortescue was raised to the mastership of the rolls, Mr. Burnet, in the month of October in that year, succeeded him as one of the justices of the court of common-pleas. On the 23d of No-/ vember, 1745, when the lord chancellor, the judges, and the associated gentlemen of the law, waited on the king, with their address on occasion of the rebellion, his majesty conferred upon him the honour of knighthood. He was also a member of the royal society. Sir Thomas Burnet continued in the court of common -pleas, with great reputation, to his death, which happened on the 5th of January, 1753. He died of the goat in his stomach, and left behind nim the character of an ab<e and upright judge, a sincere friend, a sensible and agreeable companion, and a munificent benefactor to the poor. Dr. Ferdinando Warner, in his dedication of sir Thomas More’s Life to the then lord keeper Henley, haying mentioned that Mr. justice Burnet recommended to him the translation of the Utopia, adds: “of whom I take this opportunity to say with pleasure, and which your lordship, I am sure, will allow me to say with truth, that for his knowledge of the world, and his able judgment of things, he was equalled by few, and excelled by none of his contemporaries.” The following clause in our learned judge’s will was the subject of conversation after his decease, and was inserted in the monthly collections, as being somewhat extraordinary. “I think it proper in this solemn act to declare, that as I have lived, so I trust I shall die, in the true faith of Christ as taught in the Scriptures; but not as taught or practised in any one visible church that I know of; though I think the church of England is as little stuffed with the inventions of men as any of them; and the church of Rome is so full of them, as to have destroyed all that is lovely in the Christian religion.” This clause gave occasion to the publication of a serious and sensible pamphlet, entitled: “The true Church of Christ, which, and where to be found, according to the Opinion of the late judge Burnet; with an Introduction concerning divine worship, and a caution to gospel preachers; in which are contained, the Reasons for that Declaration in his last Will and Testament.” A judgment may be formed of his abilities in his profession, from his argument in the case of Ryal and Rowls. In 1777 were published in 4to, “Verses written on several occasions, between the years 1712 and 1721.” These were the poetical productions of Mr. Burnet in his youth, of whom it is said by the editor, that he was connected in friendship and intimacy with those wits, which will for ever signalise the beginning of the present century; and that himself shone with no inconsiderable lustre amidst the constellation of geniuses which then so illustriously adorned the British hemisphere.

, an eminent modern poet of Scotland, was born on the 29th day of January, 1759, in a small house about two miles from the town of Ayr, in Scotland. His father, William, after various attempts to gain a livelihood, took a lease of seven acres of land, with a view of commencing nurseryman and public gardener; and having built a house upon it with his own hands, he married, December 1757, Agnes Brown. The first fruit of his marriage was Robert, who in his sixth year was sent to a school at Alloway Miln, about a mile distant from his father’s house, where he made considerable proficiency in reading and writing, and where he discovered an inclination for books not very common at so early an age. With these, however, he appears at that time to have been rather scantily supplied; but what he could obtain he read with avidity and improvement. About the age of thirteen, or fourteen, he was sent to the parish school of Dalrymple, where he increased his acquaintance with English gramroar, and gained some knowledge of the French language. Latin was also recommended to him; but he was not induced to make any great progress in it. In the intervals from these studies, he was employed on his father’s farm, which, in spite of much industry, became so unproductive as to involve the family in great distress. This early portion of affliction is said to have been, in a great measure, the cause of that depression of spirits of which our poet often complained, and during which his sufferings appear to have been very acute. His father having taken another farm, the speculation was yet more fatal, and involved his affairs in complete ruin. He died Feb. 13, 1784.

This calamity, the distresses of 4iis family, and a disappointment in a love affair, threw him for some time into a state of melancholy, which he seems to have considered as constitutional; but from which he was roused by an accidental acquaintance with some jovial companions, who gave a more gay turn to his sentiments. On his father’s death, he took a farm in conjunction with his brother, with the honourable view of providing for'their large and orphan family. On this farm our poet entered, with a resolution to be wise: he read books on agriculture, calculated crops, and attended markets. But here, too, he was doomed to be unfortunate, although, in his brother Gilbert, he had a coadjutor of excellent sense, a man of uncommon powers both of thought and expression. During his residence on. this farm with his brother, he formed a connexion with a young woman, the consequences of which could not be long concealed. In this dilemma, the imprudent couple agreed to make a legal acknowledgment of an irregular and private marriage, and projected that she should remain with her father, while he, having lost all hopes of success at home, was to go to Jamaica “to push his fortune.” This proceeding, however romantic it may appear, would have rescued the lady’s character, consonant to the laws of Scotland, which allow of greater latitude in the terms and period of the marriage-contract than those of England; but it did not satisfy her father, who insisted on having all the written documents respecting the marriage Cancelled, and by this unfeeling measure he intended that it should be rendered void. The daughter consented, probably under the awe of parental authority; and our poet, though with much anguish and reluctance, was also obliged to flubmit. Divorced now from all he held dear in the world, he had no resource but in his projected voyage to Jamaica, which was prevented by a circumstance which eventually laid the foundation of his future fame. For once, his poverty stood his friend: he was destitute of every necessary for the voyage, and was therefore advised to raise a sum of money by publishing his poems in the way of subscription. They were accordingly printed at Kilmarnock, in 1786, in a small volume, which was encouraged by subscriptions for about 350 copies. It is hardly possible, say his countrymen who were on the spot at this time, to express with what eager admiration and delight these poems were every where received. Old and young, high and low, grave and gay, learned and ignorant, all were alike delighted, agitated, transported. Such transports would naturally find their way into the bosom of the author* especially when he found that, instead of the necessity of flying from his native land, he was now encouraged to go to Edinburgh and superintend the publication of a second edition.

This was the most momentous period of his life, in which he was to emerge from obscurity and poverty to distinction and wealth. In the metropolis he was soon introduced into the company and received the homage of men of literature, rank, and taste; and his appearance and behaviour at this time, as they exceeded all expectation, heightened and kept up the curiosity which his works had excited. He became the object of universal admiration and fondness, and was feasted, caressed, and flattered, as if it had been impossible to reward his merit too highly, or to grace his triumphal entry by too many solemnities. But what contributed principally to extend his fame into the sister kingdom* was his fortunate introduction to Mr. Mackenzie, who^ in the 97th paper of the Lounger, then published periodically at Edinburgh, recommended his poems by judicious specimens, and such generous and elegant criticism, as placed the poet at once in the rank he was destined to hold. From this time, whether present or. absent, Burns and his genius were the objects which engrossed all attention and all conversation.

During, his residence at Edinburgh, his finances were considerably improved by the new edition of his poems; and thjs enabled him not only to partake of the pleasures of that city, but to visit several other parts of his native country. He left Edinburgh May 6, 1787, and in the course of his journey was hospitably received at the houses of many gentlemen of worth and learning, who introduced him to their friends and neighbours, and repeated the applauses on which he had feasted in the metropolis. Of this tour he wrote a journal, which still exists, and of which some specimens have been published. He afterwards travelled into England as far as Carlisle. In the beginning of June he arrived at JVfossgiel, near Mauchlin, in Ayrshire, after an absence of six months, during which he had experienced a happy reverse of fortune, to which the hopes of few men in his situation could have aspired. He performed another journey the same year, of which there are a few minutes in the work already referred to, and which furnished him with subjects for his muse. His companion in some of these tours was a Mr. Nicol, a man of considerable talents, but eccentric manners, who was endeared to Burns not only by the warmth of his friendship, but by a certain congeniality of sentiment and agreement in habits. This sympathy, in some other instances, made our poet capriciously fond of companions, who, in the eyes of men of more regular conduct and more refined notions, were insufferable.

It has already been noticed, that Burns very fondly cherished those notions of independence, and those feelings of an independent spirit that are dear to the young and ingenuous, and were, perhaps, not less so to him, because so often sung by the greatest of our poets. But he had not matured these notions by reflection; and he was now to learn, that a little knowledge of the world will overturn many such airy fabrics. If we may form any judgment, however, from his correspondence, his expectations were not very extravagant, since he expected only that some of his illustrious patrons would have placed him, on whom they had bestowed the honours of genius, in a situation where his exertions might have been uninterrupted by the fatigues of labour, and the calls of want. Disappointed in this, be now formed a design of applying for the office of exciseman, as a kind of resource in case his expectations from the farm should be baffled. By the interest of one of his friends, this object was accomplished; and after the usual forms were gone through, he was appointed exciseman, or, as it is vulgarly called, ganger, of the district in which he lived. It soon appeared, as might naturally have been expected, that the duties of this office were incompatible with his previous employment. “His farm,” says Dr. Currie, “was, in a great measure, abandoned to his servants, while he betook himself to the duties of his new appointment. He might still, indeed, be seen in the spring, directing his plough, a labour in which he excelled, or with a white sheet, containing his seed-corn, slung across his shoulders, striding with measured steps along his turned-up furrows, and scattering the grain in the earth. But his farm no longer occupied the principal part of his care or his thoughts. It was not at Ellisland that he was now in general to be found: Mounted on horse-back, this high: minded poet was pursuing the defaulters of the revenue among the hills and vales of Nithsdale, his roving eye wandering over the charms of nature, and muttering his wayward fancies as he moved along.”

As to the person of our poet, he is described as being nearly five feet ten inches in height, and of a form that indicated agility as well as strength. His well -raised forehead, shaded with black curling hair, expressed uncommon capacity. His eyes were large, dark, full of ardour and animation. His face was well formed, and his countenance uncommonly interesting. Of his general behaviour, some traits have already been given. It usually bespoke a mind conscious of superior talents, not however unmixed with the affections which beget familiarity and affability. It was consequently various, according to the various modes in which he was addressed, or supposed himself to be treated: for it may easily be imagined that he often felt disrespect where none was meant. His conversation is universally allowed to have been uncommonly fascinating, and rich in wit, humour, whim, and occasionally in serious and apposite reflection. This excellence, however, proved a lasting misfortune to him: for while it procured him the friendship of men of character and taste, in whose company his humour was guarded and chaste, it had also allurements for the lowest of mankind, who know no difference between freedom and licentiousness, and are never so completely gratified as when genius condescends to give a kind of sanction to their grossness. Yet with all his failings, no man had a quicker apprehension of right and wrongvin human conduct, or a stronger sense of what was ridiculous or mean in morals or manners. His own errors he well knew and lamented, and that spirit of independence which he claimed, and so frequently exhibited, preserved him from injustice or selfish insensibility. He died poor, but not in debt, and left behind him a name, the fame of which will not be soon eclipsed.

Of his poems, which have^been so often printed, and so eagerly read, it would be unnecessary here to enter into a critical examination. All readers of taste and sensibility have agreed to assign him a high rank among the rural poets of his country. His prominent excellencies are humour, tenderness, and sublimity; a combination rarely found in modern times, unless in the writings of a few poets of the very highest fame, with whom it would be improper to compare him. As he always wrote under the impression of actual feeling, much of the character of the man may be discovered in the poet. He executed no great work, for he never was in a situation which could afford the means of preparing, executing, and polishing a work of magnitude. His time he was compelled to borrow from labour, anxiety, and sickness. Hence his poems are short, various, and frequently irregular. It is not always easy to predict, from the beginning of them, what the conclusion or general management will be. They were probably written at one effort, and apparently with ease. He follows the guidance of an imagination, fertile in its images, but irregular in its expressions, and apt to be desultory. Hence Jie mixes the most affecting tenderness with humour almost coarse, and from this frequently soars to a sentiment of sublimity, a lofty flight, indicative of the highest powers of the art. Although in pursuit of flowers, he does not scruple to pick up a weed, if it has any thing singular in its appearance, or apposite in its resemblance. Yet the reader, who has been accustomed to study nature, and the varieties of the human mind, will always find something in unison with his boldest transitions.

If the merit of a poet is to be estimated by comparison, Burns has certainly surpassed his countrymen Ramsay and Fergusson, the only two writers of any eminence with whom a comparison has been, or can be instituted. In his early attempts, these were the best models he had to follow; and it is evident that he had studied their works, and derived considerable improvement from them. He acknowledged that, meeting with Fergusson’s Scottish Poems, he “strung his lyre anew with emulating vigour.” But still he exceeds in versatility of talent. The poems of Ramsay and Fergusson are characterized by humour or pathos only: but our poet, while his humour was more exuberant than theirs, and his pathos equally touching, rose superior by flights of the sublime and terrible, which they never attained. He may therefore be believed when he says, that “although he had these poets frequently in his eye, it was rather with a view to kindle at their flame, than to servile imitation.”

Burns was entirely the poet of nature. Of literature he had none. He knew the Greek and Roman poets, if he knew them at all, only in translations. There have been, indeed, few poets less indebted to art and education. He was a total stranger to the tinsel, the overloading epithets, and other shifts of modern poets. If he read French, he imbibed nothing of the French manner: but his knowledge of that language does not appear to have been very intimate, although some common-place phrases occur in his letters. What superior culture might have done for a mind naturally vigorous and easily susceptible of knowledge, we shall not now inquire. Burns’ s w: orks claim no charitable allowance on account of the obscurity of his birth, or the stnallness of his acquisitions; they are such as few scholars could have produced, and such as learning could not have materially improved: as a poet, he may await the verdict of criticism, without the least necessity of putting in the plea of poverty, or want of literature. In all his works, he discovers his feelings, without betraying his situation. Had they been sent into the world without a name, conjecture would have found no pretence to fix them on a ploughman, or to suppose that they were published merely to raise pity and relief.

By some it has been regretted, that the best performances of our poet are in a language now accounted barbarous, which is never used in serious writing, and which is gradually falling into disuse, because every man gets rid of it as soun as he can. It has been asked, why he should write only for a part of the island, when he could command the admiration of the whole? In answer, it has been urged, that he wrote for the peasantry of his country, in a language which was to them familiar, and rich in expression. It was likewise for many years the only language he knew so well as to be able to express himself fluently in it; fyis early thoughts were conveyed in it, and it was endeared to him by the pleasures of memory and association. He wrote it when he had no very extensive ambition, and when he had no suspicion that it would obscure his sentiments, or narrow his fame. Nor, it must be confessed, has he been disappointed in his expectations, if we suppope that they were more enlarged. In England, Ireland, and America, his poems have been read and studied with pleasure and avidity, amidst all the interruptions of glossarial reference. These remarks, however, do not apply to many of his graver poems which are written in English, and in English which proves that he had cultivated that language with attention and success; although he did not conceive it to be adapted to such pieces as he intended, perhaps exclusively, far the use of his humble neighbours, and tagive classic dignity to his native scenery.

, a poet of a very singular cast, was born at Strensham in Worcestershire, and baptized Feb. 8, 1612. His father’s condition is variously represented. Wood mentions him as competently wealthy; but the author of the short account of Butler, prefixed to Hudibras, who, Dr. Johnson erroneously says, was Mr. Longueville, asserts he was an honest farmer with some small estates who made a shift to educate his son at the grammar-school of Worcester, under Mr. Henry Bright, from whose care he removed for a short time to Cambridge; but, for want of money, was never made a member of any college. Wood leaves us rather doubtful whether he went to Cambridge of Oxford; but at last makes him pass six or seven years at Cambridge, without knowing in what hall or college: yet it can hardly be imagined that he lived so long in either university, but as belonging to one house or another; and it is still less likely that he could have so long inhabited a place of learning with so little distinction as to leave his residence uncertain. Dr. Nash has discovered that his father was owner of a house and a little land, worth about eight pounds, a year, still called Butler’s tenement. Wood had his information from his brother, whose narrative placed him at Cambridge, in opposition to that of his neighbours, which sent him to Oxford. The brother’s seems the best authority, till, by confessing his inability to tell his hall or college, he gives reason to suspect that he was resolved to bestow on him an academical education, but durst not name a college, for fear of detection. Having, however, discovered an early inclination for learning, his father placed him at the free-school of Worcester; whence he was sent, according to the above report, for some time to Cambridge. He afterwards returned to his native country, and became clerk to one Mr. Jefferys of Earl’s Croomb, an eminent justice of the peace for that county, with whom he lived some years in an easy and reputable station. Here he found sufficient leisure to apply himself to whatsoever learning his inclinations led him; which was chiefly history and poetry; adding to these, for his diversion, music and painting. He was afterwards recommended to that great encourager of learning, Elizabeth countess of Kent; in whose house he had not only the opportunity of consulting all kinds of books, but of conversing with Mr. Seldeo, who often employed him to write letters beyond sea, and translate for him. He lived some time also with sir Samuel Luke, a gentleman of an ancient family in Bedfordshire, and a famous commander under Oliver Cromwell. Whilst he resided in this gentleman’s family, it is generally supposed that he planned, if he did not write, the celebrated Hudibras; under which character it is thought he intended to ridicule that knight. After the restoration of Charles II. he was made secretary to Richard earl of Carbury, lord president of the principality of Wales, who appointed him. steward of Ludlow-castle, when the Court was revived there. In this part of his life, he married Mrs. Herbert, a gentlewoman of a good family; and lived, says Wbod^ upon her fortune, having studied the common law, but never practised it. A fortune she had, says his biographer, but it was lost by bad securities. In 1663 was published the first part, containing three cantos, of the poem of “Hudibras,” which, as Prior relates, was made known at court by the taste and influence of the earl of Dorset, and when known, it was necessarily admired: the king quoted, the courtiers studied, and the whole party of the royalists applauded it. Every eye watched for the golden shower which was to fall upon the author, who certainly was not without his share in the general expectation. In 1664 the second part appeared; the curiosity of the nation was rekindled, and the writer was again praised and elated. But praise was his whole reward. Clarendon, says Wood, gave him reason to hope for “places and employments of value and credit;” but no such advantages did he ever obtain. It is reported, that the king once gave him 300 guineas; but of this temporary bounty we find no proof. Wood relates that he was secretary to Villiers duke of Buckingham, when he was chancellor of Cambridge: this is doubted by the other writer, who yet allows the duke to have been his frequent benefactor. That both these accounts are false there is reason to suspect, from a story told by Pack, in his account of the life ef Wycherley, and from some verses which Mr. Thyer has published in the author’s Remains. “Mr. Wycherley,” says Pack, “had always laid hold of any opportunity which offered of representing to the duke of Buckingham how well Mr. Butler had deserved of the royal family, by writing his inimitable Hudibras; and that it was a reproach to the court, that a person of his loyalty and wit should suffer in obscurity, and under the wants he did. The duke always seemed to hearken to him with attention enough; and, after some time, undertook to recommend his pretensions to his majesty. Mr. Wycherley, in Jiopes to keep him steady to his word, obtained of his grace to name a day, when he might introduce that modest and unfortunate poet to his new patron. At last an appointment was made, and the place of meeting was agreed to be the Roebuck. Mr. Butler and his friend attended accordingly: the duke joined them; but, as the devil would have it, the door of the room where they sat was open, and his grace, who had seated himself near it, observing a pimp of his acquaintance (the creature too was a knight) trip by with a brace of ladies, immediately quitted his engagement, to follow another kind of business, at which he was more ready than in doing good offices to men of desert; though no one was better qualified than he, both in regard to his fortune and understanding, to protect them; and, from that time to the day of his death, poor Butler never found the least effect of his promise!” Such is the story. The verses are written with a degree of acrimony, such as neglect and disappointment might naturally excite; and such as it would be hard to imagine Butler capable of expressing against a man who had any claim to his gratitude. Notwithstanding this discouragement and neglect, he still prosecuted his design; and in. 1678 published the third part, which still leaves the poem imperfect and abrupt. How much more he originally intended, or with what events the action was to be concluded, it is vain to conjecture. Nor can it be thought strange that he should stop here, however unexpectedly. To write without reward is sufficiently unpleasing. He had now arrived at an age when he might think it proper to be in jest no longer, and perhaps his health might now begin to fail. He died Sept. 25, 1680; and Mr. Longueville, having unsuccessfully solicited a subscription for his internment in Westminster abbey, buried him at his own cost in the chureb-yard of Covent Garden. Dr. Simon Patrick read the service. About sixty years afterwards, Mr. Barber, a printer, lord mayor of London, bestowed on him a monument in Westminster abbey.

In these particulars we have chiefly followed the account drawn up by Dr. Johnson for his edition of the English Poets, and must refer to the same for that eminent critic’s masterly dissertation on the merit of Butler as a poet. In 1744, Dr. Grey published an edition of Hudibras, 2 vols. 8vo, with plates by Hogarth, and notes illustrative of those passages and allusions which, from the lapse of time, were becoming obscure. This long remained the standard edition, until in 1794, Dr. Nash, the historian of Worcestershire, published a new edition in 2 vols. 4to, and one of notes, abridged, improved, and corrected from Dr. Grey’s edition; with an inquiry into the life of Butler, containing, however, few particulars that are not generally known.

