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The chief of Brown’s works is a small thin quarto, printed at Middleburgh in 15 32, containing three pieces. The title of the first is, “A Treatise of Reformation without tarrying for any, and of the wickedness of those preachers who will not reform themselves and their charge, because they will tarry till the magistrate command and compel them. By me, Robert Brown.” “A Treatise upon the 23d chapter of St. Matthew, both for an order of studying and handling the scriptures, and also for avoiding the popish disorders, and ungodly communion of all false Christians, and especially of wicked preachers and hirelings.” The title of the third piece is, “A book which sheweth the life and manners of all true Christians, and how unlike they are unto Turks and papists, and heathen folk. Also the points and parts of all divinity, that is, of the revealed will and word of God, are declared by their several definitions and division s.”

, of facetious memory^ as Mr. Addison says of him, was the son of a considerable farmer of Shiffnal in Shropshire, and educated at Newport-school in. that county; from whence he was removed to Christchurch in Oxford^ where he soon distinguished himself by his uncommon attainments in literature. He had great parts and quickness of apprehension, nor does it appear that he was wanting in application; for we are told, that he was very well skilled in the Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and Spanish languages, even before he was sent to Oxford. The irregularities of his life did not suffer him however to continue long at the university; but when obliged to quit it, instead of returning home to his father, he formed a scheme of going to London, in hopes of making his fortune some way or other there. This scheme did not answer. He was very soon in danger of starving; upon, which he made interest to be schoolmaster of Kingston upon Thames, in which pursuit he succeeded. But this was a profession very unsuitable to a man of Mr. Brown’s turn, and a situation that must needs have been extremely disagreeable to him; and therefore we cannot wonder, that he soon quitted his school, and went again to London; where finding his old companions more delighted with his humour, than ready to relieve his necessities, he had recourse to his pen, and became an author, and partly a libeller, by profession. He published a great variety of pieces, under the names of dialogues, letters, poems, &c. in all which he discovered no small erudition, and a vast and exuberant vein of humour: for he was in his writings, as in his conversation, always lively and facetious. In the mean time he made no other advantage of these productions, than what he derived from the booksellers; for though they raised his reputation, and made his company sought after, yet as he possessed less of the gentleman than wits usually do, and more of the scholar, so he was not apt to choose his acquaintance by interest, but was more solicitous to be recommended to the ingenious who might admire, than to the great who might relieve him. An anonymous author, who has given the world some account of Mr. Brown, says, that though a good-natured man, he had one pernicious quality, which was, rather to lose his friend than his joke. He had a particular genius for satire, and dealt it out liberally whenever he could find occasion. He is famed for being the author of a libel, fixed one Sunday morning on the doors of Westminsterabbey; and of many others against the clergy and quality. He used to treat religion very lightly, and would often say, that he understood the world better, than to have the imputation of righteousness laid to his charge, yet, upon the approach of death, his heart misgave him, as if all was not right within, and he began to express sentiments of remorse for his past life.

Towards the latter end of Brown’s life, we are informed by Mr. Jacob, that he was in favour with the earl of Dorset, who invited him to dinner on a Christmas-day, with Dryden, and some other men of genius; when Brown, to his agreeable surprise, found a bank note of 50/, under his plate; and Dryden at the same time was presented with another of 100l. Brown died in 1704, and was interred in the cloister of Westminster-abbey, near the remains of Mrs. Behn, with whom he was intimate in his life-time. His whole works were printed in 1707, consisting of dialogues, essays, declamations, satires, letters from the dead to the living, translations, amusements, &c. in 4 vols. Much humour and not a little learning are, as we have already observed, scattered every where throughout them, but they are totally destitute of delicacy, and have not been reprinted for many years. Dr. Johnson, in his Life of Dryden, very justly says that “Brown was not a man deficient in literature, nor destitute of fancy; but he seems to have thought it the pinnacle of excellence to be a `merry fellow;' and therefore laid out his powers upon small jests or gross buffoonery, so that his performances have little intrinsic value, and were read only while they were recommended by the novelty of the event that occasioned them. What sense or knowledge his works contain is disgraced by the garb in which it is exhibited.”

, a celebrated general of the eighteenth century, was the son of Ulysses, baron de Brown, colonel of a regiment of cuirassiers in the service of the emperors Leopold and Joseph, created in 1716, by the emperor Charles VI. a count of the holy Roman empire, his younger brother George receiving the like dignity at the same time, who was general of foot, counsellor of war, and a colonel of a regiment of infantry, under Charles -VI. They were of an ancient and noble family in Ireland. The subject of the present memoir was born at Basle, Oct. 24, 1705-. After having passed through the lessons of a school at Limerick in Ireland, he was called to Hungary at ten years of age, by count George de Brown, his uncle, and was present at the famous siege of Belgrade in 1717; about the close of the year 1723, he became captain in his uncle’s regiment, and then lieutenant-colonel in 1725. He went to the island of Corsica in 1730, with a battalion of his regiment, and contributed greatly to the capture of Callansana, where he received a wound of some consequence in his thigh. He was appointed chamberlain to the emperor in 1732, and colonel in 1734. He distinguished himself in the war of, Italy, especially in the battles of Parma and Guastalla, and burnt, in presence of the French army, the bridge which the marechal de Noailles had thrown across the Adige. Being appointed general in 1736, he favoured, the year following, the retreat of the army, by a judicious manoeuvre, and saved all the baggage at the memorable day of Banjaluca in Bosnia, Aug. 3, 1737. This signal piece of service procured him a second regiment of infantry, vacant by the death of count Francis de Wallis. On his return to Vienna in 1739, the emperor Charles VI. raised him to the dignity of general-neld-marechal-lieute.^ nanr, and gave him a seat in the Aulic council of war. After the death of that prince, the king of Prussia having entered Silesia, count de Brown, with but a small body oi troops, disputed with him every foot of ground for the space of two months. He commanded in 1741 the infantry of the right wing of the Austrian army at the battle of Molvitz; and, though wounded, made a handsome retreat. He then went into Bavaria, where he commanded the van of the same army, made himself master of Deckendorf, an4 took much of the enemy’s baggage, and forced the French to quit the banks of the Danube, which the Austrian army afterwards passed in perfect safety; in commemoration of which, a marble pillar was erected on the spot, with the following inscription: “Theresise Austriacae Augustse Duce Exercitus Carolo Alexandro Lotharingico, septemdecirn superatis hostilibus VilHs, captoque Deckendorfio, renitentibus undis, resistentibus Gallis, Duce Exercitus Ludovico Borbonio Contio, transivit hie Danubium Ulysses Maximilianus, S. R. I. Comes de Brown, Locumtenens Campi Marashallusj Die 5 Junii, A. D. 1743.” The queen of Hungary sent him the s^me year to Worms, in quality of her plenipotentiary to the king of Great Britain: where he put the finishing Hand to the/ treaty of alliance between the courts of Vienna, London, and Turin, and she declared him her actual privy counsellor at her coronation qf Bohemia. The count de Brown, in 1744, followed prince Lobkovitz jnto Italy, took the city of Veletri the 4th of August, notwithstanding the great superiority of the enemy in numbers, penetrated into their camp, defeated several regiments, and took a great many prisoners. Being recalled to Bavaria, he performed several military exploits, and returned to Italy in 1746. He drove the Spaniards out of the Milanese; and, having joined the army of the prince de Lichtenstein, he commanded the left wing of the Austrian troops at the battle of Placentia, the 15th of June 1746; and routed the right wing of the enemy’s army, commanded by the marechal de Maillebois. After this famous battle, the gaining of which was due to him, he commanded in chief the army ordered against the Genoese, made himself master of the pass of la Bochetta, though defended by 4000 men, and took possession of the city of Genoa. Count Brown then went to join the troops of the king of Sardinia, and, in conjunction with him, took Montalbano and the territory of Nice. He passed the Var the 30th of November, in opposition to the French troops, entered Provence, and captured the isles of Saint-Marguerite and Saint-Honorat. He had nearly made himself master of all Provence, when the revolution at Genoa and the army of the marechal de Belleisle obliged him to make that fine retreat which acquired him the admiration of all good judges of. military tactics. He employed the rest of the year 1747 in defending the states of the house of Austria in Italy. The empress-queen of Hungary, in reward of his signal campaigns in Italy, made him governor of Transylvania in 1749. In 1752 he had the government of the city of Prague, with the general command of the troops of that kingdom; and the king of Poland, elector of Saxony, honoured him in 1755 with the order of the white eagle. The king of Prussia having invaded Saxony in 1756, and attacked Bohemia, count Brown marched against him; he repulsed that prince at the battle of Lobositz the 1st of October, although he had but 26,800 men, and the king of Prussia was at the head of at least 40,000. Within a week after this engagement, he undertook that celebrated march into Saxony, for delivering the Saxon troops shut up between Pirna and Konigstein: an action worthy of the greatest general whether ancient or modern. He afterwards obliged the Prussians to retreat from Bohemia; for which service he obtained the collar of the golden fleece, with which he was honoured by the empress March 6, 1757. Shortly after this count Brown went into Bohemia, where he raised troops with the utmost expedition, in order to make head against the king of Prussia, who had entered it afresh at the head of his whole army. On May 6th was fought the famous battle of Potshernitz, or of Prague, when count Brown was dangerously wounded. Obliged to retire to Prague, he there died of his wounds, the 26th of June 1757, at the age of 52. The count was not only a great general, he was an equally able negotiator, and well skilled in politics. He married, Aug. 15, 1726, Maria Philippina countess of Mar tinitz, of an illustrious and ancient family in Bohemia, by whom he had two sons. The life of this excellent commander was published in two separate volumes, one in German, the other in French, printed at Prague in 1757.

, an English judge, the son of sir Weston Browne of Abhess-roding in Essex, was born in that county, and educated for some time at Oxford, whence he removed to the Middle Temple, where he became eminent in the law, and was chosen summer reader in the first of queen Mary, 1553. The following year he was made serjeant at law, and was the first of the call. Soon after he was appointed serjeant to the king and queen, Philip and Mary. In 1558, he was preferred to be lord chief justice of the common pleas; but removed upon queen Mary’s decease, to make way for sir James Dyer, for though a Roman catholic, and queen Elizabeth might not chuse he should preside in that court, she had such an opinion of his talents that he was permitted to retain the situation of puisne on the bench as long as he lived. It is even said that he refused the place of lord keeper, which was offered to him, when the queen thought of removing sir Nicholas Bacon for being concerned in Hales’s book, written against the Scottish line, in favour of the house of Suffolk. This book sir Anthony privately answered, or made large collections for an answer, which Leslie, bishop of Ross, and Morgan Philips afterwards made use of, in the works they published in defence of the title of Mary queen of Scots. Sir Anthony Browne died at his house in the parish of Southwold in Essex, May 6, 1567. The only works attributed to him were left in ms.: namely, 1. “A Discourse upon certain points touching the Inheritance of the Crown,” mentioned already, and 2. “A book against Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester,” mentioned by Dr. Matthew Paterson, in his “Jerusalem and Babel,” 1653, p. 587, but the object of which we are unacquainted with. Plowden says of sir Anthony, that he was “a judge of profound genius and great eloquence.”

, an eminent physician, son of sir Thomas Browne, hereafter mentioned, was born about 1642. He was instructed in grammar learning at the school of Norwich, and in 1665 took the degree of bachelor of physic at Cambridge. Removing afterwards to Mertori college, Oxford, he was admitted there to the same degree in 1666, and the next year created doctor. In 1668, he visited part of Germany, and the year following made a wider excursion into Austria, Hungary, and Thessaly, where the Turkish sultan then kept his court at Larissa. He afterwards passed through Italy. Upon his return, he practised physic in London; was made physician first to Charl-es II. and afterwards in 1682 to St. Bartholomew’s hospital. About the same time he joined his name to those of many other eminent men, in a translation of Plutarch’s Lives. He was first censor, then elect, and treasurer of the college of physicians; of which in 1705 he was chosen president, and held this office till his death, which happened in August 1708, after a very short illness, at his seat at Northfleet, near Greenhithe in Kent. He was acquainted with Hebrew, was a critic in Greek, and no man of his age wrote better Latin. German, Italian, French, &c. he spoke and wrote with as much ease as his mother tongue. Physic was his business, and to the promotion thereof all his other acquisitions were referred. Botany, pharmacy, and chemistry, he knew and practised. King Charles said of him, that “he was as learned as any of the college, and as well-bred as any at court.” He was married, and left a son and a daughter; the former, Dr. Thomas Browne, F. R. S. and of the royal college of physicians, died in JiJy 17 Jo. The daughter married Owen Brigstock, of Lechdenny, in the county of Carmarthen, esq. to whom the public is indebted for part of the posthumous works of sir Thomas Browne.

Dr. Browne, on his return from his travels, published an account of some part of them, and after his second tour, added another volume, 1677, 4to. In 1685, he published a new edition of the whole, with many corrections and improvements, a work extravagantly and absurdly praised in the Biographia Britannica. His travels yield some information to naturalists, but little to the philosophical or common reader.

, the first bishop that embraced and promoted the Reformation in Ireland, was originally an Austin friar of London. He received his academical education in the house of his order, near Halywell, in Oxford, and becoming eminent for his learning and other good qualities, was made provincial of the Austin monks in England. In 1523 he supplicated the university for the degree of B. D. but it does not appear that he was then admitted. He took afterwards the degree of D. D. in some university beyond sea, and was incorporated in the same degree at Oxford, in 1534, and soon after at Cambridge. Before that time, having read some of Luther’s writings, he took a liking to his doctrine; and, among other things, was wont to inculcate into the people, “That they should make their applications solely to Christ, and not to the Virgin Mary, or the saints.” King Henry VIII. being informed of this, took him into his favour, and promoted him to the archbishopric of Dublin, to which he was consecrated March 19, 1534-5, by Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by the bishops of Rochester and Salisbury. A few months after his arrival in Ireland, the lord privy-seal, Cromwell, signified to him that his majesty having renounced the Papal supremacy in England, it was his highness’ s pleasure that his subjects of Ireland should obey his commands in that respect as in England, and nominated him one of the commissioners for the execution thereof. On November 28, 1535, he acquainted the lord Cromwell with his success; telling him that he had “endeavoured, almost to the danger and hazard of his life, to procure the nobility and gentry of the Irish nation to due obedience, in owning the king their supreme head, as-well spiritual as temporal.” In the parliament which met at Dublin, May l, 1536, he was very instrumental in having the Act for the king’s supremacy over the church of Ireland passed; but he met with many obstacles in the execution of it; and the court of Rome used every effort to prevent any alterations in Ireland with regard to religious matters; for this purpose the pope sent over a bull of excommunication against all such as had ownedj or should own, the king’s supremacy within that kingdom, and the form of an oath of obedience to be taken to his holiness, at confessions. Endeavours were even used to raise a rebellion there; for one Thady é Birne, a Franciscan friar, being seized by archbishop Browne’s order, letters were found about him, from the pope and cardinals to O'Neal; in which, after commending his own and his father’s faithfulness to the church of Rome, he was exhorted “for the glory of the mother church, the honour of St. Peter, and his own security, to suppress heresie, and his holiness’s enemies.” And the council of cardinals thought fit to encourage his country, as a sacred island, being certain while mother church had a son of worth as himself, and those that should succour him and join therein, she would never fall, but have more or less a holding in Britain in spite of fate. In pursuance of this letter, O'Neal began to declare himself the champion of Popery; and having entered into a confederacy with others, they jointly invaded the Pale, and committed several ravages, but were soon after quelled. About the time that king Henry VIII. began to suppress the monasteries in England and Ireland, archbishop Browne completed his design of removing all superstitious reliques and images out of the two cathedrals of St. Patrick’s and the Holy Trinity, in Dublin, and out of the rest of the churches within his diocese, and in their room placed the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments in gold letters. And in 1541, the king having converted the priory of the Holy Trinity into a cathedral church, consisting of a dean and chapter, our archbishop founded three prebends in the same in 1544, namely, St. Michael’s, St. John’s, and St. Michan’s, from which time it has generally been known by the name of Christ-church. King Edward VI. having caused the Liturgy to be published in English, sent an order to sir Anthony St. Leger, governor of Ireland, dated February 6, 1550-1, to notify to all the clergy of that kingdom, that they should use this book in all their churches, and the Bible in the vulgar tongue. When sir Anthony imparted this order to the clergy (on the 1st of March), it was vehemently opposed by the Popish party, especially by George Dowdall, primate of Armagh, but archbishop Browne received it with the utmost satisfaction; and on Easter-day following the Liturgy was read, for the first time within Ireland, in Christ -church, Dublin, in presence of the mayor and bailiffs of that city, the lord deputy St. Leger, archbishop Browne, &c. On this occasion the archbishop preached a sermon against keeping the Scriptures in the Latin tongue, and the worship of images, which is printed at the end of his life, and is the only part of his writings extant, except the letters mentioned above. But Dowdall, in consequence of his violent and unseasonable opposition to the king’s order, was deprived of the title of primate of all Ireland, which, by letters patent bearing date the 20th of October, 1551, was conferred on archbishop Browne, and his successors in the see of Dublin for ever. However, he did not long enjoy this dignity, for he was deprived both of it and his archbishopric in 1*554, the first of queen Mary I. under pretence that he was married, but in truth because he had zealously promoted the Reformation; and archbishop Dowdall, who had lived in exile during part of the reign of king Edward VI. recovered the title of primate, and also the archbishopric of Armagh, which had been given to Hugh Goodacre. While archbishop Browne enjoyed the see of Dublin, the cathedral of St. Patrick’s was suppressed for about the space of eight years; but queen Mary restored it to its ancient dignity, towards the end of the year 1554. The exact time of archbishop Browne’s death is not recorded; only we are told that he died about the year 1556. He was a man, says Usher, of a cheerful countenance; meek and peaceable: in his acts and deeds plain and downright; of good parts, and very stirring in what he judged to be for the interest of religion, or the service of his king; merciful and compassionate to the poor and miserable; and adorned with every good and valuable qualification.

, D.D. provost of Queen’s-college, Oxford, was born at a place called the Tongue, in Watermillock, Cumberland, in 1700, and was baptised Dec. 19, of that year. His father, George Browne, was a reputable yeoman, who was enabled to give his son a classical education at Barton school, and afterwards sent him to Queen’s-college, where he was admitted a member March 22, 1716-17. Here his good behaviour and rapid progress in knowledge, procured him many friends that were of great service to him. In due time he was elected taberdar upon the foundation; and having gone through that office with honour, he took the degree of M. A. Nov. 4th, 1724, and was chosen one of the chaplains of the college. In 1726 he published, from the university press, a most beautiful edition of cardinal Barberini’s Latin poems, with notes and a life of the author, (who was afterwards pope Urban VIII.) and a dedication to his friend Edward Hassel, esq. of Dalemain* his friend and patron. In April 1731, he was elected fellow, and became an eminent tutor, having several young noblemen of the first rank intrusted to his care. In this useful and important station he continued many years, exercising strict discipline, and assiduously studying to promote the prosperity of the college. He took the degree of D. D. July 9, 1743, and was presented by the provost and society to the rectory of Bramshot, in Hampshire, May 1, 1746, The university also conferred upon him the professorship of natural philosophy in 1747, which he held till his death. At his living at Bramshot, he resided more than ten years, during which time he was collated to the chancellorship of Hereford, and was made a canon-residentiary by the right rev. lord James Beauclerk, bishop of that diocese, who had formerly been his pupil.

Upon the death of Dr. Smith, provost of Queen’s, Nor. 23, 1756, Dr. Browne offered himself a candidate for the headship, and had for his formidable competitor, Dr. George Fothergill, principal of Edmund-hall, who had likewise been fellow of the college, an eminent tutor, and a person universally esteemed. The election lasted three days, and each candidate having upon every day’s scrutiny an equality of votes, both among the senior and junior fellows, Dr. Browne being the senior candidate, was, as the statute directs, declared duly elected. This contest, however, made no disagreement between the two competitors; they lived in the same harmony and friendship as before. In 1759, Dr, Browne was appointed vicechancellor, which arduous office, together with that of his headship, he managed with great prudence and ability, till March 25, 1765, when a stroke of the palsy rendered him utterly incapable of business. Under this calamity he languished till June 17, 1767, when he died, leaving the character of being a well-bred man, a polite as well as a profound scholar, an agreeable companion, and a steady friend. There was a gravity and authority in his looks and deportment, that reflected dignity upon the offices he sustained. He cbntinued vice-chancellor an unusual length of time, and presided at the memorable Enccenia when the earl of Litchfield was installed. It is said that his death prevented his being advanced to one of the first vacancies Oh the episcopal bench.

, 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.

On the 10th of February 1743-4, Mr. Browne married Jane, daughter of the rev. Dr. David Trimnell, archdeacon of Leicester, and precentor of Lincoln, and niece to the right rev. Dr. Charles Trimnell, bishop of Winchester, a woman of great merit, and of a very amiable temper. He was chosen twice to serve in parliament; first upon a vacancy in December 1744, and then at the general election in 1748, for the borough of Wenlock in Shropshire, near to which his estate lay. This was principally owing to the interest of William Forester, esq. a gentleman of great fortune and ancient family in Shropshire, who recommended Mr. Browne to the electors, from the opinion he entertained of his abilities, and the confidence he had in his integrity and principles. As Mr. Browne had obtained his seat in parliament without opposition or expence, and without laying himself under obligations to any party, he never made use of it to interested or ambitious purposes. The principles, indeed, in which he had been educated, and which were confirmed by reading and experience, and the good opinion he had conceived of Mr. Pelham’s administration, led him usually to support the measures of government; but he never received any favour, nor desired any employment. He saw with great concern the dangers arising from parliamentary influence, and was determined that no personal consideration should biass his public conduct. The love of his country, and an ardent zeal for its constitution and liberties, formed a distinguishing part of his character. In private conversation, Mr. Browne possessed so uncommon a degree of eloquence, that he was the admiration and delight of all who knew him. It must, therefore, have been expected that he should have shone in the house of commons, as a public speaker. But he had a modesty and delicacy about him, accompanied with a kind of nervous timidity, which prevented him from appearing in that character. His case, in this respect, was similar to that of the third earl of Shaftesbury, Mr. Addison, and other ingenious men. Dr. Johnson said of him, “I. H. Browne, one of the first witsof this country, got into parliament, and never opened hismouth.”

In 1754 Mr. Browne published what may be called his. great work, his Latin poem “I}e Aiumi Immortalitate^ in two books, the reception of which was such as its merit deserved. It immediately excited the applause of the most polite scholars, and has been praised by some of the most eminent and ingenious men of the age, by archbishop Herring, Dr. E. Barnard, R. O. Cambridge, Mr. Upton, bishop Hoadly, bishop Green, Mr. Harris, Dr. Beattie, &c. &c. Its popularity was so great, that several English translations of it appeared in a little time. The first was by Mr. Hay, author of an” Essay on Deformity,“and other pieces; and the second in blank verse, by Dr. Richard Grey, a learned clergyman, well known by his” Memoria Technica,“and his publications in scripture criticism. A third translation was published without a name, but with a laboured preface, containing some quotations from sir John Davies’s” Nosce Teipsum,“which were supposed to be analogous to certain passages in Mr. Browne. All these versions made their appearance in the course of a few months; and there was afterwards printed, by an unknown hand, a translation of the first book. Some years after Mr. Browne’s death, the” De Animi Immortalitate“was again translated by the rev. Mr. Crawley, a clergyman in Huntingdonshire, and more recently Dr. John Lettice published a translation in blank verse, with a commentary and annotations, 1795, 8vo. A close and literal version, of it in prose was inserted by Mr. Highmore the painter in his publication which appeared in 1766, entitled” Essays moral, religious, and miscellaneous," But the best translation is that by Soame Jenyns, esq. printed in his Miscellanies, and since published in Mr. Browne’s poems. These testimonies and attentions paid to our ingenious author’s principal production, are striking evidences of the high sense which was justly entertained of its merit. Not to mention the usefulness and importance of the subject, every man of taste must feel that the poem is admirable for its perspicuity, precision, and order; and that it unites the philosophical learning and elegance of Cicero, with the numbers, and much of the poetry, of Lucretius and Virgil. Mr. Browne intended to have added a third book. In these three books he proposed to carry natural religion as far as it would go, and in so doing, to lay the true foundation of Christianity, of which he was a firm believer. But he went no farther than to leave a fragment of the third book, enough to make us lament that he did not complete the whole.

Though Mr. Browne was bred to a profession, and sat several years in parliament, he was not so shining or distinguished a character in public as in private life . His private life was chiefly divided between his books and his friends. His reading took in a large compass; but he had the greatest delight in the Greek and Roman writers. Few men formed so early and lasting a taste, and acquired so familiar a knowledge of the ancient poets, philosophers, orators, and historians, particularly those of the purest ages; and hence it was that he derived the happy art of transfusing into the more serious of his compositions, the graces of their diction, and the strength of their sentiments, without servile imitation. He was very conversant likewise with the best English and Italian authors. His memory enabled him to retain every thing which he had heard or read; and he could repeat, with the greatest facility and gracefulness, the fine passages he had treasured up in his mind. Having a perfect ear for harmony and rhythm, he was an admirable reader both of prose and verse, and without having ever applied himself to the practice of music, his natural taste rendered him a good judge in that delightful art. With these various accomplishments, to which were added, a remarkably happy talent of telling a story, a genuine flow of wit, as well as eloquence, a peculiar vein of humour, and, indeed, an excellence in every species of conversation, it is not surprising that his company was almost universally sought for and desired. His acquaintance was so courted, that, though his private inclination would have led him to have lived retired, in the society of a few old friends, he became, at different periods of his life, intimate with all the distinguished men of the age, and with those especially, who were most eminent for their learning and parliamentary abilities. His particular friends were persons of distinguished merit and virtue. By these he was held in the highest esteem and respect, and his union with them was never broken by any thing but death. His fine feelings, his enlarged and exalted sentiments, and the general excellence of his character, continued to render any social connections with him as lasting as they were desirable and delightful. One great object of Mr. Browne’s attention, during the latter part of his life, was the education of his only son, to whom he was an excellent father and instructor. Our author, after having laboured a considerable time under a weak and infirm state of health, died, of a lingering illness, at his house in Great Russel-street, Bloomsbury-square, London, on the 14th of February, 1760, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. In 1768, the present Mr. Hawkins Browne published an elegant edition, in large octavo, of his father’s poems; upon which occasion he had the satisfaction of receiving fresh testimonies to their merit from many eminent men then living. To this edition is prefixed a very fine head by Ravenet from a picture by Highmore.

, 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.

, M. D. a naturalist of considerable eminence, the fourth son of Edward Browne, esq. a gentleman of respectable family, was born at Woodstock, the paternal inheritance, in the parish of Crossboyne, and county of Mayo, about 1720. After receiving the best education that country could afford, he was sent to a near relation in the island of Antigua in 1737; but the climate disagreeing very much with his constitution, he returned in about a year to Europe, and landing in France, went directly to Paris, where he speedily recovered his health, and with the approbation of his parents applied himself closely to the study of physic, and particularly to the science of botany, for which he always had a particular predilection. After five years spent at Paris, he removed to Leyden, where he studied near two years more, and from that university obtained his degree of M. D. Here he formed an intimacy with Gronovius and Muschenbroeck, and commenced a correspondence with Linnæus and other eminent botanists and learned men. From Holland he proceeded to London, where he practised near two years, and thence went out again to the West Indies, and after spending some months in Antigua and some others of the Sugar Islands, he proceeded to Jamaica, where he spent his time in collecting and preserving specimens of the plants, birds, shells, &c. of those luxuriant soils, with a view to the improvement of natural history.

Whilst in Jamaica, his residence was chiefly in Kingston, and it was he who first pointed out the absurdity of continuing Spanish-town the port and capital, while reason plainly pointed out Kingston, or in his own words, “the defects of a port of clearance to leeward;” and by his writings the governor and council represented the matter so strikingly to earl Granville, president of the council 1756, that the measure was immediately adopted, and Kingston made the port of clearance, to the very great benefit of commerce in general, as before that, when ships were clearing out of Kingston, and ready to weigh anchor, they were obliged to send near seven miles to Spanish-town, by which they often suffered great inconvenience and delay.