During his residence in France, he met with Malebranche’s “Search after Truth,” and some of the works of Mademoiselle Bourignon, the consequence of which, Dr. Nichols informs us, was, that he came home strongly possessed with the visionary philosophy of the former, and the enthusiastic extravagances of the latter. From the order of his poems, however, which was probably that of their respective dates, he appears to have been at first rather a disciple of the celebrated Mr. Law, and a warm opponent of those divines who were termed latitudinarian. His admiration of Malebranche, and of Bourignon, afterwards increased, but he never followed either so far as to despise human learning, in which his acquirements were great; and the delight which he took in various studies, ended only with his life. By what means he was maintained abroad, or after his return, are matters of conjecture. His biographer tells nothing of his father’s inclination or abilities to forward his pursuits. It is said that he studied medicine in London for some time; and thence acquired, among his familiar friends, the title of Doctor Byrom. But this pursuit was interrupted by his falling In love with his cousin, Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph Bylom, a mercer at Manchester, then on a visit in London. To this young lady he disclosed his passion, and followed her to Manchester, where the ardour of his addresses soon procured a favourable return. Her father, however, was extremely averse to the match, and when it took place without his consent, refused the young couple any means of support. Dr. Nichols assigns two reasons for this conduct, which are not very consistent: the one, that the father was in opulent circumstances; the other, that he thought our poet out of his senses, and therefore would not permit him to superintend the education of his children, but took that care upon himself. If so, however wrong his reasons might be, he could not be said to withdraw his support; and he was probably soon convinced that he had formed an erroneous estimate of Viis son-in-law’s understanding and general character.

The character of Byrom, as a poet, has been usually said to rest on his pastoral of Colin and Phebe, which has been universally praised for its natural simplicity; but, if we inquire what it is that pleases in this poem, we shall probably find that it is not 4:he serious and simple expression of a pastoral lover, but the air of delicate humour which runs through the whole, and inclines us to think, contrary to the received opinion, that he had no other object in view. Much, therefore, as this piece has been praised, he appears to have more fully established his character in many of those poems written at a more advanced age, and published for the first time, in two elegant volumes, at Manchester, inl 1773, especially “The Verses spoken extempore at the meeting of a Club”——“The Astrologer” ——“The Pond”——“Contentment, or the Happy Workman”——most of his Tales and Fables, and the paraphrase on the twenty-third psalm, entitled a “Divine Pastoral.” In these there appears so much of the genuine spirit of poetry, and so many approaches to excellence, that it would be difficult even upon the principles of fastidious criticism, and impossible upon those of comparison, to exclude Byrom from a collection of English poets. His muse is said to have been so kind, that he always found it easier to express his thoughts in verse than in prose, and although this preference appears in many cases where the gravity of prose only ought to have been employed, yet merely as literary curiosities, the entire works of Byrom appear to deserve the place allotted to them in the late edition of the English poets, 1810, 21 vols. 8vo.

, or Cab-Ben-Zohair, a distinguished Arabian poet, was one of the rabbis among those Arabians who had embraced Judaism. Mahomet, irritated by a satirical poem which Caab had written against him and his new sect, made war on the Jewish Arabian tribes, in hopes of seizing him and putting him to death. Caab, however, contrived to escape his fury, until Mahomet had made himself master of Arabia, when he had the art to be reconciled to him, turned Mahometan, and altered his poem by inserting the name of Abubeker wherever that of Mahomet occurred; and as these concessions did not seem to effect a complete reconciliation, he wrote a poem in favour of one of his mistresses, which was so successful that Mahomet received him into friendship, and bestowed on him his own mantle, which the caliph Moavias purchased when he came to the throne, and it became the dress of his successors on state occasions. Caab is also said to have had a considerable hand in drawing up the Alcoran. According to Herbelot he died in the first year of the hegira, or A. C. 622. An edition of his poem in praise of Mahomet was published under the title “Caab Ben-Zohair carmen panegyricum in laudem Mohammedis, &c.” Leyden, 1748, 4to, with an eloge by Albert Scultens.

There was also Benedict Cagliari, a painter and sculptor, who was Paul’s brother, and lived and studied with him. He assisted him, and afterwards his sons, in finishing several of their compositions; but was most successful in. painting architecture, in which he delighted. His style in painting was like his brother’s; and not being ambitious enough of fame to keep his productions separate, they are, in a great measure, confounded with Paul’s. He practised for the most part in fresco; and some of his best pieces are in chiaro-obscuro. He possessed moreover a tolerable stock of learning, was something of a poet, and had a peculiar talent in satire. He died in 1598, aged 'sixty-six.

, a canon of the church of Ferrara, and a poet and orator of considerable distinction, was born at Ferrara in 1479, and, as generally supposed, was the natural son of a person who was an apostolic notary. He studied under Peter Pomponazzo, but devoting himself to a military life, served under the emperor Maximilian. He afterwards engaged in the service. of Julius II. and was employed in several important negociations. Returning to Ferrara, he obtained the particular favour of the family of Este, and was chosen to accompany the cardinal Ippolito on his journeyMiuo Hungary. About the year 1520, he was appointed professor of the belles lettres in the university of Ferrara, which situation he filled with great credit until his death in 1541. He was interred in the library of the Jacobins, to which he bequeathed his books, and on which are two inscriptions to his memory, one signifying that “by continual study, he had learned to despise earthly things, and not to be insensible of his own ignorance,” (ignorantiam suam non ignorare.) His works were published at Basil in 1541, one vol. folio, or according to Moreri, in 1544, and contain sixteen books of epistles, and philosophical, political, and critical dissertations on various subjects, and he also wrote some Latin poetry, which the critics of his time prefer to his prose, the latter being heavy, unequal, and affected; his poetry was published with the poems of John Baptista Pigna and Louis Ariosto, at Venice, 1553, 8vo. He appears to have corresponded with Erasmus, whom, like many others, he blamed for his undecided character in the questions which arose out of the reformation.

, a celebrated Spanish dramatic poet, was chevalier of the order of St. James, and at first distinguished himself as a soldier. This profession he quitted, and became an ecclesiastic, and was made priest and canon of Toledo. There are several dramatical pieces by him in 9 vols. 4 to, Madrid, 1689; not to mention several others that have not been printed. The imagination of Calderoni, however, was too fertile to allow him to be regular and correct. The rules of the drama are violated in almost all his works. We perceive in his tragedies the irregularity of Shakspeare, his elevation and his degradation, flashes of genius as strong, comic turns as much out of place, an inflation no less capricious, and the same bustle of action and incident. Some of his pieces are still performed on the Spanish stage, and some have been translated into French. This poet flourished about the year 1640.

, a modern Latin poet of the fifteenth century, was a native of Naples, and became preceptor to Frederic, the son of Ferdinand I. king of Naples, whom he endeavoured to inspire with the love of those virtues and principles of justice which would dignify his high station. He did not approve of condemning malefactors to death. According to him, “thieves should be obliged to restore what they had stolen, after being beaten for the theft; homicides should be made slaves; and other criminals be sent to the mines and the gallies.” He had also studied and practised agriculture and horticulture with great success. Having conic to France, he was a witness of the war between Charles the hardy, duke of Burgundy, and the Swiss, the history of which he was requested to write, but declined it, as he thought it did not become him to speak ill of princes, or to tell what was not true. It appears by his letters that he married young, was extremely fond of his wife, and had many children. Yet he was accused of illicit amours, which it is said kept him poor. He is supposed to have died about 1503. There have been three editions of his works, two at Rome, one in 1503, fol. “Opuscula Elisii Calentii, poetae clarissimi;” and a third at Basil, 1554. They consist of elegies, epigrams, epistles; the battle of the frogs, imitated from Homer; satires, fables, &c. &c. His poem of the battle between the rats and the frogs, from Homer, was reprinted in 1738 at Rouen, in a collection, 12mo, of select fables of la Fontaine put into Latin verse, published by the abbe Saas. Calentius composed this poem at eighteen years of age, and finished it in seven days.

, a learned divine of the sixteenth century, otherwise named Calfield, Cawfield, Chalfhill, or Calfed, was born in Shropshire, in 1530. Strype, however, says he was a Scotchman, and cousin to Toby Malhew, afterwards archbishop of York. He received his education at Eton school, and from thence was sent, in 1545, to King’s college in Cambridge, from which he was removed, with many Other Cambridge men, in 1548, to Christ Church in Oxford, newly founded by king Henry VIII. Here be shewed himself to be a person of quick wit and great capacity; being an excellent poet and author of a tragedy, with other theatrical performances. In 1549, he took his degree of bachelor of arts; and that of master in 1552, being junior of the act celebrated in St. Mary’s church, July 18. He was made, in 1560, canon of the second canonry in Christ Church cathedral, Oxon; and, On the 12th of December 1561, took the degree of bachelor of divinity. In 1562 he was proctor for the clergy of London and the chapter of Oxford in the convocation that made the XXXIX Articles and on the 16th of May, the same year, was admitted to the rectory of St. Andrew Wardrobe, London. The 4th of October following, he was presented by the crown to the prebend of St. Pancras, in the cathedral church of St. Paul; and May 4, 1565, was collated by Matthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury, to the rectory of Booking, in Essex; and on July 16th following, to the archdeaconry of Colchester in Essex, by Edmund Grindal, bishop of London. The same year, December 17th, he took the degree of doctor in divinity. In 1568, he preached two sermpns in Bristol cathedral, on purpose to confute Dr. Cheney, who held that see in commendam, and who had spoken disrespectfully of certain opinions of Luther and Calvin. In 1569 he made application to secretary Cecil, chancellor of the university of Cambridge, for the provostship of king’s college, but Dr. Goad’s interest prevailed. Upon the translation of.Dr. Edwin Sandys from the bishopric of Worcester to that of London in 1570, Dr. Calfhiil was nominated by queen Elizabeth to succeed him 3 but before his consecration he died, about the beginning of August (having a little before resigned his canonry of Christ Church, and rectory of St. Andrew Wardrobe), and was buried in the chancel of Bocking church. His works were, 1. “Querela Oxoniensis Academise ad Cantabrigiam,” Lond. 1552, 4to, a Latin poem on the death of Henry and Charles Brandon, sons of Charles duke of Suffolk, who died of the sweating-sickness in the bishop of Lincoln’s house at Bugden, July 14, 1551. 2. “Historia de exhumatione Catherines nuper uxoris Pet. Martyris;” or, The History of the digging up the body of Catherine late wife of Peter Martyr, Lond. 1562, 8vo. The remains of this lady had been deposited in the cathedral of Christ Church, near to the relics of St. Frideswide, and in queen Mary’s reign were dug up and buried in the dunghill near the stables belonging to the dean; but on the accession of queen Elizabeth, an order was given to replace them with suitable solemnity. This order our author partly executed, and the remains of Martyr’s wife were on this occasion purposely mixed with those of St. Frideswide, that the superstitious worshippers of the latter might never be able to distinguish or separate them. 3. Answer to John Martiall’s “Treatise of the Cross, gathered out of the Scriptures, Councils, and ancient Fathers of the primitive Church,” Lond. 1565, 4to. 4. “Progne,” a tragedy, in Latin; whichprobably was never printed. It was acted before que^n Elizabeth at Oxford in 1566, in Christ Church hall; but, says Wood, “it did not take half so well as the much admired play of Palsemon and Arcyte,” written by Edwards. 5. “Poemata varia.” As to his character, we are informed, that he was in his younger days a noted poet and comedian and in his elder, an exact disputant, and had an excellent faculty in speaking and preaching. One who had heard him preach, gives this account of him: “His excellent tongue, and rhetorical tale, tilled with good and wholesome doctrine, so ravished the minds of the hearers, that they were all in admiration of his eloquence.” One John Calfhill, chaplain to Dr. Matthew, archbishop of York, a prebendary of Durham, &c. who died in 1619, was probably son to our author.

, an ancient Greek poet, was born at Cyrene, a town in Africa, and flourished under the Ptolemies Philadelphus and Euergetes; Berenice, queen of the latter, having consecrated her locks in the temple of Venus, ad a flattering astronomer having translated them from thence into a constellation in the heavens, gave occasion to the fine elegy of this poet, which we have now only in the Latin of Catullus. He may be placed, therefore, about 280 B. C. His common name Battiades has made the grammarians usually assign one Battus for his father; but perhaps he may as well derive that name from king Battus, the founder of Cyrene, from whose line, as Strabo assures us, he declared himself to be descended. But whoever was his father, the poet has paid all his duties and obligations to him in a most delicate epitaph, which we find in the Anthologia; and which shews that Martial had good reason to assign him, as he has done, the crown among the Grecian writers of the epigram. He was educated under Hermocrates, the grammarian; and before he was recommended to the favour of the kings of Egypt, he taught a school at Alexandria; and had the honour of educating Apollonius, the author of the Argonautics. But Apollonius making an ungrateful return to his master for the pains he had taken with him, Callimachus was provoked to revenge himself in an invective poem, called Ibis; which, it is known? furnished Ovid with a pattern and title for a satire of the same nature. Suidas relates, that Callimachus wrote above 800 pieces; of which we have now remaining only a few hymns and epigrams, Quintilian is very justifiable in having asserted, that Callimachus was the first of all the elegiac poets. He has the credit of having first spoken the proverbial saying, “a great book is a great evil,” which critics have been fonder of repeating than authors.

We know no more of the time of this poet’s death than we do of th,at of his birth; but it was probably in the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes: for Apollonius Rhodius, who was his scholar, was chosen by that prince to the care of the Alexandrian library, and after dying in that office was buried in Callimachus’s grave.

, or Calphurnius, a Latin poet, a native of Sicily, lived about the end of the third century, under the emperors Carus, Carinus, and Numeriamis. Seven of his eclogues are extant, which were once in such high reputation as to he read in schools; hut they have not preserved their reputation, and are generally considered, notwithstanding some occasional passages of genius, as indicating the declining taste of the age. Poggio is said to have found them in England, and sent them to his friend Niccolo Niccoli. They are published in the “Poetae rei Venaticae,” Leyden, 1728, 4to, and in the “Poetae Latini Minores;” but there are editions along with Silius Italicus and other writers, as early as 1471, 1472, 1481, &c. The latest edition is that of Beck, Leipsic, 1803, 8vo, with notes and a glossary. Adelung translated them into German, and published them in 1805, in a magnificent manner.

Mr. Cambridge was not so fortunate in a hero. He was content to take up Scriblerus where Pope and Swift, or rather Arbuthnot, left him, a motley, ideal being, without an exemplar, combining in one individual, all that is found ridiculous in forgotten volumes, or among the pretenders to science and the believers of absurdities. Mr. Cambridge’s hero, therefore, without any qualities to se< cure our esteem, is an antiquary, a pedant, an alchymist, and what seldom is found among such characters, a poet. In conducting him through a series of adventures, upon the plan sketched by the triumvirate above mentioned, it is with great difficulty that he is able to avoid the error they fell into, either of inventing nonsense for the sake of laughing at it, or of glancing their ridicule at the enthusiasm of useful research, and the ardour of real science and justifiable curiosity. The composition of the Scribleriad is in general so regular, spirited, and poetical, that we cannot but wish the author had chosen a subject of more permanent interest. The versification is elegant, and the epithets chosen with singular propriety. The events, although without much connection, all add something to the character of the hero, and the conversations, most gravely ironical, while they remind us of the serious epics, are never unnecessarily protracted.

, a very celebrated Portuguese poet, and from his much-admired poem the “Lusiadas,” called the Virgil of Portugal, was descended from an illustrious, and originally, Spanish family, and was born at Lisbon about the year 1524. His father Simon Vaz de Camoens is said to have perished by shipwreck in the year which gave being to his son, although this is somewhat doubtful. It appears, however, that our poet was sent to the university of Coimbra, and maintained there by his surviving parent. On his arrival in Lisbon, he became enamoured of Donna Catarina de Ataide, whom he addressed with all the romantic ardour of youth and poetry, but according to the prescribed reserve, or prudery of the age, obtained no higher mark of her favour, after many months of adoration, than one of the silken fillets which, encircled her head. His impatience, however, hurried him into some breaches of decorum, while pursuing his coy mistress, who was one of the queen’s ladies, and her parents took this opportunity to terminate an intercourse which worldly considerations rendered, on her part, of the highest imprudence. This interference produced its usual effect. Camoens was banished the court, and on the morning of his departure, Catarina confessed to him the secret of her long-concealed affection. Thus comforted, he removed to Santarem, the place of his banishment, but is said to have speedily returned to Lisbon, where he was again detected, and again sent into exile.

He now sought and obtained permission to accompany king John III. in an expedition concerted against the Moors in Africa. His conduct in this campaign was so heroic, that he obtained permission to return home, where he found that his mistress was dead. To aggravate his sorrows, he obtained no reward for his services, after much application; and stung with the ingratitude of his country, he determined to leave it. Mr. Mickle, but without quoting his authority, attributes this event to the discovery of an intrigue which he carried on with the wife of a Portuguese nobleman, a circumstance not very improbable, as all his biographers allow that he was not very correct in his morals. He sailed, however, for India, and contributed, in no small measure, to the success of an expedition against the Pimenta Isles, carried on by the king of Cochin and his allies the Portuguese. In the following year (1555), Manuel de Vasconcelos conducted an armament to the Red Sea. Our poet accompanied him, and with the intrepid curiosity of genius, explored the wild regions of Africa by which Mount Felix is surrounded. Here his mind was stored with sketches of scenery, which afterwards formed some of the most finished pictures in his Lusiad, and in his other compositions.

Camoens wrote a variety of poetical compositions, some of which have been lately very elegantly translated into English by lord viscount Strangford, who has also prefixed a life of the author, from which we have extracted some remarks. According to the researches his lordship has made into the character of Camoens, he appears to have possessed a lofty and independent spirit, with a disposition to gallantry which may probably have involved him in difficulties. His genius, however, appears principally io the “Lusiad,” the subject of which is the first discovery of the East Indies by Vasco de Gama the poem is conducted according to the epic plan: both the subject and the in r cidents are magnificent, but the machinery is perfectly extravagant. Not only, says Blair, is it formed of a singular mixture of Christian ideas and pagan mythology, tout it is so conducted, that the pagan gods appear to be the true deities, and Christ and the blessed Virgin, to be subordinate agents. One great scope of the Portuguese expedition, our author informs us, is to propagate the Christian faith, and to extirpate Mahometanism. In this religious undertaking, the great protector of the Portuguese is Venus, and their great adversary is Bacchus, whose displeasure is excited by Vasco’s attempting to rival his tame in the Indies. Councils of the gods are held, in which Jupiter is introduced, as foretelling the downfall of Mahometanism, and the propagation of the gospel Vasco, in a great distress from a storm, prays most seriously to God; implores the aid of Christ and the Virgin; and begs for such assistance as was given to the Israelites, when they were passing through the Red Sea; and to the apostle Paul, when he was in hazard of shipwreck. In return to this prayer, Venus appears, who, discerning the storm to be the work of Bacchus, complains to Jupiter, and procures the winds to be calmed. Such strange and preposterous machinery, shews how much authors have been misled by the absurd opinion, that there could be no epic poetry without the gods of Homer. Towards the end of the work, indeed, the author gives us an awkward salvo for his whole mythology: making the goddess Thetis inform Vasco, that she, and the rest of the heathen deities, are no more than names to describe the operations of Providence. There is, however, says the same judicious critic, some fine machinery of a different kind in the Lusiad. The genius of the river Ganges, appearing to Emanuel king of Portugal, in a dream, inviting that prince to discover his secret springs, and acquainting him that he was the destined monarch for whom the treasures of the East were reserved, is a happy idea. But the noblest conception of this sort is in the fifth canto, where Vasco is recounting to the king of Melinda all the wonders which he met with in his navigation. He tells him, that when the fleet arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, which never before had been doubled by any navigator, there appeared to them on a sudden, a huge and monstrous phantom rising out of the sea, in the midst of tempests and thunders, with a head that reached the clouds, and a countenance that filled them with terror. This was the genius, or guardian, of that hitherto unknown ocean. It spoke to them with a voice like thunder: menaced them for invading those seas which he had so long possessed undisturbed, and for daring to explore those secrets of the deep, which never had been revealed to the eye of mortals; required them to proceed no farther: if they should proceed, foretold all the successive calamities that were to befall them: and then, with a mighty noise, disappeared. This is one of the most solemn and striking pieces of machinery that ever was employed, and is sufficient to show that Camoens is a poet, though of an irregular, yet of a bold and lofty imagination. The critical student will find a more severe censure of Canioens in Rapin, Dryden, and Voltaire. But the Lusiad lias generally been considered as a poem of very superior merit, and has been often reprinted and translated into several languages, once into French, twice into Italian, four times into Spanish; and lately, with uncommon excellence, into English, by Mr. Mickle; but it had beea translated in the 17th century by sir Richard Fanshaw. Mickle’s translation will be considered in his life. It was translated into Latin by Thomas de Faria, bishop of Targa in Africa; who, concealing his name, and saying nothing of its being a translation, made some believe that the Lusiadas was originally in Latin. Large commentaries have been written upon the Lusiadas; the most considerable of which are those of Emanuel Faria de Sousa, in 2 vols. folio, Madrid, 1639. These commentaries were followed the year after with the publication of another volume in folio, written to defend them; besides eight volumes of observations upon the miscellaneous poems of Camoens, which this commentator left behind him in manuscript.

, an Italian poet and prelate, was born in 1427 at Cavelli, a village of Campania, of parents so obscure that he bore no name but that of his country, and was employed in his early years as a shepherd, in which situation an ecclesiastic discovering some promise of talents in him, sent him to Naples, where he studied under Laurentius Valla. He went afterwards to Perugia, where he rose to be professor of eloquence, and filled that chair with so much reputation, that when, in 1459, pope Pius II. happened to pass through Perugia in his way to the council of Mantua, he bestowed his patronage on him, and made him bishop of Crotona, and secondly of Teramo. Enjoying the same favour under pope Paul II. this pontiff sent him to the congress of Ratisbon, which assembled for the purpose of consulting on a league of the Christian princes against the Turks. Sixtus IV. who had been one of his scholars at Perugia, made him successively governor of Todi, of Foligno, and of Citta di Castello; but the pope having thought proper to besiege this last named city, because the inhabitants made some scruple about receiving his troops, Campano, touched with the hardships they were likely to suffer, wrote to the pope with so much freedom and spirit as to enrage his holiness, and provoke him to deprive him of his government, and banish him from the ecclesiastical states. Campano on this went to Naples, but not rinding the reception he expected, he retired to his bishopric at Teramo, where he died July 15, 1477, of chagrin and disappointment. His works, which were first printed at Rome in 1495, fol. consist of several treatises on moral philosophy, discourses, and funeral orations, and nine books of letters, in which there is some curious information with respect both to the political and literary history of his times. This volume contains likewise, the life of pope Pius II. and of Braccio of Perugia, a famous military character, and lastly, of eight book of elegies and epigrams, some of which are rather of too licentious a nature to accord with the gravity of his profession. These, or part of them, were reprinted at Leipsic in 1707, and in 1734. Campano was at one time a corrector of the press to Udalric, called Gallus, the first printer of Rome, and wrote prefaces to Livy, Justin, Plutarch, and some other of the works which issued from that press.

honour of claiming a descent from the poet Waller. Our anthor was their fourth son; and at the age of five years, was brought to Windsor from Scotland, which country he never saw afterwards. At a proper age he was placed out as clerk to an attorney, being intended for the law; but whether it was that his genius could not be confined to that dry study, or to whatever causes besides it might be owing, it is certain that he did not pursue his original designation: neither did he engage in any other profession, unless that of an author, in which he did not spend his time in idleness and dissipation, but in such a close application to the acquisition of knowledge of various kinds, as soon enabled him to appear with great advantage in the literary world. What smaller pieces might be written by Mr. Campbell in the early part of his life, we are not capable of ascertaining, but, in 1736, before he had completed his thirtieth year, he gave to the publick, in 2 vols. folio, “The military history of prince Eugene, and the duke of Marlborough; comprehending the history of both those illustrious persons to the time of their decease.” This performance was enriched with maps, plans, and cuts, by the best hands, and particularly by the ingenious Claude de Bosc. The reputation hence acquired by our author, occasioned him soon after to be solicited to take a part in the “Ancient Universal History.” In this work Dr. Kippis says he wrote on the Cosmogony; but Dr. Johnson assigns him the history of the Persians, and of the Constantinopolitan empire. Whilst employed in this capital work, Mr. Campbell found leisure to entertain the world with other productions. In 1739 he published the “Travels and adventures of Edward Brown, esq.” 8vo. In the same year appeared his “Memoirs of the bashaw duke de Rippercla,” 8vo, reprinted, with improvements, in 1740. These memoirs were followed, in 1741, by the “Concise history of Spanish America,” 8vo. In 1742 he was the author of “A letter to a friend in the country, on the publication of Thurloe’s State papers;” giving an account of their discovery, importance, and utility. The same year was distinguished by the appearance of the 1st and 2d volumes of his “Lives of the English Admirals, and other ^eminent Britisii ^eamen.” The two remaining volumes were completed in 1744; and the whole, not long after, was translated into German. This, we believe, was the first of Mr. Campbell’s works to which he prefixed his name; and it is a performance of great and acknowledged merit. The good reception it met with was evidenced in its passing through three editions in his own life-time; and a fourth was afterwards given to the public, under the inspection of Dr. Berkenhout. In 1743 he published “Hermippus Revived” a second edition of which, much improved and enlarged, came out in 1749, under the following title “Hermippus Redivivus or, the sage’s triumph over old age and the grave. Wherein a method is laid down for prolonging the life and vigour of man. Including a commentary upon an ancient inscription, in which this great secret is revealed; supported by numerous authorities. The whole interspersed with a great variety of remarkable and well-attested relations.” This extraordinary tract had its origin in a foreign publication, under the title of “Hermippus Redivivus,” Coblentz, 1743, but it was much improved by our author, and is a singular mixture of gravity and irony. The “great secret” is no other than inhaling the breath of young females, by which, we learn from an inscription in Reinesius’s Supplement to Gruter, one Hermippus prolonged his life to the age of 115. Mr. Campbell, in 1744, gave to the public in 2 vols. fol. his “Voyages and Travels,” on Dr. Harris’s plan, being a very distinguished improvement of that collection, which had appeared in 1705. The work contains all the circumnavigators from the time of Columbus to lord Anson; a complete history of the East Indies; historical details of the several attempts made for the discovery of the northeast and north-west passages; the commercial history of Corea and Japan; the Russian discoveries by land and, sea; a distnct account of the Spanish, Portuguese, British, French, Dutch, and Danish settlements in America; with other pieces not to be found in any former collection. The whole was conducted wijh eminent skill and judgment, and the preface is acknowledged to be a master-piece of composition and information. The time and care employed by Mr. Campbell in this important undertaking did not prevent his engaging in another great work, the Biographia Britannica, which began to be published in weekly numbers in 1745, and the first volume of which was completed in 1746, as was the second in 1748.

, was born at Toulouse in 1656, and shewed an early taste for poetry, whichwas improved by a good education, and when he came to Paris, he took Racine for his guide in the dramatic career. But, though it may be allowed that Campistron approached his merit in the conduct of his pieces, yet he could never equal him in the beauties of composition, nor in his enchanting versification. Too feeble to avoid the defects of Racine, and unable like him to atone for them by beautiful strokes of the sublime, he copied him in his soft manner of delineating the love of his heroes, of whom, it must be confessed, he sometimes made inamoratos fitter for the most comic scenes than for tragedy, in which passion ought always to assume an elevated style. Racine, while he was forming Campistron for the drama, was not inattentive to promote the fortune of the young* poet. Having proposed him to the duke de Vendome for the composition of the heroic pastoral of “Acis and Galatea,” which he designed should be represented at his chateau of Anet, that prince, well satisfied both with his character and his talents, first made him secretary of his orders, and then secretary general of the gallies. He afterwards got him made knight of the military order of St. James in Spain, commandant of Chimene, and marquis of Penange in Italy. The poet, now become necessary to the prince, by the cheerfulness of his temper and the vivacity of his imagination, attended him on his travels into various countries. Campistron, some time after his return, retired to his own country; where he married mademoiselle de Maniban, sister of the first president of Toulouse, and of the bishop of Mirepoix, afterwards archbishop of Bourdeaux; and there he died May 11, 1723, of an apoplexy, at the age of 67. This stroke was brought on by a fit of passion excited by two chairmen who refused to carry him on account of his great weight. Campistron kept good company, loved good cheer, and had all the indolence of a man of pleasure. While secretary to the duke de Vendome, he found it a more expeditious way to burn the letters that were written to that prince than to answer them. Accordingly, the duke, seeing him one day before a large fire, in which he was casting a heap of papers: “There its Campistron,” said he, “employed in answering my correspondents.” He followed the duke even to the field of battle. At the battle of Steinkerque, the duke seeing him always beside him, said, “What do you do here, Campistron?” “Mon seigneur,” answered he, “I am waiting to go back with you.” This sedateness of mind in a moment of so much danger was highly pleasing to the bero. His plays, 1750, 3 vols. 12mo. have been nearly as often printed as those of Corneille, Racine, Crebillon, and Voltaire. The most popular of them are his “Andronicus,” “Alcibiades,” “Acis and Galatea,” “Phocion,” “Adrian,” “Tiridates,” “Phraates,” and “Jaloux Desabuseé.”

, a German poet and statesman, and privy counsellor of state, was of an ancient and illustrious family in Brandenburg, and born at Berlin in 1654, five months after his father’s death. After his early studies, he travelled to France, Italy, Holland, and England; and upon his return to his country, was charged with important negociations by Frederic II. and Frederic III. Canitz united the statesman with the poet; and was conversant in many languages, dead as well as living. His German poems were published for the tenth time, 1750, in 8vo. He is said to haVe taken Horace for his model, "and to have written purely and delicately; and the French biographers complimented him with the title of the Pope of Germany. He not only cultivated the fine arts himself, but gave all the encouragement he could to them in others. He died at Berlin in 1699, highly praised for the excellence of his private character.

, in Latin Capycius, a native of Naples, and a Latin poet of the sixteenth century, attempted to imitate Lucretius, in his poem of the “Principles of things,” Frankfort, 1631, 8vo, with considerable success. Cardinal Bembo and Manucius placed this work on a level with his model, to which high praise it is scarcely entitled. An edition, with an Italian translation, was given in 8vo, at Venice, in 1704. He also composed elegies, epigrams, and a poem “De Vate maximo,” i. e. St. John the Baptist, which Gesner, doubtless a great friend of the poet, equalled with the productions of antiquity.

, a gentleman well known by his indefatigable attention to the works of Shakspeare, was born at Troston, near Bury, Suffolk, June 11, 1713, and received his education at the school of St. Edmund’s Bury. In the dedication of his edition of Shakspeare, in 1768, to the duke of Grafton, he observes, that “his father and the grandfather of his grace were friends, and to the patronage of the deceased nobleman he owed the leisure which enabled him to bestow the attention of twenty years on that work.” The office which his grace bestowed on Mr. Capell was that of deputy inspector of the plays, to which a salary is annexed of 200l. a year. So early as the year 1745, as Capell himself informs us, shocked at the licentiousness of Hanmer’s plan, he first projected an edition of Shakspeare, of the strictest accuracy, to be collated and published, in due time, “ex fide codicum.” He immediately proceeded to collect and compare the oldest and scarcest copies; noting the original excellencies and defects of the rarest quartos, and distinguishing the improvements or variations of the first, second, and third folios. But while all this mass of profound criticism was tempering in the forge, he appeared at last a self-armed Aristarchus, almost as lawless as any of his predecessors, vindicating his claim to public notice by his established reputation, the authoritative air of his notes, and the shrewd observations, as well as majesty, of his preface. His edition, however, was the effort of a poet, rather than of a critic; and Mr. Capell lay fortified and secure in his strong holds, entrenched in the black letter. Three years after (to use his own language) he “set out his own edition, in ten volumes, small octavo, with an introduction,” 1768, printed at the expence of the principal booksellers of London, who gave him 300l. for his labours. There is not, among the various publications of the present literary aera, a more singular composition than that “Introduction.” In style and manner it is more obsolete, and antique, than the age of which it treats. It is lord Herbert of Cherbury walking the new pavement in all the trappings of romance; but, like lord Herbert, it displays many valuable qualities accompanying this air of extravagance, much sound sense, and appropriate erudition. It has since been added to the prolegomena of Johnson and Steevens’s edition. In the title-page of this work was also announced, “Whereunto will be added, in some other volumes, notes, critical and explanatory, and a body of various readings entire.” The introduction likewise declared, that these “notes and various readings” would be accompanied with another work, disclosing the sources from which Shakspeare “drew the greater part of his knowledge in mythological and classical matters, his fable, his history, and even the seeming peculiarities of his language to which,” says Mr. Capell, “we have given for title, The School of Shakspeare.” Nothing surely could be more properly conceived than such designs, nor have we ever met with any thing better grounded on the subject of “the learning of Shakspeare” than what may be found in the. long note to this part of Mr. Capell’s introduction. It is more solid than even the popular essay on this topic. Such were the meditated achievements of the critical knight-errant, Edward Capell. But, alas! art is long, and life is short. Three-andtvventy years had elapsed, in collection, collation, compilation, and transcription, between the conception and production of his projected edition: and it then came, like human births, naked into the world, without notes or commentary, save the critical matter dispersed through the introduction, and a brief account of the origin of the fables of the several plays, and a table of the different editions. Cenain quaintnesses of style, and peculiarities of printing and punctuation, attended the whole of this publication. The outline, however, was correct. The critic, with unremitting toil, proceeded in his undertaking. But while he was diving into the classics of Caxton, and working his way under ground, like the river Mole, in order to emerge with all his glories; while he was looking forward to his triumphs; certain other active spirits went to work upon his plan, and, digging out the promised treasures, laid them prematurely before the public, defeating the effect of our critic’s discoveries by anticipation. Steevens, Malone, Farmer, Percy, Reed, and a whole host of literary ferrets, burrowed into every hole and corner of the warren of modern antiquity, and overran all the country, whose map had been delineated by Edward Capell. Such a contingency nearly staggered the steady and unshaken perseverance of our critic, at the very eve of the completion of his labours, and, as his editor informs us for, alas! at the end of near forty years, the publication was posthumous, and the critic himself no more! we say then, as his editor relates, he was almost determined to lay the work wholly aside. He persevered, however (as we learn from the rev. editor, Mr. Collins), by the encouragement of some noble and worthy persons: and to such their Cih couragement, and his perseverance, the public was, in 1783, indebted for three large volumes in 4to, under the title of “Notes and various readings of Shakspeare; together with the School of Shakspeare, or extracts from divers English books, that were in print in the author’s time; evidently shewing from whence his several fables were taken, and some parcel of his dialogue. Also farther extracts, which contribute to a due understanding of his writings, or give a light to the history of his life, or to the dramatic history of his time.”

This lively account of Mr. Capell, which appeared in the two last editions of this Dictionary, seems to be principally taken from an ingenious criticism in vol. XLIX. of the Monthly Review; and those who wish to investigate the merits of Mr. Capell, as an editor, at a small expence of time, may be referred to the other volumes of that review in which his works are characterised, and to the Critical Review, vol. XLI. and LVI. In vol. XLIX. of the Crit. Review is a list of his Mss. and printed books, which he gave to Trinity college, Cambridge; and from a note on one of these there is some reason to suspect that he was, in a considerable measure, the author of a defence of himself, entitled “A Letter to George Hardinge, esq. on the subject of a passage in Mr. Steevens’s Preface to his impression of Shakspeare,” 1777, 4to, unless, indeed, the gentleman to whom the letter was attributed, the rev. Mr. Collins, was disposed to flatter him beyond all reasonable bounds, and at the expence of his own sense and taste. Mr. Capell, we are told, spent a whole life on Shakspeare; and if it be true, which we are also told, that he transcribed the works of that illustrious poet ten times with his own hand, it is no breach of charity to add, that much of a life that might have been employed to more valuable purposes, was miserably wasted.

, a Latin poet, lived about the year 490 of the vulgar aera. He is thought to have been an African and proconsul. We have a poem of his mixed with prose, entitled “De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, et de septem artibus liberalibus.” Grotius, at the age of only fourteen years, gave a good edition of this production in 1599, in 8vo, with notes and corrections. He restored numberless corrupted passages, with a sagacity truly wonderful in a boy of his age. That part which treats of music has been most noticed by inquirers into the history of that art.

, of Mantua, brother of the preceding, was a celebrated poet of the sixteenth century, who acquired great n putation by his centos of Virgil, in which he applies the expressions of that great poet to the lives of the monks and the public affairs of his time. His Cento against women, Venice, 1550, 8vo, is thought too satirical. Part of Capilupi’s poems are in the “Delicia) Poetarum Italorum,” torn. I. and they are printed separately, 1600, 4to. He died 1560, aged sixty-two. He should be distinguished from his brothers Hyppolitus and Julius Capilupi, who were also Latin poets. All their poems are collected in one vol. 4to, printed at Rome, 1590, except the “Cento Virgilianus de Monachis,” which is proscribed at Rome, and may be found at the end of the “Regnum Papisticum” of Naogeorgus.

, an Italian poet and governor of Atri in the kingdom of Naples, was born at Perugia in ]530. He wrote a satirical poem on courts and courtiers, which procured him much reputation, while his circle of friends- and admirers was greatly enlarged by. the vivacity and pleasantry of his conversation. Among the number of his patrons was Ascanio, marquis of Coria, at whose house he died in 1601. He wrote also some poems of the romantic class, as his “Life of Maecenas,” left unfinished, and two comedies, viz. “Lo Seiocco,” and “La Ninnetta,” published at Venice in 1605. A collection -of his poems, with the observations of his son Charles, was published at Venice in 1656 and 1662.

Augustine Caracci was born in 1557, and Hannibal in 1560. Their father, though a taylor in trade, was yet very careful to give his sons a liberal education. Augustine was intended to be bred a scholar; but his genius leading him to arts, he was afterwards put to a goldsmith. He quitted this profession in a little time, and then gave himself up to every thing that pleased his fancy. He first put himself under the tuition of his cousin Lewis; and became a very good designer and painter. He gained some knowledge likewise of all the parts of the mathematics, natural philosophy, rhetoric, music, and most of the liberal arts and sciences. He was also a tolerable poet, and very accomplished in many other respects. Though painting was the profession he always adhered to, yet it was often interrupted by his pursuits in the art of engraving, which he learnt of Cornelius Cort, and in which he surpassed all the masters of his time.

When sir George Carew returned in 1G09 from his French embassy, he drew up, and addressed to king James the First, “A Relation of the state of France, with the characters of Henry the Fourth, and the principal persons of that court;” which reflects great credit upon his sagacity and attention as an ambassador, and his abilities as a writer. In this piece are considered, 1. The name of France. 2. Its ancient and modern limits. 3. Its quality, strength, and situation. 4. Its riches. 5. Its political ordeis. 6. Its disorders and dangers. 7. The persons governing, with those who are likely to succeed. 8. In what terms the French live with their bordering neighbours. And lastly, the state of matters between the king of England’s dominions and theirs. These heads are divided, as occasion requires, into other subordinate ones. The characters are drawn from personal knowledge and close observation, and might be of service to a general historian of that period. The composition is perspicuous and manly, and entirely free from the pedantry which prevailed in the reign of king James I. his taste having been formed in a better aera, that of Queen Elizabeth. The valuable tract we are speaking of lay for a long time in manuscript, till happily falling into the hands of the late earl of Hardwicke, it was communicated by him to Dr. Birch, who published it in 1749, at the end of his “Historical view of the Negotiations between the Courts of England, France and Brussels, from the year 1592 to 1617.” That intelligent and industrious writer justly observes, that it is a model, upon which ambassadors may form and digest their notions and representations and the late celebrated poet, Gray, spoke of it as an excellent performance.