At this time he also collected materials, and made the necessary observations (being a very good mathematician and astronomer) for a new map of Jamaica, which he published in London, in August 1755, engraved by Dr. Bayly, on two sheets, by which the doctor cleared four hundred guineas. Soon after this (March 1756) he published his “Civil and Natural History of Jamaica,” in folio, ornamented with forty-nine engravings of natural history, a whole sheet map of the island, and another of the harbour of Port-Royal, Kingston-town, &c. Of this work there were but two hundred and fifty copies printed by subscription, at the very low price of one guinea, but a few were sold at two pounds two shillings in sheets by the printer. Most unfortunately all the copper-plates, as well as the original drawings, were consumed by the great fire in Cornhill, November 7, 1765. This alone prevented in his life-time a second edition of that work, for which he made considerable preparations, by many additional plants, and a few corrections in his several voyages to these islands, for he was six different times in the West Indies; in one of those trips he lived above twelve months in the island of Antigua: however, these observations will we trust not be lost to the public, as he sent before his death to sir Joseph Banks, P. R. S. “A catalogue of the plants growing in the Sugar Islands, &c. classed and described according to the Linnaean system,” in 4to, containing about eighty pages. In Exshaw’s Gentleman’s and London Magazine for June 1774, he published “A catalogue of the birds of Ireland,” and in Exshaw’s August Magazine following, “A catalogue of its fish.” In 1788 he prepared for the press a very curious and useful catalogue of the plants of the north-west counties of Ireland, classed with great care and accuracy according to the Linnsean system, containing above seven hundred plants, mostly observed by himself, having trusted very few to the descriptions of others. This little tract, written in Latin with the English and Irish names, might be of considerable use in assisting to compile a “Flora Hibernica,” a work every botanist will allow to be much wanting.

The doctor was a tall, comely man, of good address and gentle manners, naturally cheerful, very temperate, and in general healthy; but in his latter years had violent periodical fits of the gout, by which he suffered greatly: in the intervals of these unwelcome visits, he formed the catalogue of plants, and was always, when in health, doing something in natural history or mathematics. At a very early period he married in Antigua a native of that island, but had no issue. His circumstances were moderate, but easy, and the poor found ample benefit from his liberality as well as professional skill He died at Rushbrook, county of Mayo, on Sunday August 29, 1790, and was interred in the family burial-place at Crossboyne.

, a native of Ireland, /was at first provost of Trinity college in Dublin, and afterwards bishop of Cork: in the palace of which see he died in 1735, after having distinguished himself by some writings. 1. “A refutation of Toland’s Christianity not mysterious.” This was the foundation of his preferment; which occasioned him to say to Toland himself, that it was he who had made him bishop of Cork. 2. “The progress, extent, and limits of the human understanding,” 1728, 8vo. This was meant as a supplemental work, displaying more at large the principles on which he had confuted Toland. 3. “Sermons,” levelled principally against the Socinians, written in a manly and easy style, and much admired. He published also, 4. A little volume in 12mo, against the “Custom of drinking to the memory of the dead.” It was a fashion among the Whigs of his time, to drink to the glorious and immortal memory of king William III. which greatly disgusted our bishop, and is supposed to have given rise to the piece in question. His notion was that drinking to the dead is tantamount to praying for the dead, and not, as is really meant, an approbation of certain conduct or principles. The only effect, however, was that the whigs added to their toast, “in spite of the bishop of Cork.”

, an able and learned minister and writer among the protestant dissenters, and who was remarkable for a mental disorder of a most extraordinary kind, was born at Shepton-Mallet, in Somersetshire, about 1680. He was instructed in grammar by the rev. Mr. Cumming, who was pastor of a congregation in that town; from whence he was removed to Bridgewater, and finished Jiis studies under the care of the rev. Mr. Moor. As he possessed uncommon parts, which had been improved by the most assiduous application, he was very early thought qualified for the ministry; so that he began to preach some time before he was twenty years of age. His talents soon rendered him so conspicuous among the dissenters, that he was chosen minister of a considerable congregation at Portsmouth, in which situation he continued some years. In 1706, he published a small treatise, entitled “A caveat against evil Company.” In 1709, he published, in one volume, 8vo, “The true character of the real Christian.” He discharged the duties of the pastoral office at Portsmouth with so much fidelity and diligence, as procured him universal esteem; but, in 1716, he removed to the great regret of his congregation, in consequence of his being invited to accept of the pastoral charge of the congregation of protestant dissenters in the Old Jewry, London, which was one of the most considerable in the kingdom. In 1720, he published, in one volume, 12mo, “Hymns and Spiritual Songs, in three books.” In 1722, he published a volume of “Sermons,” and about the same time a “Letter to the rev. Thomas Reynolds,” in which he censures that gentleman and other dissenters for requiring of their brethren explicit declarations of their belief in the doctrine of the Trinity. At the Old Jewry he continued to preach for about seven years with the greatest reputation, mid was much beloved and esteemed by his congregation: but, in 1723, a complicated domestic affliction, the loss of his wife, and of an only son, so deeply affected him, that he was at first in a state little different from distraction; and the disorder which his imagination had sustained from the shock that he had received, at length settled into a melancholy of a very extraordinary nature. He desisted from the duties of his function, and could not be persuaded to join in any act of worship, either public or private. He imagined, " that Almighty God, by a singular instance of divine power, had, in a gradual manner, annihilated in him the thinking substance, and utterly divested him of consciousness: that though he retained the human shape, and the faculty of speaking, in a manner that appeared to others rational, he had all the while no more notion of what he said than a parrot. And, very consistently with this, he looked upon himself as no longer a moral agent, a subject of reward or punishment. 7 ' He continued in this persuasion to the end of his life, with very little variation. Nothing grieved him more, than that he could not persuade others to think of him as he thought of himself. He sometimes considered this as questioning his veracity, which affected him in the most sensible manner; and he often took pains, by the most solemn asseverations, to remove such an imputation. At other times, and in a more gloomy hour, he would represent the incredulity which was manifested towards him, as a judicial effect of the same divine power jhat had occasioned this strange alteration in him, as if God had determined to proceed against him in this way, and would have no application made in his behalf. Upon this account, for a long while, he was unwilling that any prayers should be made for him; which, he would say, could be warranted by nothing but a faith in miracles, and even refused to say grace at table, or if urged to it, appeared in the greatest distress. At the beginning of his disorder, he was so unhappy in himself, as to have frequent propensities to deprive himself of life; but he afterwards grew more serene, and appeared to have little or no terror upon his mind. He considered himself as one who, though he had little to hope, had no more to fear, and was therefore, for the most part, calm and composed; and when the conversation did not turn upon himself, as it was generally rational and very serious, so was it often cheerful and pleasant. But his opinion concerning himself occasionally led him into inconsistencies; and when these were pointed out to him, he sometimes appeared much puzzled.

Whilst he was under the influence of this strange frenzy, it was extremely remarkable, that his faculties appeared to be in every other respect in their full vigour. He continued to apply himself to his studies, and discovered the same force of understanding which had formerly distinguished him, both in his conversation and in his writings. Having, however, quitted the ministry, he retired into the country, to his native town of Shepton-Mallet. Here, for some time, he amused himself with translating several parts of the ancient Greek and Latin poets into English verse. He afterwards composed several little pieces for the use of children, an English grammar and spelling-book, an abstract of the scripture -history, and a collection of fables, the two last both in metre. With great labour he also amassed together, in a short compass, all the themes of the Greek and Latin tongues, and compiled likewise a dictionary to each of these works, in order to render the learning of both those languages more easy and compendious. But neither of these pieces, nor several others which were written by him during his retirement, were ever printed. During the last two years of his life, he employed himself in the defence of the truth of Christianity, against some of the attacks which were then made against it; and also in recommending mutual candour to Christians of different sentiments concerning the doctrine of the Trinity. In 1732, he published, in 8vo, “A sober and charitable disquisition concerning the importance of the Doctrine of the Trinity; particularly with regard to Worship, and the doctrine of Satisfaction: endeavouring to shew, that those in the different schemes should bear with each other in their different sentiments; nor separate communions, and cast one another out of Christian-fellowship on this account.” The same year he published, “A fit Rebuke to a ludicrous Infidel, in some remarks on Mr. Woolston’s fifth Discourse on the Miracles of our Saviour. With a preface concerning the prosecution of such writers by the civil powers.” It was in the same year also that he published his “Defence of the Religion of Nature, and the Christian Revelation, against the defective account of the one, and the exceptions against the other, in a book, entitled, Christianity as old as the Creation.” In all these pieces, though written in his retirement, with little assistance from books, or learned conversation, he yet displayed considerable extent of knowledge, and of argumentative powers. But to the last of these performances, he prefixed a very singular dedication to queen Caroline, expressive of the unhappy delusion under which he laboured; and which his friends prudently suppressed, aU though it is too great a curiosity to be lost. After his retirement into the country, he could not be prevailed upon to use any kind of exercise or recreation; so that a complication of disorders, contracted by his sedentary mode of living, at length brought on a mortification in his leg, which put a period to his life, at the close of the year 1732, in the fifty-second year of his age. He had several daughters, who survived him. He was a man of extensive knowledge, and very considerable learning. He was well skilled in theology, his sentiments were liberal, and he was a zealous advocate for freedom of inquiry. He appears, from the general tenor of his life, and of his writings, to have been a man of distinguished virtue, and of the most fervent piety, and to have been animated by an ardent zeal for the interests of rational and practical religion. His abilities made him respected, and his virtues rendered him beloved: but such was the peculiarity of his case, that he lived a melancholy instance of the weakness of human nature.

After Mr. Browne’s death, in 1733, was published, in 8vo, as a separate piece, “The Close of the Defence of the Religion of Nature and the Christian Revelation: in answer to Christianity as old as the Creation. In an address to Christian ministers and the Christian people.” The author of Christianity as old as the Creation urges it as an argument against the truth of the Gospel revelation, that it has been productive of but little good effect in the lives of Christians, and that it does not appear that they have arrived at any higher state of perfection than the rest of mankind. This objection Mr. Browne answered in his Defence; and his Close of that Defence is an earnest and pathetic exhortation to Christian ministers and people, of all denominations, not to give so much ground by their conduct for such objections of the deists, but to regulate their lives in a more exact conformity to the precepts of the excellent religion which they professed. Besides the works of Mr. Browne which have been enumerated, he also published several single sermons; and was one of the authors of the “Occasional Paper,” a kind of periodical work, collected and published in 3 vols. 8vo. Some of his Mss. are in the British Museum, and among them a version of some of the Psalms.

, a clergyman of the church of England in the seventeenth century, was born in the county of Middlesex in 1604, was elected student of Christ church in 1620, and took the degrees in arts, that of master being completed in 1627. In 1636, he served the office of proctor, and the year after was made domestic chaplain to archbishop Laud, and bachelor of divinity. Soon after he became rector of St. Mary, Aldermary, London, canon of Windsor in 1639, and rector of Oddington in Oxfordshire. On the breaking out of the rebellion, he was ejected from his church in London by the ruling party, and retired to his majesty, to whom he was chaplain, at Oxford, and in 1642 was created D. D. having then only the profits of Oddington to maintain him. He appears afterwards to have been stripped even of this, and went to the continent, where he was for some time chaplain to Mary, princess of Orange. After the restoration, he was admitted again to his former preferments, but does not appear to have had any other reward for his losses and sufferings. He died at Windsor Dec. 6, 1673, and was buried on the outside of St. George’s chapel, where Dr. Isaac Vossius, his executor, erected a monument to his memory, with an inscription celebrating his learning, eloquence, critical talents, and knowledge of antiquities. Besides a sermon preached before the university in 1633, he published, “A Key to the King’s Cabinet; or animadversions upon the three printed speeches of Mr. L'isle, Mr. Tate, and Mr. Browne, members of the house of commons, spoken at a common hall in London, July 1645, detecting the malice and falsehood of their blasphemous observations upon the king and queen’s letters,” Oxford, 1645, 4to. His next publication was a treatise in defence of Grotius against an epistle of Salmasius, “De posthumo Grotii;” this he printed at the Hague, 1646, 8vo, under the name of Simplicius Virinus, and it was not known to be his until after his death, when the discovery was made by Vossius. He wrote also, “Dissertatio de Therapeutis Philonis adversus Henricum Valesium,” Loud. 1687, 8vo, at the end of Colomesius’ edition of St. Clement’s epistles; and he translated part of Camden’s annals of queen Elizabeth, under the title, “Tomus alter et idem; or the History of the life and reign of that famous princess Elizabeth, &c.” London, 1629, -4to. In the Republic of Letters, vol. VI. 1730, we find published for the first time, a “Concio ad Clerum,” delivered for his divinity bachelor’s degree in 1637; the subject, “the revenues of the clergy,” which even at that period were threatened.

, an eminent physician and antiquary, was born in London, in the parish of St. Michael, Cheapside, Oct. 19, 1605. His father was a merchant, of an ancient family at Upton in Cheshire. He lost his father very early, and was defrauded by one of his guardians, by whom, however, or by his mother, who soon after his father’s death married sir Thomas Dutton, he was placed at Winchester school. In 1623 he was removed from Winchester to Oxford, and entered a gentlemancommoner of Broadgate-hall. Here he was admitted to his bachelor’s degree, Jan. 31, 1626-27, being the first person of eminence graduated from Broadgate-hall, when endowed and known as Pembroke-college. After taking his master’s degree, he turned his studies to physic, and practised it for some time in Oxfordshire, but soon afterwards, either induced by curiosity, or invited by promises, he quitted his settlement, and accompanied his father-in-law, who had some employment in Ireland, in a visitation of the forts and castles, which the state of Ireland then made necessary. From Ireland he passed into France and Italy; made some stay at Montpelier and Padua, which were then the celebrated schools of physic; and, returning home through Holland, procured himself to be created M. D. at Leyden, but when he began these travels, or when he concluded them, there is no certain account. It is, however, supposed that he returned to London in 1634, and that the following year he wrote his celebrated treatise, the “Religio Medici,” which he declares himself never to have intended for the press, having composed it only for his own exercise and entertainment. He had, however, communicated it to his friends, and by some means a copy was given to a printer in 1642, and was no sooner published than it excited the attention of the public by the novelty of paradoxes, the dignity of sentiment, the quick succession of images, the multitude of abstruse allusions, the subtlety of disquisition, and the strength of language.

The earl of Dorset recommended this book to the perusal of sir Kenelm Digby, who returned his judgment upon it, not in a letter, but in a book; in which, though mingled with some positions fabulous and uncertain, there are acute remarks, just censures, and profound speculations, yet its principal claim to admiration is, that it was written in twenty-four hours, of which part was spent in procuring Browne’s book, and part in reading it. This induced sir Thomas to publish a more correct edition of his work, which had great success. A Mr. Merryweather of Cambridge, turned it, not inelegantly, into Latin, and from his version it was again translated into Italian, German, Dutch, and French, and at Strasburgh the Latin translation was published with large notes, by Lenuus Nicolaus Moltfarius. Of the English annotations, which, in all the editions from 1644, accompany the book, the author is unknown. Merryweather, we are told, had some difficulty in getting his translation printed in Holland. The first printer to whom he offered it carried it to Salmasius, “who laid it by (says he) in state for three months,” and then discouraged its publication: it was afterwards rejected by two other printers, and at last was received by Hackius. The peculiarities of the book raised the author, as is usual, many admirers and many enemies; but we know not of more than one professed answer, written under the title of “Medicus Ivledicatus,” by Alexander Ross, which was universally neglected by the world. Abroad it was animadverted upon as having an irreligious tendency, by Guy Patin, by Tobias Wagner, by Muller, Reiser, and Buddeus, and w&s put into the Index Expurgatorius. At present it will probably be thought that it was both too much applauded and too much censured, and that it would have been a more useful book had the author’s fancy been more guided by judgment.

At the time when this book was published, Dr. Browne resided at Norwich, where he had settled in 1636, by the persuasion of Dr. Lushington, his tutor, who was then rector of Barnham Westgate, in the neighbourhood. It is recorded by Wood, that his practice was very extensive. In 1637 he was incorporated M. D, at Oxford. He married in 1641 Mrs. Mileham, of a good family in Norfolk, a lady of very amiable character. Dr. Johnson says this marriage could not but draw the raillery of contemporary wits upon a man, who had been just wishing, in his new book, “that we might procreate, like trees, without conjunction;” and had lately declared, that “the whole world was made for man, but only the twelfth part of man for woman,” and that “man is the whole world, but woman only the rib or crooked part of man.” They lived happily, however, together for forty-one years, during which she bore him ten children, of whom one son and three daughters outlived their parents. She survived him two years.

In 1646, he printed “Enquiries into vulgar and common Errors,” small folio, a work, says his biographer, which, as it arose not from fancy and invention, but from observation and books, and contained not a single discourse of one continued tenor, but an enumeration of many unconnected particulars, must have been the collection of years, and the effect of a design early formed, and long pursued. It is, indeed, adds the same writer, to be wished, that he had longer delayed the publication, and added what the remaining part of his life might have furnished. He published in 1673 the sixth edition, with some improvements. This book, like his former, was received with great applause, was answered by Alexander Koss, and translated into Dutch and German, and afterwards into French. It might, Dr. Johnson thinks, now be proper to reprint it with notes, partly supplemental and partly emendatory, to subjoin those discoveries which the industry of the last age has made, and correct those mistakes which the author has committed, not by idleness or negligence, but for want of Boyle’s and Newton’s philosophy.

The reputation of Browne encouraged some low writer to publish, under his name, a book called “Nature’s cabinet unlocked,” translated, according to Wood, from the physics of Magirus, but Browne advertised against it. In 1658, the discovery of some ancient urns in Norfolk gave him occasion to write “Hydriotaphia, Urn -burial, or a discourse of Sepulchral Urns,” 8vo, in which he treats with his usual learning, on the funeral rites of the ancient nations; exhibits their various treatment of the dead; and examines the substances found in these Norfolk urns. There is, perhaps, none -of his works which better exemplifies his reading or memory. To this treatise was added “The Garden of Cyrus, or the Quincunxial lozenge, or net-work plantation of the ancients, artificially, naturally, mystically considered.” This is a more fanciful performance than the other, but still it exhibits the fancy of a man of learning. Besides these, he left some papers prepared for the press, of which two collections have been published, the first by Dr. Thomas Tennison, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, in 1684, 8vo, entitled, “A Collection of Miscellaneous Tracts,” and these, with what had been published in his life-time, were printed in one vol. fol. in 1686. In 1690 his son, Dr. Edward Browne, of whom we have already spoken, published a single tract, entitled “A Letter to a friend upon occasion of the death of his intimate friend,” 8vo. The second collection was of the “Posthumous Works,” edited in 1722 by Owen Brigstock, esq. his grandson by marriage.

To the life of this learned man, there remains little to be added, but that in 1665 he was chosen honorary fellow of the college of physicians; and in 1671, received at Norwich the honour of knighthood from Charles II. In his seventy-sixth year, he was seized with a colic, which, aftet having tortured him about a week, put an end to his life at Norwich, Oct. 19, 1682. Some of his last words were expressions of submission to the will of God, and fearlessness of death. He was buried in the church of St. Peter, Mancroft, in Norwich, with a Latin inscription on a mural monument.

In 1716 there appeared a book of his in 12mo, entitled “Christian Morals,” published from the original and correct manuscript of the author, by John Jeffery, D. D. archdeacon of Norwich. It was dedicated by our author’s daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Littleton, to David, earl of Buchan. Of this a second edition was published in 1756 by Mr. John Payne, bookseller, and one of Dr. Johnson’s early patrons, who solicited him to write a life of sir Thomas. This, of which we have availed ourselves in the preceding account, may be classed among Dr. Johnson’s best biographical performances, and the present article may be very properly concluded with his character of Browne’s works. After mentioning the various writers who have noticed Browne, he adds, “But it is not on the praises of others, but on his own writings, that he is to depend for the esteem of posterity; of which he will not easily be deprived, while learning shall have any reverence among men: for there is no science in which he does not discover some skill; and scarce any kind of knowledge, profane or sacred, abstruse or elegant, which he does not appear to have cultivated with success. His exuberance of knowledge, and plenitude of ideas, sometimes obstruct the tendency of his reasoning, and the clearness of his decisions: on whatever subject he employed his mind, there started up immediately so many images before him, that he lost one by grasping another. His memory supplied him with so many illustrations, parallel or dependent notions, that he was always starting into collateral considerations: but the spirit and vigour of his pursuit always gives delight; and the reader follows him, without reluctance, through his mazes, in themselves flowery and pleasing, and ending at the point originally in view. To have great excellencies, and great faults, ‘ magn<e virtutes nee minora vitia, is the poesy/ says our author, l of the best natures.’ This poesy may be properly applied to the style of Browne: it is vigorous, but rugged; it is learned, but pedantic; it is deep, but obscure; it strikes, but does not please; it commands, but does not allure; his tropes are harsh, and his combinations uncouth. He fell into an age, in which our language began to lose the stability which it had obtained in the time of Elizabeth; and was considered by every writer as a subject on which he might try his plastic skill, by moulding it according to his own fancy. Milton, in consequence of this encroaching licence, began to introduce the Latin idiom; and Browne, though he gave less disturbance to our structures and phraseology, yet poured in a multitude of exotic words; many, indeed, useful and significant, which, if rejected, must be supplied by circumlocution, such as commensality for the state of many living at the same table; but many superfluous, as a paralogical for an unreasonable doubt; and some so obscure, that they conceal his meaning rather than explain it, as arthriticai analogies for parts that serve some animals in the place of joints. His style is, indeed, a tissue of many languages; a mixture of heterogeneous words, brought together from distant regions, with terms originally appropriated to one art, and drawn by violence into the service of another. He must, however, be confessed to have augmented our philosophical diction; and in defence of his uncommon words and expressions, we must consider, that he had uncommon sentiments, and was not content to express in many words that idea for which any language could supply a single term. But his innovations are sometimes pleasing, and his temerities happy: he has many verba ardentia, forcible expressions, which he would never have found, but by venturing to the utmost verge of propriety; and flights which would never have been reached, but by one who had very little fear of the shame of falling.”

sir Thomas Browne, is to vindicate him from the charge of infidelity; and haviilg fully shewn the falsity of this accusation, the ingenious biographer concludes in the following words: “The opinions of every man must be learned from himself: concerning his practice, it is safest to trust the evidence of others. Where these testimonies concur, no higher degree of historical certainty can be obtained; and they apparently concur to prove, that Browne was a zealous adherent to the faith of Christ, that he lived in obedience to his laws, and died in confidence of his mercy.”

, 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.

In 1616, he published the second part of his “Britannia’s Pastorals,” recommended as before, by his poetical friends, whose praises he repaid with liberality in the body of the work. The two parts were reprinted in 8vo in 1625, and procured him, as is too frequently the case, more fame than profit. About a year before this, he appears to have taken leave of the muses, and returned to< Exeter college, in the capacity of tutor to Robert Dormer, earl of Caernarvon, a nobleman who fell at the battle of Newbury in 1643, while fighting gallantly for his king, at the head of a regiment of horse, and of whom lord Clarendon has given us a character drawn with his usual discrimination and fidelity. While guiding the studies of this nobleman, Browne was created master of arts, with this honourable notice in the public register, “Vir omni huinana literatura et bonarum artium cognitione instructus.”

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.

Browne has experienced the fate of many of his contemporaries whose fame died with them, and whose writings have been left to be revived, under many disadvantages, by an age of refined taste and curiosity. The civil wars which raged about the time of his death, and whose consequences continued to operate for many years after, diverted the public mind from the concerns of poetry. The lives of the poets were forgotten, and their works perished through neglect or wantonness. We have no edition of Browne’s poems from 1625 to 1772, when Mr. Thomas Davies, the bookseller, was assisted by some of his learned friends in publishing them, in three small volumes. The advertisement, prefixed to the first volume, informs us that the gentlemen of the king’s library procured the use of the first edition of “Britannia’s Pastorals,” which had several manuscript notes on the margin, written by the rev. William Thomson, one of the few scholars of his time who studied the antiquities of English poetry. Mr. Thomas Warton contributed his copy of the “Shepherd’s Pipe,” which was at that time so scarce that no other could be procured. Mr. Price, the librarian of the Bodleian library, sent a correct copy of the Elegy upon the death of Henry prince of Wales, from a manuscript in that repository; and Dr. Farmer furnished a transcript of the “Inner Temple Mask” from the library of Emanuel college, which had nevr before been printed. With such helps, a correct edition might have been expected, but the truth is, that the few editions of ancient poets, (Suckling, Marvel!, Carew, &c.) which Davies undertook to print, are extremely deficient in correctness. Of this assertion, which the comparison of a few pages with any of the originals will amply confirm, we have a very striking instance in the present work, in which two entire pages of the Book I. of Britannia’s Pastorals were omitted.

His works exhibit abundant specimens of true inspiration; and had his judgment been equal to his powers of invention, or had he yielded less to the bad taste of his age, or occasionally met with a critic instead of a flatterer, he would have been entitled to a much higher rank in the class of genuine poets. His Pastorals form a vast storehouse of rural imagery and description, and in personifying the passions and affections, he exhibits pictures that are not only faithful, but striking, just to nature and to feeling, and frequently heightened by original touches of the pathetic and sublime, and by many of those wild graces which true genius only can exhibit. It is not improbable that he studied Spenser, as well as the Italian poets. To the latter he owes something of elegance and something of extravagance. From the former he appears to have caught the idea of a story like the Faery Queene, although it wants regularity of plan; and he follows his great model in a profusion of allegorical description and romantic landscape. His versification, which is so generally harmonious, that where he fails it may be imputed to carelessness, is at the same time so various as to relax the imagination with specimens of every kind, and he seems to pass from the one to the other with an ease that we do not often find among the writers of lengthened poems. Those, however, who are in search of faulty rhimes, of foolish conceits, of vulgar ideas, and of degrading imagery, will not lose their pains. He was, among other qualities, a man of humour, and his humour is often exceedingly extravagant. So mixed, indeed, is his style, and so whimsical his flights, that we are sometimes reminded of Swift in all his grossness, and sometimes of Milton in the plenitude of his inspiration. Mr. Warton has remarked that the morning landscape of the L* Allegro is an assemblage of the same objects which Browne had before collected in his Britannia’s Pastorals, B. IV. Song IV. beginning

It has already been noticed that Philarete was the precursor of Lycidas, but what Mr. Warton asserts of Comus deserves some consideration. After copying the exquisite Ode which Circe, in the Inner Temple Mask, sings as a charm to drive away sleep from Ulysses, Mr. Warton adds, “In praise of this song, it will be sufficient to say that it reminds us of some favourite touches in Milton’s Comus, to which it perhaps gave birth. Indeed, one cannot help observing here in general, although the observation more properly belongs to another place, that a masque thus recently exhibited on the story of Circe, which there is reason to think had acquired some popularity, suggested to Milton the hint of a masque on the story of Comus. It would be superfluous to point out minutely the absolute similarity of the two characters; they both deal in incantations conducted by the same mode of operation, and producing effects exactly parallel.”

Without offering any objection to these remarks, it may still be necessary to remind the reader of a circumstance to which this excellent critic has not adverted, namely, that the Inner Temple Mask appears to have been exhibited about the year 1620, when Milton was a boy of only twelve years old, and remained in manuscript until Dr. Farmer procured a copy for the edition of 1772 and that Milton produced his Comus at the age of twenty-six. It remains, therefore, for some future conjecturer to determine on the probability of Milton’s having seen Browne’s manuscript in the interim.

Prince informs us, that “as he had honoured his country with his sweet and elegant Pastorals, 90 it was expected, and he also entreated, a little farther to grace it by his drawing out the line of his poetic ancestors, beginning in Joseph Iscanus, and ending in himself: a noble design, if it had been effected.” Josephus Iscanus was Joseph of Exeter, who flourished in the thirteenth century, and wrote two epic poems in Latin heroics. Had Browne begun much later, he would have conferred a very high obligation on posterity. Collections of poetry are of very ancient date, but very little is known with certainty of the lives of English poets, and that little, must now be recovered with great difficulty.

It yet remains to be noticed that some poems of Browne are supposed to exist in manuscript. Mr. Nichols thinks that V/arburton the herald had some which were sold with the rest of his library, about the year 1759, or 1760. Mr. Park, also, in a supplementary note to the Biog. Britannica, brings proof that George Withers had some share in composing the “Shepherd’s Pipe.” They were contemporaries, and nearly of the same age.