, an English poet, was the younger brother of sir Matthew Carevv, a zealous adherent to the fortunes of Charles I. and of the family of Carews in Gloucestershire, but descended from the more ancient family of that name in Devonshire. He is supposed to have been born in 1589. According to Anthony Wood, he received his academical education at Corpus Christi college, Oxford, but was neither matriculated, nor took any degree. After leaving college he improved himself by travelling, according to the custom of the age, and by associating with men of learning and talents both at home and abroad'; and being distinguished for superior elegance of manners and taste, he was received into the court of Charles I. as gentleman of the privy-chamber, and sewer in ordinary. His wit had recommended him to his sovereign, who, however, Clarendon informs us, incurred the displeasure of the Scotch nation by bestowing upon him the place of sewer, in preference to a gentleman recommended upon the interest of the courtiers of that nation. He appears after this appointment to have passed his days in affluence and gaiety. His talents were highly valued by his contemporaries, particularly Ben Jonson and sir William Davenant. Sir John Suckling only, in his Session of the Poets, insinuates that his poems cost him more labour than is consistent with the fertility of real genius. But of this there are not many marks visible in his works, and what sir John mistakes for the labour of costiveness, may have been only the laudable care he employed in bringing his verses to a higher degree of refinement than many of his contemporaries. His death is said to have taken place in 1639, which agrees with the information we have in Clarendon’s Life. “He was a person of a pleasant and facetious wit, and made many poems (especially in the amorous way) which for the sharpness of the fancy, and the elegance of the language in which that fancy was spread, were at least equal, if not superior to any of that time. But his glory was, that after fifty years of his life spent with less severity or exactness than it ought to have been, he died with great remorse for that licence, and with the greatest manifestation of Christianity, that his best friends could desire.” It is pleasing to record such a*mple atonement for the licentiousness of some of his poems, which, however, most of his editors have persisted in handing down to posterity.

It does not appear that any of his poems were published during his life-time, except such as were set to music. The first collection was printed in 1640, 12mo, the second in 1642, the third (not in 1654 as Cibber asserts, but) in 1651, and a fourth in 1670. In 1772 Mr. Thomas Davies published an edition, with a few notes, and a short character, in which the writer has taken for granted some particulars for which no authority can be found. Carew’s Ccelum Britannicum, at one time erroneously attributed to Davenant, was printed with the first editions of his poems, and afterwards separately in 1651. Langbaine, and Cibber after him, say that our author placed the Lathi motto on the front, when printed, but no edition printed in his life-time is now known. The distich, however, might have been prefixed to the music of the masque. Oldys, in his ms notes on Langbaine, informs us, that “Garew’s sonnets were more in request than any poet’s of his time that is, between 1630 and 1640. They were many of them set to music by the two famous composers, Henry and William Lawes, and' other eminent masters, and sunoat. court in their masques.” It may be added, that Carew was one of the old poets whom Pope studied, and from, whom he borrowed. Dr. Percy honours him with the compliment of being an “elegant, and almost forgotten writer, whose poems deserve to be revived.” But no modern critic appears to have estimated his merit with more liberality than Mr. Head ley: his opinion, however, is here copied, not without suspicion that. his enthusiasm may be thought to have carried him too far.

, a musical composer and poet, once of great popular reputation, was an illegitimate son of George Savile, marquis of Halifax, who had the honour of presenting the crown to William III. Carey is said to have received an annuity from a branch of that family till the day of his death, and he annexed the name of Savile to the Christian names of all the male part of his own family. At what period he was born is not known. His first lessons in music he had from one Lennert, a German, and had somje instructions also from Roseingrave and Gecniniani, but he never attained much depth in the science. The extent of Jlis abilities seerns to have been the composition of a ballad air, or at most a little cantata, to which he was just able to set a bass yet if mere popularity be the test of genius, Carey was one of the first in his time. His chief employment was teaching the boarding-schools, and among people of middling rank in private families, before tradesmen’s daughters, destined to be tradesmen’s wives, were put under the tuition of the first professors.

, a learned bishop in the seventeenth century, son of Guy, second son of Thomas Carleton, of Carleton-hall, in Cumberland, was born at Norham, in Northumberland, of whose important castle his father was then governor. By the care of the eminent Bernard Giipin, he was educated in grammar-learning and when tit for the university, sent by the same generous person to Edmund-hall in Oxford, in the beginning of the year 1576, and was by him chiefly maintained in his studies. On the 12th of February 1579-80, he took his degree of B. A. at the completing of which, he exceeded all that performed their exercises at that time. The same year he was elected probationer fellow of Merton-college, and remained in that society above five years before he proceeded in his faculty, not taking the degree of M. A. till June the 14th, 1585. While he remained in college, he was esteemed a great orator and poet, and in process of time became a better disputant in divinity, than he had before been in philosophy. What preferments he had, is not mentioned, nor does it appear that he was possessed of anv dignity in the church till he became a bishop. After having continued many years in the university, and taken, the degree of B. D. May 16, 1594, and that of Doctor, December 1, 1613, he was advanced to the bishopric of Landaff, to which he was confirmed July 11, 1613, and consecrated at Lambeth the next day. The same year he was sent by king James T. with three other English divine*, Dr. Hail, afterwards bishop of Exeter, Dr. Davenant, afterwards bishop of Salisbury, and Dr. Ward, master of Sidney-college, Cambridge, and one from Scotland, Dr. W T alter Balcanqual, afterwards dean of Durham, to the synod of Dort; where he stood up in favour of episcopacy, and behaved so well in every respect to the credit of our nation, that after his return he was, upon the translation, of Dr. Harsnet to Norwich, elected to succeed him in the see of Chichester, September 8, 16 19, and confirmed the 20th of the same month. He departed this life in May 1628, and was buried the 27th of that month in the choir of his cathedral church at Chichester, near the altar. He was a person uf solid judgment, and of various reading; well versed in the fathers and schoolmen; wanting nothing that could render him a complete divine; a bitter enemy to the Papists, and in the point of Predestination a rigid Calvinist. “I have loved him,” says Mr. Camden, “for his excellent proficiency in divinity, and other polite parts of learning.” Echard and Fuller also characterize him in very high terms.

, an Italian poet, was born in 1507, at Civita Nova, in the march of Ancona, of poor parents. After his first studies he obtained the patronage of the illustrious house of Gaddi in Florence, a branch of which, John Gaddi, legate of Romania, appointed him secretary of legation, and retained him in his service, with some interval, until his death. On this event Caro determined on a life of independence; but unable to resist the liberal offers of Peter Louis Farnese, accepted the place of confidential secretary in 1543. While with him, Caro had an opportunity of forming a very fine collection of medals, and wrote a treatise on the subject. Such was his reputation at this time that Onufrius Pauvinius dedicated his work “De Antiquis Romanorum nominibus” to him, as the ablest antiquary in Italy. With the study of medals, Caro united that of the sciences, the belles lettres, languages, and the Italian particularly, which owes great obligations to him. He composed in that language several works of the light kind, such as the “Ficheide del P. Siceo (i. e Francis Maria Molza) col Commento dr Ser Agresto (Annibal Caro) sopra la prima Ficata,” 1539, 4to; “La diceria de nasi;” and a prose comedy, “Gli Straccioni,” Venice, 1582, 12mo. These works procured him the friendship of persons of rank at tfome, and the esteem of the learned throughout Italy. All the academies were opened to him, and the most celebrated poets acknowledged him as their master. Sonnets being then the fashionable poetry of Italy, Caro acquired great reputation by his performances in this style, and was compared to Petrarch rnd Bembo. Nor were his talents less conspicuous as a negvciaior. In 1544 he executed a very important commission of this kind, with wh?ch he was intrusted by the house of Farnese at the court of Charles V. After the death of his patron Peter Lewis Farnese, the cardinals Alexander and Kanutius, and the duke Octavius Farnese, vied with each other in presenting him with ecclesiastical preferments, and even with the order of Malta, of which he was made commander. It was on this occasion, in order to pay his court to cardinal Alexander Farnese, that he composed an ode in honour of the royal family of France, which was almost universally applauded. Castelvetro the critic, however, attacked it with much asperity, and Caro answered him with spirit; but the controversy unfortunately became personal, and Caro, in 1548, published a gross and scandalous attack on, Castelvetro, and even denounced him to the inquisition, from which he narrowly escaped, as will be noticed in his life. After this dispute which did so little honour to either party, Caro resumed his studies, and at the request of cardinal St. Croix, afterwards pope Marcellus II. translated some parts of the works of Gregory Nazianzen and St. Cyprian. He likewise translated Aristotle’s Rhetoric, but infirmities coming upon him, and being tired of a court life, he requested permission of his patrons to retire, and the cardinal Ranutius gave him a small house at Frescati, to which he removed his library. In this retreat he meditated the composition of an epic poem, but was diverted from the design by his friends, and made a translation of Virgil into bkink verse, which has been very much admired. He had scarcely finished this when he died, Nov. 21, 1566. After his death his works were published by his nephews; his poetry and the translations from Gregory of Nazianzen and St. Cyprian in 1568; Aristotle’s Rhetoric in 1570; and his letters, vol. I. and II. in 1572 and 1575, much admired for ease and elegance. The translation of Virgil was not published until 1581. One of the best editions is that of Paris, 1765, 2 vols. 8vo; and in 1725, his “Letters” were reprinted at Padua, with a life of the author, by Alexander Zalioli, and notes by the editor, 2 vols. 8vo; but the most complete edition is in 6 vols. Padua, 1765. Caro also translated the Pastorals of Longus, of which Bodoni printed a fine edition at Parma in 1786, 4to. Among his unpublished works are a translation of Aristotle’s “History of Animals,” and his treatise above mentioned on medals.

, a divine and poet of the seventeenth century, was educated at Eton college, and thence elected scholar of King’s college in Cambridge, in 1622. About three years after, he left England, and studied in Flanders, Artois, France, Spain, and Italy; and at length received holy orders at Rome from the hands of the pope’s substitute. Soon after, having taken upon him the order of St. Benedict, he was sent into England to make proselytes; in which employment he continued somewhat above a year, then returned to the protestant religion, and, through the archbishop of Canterbury’s interest, obtained the small vicarage of Poling by the seaside, near Arundel castle, in Sussex. Here he was exposed to the insults of the Romish party, particularly one Francis a S. Clara, living in that neighbourhood under the name of Hunt, who used to expose him to scorn before his parishioners. In the time, however, of the civil war, he quitted his living, retired to Paris, and reconciling himself to the Romish church, he made it his business to rail against the protestants. Afterwards, returning to England, he settled at Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, where he had some relations; and, being once more a protestant, he would often preach there in a very fantastical manner, to the great mirth of his auditors. He was living there in 1670; but before his death he returned a third time to popery, causing his pretended wife to embrace that persuasion; and in that faith he died. He was generally esteemed a man of an absurd character, one that changed his opinions as often as his cloaths, and, for his juggles and tricks in religion, a theological mountebank.

, an English poet of the seventeenth century, was born at Northway near Tewkesbury, in Gloucestershire, Sept. 1611. His father, after spending a good estate, was reduced to keep an inn at Cirencester; at the free-school of which town his son was educated under Mr. William Topp. Being chosen a king’s scholar, he was removed to Westminster school, under Dr. Osbaldiston, and thence elected a student of Christ church, Oxford, in 1628. After pursuing his studies, with the reputation of an extraordinary scholar and genius, he took his master’s degree in 1635, and in 1638 went into holy orders, becoming “a most florid and seraphical preacher in the university.” One sermon only of his is in print, from which we are not able to form a very high notion of his eloquence; but whdn Mr. Abraham Wright, of St. John’s, Oxford, compiled that scarce little book, entitled “Five Sermons in five several styles, or ways of Preaching,” it appears that Dr. Maine and Mr. Cartwright were of consequence enough to be admitted as specimens of university preaching. The others are bishop Andrews’, bishop Hall’s, the presbyterian and independent “ways of preaching.” In 1642, bishop Duppa, with whom he lived in the strictest intimacy, bestowed on him the place of succentur of the church of Salisbury. In the same year he was one of the council of war or delegacy, appointed by the university of Oxford, for providing for the troops sent by the king- to protect the colleges. His zeal in this office occasioned his being imprisoned by the parliamentary forces when they arrived at Oxford, but he was bailed soon after. In 1643, he was chosen junior proctor of the university, and was also reader in metaphysics. “The exposition of them,” says Wood, “was never better performed than by him and his predecessor Thomas Barlow, of Queen’s college.” Lloyd asserts that he studied at the rate of sixteen hours a day. From such diligence and talents much might have been expected, but he survived the last- mentioned appointments a very short time, dying on December 23, 1643, in the thirty-second year of his age, of a malignant fever, called the camp disease, which then prevailed at Oxford. He was honourably interred towards the upper end of the south aile of the cathedral of Christ church.

Mr. Caryl was the author of two plays: 1. “The English Princess; or, the death of Richard III.” 1667, 4to. 2. “Sir Salomon, or the cautious coxcomb,” '167 1, 4to. And in 1700 he published “The Psalms of David, translated from the Vulgate,” 12mo. In Tonson’s edition of Ovid’s epistles, that of Briseis to Achilles is said to be by sir John Caryl; and in Nichols’s select collection of miscellany poems, vol. II. p. 1, the first eclogue of Virgil is translated by the same ingenious poet.

, a Latin poet of the sixteenth century, was a native of Rome, and gained a reputation in the epigrammatic species of poetry, for which he had a natural bent. He imitated Martial, particularly in his lively style, and was master of the art of pointing his terminations, which he exercised with the greatest ease. In the verses he composed for the illustrious characters of antient Rome he proposed Catullus for his model; but he is far from attaining to that purity and delicacy which charm us in the Latin poet; and though he sometimes comes up to him in elegance, yet his diction is more strong than mellow. His poems are to be found in the “Delicise Poetaruin Italorum.” Having exercised his wit at the expence of pope Clement VII. to please the Colonna family, he was imprisoned and condemned to death, but received a pardon. When Rome was taken by the Imperialists in 1527, he was stripped of all, reduced to beggary, and died in that year, either of famine or the plague.

, an Italian critic, celebrated for his parts, but more for the seventy of his criticisms, was born at Modena in 1505. Being despised for his poverty by the ignorant part of mankind, and hated for his knowledge by the learned, says Moreri, he left his own country, and went into Germany, where he resided at the court of the emperor Maximilian II. After six years’ absence he returned to Modena, and distinguished himself chiefly by his Commentary upon Aristotle’s Poetics; in which, Rapin assures us, he always made it a rule to find something to except against in the text of Aristotle. He attacked his contemporary and rival in polite literature, Hannibal Caro, as we have observed under his article; and the quarrel did not end without many satirical pieces written on both sides in verse and prose. Castelvetro, however, was assisted here by his friends; for though he knew how to lay down rules for writing poetry, yet he was not a poet himself. His rival 'Hannibal Caro at length brought him under the cognisance of the inquisition at Rome, by which he was accused of paying too much deference 1 to the new opinions, and not enough to the old. It is probable that during his travels into Germany, win -re Lutheranism was established, he had imbibed the principles of the reformation, which appeared in his conversation and writings. He wished to be tried at a distance, as he then was, before a council; but the pope acquainted the cardinal of Mantua, his legate, that since Castelvetro had been accused before the inquisition at Rome, it was necessary for him to appear there, under the character of a person accused. Upon the pope’s assuring him of* high honours if he was found innocent, and of clemency if guilty, he appeared before the inquisition, and was examined in October 1560: but, finding himself embarrassed by the questions put to him, and especially in regard to a bouk of Melancthon, which he had translated into Italian, he fled to Basil in Switzerland, where he pursued the study of the belles lettres to the time of his death, which happened Feb. 20, 1571.

, a Latin poet, was born in Narbonensian Gaul, the son of a free man; but when young and an orphan, he was obliged to fly his country during the civil war in the time of Sylla, with the loss of all his property. He then went to Rome and opened a public school, and had many scholars, especially the youth of families of rank. Suetonius says “docuit multos et nobiles.” Bibaculus characterises his method of education in these words:

, a Roman poet, born at Verona A. C. 86, was descended from a good family and his father was familiarly acquainted with Julius Cæsar, who lodged at his house. The beauty and elegance of his verses easily procured him the attention and friendship of the wits who were then at Rome, whither he was carried in his youth by Manlius, a nobleman, to whom he has inscribed several of his poems. Here he soon discovered the vivacity of his genius, and so distinguished himself by his pleasantry and wit, that he became universally esteemed, and gained even Cicero for his patron. It is believed that he gave the name of Lesbia to his principal mistress, in honour of Sap ho, who was of the island of Lesbos, and whose verses he much admired. Her true name, however, was supposed to be Clodia, sister of Clodius, the great enemy of Cicero. Like other poets, Catullus is said to have been very poor. His merit, indeed, recommended him to the greatest men of his time, as Plancus, Calvus, Cinna, &c. and he travelled into Bithynia with Memmius, who had obtained the government of that province after his praetorship: but it is plain from some of his epigrams, that he did not make his fortune by it. He died in the forty-sixth year of his age, B. C. 40, and in the height of his reputation.

Though the great talent of this poet lay in epigram, yet some have pretended that he equally excelled in all other kinds of poetry. Martial’s veneration for him was such, that he has not scrupled to put him on a level with Virgil:

And in this he has been followed by Paul Jovius and Barthius among the moderns. Dr. Warton maintains that the Romans can boast but of eight poets who are unexceptionably excellent, and places Catullus as the third on this list, in which he is preceded by Terence and Lucretius, and followed by Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, Propertius, and Phaedrus. The same critic seems to doubt whether the story of Atys in Catullus’s works be genuine. It is so much above the tender and elegant genius of Catullus, that he is inclined to think it a translation from some Grecian writer. Catullus’s writings got him the name of “the learned” amongst the ancients, for which we have the authority of Aulus Gellius, Apuleius, and both the Plinys; but we have no compositions of his remaining, nor any lights from antiquity, which enable us to explain the reason of it. Among others that Catullus inveighed against and lashed in his iambics, none suffered more severely than Julius Cæsar, under the name of Mamurra which, however, only furnished Cæsar with an opportunity of shewing his moderation and humanity. For after Catullus, by repeated invectives, had given sufficient occasion to Cæsar to resent such usage, especially from one whose father had been his familiar friend Cæsar, instead of expressing any uneasiness, generously invited the poet to supper with him, and there treated him with so much affability and good-nature, that Catullus was ashamed at what he had done, and resolved to make him amends for the future.

, pensionary of Holland, keeper of the great seals there, and stadtholder of the Fiefs, was born in Zealand, 1577. He was an ingenious poet, as well as a dexterous politician. He divested himself, however, at length of all employments, for the sake of cultivating poetry and letters; nor was he drawn afterwards from his retirement, but at the reiterated application of the states, who, in the critical season of Cromwell’s protectorate, sent him ambassador into England. Upon his return, he retired to one of his country-houses, where he died in 1660. His poems have been printed in all forms, the Hollanders highly valuing them: and the last edition of his works was, 1726, in 2 vols. folio.

Of his grace’s literary labours, it is less possible to entertain a high opinion. Except the first article we shall mention, they may be passed over with very slight notice as the amusements of a nobleman, who, with a strong attachment to poetry, and the polite arts, was not qualified to advance either, unless by his patronage. It has been remarked by Granger, with a sneer borrowed from Strawberry-hill, that “the duke of Newcastle was so attached to the muses, that he could not leave them behind him, but carried them to the camp, and made Davenant, the poet-laureat, his lieutenant-general of the ordnance.” Why did he not add, that his scout-master-general was a clergyman, the rev. Mr. Hudson, and that the celebrated Chillingworth served in the engineers? The fact was, that after Davenant, at the risk of his life, returned to England to devote himself to the king’s service, the duke did promote him to the above office, and his majesty bestowed the honour of knighthood on him for his able and judicious conduct at the siege of Gloucester. While the duke was permitted to devote his time, his health, and his fortune, to the royal cause, he never suffered his thoughts to stray far from his employment. It was in his exile, that being extremely fond of the breaking and managing^ horses, which is now almost entirely left to grooms and jockies, he thought fit to publish his sentiments on those subjects in a work we are about to notice, and which is still held in high esteem. He also, for the amusement of his leisure hours, applied himself to dramatic poetry, the produce of which, says Mr. Reed, cannot but give us a strong idea of his fortitude and cheerfulness of temper, even under the greatest difficulties, since, though written during his. banishment, and in the midst of depression and poverty, all the pieces he has left us in that way of writing are of the comic kind.

, an English poet, the son of Thomas Cawthorn, upholsterer and cabinet-maker in Sheffield, by Mary, daughter of Mr. Edward Laughton, of Gainsborough, was born at Sheffield Nov. 4, 17 J 9. His early inclination to letters, joined to a sprightly turn and quick apprehension, induced his parents to send him to the grammar-school of Sheffield, then superintended by the rev. Mr. Robinson. Here he made a considerable proficiency in classical learning, and became so soon ambitious of literary fame as to attempt a periodical paper, entitled “The Tea Table,” but was discouraged by his father, who probably thought that he was too young for an observer of men and manners, and too ignorant of the world to become its adviser. In 1735, Mr. Cawthorn was removed to the grammar-school at Kirkby Lonsdale in Westmoreland, where he made his first poetical attempts, several of which are said -to be still extant in his hand-writing: three of these were admitted into the edition of his works published in 1771; but one of them proved to be a production of Mr. Christopher Pitt. In 1736, however, he published at Sheffield, a poem entitled “The Perjured Lover,” formed on a lesser poem which he wrote about that time, on the popular story of Inkle and Yarico. This has been consigned to oblivion. In the same year he appears to have been employed as an assistant under the rev. Mr. Christian of liotheram. In 1758 he was matriculated of Clarehall, Cambridge, but his name is not to be found among the graduates, nor can we learn how long he pursued his academical studies. When promoted to the school of Tunbridge, he had obtained the degree of M. A. probably from some northern university.