, a physician of the last century, and a man of a singular and whimsical cast of mind, was born in 1692, and in 1707 was entered of Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he took the degrees, B. A. 1710, M, A. 1714, and M. D. 1721, and soon after settled at Lynn, in Norfolk, where he published v Dr. Gregory’s “Elements of catoptrics and dioptrics,” translated from the Latin original, to which he added: 1. A method for finding the ibcrof all specula, as well as lenses universally; as also magnifying or lessening a given object by a given speculum, or lens> in any assigned proportion. 2. A solution of those problems which Dr. Gregory has left undemonstrated. 3. A particular account of microscopes and telescopes, from Mr. Huygens; with the discoveries made by catoptrics and dioptrics. By an epigram, many of which he provoked, he appears to have been the champion of the fair sex at Lynn, in 1748. On one occasion, a pamphlet having been written against him, he nailed it up against his house-door. Having acquired a competency by his profession, he removed to Queen-square, Ormondstreet, London, where he resided till his death, which happened March 10, 1774, at the age of 82. A great number of lively essays, both in prose and verse, the production of his pen, were printed and circulated among his friends. Among these were: 1. “Ode in imitation of Horace,” ode 3, lib. iii. addressed to the right hon. sir Robert Walpole, on ceasing to be minister, Feb. 6, 1741; designed, he says, as a just panegyric on a great minister, the glorious revolution, protestant succession, and principles of liberty. To which was added the original ode, “defended in commentariolo.” It was inscribed to George carl of Orford, as an acknowledgement of the favours conferred by his lordship as well as by his father and grandfather. On the first institution of the militia, our author was appointed one of the earl’s deputy-lieutenants, and was named in his lordship’s first commission of the peace. 2. Opuscula varia utriusque linguae, medicinam; medicorum collegium; literas, utrasque academias; empiricos, eorum cultores; solicitatorem, prsestigiatorem; poeticen, criticen; patronum, patriam; religionem, libertatem, spectantia. Cum praefatione eorum editionem defendente. Auctore D. Gulielmo Browne, equite aurato, M. D. utriusque et medicorum et physicorum S. R. S. 175, 4to. This little volume (which was dated “Ex area dicta reginali, MDCCLXV. in nonas Januarias, ipso Ciceronis et auctoris natali”) contained, I. Oratio Harveiana, in theatro collegii medicorum Londinensis habita, 1751. II. A vindication of the college of physicians, in reply to solicitorgeneral Murray, 1753. III. Ode in imitation of Horace, Ode I. addressed to the duke of Montague. With a new interpretation, in commentariolo, 1765. IV. The Ode, above-mentioned, to sir Robert Walpole. Some time before, sir William had published odes in imitation of Horace; addressed to sir John Dolben, to sir John Turner, to doctor Askew, and to Robert lord Walpole. 3. Appendix altera ad opuscula; oratiuncula, collegii medicorum Londinensis cathedrae vatedicens. In comitiis, postridie jdivi Michaelis, MDCCLXXVII. ad collegii administrationem renovandam designatis; machinaque incendiis extinguendis apta contra permissos rebelies munitis; habita a D. GuBrowne, equite aurato, praeside? “1768? 4to, This farewell oration contains so many curious particulars of sir William’s life, that the reader will not be displeased to see some extracts from it, and with his own spelling.” The manly age and inclination, with conformable studies, I diligently applied to the practice of physic in the country; where, as that age adviseth, I sought riches and friendships. But afterwards, being satiated witn friends, whom truth, not flattery, had procured; satiated with riches, which Galen, not fortune, had presented; I resorted immediately to this college: where, in further obedience to the same adviser, I might totally addict myself to the service of honour. Conducted by your favour, instead of my own merit, I have been advanced, through various degrees of honour, a most delightful climax indeed, even to the very highest of all which the whole profession of physic hath to confer. In this chair, therefore, twice received from the elects, shewing their favour to himself, he confesseth much more than to the college, your præsident

And, now, content with acting this sweet scene,

in order to attach himself and the remainder of his life, no longer, as before, solely to the college, but, by turns, also to the medicinal springs of his own country; although, as a physician, never unmindful of his duty, yet after his own manner, with hilarity rather than gravity; to enjoy liberty, more valuable than silver and gold, as in his own right, because that of mankind, not without pride, which ever ought to be its inseparable companion.

Behold an instance of human ambition! not to be satiated but by the conquest of three, as it were, medical worlds lucre in the country, honour in the college, pleasure at medicinal springs! I would, if it were possible, be delightful and useful to all: to myself even totally, and equal: to old age, though old, diametrically opposite; not a censor and chastiser, but a commender and encourager, of youth. I would have mine such as, in the satire,

Whose wit and manners mild alike engage.'

The age of presiding, by the custom of our predecessors, was generally a lustrum, five years; although our Sloane, now happy, like another Nestor, lived to see three ages, both as president and as man. But two years more than satisfy me: for, that each of the elects may in his turn hold the sceptre of prudence, far more desirable than power, given by Caius, which the law of justice and sequity recommends,

But in truth, among such endearing friendships with you, such delightful conversations, such useful communications, with which this amiable situation hath blessed me, one or two things, as is usual, have happened not at all to my satisfaction. One, that, while most studious of peace myself, I hoped to have preserved the peace of the college secure and intire, I too soon found that it was not otherwise to be sought for than by war: but even after our first adversary, because inconsiderable, was instantly overthrown, and his head completely cut off by the hand of the law, yet from the same neck, as if Hydra had been our enemy, so many other heads broke out, yea, and with inhuman violence broke into this very senate, like monsters swimming in our medical sea, whom I beheld with unwilling indeed, but with dry, or rather fixed eyes, because not suspecting'the least mischief from thence to the college, and therefore laughing, so far from fearing. The other, in reality, never enough to be lamented, that, while I flattered myself with having, by my whole power of persuasion, in the room of Orphaeaii music, raised the Croonian medical lecture as it were from the shades into day, if there could be any faith in solemn promises; that faith being, to my very great wonder, violated, this lecture, like another Eurydice, perhaps looked after by me too hastily, beloved by me too desperately, instantly slipped back again, and fled indignant to the shades below."

The active part taken by sir William Browne in the contest with the licentiates, occasioned his being introduced by Mr. Foote in his “Devil upon two sticks.” Upon Foote’s exact representation of him with his identical wig and coat, odd figure, and glass stiffly applied to his eye, he sent him a card complimenting him on having so happily represented him; but, as he had forgot his muff, he had sent him his own. This good-natured method of resenting, disarmed Foote. His next publication was: 4. “A farewell Oration, &c.” a translation of the preceding article, 1768, 4to. 5. “Fragmentum Isaaci Hawkins Browne, arm. sive Anti-Bolinbrokius, liber primus. Translated for a second Religio Medici,” 1768, 4to. The autlior modestly calls this “a very hasty performance;” and says, “In my journey from Oxford to Bath, meeting with continued rain, which kept me three days on the road, in compassion to my servants and horses; and having my friend a pocket companion, I found it the best entertainment my tedious baiting could afford to begin and finish this translation.” This was dated Oct. 24, 1768; and his second part was completed on the 20th of the following month: “My undertaking,” he says, “to complete, as well as I could, the Fragment of my friend, hath appeared to me so very entertaining a work, even amongst the most charming delights and most cheerful conversations at Bath; that I have used more; expedition, if the very many avocations there be considered, in performing this, than in that former translation;” and to this part was prefixed a congratulatory poem “To Isaac Hawkins Browne, esq. son of his deceased friend, on his coming of age, Dec. 7, 1766.” The good old knight’s Opuscula were continually on the increase. The very worthy master of a college at Cambridge, lately living, relates a story of him, that waiting for sir William in some room at the college, where hie was come to place a near relation, he found him totally absorbed in thought, over a fine 4to volume of these Opuscula, which he constantly, he said, carried about with him, that they might be benefited by frequent revisals.

“When you see Dr. Heberden, pray communicate to him. an unexpected honour I have lately received. The other day, word was brought me from below, that one sir William Browne sent up his name, and should be glad to kiss my hand. I judged it to be the famous physician, whom I had never seen, nor had the honour to know. When I came down into the drawing-room, I was accosted by a little, round, well-fed gentleman, with a large muff in one hand, a small Horace, open, in the other, and a spying-glass dangling in a black ribbon at his button. After the first salutation, he informed me that his visit was indeed to me; but principally, and in. the first place, to Prior-Park, which had so inviting a prospect from below; and he did riot doubt but, on examination, it would sufficiently repay the trouble he had given himself of coming up to it on foot. We then took our chairs; and the first thing he did or said, was to propose a doubt to me concerning a passage in Horace, which all this time he had still open in his hand. Before I could answer, he gave me the solution of this long-misunderstood passage; and, in support of his explanation, had the charity to repeat his own paraphrase of it in English verse, just come hot, as he said, from the brain. When this and chocolate were over, having seen all he wanted of me, he desired to see something more of the seat, and particularly what he called the monument, by which I understood him to mean the Prior’s tower. Accordingly, I ordered a servant to attend him thither, and when he had satisfied his curiosity, either to let him out from the Park above, into the Down, or from the garden below into the road. Which he chose, I never asked; and so this honourable visit ended. Hereby you will understand that the design of all this was to be admired. And indeed he had my admiration to the full; but for nothing so much, as for his being able at past eighty to perform this expedition on foot, in no good weather, and with all the alacrity of a boy, both in body and mind.” This portrait is correct in every thing but the age, sir William being only then (1767) seventy-five.

On a controversy for a raker in the parish where he lived in London, carried on so warmly as to open taverns for men, and coffee-house breakfasts for ladies, he exerted himself greatly; wondering a man bred at two universities should be so little regarded. (He had been expelled one, and therefore taken degrees at another.) A parishioner answered: “he had a calf that sucked two cows, and a prodigious great one it was.” He used to frequent the annual ball at the ladies’ boarding-school, Queen-square, merely as a neighbour, a good-natured man, and fond of the company of sprightly young folks. A dignitary of the church being there one day to see his daughter dance, and finding this upright figure stationed there, told him he believed he was Hermippus redivivus, who lived anhelitu puellarum. At the age of eighty, on St. Luke’s day, 1771, he came to BaU son’s coffee-house in hisjaced coat and band, and fringed white gloves, to shew himself to Mr. Crosby, then lord-mayor. A gentleman present observing that he looked very well, he replied, “he had neither wife nor debts.” He next published, “Fragmentum I. Hawkins completum,” 1769, 4to. 7. “Appendix ad Opuscula;” six Odes, 1770, 4to, comprising: I. De senectute. Ad amicum D. Roger um Long, apud Cantabrigienses, aulse custodem Pembrokianae, theologum, astronomum, doctissimum, jucundissimum, annum nonagesimum agentem, scripta. Adjecta versione Anglica. Ab amico D. Gulielmo Browne, annum agente fere octogesimum. IL De choreis, et festivitate. Ad nobilissimum ducem Leodensem, diem Walliae principis natalem acidulis Tunbrigiensibus celebrantem, scripta. A theologo festivo, D. Georgio Lewis. Adjecta versione Anglica ab amico, D. Gulielmo Browne. III. De ingenio, et jucunditate. Ad Lodoicum amicum, sacerdotem Cantianum, ingeniosissimum, jucundissimum, scripta. Adjecta versione Anglica. A. D. Gulielmo Browne, E. A. O. M. L. P. S. R. S. IV. De Wilkesio, et libertate. Ad doctorem Thomarn Wilson, theologum doctissimum, liberrimum, tarn mutui amici, Wilkesii, amicum, quam suum, scripta. V. De otio medentibus debito. Ad Moysseum amicum, medicum Bathoniac doctissimum, humanissimum, scripta. VI. De potiore metallis libertate: et omnia vincente fortitudine. Ad eorum utriusque patronum, Gulielmum ilium Pittium, omni et titulo et laude majorem, scripta. 8. Three more Odes, 1771, 4to. 9. “A Proposal on our Coin, to remedy all present, and prevent all future disorders. To which are prefixed, preceding proposals of sir John Barnard, and of William Shirley, esq. on the same subject. With remarks,” 1774, 4to, dedicated “To the most revered memory of the right honourable Arthur Onslow, speaker of the house of commons during thirty-three years; for ability, judgement, eloquence, integrity, impartiality, never to be forgotten or excelled; who sitting in the gallery, on a committee of the house, the day of publishing this proposal, and seeing the author there, sent to speak with him, by the chaplain; and, after applauding his performance, desired a frequent correspondence, and honoured him with particular respect, all the rest of his life, this was, with most profound veneration, inscribed.” 10. A New-Y.ear’s Gift. A problem, and demonstration on the XXXIX Articles,“1772, 4to.” This problem and demonstration,“he informs us,” though now first published, on account of the present controversy concerning these articles, owe their birth to my being called upon to subscribe them, at an early period of life. For in my soph’s year, 1711, being a student at Peter-house, in the university of Cambridge, just nineteen years of age, and having performed all my exercises in the schools (and also a first opponency extraordinary to an ingenious pupil of his, afterwards Dr. Barnard, prebendary of Norwich) on mathematical qusestions, at the particular request of Mr. proctor Laughton, of Clare-hall, who drew me into it by a promise of the senior optime of the year), I was then first informed that subscribing these articles was a necessary step to taking my degree of B. A. as well as all other degrees. I had considered long before at school, and on my admission in 1707, that the universal profession of religion must much more concern me through life, to provide for rny happiness hereafter, than the particular profession of physic, which I proposed to pursue, to provide for my more convenient existence here: and therefore had selected out of the library left by my father (who had himself been a regular physician, educated under the tuition of sir J. Ellis, M. D. afterwards master of Caius college), Chiilingworth’s Religion of a Protestant; the whole famous Protestant and Popish controversy; Commentaries on Scripture; and such other books as suited my purpose. I particularly pitched upon three for perpetual pocket-companions; Bleau’s Greek Testament; Hippocratis Aphoristica, and Elzevir Horace; expecting from the first to draw divinity, from the second physic, and from the last good sense and vivacity. Here I cannot forbear recollecting my partiality for St. Luke, because he was a physician; by the particular pleasure I took in perceiving the superior purity of his Greek, over that of the other Evangelists. But I did not then know, what I was afterwards taught by Dr. Freind’s learned History of Physic, that this purity was owing to his being a physician, and consequently conversant with our Greek fathers of physic. Being thus fortified, I thought myself as well prepared for an encounter with these articles, as so young a person could reasonably be expected. I therefore determined to read them over as carefully and critically as I could; and upon this, met with so many difficulties, utterly irreconcileable by me to the divine original, that I almost despaired of ever being able to subscribe them. But, not to be totally discouraged, I resolved to re-consider them with redoubled diligence; and then at last had the pleasure to discover, in article VI. and XX. what appeared to my best private judgement and understanding a clear solution of all the difficulties, and an absolute defeazance of that exceptionable authority, which inconsistently with scripture they seem to assume. I subscribe my name to whatever I offer to the public, that I may be answerable for its being my sincere sentiment: ever open, however, to conviction, by superior reason and argument.

The author repeated these verses to Dr. Cadogan himself, who censured their want of rhyme; he answered, that “the gout had a fourth cause, study, which was never his case: if he did not understand law and gavelkind, he would not talk to him; for there were two sorts of gout, freehold and copyhold; the first where it was hereditary, the other where a person by debauchery took it up.” 13. “Speech to the Royal Society,” 1772, 4to. 14. “Elogy and address,” 1773, 4to. 15. A Latin version of Job, unfinished, 4to.

To Oxford sent a troop of horse: and why?

Sir William Browne’s will, an attested copy of which is now before us, is not the least singular of his compositions, and may be said to be written in Greek, Latin, and English. From many of the legacies, however, and particularly his mode of introducing them, we perceive the kindness and benevolence of his heart, which, in the circle of his more immediate friends, probably atoned for his many oddities. The above account of his works sufficiently shows that he was a very weak man, and with all the conceit which usually accompanies defective judgment. With the periodical critics, he was long an object of ridicule, and conquered them only by writing faster than they had patience to read. Unsuccessful, however, as he was himself, he determined that better writers should not be without encouragement, and therefore by his will, directed three gold medals, of five guineas each, to be given yearly to three undergraduates of Cambridge on the Commencement day, when the exercises are publicly read, and copies of them sent, by the successful candidates, to sir Martin Folkes, his grandson by his only daughter. The first, to him who writes the best Greek ode in imitation of Sappho; the second for the best ode in imitation of Horace; the third for the best Greek and Latin epigrams, the former after the manner of Anthologia, the latter after the model of Martial. These have been adjudged since 1775. He also left a perpetual rent charge of 2 1/, per annum, upon sundry estates, for founding a scholarship, which is tenable for seven years; but the possessor, if of another college, must remove to the founder’s college, Peter-house, and reside there every entire term during his under-graduatesbip.

, bishop of Exeter, was born at Ipswich in Suffolk, in 1592. His father, who was a merchant of that place, dying when he was but a few weeks old, his mother took due care of his education, in which he made a very considerable progress. At the age of fourteen, he was sent to Pembroke-hall in Cambridge, of which he successively became scholar and fellow; and there he distinguished himself by his facetious and inoffensive wit, his eloquence, and his great skill and knowledge in philosophy, history, poetry, &c. He took his master’s degree in 1617, B. D. in 1621, and D. D. in 1626. He was appointed prevaricator when James I. visited the university, and discharged that employment to the universal aUmiration of the whole audience. His first preferments were, the rectory of Barley in Hertfordshire, and a prebend of Ely in 1621, to both which he was collated by Dr. Nicholas Felton, bishop of Ely. July 15, 1628, he was incorporated doctor of divinity at Oxford. On the 2 1st of September, 16-29, he was collated to the prebend of Tachbrook, in the cathedral church of Lichfield, which he quitted September 19, 1631, when he was admitted to the archdeaconry of Coventry. He was likewise master of Catherine-hall in Cambridge, and proved a great benefit and ornament both to that college and the whole university. In 1637, 1638, 1643, and 1644, he executed the office of vice-chancellor, to the universal satisfaction of all people, and to his own great credit. In 1641, he was presented to the eleventh stall or prebend in the church of Durham, by Dr. Thomas Morton, bishop of that diocese, to whom he was chaplain. Upon the translation of Dr. Joseph Hall to the bishopric of Norwich, Dr. Brown rig was nominated to succeed him in the see of Exeter, in 1641. Accordingly he was elected March 3 1, 1642; confirmed May 14; consecrated the day following; and installed the 1st of June. But the troubles that soon after followed, did not permit him long to enjoy that dignity. Before the beginning of them, he was much esteemed, and highly commended, by his relation John Pym, and others of the presbyterian stamp: but they forsook him, only because he was a bishop; and suffered him to be deprived of his revenues, so that he was almost reduced to want. Nay, once he was assaulted, and like to have been stoned by the rabble, his episcopal character being his only crime. About 1645, he was deprived of his mastership of Catherine-hall> on account of a sermon preached by him before the university, on the king’s inauguration, at some passages of which, offence was taken by the parliament party; and neither his piety, gravity, or learning, were sufficient to preserve him in his station. Being thus robbed of all, he retired to the house of Thomas Rich, of Sunning, esq. in Berkshire, by whom he was generously entertained: and there, and sometimes at London, at Highgate, and St. Edmundsbury, spent several years. During this time, he had the courage to advise Oliver Cromwell to restore king Charles II. to his just rights, but yet he suffered in his reputation, as not being zealous enough for the church. About a year before his decease, he was invited to be a preacher at the Temple, in London, with a handsome allowance; and accordingly he went and settled there, in good lodgings furnished for him. But his old distemper, the stone, coming upon him with greater violence than usual, and being attended with the dropsy and the infirmities of age, they all together put an end to his life, on the 7th of December, 1659: he was buried the 17th following in the Temple church, where there is an epitaph over him. He was once married, but never had a child. Though he was very elaborate and exact in his compositions, and completely wrote his sermons, yet he could not be persuaded to print any thing in his life-time. Bishop Brownrig, as to his person, was tall and comely. The majesty of his presence was so allayed with meekness, candour, and humility, that no man was farther from any thing morose or supercilious. He had a great deal of wit, as well as wisdom; and was an excellent scholar, an admirable orator, an acute disputant, a pathetic preacher, and a prudent governor, full of judgment, courage, constancy, and impartiality. He was, likewise, a person of that soundness of judgment, of that conspicuity for an unspotted life, and of that unsuspected integrity, that he was a complete pattern to all. Dr. Gauden, who had known him above thirty years, declares that he never heard of any thinor said or done by him, which a wise and good man would have wished unsaid or undone. Some other parts of Dr. Gauden’s character of him may be supposed to proceed from the, warmth of friendship. Echard says of him, that “he was a great man for the Anti-Arminian cause (for he was a rigid Calvinist), yet a mighty champion for the liturgy and ordination by bishops: and his death was highly lamented by men of all parties.' 7 Baxter, Neal, and other writers of the nonconformist party, are no less warm in his praises. He was one of those excellent men with whom archbishop Tillotson cultivated an acquaintance at his first coming to London, and by whose preaching and example he formed himself. After his death some of his sermons were published, under the title” Forty Sermons, &c." 1662, fol. and reprinted with the addition of twenty-five, making a second volume, 1674, fol. His style is rather better than that of many of his contemporaries.

, an eminent physician, a native of Cumberland, was born in 1711, and educated in medical science at Leyden, under Albinus, Euler, and Boerhaave. Having taken his medical degree in 1737, he returned to his native country, and settled at Whitehaven, where his practice became very extensive. About twenty years before his death, he retired to Ormathwaite, where he died, Jan. 7, 1800, in his eighty-ninth year, regretted as a man of amiable and endearing virtues, and a most skilful physician. His principal publications were, 1. His inaugural thesis, “De Praxi medica ineunda,” Leyden, 1737, 4to. 2. “A treatise on the art of making common Salt,” Lond. 1748, 8vo, which procured him the honour of being chosen a fellow of the royal society. This work, which has long been out of print, was praised by Chaptal and bishop Watson for the profound knowledge of the subject displayed in it. 3. “An enquiry concerning the mineral elastic spirit contained in the water of Spa in Germany,” printed in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. LV. 4. A treatise, “On the means of preventing the communication of pestilent contagion.” A trip to the Spas of Germany suggested to him the idea of analizing the properties of the Pyrmont springs, and of some others, and led him into that train of nice and deep disquisition, which terminated in the de-elementizing one of our elements, and fixing its invisible fluid form into a palpable and visible substance. All this he effected by producing the various combinations of gases and vapours which constitute atmospheric air, and separating into many forms this long-supposed one and indivisible, whilst he solidified its fluid essence into a hard substance. That Dr. Brownrigg was the legitimate father of these discoveries was not only known at the time to his intimate and domestic circle, but also to the then president of the royal society, sir John Pringle; who, when called upon to bestow upon Dr. Priestley the gold medal for his paper of “Discoveries of the Nature and Properties of Air,” thus observes, “And it is no disparagement to the learned Dr. Priestley, that the vein of these discoveries was hit upon, and its course successfully followed up, some years ago, by my very learned, very penetrating, very industrious, but too modest friend, Dr. Brownrigg.” To habits, indeed, of too much diffidence, and to too nice a scrupulosity of taste, the world has to attribute the fewness of his publications. One of his literary projects was a general history of the county of Cumberland, but it does not appear that he had made much progress. He assisted Mr. West, however, in his entertaining.“Tour to the Lakes,” forming the plan of that popular work.

, son of Gerard, one of the magistrates of Alost, in Flanders, was born in that city in 1531. Having passed through the usual school education “at Ghent, under Simon, a celebrated master, and at Paris and Bruges, at which last place he taught school himself with much credit, he was sent to Rome, where he taught the mathematics for some years; then taming his mind to the study of medicine, he went to Boulogne, and having completed his studies, and taken his degree of doctor, he travelled, for his further improvement, over a great part of France. At Paris, he was introduced to the acquaintance of Adrian Turnebus and Peter Ramus. Returning to Alost, he was made physician and principal magistrate of the city. As he had become a convert to Lutheranism, he readily accepted the invitation of John Albert, duke of Mecklenburgh, to settle at Rostock, where he might with safety profess his religion. He was here appointed professor in mathematics, and soon became popular also as a physician. After residing here 25 years, he was seized with an apoplexy, of which he died, December 31, 1593, His writings were, 1.” De Pritno Motu,“1580, 8vo. 2.” Institutiones -Spherae,“8vo. 5.” Propositiones de morbo. Gallico,“Rostock, 1569, 4to. 4.” Theses de hydrope triplici,“ibid. 1587. 5.” De scorbuto propositiones,“ib,” 1589, 1591, 8vo, reprinted with Eugalenus’s “Liber Observationum de Scorbuto,” Leipsic, 1614. 6. “Epistolae de variis rebus et argumentis medi^cis,” printed with “Smetii Miscellanea,” Francf. 1611, and including his theses on the dropsy.

, a celebrated modern traveller, descended of an ancient and honourable family, was the son of David Bruce, esq. of Kinnaird, by Marion Graham, daughter of James Graham, esq. of Airth, dean of the faculty of advocates, and judge of the high court of admiralty in Scotland. He was born at the family residence of Kinnaird, in the county of Stirling, Dec. 14, 1730. Of his first years few particulars are recorded of much consequence, except that his temper, contrary to the character which it afterwards assumed, was gentle and quiet; but as he advanced in life, became bold, hasty, and impetuous, accompanied, however, with a manly openness, that shewed the usual concomitant, a warm and generous heart. It having been determined to give him an English education, he was sent to London to the house of William Hamilton, esq. a barrister, and his uncle, with whom he remained for some time, and in 1742 he was placed at Harrow school, where he made great proficiency in classical learning. After leaving Harrow in May 1746, he lived about a year in the academy of a Mr. Gordon till April 1747, where he prosecuted his classical education, and studied French, arithmetic, and geometry. In May of that year he returned to Scotland in order to commence a course of study at the university of Edinburgh, preparatory to his following the profession of the law; but it does not appear that he made much progress, or indeed had much inclination for this study, and the precarious state of his health at this time rendered much study of any kind dangerous. His own expectations of success in the law became gradually abated, and various other circumstances determined him to relinquish it for ever.

In this uncertainty of mind, India offered to his ardent imagination a prospect of a more flattering nature. As he was considerably above the age at which persons are enrolled as writers in the service of the East India company, his friends advised him to petition the court of directors for the liberty of settling as a free trader under its patronage; and accordingly he left Scotland in July 1753 with a view to prosecute this design; but he was prevented from carrying it into execution by forming a connection with an amiable young lady, Miss Allan, daughter of a wine-merchant in London, whom he married in Feb. 1754. But though this year did not end with the prosperity with which it began, this accidental settlement in London changed hiss destination in life. It detained him in Europe till his mind was formed, his knowledge matured, and an opportunity presented itself of visiting the east with honour and advantage. In his own opinion, it prevented him from suffering the cruel imprisonment at Calcutta in 1756, which proved fatal to many of the company’s servants. He now entered into partnership in the wine-business, which, as well as his marriage, was approved of by his father; but his prospects in this new situation were soon clouded. A few months after their marriage, Mrs. Bruce exhibited evident symptoms of consumption, and being recommended to try the mild climate of the south of France, expired at Paris in October.

By this melancholy event, Mr. Bruce lost the principal tie that connected him with business, and although he did not think it prudent to relinquish a flourishing trade with-? out some equivalent object, relaxed his personal efforts very considerably, and added to his stock of languages, the Spanish and Portuguese. He also improved his skill in drawing, under a master of the name of Bonneau, recommended to him by Mr. (afterwards sir) Robert Strange. Before this time he had chiefly cultivated that part of drawing which relates to the science of fortification, in hopes that he might, on some emergency, find it of use in military service. But views of a more extensive kind now induced him to study drawing in general, and to obtain a correct taste in painting, so as to be able to visit with advantage those countries which possess the finest specimens of skill and genius in that department of the arts. This notice of Mr. Bruce' s application to the study of drawing we have given in the words of his biographer, because it was long and confidently reported by those who wished to lessen Mr. Bruce’s reputation, that he was totally and incorrigibly ignorant of the art.

His concern in the winotrade gave him an opportunity of travelling over a considerable part of Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands, but hearing of his father’s death in 1758, he returned to England, and in 1761 withdrew entirely from the wine-trade. He now, from his observation while in Spain, suggested to the prime minister, Mr. Pitt, afterwards lord Chatham, the practicability of a successful expedition against Ferrol, in Galicia, where the Spaniards had a considerable harbour, and generally stationed a part of their navy; but various circumstances, of which perhaps Mr. Pitt’s resignation was the principal, prevented this enterprise from being attempted. Disappointed in this, he resolved to return to his native country, and pass his time as a private gentleman, cultivating his paternal estate. One of the new ministers, however, lord Halifax, diverted him from this design, and suggested Africa to him as a proper field for enterprize and discovery; and that he might go under the protection of a public character, it was proposed to send him as consul to Algiers. Bruce acceded to these proposals, and left England in the end of June 1762. He passed through France and Italy, and carried with him from the latter country an artist to assist him in his drawings. For his subsequent adventures, his travels into Abyssinia, and his discovery of the sources of the Nile, &c. we must refer to his published travels. He returned to his native country in 1773, and in 1776, he married a daughter of Thomas Dundas of Fingask, esq. by whom he had three children, two of whom, a son and daughter, are still living. After he settled at Kinnaird, his time was chiefly spent in managing his estate, in preparing his travels for the press, and other literary occupations; and he was preparing a second edition of his Travels, when death prevented the execution of/ his design. On Saturday, April 26, 1794, having entertained some company at Kinnaird, as he was going down stairs about eight o'clock in the evening, to hand a lady into a carriage, his foot slipt, and he fell from a considerable height. He was taken up in a state of insensibility, and expired early next morning. Mr. Bruce’s figure was above the common size; his limbs athletic, but well proportioned; his complexion sanguine; his countenance manly and good-tempered; and his manners easy and polite. The whole outward man was such as to announce a character well calculated to contend with the many difficulties and trying occasions, which so extraordinary a journey could not but have thrown in his way. His internal characters, the features of his understanding and disposition, seem in a great measure to have corresponded with these outward lineaments. As a country gentleman, though not without a tincture of haughtiness, he exhibited the elegance of a man of fashion, and the hospitality of a Briton. His personal accomplishments fitted him, in a superior manner, for the undertakings in which he engaged. His constitution was robust, and he had inured himself to every kind of fatigue and exercise. In mental accomplishments he equalled, if not surpassed, the generality of travellers. His memory was excellent, and his understanding vigorous and well cultivated. He understood French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, the two first of which he spoke and wrote with facility. Besides Greek and Latin, which he read well, though not critically, he knew the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac; and, in the latter part of his life, compared several portions of the scriptures in those related dialects. He read and spoke with ease, Arabic, Ethiopic, and Amharic. Necessity made him acquainted with these last, and impressed them deeply on his mind. He had applied, during the greatest part of his life, to the study of astronomy, and other practical branches of mathematical learning.

The most defective part of his character, his biographer informs us, arose from his constitutional temper, which disposed him to be suspicious, and hasty in taking offence. His enmities therefore were sometimes capricious, though, in general, well-founded. His love of ancestry, and practice of telling his own exploits, though magnified into vices by the weakest of his enemies, scarcely deserve notice as imperfections, though they certainly were prominent features. They contributed, however, in a great measure, to excite those animosities and that incredulity which for many years prevailed respecting the veracity of his narrative.

His “Travels,” after many years of eager expectation on the part of the public, were published in 1790, at London, in 5 vols. 4to, under the title “Travels to discover the Source of the Nile, in the years 1768 1773.” Thereception they met with was exceeding -flattering, yet numerous attacks were made on the author’s character and veracity in the periodical journals, to which it is unnecessary now to refer. It seems agreed that the general credit of the work has survived. We cannot perhaps quote a higher authority than that of Dr. Vincent, who observes that “Bruce may have offended from the warmth of his temper; he may have been misled by aspiring to knowledge and science which he had not sufficiently examined; but his work throughout bears internal marks of veracity, in all instances where he was not deceived himself; and his observations were the best which a man, furnished with such instruments, and struggling for his life, could obtain.”

, a laborious Italian writer, was born at Florence towards the conclusion of the fifteenth century. Having meddled in 1522 in the plot formed by some Florentine citizens against cardinal Julius de Medicis, afterwards pope Ciement VII. he was obliged to expatriate himself, and withdrew into France. The Medici being driven out of Florence in 1527, this revolution brought him back to his country, where the liberty with which he chose to speak against the monks and priests, raised a suspicion of his being attached to the opinions of Luther. He was put into prison, and would not have escaped an ignominious death but for the kind offices of his friends; who procured a mitigation of his punishment to an exile of two years. He then retired to Venice with his brothers, who were printers and booksellers, and employed their presses in printing the greater part of his works, of which the most known and the most in request, is the, whole Bible translated into Italian, with annotations and remarks, which was put by the papists in the number of heretical books of the first class; but the protestants held it in such high esteem that it passed through several editions. The most ample and the most scarce is that of Venice, 1546 and 1548, 3 vols. folio. Brucioli pretends to have made his translation from the Hebrew text: but the truth is, that, being but moderately versed in that language, he made use of the Latin version of Pagnini. His other works are, 1. Italian translations of the natural history of Pliny, and several pieces of Aristotle and Cicero. 2. Editions of Petrarch and Bocace, with notes. 3. “Dialogues,” Venice, 1526, folio. The year of his death is not known; but it is certain that he was still alive in 1554.

, the learned author of the “History of Philosophy,” was a Lutheran clergyman, of whose life we have very few particulars. He was born Jan. 22, 1606, at Augsburgh, and educated at Jena, whence he returned to his native place, and in 1724, became rector of Kafbeueren. He was afterwards pastor of St. Ulric’s church at Augsburgh, where he died in 1770. Among his works are, I. “Tentamen introductionis in historiam doctrinae de Ideis,” Jena, 1719, 4to. 2. “Historia phijosophica doctrinae de Ideis,” Augsburg, 1723, 8vo. 3. “De Vita et Scriptis Cl. Etringeri,” ibid. 1724, 8vo. 4. “Otium Vindelicum, sive Meletematum Historico-philosophicorum Triga,” ibid. 1721, 8vo. 5. “Historia Vitae Adolphorum Occonum,” Lips. 1734, 4to. 6. “Dissertatio Epistol. de Vita Hier. Wolfii,” ibid. 1739, 4to. 7. “-De Hoeschelii Meritis in Rem Literariam,” ibid. 1739, 4to. 8. “Institutiones Historiae Philosophicae,” ibid. 1727, 8vo, and 1756, 4to. But the most important work, to which he owes his chief reputation, is his “Historia Critica Philosophiae,” published at Leipsic between the years 1742 and 1744, in four large volumes 4to; and reprinted at the same place in 1767, with large improvements and additions, in 6 vols. 4to. This was the fruit of nearly fifty years labour, and has received the general suffrage of the learned, as being the most comprehensive, methodical, and impartial history of philosophy hitherto written. He traces the progress of philosophy through three periods, the ancient, the middle, and the modern; in the first he surveys the state of philosophy in the ancient world, prior to the establishment of the Grecian states, and in the several sects of Grecian philosophers. In the second, he exhibits the various forms under which it appeared, during the course of twelve hundred years, among the Romans, the Orientalists, the Jews, the Saracens, and the Christians. In the third, he relates the attempts, whether successful or unsuccessful, which have been made since the revival of letters, to restore, or improve upon, ancient philosophy, or to introduce new methods of philosophizing. It is both a history of doctrines and of men. As a history of doctrines, it lays open the origin of opinions, the changes which they have undergone, the distinct characters of different systems, and the leading points in which they agree or differ. As a history of men, it relates the principal incidents in the lives of the more eminent philosophers, remarks those circumstances in their character or situation which may be supposed to have influenced their opinions, takes notice of their followers and opponents, and describes the origin, progress, and decline of their respective sects. To this part of his work every collector of biography must own his obligations. A very judicious and satisfactory abridgement of this work was published in 1791, 2 vols. 4to, by the late Dr. Enfield.

, a German physician and botanist, was born at Mariensbal, near Helmstadt, Dec. 17, 1697, and having completed his studies, was created doctor in medicine there, in the year 1721. As his taste inclined him to botany, he travelled over Bohemia, Austria, and a great part of Germany, examining and collecting plants indigenous to those countries, and other natural productions. In return for his communications to the Academia Nat. Curios. and of Berlin, he was made corresponding member of those societies. Having finished his travels, he settled at Brunswick, where he died March 21st, 1753. When young, and before he had taken the degree of doctor, he published: 1. “Specimen Botanicum, exhibens fungos subterraneos, vulgo tubera terræ dictos,” Helmst. 1720, 4to, with engravings. 2. “Opuscula Medico botanica,” Brunswick, 1727, 4to. In this he treats of the medical qualities of various vegetable productions, among others, of coffee, the use of which he condemns. 3. “Epistolæ Itineraries,” containing his observations on vegetable and other natural productions, collected during his travels, in which we find a great body of useful information. 4. “Historia naturalis τȢ ΑσβεσθȢ ejusque preparatorum chartæ lini lintei et ellychniorum incombustibilium,” Brunsw. 1727, 4to. In this he has discovered that the asbestos is susceptible of printing, and he had four copies of the work printed on this species of incombustible paper. 5. “Magnalia Dei in locis subterraneis,” a description of all the mines and mineralogical productions in every part of the world, Brunswick, and Wolfenbuttel, 1727, and 1730, 2 vols. fol.

, a Lutheran divine, settled in England, was born in the small island of Cadsand, near the Belgic frontier, Dec. 31, 1726, and was educated with a view to the theological profession, chiefly at the university of Franeker, whence he passed to Leyden, There he obtained a pastorship, and profited by the society of Hemsterhuis, of Valkenäer, and especially of the elder Schultens. His literary acquirements were eminent; he read the Hebrew and the Greek; he composed correctly; and has preached with applause in four languages, Latin, Butch, French, and English. In 1752, Mr. Columbine, of a French refugee family, which had contributed to found, and habitually attended, the Walloon church at Norwich, was intrusted by that congregation, when he was on a journey into Holland, to seek out a fit successor to their late pastor, Mr. Valloton, and applied, after due inquiry, to Mr. Bruckner, who accepted the invitation, and early in 1753 settled as French preacher at Norwich, where he officiated during fifty-one years, with undiminished approbation. About the year 1766, Mr. Bruckner succeeded also to Dr. Van Sarn, as minister of the Dutch church, of which the duties gradually became rather nominal than real, in proportion as the Dutch families died oft', and as the cultivation of their language was neglected by the trading world for the French. The French tongue Mr. Bruckner was assiduous to diffuse, and gave public and private lessons of it for many years. His income was now convenient and progressive. He kept a horse and a pointer, for he took great pleasure in shooting. He drew occasionally, and has left a good portrait of his favourite dog. He cultivated music, and practised much on the organ. In 1767 was printed at Leyden his “Theorie du Systme Animal,” in the seventh and tenth chapters of which there is much anticipation of the sentiments lately evolved in the writings of Mr. Mai thus. This work was well translated into English, under the title “A Philosophical Survey of the Animal Creation,” published for Johnson and Payne in 1768. Mr. Bruckner was married in 1782, to Miss Cooper, of Guist, formerly his pupil. In 1790, he published under the name Cassander, from his birth-place, those “Criticisms on the Diversions of Purley,” which attracted some hostile flashes from Mr. Home Tooke, in his subsequent quarto edition. This pamphlet displays a profound and extensive knowledge of the various Gothic dialects, and states that the same theory of prepositions and conjunctions, so convincingly applied in the “Epea pteroenta” to the northern languages, had also been taught concerning the Hebrew and other dead languages by Schultens. Mr. Wakefield’s pamphlet against Social Worship drew from Mr. Bruckner, in 1792, a learned reply. In the preface to these “Thoughts on Public Worship,” hopes are given of a continuation still desiderated by the friends of religion. Mr. Bruckner began a didactic poem in French verse, which had for its object to popularize in another form, the principles laid down in. his Theory of the Aoimal System. A gradual failure rather of spirits than of health, seems often to have suspended or delayed the enterprise; to have brought on a restless and fastidious vigilance; and to have prepared that termination of his life, which took place on the morning of Saturday, May 12, 1804. He was buried, according to his own desire, at Guist, near the kindred of his respected widow. His society was courted to the last; as his conversation was always distinguished for good sense, for argument, and for humour. He was beloved for his attentions and affability; esteemed for his probity and prudence; and admired for his understanding and learning.

, called Old Brueghel, to distinguish him from his son, was the first of a family of eminent artists. He was born at Brueghel, a village near Breda, in 1510, and acquired the first principles of his art from Peter Cock, or Koeck-van-Aelst, whose daughter he married. He afterwards travelled in France and Italy; studied nature, amidst the mountains of Tyrol, and the scenery of the Alps; and availed himself of the works of the greatest masters in Italy. On his return from Italy, he resided for some time at Antwerp, and from thence he removed to Brussels. Whilst he was employed by the magistrates of this city, in taking views of the canal which fails into the Scheldt, he sickened, and died in 1570; after having caused to be burned in his presence, all his licentious and satirical designs. He chiefly excelled in landscapes, and droll subjects, re sembling those of Jerom Bosche; and he was particularly fond of representing the marches of armies, robberies, skirmishes, sports, dances, weddings, and drunken quarrels; and in order to acquire greater skill and accuracy in this kind of representations, he often assumed the habit of a peasant, and joined the meaner boors at their feasts and. amusements. His figures were correct, and their draperies well chosen; the heads and hands were touched with spirit; and his expression, though not elegant, was true. Sir Joshua Reynolds says, that “he was totally ignorant of all the mechanical art of making a picture;” hut there is in his “Slaughter of the Innocents” (which sir Joshua saw in his travels), a great quantity of thinking, a representation of variety of distress, enough for twenty modern pictures. His principal performance is in the emperor’s collection at Vienna, which is the “Representation of the building of the tower of Babel, by Nimrod.” Several of his paintings are in the cabinets of the emperor and elector palatine, and dispersed through various parts of Europe. For his amusement he engraved some few landscapes and grotesque subjects.

, the younger, and sometimes Called " Hellish Brueghel 17 froni the nature of his subjects, was the son of the preceding artist, born at Brussels, and became the disciple of Gelles Coningsloo. His compositions rather excite disgust than satisfaction; and his human figures, though freely pencilled, and not ill coloured, are not much more elegant than those of the infernal kind. In his historical subjects he generally introduced witches and devils; such as Orpheus charming Pluto and Proserpine to procure the deliverance of Eurydice, surrounded with horrible forms and appearances; Saul and the Witchof Endor; or St. Anthony’s temptations. He is also enumerated by Strutt among the engravers. He died 1642.

, known, from his favourite dress, by the name of Velvet Brueghel, or Feuweeler, was the son of Peter Brueghel the old, and consequently brother to the preceding. He was born at Brussels, in 1560, and was instructed, probably by his father, and by other artists; but, whoever were his instructors, he acquired an eminence in every art of painting; in colouring, in design, and in pencilling, far superior to that of his father, and of all his contemporaries in his style. He began with painting flowers and fruit, which he executed with admirable skill; and then proceeded to landscapes, sea-ports, and markets, in which he introduced a number of small figures, surprisingly exact and correctly drawn. At Cologne, where he resided for some time, he gained an extraordinary reputation; and his pictures were well known and admired in Italy, in which country he spent some time. He died, according to the most probable accounts, in 1625. That the industry of this artist must have been singular, sufficiently appears from the number and variety of his pictures, and the exquisite neatness and delicacy of their execution. It has been lamented, however, by connoisseurs, that his distances are overcharged with a bluish tinge. Brueghel often decorated the pictures of his friends with small figures, thus greatly enhancing their value; he was employed in painting flowers, fruits, animals, and landscape scenery, in the pieces of history-paintings; and in this way Rubens made occasional use of his pencil. He sometimes joined this master in larger works, which have been much admired; and particularly in a “Vertumnus and Pomona,” a picture three feet high and four broad, highly commended by Houbraken, and sold at Amsterdam for above 2SOl. sterling; and “a Terrestrial Paradise,” painted for Charles I. king of England. In the gallery of the archiepiscopal palace at Milan, there is an admirable landscape of Brueghel, representing a desert, in which Giovanna Battista Crespi painted the figure of St. Jerom; and among a great number preserved in the Ambrosian library in that city, there is an oval picture of the Virgin, painted by Rubens, which is encompassed by a garland of flowers admirably executed by Brueghel. Most considerable cabinets possess specimens of the art of this master. Some small engravings of landscapes, &c. are also ascribed to Brueghel.

, a French writer of a singular character for versatility, was born at Aix, in 1640, and trained in the reformed religion, in defence of which he published some controversial pieces, particularly against Bossuet’s “Exposition de la Foi,” or Exposition of the faith; but the prelate, instead of answering, converted him. Brueys, become catholic, combated with the Protestant ministers, with Jurieu, Lenfant, and La Roche; but his airy spirit not rightly accommodating itself to serious works, he quitted theology for the theatre. He composed, jointly with Palaprat, his intimate friend, several comedies full of wit and gaiety. We have also of this writer a prosaic paraphrase or commentary on Horace’s art of poetry. In his latter years he became again a controversial writer, and, as his countrymen say, imitated Bellarmine and Moliere by turns. He died at Moritpellier in 1723, aged eighty -three; and all his dramatic pieces were collected, 1735, in 3 vols. 12mo. His comedies have some merit, but his tragedies and other works are deservedly sunk into oblivion.

, a French physician, was born at Bealivais about the end of the seventeenth century, and after studying medicine, acquired considerable reputation by his practice and his writings. He also arrived at the honour of being royal censor of the college, and a member of the academy or Angers. He died in 1756, after having written or edited some works of merit in his profession: 1. “Observations sur le manuel des Accouchments,” Paris, 1733, 4tc, a translation from Daventer. 2. “La Medicine Raisonnee,” from Hoffman, ibid. 1739, 9 vols. 12mo. 3. “Caprices d'imagination, on Lettres sur differens sujets,” ibid. 1746, in which he appears as a physician, metaphysician, moralist, and critic. 4. “Memoires pour servir a la vie de M. Silva,” ibid. 1744, 8vo. 5. “Traite des Fievres,” from Hoffman, ibid. 1746, 3 vols. 12mo. 6. “La Pohtique du Medicin,” from the same, ibid. 1751, 12mo, 7. “Traite des Alimens,” by Lemery, ibid. 1755, 2 vols. 12mo. 8. “Dissertations surPincertitude des signesde lamort, et Tabus des enterremens et embaumemens precipites,” ibid. 1742, often reprinted, and translated into many European languages. This is’the most useful of all his works, and has been the means of saving many lives. He wrote also some papers in the Journal des Savans.

, professor of natural philosophy and mathematics at Utrecht, was born at Gorcum in 1620. He went through a course of philosophy at Leyden; and then pursued his studies at Bois-le-duc, where he was very much esteemed by Samuel des Marets, who taught philosophy and divinity, in that place. He went from thence to Utrecht, where he learnt the mathematics, and then removed to Leyden, where he obtained leave to teach them. He was afterwards made professor at Utrecht; and because the professors had agreed among themselves that every one might teach at home such a part of philosophy as he should think fit, de Bruin, not contented with teaching what his public professorship required, made also dissections, and explained Grotius’s book “De jure belli et pacis.” He had uncommon skill in dissecting animals, and was a. great lover of experiments. He^made also observations in astronomy. He published dissertations “De vi altrice,” “De corporum gravitate et levitate,” “De cognitione Dei naturali,” “De iucis causa et origine,” &c. He had a dispute with Isaac Vossius, to whom he wrote a letter, printed at Amsterdam in 1663; wherein he cites Vossius’s book De natura et propnetate Iucis, and strenuously maintains the hypothesis of Descartes. He wrote also an apology for the Cartesian philosophy against a divine, named Vogelsang. In 1655, he married the daughter of a merchant of Utrecht, sister to the wife of Daniel Elzevir, the famous bookseller of Amsterdam, by whom he had two children who lived but a few days. He died in 1675, and his funeral oration was pronounced by Graevius.

, a celebrated French writer, was born at Rouen, Aug. 26, 1688, and commenced his noviciate among the Jesuits of Paris, Sept. 8, 1704. In 1706, he began his philosophical course in the royal college, and in 1708 was sent to Caen to complete his studies that he might take orders. Some of his pieces are dated from that city in 1710 and 1712, and one from Bourges in 1719. He appears indeed to have passed several years in the country, where he taught rhetoric. In 1713, he returned to Paris to study theology, and in 1722 he was again at Paris, where he took the vows in the society of Jesuits, and was intrusted with the education of the prince of Talmont. About the same time he assisted in the “Memoirs of the Arts and Sciences,” and continued his labours in that journal until 1729, when he was obliged to leave Paris for some time for having assisted in publishing father Margat’s History of Tamerlane, which it appears had g=ven offence. His absence, however, was not long, and on his return, or soon after, he was employed in continuing the “History of the Gallican church,” of which six volumes had been published by fathers Longueval and Fontenay. In 1725, he was appointed professor of mathematics, and filled that chair for six years with much reputation. It was probably in this situation that he read his lecture, on the “use of mathematical knowledge in polite literature,” now printed in the second volume of his works, nor did his various public employments prevent his publishing many other works, which were well received by the public. In 1722 he published, but without his name, his “Morale Chretienne,” Paris, a small volume, of which four editions were soon bought up. In 1723, he also published the first of his three letters, entitled “Examen du poema (de M. Racine) sur la grace,” 8vo, and in 1724, “La vie de Timperatrice Eleonore,” taken from that by father Ceva; the same year, “Abreg des vertus de soeur Jeanne Silenie de la Motte des Goutes,” Moulins, 12mo; and a new edition of father Mourgues “Traite de la Poesie Francoise,” with many additions, 12mo. But the work which contributed most to his reputation was his “Greek Theatre,” entitled “Theatre des Grecs, contenant des traductions ct analyses des tragedies Grecques, des discours et des remarques concernant la theatre Grec, &c.” 1730, 3 vols. 4to, and often reprinted in 12mo, in France and Holland. This useful work, not now in such high reputation as formerly, is yet well known in this country by the translation published by Mrs. Charlotte Lennox in 1760, 3 vols. 4to; to which the earl of Corke and Orrery contributed a general preface, and translated the three preliminary discourses: Dr. Sharpe, Dr. Grainger, and Mr. Bourryau translated some other parts, and Dr. Johnson contributed a dissertation on the Greek comedy, and the general conclusion of the work, which, in this translation, is certainly highly polished and improved. “Brumoy,” says Dr. Warton, “has displayed the excellencies of the Greek tragedy in a judicious and comprehensive manner. His jtranslations are faithful and elegant; and the analysis of those plays, which on account of some circumstances in ancient manners would shock the readers of this age, and would not therefore bear an entire version, is perspicuous and full. Of all the French critics, he and the judicious Fenelon have had the justice to confess, or perhaps the penetration to perceive, in what instances Corneille and Racine have falsified and modernized the characters, and overloaded with unnecessary intrigues the simple plots of the ancients.”

Brumoy was alao employed in completing the history of the “Revolutions of Spain,” left unfinished by father Orleans. This was published in 1734 in 3 vols. 4to, of which about a half belongs to our author. He was next requested by the booksellers to collect his own miscellaneous pieces, in prose and verse, and published 4 vols. 12mo, in 1741. Some of his poetry is in Latin, with translations, and we find here some dramatic pieces. He was also the editor of various editions of works at the request of the booksellers. He was employed on the continuation of the “History of the Gallican church,” when he was seized with a paralytic stroke, which proved fatal April 17, 1742.

, an illustrious French painter, was of Scottish extraction, and born in 1619. His father was a statuary by profession. At three years of age it is reported that he drew figures with charcoal; and at twelve he drew the picture of his uncle so well, that it still passes for a fine piece. His father being employed in the gardens at Seguier, and having brought his son along with him, the chancellor of that name took a liking to him, and placed him with Simon Vouet, an eminent painter, who was greatly surprised at young Le Brun’s amazing proficiency. He was afterwards sent to Fontainbleau, to take copies of some of Raphael’s pieces. The chancellor sent him next to Italy, and supported him there for six years. Le Brun, on his return, met with the celebrated Poussin, by whose conversation he greatly improved himself in his art, and contracted a friendship with him which lasted as long as their lives. Cardinal Mazarin, a good judge of painting, took great notice of Le Brun, and often sat by him while he was at work. A painting of St. Stephen, which he finished in 1651, raised his reputation to the highest pitch. Soon after this, the king, upon the representation of M. Colbert, made him his first painter, and conferred on him the order of St. Michael. His majesty employed two hours every day in looking over him, whilst he was painting the family of Darius at Fontainbleau. About 1662, be began his five large pieces of the history of Alexander the Great, in which he is said to have set the actions of that conqueror in a more glorious light than Quintus Curtius in his history. He procured several advantages for the royal academy of painting and sculpture at Paris, and formed the plan of another for the students of his own nation at Rome. There was scarce any thing done for the advancement of the fine arts in which he was not consulted. It was through the interest of M. Colbert that the king gave him the direction of all his works? and particularly of his royal manufactory at the Gobelins, where he had a handsome house, with a genteel salary assigned to him. He was also made director and chancellor of the royal academy, and shewed the greatest zeal to encourage the fine arts in France. He possessed in a great degree that enthusiasm which animates the efforts, and increases the raptures of the artist. Some one said before him of his fine picture of the Magdalen, “that the contrite penitent was really weeping.” “That, 7 * said he,” is perhaps all that you can see; I hear her sigh.“He was endowed with a vast inventive genius, which extended itself to arts of every kind. He was well acquainted with the history and manners of all nations. Besides his extraordinary talents, his behaviour was so genteel, and his address Sq pleasing, that he attracted the regard and affection of the whole court of France: where, by the places and pensions conferred on him by the king, he made a very considerable figure. He died at his house in. the Gobelins in 1690, leaving a wife, but no children. He was author of a curious treatise of” Physiognomy“and of another of the” Characters of the Passions."

The paintings which gained him greatest reputation were, besides what we have already mentioned, those which he finished at Fontainbleau, the great stair-case at Versailles, but especially the grand gallery there, which was the last of his works, and is said to have taken him up fourteen years. A more particular account of these, and a general character of his other performances, may be found in the writings of his countrymen, who have been rery lavish in his praises, and very full in their accounts of his works.

, known also by the name of Desmarettes, a learned Frenchman, who died at Orleans in 1731, advanced in age, was author or editor of many pieces of ecclesiastical history, lives of the saints, &c. but deserves notice chiefly for being the editor of an excellent edition of Lactantius, collated with valuable mamiscripts, and enriched with learned notes, which was published in 1748, 2 vols. 4to, by Lenglet du Fresnoy.

, a French Jesuit, was born at Nantes in 1607, and died at Paris Sept. 1, 1663. He wrote many pieces of Latin poetry. The principal are, 1. “The Ignatiad,” in xii books: the subject is the pilgrimage of St. Ignatius to Jerusalem. This poem forms a part of his “Virgilius Christianus;” in which he has imitated, with more piety than taste, the eclogues, the georgics, and the Æneid. His “Ovidius Christianus” is in the same strain: the Heroic Epistles are changed into pastoral letters, the Tristibus into holy lamentations, and the Metamorphoses into stories of converted penitents. Father Le Brun also wrote “Eloquentia Poetica,” Paris, 1655, 4to, a treatise in Latin on the precepts of the art of poetry, supported on examples drawn from the best authors. At the end is a treatise on poetical common-places, which may be of service to young versifiers.

, a French priest of the oratory, who made considerable approaches to liberality and good sense in his writings, was born at Brignolle, in the diocese of Aix in Provence, in 1661, and became celebrated for his knowledge of ecclesiastical history and antiquities; on which subjects he lectured in the seminary of St. Magloire, at Paris, for thirteen years. His first publication appears to have been against the illusion of the divining rod; “Lettres pour prouver l'illusion des philosophes sur la baguette,” Paris, 1693, reprinted in 1702, with many additions, under the title of “Histoire critique des pratiques superstitieuses, &c.” Of this there was a new edition in 3 vols. 12mo, 1732, with a life of the author by M. Bellon, his nephew, and in 1737 the abbe Granet printed a collection of pieces intended as a fourth volume. He also wrote against the theatre, as an amusement improper for Christians; but his more elaborate work was that on “Liturgies,” published in 4 vols. 8vd, containing a history of liturgies, prayers, ceremonies, &c. including those of the church of England. This, owing to some liberal opinions, involved him in a controversy, in which he defended himself with great ability, but before the contest was over he died, Jan. 6, 1729.