As a poet, he displays considerable variety of power, but perhaps he is rather to be placed among the ethical versifiers, than ranked with those who have attempted with success the higher flights of genius. As an imitator of Pope, he is superior to most of those who have formed themselves in that school, and sometimes his imitations are so close as to appear the effect rather of memory than of judgment. His “Abelard to Eloisa” was a bold attempt, yet we miss the impassioned bursts and glowing scenes, true to nature and feeling, which have placed the Eloisa of Pope beyond all reach of competition. His “Epistle from Lady Jane Grey to Lord Dudley” is another attempt in the heroic manner, in which he has been more successful; the subject was his own, and there is less of ambitious effort in treating it. His principal excellence, however, lies in solid reflection on men and manners, and in satirical pictures and allusions: here he has all the gaiety of the most favoured disciples of the Horatian school, and far more ease than in his other compositions.

The erudition of Caxton appears to be deserving of better treatment than Bale and others have bestowed upon it. That he had a far greater claim to intellectual reputation than that of possessing the mere negative excellence of “not being downright stupid or slothful,” (Bale’s words,) must be allowed by the most fastidious reader of his numerous prologues and translations. That he was not a poet, however, must be conceded, for nothing can be more barbarous than the couplets for which he has been admitted, by Ritson, into the list of English poets. At the same time, whoever reads his criticism upon Chaucer, must not only allow that he was a better judge, than writer, of poetry; but that it will be difficult to find a criticism upon our venerable bard, in the whole compass of our language, which is more sober and just; more clearly and forcibly expressed. As to Caxton’s knowledge of languages, that seems to have been extremely creditable to him; for he was, in all probability, a complete master of the Dutch, German, and French, and considering his long absence from England (in the prime of his life), he wrote his own language with fluency, simplicity, and occasional melody and force.

, is the adopted name of Francis, or Francesco Stabili; a native of Ascoli, in the march of Ancona, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, whg acquired considerable reputation, unfortunately for himself, as a critic and poet. Among the many anachronisms and contradictions in the accounts given of his life, which Tirabotchi has endeavoured to correct, we find that when young, he was professor of astrology in the university of Bologna, that he published a book on that science, which being denounced to the Inquisition, he escaped by recanting what was offensive but that the same accusations being afterwards renewed at Florence, he was condemned to be burnt, and suffered that horrible deatb in 1327, in the seventieth year of his age. We have already seen, in former lives, that it was no uncommon thing for enraged authors to apply to the secular arm for that revenge which they could not otherwise have inflicted on one another. The pretence for putting this poor man to death, was his “Commentary on the Sphere of John de Sacrabosco,” in which, following the superstition of the times, he asserted that wonderful things might be done by the agency of certain demons who inhabited the first of the celestial spheres. This was foolish enough, but it was the prevalent folly of the times, and Cecco probably believed what he wrote. That he was not an impostor wiser than those whom he duped, appears from his conduct to Charles, duke of Calabria, who appointed him his astrologer, and who, having consulted him on the future conduct of his wife and daughter, Cecco, by his art, foretold that they would turn out very abandoned characters. Had he not persuaded himself into the truth of this, he surely would have conciliated so powerful a patron by a prediction of a more favourable kind; and this, as may be supposed, lost him the favour of the duke. But even the loss of his friend would not have brought him to the stake, if he had not rendered himself unpopular by attacking the literary merit of Dante and Guido Cavalcanti, in his poem entitled “Acerba.” This provoked the malice of a famous physician, named Dino del Garbo, who never desisted until he procured him to be capitally condemned. This poem “Acerba,” properly “Acerbo,” or “Acervo,” in Latin Acervus, is in the sesta rima divided into five books, and each of these into a number of chapters, treating of the heavens, the elements, virtues, vices, love, animals, minerals, religion, &c. The whole is written in a bad style, destitute of harmony, elegance, or grace; and, according to a late author, much of the plan, as well as the materials, are taken from the “Tresor” of Brunetto Latini. It is, however, a work in demand with collectors, and although often printed, most of the editions are now very scarce. The first was printed at Venice in 1476, 4to, with the commentary of Nicolo Massetti, and was reprinted in 1478. Haym (in the edition of his Biblioteca, 1771) speaks of a first edition as early as 1458, which we apprehend no bibliographer has seen.

Besides these lesser failings of this great man, he has been accused of illiberality to the poet Spenser, which perhaps may be attributed to his dislike of Leicester, under whose patronage Spenser had come forward, but perhaps more to his want of relish for poetry. On the other hand, our historians are generally agreed in their praises of his high character. Smollett only has endeavoured to lessen it, but as this is coupled with a disregard for historical truth, the attempt is entitled to little regard, and the advocates for Mary queen of Scots cannot be supposed to forgive the share he had in her fate. Lord Orford has given lord Burleigh a place among his “Royal and Noble Authors,” but at the same time justly observes, that he is one of those great names, better known in the annals of his country than in those of the republic of letters. Besides lord Burleigh’s answer to a Latin libel published abroad, which he entitled “Slanders and Lies,” and “A Meditation of the State of England, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth,” lord Orford mentions “La Complainte de PAme pecheresse,” in French verse, extant in the king’s library; “Car mina duo Latina in Obitum Margaretae Nevillee, Reginoe Catherine a Cubiculis;” “Carmen Latinum in Memoriain Tho. Challoneri Equitis aurati, prsefixum ejusdem Libro de restaurata Republica;” “A Preface to Queen Catherine Parr’s Lamentation of a Sinner.” When sir William Cecil accompanied the duke of Somerset on his expedition to Scotland, he furnished materials for an account of that war, which was published by William Patten, under the title of “Diarium Expeditions Scoticae,” London, 1541, 12mo. This is supposed to be the reason why lord Burleigh is reckoned by Holinshed among the English historians. “The first paper or memorial of sir William Cecil \ anno primo Eliz.” This, which is only a paper of memorandums, is printed in Somers’s tracts, from a manuscript in the Cotton library. “A Speech in Parliament, 1592.” This was first published by Strype in his Annals, and has since been inserted in the Parliamentary History. “Lord Burleigh’s Precepts, or directions for the well-ordering and carriage of a man’s life,” 1637. “A Meditation on the Death of his Lady.” Mr. Ballard, in his Memoirs of British Ladies, has printed this Meditation from an original formerly in the possession of James West, esq. but now in the British Museum. Lord Burleigh was supposed to be the author of a thin pamphlet, in defence of the punishments inflicted on the Roman catholics in the reign of queen Elizabeth: it is called “The Execution of Justice in England, for maintenance of public and Christian peace, against certain stirrers of sedition, and adherents to the traitors and enemies of the realm, without any persecution of them for questions of religion, as it is falsely reported, &c.” London, 1583, second edition. Other political pieces were ascribed to him, and even the celebrated libel, entitled “Leicester’s Commonwealth,” It was asserted, that the hints, at least, were furnished by him for that composition. But no proof has been given of this assertion, and it was not founded on any degree of probability. His lordship drew up also a number of pedigrees, some of which are preserved in the archbishop of Canterbury’s library at Lambeth. These contain the genealogies of the kings of England, from William the Conqueror to Edward the Fourth; of queen Anne Boleyn; and of several princely houses in Germany.

, a Latin poet, called also Protucius and Meissel, was born at Sweinfurt near Wetrtzburg in 1459, and died at Vienna in 1508, after having gained the poetic laurel. He has left, 1. “Odes,” Strasburg, 1513, 8vo. 2. “Epigrams,” and a poem on the manners of the Germans, 1610, 8vo. 3. “An historical account of the city of Nuremberg,” Strasburg, 1513, 4to; and various other works, enumerated by Moreri, all in Latin. He was not deficient in the sallies of imagination, though not exempt from the defects of the age in which he wrote. He is censurable for negligence in point of style, and with preferring sentiments more for their brilliancy than their solidity. His four books in elegiac verse, on the same number of mistresses he boasts to have had, were published at Nuremberg in 1502, 4to. This volume is scarce. The emperor Maximilian made him his librarian, and granted him the privilege of conferring the poetic crown on whomsoever he judged worthy of it.

, a lawyer and Latin poet, was born of the noble family of Alba in Lombardy, in 1485, and died in 1541. He composed a heroic poem in three books, entitled “De Virginitate,” Paris, 1629; and a long “Epithalamium” of 555 verses on the marriage of William IX. marquis of Montferrat with Anne of Alen9011 in 1508, of which there have been several editions. Scaliger and Baillet speak highly of him as a Latin poet, but according to their account his style was too lofty and pompous, as he was apt to describe a fly in as solemn terms as he would a hero. His works are in the “Delicise Poetarum Ital.” but were more recently published separately by Vernazza in 1778, with a life of the author.

, a French poet and miscellaneous writer, was born at Turin in 1738, and after being educated among the Jesuits, joined their order, and became professor of their college at Lyons. In 1761 he gained two academical prizes at Toulouse and Dijon; the subject of the one was “Duelling,” and the other an answer to the question “Why modern republics have acquired less splendour than the ancient.” This last, before Cerutti was known as its author, was attributed to Rousseau. It was printed at the Hague in 1761, 8vo, and reprinted at Paris in 1791. When the order of the Jesuits was about to be abolished, Cerutti wrote in their defence “L'Apologie de Pinstitut des Jesuites,” 1762, two parts, 8vo, the materials being furnished by the two Jesuits Menoux and Griffet. Some time after, he was obliged to appear before the procurator-general of the parliament of Paris, to abjure the order which he had defended. It is said that after he had taken the prescribed oath, he asked if there was any thing to subscribe, to which the magistrate answered, “Yes, the Alcoran.” His “Apology,” however, was much admired, and recommended him to the Dauphin, who welcomed him to court. Here he contracted an unhappy and violent passion for a lady of the first rank, which brought on a tedious illness, from which the friendship of the duchess of Brancas recovered him, and in her house at Fleville he found an honourable asylum for fifteen years. This lady, who appears to have been somewhat of the romantic kind, as soon as she received him into her house, put a ring on his finger, telling him that friendship had espoused merit. When the revolution broke out, he came to Paris, and became a zealous partizan, and was much employed by Mirabeau in drawing up reports. His Memoir on patriotic contributions procured him a place in the legislative body, but he died in 1792, after which the municipality of Paris honoured him by giving his name to one of the new streets. Besides the works already mentioned, he published 1. “L'Aigle et le hibou,” an apologue in verse, Glasgow and Paris, 1783, 2. <c Recueil de quelques pieces de literature en prose et en vers,“ibid. 1784. The best of these is a dissertation on antique monuments, occasioned by some Greek verses discovered on a tomb at Naples, in 1756. 3.” Les Jardins de Betz,“a descriptive poem, 1792, 8vo. 4.” Lettre sur les avantages et l'origine de la gaiete“Francaise,” Lyons, 1761, 12mo; Paris, 1792, 8vo. 5. An essay on the question “Combien un esprit trop subtil ressemble a un esprit faux,” 1750, 8vo. 6. “Les vrais plaisirs ne sont faits que pour la vertu,” 1761, 4to. These two last were honoured with the academical prizes of Montauban. 7. “Pourquoi les arts utiles ne sont-ils pas cultives preferablement aux arts agreables,” 1761, 4to. 8. “Sur l'origine et les effets du desir de transmettre son nom a la posterite,” Hague, 1761, 8vo Paris, 1792, 8vo. 9. “Traduction libre de trois odes d'Horace,” 1789. 10. “De Tinteret d'un ouvrage dans le sujet, le plan, et le style,” Paris, 1763, 8vo. Besides these, he published some tracts on the subjects which arose out of the revolution, and was joint editor with Rabaut de St. Etienne, of the “Feuille. villageoise,” a paper calculated to spread the revolutionary delusions among the country people, but his style was not sufficiently simple and popular. In 1793, a collection of his works was published in an 8vo volume. Those which are on subjects of literature are ingenious and interesting, but as a poet he cannot be allowed to rank high.

, a painter of Cordova, acquired fame in the sixteenth century, both in Spain and Italy. His manner approaches somewhat to that of Correggio; the same exactness in the drawing, the same force in the expression, the same vigour in the colouring. It is impossible to contemplate without emotion his picture of the Last Supper in the cathedral of Cordova; where each of the apostles presents a different character of respect and affection for their master; the Christ displays at once an air of majesty and kindness; and the Judas a false and malignant countenance. The talents of Cespedes were not confined to painting, if we may trust the enthusiasm of the Spanish authors in his behalf; he was at the same time philosopher, antiquary, sculptor, architect; an adept in the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Italian languages, a great poet, and a prolific author. He died in 1608, aged upwards of seventy.

, a French writer of eminence in polite literature, is said to have been born in America, of French parents, in 1730, and died in Paris July 12, 1792, but our only authority does not give his Christian name, nor have we been able to discover it in any of the French catalogues. He was a member of the French academy, and of that of the belles-lettres, a dramatic author, an indifferent poet, but much esteemed for his writings respecting criticism and elegant literature. His principal works are: 1. “Eponine,” a tragedy, 1762, which did not succeed. 2. “Eloge de Rameau,” 1764, 8vo. 3. “Sur le sort de la poesie, en ce siecle philosophe, avec un dissertation sur Homere,” 1764, 8vo. 4. “Euxodie,” a tragedy, 1769, 12mo. 5. “Discours sur Pindar,” with a translation of some of his odes, 1769, 8vo. 6. “Les Odes Pithiques de Pindare,” translated, with notes, 1771, 8vo. This, in the opinion of Voltaire, is an excellent translation. 7. “Vie de Dante,” 1775, 8vo. 8. “Sabinus,” a lyric tragedy, but unsuccessful, 1775. 9. “Epitre sur la manie des jardins Anglois,” 1775, 8vo. The design of this is to modify, or rather to attack the principle that engages many to respect all the caprices of nature, and to shew that this principle, or at least its unrestrained application, may be prejudicial to the arts, but he displays more ingenuity than taste in this discussion. 10. “Idylles de Theocrite,” a new translation, 1777, 8vo. The most valuable part of this volume is a judicious and elegant essay on the Bucolic poets, in which, however, he is thought to treat Fontenelle and madame Deshoulieres with too much severity. 11. “Vers sur Voltaire,” 1778, 8vo. 12. “De la Musique considereé en elle meme, et dans ses rapports avec la parole, les langues, la poesie, et la theatre,” 1788, 2 vols. 8vo. The first volume, if we mistake not, was published in 1735. In this, says Dr. Burney, he discovers a refined taste, nice discernment, much meditation and knowledge of the subject, and an uncommon spirit of investigation; and although Dr. Burney’s sentiments are not always in unison with the opinions and reasoning of M. de Chabanon, yet there are such enlarged views and luminous and elegant observations in analysing the sensations which music excites, in assigning reasons for the pleasures which this art communicates to ears that vibrate true to musical intervals and concordant sounds, that he thinks its perusal will generate reflections on the art, and set the mind of a musician at work, who had never before regarded music but as a mere object of sense. This book was written in the midst of the war of musical opinions between the Gluckists and Piccinists. The author is said to have been not only an excellent judge of instrumental composition and performance, but among dilettanti ranked high as a performer on the violin. 13. The “Discours” he pronounced on his admission into the academy Jan. 20, 1780, 4to. In 1795 was published from his manuscript, “Tableau de quelques circonstances de ma vie,” 8vo, containing a faithful but not very pleasing disclosure of his conduct and sentiments. It appears that in his youth he was a devot, as serious as madame Guyon, but that afterwards he went into the other extreme, no uncommon transition with his countrymen.

, a miscellaneous writer, was the son of Peter Champion, a gentleman of an ancient and respectable family, seated at St. Columb in Cornwall, who Acquired a considerable fortune as a merchant at Leghorn he was born February 5, 1724-5, at Croydon, in Surrey, and received his first instruction in the Greek and Latin languages at Cheani school in that county; from whence, in 173y, he was removed to Eton, and in February 1742, became a member of the university of Oxford having been placed at St. Mary-hall, under the care of the rev. Walter Harte, a celebrated tutor, who was selected at a later period by the earl of Chesterfield to finish his son Mr. Stanhope’s education in classical literature. After having passed two years at Oxford, he was entered as a student of law at the Middle Temple, where he continued to reside to the day of his decease; and was a bencher of that society, to which he bequeathed one thousand pounds. He served in two parliaments, having been elected in 1754 for the borough of St. Germain’s, and in 1761 for Liskard in Cornwall; but the same great modesty and reserve restrained him from displaying the powers of his very discerning and enlightened mind in that illustrious assembly, which prevented him also from communicating to the world his poetical effusions, a collection of which was published in an elegant volume in 1801, by William Henry lord Lyttelton, who prefixed a biographical article, from which the above account is taken. He died Feb. 22, 1801, beloved and lamented, as his noble friend says, by all who were acquainted with the brightness of his genius, his taste for the finer arts, his various and extensive learning, and the still more valuable qualities of his warm and benevolent heart. From his “Miscellanies in prose and verse, English and Latin,” it is discernible that he was a polite scholar, and had many qualities of a poet, but not unmixed with a love for those disgusting images in which Swift delighted.

, a celebrated French poet, was born at Paris Dec. 4, 1595, and having been educated under Frederic Morel, Nicholas Bourbon, and other eminent masters, became tutor to the children of the marquis de la Trousse, grand marshal of France, and afterwards steward to this nobleman. During an abode of seventeen years in this family, he translated “Guzman d'Alfarache,” from the Spanish, and directed his particular attention to poetry. He wrote odes, sonnets, the last words of cardinal Richelieu, and other pieces of poetry; and at length distinguished himself by his heroic poem called “La Pucelle,” or “France delivree.” Chapelain was thought to have succeeded to the reputation of Malherbe, and after his death was reckoned the prince of the French poets. Gassendi, who was his friend, has considered him in this light; and says, that “the French muses have found some comfort and reparation for the loss they have sustained by the death of Malherbe, in the person of Chapelain, who has now taken the place of the defunct, and is become the arbiter of the French language and poetry.” Sorbiere has not scrupled to say, that Chapelain “reached even Virgil himself in heroic poetry;” and adds, that “he was a man of great erudition as well as modesty.” He possessed this glorious reputation for thirty years; and, perhaps, might have possessed it now, if he had suppressed the “Pucelle:” but the publication of this poem in 1656, ruined his poetical character, in spite of all attempts of his friends to support it. He had employed a great many years about it; the expectation of the public was raised to the utmost; and, as is usual in such cases, disappointed. The consequence of this was, that he was afterwards set as much too low in his poetical capacity as perhaps before he was too high.

, a celebrated French poet, called Chapelle from the place of his nativity, a village between Paris and St. Denys, was born in 1621. He was the natural son of Francis Lullier, a man of considerable rank and fortune, who was extremely tender of him, and gave him a liberal education. He had the celebrated Gassendi for his master in philosophy; but he distinguished himself chiefly by his poetical attempts. There was an uncommon ease in all he wrote; and he was excellent in composing with double rhymes. We are obliged to him for that ingenious work in verse and prose, called “Voyage de Bachaumont,” which he wrote in conjunction with Bachaumont. Many of the most shining parts in Moliere’s comedies it is but reasonable to ascribe to him: for Moliere consulted him upon all occasions, and paid the highest deference to his taste and judgment. He was intimately acquainted with all the wits of his time, and with many persons of quality, who used to seek his company: and we learn from one of his own letters to the marquis of Chilly, that he had no small share in the favour of the king, and enjoyed, probably from court, an annuity of 8000 livres. He is said to have been a very pleasant, but withal a very voluptuous man. Among other stories in the Biographia Gallica, we are told that Boileau met him one day; and as he had a great value for Chapelle, ventured to tell him, in a very friendly manner, that “his inordinate love of the bottle would certainly hurt him.” Chapelle seemed very seriously affected; but this meeting happening unluckily by a tavern, “Come,” says he, “let us turn in here, and I promise to attend with patience to all that you shall say.” Boileau led the way, in hopes of converting him, but both preacher and hearer became so intoxicated that they were obliged to be sent home in separate coaches. Chapelle died in 1686, and his poetical works and “Voyage” were reprinted with additions at the Hague in 1732, and again in 1755, 2 vols. 12mo.