, a celebrated Greek scholar and critic, a member of the inscriptions and belles iettres, and of the institute, was born at Strasburgh, Dec. 30, 1729, and died in that city June 12, 1803. Of his history no detailed account has yet appeared in this country, as far as we have been able to learn. We are only told that he was first educated in the college of Louis le Grand at Paris, and that having afterwards engaged in the civil administration of affairs, he had long neglected the cultivation of letters, when, in the course of the campaigns in Hanover, he happened to lodge at Gie^sen, in the house of a professor of the university. With him he read several Latin and Greek authors, and was soon inspired with a great predilection for the latter language; but the most remarkable particular is, that some time before his death he lost on a sudden all taste for the critical and classical pursuits which he had followed so eagerly and successfully for upwards of half a century, and this without any visible decay of his powers either intellectual or physical. Yet, such was the change, that he totally abandoned all study of his favourite Greek, and could not be prevailed upon to cast even a glance on any of his favourite authors, nor did he appear to take the smallest interest in the discovery of a manuscript of Aristophanes, which happened to confirm the greater part of his notes and conjectures on that author, a circumstance, which, at any other period of his life, would have excited his warmest enthusiasm. The works for which the learned world is indebted to his pen are, 1. “Analecta veterum Poetarum Graecorum,” Strasburgh, 1772—1776, 3 vols 8vo, reprinted 1785. There is also a quarto edition. 2. “Anacreontis Carmina,” ibid. 1778, 12mo, and 1786, beautiful and accurate editions. 3. “Æschyli Tragcedioe, Prometheus, Persae, Septem ad Thebas: Sophoclis Antigone: Euripidis Medea,” ibid 1779, 8vo. 4. “Sophoclis Elettra, et Euripidus Andromache,” ibid. 1779, 8vo. 5. “Sophoclis Oedipus Tyrannus, et Euripidis Orestes,” ibid. 1779, 8vo. 6. “Euripidis Tragediae quatuor, Hecuba, Phcenissa?, Hyppolytus et Bacchae,” ibid. 1780, 8vo, with illustrations from a Parisian ms. an excellent edition. 7. “Apollonii Rhodii Argonautica,” ibid. 1780, 8vo, the notes and emendations more valuable than those of any preceding author, but Brunck is accused of employing conjecture rather too freely. 8. “Aristophanis Comœdiæ in Latinum Sermonem conversæ,” ibid. 1781, 3 vols. 9. “Aristophanis Comcediae ex optimis exemplaribus emendatae,” ibid. 1783, 8vo, and 4to, containing the preceding Latin translation and notes and emendations, one of the best editions of Aristophanes. 10. “G-nomici Poetae Graeci,” ibid. 1784, 8vo. 11. “Virgilius,” ibid. 1785, 8vo. 12. “Sophoclis qua; extant omnia, cum veterum Grammaticorum scholiis,” ibid. 1786, 4to, 2 vols. and 3 vols. 8vo, 1786 9, an edition of acknowledged superiority and value. 13. “Plautus,” Bipont. 1788, 2 vols. 8vo. 14. “Terentius,” 1787, from the press of Dannbach, but Mr. Dibdin mentions a Basil edition of 1797, said to have been superintended by Brunck, and printed in the same manner with his Virgil of 1789. Brunck’s enthusiastic admiration of the authors he edited was such, that he conceived their writings to have been originally immaculate, and therefore attributed to the copyists whatever errors he discovered. He is, as we have noticed, accused of taking some bold freedoms in the restoration of what he conceived defective, but he was more remarkable for this in the notes which he wrote on the margins of his books, and the manuscript copies of some Greek poets which he left behind him. Of Apollonius Rhodius only he wrote out five copies.

, an eminent Italian architect, was born at Florence in 1377. His father was a notary, and his sou for some time was apprenticed to a goldsmith, but afterwards discovered a turn for geometry, in which he was instructed by Paul Toscanelli. A journey which he happened to take to Rome gave him a taste for architecture, which he hftproved by the study of the edifices in that city, and had a very early opportunity of trying his skill. A dome was wanted for the church of St. Maria del Fiore at Florence; the ablest architects had been requested to send in their plans, and that of Brunelleschi was adopted, and carried into execution with an effect which astonished Michael Angelo himself. He was next employed by Cosmo the Great in building the abbey of Fesoli, and was afterwards solicited for the plan of a palace for Cosmo. Brunelleschi accordingly gave in a design of great magnificence, but Cosmo thought proper to prefer one more suited to the prudent economy which was then necessary for him, and Brunelleschi was so irritated that he destroyed his design. Brunelleschi afterwards built the Pitti palace, in part, and the church of St. Lorenzo in Florence almost entirely. He also gave some designs in military architecture. He is said to have been the first who attempted to restore the Grecian orders of architecture, and under his control this branch of the art attained a degree of perfection which it had not known from the time of the ancients. Brunelieschi died in 1446, greatly lamented, and was interred with sumptuous funeral honours, and Cosmo erected a monument to his memory. He is said to have employed his leisure hours in cultivating Italian poetry, and some of his burlesque verses have been printed along with those of Burchieiio: there is a separate poem, “Geta e Birna,” ascribed to him and to Domenico dal Prato, Venice, 1516, 8vo, but this seems doubtful. It is more certain that he wrote architectural descriptions of all his works, some of which are, or lately were, in Cosmo’s palace at Florence, now the residence of the noble family of Riccardi.

, a very eminent scholar and historian, derived his name of Aretine, or Aretino, from Arezzo, in which city he was born in the year 1370, of parents sufficiently wealthy to bestow on him a good education. In his early youth he was incited to a love of letters by an extraordinary accident. A body of French troops, who were marching to Naples to assist Louis of Anjou in maintaining his claim to trie sovereignty of that kingdom, at the solicitation of the partizans of a faction which had been banished from Arezzo, made an unexpected attack upon that city; and, after committing a great slaughter, carried away many of the inhabitants into captivity; and, among the rest, the family of Bruni. Leonardo being confined in a chamber in which hung a portrait of Petrarch, by daily contemplating the lineaments of that illustrious scholar, conceived so strong a desire to signalize himself by literary acquirements, that immediately upon his enlargement he repaired to Florence, where he prosecuted his studies with unremitting diligence, under the direction of John of Ravenna, and Manuel Chrysoloras. During his residence at Florence, he contracted a strict intimacy with the celebrated Poggio Bracciolini, and the latter being afterwards informed by Leonardo that he wished to procure a presentation to some place of honour or emolument in the Roman chancery, took every opportunity of recommending him. In consequence of this, pope Innocent VII. invited him to Rome, where he arrived March 24, 1405, but was at first disappointed in his hopes, the place at which he aspired being intended for another candidate, Jacopo d'Angelo. Fortunately, however, the pope having received certain letters from the duke of Berry, determined to assign to each of the competitors the task of drawing up an answer to them, and the compositions being compared, the prize was unanimously adjudged to Leonardo, who was instantly advanced to the dignity of apostolic secretary, and by this victory considerably increased his reputation, as his competitor was a man of very considerable talents. (See Angelo, James.) In 1410 Leonardo was elected chancellor of the city of Florence, but finding it attended with more labour than profit, resigned it in 1411, and entered into the service of pope John XXII. and soon after went to Arezzo, where he married a young lady of considerable distinction in that city. He was thought by his contemporaries rather too attentive to the minutiae of economy, and having married a lady who loved dress and ornaments, was somewhat disappointed. In a letter to his friend Poggio, after giving an account of his marriage expences, he adds, “In short, I have in one night consummated my marriage, and consumed my patrimony.” In 1415 he accompanied pope John XXIII. to the council of Constance, and this pope having been there deposed, Leonardo returned to Florence, where he was chosen secretary to the republic, and was employed in several political affairs of importance. He died in thebeginning of 1444, and was interred with the most solemn magnificence in the church of Santa Croce, with the following inscription, which is still legible, but not worthy of the object:

Leonardo Bruni was not only one of the most learned men of his age, but one of the most amiable in character and manners, nor was his fame confined to Italy. The learned of France and Spain travelled to Florence to have the honour of seeing him, and it is said that a Spaniard who was ordered by the king to pay him a visit, knelt down in his presence, and could with difficulty be persuaded to quit that humble and admiring posture. These honours, however, excited no pride in Leonardo, The only failing of which he has been accused is that of avarice; but, as one of his biographers remarks, that name is sometimes given to prudence and economy. His friendships were lasting and sincere, and he was never known to resent ill-usage with much asperity, unless in the case of Niccolo Niccoli, who appears to have given him sufficient provocation. The case, indeed, on the part of Niccoli appears abundantly ridiculous; a termagant mistress whom he kept had been publicly disgraced; and Niccoli expected that his friends should condole with him on the occasion. Leonardo staid away, for which Niccoli reproached him, and when Leonardo offered him such advice as morality as well as friendship dictated, irritated Leonardo by his reiterated reproaches and insultinrg language. The consequence was a satire Leonardo wrote, a manuscript copy of which is in the catalogue, although not now in the library, of New college, Oxford. The title of it was “Leonardi Florentini oratio in nebulonem maledicum.” It appears by Menus’ s catalogue of his works to be in the Laurentian library. Poggio, however, at last succeeded in reconciling the parties.

If, according to some, Leonardo was occasionally impatient in his temper, and too apt to take offence, his late biographer has given an anecdote which shews that he had the good sense to be soon convinced of his error, and the ingenuousness of spirit to confess it. Having engaged in a literary discussion with Gianozzo Manetti, he was so exasperated by observing that the bye-standers thought him worsted in argument, that he vented his spleen in outrageous expressions against Jiis antagonist. On the x following morning, however, by break of day, he went to the house of Gianozzo, who expressed his surprize that a person of Leonardo’s dignity should condescend to honour him so far as to pay him an unsolicited visit. On this, Leonardo requested that Gianozzo would favour him with a private conference, and thus apologized for the wajrmth of his temper: “Yesterday I did you great injustice ~; but I soon began to suffer punishment for my offence, for I have not closed my eyes during the whole night, and I could not rest till I had made to you a confession of my fault.” Mr. Shepherd justly observes, that the man who by the voluntary acknowledgment of an error could thus frankly throw himself upon the generosity of one whom he had offended, must have possessed in his own mind a fund of probity and honour. The failings of Leonardo were indeed amply counterbalanced by his strict integrity, his guarded temperance, his faithful discharge of his public duties, and his zeal in the cause of literature.

His works are, 1. “Historiarum Florentini populi, lib. duodecim,” Strasburgh, 1610, fol. The Italian translation by Acciajolo was printed at Venice, 1473, 1560, and 1561, and at Florence, 1492. 2. “Leonard! Aretini de Temporibus suis Libri duo,” fol. Venice, 1475 and 1485, &c. 3. “De Bello Italico ad versus Gothos gesto Libri quatuor,” founded upon the Greek history of Procopius, Foligno, 1470, and often reprinted. 4. “De Bello Punico Libri tres,” Brix, 1498, &c. 5. “Commentarium Rerum Graecarum,” Leyden, 1539, &c, 6. “Isagogicon moralis discipline ad Galeotum Ricasolanum.” This work also bears the title of “Dialogus de moribus, &c.” and under the title of “Aristoteles de moribus ad Eudemum Latine Leon. Aretino interprete,” was printed at Louvain, 1475, &c. 7. “Ad Petrum Histrium dialogoruni Libri,” Basil, 1536, and Paris, 1642. 8. “De Studiis et Literis ad illustrem Dominum Baptistam de Malatestis,” Strasburgh, 1521, &c. 9. “Laudatio Joan. Strozzse,” in Baluzzi’s Miscellanies. 10. “Imperatoris Heliogabali oratio protreptica,” published by Aldus Manutius in his “Hist. Augustae Scriptores Minores.” 11. “Oratio in Hypocritas,” printed in the Fasciculus of Ortuinus Gratius, Cologn, 1535, Leyden, 1679, and London, 1691. 12. “La vita di Dante e i costumi e studj di Petrarca.” The life of Petrarch was edited by Phil. Tomasinus in his “Petrarca Redivivus,” Padua, 1650, and was reprinted with the life of Dante, 1671. 13. “Magni Basilii Liber in Latinum translatus,” Brix. 1485, &c. 14. Seven of Plutarch’s Lives translated from the Greek, Basil, 1542. 15. “Apologia Socratis,” Bonon, 1502. 15. “Aristotelis Ethicorum Libri decem,” Paris, 1504 and 1510, &c. 16. <c Aristotelis Politicorum, libri octo.“Venice, 1504, &c. 17.” Oeconomicorum Aristotelis Libri duo,“Basil, 1538. 18.” Oratio Æschinis in Ctesiphontem,“Basil, 1528, 1540. 19.” Oratio Demosthenis contra Æschinem,“ibid. 1528. 20.” De crudeli anioris exitu Guisguardi, &c.“a translation of one of Boccaccio’s tales, Turon. 1467, printed also in the works of Pius II. 21. Epistolarum Libri VIII.” 1472, fol. often reprinted. 22. “Canzone morale di Messer Lionardo,” printed in the third volume of Crescembini’s Italian poetry. The numerous editions through which many of his works passed afford a sufficient indication of the esteem in which they were held by the learned of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

, 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 Swiss physician and anatomist of eminence, was born at Diessenhofen, the 16th of January, 1653. After passing through the usual school education, he was sent, at the age of sixteen, to Strasburgh, where, applying assiduously to the study of physic and anatomy, he was created doctor in medicine in 1672. For his thesis, he gave the anatomy of a child with two heads, which he met with. He now went to Paris, and attended the schools and hospitals there with such assiduity, as to attract the notice, and gain him the intimacy of Dionis and du Verny, who were present while he made the experiments on the pancreas, which enabled him, some years after, to publish a more accurate description of that viscus, than had been before given, under the title of “Experimenta nova circa Pancreas. Accedit Diatribe de Lympha et genuine Pancreatis usu,” Leidse, 1682, 8vo. He proved that the fluid secreted by the pancreas is not necessary to digestion, and that an animal may live after that viscus is taken out of the body, having tried the experiment upon a dog, which perfectly recovered from the operation. On quitting Paris, he came to London, and was introduced to Dr. Willis, Lower, and Henry Oldenburg, secretary to the royal society. From England he passed to Holland, and studied for some months at Leyden. At Amsterdam he visited Swammerdam and Ruysch, with whom he afterwards corresponded. Returning home he was made professor of medicine at Heidelberg, and first physician to the elector palatine, who conferred on him the title of baron de Brunn in Hamerstein. About the same time, he niarried one of the daughters of the celebrated Wepfer, and was elected honorary member of the academia naturae curios, in return for some ingenious dissertations which he had communicated to them. In 1688 he publised “Dissertatio Anatomica de Glandula pituitaria,” Heidelb. 4to. From this time he became in such great request for his knowledge and success in practice, that he was, in succession, consulted by most of the princes in Germany. Among others, in 1720, he was sent for to Hanover, to attend the prince of Wales, afterwards king George II. In 1715 he published at Heidelberg, “Glandula Duodeni sen Pancreas secundum detectum,” 4to, which was only an improved edition of his “De Glandulis in Duodeno Intestino detectis,” which had been before twice printed. There are some other lesser works, the titles and accounts of which are given by Haller, in his Bib. Anat. In the latter edition of Wepfer’s works are given dissections by our author, of the heads of some persons who died of apoplexy, of whom he had had the care. Though early afflicted with gravel, and in the latter part of his life with gout, he continued to attend to the calls of his patients, though living a great distance from his residence. When in his 74th year, he went in great haste to Munich, to attend the elector Maximilian Emanuel; on his return, he was seized with a fever, which, in a few days, put an end to his life, October 2, 1727.

, founder of the Carthusian monks, was descended from an ancient and honourable family, and born at Cologn about the year 1030. He was educated first among the clergy of St. Cunibert’s church at Cologn, and afterwards at Rheims, where he attracted so much notice by his learning and piety, that on a vacancy occurring, he was promoted to the office or rank of Scholasticus, to which dignity then belonged the direction of the studies, and all the great schools of the diocese. In this office, which he filled with great reputation, he continued until 1077, when the scandalous conduct of Manasses, archbishop of Rheims, who, by open simony had got possession of that church, induced him to join with some others in accusing Manasses in a council held by the pope’s legate at Autun. Manasses accordingly was deposed, and the church of Rheims was about to choose Bruno for his successor in the archbishopric, when he resigned his office, and persuaded some of his friends to accompany him into solitude. After searching for some time to discover a proper place, they arrived at Grenoble in 1084, and requested the bishop to allot them some place where they might serve God, remote from worldly affairs. The bishop having assigned them the desert of Chartreuse, and promised them his assistance, Bruno and his companions, six in number, built an oratory there, and small cells at a little distance one from the other like the ancient Lauras of Palestine, in which they passed the six days of the week, but assembled together on Sundays. Their austerities were rigid, generally following those of St. Benedict; and, among other rules, perpetual silence was enjoined, and all their original observances, it is said, were longer preserved unchanged than those of any other order. Before the late revolution in France, they had 172 convents divided into sixteen provinces, of which five only are said to have been nunneries, all situated in the catholic Netherlands, and where the injunction of silence was dispensed with. There were nine monasteries of this order in England at the dissolution under Henry VIII.

After St. Bruno had governed this infant society for six years, he was invited to Rome by pope Urban II. who had formerly been his scholar at Rheims, and now received him with every mark of respect and confidence, and pressed him to accept the archbishopric of Reggio. This however he declined, and the pope consented that he should withdraw into some wilderness on the mountains of Calabria. Bruno found a convenient solitude in the diocese of Squiiiaci, where he settled in 1090, with some new disciples, until his death, Oct. 6. 1101. There are only two letters of his remaining, one to Raoul le Verd, and the other to his monks, which are printed in a folio volume, entitled “S. Brunonis Qpera et Vita,” 1524, but the other contents of the volume belong to another St. Bruno, first a monk of Soieria in the diocese of Ast, and hence called Astiensis. He distinguished himself at the council of Rome in 1079 against Berenger, and was consecrated bishop of Segni by Gregory VII. He died in 1125, and is reckoned among the fathers of the church. He is reputed to have written with more elegance, clearness, and erudition, than most authors of his time, and there are several editions of his works. The Carthusian Bruno wrote on the Psalms and on some of St. Paul’s epistles. He followed the system of Augustine concerning grace, but it seems doubtful if any genuine works of his remain, unless what we have mentioned.

, an Italian writer to whom atheism has been generally, but unjustly, imputed, was born atNola in the kingdom of Naples, about the middle of the sixteenth century. His talents are said to have been considerable, but this is hardly discoverable from his works: he early, however, set up for an inquirer and innovator, and very naturally found many things in the philosophy and theology then taught in Italy, which he could not comprehend. Being fond of retirement and study, he entered into a monastery of Dominicans, but the freedom of his opinions, and particularly of his censures on the irregularities of the fraternity, rendered it soon necessary to leave his order and his country. In 1582, he withdrew to Geneva, where his heretical opinions gave offence to Calvin and Beza, and he was soon obliged to provide for his safety by flight. After a short stay at Lyons he came to Paris, and his innovating spirit recommended him to the notice of multitudes, who at this time declared open hostilities against the authority of Aristotle. In a public disputation, held in the royal academy, in 1586, he defended, three days successively, certain propositions concerning nature and the world, which, together with brief heads of the arguments, he afterwards published in Saxony, under the title of “Acrotismus,” or “Reasons of the physical articles proposed against the Peripatetics at Paris.” The contempt with which Bruno, in the course of these debates, treated Aristotle, exposed him to the resentment of the academic professors, who were zealous advocates for the old system; and he found it expedientto leave thekingdom of France. According to some writers, he now visited England, in the train of the French ambassador Castelneau, wherehe was hospitably received by sir Philip Sydney and sir Fulke Gre.ville, and was introduced to queen Elizabeth. But though it is certain from his writings that he was in England, he probably made this visit in some other part of his life, and we should suppose before this, in 1583 or 1584. For, about the middle of the same year in which he was at Paris, we find him, at Wittenburg, a zealous adherent of Luther. In this city he met with a liberal reception, and full permission to propagate his doctrines: but the severity with which he inveighed against Aristotle, the latitude of his opinions in religion as well as philosophy, and the contempt with which he treated the masters of the public schools, excited new jealousies; and complaints were lodged against him before the senate of the university. To escape the disgrace which threatened him, Bruno, after two years residence in Wittenburg, left that place, and took refuge in Helmstadt, where the known liberality of the duke of Brunswick encouraged him to hope for a secure asylum. But either through the restlessness of his disposition, or through unexpected opposition, he went next year to Francfort, to superintend an edition of his works, but before it was completed was obliged again, probably from fear of persecution, to quit that city. His next residence was at Padua; where the boldness with which h.e taught his new doctrines, and inveighed against the court of Rome, caused him to be apprehended and brought before the inquisition at Venice. There he was tried, and convicted of his errors. Forty days being allowed him to deliberate, he promised to retract them, and as at the expiration of that term, he still maintained his errors, he obtained a further respite for forty days. At last, it appearing that he imposed upon the pope in order to prolong his life, sentence was finally passed upon him on the 9th of February 1600. He made no offer to retract during the week that was allowed him afterwards for that purpose, but underwent his punishment on the 17th, by being burnt at a stake.

Many modern writers have very successfully wiped off the aspersion of Bruno’s being an atheist; but, whatever he was with respect to religion, his character appears never to have risen much higher than that of a dealer in paradoxes. Brucker, who seems to have examined his works, and whose history we have chiefly followed in the preceding account, says, that a luxuriant imagination supplied him with wonderful conceptions, intelligible only to a few, which were never formed into a system. Not possessing that cool and solid judgment, and that habit of patient attention, which are necessary to a thorough investigation of subjects, he frequently embraced trifling and doubtful propositions as certain truths. His ideas are for the most part wild and fantastic, and he indulged himself in a most unbounded liberty of speech. Some of his original conceptions are indeed more luminous and satisfactory, and nearly coincide with the principles of philosophy afterwards received by Des Cartes, Leibnitz, and others. But these sparks of truth are buried in a confused mass of extravagant and trifling dogmas, expressed in a metaphorical and intricate style, and immethodically arranged. Brucker thinks that his doctrine was not founded, as Bayle and La Croze maintain, on the principles of Spinozism, but on the ancient and absurd doctrine of emanation.

His most celebrated philosophical pieces are the following: l. De Umbris Idearum, “On Shadows of Ideas.” 2. De rinfmito, Universe, et Mondi, “Of Infinity, the Universe, and World.” 3. Spaccio della Bestia triomfante, “Dispatches from the Triumphant Beast.” 4. Oratio valedictoria habita in Academia Wittebergensi, “A farewell Oration delivered in the University of Wittenberg.” 5. De Monade, Numero, et Figura, “Of Monad, Number, and Figure.” 6. Summa Terminorum Metaphysicorum, “Summary of Metaphysical Terms.” Of these the satirical work, “Dispatches from the Beast triumphant,” is the mot celebrated. Dr. Warton, in a note upon Pope’s Works, asserts on the authority of Toland, that sir Philip Sidney was “the intimate friend and patron of the famous atheist Giordano Bruno, who was in a secret club with him and sir Fulk Greville, held in London in 1587, and that the” Spaccio“was at that time composed and printed in London, and dedicated to sir Philip.” But, besides that this date must be wrong, sir Philip Sidney having died the preceding year, it appears evidently from the account of the “Spaccio” given in the Spectator, No. 389*, that it was a very harmless production, founded upon a poetical fiction, and little adapted to make any man a convert to atheism. We refer, however, to Dr. Zouch’s Memoirs of Sir Philip Sidney for an ample defence both of sir Philip, and Bruno, whose greatest crime, in the eyes of the inquisition, was rather Lutheranism than atheism.

, a physician of the sixteenth century, and one of the first modern restorers of botany, was born at Mentz, and originally brought up to the church. After his theological studies he took the habit of the Carthusians of Mentz, but was one of the earliest converts to Lutheranism, and having made his escape from his monastery, became a zealous preacher of the reformed religion. This appears to have involved him with Erasmus, who, in Brunsfeis’ opinion, was rather a time-server. Having lost his voice, however, by a disorder, he was obliged to give over preaching, and went to Strasburgh, where the government of the college was committed to his care. During a residence of nine years in this city he studied medicine, and was created doctor at Basil in 1530. He was soon after invited to Berne in Swisserland, where be died six months after, Nov. 23, 1534. Whilst at Strasburgh, he published two small tracts to facilitate the study of grammar to children, annotations on the gospels, and on the acts of the apostles, and an answer to Erasmus’s “Spongia,” in defence of Hutten. The following are the principal of his botanical and medical works “Catalogus illustrium Medicorum,” 1530, 4to. “Herbarum vivae icones, ad naturae imitationem, summa cum diligentia *et artificioefficiatae, cum effectibus earundem,” 1530, 1531, 1536, 3 vols. fol. The plates are much commended by Haller, who, on account of this work, ranks the author among the restorers of botany. “Theses, seu comounes loci totius Medicinae, etiam de usu Pharmacorum, Argentinae,” 1522, 8vo. " Onomasticon Medicinae, noaiina continens omnium stirpium, &c. Argent, 1534, folio.

, a general of infantry in the Prussian army, an honorary member of the royal academy of sciences of Berlin, and second cousin to his Britannic majesty, was born at Brunswick, Oct. 20, 1741. He was the second son of Charles, reigning duke of Brunswick, by the duchess PhilippineCharlotte, daughter of Frederick William I. king of Prussia, and sister to Frederick the Great. His education was intrusted to men of talents and virtue, and his progress was in proportion. He entered the military service in 1761, as colonel of his father’s regiment of infantry in the allied army, under the commander in chief, his uncle, the duke Ferdinand. In that year, and in 17 2, he distinguished himself in several actions. In 1763, he entered into the service of Frederick II. king of Prussia, and in 1768 married the only daughter of the reigning duke of Wirtemberg-Oels. From that time he fixed his residence entirely at Berlin, where he devoted his time to military and literary studies. His father-in-law dying about the end of the year 1792, he succeeded him in the principality of Oels, to which he went in the month of June 1793. The following year he resigned all his military preferments, in order to attend to his principality, and was not more distinguished as a statesman and a soldier than as a patron of learning and learned men, contributing liberally to the publication of many useful works. He died at Weimar Oct. 8, 1805.

The following is a list of his works, which are in general but little known, as he printed them at his own expence, principally for distribution among his friends. 1, “Considerazioni sopra le cose della grandezza dei Romani, trad, del Montesquieu,” Berlin, 1764, 8vo. 2. “Reflessioni critiche sopra ii carattere e le gesta d'Alessandro Magno,” Milan, 1764, 8vo. This was translated both into French and English, the. latter in 1767; and a new edition of the original was reprinted at Berlin in 1803, 8vo. 3. A German translation of the “Heureusement,” a comedy of Rochon de Chabannes, Brunswick, 1764, 8vo. 4. A Cferman translation of the tragedy of “Regulus,” Potsdam, 1767, 8vo. 5. “Discours sur les Grand Hommes,” Berlin, 1768, 8vo, and ibid. 1803. 6. A French translation of Brandes’ “Ariane a Naxos.” 7. “The Thoughts of a Cosmopolite on Air Balloons,” in German, Hamburgh, 1784, 8vo. 8. “A Discourse on taking the oath, Oct. 2, 1786,” in German, Berlin, 1786, 8vo. 9. “Instructions for his regiment, &c.” in German, ibid. 1791, 8vo, with military figures. 10. “The military history of prince Frederic Augustus of Brunswick-Lunebourg, &c.” in German, Oels, 1797, 4to, with a portrait and twenty plans and charts. 11. "Journal plaisant, historique, politique, et literaire, a Oels/' from July 1793 to July 179$. He left also several works in manuscript, principally on military tactics.

, 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.”

This unhappy man was murdered in the forest of Scalingenbach, between Rottemberg on the Tauber and Winsheim, in 1559; and it was believed that this assassination was concerted and carried into execution by some gentlemen against whom Bruschius was about to write something. His ecclesiastical history of Germany is said to savour of Lutheranism, with which he was supposed to be strongly tainted, from his taking every slight occasion to speak ill of Rome and of the popes. It was published un^er the title “De omnibus totius Germanise Episcopatibus Epitome, &c.” Nuremberg, 1549; and “Monasteriorum Germanise prsecipuorum, &c. Centuria Prima,” Ingolstad, 1551. He published also, in his nineteenth year, “Tabula Philosophise partitionem continens,” Tubingen, 1537, and other works, enumerated in Gesner’s Bibliotheca.

, a very learned Venetian, was born about 1518, and studied at Padua. It appears from his letters, that he was obliged to leave his country as an exile; but he does not say upon what account, only that it was without any blemish to his honour. He travelled much, passing part of his life in Spain, England, France, Germany, Transylvania, and Poland. Notwithstanding this itinerant kind of life, he acquired great learning, as appears from his notes on Horace, Caesar, Cicero, &c. He was in Transylvania in 1574, having been invited thither by prince Stephen, in order to compose a history of that country. One of his letters, dated from Cracow, Nov. 23, 1577, informs us, that he had followed that prince, then king of Poland, in the expedition into Prussia. He had a convenient apartment assigned him in the castle of Cracow, that he might apply himself the better to his function of historiographer. He left Poland after the death of that monarch, and lived with William of St. Clement, ambassador from the king of Spain to the imperial court, where he was honoured with the title of his imperial majesty’s historiographer. He died afterwards in Transylvania, in 1594, in his seventy-sixth year.

His writings, become very scarce, were so earnestly sought after by the best judges, that there was great joy in the republic of letters, on hearing that Mr. Cromer had undertaken to publish a new edition of them. The first part of that design was accomplished in 1698, Berlin, 8vo. The Cracow edition was in 1582. Bruto promises in one of his letters, to add another to them, wherein he designed to treat of the custom of giving the same lofty titles to persons whom we write to in Latin, as are given in common languages. There are but few countries in which they are more nice in this point than in Poland; and yet Bruto would not conform to the new style, not even in writing to some Polish lords, but dispensed with all ceremonies that might make him deviate from the purity of the ancient language of Rome. In a letter he wrote to John Poniatowski, he says: “This is my first letter to you, which I write in the Roman manner, as I used to do even to the king. I can bring myself to every thing else, can love you, obey you, and always regard you, which I shall do very willingly, as you highly deserve. But when I have any thing to write to you in Latin, suffer me, without offence, to write according to the use of the Latin tongue, for I cannot understand that I am writing to your greatnesses, your magnificences, &c. which exist no where on this side of the moon: I am writing to you.” Bruto, though whimsical in this respect, was at least classical, as it is certain that ancient Rome had no such usage in the time of its greatest glory, and of its most accomplished politeness.

It is said, that the history of Florence, composed by our Bruto, and printed at Lyons in 1562, under the title 46 Florentine Historian, Libri octo priores,“is not favourable to the house of Medicis; and that it greatly displeased the duke of Florence, on which it was so far suppressed, that few copies are now to be met with. He published also” De Origine Venetiarum,“Leyden, 1560, 8vo, and” Epistolse," Berlin, 1690, 8vo.

, one of those celebrated persons whose writings attract universal admiration, while their lives pass on in one uniform tenour, without incident or adventure, was born in 1639, 1640, or 1644, (for we have seen all these dates given), in a village of France, near the town of Dourdan, in that part of the late province of the Isle of France which is now denominated the department of the Seine and Oise. Of his education, or of his youthful manners, we have no information. His first situation appears to have been at Caen, in the province of Normandy, where he had an office in the collection of the revenue. His literary talents, however, became soon too conspicuous to permit him to remain long in a situation so little corresponding with the expanding and elevating views of genius. The illustrious Bossuet appointed him to attend one of the royal children of France, to instruct him in history, with a pension of a thousand crowns a year. With this he might be considered at that period, and in that country, as in a state of affluence; and the literary distinctions, then the most courted by aspiring minds, were not withheld from him; for, in 163, he was elected by the express command of Lewis XIV. one of the forty members of the French academy. But he did not long enjoy that affluence which afforded him leisure to cultivate the fields of literature, nor the distinctions which he so well merited, and which were accompanied by the universal admiration of his countrymen, and indeed of all Europe. An apoplectic fit removed him from this transitory scene, in the year 1696, and in the fifty-third year of his age.

M. de la Bruyere was an ingenious philosopher, devoid of all ambition, content to enjoy in tranquillity his friends andhis books, and selecting both with judgment. Pleasure he neither sought, nor endeavoured to avoid. Ever disposed to the indulgence of a modest and placid joy, with a happy talent of exciting it, he was polite in his manners, and wise in his conversation; an enemy to every kind of affectation, and even to that of displaying the brilliancy of wit. The work by which he was distinguished was “The Characters of Theophrastus, translated from the Greek, with the Manners of the present age.” “These characters,” says Voltaire, “may be justly ranked among the extraordinary productions of the age. Antiquity furnishes no examples of such a work. A rapid, concise, and nervous style; animated and picturesque expressions; a use of language altogether new, without offending against its established rules, struck the public at first; and the allusions to living persons, which are crowded in almost every page, completed its success. When the author showed his work in manuscript to Malesieux, the latter told him that the book would have many readers, and its author many enemies. It somewhat sunk in the opinion of men, when that whole generation, whose follies it attacked, were passed away; yet, as it contains many things applicable to all times and places, it is more than probable that it will never be forgotten.”

Beside this admirable work, he had begun “Dialogues on Quietism,” which were finished after his death by abbé Dupin, and published in 1699, 12mo.

The best French editions of his Characters are those of Amsterdam, 1741, 2 vols. 12mo, and of Paris, 1750, 2 vols. 12mo, and in 1765, 1 vol. 4to. The English translation of them is in 2 vols. 8vo, by Rowe, 1713, with a tedious account of his life and writings, by M. Coste. This last contains the Theophrastus, Bruyere’s Characters, with a key, his speech on admission into the French academy, and an imitation of Bruyere by Rowe.

, painter, and a famous traveller, born in 1652, at the Hague, began his travels through Russia, Persia, and the East Indies in 1674, and did not end them till 1708; they were printed at Amsterdam; the voyage to the Levant in 1714, fol. and those of Russia, Persia, &c. in 1718, 2 vols. folio, which last were translated into English, and published in 1736, 2 vols. folio. The edition of 1718 is greatly esteemed on account of the plates; but the edition of Rouen, of 1725, of 5 vols. 4to, is more useful, as the abbe Baunier has improved the style, enriched it with many excellent notes, and has added to it the voyage of Desmousseaux, &c. Bruyn is an inquisitive and instructive traveller; but he is^not always accurate, and his diction is far from being elegant. He died in 1719.

, born at Serrieres in the Maconnois in 1708, quitted his country in order to pursue his studies at Geneva, from whence he went to the Hague, where he had some relations, and there he became a Calvinist. A dispute with some divines obliging him to leave Holland, he retired into Germany, from whence he returned to France. He there recanted, and died some time after at Dijon, in 1738, being only thirty years old. He published 1. “Critique desinteressee des journaux litteraires,” 1730, 3 vols. 12mo. 2. “History of the Popes,” from St. Peter to Benedict XIII. inclusive, 1732, 5 vols. 4to. 3. “Mernoires historiques, critiques, et litteraires,” 2 vols. 12mo, in which are many anecdotes of the characters and works of the learned men he had been acquainted with in the different countries he had visited. The first title of this work, was: “Reflexions serieuses et badines sur les Swisses, les Hollandois, et les Allemans, &c.” which he thought proper to change. 4. “Reflexions en forme de lettres adressees au prochain synod qui doit s’assembler a la Haye, sur l'affaire de M. Saurin, et sur celle de M. Maty,” Hague, 1730, 12mo. This alludes to a dispute with Saurin and Maty, which latter had been deposed from his ministry for his opinions on the Trinity. Bruys concealed his name in this work under the letters M. F. B. D. S. E. M. P. D. G. (i. e. Francois Bruys, de Serrieres en Magonnois, professeur de Grammaire.) 5. Tacite avec des notes historiques et politiques, pour servir de continuation a ce que M. Amelot de Houssai avoit traduit de cetauteur,“Hague, 1730, 6 vols. 12mo. 6.” Le postilion, ouvrage historique, critique, politique, &c." 1733—6, 4 vols. 12mo. His history of the popes was said to have been the production of a Benedictine of St. Maur, and the plan and some of the chapters having fallen into the hands of Bruys, he prepared it for the press in the shape we now find it.

, founder of the sect, if it may be so called, of the Petrobrussians, in the twelfth century, appears to have propagated his doctrines chiefly in Languedoc and Provence, and after a laborious ministry of twenty years, during which he had collected a great number of followers, was burnt at St. Gilles in 1130, by the populace instigated by the popish clergy. His chief tenets were, that no persons ought to be baptised unless adults; that it was an idle superstition to build churches, as God will accept sincere worship wherever it is offered, and that such churches as had been erected were to be destroyed; with all crucifixes or instruments of superstition; that the real body and blood of Christ were not exhibited in the eucharist, but were represented only by figures and symbols, and that the oblations, prayers, &c. of the living were of, no use to the dead.

, 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.

He translated from the French of Alaygri, “A Dispraise of the life of a Courtier,” which Alaygri had translated from the Castilian language, in which it was originally written by Guevara, London, 1548, 8vo. Several of the “Poems by uncertain authors,” printed with those of Surrey and Wyat, are supposed to have been his production. He left also in ms. letters written from Rome concerning the king’s divorce, and various letters of state, which Ant. Wood says he had seen. Dodd accuses sir Francis Bryan of having administered to the extravagant pleasures of Henry VIII. but perhaps he was not more culpable in this respect than Henry’s other courtiers, and it is in his favour that he retained the confidence of the succeeding government.

, one of the most learned English scholars of the eighteenth century, who adds a very illustrious name to the “Worthies of Devon,” was born at Plymouth in that county in 1715. His father held an office in the custom-house, but before his son arrived at his seventh year, was removed thence into Kent, a circumstance which may be mentioned as a proof of Mr. Bryant’s extraordinary memory; for, in a conversation with the late admiral Barrington, not long before his death, when some local circumstances in respect to Plymouth were accidentally mentioned, Mr. Bryant discovered so perfect a recollection of them, that his friend could scarcely be persuaded he had not been very recently on the spot, though he had never visited the place of his nativity after the removal of his father. Mr. Bryant received his grammatical education first under the rev. Sam. Thornton of Ludsdown in Kent, and afterwards at Eton, and undoubtedly was one of the brightest luminaries of that institution. The traditions of his extraordinary attainments still remain, and particularly of some verses which he then wrote. From Eton he proceeded to King’s college, Cambridge, where he took his degree of A. B. in 1740, and A. M. in 1744, obtained 3 fellowship, and was equally distinguished by his love of learning, and his proficiency in every branch of the academic course. He was afterwards first tutor to sir Thomas Stapylton, and then to the marquis of Blandford, now duke of Marlborough, and to his brother lord Charles Spencer, when at Eton school, which office, on account of an inflammation in his eyes, he quitted in 1744, and his place was supplied by Dr. Erasmus Saunders; but Mr. Bryant, after his recovery in 1746, again returned to his office, and in 1756 was appointed secretary to the late duke of Marlborough, when master-general of the ordnance, and ac-< companied him into Germany. His grace also promoted him to a lucrative appointment in the ordnance-office.

As Mr. Bryant had long outlived his contemporaries, few particulars, except what we have just related, are known of his early life and habits. He appears, even while connected with the late duke of Marlborough, whose family remained his kind patrons during the whole of his life, to have devoted himself to study, and to that particular branch which respects the ancient history of nations. Whatever his fortune might be, he appears to have been satisfied if it supplied the means of extending his studies in retirement, and we do not find that he ever inclined to pursue any of the learned professions. One of his contemporaries, the late rev. William Cole of Milton, informs us, in his ms Athenae Cantab, (in Brit. Mus.) that he had twice refused the mastership of the Charter-house, which one time was actually granted to him by a majority of the governors; and notice of his nomination was sent to him by Mr. Hetherington, a gentleman who afterwards left him his executor and 3,000l. as a legacy; but at what time these offers were made, Mr. Cole has not specified. It is certain, however, that he early formed his plan of life, a long life spent entirely in literary pursuits, and persevered in it with uncommon assiduity and steadiness, consecrating his talents to the best purposes of learning and religion.

His first publication was “Observations and Inquiries relating to various parts of Ancient History: containing Dissertations on the wind Euroclydon, and on the Island Melite, together with an account of Egypt in its most early state, and of the Shepherd Kings; wherein the time of their coming, the province which they particularly possessed, and to which the Israelites afterwards succeeded, is endeavoured to be stated. The whole calculated to throw light on the history of that ancient kingdom, as well as on the histories of the Assyrians, Chaldeans, Babylonians, Edomites, and other nations,” 1767, 4to. In this volume, with great modesty, and yet with well-grounded resolution, he attacks Bochart, Grotius, and Bentley, who supposed that Euroclydon, the name of a wind mentioned in Acts xxvii. 14th verse, is a misnomer, and ought to be read Euroaquilo, and very ably supports the present reading. In proving that the island Melite, mentioned in the last chapter of the Acts, is not Malta, he has to contend with Grotius, Cluverius, Beza, Bentley, and Bochart, and his arguments on this question are upon the whole conclusive. It happened that the hypothesis he suggested was brought forward about the same time by an ingenious Frenchman, and neither of them was acquainted with the opinion of the other. The remainder of this volume evinces uncommon research and acuteness, but not unmixed with that inclination to bold conjecture and fanciful speculation which more or less influenced the composition of all Mr. Bryant’s works. His next communication to the public, and the work on which his character as a scholar must ultimately rest, was his “New System or Analysis of Ancient Mythology; wherein an Attempt is made to divest Tradition of Fable, and to reduce Truth to its original Purity.” Of this publication the first and second volumes came forth together, in 1774, and the third followed two years after. It being his professed design to present a history of the Babylonians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Canaanites, Helladians, lonians, Leleges, Dorians, Pelasgi, and other ancient nations, his researches for this purpose were not only of necessity recondite, but in many instances uncertain; but to facilitate his passage through the mighty labyrinth which led to his primary object, he not only availed himself of the scattered fragments of ancient history wherever he could find them, but also of a variety of etymological aids; for being persuaded that the human race were the offspring of one stock, and conceiving thence that their language in the beginning was one, this favourite notion was exemplified by him in the investigation of radical terms, and application of these as collateral aids. As his knowledge of the oriental dialects was very confined, upon some occasions he has indulged too freely to fancy; yet his defects in this kind of learning form a strong plea in his favour; for if, without fully understanding these languages, he has succeeded in tracing out so many radicals as his table of them exhibits, and more especially if he has been right in explaining them, it will follow that his explanations must be founded on truth, and therefore are not chimerical. In opposition, however, to them, Mr. Bryant experienced some severe and petulant attacks: first, from a learned Dutchman, in a Latin review of his work; and shortly after from the late Mr. Richardson, who was privately assisted by sir William Jones; a circumstance which there is reason to think Mr. Bryant never knew. Mr. Richardson, in the preface to his Persian Dictionary, has no doubt successfully exposed some of Mr. Bryant’s etymological mistakes with regard to words of eastern origin. Bryant had a favoyrite theory with regard to the Amonians, the original inhabitants of Kgypt^ whose name, as well as descent, he derives from Ham, but Richardson has stated an insuperable objection to the derivation of the name, for though the Greeks and Latins used Ammon and Hammou indifferently, yet the Heth in Ham is a radical, not mutable or omissible; and had the Greeks or Latins formed a word from it, it would have been Chammon, and not Ammon, even with the aspirate. To these and other strictures, Mr. Bryant replied in an anonymous pamphlet, of which he printed only a few copies for the perusal of his friends; and that part of his work which relates to the Apamean. medal having been particularly attacked, especially in the Gentleman’s Magazine, he defended himself in “A Vindication of the Apamean Medal, and of the inscription NilE, together with an illustration of another coin struck at the same place in honour of the emperor Severus.” This was first published in the Archaeologia, and afterwards separately, 1775, 4to, and although what he offered on the subject was lightly treated by some, whose knowledge in inedallic history is allowed to be great, yet the opinion of professor Eckhel, the first medallist of his age, is decidedly in favour of Mr. Bryant. And whatever may be the merit, in the opinion of the learned, of Mr. Bryant’s “New System” at large, no person can possibly dispute, that a very uncommon store of learning is perceptible through the whole; that it abounds with great originality of conception, much perspicacious elucidation, and the most happy explanations on topics of the highest importance: in a word, that it stands forward amongst the first works of its age.

About this time was published Mr. Wood’s “Essay on. the original genius and writings of Homer.” Of this posthumous work, Mr. Bryant was the editor, the author having left his Mss. to his care; and in the same year, the “Vindiciae Flavians),” a tract on the much disputed testimony of Josephus to Christ, was printed, and a few copies sent to a bookseller in either university; but as the pamphlet appeared without the name of its author, and no attention was shewed it, Mr. Bryant recalled them, and satisfied himself with distributing the copies thus returned amongst a few particular friends. The new light, however, which Mr. Bryant threw upon the subject, and the acuteness with which the difficulties attending it were discussed, soon brought the work into notice, and Mr. Bryant published it with his name in 1780, and has effectually vindicated the authenticity of the passage in question. It is no mean testimony of his success in this undertaking, that Dr. Priestley confessed that Mr. Bryant had made a complete convert of him. That his conversion, however, extended no farther than the present subject, appeared in the same year, when Mr. Bryant published “An Address to Dr. Priestley, upon his doctrine of Philosophical Necessity illustrated,” 8vo, which the doctor with his usual rapidity, answered in “A Letter to Jacob Bryant, esq.” Dr. Priestley, indeed, was not likely to be persuaded by a writer who insinuated that his “necessity” of philosophers was no other than the “predestination” of Calvinists. With respect to the “Vindiciae Flavians,” it yet remains to be mentioned that there is a great affinity between this publication, and the observations on the same subject of a learned Frenchman. See a letter to Dr. Kippis, at the end of his life of Dr. Lardner, by Dr. Henley, where the arguments for and against the authenticity of the passage are distinctly stated.

The poems attributed to Rowley having been published by Mr. Tyrwhitt, Mr. Bryant’s attention was next drawn to them, and in 1781 he published “Observations on the Poems of Thomas Rowley, in which the authenticity of these poems is ascertained,” 2 vols. 12mo. From the communications of his friend Dr. Glynn, and his own inquiries at Bristol, Mr. Bryant acquired such information as convinced him, that they had their foundation in reality, and were not entirely of Chatterton’s fabrication; but though he failed to produce conviction, his book discovers considerable talent, as well as much knowledge of English antiquities and literature.

The hypothesis of Mr. Bryant in reference to one original language was always kept in view by him, and as researches were extended on all sides to obtain elucidations, the language of the gypsies engaged his attention; accordingly the collections which he made from it, were published in the Archaeologia, vol. Yii. entitled “Collections on the Zingara, or Gypsey language.”

In 1783 was printed, at the expence of the duke of Marlborough, for private distribution, that splendid work, “The Maryborough Gems,” under the title of “Gemmarum antiquarurn delectus ex prsestantioribus desumptus in Dactylotheca Ducis Marburiensis.” The first volume of the exposition of these gems was written in Latin by Mr. Bryant, and translated into French by Mr. Maty. That of the second was written by Dr. Cole, prebendary of Westminster, and translated by Mr. Dutens. The friendship which subsisted between Mr. Bryant and the family of his patron, prompted him on all occasions to attend to their wishes, and to this disposition the public owe his “Treatise on the Authenticity of the Scriptures, and the Truth of the Christian Religion,” 1792, 8vo, which was written at the request of the dowager lady Pembroke, and is an excellent book for popular instruction. In two years after he published a large volume, entitled “Observations upon the Plagues inflicted upon the Egyptians; in which is shewn the peculiarity of those judgments, and their correspondence with the rites and idolatry of that people; with a prefatory Discourse concerning the Grecian Colonies from Egypt,” 8vo. This is certainly to be reckoned amongst Mr. Bryant’s best performances, and as such will be studiously read.

Professor Dalzel having communicated to the royal society of Edinburgh, and afterwards published in a separate volume, M. le Chevalier’s “Description of the Plain of Troy,” Mr. Bryant, who many years before had not only considered, but written his sentiments on the Trojan war, first published, in 1795, his Observations on M. le Chevalier’s treatise, and, in 1796, a Dissertation concerning the war itself, and the expedition of the Grecians as described by Homer; with the view of shewing that no such expedition was ever undertaken, and that no such city in Phrygia existed. Of this singular publication we shall only notice, that on the one side it has been remarked that “for the repose” of Mr. Bryant’s well-earned fame, it probably would have been better had this dissertation never been written. Even the high authority with which he is armed could not warrant him in controverting opinions so long maintained and established among historians, and in disproving facts so well attested by the most extensive evidence. Great and natural was the surprize of the literary world on the appearance of this publication; and very few, if any, were the proselytes to the new doctrine which it inculcates. It was answered by Mr. Gilbert Wakefield, in a very indecent letter to Mr. Bryant; and in a style more worthy of the subject by J. B. S. Morrit, esq. of Rokeby park, near Greta bridge;“and by Dr. Vincent. On the other hand, it has been suggested, that” the testimony of antiquity goes for nothing in this case, as the whole depends on the authority of Homer; and unless authors can be cited anterior to him, or coeval with him, or who did not derive their information from him, or some of his transcribers, the whole history of the warm ust rest on his authority; and if his authority were equal to his genius, the transactions which he records would stand in need of no other support. But, certainly, as the subject stands at present, were the alternative proposed to us, we would rather reject the whole as a fable, than receive the half as authentic history."

In the following year Mr. Bryant submitted to the public a work of a different kind and character, under the title of “The sentiments of Philo Judaeus concerning the Λογοσ, or Word of God, together with large extracts from his writings, compared with the scriptures in many other particular and essential doctrines of the Christian religion,” 1797, 8vo. But, learned and curious as this treatise unquestionably is, it appears to have interested the general reader less, perhaps, than any of his other productions. In addition to those already noticed may be added his “Observations on famous controverted passages in JustinMartyr and Josephus,” and a pamphlet addressed to Mr. Melmoth, written with less temper than might have been wished. Mr. Bryant closed his labours with a quarto volume of “Dissertations on the prophecy of Balaam; the standing still of the sun in the time of Joshua; the jawbone of the ass with which Samson slew the Philistines; and the history of Jonah and the whale:” subjects in themselves exceedingly curious, and treated with much ingetiuity; but these tracts having been written above thirty years before, Mr. Bryant, in revising, made so many alterations, as, through a defect of memory, render the remarks in one part inconsistent with those in another, which materially diminished the value of the whole. Other writings to a considerable extent remain in the hands of his executor, and various small poems, verses, &c. are still recollected as the production of his early years. Of this sort were his incomparable verses to Bel Cooke; his ludicrous dissertation on pork, and his apotheosis of a cat, juvenile pieces, which show that he had a considerable talent for humour.

In forming a general estimate of Mr. Bryant’s literary character, it will be found that, as a classical scholar, he had few equals; his acquaintance with history, and the topics of general information, was of very uncommon extent, but from the want of Oriental literature, and the stricter sciences, he yielded too often to the impulses of a vigorous fancy. It will, notwithstanding, be found from repeated perusals of his writings, that he deservedly ranks amongst the first men of his age, and from having consecrated his great talents and acquisitions to the service; of religion, will be ever entitled to the veneration of mankind.

In his person Mr. Bryant was lower and more delicately formed than men in general, and, consequently, less capable of strong exercise: but in early life he had great agility, particularly in swimming, a circumstance which enabled him to save Dr. Barnard, afterward head-master of Eton, when drowning. In his ordinary habits of life he was remarkable for his temperance, and though his time and studies were principally devoted to literature and the pursuit of truth, yet his conversation with those he received and conversed with was uncommonly sprightly, as he never failed to mix entertaining anecclote with instruction. In his person he was particularly neat, and in his deportment courteous. His liberality was often conspicuous, and the spirit of religion diffused itself through all his actions. As few comparatively live so long, instances of such exemplary merit can but rarely be found. He died, after a, long residence at Cypenham, near Windsor, Nov. 14, 1804, of ajnortification in his leg, occasioned by a hurt from the tilting of a chair in reaching down a book from its shelf. At his own desire, Mr. Bryant was interred in his parish church, beneath the seat he there occupied. He left his valuable library to King’s college, Cambridge; 2000l. to the society for propagating the gospel, and 1000/, to the superannuated collegers of Eton school, to be disposed of as the provost and fellows think proper.

, a law-writer and antiquary, son and heir of John Bry<lal, esq. of the Rolls Liberty, was born in Somersetshire about 1635, and became a commoner of Queen’s college, Oxford, in Michaelmas term, 1651, where he took a degree in arts in -1655, but left the university without completing it by determination. He then settled in Lincoln’s inn, and after the usual course of law studies was admitted to the bar. After the restoration he became secretary to sir Harbottle Grirnston, master of the rolls. When he died is uncertain, as he survived the publication of Wood’s Athenae, from which we have extracted this brief notice of him, but he appears to have been living in 1704. He published several law treatises, some of which are still in estimation: 1. “Jus imaginis apud Anglos, or the Law of England relating to the Nobility and Gentry,” 1671, 1675, 8vo. 2. “Jus Sigilli; or the law of England touching the four principal Seals, the great seal, privy seal, exchequer seal, and the signet; also those grand officers to whose custody those seals are committed,” 1673, 24mo. 3. “Speculum Juris Anglicani; or a view of the Laws of England, as they are divided into statutes, common-law, and customs,” 1673, 8vo. 4. “Jus criminis, or an abridgment of the laws of treason, murther, conspiracies, poisonings, &c.” 1675, 1679, 8vo. 5. “Camera Regis, or a short view of Lon^ don, viz. antiquity, &c, officers, courts, customs, franchises,” &c. 1076, 8vo. 6. “Decus et tutamen; or a prospect of the laws of England, framed for the safeguard of the king’s majesty,” 1679, 8vo. 7. “Ars transferendi; of sure guide to the conveyancer,” 1697, 8vo. 8. “Non compos mentis; or, the law relating to natural fools, mad folks, and lunatic persons,” 1700, 8vo. 9. “Lex Spuriorum; or, the law relating to bastardy, collected from the common, civil, and ecclesiastical laws,” 1703, 8vo. 10. “Declaration of the divers preheminences or privileges allowed by the laws and customs of England, unto the firstborn among her majesty’s subjects the temporal lords in parliament,” 1704, fol. Wood adds another work, “Jura Coronae; or, his majesty’s royal rights and prerogatives asserted against papal usurpations, and all other antimonarchical attempts and practices,” 1680, 8vo.

, a man of abilities, succeeded his father William, fourth lord Chandos, in Nov. 1602. He was a friend of the earl of Essex, in whose insurrection he was probably involved, for his name appears on the list of prisoners confined in the Fleet on that account, Feb. 1600. He was made a knight of the bath at the creation of Charles duke of York, Jan. 1604, and in August 1605 was created M. A. at Oxford, the king being present. He was an associate of that active and romantic character, lord Herbert of Cherbury. and appears to have volunteered his services in the Low Countries, when the prince of Orange besieged the city of Juliers in 1610, and the Low Country army was assisted by four thousand English soldiers, under the command of sir Edward Cecil. From the great influence which his hospitality and popular manners afterwards obtained in Gloucestershire, and his numerous attendants when he visited the court, he was styled king of Cotswould, the tract of country on the edge of which his castle of Sudeley was situated. On November 18, 1617, he was appointed to receive and introduce the Muscovite ambassadors, who had brought costly presents from their master to the king. He died August 20, 1621. There is no doubt, says sir Egerton JBrydges (by whom the preceding notices were drawn together) that lord Chandos was a man of abilities as well as splendid habits of life, and by no means a literary recluse, although he is supposed to have been the author of “Horae subsecivas, Observations and Discourses,” Lond. 1620, 8vo, a work containing a fund of good sense and shrewd remark. In sir John Beaumont’s poems are some lines on his death, highly expressive of an excellent character.

, an eminent engraver, was born in 1528, at Leige, but resided chiefly at Francfort, where he carried on a considerable commerce in prints. It does not appear to what master he owed his instructions in the art, but the works of Sebast Beham were certainly of great service to him. He copied many of the plates engraved by that artist, and seems to have principally formed his taste from them. He worked almost entirely with the graver, and seldom called in the assistance of the point. He acquired a neat, free style of engraving, well adapted to small subjects in which many figures were to be represented, as funeral parades, processions, &c. which he executed in a charming manner. He also drew very correctly. His heads, in general, are spirited and expressive, and the other extremities of his figures well-marked. His backgrounds, though frequently very slight, are touched with a masterly hand. He died, as his sons inform us (in the third part of Boissard’s collection of portraits), March 27, 1598. The two first parts of that collection were engraved by De Brye, assisted by his sons, who afterwards continued it.

His great works are, 1. “The plates for the first four volumes of Boissard’s ` Roman Antiquities’.” 2. Those for the illustration of “The Manners and Customs of the Virginians,” in the “Brief true report of the new found land of Virginia, published by Thomas Hariot, servant to sir Walter Raleigh, &c.” Francfort, 1590. 3. The plates to the Latin narrative of the “Cruelties of the Spaniards in America,” 1598; and 4. his greatest work, “Descriptio Indise Orientalis et Occidentals,” 1598, 5 vols. fol. He published also many detached plates, the most remarkable and scarce of which is the “Procession for the funeral of sir Philip Sidney.” This is a long roll, contrived and invented by Thomas Lant, gent, servant of that honourable knight, and engraven in copper by Derich or Theodore de Brie, in the city of London, 1578." Prefixed is the portrait of Mr. Lant, aged thirty-two. It contains thirty plates (in the copy we have seen, but Strutt says thirtyfour) and has usually been considered as the first English work by De Brye. There was a copy in Mr. Cough’s collection, which was purchased at his sale in 1810 by sir Joseph Banks for thirty-eight guineas. Mr. Strutt describes another roll by De Brye, representing the procession of the knights of the garter in 1576, which was considered as unique. The copy belonged to the late sir John Ferm. De Brye’s two sons were engravers, but nothing is recorded of them, unless, as already noticed, that they continued Boissard’s portraits and Roman antiquities.