, a dramatic poet, and translator of Homer, was born in 1557, as generally supposed, in Kent, but we have no account at what school he was educated: he was, however, sent to the university when he was about seventeen years of age, and spent about two years at Trinity college, Oxford, where he paid little attention to logic or philosophy, but was eminently distinguished for his knowledge in the Greek and Roman classics. About the year 1576 he quitted the university, and repaired to the metropolis, where he commenced a friendship with Shakspeare, Spenser, Daniel, Marlow, and other celebrated wits. In 1595 he published, in 4to, a poem entitled “Ovid’s Banquet of Sauce, a coronet for his mistress philosophy, and his amorous zodiac:” to which he added, a translation of a poem into English, called “The amorous contention of Phillis and Flora,” written in Latin by a friar in 1400. The following year he published in 4to, “The Shield of Achilles,' 7 from Homer; and soon after, in the same year, a translation of seven books of the Iliad, in 4to. In 1600, fifteen books were printed in a thin folio; and lastly, without date, an entire translation of the Iliad, in folio, under the following title:” The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets. Never before in any language truly translated. With a comment upon some of his chief places: done according to the Greek by George Chapman. At London, printed by Nathaniel Butter."

He died in 1634, at the age of seventy-seven, and was buried on the south side of St. Giles’s church in the Fields. His friend Inigo Jones planned and erected a monument to his memory, which was unfortunately destroyed with the old church. He appears to have been much respected in his own time; and, indeed, the man who communicated Homer to his countrymen, even in such language as that of Chapman, might justly be considered as their benefactor; and in estimating the merit of his version, candid allowance ought to be made for the age in which he lived, and the then unimproved state of our language. Of this translation Mr. Warton says, Chapman “is sometimes paraphrastic and redundant, but more frequently retrenches or impoverishes what he could not feel and express. In the mean time he labours with the inconvenience of an aukward, inharmonious, and unheroic measure, imposed by custom, but disgustful to modern ears. Yet he is not always without strength or spirit. He has enriched our language with many compound epithets, much in the manner of Homer, such as the silver-footed Thetis, the silver-thorned Juno, the triple-feathered helme, the highwalled Thebes, the fair-haired boy, the silver-flowing floods, the hugely-peopled towns, the Grecians navy-bound, the strong-winged lance, and many more which might be collected. Dryden reports, that Waller never could read Chapman’s Homer without a degree of transport. Pope is of opinion that Chapman covers his defects by a daring fiery spirit, that animates his translation, which is something like what one might imagine Homer himself to have written before he arrived to years of discretion.' But his fire is too frequently darkened by that sort of fustian which now disfigured the face of our tragedy.” Mr. Warton’s copy once belonged to Pope in which he has noted many of Chapman’s absolute interpolations, extending sometimes to the length of a paragraph of twelve lines. A diligent observer will easily discern that Pope was no careless reader of his rude predecessor. Pope complains that Chapman took advantage of an unmeasureable length of line but in reality, Pope’s lines are longer than Chapman’s. If Chapman affected the reputation of rendering line for line, the specious expedient of chusing a protracted measure which concatenated two lines together, undoubtedly favoured his usual propensity to periphrasis. — As a dramatic writer, he had considerable reputation among his contemporaries, and was justly esteemed for the excellence of his moral character. Wood says that he was a person of most reverend aspect, religious and temperate, qualities rarely meeting in a poet."

was youngest daughter of CoUey Cibber the player, and afterwards poet-laureat. At eight years old she was put to school, but had an education more suitable to a boy than a girl; and as she grew up, followed the same plan, being more frequently in the stable than in the bed-chamber, and mistress of the curry-comb, though ignorant of the needle. Her very amusements all took the same masculine turn shooting, hunting, riding races, and digging in a garden, being ever her favourite exercises. She also relates an act of her prowess when a mere child, in protecting the house when in expectation of an attack from thieves, by the firing of pistols and blunderbusses out at the windows. All her actions seem to have had a boyish mischievousness in them, and she sometimes appears to have run great risque of ending them with the most fatal consequences. This wildness, however, was put some check to, by her marriage, when very young, with Mr. Richard Charke, an eminent performer on the violin; immediately after which she launched into the billows of a stormy world, where she was, through the remainder of her life, buffeted about without ever once reaching a peaceful harbour. Her husband’s insatiable passion for women soon gave her just cause of uneasiness, and in a short time appears to have occasioned a separation.

, an English poet of singular genius and character, was born Nov. 20, 1752. His father was originally a writing usher to a school in Bristol, afterwards v a singing man in the cathedral, and lastly, master of the free-school in Pyle-street in the same city. He died about three months before this son was born. It is not quite unimportant to add that our poet was descended from a long line of ancestors who held the office of sexton of St. Mary Reclcliffe; since it was in the muniment room of this church that the materials were found from which he constructed that system of imposture which has rendered his name celebrated, and his history interesting. At five years of age he was sent to the school in Pyle-street, then superintended by a Mr. Love; but here he improved so little that his mother took him back. While under her care his childish attention is said to have been engaged by the illuminated capitals of an old musical manuscript in French, which circumstance encouraged her to initiate him in the alphabet, and she afterwards taught him to read from an old black-letter Testament or Bible. That a person of her rank in life should be able to read the blackletter is somewhat extraordinary, but the fact rests upon her authority, and has been considered as an introduction to that fondness for antiquities for which he was afterwards distinguished.

Such is the story of the discovery of the poems attributed to Rowley, which Chatterton evidently made up from the credulity of his mother and other friends, who could not read the parchments on which he affected to set so high a value, and which he afterwards endeavoured to render of public importance by producing these wonderful treasures of Canynge’s cofre. In his attempt already related, respecting the old bridge, he had not been eminently successful, owing to his prevarication. He now imparted some of these manuscripts to George Catcot, a pewterer of Bristol, who had heard of the discovery, and desired to be introduced to Chatterton. The latter very readily gave him the “Bristow Tragedy,” Rowley’s epitaph on Canynge’s ancestor, and some smaller pieces. These Catcot communicated to Mr. Barret, a surgeon, who was writing a History of Bristol, and would naturally be glad to add to its honours that of having produced such a poet as Rowley, In his conversations with Barret and Catcot, he appears to have been driven to many prevarications, sometimes owning that he had destroyed several of these valuable manuscripts, and at other times asserting that he was in possession of others which he could not produce. These contradictions must have entirely destroyed his evidence in any other case, in the opinion of thinking and impartial judges; but the historian of Bristol could not forego the hopes of enriching his book by originals of so great importance; and having obtained from Chatterton several fragments, some of considerable length, actually introduced them as authentic in his history, long after the controversy ceased, which had convinced the learned world that he had been egregiously duped.

In return for these contributions, Barret and Catcot supplied Chatterton occasionally with money, and introduced him into company. At his request, too, Mr. Barret lent our poet some medical authors, and gave him a few instructions in surgery, but still his favourite studies were heraldry and English antiquities, which he pursued with as much success as could be expected from one who knew no language but his own. Camden’s Britannia appears to have been a favourite book; and he copied the glossaries of Chaucer and others with indefatigable perseverance, storing his memory with antiquated words. Even Bailey’s dictionary has been proved to have afforded him many of those words which the advocates for Rowley thought could be known only to a writer of his pretended age.

The only remarkable consequence of this correspondence was the censure Mr. Wai pole incurred from the admirers of Chatterton, who, upon no other authority than the circumstances now related, persisted in accusing him of barbarous neglect of an extraordinary genius who solicited his protection, and finally of being the cause of his shocking end. Mr. Walpole, when he found this calumny transmitted from hand to hand, and probably believed by those who did not take the trouble to inquire into the facts, drew up a candid narrative of the whole correspondence, which was broken off nearly two years before Chatterton died, during which two years the latter had resided, with every encouragement, in London; and, according to his own account, was within the prospect of ease and independence, without the aid of Mr. Walpole' s patronage. Of all this Mr. Walpole’s accusers could not be ignorant, if they knew any thing of Chatterton’s history. They must have known that Chatterton did not apply to Walpole, as a poet, but merely as a young man who was transmitting the property of another, and who had no claims of his own, but that he was tired of a dull profession, and wished for a place in which he might indulge his taste in what was more lively. A patron must have had many places in his gift and few applicants, if he could spare one to a person who professed no other merit than an inclination to exchange labour for ease. Yet Walpole has been held forth to public indignation as the cause of Chatterton’s death.

The general character of his works has been both fairly and elegantly appreciated by lord Orford, in the last edition of his lordship’s works. His life, says this critic, should be compared with “the powers of his mind, the perfection of his poetry, his knowledge of the world, which though in some respects erroneous, spoke quick intuition; his humour, his vein of satire, and above all, the amazing number of books he must have looked into, though chained down to a laborious and almost incessant service, and confined to Bristol, except at most for the last five months of his life, the rapidity with which he seized all the topics of conversation then in vogue, whether of politics, literature, or fashion; and when added to all this 'mass of reflection, it is remembered that his youthful passions were indulged to excess, faith in such a prodigy may well be suspended and we should look for some secret agent behind the curtain, if it were not as dificult to believe that any man who possessed such a vein of genuine poetry would have submitted to lie concealed, while he actuated a puppet; or would have stooped to prostitute his muse to so many unworthy functions. But nothing in Chatterton can be separated from Chatterton. His noblest flight, his sweetest strains, his grossest ribaldry, and his most common- place imitations of the productions of magazines, were all the effervescences of the same ungovernable impulse, which, cameleon-like, imbibed the colours of all it looked on. It was Ossian, or a Saxon monk, or Gray, or Smolldt, or Jun i us ant l if it failed most in what it most affected to be, a poet of the fifteenth century, it was because it could not imitate what had not existed.” The facts already related are principally taken from the account drawn up originally for the Biographia Britannica, and at the distance of eighteen years, prefixed to an edition of his works, without any addition or alteration. Something yet remains to be said of his virtues, which, if the poetical eulogiums that have appeared deserve any credit, were many. Except his temperance, however, already noticed, we find only that he preserved an affectionate attachment for his mother and sister, and even concerning this, it would appear that more has been said than is consistent. It has been asserted that he sent presents to them from London, when in want himself; but it is evident from his letters that these were unnecessary articles for persons in their situation, and were not sent when he was in want . Six weeks after, when he felt himself in that state, he committed an act which affection for his relations, since he despised all higher considerations, ought to have retarded. His last letter to his sister or mother, dated July 20, is full of high-spirited hopes, and contains a promise to visit them before the first of January, but not a word that can imply discontent, far less an intention to put an end to his life. What must have been their feelings when the melancholy event reached them! How little these poor women were capable of ascertaining his character appears from the very singular evidence of his sister, who affirmed that he was “a lover of truth from the earliest dawn of reason.” The affectionate prejudices of a fond relation may be pardoned, but it was surely unnecessary to introduce this in a life every part of which proves his utter contempt for truth at an age when we are taught to expect a disposition open, ingenuous, and candid.

, styled the Father of English poetry, is one of whose birth and family nothing has been decided. It has been contended on the one hand, that he was of noble origin; on the other, that he descended from persons in trade. Even the meaning of his name in French, Chaucier, a shoemaker, has been brought in evidence of a low origin, while the mention of the name Chaucer, in several records, from the time of William the conqueror to that of Edward I. has been thought sufficient to prove the contrary. Leland says he was nobili loco natus but Speght, one of his early biographers, informs us, that, “in the opinion of some heralds, he descended not of any great house, which they gather by his arms;” and Mr. Tyrwhitt is inclined to believe the heralds rather than Leland. Speght, however, goes farther, and makes his father a vintner, who died in 1348, and left his property to the church of St. Mary Aldermary, where he was buried. This is confirmed by Stowe, who says, “Richard Chawcer, vintner, gave to that church his tenement and tavern, with the appurtenance, in the Royal-­streete the corner of Kerion-lane, and was there buried, 1348.” But neither Stowe nor Speght afford any proof that this Richard Chawcer was the father of our poet.

His biographers have provided him with education both at Oxford and Cambridge, a circumstance which we know occurred in the history of other scholars of that period, and is not therefore improbable. But in his “Court of Love,” which was composed when he was about eighteen, he speaks of himself under the name of” Philogenet, of Cambridge, clerk.” Mr. Tyrwhitt, while he does not think this a decisive proof that he was really educated at Cambridge, is willing to admit it as a strong argument that he was not educated at Oxford. Wood, in his Annals (vol. I. book I. 484.) gives a report, or rather tradition, that “when Wickliff was guardian or warden of Canterbury college, he had to his pupil the famous poet called Jeffry Chaucer (father of Thomas Chaucer, of Ewelme in Oxfordshire, esq.) who following the steps of his master, reflected much upon the corruptions of the clergy.” This is something like evidence if it could be depended on; at least it is preferable to the conjecture of Leland, who supposes Chaucer to have been educated at Oxford, merely because he had before supposed that he was born either in Oxfordshire or Berkshire. Those who contend for Cambridge as the place of his education, fix upon Solere’s hall, which he has described in his story of the Miller of Trompington; but Solere’s hall is merely a corruption of Soler hall, i.e. a hall with an open gallery, or solere window. The advocates for Oxford are inclined to place him in Merton college, because his contemporaries Strode and Occleve were of that college. It is equally a matter of conjecture that he was first educated at Cambridge, and afterwards at Oxford. Wherever he studied, we have sufficient proofs of his capacity and proficiency. He appears to have acquired a very great proportion of the learning of his age, and became a master of its philosophy, poetry, and such languages as formed the intercourse between men of learning. Leland says he was “acutus Dialecticus, dulcis Rhetor, lepidus Poeta, gravis Philosophus, ingeniosus Mathematicus, denique sanctus Theologus.” It is equally probable that he courted the muses in those early days, in which he is said to have been encouraged by Gower, although there are some grounds for supposing that his acquaintance with Gower was of a later date.

After leaving the university, we are told that he travelled through France and the Netherlands, but the commencement and conclusion of these travels are not specified. On his return, he is said to have entered himself of the Middle Temple, with a view to study the municipal law, but even this fact depends chiefly on a record, without a date, which, Speght informs us, a Mr. Buckley had seen, where Jeffery Chaucer was fined “two shillings for beating a Franciscane frier in Fleet-street.” Leland speaks of his frequenting the law colleges after his travels in France, and perhaps before. Mr. Tyrwhitt doubts these travels in France, and has indeed satisfactorily proved that Leland’s account of Chaucer is full of inconsistencies—Leland is certainly inconsistent as to dates, but from the evidence Chaucer gave in a case of chivalry, we have full proof of one journey in France, although the precise period cannot be fixed. Whatever time these supposed employments might have occupied, we discover, at length, with tolerable certainty, that Chaucer betook himself to the life of a courtier, and probably with all the accomplishments suited to his advancement in the court of a monarch who was magnificent in his establishment, and munificent in his patronage of learning and gallantry. At what period of life he obtained a situation here, is uncertain. The writer of the life prefixed to Urry’s edition supposes he was not more than thirty, because his first employment was in quality of the king’s page; but the first authentic memorial, respecting Chaucer at court, is the patent in Rymer, 41 Edward III. by which that king grants him an annuity of twenty marks, about 200l. of our money, by the title of Valettus noster, “our yeoman,” and this occurred when Chaucer was in his thirty-ninth year. Several mistakes have arisen respecting these grants, from his biographers not understanding the meaning of the titles given to our poet. Speght mentions a grant from king Edward four years later than the above, in which Chaucer is styled valettus hospitii, which he translates grome of the pallace, sinking our author, Mr. Tyrwhitt observes, as much too low, as his biographer in Urry’s edition had raised him too high, by translating the same words gentleman of the king’s privy chamber. Valet or yeoman was, according to the same acute scholiast, the intermediate rank between squier and grome.

It would be of more consequence to be able to determine what particular merits were rewarded by this royal bounty. Mr. Tyrwhitt can find no proof, and no ground for supposing that it was bestowed on Chaucer for his poetical talents, although it is almost certain that he had distinguished himself, as a poet, before this time. The “Assemblee of Foules,” the “Complaint of the Blacke Knight,” and the translation of the “Roman de la Rose,” were all composed before 1367, the sera which we are now considering. What strengthens Mr. Tyrwhitt' s opinion of the king’s indifference to Chaucer’s poetry, is his appointing him, a few years after, to the office of comptroller of the custom of wool, with an injunction that “the said Geffrey write with his own hand his rolls touching the said office in his own proper person, and not by his substitute.” The inferences, however, which Mr. Tyrwhitt draws from this fact, viz. “that his majesty was either totally insensible of our author’s poetical talents, or at least had no mind to encourage him in the cultivation or exercise of them,” savours rather too much of the conjectural spirit which he professes to avoid. He allows that, notwithstanding what he calls “the petrifying quality, with which these Custom-house accounts might be expected to operate upon Chaucer’s genius,” he probably wrote his “House of Fame” while he was in that office. Still less candid to the memory of Edward will these inferences appear, if we apply modern notions of patronage to the subject; for in tvhat manner could the king more honourably encourage the genius of a poet, than by a civil employment which rendered him easy in his circumstances, and free from the suspicious obligations of a pension or sinecure?

One effect of this connection was the marriage of our poet, by which he became eventually related to his illustrious patron. John of Gaunt’s duchess, Blanche, entertained in her service one Catherine Rouet, daughter of sir Payne, or Pagan Rouet, a native of Hainault, and Guion king at arms for that country. This lady was afterwards married to sir Hugh Swinford, a knight of Lincoln, who died soon after his marriage, and on his decease, his lady returned to the duke’s family, and was appointed governess of his children. While in this capacity, she yielded to the duke’s solicitations, and became his mistress. She had a sister, Philippa, who is stated to have been a great favourite with the duke and duchess, and by them, as a mark of their high esteem, recommended to Chaucer for a wife. He accordingly married her about 1360, when he was in his thirty-second year, and this step appears to have increased his interest with his patron, who took every opportunity to promote him at court. Besides the instances already given, we are told that he was made shield-­bearer to the king, a title at that time of great honour, the shield-bearer being always next the king’s person, and generally, upon signal victories, rewarded with military honours. But here again his biographers have mistaken the meaning of the courtly titles of those days. In the 46 Edward III. 1372, the king appointed him envoy, with two others, to Genoa, by the title of scutifer noster, “our squier.” Scutifer and armiger, according to Mr. Tyrwhitt, are synonymous terms with the French escuier; but Chaucer’s biographers thinking the title of squier too vulgar, changed it to shield-bearer, as if Chaucer had the special office of carrying the king’s shield. With respect to the nature of this embassy to Genoa, biography and history are alike silent, and from that silence, the editor of the Canterbury tales is inclined to doubt whether it ever took place, or whether he had that opportunity of visiting Petrarch, an event which his biographers refer to the same period.

Whichever of these accounts is the true one, it appears that this was the last political employment which Chaucer filled, although he did not cease to take an interest in the measures of his patron, the duke of Lancaster. On the accession of Richard II. in 1377, his annuity of twenty marks was confirmed, and another annuity of twenty marks granted to him in lieu of the daily pitcher of wine. He was also confirmed in his office of comptroller. When Richard II. succeeded his grandfather, he was but eleven years of age, and his uncle the duke of Lancaster was consequently entrusted with the chief share in the administration of public affairs. One of his first measures was to solemnize the young king’s coronation with great pomp, previously to which a court of claims was established to settle the demands of those who pretended to have a right to assist at the ceremony. Among these, Chaucer claimed in right of his ward, who was possessed of the manor of Billington in Kent; and this was held of the crown, by the service of presenting to the king three maple cups on the day of his coronation; but this claim was contested, and if it had not, is remote enough from the kind of information which it would be desirable to obtain respecting Chaucer. All we know certainly of this period, is, that the duke of Lancaster still preserved his friendship for our poet, and probably was the means of the grants just noticed having been renewed on the accession of the young king.

The accounts we have of Chaucer’s latter days are extremely inconsistent. His biographers bring him from Woodstock to Dunnington castle, and from that to London to solicit a continuation of his annuities, in which he found such difficulties as probably hastened his end. Wood, in his Annals, informs us that although he did not repent at the last of his reflections on the clergy, “yet of that he wrote of love and baudery, it grieved him much on his death-bed for one that lived shortly after his time, maketh report, that when he saw death approaching, he did often cry out, ‘Woe is me, woe is me, that I cannot recall and annull those things which I have written of the base and filthy love of men towards women: but alas! they are now continued from man to man, and I cannot do what I desire’.” To this may be added, that the affecting lines “Gode Counsaile of Chaucer,” are said to have been made by him when on his death-bed, and in great anguish. It seems generally agreed that he died Oct. 25, 1400, and was buried in Westminster-abbey, in the great south cross-aile. The monument to his memory was erected above a century and a half after his decease, by Nicholas Brigham, a gentleman of Oxford, a poet, and warm admirer of our author. It stands at the north end of a magnificent recess, formed by four obtuse foliaged arches, and is a plain altar, with three quatrefoils, and the same number of shields. The inscription, and figures on the back, are almost obliterated.