, was a native of Orestia, in Macedonia, and married the princess Anna Comnena, daughter of Alexius Comnenus, who raised him to the rank of Caesar, but declined announcing him as his successor in prejudice of his own son. After the death of Alexius, the empress Irene and her daughter Anna attempted to elevate Bryennius to the empire, but he refused to concur in the plot. Having been sent in 1137 to besiege Antiocb, he fell sick, and returning to Constantinople, died in that city. His history of the reigns of Isaac Comnenus and of the three succeeding emperors, was comprised in four books, and published with a Latin translation, by the Jesuit Poussines, at Paris, in 1661, to which the annotations of Du Cange were annexed in 1670.

, the last writer on music in the Greek language that has come to our knowledge, flourished under the elder Paiaeologus, about the year 1320, and it is probable that he was a descendant of the house of Brienne, an ancient French family, that went into Greece during the crusades, at the beginning of the thirteenth century. His work is divided into three books, all which are confined to harmonics: the first is a kind of commentary on Euclid; and the second and third little more than explanations of the doctrines of Ptolemy. Meibomius had promised a Latin translation of this book, but dying before it was finished, Dr. 'Wallis performed the task, and it now constitutes a part of the third volume of his works, published at Oxford, 1699, 3 vols. fol.

, chevalier and count of Nanay, was born near Livarot, in Normandy, March 2, 1752, and died on his estate at Nangay, Sept. 18, 1787. He was minister plenipotentiary in most of the courts of Germany, and having a great taste -for history, politics, and antiquities, passed much of his time in pursuits calculated to gratify it. He published the following works, all of which were well received by his countrymen: i. “Tableau de gouvernement de PAllemagne,” 1755, 12mo. 2. “Origines, ou Pancien gouvernement de la France, de l‘Allemagne, et de l’Italie,” Hague, 1757, 4 vols. 8vo. 3. “L‘Histoire ancienne des peuples de l’Europe,” 1772, 12 vols. 12mo. 4. “Heche rches sur l‘Histoire d’Allemagne,” 1772, 2 vols. fol. 5. “Maximes du gouvernement monarchique,” 1789, 4 vols. 8vo, and several other dissertations on subjects of history and politics. He was also author of a tragedy named “Charlemagne,” printed, and of another, “Rosamond,” which remains in manuscript.

, a learned antiquary, was born in Lincolnshire, in the sixteenth century, and flourished in the beginning of the seventeenth. He was descended from the ancient family of the Bucs, or Buckes, of West Stanton, and Herthill, in Yorkshire, and Melford-hall, in Suffolk. His great grandfather, sir John Buc, knight, was one of king Richard the Third’s favourites, and attended that unfortunate prince to the battle of Bosworth, where he lost his crown and life. In the first parliament of king Henry VII. this sir John Buc was attainted for being one of the chief aiders and assistants to the king just now mentioned, in the battle of Bosworth, and soon after was beheaded at Leicester. By this attainder his posterity were reduced to very great distress; but, through the interest of Thomas duke of Norfolk, the great patron of the family, they had probably some of their estates restored to them, and, among others, that in Lincolnshire, where our author was born. In the reign of king James I. he was made one of the gentlemen of his majesty’s privy-chamber, and knighted. He was also constituted master of the revels, whose office was then kept on St. Peter' s-hill, in London. What he mostly distinguished himself by, was writing “The Life and Reign of Richard III. in five books,” wherein, in opposition to the whole body of English historians, he endeavours to represent that prince’s person and actions in a quite different light from what they have been by others; and takes great pains to wipe off the bloody stains that have been fixed upon his character. He has also written: “The third universitie of England; or, a treatise of the foundations of all the colledges, ancient schooles of priviledge, and of houses of learning, and liberall arts, within and about the most famous citie of London. With a briefe report of the sciences, arts, and faculties therein professed, studied, and practised.” And a treatise t)f “The Art of Revels.” Mr. Camden gives him the character of “a person of excellent learning,” and thankfully acknowledges that he “remarked many things in his historiei, and courteously communicated his observations to him.” He has since received very able support, and Richard III. has found a powerful advocate in Horace Walpole, the late lord Orford, who in his “Historic Doubts” has, with much ingenuity, at least, shewn that the evidence produced in confirmation of Richard’s crimes, is far from being decisive, But we have now an “historic doubt” to bring forward of more importance to the present article, which we find in a note on Malone’s Shakspeare, in the following words: “I take this opportunity of correcting an error into which Anthony Wood has fallen, and which has been implicitly adopted in the new edition of the Biographia Britannica, and many other books. The error I allude to, is, that this sir George Buc, who was knighted at Whitehall by king James the day before his coronation, July 23, 1603, was the author of the celebrated * History of king Richard the Third;' which was written above twenty years after his death, by George Buck, esq. who was, I suppose, his son. The precise time of, the father’s death, I have not been able to ascertain, there being no will of his in the prerogative office; but I have reason to believe that it happened soon after the year 1622. He certainly died before August 1629.”

In answer to this, Mr. Ritson asserts that there can be no doubt of the fact, that sir George Buc was the author of this History, although published, and said in the title to be “composed b} George Bucke, esq.” in 1646, his original ms. (though much injured by fire) being still preserved among the Cotton Mss. Mr. Ritson adds that sir George died, in 1623. He has also enrolled him among his poets, on account of “An Eclog treating of crownes, and of garlandes, and to whom of right they appertaine. Addressed and consecrated to the king’s majestie,” 1605, 4to, and of some other verses.

Sir George Buc’s History of Richard is printed in Kennet’s Complete History of England, and his “Third Universitie” first printed in 1615, fol. is appended to Stowe’s Chronicle, by Howes, 163 1.

, an eminent German reformer, was born in 1491, at Schelestadt, a town of Alsace. At the age of seven he took the religious habit in the order of St. Dominic, and with the leave of the prior of his convent, went to -Heidelberg to learn logic and philosophy. Having applied himself afterwards to divinity, he made it his endeavour to acquire a thorough knowledge of the Greek and Hebrew. About this time some of Erasmus’s pieces came abroad, which he read with great avidity, and meeting afterwards with certain tracts of Luther, and comparing the doctrine there delivered with the sacred scriptures, he began to entertain doubts concerning several things in the popish religion. His uncommon learning and his eloquence, which was assisted by a strong and musical voice, and his free censure of the vices of the times, recommended him to Frederick elector palatine, who made him one of his chaplains. After some conferences with Luther, at Heidelberg, in 1521, he adopted most of his religious notions, particularly those with regard to justification. However, in 1532, he gave the preference to the sentiments of Zuinglius, but used his utmost endeavours to re-unite the two parties, who both opposed the Romish religion. He is looked upon as one of the first authors of the reformation at Strasburg, where he taught divinity for twenty years, and was one of the ministers of the town. He assisted at many conferences concerning religion; and in 1548, was sent for to Augsburg to sign that agreement betwixt the Protestants and Papists, which was called the Interim. His warm opposition to this project exposed him to many difficulties and harships; the news of which reaching England, where his fame had already arrived, Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, g av e him an invitation to come over, which he readily accepted. In 1549 an handsome apartment was assigned him in the university of Cambridge, and a salary to teach theology. King Edward VI. had the greatest regard for him; being told that he was very sensible of the cold of this climate, and suffered much for want of a German stove, he sent him an hundred crowns to purchase one. He died of a complication of disorders, in 1551, and was buried at Cambridge, in St. Mary’s church, with great funeral pomp. Five years after, in the reign of queen Mary, his body was dug up and publicly burnt, and his tomb demolished; but it was afterwards set up again by order of queen Elizabeth. He married a nun, by whom he had thirteen children. This woman dying of the plague, he married another, and, according to some, upon her death, he took a third wife. His character is thus given by Burnet: “Martin Bucer was a very learned, judicious, pious, and moderate person. Perhaps he was inferior to none of all the reformers for learning; but for zeal, for true piety, and a most tender care of preserving unity among the foreign churches, Melancthon and he, without any injury done to the rest, may be ranked apart by themselves. He was much opposed by the Popish party at Cambridge; who, though they complied with the law, and so kept their places, yet, either in the way of argument, as if it had been for dispute’s sake, or in such points as were not determined, set themselves much to lessen his esteem. Nor was he furnished naturally with that quickness that is necessary for a disputant, from which they studied to draw advantages; and therefore Peter Martyr wrote to him to avoid all public disputes.” His writings were in Latin and in German? and so numerous, that it is computed they would form eight or nine folio volumes. His anxiety to reconcile the Lutherans and Zuinglians led him to use many general and perhaps ambiguous expressions in his writings. He seems to have thought Luther’s notion of the sacrament too strong, and that of Zuinglius too weak. Verheiclen in Latin, and Lupton in English, have given a list of his works, but without size or dates.

, the foundress of a set of modern fanatics, and the daughter of John Simpson, the keeper of an inn at Fitmy-Can, the half-way house between Banff and Portsoy, in the north of Scotland, was born in 1738; and, when she had completed her one-andtwentieth year, was sent to Glasgow, where she entered into the service of Mr. Martin, one of the principal proprietors of the Delft-work there. In this situation she had remained but a short time, when she accepted proposals of marriage from Robert Buchan, one of the workmen in the service of the same Mr. Martin. For some years, Robert and Elspeth Buchan lived happily together, having many children, whom they educated in a manner suitable to their station in life. At the time of her marriage, Mrs. Buchan was of the episcopal persuasion, but the husband being a burgher-seceder, she adopted his principles, and entered into communion with that sect. She had always been a constant reader of the scriptures; and taking a number of passages in a strictly literal sense, she changed her opinions about the year 1776, became the promulgator of many singular doctrines, and soon brought over to her notions Mr. Hugh Whyte, a dissenting minister at Irvine, and connected with Mr. Bell in Glasgow, and Mr. Bain in Edinburgh; and who, upon Mr. Whyte’s abdication of his charge, settled Mr. Robertson in his place at Irvine. She went on continually making new converts till April 1790, at which time the populace in Irvine rose, assembled round Mr. Whyte’s house, and broke all the windows; when Mrs. Buchan and the whole of her converts, of whom the above-mentioned were a part, to the number of fortysix persons, left Irvine. The Buchanites (for so they were immediately called) went through Mauchlin, Cumnock old and new, halted three days at Kirconnel, passed through Sanquhar and Thornhill, and then settled at a farm-house, the out-houses of which they had all along possessed, paying for them, as well as for whatever they wanted.

The gentleman from whonj this narrative was received, being a merchant in Glasgow, and having occasion to go to that country, spent a great part of two days in their company in August 1784, conversing with most of them; and from him we shall give what he was able to pick up of their particular notions:

"The Buchanites pay great attention to the bible; being always reading it, or having it in their pocket, or under their arm, proclaiming it the best book in the world. They read, sing hymns, preach, and converse much about religion; declaring the last day to be at hand, and that no one of all their company shall ever die, or be buried in the earth; but soon shall hear the voice of the last trumpet, when all the wicked shall be struck dead, and remain so for one thousand years: at the same moment they, the Buchanites, shall undergo an agreeable change, shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, from whence they shall return to this earth, in company with the Lord Jesus, with whom as their king they shall possess this earth one thousand years, the devil being bound with a chain in the interim. At the end of one thousand years, the devil shall be loosed, the wicked quickened, both shall assail their camp, but be repulsed, with the devil at their head, while they fight valiantly under the Lord Jesus Christ as their captain-general.

"Since the Buchanites adopted their principles, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, nor consider themselves bound to any conjugal duties, or mind to indulge themselves in any carnal enjoyments; but having one common purse for their cash, they are all sisters and brothers, living a holy life as the angels of God; and beginning and continuing in the same holy life, they shall live under the Lord Jesus Christ, their king, after his second coming. The Buchanites follow no industry, being commanded to take no thought of to-morrow; but, observing how the young ravens are fed, and how the lilies grow, they assure themselves God will much more feed and clothe them. They, indeed, sometimes work at mason -wright and husbandry work to people in their neighbourhood; but then they refuse all wages, or any consideration wliatever, but declare their whole object in working at air is to mix with the world, and inculcate those important truths of which they themselves are so much persuaded.

“Her husband is still in the burgher-secession communion; and when I asked Mrs. Buchan, and others of the Buchanites who knew me, if they had any word to any of their acquaintances in Glasgow? they all declared they minded not former things and former connections; but that the whole of their attention was devoted to their fellow-saints, the living a holy life, and thereby hastening the second coming of their Lord Jesus Christ.”

Mrs. Buchan died about the beginning of May 1791; and as her followers were before greatly reduced in number, it is probable that nothing more will be heard of them.

, a medical writer of great popularity, descended of a respectable family in Roxburghshire, was born at Ancram in the year 1729. Having passed through the usual school education, he was sent to the university at Edinburgh. His inclination leading him to mathematics, he became so considerable a proficient in that branch of science, as to be enabled to give private lessons to many of the pupils. Having made choice of medicine for his profession, he attended the lectures of the several professors, necessary to qualify him for practice;, and as he was of a studious turn of mind, his progress ia knowledge may be supposed to have been equal to his application. After having passed a period of not less than nine years at the university, he first settled in practice at Sheffield, in Yorkshire. He was soon afterwards elected physician to a large branch of the Foundling hospital then established at Ackworth. In the course of two years he reduced the annual number of deaths among the children from one half to one in fifteen; and by the establishment of due regulations for the preservation of health, greatly diminished the previously burthensome expense of medical attendance. In this situation, he derived from experience that knowledge of. the complaints, and of the general treatment of children, which was afterwards published in “The Domestic Medicine,” and in the “Advice to Mothers;” works which, considering their very general diffusion, have no doubt tended to ameliorate the treatment of children, and consequently to improve the constitutions of the present generation of the inhabitants of this country. When that institution was dissolved, in consequence of parliament withdrawing their support from it, Dr Buchan returned to Edinburgh, where he became a fellow of the royal college of physicians, and settled in the practice of his profession, relying in some measure on the countenance and support of the relations of the lady he married, who was of a respectable family in that city. On the death of one of the professors, the doctor offered himself as a candidate for the vacant chair, but did not succeed.

About this period, the work entitled “Domestic Medicine” was first published, with the view of laying open the science of medicine, and rendering it familiar to the comprehension of mankind in general. In this plan he was encouraged by the late Dr. Gregory, of liberal memory, who was of opinion, that to render medicine generally intelligible was the only means of putting an end to the impostures of quackery. This work was also patronised by, and dedicated to, sir John Pringle, then president of the royal society, and a distant relation of the author. This work has had a degree of success unequalled by any other medical book in the English language. It has also been translated into every European language. On its appearing in Russian, the late empress Catharine transmitted to the author a large and elegant medallion of gold, accompanied by a letter expressive of her sentiments of the utility of his exertions towards promoting the welfare of mankind in general. Yet successful as this work has proved, Dr. Buchan’s expectations from it were not great, and he sold the copyright in 1771 for a very inconsiderable sum but the liberal purchaser, the late Mr. Cadell, and his successors, made the doctor a handsome present on revising each edition, of which he lived to see nineteen published, amounting to upwards of 80,000 copies. It has likewise been printed in Ireland and America, and pirated in various shapes in England, but without much diminution either of the sale or credit of the authentic work.

On the death of Fergusson, the celebrated lecturer on natural philosophy, which took place about the year 1775, he bequeathed to the doctor the whole of his apparatus. Unwilling that this collection, which at that period was perhaps the best this country could boast of, should remain shut up and useless, the doctor, with the assistance of his son, who conducted the experimental part, delivered several courses of lectures, during three years, at Edinburgh, with great success, the theatre being always crowded with auditors. On removing to London, he disposed of this apparatus to Dr. Lettsom. Of natural philosophy, the part which particularly attracted the doctor’s attention was astronomy. Nothing delighted him more than to point out the celestial phenomena on a fine starlight evening to any young person who appeared willing to receive information; and the friendship of the late highly respectable astronomer royal, Dr. Maskelyne, afforded him every facility of renovating his acquaintance with the planetary bodies, whenever so inclined.

He was possessed of a most retentive memory, which was particularly exemplified in his recollection of the Bible, which in his more early years he had been much accustomed to peruse with attention. On an appeal being made to him concerning any particular text of scripture, he hardly ever erred in giving the very words of which it consisted, and pointing out the precise chapter and verse where it was to be found. The same faculty furnished him with an infinite fund of amusing anecdotes, which he used to relate in a good-humoured and entertaining manner. This talent rendered his company much courted by private circles, and interfered with that assiduous attention to business requisite to ensure success to a medical practitioner in the metropolis, which his popular reputation and pleasing manners were in other respects well calculated to obtain. He latterly confined his practice to giving advice at home, and in that way did more business than most people acquainted with his habits supposed.

The doctor had a prepossessing exterior, and was of a mild, humane, and benevolent disposition, which not only embraced all the human race, but was extended to the whole of the animal creation. He was blessed with an excellent constitution, never having experienced sickness till within a year of his decease, when he began sensibly to decline. The immediate cause of his death, of the approach of which he was sensible, and which he met with the same gentleness and equanimity which characterized every action of his life, appeared to be an accumulation of water in the chest. He died Feb. 24, 1805, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, and is buried in the cloisters of Westminster-abbey. Two children survive him, a daughter and a son, the latter of whom, a man of profound and general learning, has been for some years settled in practice as a physician in Percy-street, London.

Besides the works above-mentioned, Dr. Buchan published a “Treatise on the Venereal Disease,” 1796, which has passed through several editions; “Cautions concerning Cold-bathing, and drinking Mineral-waters,” 1786, 8vo; and “A Letter to the Patentee, concerning the medical properties of Fleecy Hosiery,” 1790, 8vo.

, 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.

In 1543, he quitted Bourdeaux, on account of the pestilence being there; and about this time seems to have had some share in the education of Michael de Montaigne, the celebrated author of the Essays. In 1544, he went to Paris, where he taught the second class of the college of Bourbon, as Turnebus did the first, and Ivluretus the third; and it appears that in some part of this year he was afflicted with the gout. In 1547, he went into Portugal with his friend Andrew Govea, who had received orders from the king his master to return home, and bring with him a certain number of learned men, qualified to teach the Aristotelian philosophy, and polite literature, in the university which he had lately established at Coimbra. He says, that he^the more readily agreed to go to Portugal, because that “all Europe besides was either actually engaged in foreign or domestic wars, or upon the point of being so; and that this corner of the world appeared to him the most likely to be free from tumults and disturbances. Besides which, his companions in that journey were such, that they seemed rather his familiar friends than strangers, or foreigners; for with most of them he had been upon terms of much intimacy for some years; and they were men well known to the world by their learned works .”

During the life of Govea, who was a great favourite of his Portuguese majesty, matters went on extremely well with Buchanan in Portugal; but after the death of Govea, which happened in 1548, a variety of ill treatment was practised against the learned men who followed him, and particularly against Buchanan. He was accused of being author of the poem against the Franciscans, of having eaten flesh in time of Lent, and of having said that, with respect to the Eucharist, St. Augustine was more favourable to the doctrine of the reformers, than to that of the church of Home. Besides these enormities, ibwas also deposed against him by certain witnesses, that they had heard from divers reputable persons, that Buchanan was not orthodox as to the Romish faith and religion. These were sufficient reasons in that country for. putting any man into the inquisition; and accordingly, Buchanan was confined there about a year and a half. He was afterwards removed to a more agreeable prison, being confined in a monastery till he should be better instructed in the principles of the Romish church. He says of the monks under whose care he was placed, that “they were altogether ignorant of religion, but were otherwise, men neither bad in their morajs, nor rude in their behaviour.” It was during his re-­sidence in this monastery, that he began to translate the Psalms of David into Latin verse; and which he executed, says Mackenzie, “with such inimitable sweetness and elegancy, that this version of the Psalms will be esteemed and admired as long as the world endures, or men have any relish for poetry.” Having obtained his liberty in 1551, he desired a passport of the king, in order to return to France; but his majesty endeavoured to retain him in his service, and assigned him a small pension till he should procure him an employment. But these uncertain hopes did not detain him long in Portugal; and indeed, it was not to be supposed that the treatment which he had received there, could give a man of Buchanan’s temper any great attachment to the place. He readily embraced an opportunity which offered of embarking for England, where, however, he made no long stay, though some advantageous offers were made him. Edward VI. was then upon the throne of England, but Buchanan, apprehending the affairs of that kingdom to be in a very unsettled state, went over into France at the beginning of the year 1553. It seems to have been about this time that he wrote some of those satirical pieces against the monks, which are found in his “Fratres Fraterrimi.” He was also probably now employed at Paris in teaching the belleslettres; but though he seems to have been fond of France, yet be sometimes expresses his dissatisfaction at his treatment and situation there. The subject of one of his elegies is the miserable condition of those who were employed in teaching literature at Paris. His income was, perhaps, small; and he seems to have had no great propensity to ceconomy; but this is a disposition too common among the votaries of the Muses, to afford any peculiar reproach against Buchanan. In 1555, the marshal de Brissac, to whom he had dedicated his “Jephthes,” sent for Buchanan into Piedmont, where he then commanded, and made him preceptor to Timoleon de Cosse, his son; and he spent five years in this station, partly in Italy, and partly ill France. This employment probably afforded him much leisure; for he now applied himself closely to the study of the sacred writings, in order to enable him to form the more accurate judgment concerning the subjects in controversy between the Protestants and Papists. It was also during this period that he composed his ode upon the taking of Calais by the duke of Guise, his epithalamiuni upon the marriage of Mary queen of Scots to the Dauphin of France, and part of his poem upon the Sphere.

In the year 1561, he returned to Scotland, and finding the reformation in a manner established there, he openly renounced the Romish religion, and declared himself a Protestant, but attended the court of queen Mary, and even superintended her studies. In 1563 the parliament appointed him, with others, to inspect the revenues of the universities, and to report a model of instruction. He was also appointed by the assembly of the church, to revise the “Book of Discipline.” In 1564 the queen gave him a pension of five hundred pounds Scotch, which has been, not very reasonably, made the foundation of a charge of ingratitude against him, because he afterwards could not defend the queen’s conduct with respect to the murder of her husband, and her subsequent marriage with Bothwell. About 1566 he was made principal of St. Leonard’s college, in the university of St. Andrew’s, where he taught philosophy for some time; and he employed his leisure hours in collecting all his poems, such of them excepted as were in the hands of his friends, and of which he had no copies. In 1567, on account of his uncommon abilities and learning, he was appointed moderator of the general assembly of the church of Scotland. He joined himself to the party that acted against queen Mary, and appears to have been particularly connected with the earl of Murray, who had been educated by him, and for whom he had a great regard. He attended that nobleman to the conference at York, and afterwards at Hampton -court, being nominated one of the assistants to the commissioners who were sent to England against queen Mary. He had been previously appointed, in an assembly of the Scottish nobility, preceptor to the young king James VI.

During his residence in England, he wrote some encomiastic verses in honour of queen Elizabeth, and several English ladies of rank, from whom he received presents. He appears to have been very ready to receive favours of that kind; and, like Erasmus, not to have been at all backward in making his, wants known, or taking proper measures to procure occasional benefactions from the great. In 1571 he published his “Detectio Marise Reginae,” in which he very severely arraigned the conduct and character of queen Mary, and expressly charged her with being concerned in the murder of her husband lord Darnly. At the beginning of 1570, his pupil, the earl of Murray, regent of Scotland, was assassinated, which, Mackenzie says, “was a heavy stroke to him, for he loved him as his own life.” He continued, however, to be in favour with some of those who were invested with power in Scotland; for, after the death of the earl of Murray, he was appointed one of the lords of the council, and lord privy seal. It appears also that he had a pension of one hundred pounds a year, settled on him by queen Elizabeth. In 1579 he published his famous treatise “De Jure Regni apud Scotos;” which he dedicated to king James. In 1582 he published at Edinburgh, his “History of Scotland,” in twenty books, on which he had chiefiy employed the last twelve or thirteen years of his life. He died at Edinburgh the same year, on the 5th of December, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. Towards the close of his life, he had sometimes resided at Stirling. Ife is said, that when he was upon his death-bed, he was informed that the king was highly incensed against him for writing his book “De Jure Regni,” and his “History of Scotland;” to which he replied, that “he was not much conterned about that; for he was shortly going to a place where there were few kings.” We are also told, that when he was dying, he called for his servant, whose name was Young, and asked him how much money he had of his; and finding that it was not sufficient to defray the expences of his burial, he commanded him to distribute it amongst the poor. His servant thereupon asked him: “Who then would be at'the charge of burying him?” Buchanan replied, “That he was very indifferent about that; for if he were once dead, if they would not bury him, they might let him lie where he was, or throw his corpse where they pleased.” Accordingly, he was buried at the expence of the city of Edinburgh. Archbishop Spotswood says of Buchanan, that “in his old age he applied himself to write the Scots History, which he renewed with such judgment and eloquence, as no country can shew a better: only in this he is justly blamed, that he sided with the factions of the time, and to justify the proceedings of the noblemen against the queen, he went so far in depressing the royal authority of princes, and allowing their controulment by subjects; his bitterness also in writing of the queen, and of the times, all wise men have disliked; but otherwise no man hath merited better of his country for learning, nor thereby did bring to it more glory. He was buried in the common burial-place, though worthy to have been laid in marble, and to have had some statue erected to his memory; but such pompous monuments in his life he was wont to scorn and despise, esteeming it a greater credit, as it was said of the Roman Cato, to have it asked, Why doth he lack a statue? than to have had one, though never so glorious, erected.”

Mr. Teissier says, that “it cannot be denied but Buchanan was a man of admirable eloquence, of rare prudence, and of an exquisite judgment; he has written the History of Scotland with such elegancy and politeness, that he surpasses all the writers of his age; and he has even equalled the ancients themselves, without excepting either Sallust or Titus Livius. But he is accused by some of being an unfaithful historian, and to have shewn in his history an extreme aversion against queen Mary Stuart; but his master-piece is his Paraphrase upon the Psalms, in which he outdid the most famous poets amongst the French and Italians.”

Mr. James Crawford, in his “History of the House of Este,” says, “Buchanan not only excelled all that went before him in his own country, but scarce had his equal in that learned age in which he lived. He spent the first flame and rage of his fancy in poetry, in which he did imitate Virgil in heroics, Ovid in elegiacs, Lucretius in philosophy, Seneca in tragedies, Martial in epigrams, Horace and Juvenal in satires. He copied after these great masters so perfectly, that nothing ever approached nearer the original: and his immortal Paraphrase on the Psalms doth shew, that neither the constraint of a limited matter, the darkness of expression, nor the frequent return of the same, or the like phrases, could confine or exhaust that vast genius. At last, in his old age, when his thoughts were purified by long reflection and business, and a true judgment came in the room of one of the richest fancies that ever was, he wrote our History with such beauty of style, easiness of expression, and exactness in all its parts, that no service or honour could have been done the nation like it, had he ended so noble a work as he begun, and carried it on till James the Fifth’s death. But being unhappily engaged in a faction, and resentment working violently upon him, he suffered himself to be so strangely biassed, that in the relations he gives of many of the transactions of his own time, he may rather pass for a satirist than an historian.”

Burnet says, that “in the writings of Buchanan there appears, not only all the beauty and graces of the Latin tongue, but a vigour of mind, and quickness of thought, far beyond Bembo, or the other Italians, who at that time affected to revive the purity of the Roman style. It was but a feeble imitation of Tully in them; but his style is so natural and nervous, and his reflections on things are so solid (besides his immortal poems, in which he shews how well he could imitate all the Roman poets, in their several ways of writing, that he who compares them will be often tempted to prefer the copy to the original), that he is justly reckoned the greatest and best of our modern authors.”

The celebrated Thuanus observes, that “Buchanan, being old, began to write the history of his own country; and although, according to the genius of his nation, he sometimes inveighs against crowned heads with severity, yet that work is written with so much purity, spirit, and judgment, that it does not appear to be the production of a man who had passed all his days in the dust of a school, but of one who had been all his life-time conversant in the most important affairs of state. Such was the greatness of his mind, and the felicity of his genius, that the meanness of his condition and fortune has not hindered Buchanan from forming just sentiments of things of the greatest moment, or from writing concerning them with a great deal of judgment.”