As to what English poetry owes to Chaucer, Dr. Johnson has pronounced him “the first of our versifiers who wrote poetically,” and Mr. Warton has proved “that in elevation and elegance, in harmony and perspicuity of versification, he surpasses his predecessors in an infinite proportion; that his genius was universal, and adapted to themes of unbounded variety; that his merit was not less in painting familiar manners with humour and propriety, than in moving the passions, and in representing the beautiful or the grand objects of nature with grace and sublimity. In a word, that he appeared with all the lustre and dignity of a true poet, in an age which compelled him to struggle with a barbarous language, and a national want of taste; and when to write verses at all, was regarded as a singular qualification.”

Such were the precedents which a new poet might be expected to follow. But Chaucer composed nothing in the first or second of these four metres. In the fourth he wrote only the Rhime of sir Thopas, which being intended to ridicule the vulgar romances, seems to have been purposely written in their favourite metre. In the third, or octosyllable metre , he wrote several of his compositions, particularly an imperfect translation of the Roman de la Rose, the House of Fame, the Dethe of the Duchesse Blanche, and his Dreme, all which are so superior to the versification of his contemporaries and predecessors, as to establish his pre-eminence, and prove that the reformer of English poetry had at length appeared.

But the most considerable part of his works entitle him to the honour of an inventor. They are written in the heroic metre, and there is no evidence of any English poet having used it before him. He is not indeed to be considered as the inventor in the most extensive sense, as the heroic metre had been cultivated by Dante, Petrarch, and Boccace, but he was the first to introduce it into his native language, in which it has been employed by every poet of eminence, to the present day.

In such an age, it is the highest praise of Chaucer, that he stood alone, the first poet who improved the art by melody, fancy, and sentiment, and the first writer, whether we consider the quantity, quality, or variety of his productions. It is supposed that many of his writings are lost. What remain, however, and have been authenticated with tolerable certainty, must have formed the occupation of a considerable part of his life, and been the result of copious reading and reflection. Even his translations are mixed with so great a portion of original matter as, it may be presumed, required time and study, and those happy hours of inspiration, which are not always within command. The principal obstruction to the pleasure we should otherwise derive from Chaucer’s works, is that profusion of allegory which pervades them, particularly the “Romaunt of the Rose,” the “Court of Love,” “Flower and Leaf,” and the “House of Fame.” Pope, in the first edition of*his Temple of Fame, prefixed a note in defence of allegorical poetry, the propriety of which cannot be questioned, but which is qualified with an exception which applies directly to Chaucer. “The incidents by which allegory is conveyed, should never be spun too long, or too much clogged with trivial circumstances, or little particularities.” But this is exactly the case with Chaucer, whose allegories are spun beyond all bounds, and clogged with many trivial and unappropriate circumstances.

There is an interleaved copy of Urry’s edition in the British Museum, presented by Mr. William Thomas, a brother of Dr. T. Thomas, who furnished the preface and glossary, and upon whom the charge of publishing devolved after Mr. Urry’s death. This copy has many manuscript notes and corrections. From one of them we learn that the life of Chaucer was very incorrectly drawn up by Mr. Dart, and corrected and enlarged by Mr. William Thomas; and from another, that bishop Atterbury prompted Urry to this undertaking, but “did by no means judge rightly of Mr. Urry’s talents in this case, who though in many respects a most worthy person, was not qualified for a work of this nature.” Dr. Thomas undertook to publish it, at the request of bishop Smalridge. In the Harleian collection is a copy of an agreement between William Brome, executor to Urry, the dean and chapter of Christ Church, and Bernard Lintot the bookseller. By this it appears that it was Urry’s intention to apply part of the profits towards building Peckwater quadrangle. Lintot was to print a thousand copies on small paper at 1l. 10s. and two hundred and fifty on large paper at 2l. 10s. It does not appear that this speculation succeeded. Yet the edition, from its having been printed in the Roman letter, the copiousness of the glossary, and the ornaments, &c. continued to be the only one consulted, until the publication of the “Canterbury Tales” by Mr. Tyrwhitt, in 1775. This very acute critic was the first who endeavoured to restore a pure text by the collation of Mss. a labour of vast extent, but which must be undertaken even to greater extent, before the other works of Chaucer can be published in a manner worthy of their author. Mr Warton laments that Chaucer has been so frequently considered as an old, rather than a good poet; and recommends the study of his works. Mr. Tyrwhitt, since this advice was given, has undoubtedly introduced Chaucer to a nearer intimacy with the learned public, but it is not probable that he can ever be restored to popularity. His language will still remain an insurmountable obstacle with that numerous class of readers to whom poets must look for universal reputation. Poetry is the art of pleasing; but pleasure, as generally understood, admits of very little that deserves the name of study.

, author of a very useful Biographical Dictionary, was descended from the ancient and noble family of the Calfopedi of Florence, which removed into France under Francis I. At the revocation of the edict of Nantz, Samuel de Chaufepié, the representative of the family, and pfotestant minister at Couhé in Poitou, was obliged to take refuge in Friesland, where he died pastor of the church of Leuwarden in 1704. He had ten children by his wife Maria Marbœuf de la Rimbaudiere, of whom the subject of the present article was the youngest, and born at Leuwarden, Nov. 9, 1702. He was educated partly at Franeker, under professor Andala, as appears by his maintaining an academical thesis before that professor, in 1718, on “Innate Ideas,” and probably about the same time, a second on “The punishment of the Cross,” which was afterwards published in a collection by Gerdes, in 1734. After being admitted into the ministry, he preached for some time at Flushing, then at Delft, and lastly at Amsterdam, where he was pastor of the Walloon church, and where he died, highly respected for piety and learning, and much lamented, July 3, 1786. He was not more diligent in the discharge of his professional functions, than attached to studious researches, which he pursued throughout the whole of his long life. In 1736 he published, “Lettres sur divers sujets importans de la Religion,” 12mo, and in 1746 prefixed a life or historical eulogium to the sermons of John Brutel de la Riviere. In 1756 he published three sermons, intended to prove the truth of the Christian religion from the present state of the Jews; and wrote an account of the life and writings of our celebrated poet Pope, which was prefixed to a French translation of his works, printed at Amsterdam in 1758. He also translated from the Dutch an abridgement, in question and answer, of the history of his country; and from the English, part of Shuckford’s works, with additions, and several volumes of the “Universal History,” which he improved very considerably, particularly in the history of Venice. This labour, however, he discontinued in 1771, and does not appear after that to have published any thing of consequence, confining himself to his pastoral duties, if we except his “Life of Servetus,” which in 1771 was translated into English, by James Yair, minister of the Scots church at Campvere, and published at London, 8vo. The chief object of it seems to be to vindicate Calvin from the reproaches usually thrown upon him for the share he had in the prosecution of Servetus; but some will probably think that he has at least been equally successful in throwing new and not very favourable light on the conduct and principles of Servetus.

, was born at Fontenay in Normandy, in 1639. His father, counsellor of state at Rouen, placed him in the college de Navarre at Paris, where he acquired a profound knowledge of the ancient authors, and contracted an intimacy with the duke de Rochefoucault and the abbé Marsillac, whose patronage he acquired by his lively conversation and his various talents; and while he was countenanced by them, he formed an acquaintance that had a great influence on his poetical efforts. The duchess of Bouillon, a niece of cardinal Mazarin, was about to lay out a large garden, and for that purpose thought it necessary to obtain a piece of ground belonging to the estate of the family of Chaulieu. The poet, with much address, brought the treaty to effect agreeably to the desires of the duchess, and thus acquired the favour of a lady, who afterwards became the inspirer of his sonnets. Her house was a temple of the muses; she encouraged, rewarded, and inspired all such as shewed marks of poetic genius; and evinced a particular regard for Chaulieu. Through her he became known to the duke de Vendome, a great friend of the muses, who, as grand prior of France, presented him with a priorate on the isle of Oleron, with an annual revenue of 28,000 livres. To this were afterwards added the abbacies of Pouliers, Renes, Aumale, and St. Stephen, the profits of which enabled him to pass his life in ease and affluence. The first thing by which Chaulieu became known as a poet was a rondeau on Benserade’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. He soon found opportunities for appearing frequently before the public; and his acquaintance with Chapelle determined him entirely for jovial poetry. Chaulieu was no poet by profession he sung with the flask in his hand, and we are told that in the circle of genial friends he acquired those delicate sentiments which render his poetry at once so natural and so charming. The muses were the best comforts of his age, as they had frequently been in his younger

years, when he was visited by the gout, the pains of which he contrived to alleviate, by conversations with his friends and the muses, and prolonged his life to a very advanced age, dying in 1726, in his 81st year. He was extremely desirous of becoming a member of -the academy of fine arts; and, on seeing another preferred to him, he took his revenge by satirical attacks on the management of the institution. It was the perfect consonance of his life with his poems, that gave them the natural air for which they have ever been so greatly admired. The philosophy of the graces, that animates his works, was also the rule of his life. But few of his poems were published during his lifetime, and those occasionally and detached; the trouble of collecting them he left to his friends after his death. The first editions were very imperfect, till Camusac and St. Marc took the pains to publish them in a completer collection, 1750, 2 vols. 12mo. They consist of epistles in verse, and letters in prose intermingled with verses. Both are characterised by an easy gaiety, agreeable pictures, lively strokes, genuine wit, pleasing fictions, Epicurean morality, or “sagesse commode,” as Saint Marc used to call it, and a style varied as the subject requires. They are not, however, without flat, incorrect, and puerile passages. His versification is flowing and harmonious, but frequently faulty and contrary to the rules of speech, and sometimes designedly negligent, in imitation of the simple style of Marot. Some find great harmony in the continual recurrence of the same rhymes, in which he followed Chapelle, and is praised by Dubos; and Camusac thinks that such verses are eminently adapted to music. Saint Marc, on the other hand, and the younger Racine, complain of their monotony, and conceive that the beauty of them consists solely in the conquest of greater difficulties, and that the French language is not so poor in sonorous phraseology as to stand in need of such a practice. Though the letters of Chaulieu were all actually written, and mostly directed to Bouillon, yet they are frequently interspersed with ingenious fictions. Excepting that to the chevalier Bouillon, the most remarkable letter is that addressed to M. la Fare, as the poet, with great frankness, gives us in it his own portrait. Chaulieu’s odes are not of the higher species.

, an Italian poet, was born at Savone, in 1552. He went to study at Rome, where Aldus Manutius and Muretus gave him their friendship and advice, and pope Urban VIII. and the princes of Italy honoured him with many public marks of their esteem. In 1624 Urban, himself a poet, as well as a protector of poets, invited him to Rome for the holy year; but Chiabrera excused himself on account of old age and infirmities. He died at Savone in 1638, aged eighty-six. His Lyric Poems, Rome, 1718, 3 vols. 8vo, and “Amadeida,” Napoli, 1635, 12mo, are particularly admired. All his works were collected at Venice, 1731, 4 vols. 8vo.

, a divine of the church of England, celebrated for his controversial talents, was the son of William Chillingworth, citizen, afterwards mayor of Oxford, and born there October 1602. He was baptized on the last of that month, Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, but then fellow of St. John’s -college, being his godfather. After he had been educated in grammar learning at a private school in that city, he was admitted a scholar of Trinity-college, June 2, 1618, and elected fellow June 10, 1628; after having taken his degrees of B A. and M. A. in the regular way. He did not confine his studies to divinity: he applied himself with great success to mathematics; and, what shews the extent of his genius, he was also accounted a good poet. Accordingly, sir John Suckling has mentioned him in his Session of the Poets"

For his character Wood has given the following: “He was a most noted philosopher and orator, and, without doubt, a poet also; and had such an admirable faculty in reclaiming schismatics and confuting papists, that none in his time went beyond him. He had also very great skill in mathematics. He was a subtle and quick disputant, and would several times put the king’s professor to a push. Hobbes of Malmesbury would often say, that he was like a lusty fighting fellow, that did drive his enemies before him, but would often give his own party smart back-blows; and it was the current opinion of the university, that he and Lucius lord Falkland,” who by the way was his most intimate friend, “had such extraordinary clear reason, that, if the great Turk or devil were to be converted, they were able to do it. He was a man of little stature, but of great soul: which, if times had been serene, and life spared, might have done incomparable services to the church of England.” Archbishop Tillotson has spoken of him in the highest terms: “I know not how it comes to pass,” says that eminent prelate, “but so it is, that every one that offers to give a reasonable account of his faith, and to establish religion upon rational principles, is presently branded for a Socinian; of which we have a sad instance in that incomparable person Mr. Chillingworth, the glory of this age and nation: who, for no other cause that I know of, but his worthy and successful attempts to make the Christian religion reasonable, and to discover those firm and solid foundations upon which our faith is built, has been requited with this black and odious character. But, if this be Socinianism, for a man to inquire into the grounds and reasons of Christian religion, and to endeavour to give a satisfactory account why he believes it, I know no way, but that all considerate and inquisitive men, that are above fancy and enthusiasm, must be either Socinians or atheists.” Mr. Locke has also spoken of Chillingworth with equal commendation. In a small tract, containing “Some thoughts concerning reading and study for a gentleman,” after having observed that the art of speaking well consists chiefly in two things, namely, perspicuity and right reasoning, and proposed Dr. Tillotson as a pat tern for the attainment of the art of speaking clearly, he adds: “Besides perspicuity, there masjt-be also right reasoning, without which, perspicuity serves but to expose the speaker. And for attaining of this, I should propose the constant reading of Chillingworth, who, by his example, will teach both perspicuity and the way of right reasoning, better than any book that I know: and therefore will deserve to be read upon that account over and over again; not to say any thing of his argument.”

, or as he was called Quintus Septimus Florens Christianus, a French poet, was born at Orleans Jan. 26, 1541. He was called Quintus, because he was his father’s fifth child, and Septimus, because he was born in the seventh month of his mother’s pregnancy. He was well skilled in languages and in the belles lettres; and was tutor to Henry IV. whom he educated in the reformed religion; but he himself returned to the Roman catholic church before his death, which happened in 1596. He was author of some satires against Ronsard, under the name of “La Baronnie,” 1564, 8vo; poems, printed separately in 8vo, and some translations; the principal of which is that of Oppian, 4to. He had a part in the Satyrae Menipeae. Notwithstanding his disposition to satire, he preserved the attachment of his friends, and the general esteem of the public. William his father, physician -to Francis I. and Henry II. translated some medical works into French.

, an English poet of unquestionable genius, was born in Vine-street, in the parish of St. John the Evangelist, Westminster, some time in February, 1731. His father was for many years curate and lecturer of that parish, and rector of Rainham, near Grays*, in Essex. He placed his son, when ahout eight years of age, at Westminster-school, which was then superintended by Dr. Nichols and Dr. Pierson Lloyd. His proficiency at school, although not inconsiderable, was less remarkable than his irregularities. On entering his nineteenth year he applied for matriculation at the university of Oxford, where it is reported by some, he was rejected on account of his deficiency in the learned languages, and by others, that he was hurt at the trifling and childish questions put to him, and answered the examiner with a contempt which was mistaken for ignorance. It is not easy to reconcile these accounts, and, perhaps, not of great importance. Churchill, however, was afterwards admitted of Trinity college, Cambridge, but immediately returned, to London, and never visited the university any more.

He was in his twenty-seventh year when he began to relax from the obligations of virtue, and more openly to enter into those dissipations, which, while they ruined his character and impaired his health, were, not indirectly, the precursors to his celebrity in public life. He was immoderately fond of pleasure; a constant attendant at the theatres, and the associate of men who united wit and profligacy, and qualified themselves for moral teachers by practising the vices they censured in others. Lloyd, the poet, had been one of his school-fellows at Westminster, and their intimacy, renewed afresh, became now a close partnership in debt and dissipation. In one respect this proved beneficial to Churchill. Dr. Lloyd, his companion’s father, persuaded Churchill’s creditors to accept of five shillings in the pound, and to grant releases; nor ought it to be concealed, that there is some reason for believing that Churchill, as soon as he had acquired money by his publications, voluntarily paid the full amount of the original debts.

His next publication was “The Ghost,” 1762, exfended, at irregular intervals, to four books. This was founded on the well-known imposture of a ghost having disturbed a family in Cock-lane; but our poet contrived to render it the vehicle of many characteristic sketches, and desultory thoughts on various subjects unconnected with its title. About this time he appears to have formed a connection with the celebrated John Wiikes, an impostor of more ingenuity, who encouraged him to add faction to profligacy, and increase the number of his enemies by reviling every person of rank or distinction with whom Wiikes chose to be at variance. His pen is said to have been also employed in Wiikes’ s “North Briton,” and in “The Prophecy of Famine.” Churchill’s next production was originally sketched in prose for that paper. What other contributions he made cannot now be ascertained, but it may be suspected that Churchill’s satirical talent would ill submit to the tameness of prose, nor indeed was such an employment worthy of the author of “The llosciad,” and “The Apology.” Wiikes suggested “The Prophecy of Famine,” as a more suitable vehicle for the bitterness of national scurrility, and he was not mistaken.

The merit of Churchill, as a poet, has but lately been, appreciated with impartiality. During his life, his works were popular beyond all competition. While he continued to supply that species of entertainment which is more generally gratifying than a good mind can conceive, or a bad one will acknowledge, he was more eagerly and more frequently read than any of his contemporaries. Churchill was admirably suited to the time in which he lived. But if his poems were popular with those who love to see worth depreciated, and distinctions levelled, with the vulgar, the envious, and the malignant, they were no less held in abhorrence by those who were as much hurt at the prostitution, as charmed by the excellence of his talents, and who were afraid to praise his genius lest they should propagate his writings. Few men, therefore, made so much noise during their lives, or so little after their deaths. His partners in vice and faction shrunk from the task of perpetuating his memory, either from the fear of an alliance with a character so obnoxious as to injure their party, or from the neglect with which bad men usually treat their associates, when they can be no longer useful. Lloyd, to whom he had been more kind than Colman or Thornton, did not survive him above a month. Colman and Thornton preserved a cautious silence about a man whom to praise was to engage with the many enemies he had created; and Wilkes, to whom he bequeathed the editorship and illustration of his poems by notes, &c. neglected the task, until he had succeeded in his ambitions manoeuvres, became ashamed of the agents who had supported him, and left his poorer parti zans to shift for themselves. Even when Dr. Kippis applied to him for such information as might supply a life of Churchill for the Biographia, he seemed unwilling or unable to contribute much; and a comparison of that life with the scattered accounts previously published, may convince the reader that Dr. Kippis thanked him for more assistance than he received.

While the friends of Churchill were thus negligent of his fame, it was not to be expected that his enemies would be very eager to perpetuate the memory of a man by whom they had suffered so severely. Perhaps no writer ever made so many enemies, or carried his hostilities into so many quarters, without provocation. If we except the ease of Hogarth, it is doubtful whether he ever attacked the character of one individual who did him an injury, or stood in his way. Such wantonness of detraction must have naturally led to the general wish that his name and works might be speedily consigned to oblivion. His writings, however, may now be read with more calmness, and his rank as a poet assigned with the regards due to genius, however misapplied. Jf those passages in which his genius shines most conspicuously were to be selected from the mass of defamation by which they are surrounded, he might be allowed to approach to Pope in every thing but correctness; and even of his failure in this respect, it may be justiy said that he evinces carelessness rather than want of taste. But he despised regularity in every thing, and whatever was within rules, bore an air of restraint to which his proud spirit could not submit; hence he persisted in despising that correctness which he might have attained with very little care. The opinion of Cowper upon this subject is too valuable to be omitted. Churchill “is a careless writer for the most part, but where shall we find in. any of those authors, who finish their works with the exactness of a Flemish pencil, those bold and daring strokes of fancy, those numbers so hazardously ventured upon, and so happily finished, the matter so compressed, and yet so clear, and the colouring so sparingly laid on, and yet with such a beautiful effect? In short it is not his least praise, that he is never guilty of those faults as a writer which he lays to the charge of others. A proof, that he did not judge by a borrowed standard, or from rules laid down by critics, but that he was qualified to do it by his own native powers, and his great superiority of genius*.” The superiority of his genius, indeed, is so obvious from even a slight perusal of his works, that it must ever be regretted that his subjects were temporary, and his manner irritating, and that he should have given to party and to passion what might have so boldly chastised vice, promoted the dignity of virtue, and advanced the honours of poetry. His fertility was astonishing, for the whole of his poems were designed and finished within the short space of three years and a half. Whatever he undertook, he accomplished with rapidity, although such was the redundancy of his imagination, and such the facility with which he committed his thoughts to paper, that he has not always executed what he began, and perhaps delights too much in excursions

Churchill does not appear, but he was have beeo any cordiality. an*>ng the first to revive the memory of from his principal subject. Of this “The Prophecy of Famine,” which, for original creative power, may perhaps be preferred to all his other writings, appears to be a striking example. It consists of a long introduction which might suit any other subject, and detached parts which have no natural connexion, and of which the order might be changed without injury. “The Rosciad” seems to have owed its popularity more to its subject, and the clamour of the players and their friends, than to its poetry. In his other works, there are few of the essential qualities of a poet which he has not frequently exemplified. He has fully proved that he was not incapable of the higher species of poetry; he has given specimens of the sublime and the pathetic, “the two chief nerves of all genuine poesy.” In personification he is peculiarly happy, and sometimes displays the fine fancy of Spenser united with great strength of colouring and force of expression. His bursts of indignation are wonderfully eloquent, and with a love of virtue, he might have been her irresistible advocate, and the first of ethic writers. Where he does put on the character of a moral satirist, he is perhaps inferior to none of the moderns. But unfortunately his genius was biassed by personal animosity, and where he surpasses all other writers, it is in the keenness, not of legitimate satire, but of defamation. His object is not to reform, but to revenge; and that the greatness of his revenge may be justified, he exaggerates the offences of his objects beyond all bounds of truth and decency.

In some cases, the poet may be considered separate from the man, and indeed of many eminent poets we know too little to be able to determine what influence their character had on their writings. But ChurchilPs productions are Sq connected with his turbulent and irregular life, that they must necessarily be brought in contact. He frequently alludes to his character and situation, and takes every opportunity to vindicate what seems to redound most to his discredit, his vices and his associates; and as his works will probably long be read with admiration as works of genius, or from curiosity as specimens of obloquy, it is necessary to be told that he had very little veneration for truth, that he drew his characters in extravagant disproportion, and that he was regardless of any means by which he could bring temporary or lasting disgrace on the persons whom either faction or revenge made him consider as enemies. Mr. Tooke, of Gray’s-inn, lately published an edition of Churchill’s works, illustrated by much contemporary history and we owe some particulars of Churchill’s life to the well-written memoirs prefixed to this work.

, a voluminous poet of the sixteenth century, w,as born in Shrewsbury about the year 1520. Wood, who has given a long account of him, says he was of a genteel family, and well educated; and that at the age of seventeen, his father gave him a sum of money, and sent him to court, where he lived in gaiety while his finances lasted. He does not seem, however, to have gained any thing by his attendance at court, except his introduction to the celebrated earl of Surrey, with whom he lived some time as domestic, and by whose encouragement he produced some of his poems. He certainly had no public employment either now or in queen Elizabeth’s reign, although some have denominated him poet laureat, merely, as Mr. Malone thinks, “because he had addressed many of the noblemen of Elizabeth’s court for near forty years, and is called by one of his contemporaries, the old court poet.” He appears, however, to have continued with the earl of Surrey, until this virtuous and amiable nobleman was sacrificed to the tyrannical caprice of Henry VIII. Churchyard now became a soldier, and made several campaigns on the continent, in Ireland, and in Scotland. Tanner is inclined to think that he served the emperor in Flanders against the French in the reign of Henry VIII.; but the differences of dates between his biographers are not now so reconcileable as to enable us to decide upon this part of his history. Wood next informs us that he spent some time at Oxford, and was afterwards patronized by the earl of Leicester. He then became enamoured of a rich widow; but his passion not meeting with success, he once more returned to the profession of arms, engaged in foreign service, in which he suffered great hardships, and met with many adventures of the romantic kind; and in the course of them appears to have been always a favourite among the ladies. At one time, in Flanders, he was taken prisoner, but escaped by the “endeavours of a lady of considerable quality;” and at another time, when condemned to death as a spy, he was reprieved and sent away by the “endeavours of a noble dame.” On his return he published a great variety of poems on all subjects; but there is reason to think that by these he gained more applause than profit, as it is very certain that he lived and died poor. The time of his death, until lately was not ascertained; Winstanley and Cibber place that event in 1570, Fuller in 1602, and Oldys in 1604, which last is correct. Mr. George Chalmers, in. his “Apology for the believers in the Shakspeare Mss.” gives us an extract from the parish register, proving that he was buried April 4, of that year, in St. Margaret’s church, Westminster, near the grave of Skelton. Mr. D'Israeli, who has introduced him in his “Calamities of Authors,” very aptly characterises him as “one of those unfortunate men, who have written poetry all their days, and lived a long life, to complete the misfortune.” His works are minutely enumerated by Ritson in his “Bibliographia Poetica,” and some well- selected specimens have lately appeared in the Censura Literaria. The best of his poems, in point of genius, is his “Legende of Jane Shore,” and the most popular, his “Worthiness of Wales,” 1580, 8vo, of which an edition was published in 1776. It may be added, as it has escaped his biographers, that he is mentioned by Strype, in his life of Grind*!, as “an excellent soldier, and a man of honest principles,” who in 1569 gave the secretary of state notice of an intended rising at Bath (where Churchyard then was) among the Roman catholics.

, poet-laureat to George II. and a dramatic writer of considerable genius, was born in Southampton-street, London, November 6, 1671. His father, Caius Gabriel Cibber, was an eminent statuary, and his mother was the daughter of William Colley, esq. of an ancient family of Glaiston, in Rutland. He took his Christian name from her brother, Edward Colley, esq. In 1681—2 he was sent to the free-school of Grantham, in Lincolnshire and such learning he tells us, as that school could give him, is the most he ever pretended to, neither utterly forgetting, nor much improving it afterwards by study. In 1687 he stood at the election of Winchester scholars, upon the credit of being descended by his mother’s side from William of Wykeham, the founder; but not succeeding, he prevailed with his father, who intended him for the church, to send him to the university. The revolution of 1688, however, gave a turn to Cibber’s fortune; and instead of going to an university, he supplied his father’s place in the army, under the earl of Devonshire, at Nottingham, who was on his road to Chatsworth, in Derbyshire. There his father was then employed, with other artists of all kinds, changing the architecture and decorations of that seat. The revolution having been accomplished without bloodshed, Cibber had no opportunity of proving his valour, and immediately determined to gratify a very early inclination he had somehow formed for the stage. Here, however, he did not meet with much encouragement at first, being full three quarters of a year before he was taken into a salary of 105. per week; yet this, with the assistance of food and raiment at his father’s house, he tells us he then thought a most plentiful accession, and himself the happiest of mortals. The first part in which he appeared with any success, was the chaplain in the “Orphan,” which he performed so well, that Goodman, an old celebrated actor, affirmed with an oath, that he would one day make a good actor. This commendation from an acknowledged judge, filled his bosom, as he tells us, with such transports, that he questioned whether Alexander himself, or Charles XII. of Sweden, felt greater at the head of their victorious armies. The next part he played, was that of Lord Touchwood, in Congreve’s “Double Dealer,” acted before queen Mary which he prepared upon only one day’s notice, by the recommendation of the author, and so well, that Congreve declared he had not only answered, but exceeded his expectations; and from the character he gave of him, his salary was raised from 15s. a week, as it then stood, to 20s. The part of Fondlewife, in the “Old Batchelor,” was the next in which he distinguished himself.

The “Careless Husband,” which is reckoned his best play, was acted in 1704 with great success, a great portion of which he very handsomely places to the account of Mrs. Oldfield, a celebrated actress, who gave great spirit to the character of Lady Betty Modish; yet not more than the author himself in the part of Lord Foppington, wherein he was inimitable. But of all his plays, none was of more importance to the public and to himself, than his comedy called the “Nonjuror,” which was acted in 1717, and dedicated to the king: the hint of it he took from the TartufFe of Moliere. It was considered, however, as a party piece, and it is said that, as he foresaw, he had never after fair-play given to any thing he wrote, and was the constant butt of Mist in his “Weekly Journal,” and of all the Jacobite faction. But this is not an exact state of the case. It is true that he incurred the ridicule of the Jacobites, but the Jacobites only laughed at him in common with all the wits of the day. This general contempt was afterwards heightened by Pope’s making him the hero of the “Duneiad” instead of Theobald, a transfer undoubtedly mean and absurd on Pope’s part, since what was written for Theobald, a dull plodder, could never suit Cibber, a gay lively writer, and certainly a man of wit However, if the Nonjuror brought upon its author some imaginary evils, it procured him also some advantage, for when he presented it to George I. the king ordered him 200l. and the merit of it, as he himself confesses, made him poet-laureat in 1730. Here again he incurred the ridicule of his brother wits, by his annual odes, which had no merit but their loyalty, lyric poetry being a species of writing for which he had not the least talent, and which he probably would not have attempted, had not his office rendered it necessary. These repeated efforts of his enemies sometimes hindered the success of his dramatic pieces; and the attacks against him, in verse and in prose, were now numerous and incessant, as appears by the early volumes of the Gentleman’s Magazine. But he appears to have been so little affected by them, that he joined heartily in the laugh agaiost himself:, and even contributed to increase the merriment of the public at his own expence.

, an eminent musician and composer, was born at Capo di Monte, Naples: he studied music at the couservatorio of Loretto, and was a disciple of the admirable Duronte. He was carefully educated in other respects, and his docility and sweetness of temper, during his youth, gained him the affection of all who knew him. On quitting the conservatorio his talents were soon noticed, and his operas, chiefly comic, became the delight of all Italy. But though he composed for buffo singers, his style was always graceful, never grotesque or capricious. There is an ingenuity in his accompaniments which embellishes the melody of the voice part, without too much occupying the attention of the audience. His operas of “Il Pittore Parigino,” and “L'Italiana in Londra,” were carried to Rome, and thence to the principal cities of Italy, where their success was so great in 1782 and 1783, that he received an order from Paris to compose a cantata for the birth of the dauphin, which was performed by a band of more than 100 voices and instruments. In 1784 he was engaged to compose for the theatres and cities which seldom had operas expressly composed for them; bringing on their stage such as were set for great capitals, such as Rome, Naples, Venice, and Milan. By these means the expences of poet and composer were saved. He composed operas likewise at Petersburgh and Madrid, and his success and fame were more rapid than those of any composer of the last century, except Piccini, and the fame of his comic opera of “L'ltaliana in Londra,” seems to have been as extensive as that of the “Buona Figliuola.”

, a celebrated Italian lawyer and poet of the fourteenth century, who usually is known by that name, although he was of the ancient family of the Sinibaldi or Sinibuldi, and his first name was Guittoncino (not Ambrogino, as Le Quadrio says), the diminutive of Cuittone, and by abbreviation Cino. Much pains were bestowed on his education, and according to the fashion of the times, he studied law; but nature had made him a poet, and he cultivated that taste in conjunction with his academical exercises. He took his first degree in civil law at Bologna, and in 1307 was appointed assessor of civil causes but at that time was obliged to leave Pistoia, owing to the civil commotions. Cino was a zealous Ghibelin, and was now glad to seek an asylum in Lombardy, whither he followed his favourite Selvaggia, whose charms he so often celebrates in his poems, but where he had the misfortune to lose her. After her death he travelled for some time in Lombardy, and is thought to have visited Paris, the university of which was at that time the resort of many foreigners. On his return, however, to Bologna in 1314, he published his “Commentary on the first nine Books of the Code,” a very learned work, which placed him among the ablest lawyers of his time, and has been often printed, first at Pavia in 1483; the best edition is that improved by Cisnez, Franefort, 1578. He now took his doctor’s degree, ten years after he had received that of bachelor, and his reputation procured him invitations to become law-professor, an office which he filled for three years at Trevisa, and for seven years at Perugia. Among his pupils in the latter place was the celebrated Bartolo, who studied under him six years, and declared that he owed his knowledge entirely to the writings and lessons of Cino. From Perugia he went to Florence, but his reputation was confined to the civil law. At this time the canonists and legists were sworn enemies, and Cino, not only in his character as a legist, but as a Ghibelin, had a great aversion to decretals, canons, and the whole of papal jurisprudence. It is not true, however, as some have asserted, that he taught civil law to Petrarch, or canon law to Boccaccio, although he communicated with Petrarch on poetical matters, and exhibited to him a style which Petrarch did not disdain to imitate.

In 1728 was published, “A Letter from Dr. Clarke to Mr. Benjamin Hoadly, F. R. S. occasioned by the controversy relating to the proportion of velocity and force in bodies in motion,” and printed in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 401; and in 1729, he published the twelve first books of “Homer’s Iliad,” in 4to, and dedicated to the duke of Cumberland. The Latin version is almost entirely new; and annotations are added to the bottom of the pages. Homer, bishop Hoadly tells us, was Clarke’s admired author, even to a degree of something like enthusiasm, hardly natural to his temper; and that in this he went a little beyond the bounds of Horace’s judgment, and was so unwilling to allow the favourite poet ever to nod, that he has taken remarkable pains to find out and give a reason for every passage, word, and tittle, that could create any suspicion. It has however so long and so justly been the popular edition of Homer, that it would be unnecessary to expatiate on its merits in this place. Whiston informs us, that he had begun this work in his younger years; and that “the notes were rather transcribed than made new.” The twelve last books of the Iliad were published in 1732, in 4to, by our author’s son, Samuel Clarke; who informs us in the preface, that his father had finished the annotations to the three first of those books, and as far as the 359th verse of the fourth; and had revised the text and version as far as verse 510th of the same book.

When sir John Germaine lay upon his death-bed, and was in great confusion and trouble of mind, he sent for Dr. Clarke, and requested to know of him whether he should receive the Sacrament, and what he should do in his sad condition. The doctor, who was well acquainted with sir John’s pursuits and course of life, sedately replied, that he could not advise him to receive the Sacrament, and that he did not think it likely to be of any avail to him with respect to his final welfare. Having said this, he departed, without administering the communion, having first recommended the dying man to the mercy of God. Mr. Pope has a kind of reflection upon Dr. Clarke’s frequenting the court; to which the poet was stimulated by resentment against the doctor, because he refused to use his interest for obtaining the recall of lord Bolingbroke from France, with a general pardon.

Although antiquities were the favourite study of Mr. Clarke, he was a secret, and by no means an unsuccessful votary of the muses. He wrote English verse with ease, elegance, and spirit. Perhaps there are few better epigrams in our language than that which he composed on seeing the words Domus ultima inscribed on the vault belonging to the dukes of Richmond in the cathedral of Chichester. Among the happier I'ittle pieces of his sportive poetry, there are in the Life of Bowyer some animated stanzas, describing the character of the twelve English poets, whose portraits, engraved by Vertue, were the favourite ornament of his parlour: but he set so modest and humble a value on his poetical compositions, that they were seldom committed to paper, and are therefore very imperfectly preserved in the memory of those, to whom he sometimes recited them. His taste and judgment in poetry appears, indeed, very striking in many parts of his learned and elaborate “Connexion of Coins.” His illustration of Nestor’s cup, in particular, may be esteemed as one of the happiest examples of that light and beauty, which the learning and spirit of an elegant antiquary may throw on a cloudy and mistaken passage of an ancient poet. He gave a very beneficial proof of his zeal for literature, by the trouble he took in regulating the library of the cathedral to which he belonged. He persuaded bishop Mavvson to bestow a considerable sum towards repairing the room appropriated to this purpose. He obtained the donation of many valuable volumes from different persons; and by his constant and liberal attention to this favourite object, raised an inconsiderable and neglected collection of books, into a very useful and respectable public library.

, a Latin poet, who flourished in the fourth century, under the emperor Theodosius and his sons Arcadius and Honorius, was born in the year 365. Many learned men imagine him to have been born at Alexandria, in Egypt; others, however, have made a Spaniard of him, others a Frenchman, and Plutarch and Politian suppose Florence to have been the place of his nativity. It is certain that he came to Rome in the year 395, and insinuated himself into Stilico’s favour, who, being a person of great abilities, both for civil and military affairs, though a Goth by birth, was now become so considerable under Honorius, that he may be said for many years to have governed the western empire. Stilico afterwards fell into disgrace, and was put to death; and it is more than probable, that the poet was involved in the misfortunes of his patron, whom he had egregiously flattered, and severely persecuted by Hadrian, who was captain of the guards to Honorius, and seems to have succeeded Stilico. There is a reason, however, to think that he rose afterwards to great favour, and obtained several honours both civil and military. Arcadius and Honorius are said to have granted him an honour, which seems to exceed any that had ever been bestowed upon a poet before, having at the senate’s request ordered a statue to be erected for him in Trajan’s forum, with a very honourable inscription; and this is said to be confirmed by the late discovery of a marble, supposed to be the pedestal of Claudiau’s statue in brass. The inscription runs thus: “To Claudius Claudianus, tribune and notary, and among other noble accomplishments, the most excellent of poets: though his own poems are sufficient to render his name immortal, yet [as] a testimony of their approbation, the most learned and [h]appy emperors Arcadius and Honorius have, at the request of the senate, ordered this statue to be erected and placed in the forum of Trajan.” Under the inscription was placed an epigram in Greek, signifying that he had united the perfections of Homer and Virgil. The princess Serena had a great esteem for Claudian, and recommended and married him to a lady of great quality and fortune in Libya, as he acknowledges very gratefully in an epistle which he addresses to Serena from thence, a little before his wedding day.

In consequence of Orosius pronouncing him a heathen, “an obstinate pagan,” Cave thinks it may be reasonably inferred that he had written against the Christian religion. This Fabricius opposes, but Lardner says it may be reckoned somewhat remarkable, that a learned man, a devout worshipper of all the gods, a wit and a poet, and author of many works, should never say any thing disrespectful of Christianity. He allows, however, that it is somewhat more extraordinary that Claudian should so excel in Latin verse, as to approach the best writers of the Augustan age in purity and elegance. Gibbon’s character of Claudian, corresponding with this, is written with more than usual care and discrimination. If, says this historian, we fairly balance Claudian’s merits and defects, we shall acknowledge that he does not either satisfy, or silence our reason. It would not be easy to produce a passage that deserves the epithet of sublime or pathetic; to select a verse that melts the heart, or enlarges the imagination. We should vainly seek in the poems of Claudian, the happy invention and artificial conduct of an interesting fable, or the just and lively representation of the characters and situations of real life. For the service of his patron, he published occasional panegyrics and invectives; and the design of these slavish compositions encouraged his propensity to exceed the limits of truth and nature. These imperfections, however, are compensated in some degree by the poetical virtues of Claudian. He was endowed with the rare and precious talent of raising the meanest, of adorning tjie most barren, and of diversifying the most similar topics; tys colouring, mere specially in descriptive poetry, is soft and splendid; and he seldom fails to display, and even to abuse, the advantages of a cultivated understanding, a copious fancy, an easy, and sometimes forcible expression; and a perpetual flow of harmonious versification. To these commendations, independent of any accidents of time and place, we must add the peculiar merit which Claudian derived from the unfavourable circumstances of his birth. In the decline of arts, and of empire, a native of Egypt, who had received the education of a Greek, assumed in a mature age the familiar use and absolute command of the Latin language, soared above the heads of his feeble contemporaries, and placed himself, after an interval of three hundred years, among the poets of ancient Rome. Strada, in his Prolusions, allows him to contend with the five heroic poets, Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, and Statius. His patron is the accomplished courtier, Balthazar Castiglione. His admirers are numerous and passionate. Yet the rigid critics reproach the exotic weeds, or flowers, which spring too luxuriantly in his Latian soil, and for which Dr. Warton, one probably ranked by Gibbon among these “rigid critics,” places Claudian with Statius and Seneca the tragedian, as authors into which no youth of genius ought to be suffered to look.

, a learned presbyter of Vienna, flourished about the year 460. He is celebrated for his eloquence and his general knowledge; and particularly for his acquaintance with the dialectics of Aristotle, which were made use of by the orthodox fathers, as weapons both offensive and defensive, against heretics. He wrote on the state of the soul, “De statu animte, lib. tres,” printed by Mosellanus, Basil, 1520, 4to, and afterwards reprinted in the collections of the fathers, as well as separately. A hymn in praise of Christ has been attributed to him, and as we have already noticed, to Claudian the poet.