Dr. Robertson, speaking of Buchanan’s History of Scotland, says, that “if his accuracy and impartiality had been, in any degree, equal to the elegance of his taste, and to the purity and vigour of his style, his history might be placed on a level with the most admired compositions of the ancients. But, instead of rejecting the improbable tales of chronicle writers, he was at the utmost pains to adorn them; and hath clothed with all the beauties and graces of fiction, those legends which formerly had only its wildness and extravagance.” In another place, the same celebrated historian observes, that *' the happy genius of Buchanan, equally formed to excel in prose and in verse, more various, more original, and more elegant, than that of almost any other modern who writes in Latin, reflects, with regard to this particular, the greatest lustre on his country."

The genius and erudition of Buchanan have procured him, as a writer, the applause even of his enemies: but, as a man, he has been the subject of the most virulent invectives. Far from confining themselves to truth, they have not even kept within the bounds of probability; and some of the calumnies which have been published against him, related by Bayle, are calculated only to excite our risibility. The learned John Le Clerc has very ably shewn, that there is much reason to conclude, that many of the severe censures which have been thrown out against Buchanan, were the result of ignorance, of prejudice, and of party animosity. That he was himself influenced by some degree of partiality to the party with which he was connected, that he was sometimes deceived by the reports of others, and that in the earlier part of his History, his zeal for the honour of his country has led him into some misrepresentations, may be admitted: but we do not apprehend that he wilfully and intentionally violated the truth, or that there is any just ground for questioning his integrity. Le Clerc observes, that as to the share which Buchanan had in public affairs, it appears even from the Memoirs of sir James Melvil, who was of the opposite party, that “he distinguished himself by his probity, and by his moderation.” The prejudices of many writers against him have been very great: he had satirized the priests, and many of them therefore were his most inveterate enemies; he was generally odious to the bigotted advocates for the Romish church, and to the partisans of Mary; and his free and manly spirit rendered him extremely disagreeable to court flatterers and parasites, and the defenders of tyranny. His dialogue " De Jure Regni/' which certainly contains some of the best and most rational principles of government, whatever may be thought of some particular sentiments, and which displays uncommon acuteness and extent of knowledge, has been one source of the illiberal abuse that has been thrown out against him. But it is a performance that really does him great honour; and the rather, because it was calculated to enforce sound maxims of civil policy, in an age in which they were generally little understood. Some farther testimonies of authors concerning him may be found in our references.

Dr. Lettice concludes a well-written life of him by remarking, that Buchanan, with regard to his person, is said to have been slovenly, inattentive to dress, and almost to have bordered upon rusticity in his manners and appearance. The character of his countenance was manly but austere, and the portraits remaining of him bear testimony to this observation. But he was highly polished in his language and style of conversation, which was generally much seasoned with wit and humour. On every subject he possessed a peculiar facility of illustration by lively anecdotes and short moral examples; and when his knowledge and recollection failed in suggesting these, his invention immediately supplied him. He has been too justly reproached with instances of revenge, and forgetfulness of obligations. These seem not, however, to have been characteristic qualities, but occasional failures of his nobler nature, and arising from too violent an attachment to party, and an affection too partial towards individuals. To the same source, perhaps, may be traced that easiness of belief to which he is found too frequently to resign his better judgment. His freedom from anxieties relative to fortune, and indifference to outward and accidental circumstances, gained him, with some, the reputation of a Stoic philosopher; but as a state of mind undisturbed by the vicissitudes of life, and a disposition to leave the morrow to take care of itself, are enjoined by one far better than Zeno, let us not forget that Buchanan is affirmed moreover to have been religious and devout, nor unjustly place so illustrious a figure in the niche of an Athenian portico, which claims no inferior station in the Christian temple.

, usually ranked among the German reformers, was born Sept. 28, 1529, at Schonaw near Wittemberg, at which university he was educated, and where he contracted an acquaintance with Melancthon, and while he was studying the scriptures in their original languages, imbibed the principles of the reformation. In 1555 he went into Silesia, where the senate of Grunbergue invited him to superintend a school newly erected in that city. This offer, by Melancthon' s advice, he accepted in the following year, and raised the school to a very high degree of reputation. Melancthon had so good an opinion of him as to declare that no young man could be supposed unfit for a university, who had been educated under Bucholtzer. Nor was he less celebrated as a preacher; and upon account of his services in promoting the reformation, enjoyed the favour and patronage of Catherine, widow of Henry duke of Brunswick, Ernest prince of Anhalt, and other persons of rank. He died at Freistad in Silesia, Oct. 14, 1584. He composed a chronology from the beginning of the world to the year 1580, under the title of “Isagoge chronologica,” which was often reprinted.

was an ingenious English engraver, who, assisted by his brother Nathaniel, drew and engraved a large number of plates of various sizes, consisting of views of churches, monasteries, abbies, castles, and other ruins. They executed also views of the principal cities and towns in England and Wales, and among them a very large one of the cities of London and Westminster. They are all done in the same style, the back-grounds being slightly etched, and the buildings finished with the graver, in a stiff manner. Their drawings, especially those of the ruins, &c. appear to have been too hastily made, and are frequently inaccurate; but, in many instances, they are the only views we have of the places represented; and in some, the only views we can have, as several of the ruins engraved by them, have since that time been totally destroyed. Their prints amount in the whole to about 500, and still bear a great price. Samuel Buck died at his apartments in the Temple, in the eighty-fifth year of his age, August 1779. A few months before his death a liberal subscription was raised for his support. His brother had been dead many years before.

, an eminent English prelate, was the son of William Buckeridge, by Elizabeth his wife, daughter of Thomas Keblewhyte of Basilden in Berks, son of John Keblewhyte, uncle to sir Thomas White, founder of St. John’s college, Oxford. He was educated in Merchant Taylors’ school, and thence sent to St. John’s college, Oxon, in 1578, where he was chosen fellow, and proceeded, through other degrees, to D. D. in the latter end of 1596. After leaving the university, he became chaplain to Robert earl of Essex, and was rector of North Fambridge in Essex, and of North Kiiworth in Leicestershire, and was afterwards one of archbishop Whitgii't’s chaplains, and made prebendary of Hereford, and of Rochester. In 1604, he was preferred to the archdeaconry of Northampton; and the same year, Nov. 5, was presented by king James to the vicarage of St. Giles’s, Cripplegate, in which he succeeded Dr. Andrews, then made bishop of Chichester. About the same time he was chaplain to the king; was elected president of St. John’s college, 1605, and installed canon of Windsor, April 15, 1606. His eminent abilities in the pulpit were greatly esteemed at court; insomuch that he was chosen to be one of the four (Dr. Andrews, bishop of Chichester, Dr. Barlow of Rochester, and Dr. John King, dean of Christ-church, Oxford, being the other three) who were appointed to preach before the king at Hampton-court in September 1606, in order to bring the two Melvins and other presbyterians of Scotland to a right understanding of the church of England. He took his text out of Romans xiii. 1. and managed the discourse (as archbishop Spotswood, who was present, relates), both soundly and learnedly, to the satisfaction of all the hearers, only it grieved the Scotch ministers to hear the pope and presbytery so often equalled in their opposition to sovereign princes.

In the year 1611 he was promoted to the see of Rochester, to which he was consecrated June 9. Afterwards, by the interest of his sometime pupil, Dr. Laud, then bishop of Bath and Wells, he was translated to Ely in 1628; where, having sat a little more than three years, he died May 23, 1631, and on the 31st was buried in the parish church of Bromley in Kent, without any memorial, although he appears to have been a very pious, learned, and worthy bishop, and had been a benefactor to the parish. His works are “De Potestate Papae in rebus temporalibus, sive in regibus deponendis usurpata: adversus Robertum Cardinalem Bellarminum, lib. II. In quibus respondetur authoribus, scripturis, rationibus, exemplis contra Gul. Barclaium allatis,” Lon. 1614, 4to. He published also “A Discourse on Kneeling at the Communion,” and some occasional sermons, of which a list may be seen in Wood.

, a popish divine of some note^ was born at West Harptre, the seat of an ancient family of his name in Somersetshire, about 1564. In 1579, he was admitted commoner in Magdalen college, Oxford, and afterwards passed some years in one of the inns of court. Having at last embraced the popish religion, he spent seven years in Doway college, and being ordained priest, returned to England, acted as a missionary for about twenty years, and died in 1611. He published, 1. A translation of the “Lives of the Saints” from Surius. 2. “A Per. suasive against frequenting Protestant Churches,” 12mo. 3. “Seven sparks of the enkindled flame, with four lamentations, composed in the hard times of queen Elizabeth,” 12mo. From this book, archbishop Usher, in a sermon preached in 1640, on Nov. 5, produced some passages hinting at the gun-powder plot. The passages are not, perhaps, very clearly in point, nor can we suppose any person privy to the design fool enough at the same time to give warning of it. This Buckland also wrote “De Persecutione Vandalica,” a translation from the Latin of Victor, bishop of Biserte, or Utica.

, D. D. a learned and ingenious English clergyman and antiquary, was born in 1716, and educated at Oriel college, Oxford, where he took his master’s degree in 1739. He was afterwards elected a fellow of All-Souls college, where he proceeded B. D. in 1755, and D. D. in 1759. In 1755 he was presented to the vicarage of Cumner in Berkshire, by the earl of Abingdon. He was also rector of Frilsham in the same county. He died and was buried at Cumner, Dec. 24, 1780, being at that time likewise keeper of the archives in the university of Oxford, to which office he was elected in 1777. His talents would in all probability have advanced him to higher stations, had they been less under the influence of those honest principles, which, although they greatly dignify a character, are not always of use on the road to preferment. In truth, says the author of his epitaph, he preserved his integrity chaste and "pure: he thought liberally, and spoke openly; a mean action was his contempt. He possessed not great riches, secular honours, or court favours; but he enjoyed blessings of a much higher estimation, a competency, a sound mind, an honest heart, a good conscience, and a faith unshaken.

Dr. Buckler, who was an able antiquary, assisted his friend and contemporary, Mr. Justice Blackstone, in his researches respecting the right of fellowships, &c. in AllSouls college, and drew up that valuable work, the “Stemmata Chicheleana; or, a genealogical account of some of the families derived from Thomas Chichele, of HighamFerrers, in the county of Northampton; all whose descendants are held to be entitled to fellowships in All-Souls college, Oxford, by virtue of their consanguinity to archbishop Chichele, the founder,” Oxford, 1765, 4to. The college having afterwards purchased, at Mr. Anstis’s sale, many large ms volumes by him, relating to the history and constitution of this college, and the case of founder’s kindred, Dr. Buckler published “A Supplement to the Stemmata,” Oxford, 1775, and afterwards went on continuino' it, as information offered itself, but no more has been published. We find him also as one of the proctors, signing his name to a pamphlet, which he probably wrote, entitled “A reply to Dr. Huddesford’s observations relating to the delegates of the press, with a narrative of the proceedings of the proctors with regard to their nomination of a delegate,” Oxford, 1756, 4to. In this it is the object to prove, against Dr. Huddesford, that the right of nominating such delegates is in the proctors absolutely, and that the vice-chancellor has not a negative.

Long before this, Dr. Buckler afforded a proof of excellent humour. Mr. Pointer having in his account of the antiquities of Oxford, a superficial and incorrect work, degraded the famous mallard of All-Souls into a goose, Buckler published, but without his name, “A complete vindication of the Mallard of All-Souls college against the injurious suggestions of the rev. Mr. Pointer,” Lond. 1750, 8vo, and a second edition, 1751. This produced another exquisite piece of humour, entitled “Proposals for printing by subscription, the History of the Mallardians,” This was to have been executed in three parts, the contents of which will give the reader some idea of Mr. Bilson’s humour, and that of Rowe Mores, who assisted him in drawing up the proposals, and bore the expence of some engravings which accompany it. “Part I. Of the origin of the Mallardians. Of the foundation of the house of Mallardians. The intent of that foundation, and how far it has been answered. Of the affinity between the Mallardians and the order of the Thelemites. Of the library of the Mallardians; and of the cat that was starved to death in it. Part II. Of the manners of the Mallardians. Of their comessations, compotations, ingurgitations, and other enormities, from their first settlement till their visitation by archbishop Cranmer. Part III. The subject of the second part continued from the death of archbishop Cranmer to the dissolution of Bradgate-Hall, alias les Tunnys, (i.e. the Three Tuns Tavern). To the whole will be added, a full account of the annual festival of the Mallardians. Of the adventures common at this festival. Of the presidents, or lords of this festival, with their characters drawn at length. Of the Swopping-Song of the Mallardians, with annotations on the same. Of the progress of the Mallardians to Long Crendon, and of their demeanour to Damosels. And, lastly, a true history of their doughty champion Pentrapolin a Calamo, usually styled by way of eminence, The Buckler of the Mallardians.” Dr. Buckler published also two occasional sermons in 1759.

, an eminent French physician, censor royal, doctor-regent and professor of chemistry in the faculty of medicine at Paris, an adjunct of the academy of sciences, and an ordinary associate of the royal medical society, was born at Paris, Feb. 18, 1746. His father intended him for the bar, but his inclination stfbn led him to relinquish that profession for the study of the various sciences connected with medicine, in all which he made great proficiency, and gave lectures on mineralogy and chemistry. His plan and familiar mode of teaching soon procured him numerous pupils, and connecting himself with Lavoisier and other eminent chemists, he instituted a variety of experiments which, while they procured him the notice and honours of his profession, much impaired his health, and at a very early age, he was so debilitated in body and mind, as to require the use of stimulants to excite a momentary vigour; he is even said to have taken one hundred grains of opium in a day. By these means he was enabled to protract his existence until Jan. 24, 1780, when he died completely exhausted, although only in his thirty-fourth year. Except his papers in the literary journals, we know of only one publication of Bucquet’s, “Introduction a Tetude des corps naturels, tirés du regne vegetal,” 1773, 2 vols. 12mo. This was intended for the use of his pupils.

, a celebrated Lutheran divine, was born June 25, 1667, at Anclam, a town in Pomerania, where his father was a clergyman, who bestowed great pains on his education, with a view to the same profession. Before he went to the university, he was taught Greek and Latin, Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Syriac, and had several times read the scriptures in their original tongues. In 1685, at the age of eighteen, he was sent to Wittemberg, where he studied history, oriental learning, and the canon law, under the ablest professors, and with a success proportioned to the stock of knowledge he had previously accumulated. In 1687 he received the degree of M. A. and printed on that occasion his thesis on the symbols of the Eucharist. In 1689 he was assistant professor of philosophy; and some time after, having removed to Jena, gave lessons to the students there with the approbation and esteem of the professors. In 1692 he was invited to Cobourg, as professor of Greek and Latin, In 1693, when Frederick, elector of Brandenburgh, afterwards king of Prussia, founded the university of Halle, Buddeus was appointed professor of moral and political philosophy, and after filling that office for about twelve years, he was recalled to Jena in 1705, to be professor of theology. The king of Prussia parted with him very reluctantly on this occasion, but Buddeus conceived his new office so much better calculated for his talents and inclination, that he retained it for the remainder of his life, refusing many advantageous offers in other universities; and the dukes of Saxony of the Ernestine branch, to whom the university of Jena belongs, looking upon Buddeus as its greatest ornament, procured him every comfort, and bestowed their confidence on him in. the case of various important affairs. In 1714, he was made ecclesiastical counsellor to the duke of Hildburghausen; and afterwards was appointed inspector of the students of Gotha and Altenburgh; assessor of the Concilium arctius, which had the care of the university of Jena; and he was several times pro-rector, the dukes of Saxony always reserving to themselves the rectorate of that university. Under his care the university flourished in an uncommon degree, and being an enemy to the scholastic mode of teaching, he introduced that more rational and philosophical system which leads to useful knowledge. Amidst all these employments, he was a frequent and popular preacher, carried on an extensive correspondence with the learned men of his time, and yet found leisure for the composition of his numerous works. He died Nov. 19, 1729. A very long list of his works is given in our authority; the principal are: 1. “Elementa Philosophic prarticæ, instrumentalis ct theoreticæ,” 3 vols. 8vo. 2. “Institutiones Theologiæ Moralis,” 1711, 4to, often reprinted. 3. “Historia Ecclesiastica Veteris Testamenti,” 1715, 1718, 2 vols, 4to. 4. “Institutiones Theologicse, Dogmaticae, variis observationibus iilustratse,” 1723, 3 vols. 4to. 5. “Miscellanea Sacra,” 1727, 3 vols. 4to. 6. The Great German Historical Dictionary," 2 vols. folio, and often reprinted, was principally drawn up by our author, and published with his name.

, or Bude’ (William), an eminent scholar and critic, the descendant of an ancient and illustrious family in France, lord of Marli-la-ville, king’s counsellor, and master of requests, was born at Paris in 1467. He was the second son of John Budé, lord of Yere and Villiers, secretary to the king, and one of the grand officers of the French chancery. In his infancy he was provided with masters; but such was the low state of Parisian education at that time, that when sent to the university of Orleans to study law, he remained there for three years, without making any progress, for want of a proper knowledge of the Latin language. Accordingly, on his return home, his parents had the mortification to discover that he was as ignorant as when he went, disgusted with study of any kind, and obstinately bent to pass his time amidst the gaieties and pleasures of youth, a coarse which his fortune enabled him to pursue. But after he had indulged this humour for some time, an ardent passion for study seized him, and became irresistible. He immediately disposed of his horses, dogs, &c. with which he followed the chace, applied himself to study, and in a short time made very considerable progress, although he had no masters, nor either instruction or example in his new pursuit. He became, in particular, an excellent Latin scholar, and although his style is not so pure or polished as that of those who formed themselves in early life on the best models, it is far from being deficient in fluency or elegance. His knowledge of the Greek was so great that John de Lascaris, the most learned Grecian of his time, declared that Budé might be compared with the first orators of ancient Athens. This language is perhaps complimentary, but it cannot be denied that his knowledge of Greek was very extraordinary, considering how little help he derived from instructions. He, indeed, employed at a large salary, one Hermonymus, but soon found that he was very superficial, and had acquired the reputation of a Greek scholar merely from knowing a little more than the French literati, who at that time knew nothing. Hence Budé used to call himself ανἶομαθης & οψιμαϑης i. e. self-taught and late taught. The work by which he gained most reputation, and published under the title “De Asse,” was one of the tirst efforts to clear up the difficulties relating to the coins and measures of the ancients; and although an Italian, Leonardus Portius, pretended to claim some of his discoveries, Budé vindicated his right to them with spirit and success. Previously to this he had printed a translation of some pieces of Plutarch, and “Notes upon the Pandects.” His fame having reached the court, he was invited to it, but was at first rather reluctant. He appears to have been one of those who foresaw the advantages of a diffusion of learning, and at the same time perceived an unwillingness in the court to entertain it, lest it should administer to the introduction of what was called heresy. Charles VIII. was the first who invited him to court, but died soon after: his successor Louis XII. employed him twice on embassies to Italy, and made him his secretary. This favour continued in the reign of Francis I. who sent for Budé to court when it was held at Arches at the interview of that monarch with Henry VIII. the king of England. From this time Francis paid him much attention, appointed him his librarian, and master of the requests, while the Parisians elected him provost of the merchants. This political influence he employed in promoting the interests of literature, and suggested to Francis I. the design of establishing professorships for languages and the sciences at Paris. The excessive heats of the year 1540 obliging the king to take a journey to the coast of Normandy, Budé accompanied his majesty, but unfortunately was seized with a fever, which carried him off Aug. 23/1540, at Paris. His funeral was private, and at night, by his own desire. This circumstance created a suspicion that he died in the reformed religion; but of this there is ho direct proof, and although he occasionally made free with the court of Rome and the corruptions of the clergy in his works, yet in them likewise he wrote with equal asperity of the reformers. Erasmus called him porttntum Gallic, the prodigy of France. There was a close connection between these two great men. “Their letters/' says the late Dr. Jortin,” though full of compliments and civilities, are also full of little bickerings and contests: which shew that their friendship was not entirely free from some small degree of jealousy and envy; especially on the side of Budé, who yet in other respects was an excellent person." It is not easy to determine on which side the jealousy lay; perhaps it was on both. Budé might envy Erasmus for his superior taste and wit, as well as his more extensive learning; and perhaps Erasmus might envy Budé for a superior knowledge of the Greek tongue, which was generally ascribed to him.

Budé was a student of incessant application, and when we consider him as beginning his studies late, and being afterwards involTed in public business, and the cares of a numerous family, it becomes astonishing that he found leisure for the works he gave to the public. He appears in general to have been taken with the utmost reluctance from his studies. He even complains in the preface to his book “De Asse,” that he had not more than six hours study on his wedding-day. He married, however, a lady who assisted him in his library, reaching him what books he requested, and looking out particular passages which he might want. In one of his letters he represents himself as married to two wives, by one of whom he had sons and daughters; and by the othsr named Philologia, he had books, which contributed to the maintenance of his natural issue. In another he remarks, that, for the first twelve years of his marriage, he had produced more children than books, but hopes soon to bring his publications on a par with his children. It is of him a story is told, which, if we mistake not, has been applied to another: One day a servant entered his study, in a great fright, and exclaimed that the house was on fire. Budé said calmly, “Why don't you inform your mistress? you know I never concern myself about the house!”—What affords some probability that Budé had imbibed the sentiments of the reformers in his latter days, is the circumstance of his widow retiring to Geneva, with some of her family, and making an open profession of the protestant religion. It appears by the collections in Baillet, Blount, and Jortin in his “Life of Erasmus,” that the eulogies which Budé received from the learned men of his time are exceedingly numerous. His works were printed at Basil in 1557, 4 vols. folio. The most important of them is his “Commentarii Greece Liuguse,” which is still highly valued by Greek scholars. The best edition is that of Basil, 1356, fol.

, a civilian of Oxford, the son of John Budden of Canford, in Dorsetshire, was born in that county in 1566, and entered Merton college in 1582, but was admitted scholar of Trinity college in May of the fol lowing year, where he took his bachelor’s degree. He was soon after ivmoved to Gloucester hall, where he took his master’s degree, but chiefly studied civil law. He was at length made philosophy reader of Magdalen college, and took his bachelor and doctor’s degrees in civil law in 1602. In 1609 he was made principal of New-inn, and soon after king’s professor of civil law, and principal of Broadgate’s hall, where he died June 11, 1620, and was buried in the chancel of St. Aldate’s church. Wood says he was a person of great eloquence, an excellent rhetorician, philosopher, and civilian. He wrote the lives of “William of Wainflete,” founder of Magdalen college, in Latin, Oxon, 1602, 4to, reprinted in “Batesii Vitæ” and of “Archbishop Morton,” London, 1607, 8vo. He also made the Latin translation of sir Thomas Bodley’s statutes for his library; and sir Thomas Smith’s “Common Wealth of England;” and from the French of P. Frodius, a civilian, “A Discourse for Parents’ Honour and Authority over their Children,” Loud. 1614, 8vo.

, esq. a very ingenious but unfortunate writer, was born at St. Thomas, near Exeter, about 1685, and educated at Christ-church, Oxford. His father, Gilbert Budgell, D. D. descended of an ancient family in Devonshire; his mother, Mary, was only daughter of Dr. William Gulston, bishop of Bristol, whose sister Jane married dean Addison, and was mother to the famous Addison. After some years stay in the university, Mr. Budgell went to London, and was entered of the Inner Temple, in order to study law, for which his father always intended him; but his inclinations led him more to study polite literature, and keep company with the genteelest persons in town. During his stay at the Temple, he contracted a strict intimacy and friendship with Addison, who was first cousin to his mother; and when Addison was appointed secretary to lord Wharton, lord-lieutenant of Ireland, he offered to make his friend Eustace one of the clerks of his office, which Mr. Budgell readily accepted. This was in April 1710, when he was about twenty-five years of age. He had by this time read the classics, the most reputed historian^ and the best French, English, and Italian writers, and became concerned with Steele and Addison, not in writing the Tatler, as has been asserted, but the Spectator, which was begun in 1711. Ail the papers marked with an X were written by him, and the whole eighth volume is attributed to Addison and himself, without the assistance of Steele. Several little epigrams and songs, which have a good deal of wit in them, together with the epilogue to the “Distressed Mother,” which had a greater run than any thing of the kind before, were also written by Mr. Budgell near this time; all which, together with the known affection of Addison for him, raised his character so much as to give him considerable consequence in the literary and political world. Upon the laying down of the Spectator, the Guardian was set up; and to this work our author contributed, along with Addison and Steele. In the preface it is said, that those papers marked with an asterisk were written by Mr. Budgell.

Having regularly made his progress in the secretary of state’s office in Ireland, upon the arrival of George I. in England, he was appointed under secretary to Addison, and chief secretary to the lords justices of Ireland. He was made likewise deputy-clerk of the council in that kingdom; and soon after chosen member of the Irish parliament, where he acquitted himself as a very good speaker, and performed all his official duties with great exactness and ability, and with very singular disinterestedness. In 1717, when Addison became principal secretary of state in England, he procured for Mr. Budgell the place of accomptant and comptroller-general of the revenue in Ireland, and might have had him for his under-secretary; but it was thought more expedient for his majesty’s service that he should continue where he was. He held these several places till 1718, at which time the duke of Bolton was appointed lord-lieutenant. His grace carried over with him one Mr. Edward Webster, whom he made a privy-counsellor and his secretary. A misunderstanding arising on some account or other, between this gentleman and Mr. Budgell, the latter treated Mr. Webster himself, his education, his abilities, and his family, with the utmost contempt. Mr. Budgell was indiscreet enough (for he was naturally proud and full of resentment) to write a lampoon, prior to this, in which the lord-lieutenant was not spared; and which he published in spite of all Addison could say against it. Hence many discontents arose between them, till at length, the lord-lieutenant, in support of his secretary, superseded Mr. Budgell, and very soon after got him removed from the place of accomptant-general. Mr. Budgell, not thinking it safe to continue longer in Ireland, set out for England, and soon after his arrival published a pamphlet representing his case, entitled “A Letter to the lord ***, from Eustace Budgell, esq. accomptant-general of Ireland, and late secretary to their excellencies the lords justices of that kingdom;” eleven hundred copies of which were sold off in one day, either from curiosity, or sympathjr with his sufferings, which seem about this time to have affected his reason. In the Postboy of Jan. 17, 1719, he published an advertisement to justify his character against reports which had been spread to his disadvantage; and he did not scruple to declare in all companies, that his life was attempted by his enemies, which deterred him from attending his seat in parliament. Such behaviour made many of his friends conclude him delirious; his passions were certainly very strong, nor were his vanity and jealousy less predominant. Addison, who bad resigned the seals, and was retired into the country for the sake of his health, found it impossible to stem the tide of opposition, which was every where running against his kinsman, through the influence and power of the duke of Bolton; and therefore dissuaded him in the strongest terms from publishing his case, but to no manner of purpose: which made him tell a friend in great anxiety, that “Mr. Budgell was wiser than ^ny man he ever knew, and yet he supposed the world would hardly believe that he acted contrary to his advice.”

Mr. Budgell’s great and noble friend lord Halifax, to whom in 1713 he had dedicated a translation of “Theophrastus’s Characters,” was dead, and lord Orrery, who held him in the highest esteem, had it not in his power to serve him. Addison had indeed got a promise from lord Sunderland, that, as soon as the present clamour was a little abated, he would do something for him; but that gentleman’s death, happening in 1719, put an end to all hopes of succeeding at court: where he continued, nevertheless, to make several attempts, but was constantly kept down by the weight of the duke of Bolton. One case seems peculiarly hard. The duke of Portland, who was appointed governor of Jamaica, made Budgell his secretary, who was about to sail, when a secretary of state was sent to the duke, to acquaint him “that he might take any man in England for his secretary, excepting Mr. Budgell, but that he must not take him” In 1720, the fatal year of the South Sea, he was almost ruined, having lost abdve 20,000l. in it. He tried afterwards to get into parliament at several places, and spent 3000l. more in unsuccessful attempts, which completed his ruin. And from this period he began to behave and live in a different manner from what he had done before; wrote libellous pamphlets against sir Robert Walpole and the ministry, and did many unjust things in regard to his relations, being distracted in his own private fortune, as indeed he waa judged to be in his senses. In 1727 he had 1000l. given him by the duchess of Marlborough, to whose husband, the famous duke, he was related by his mother’s side, with a view to his getting into parliament. She knew that he had a talent for speaking in public, that he was acquainted with business, and would probably run any lengths against the ministry. But this scheme failed, for he could never get chosen. In 1730 he joined the band of writers against the administration, and published many papers in the “Craftsman.” He published also, about the same time, many other pieces of a political nature. In 1733, he began a weekly pamphlet called “The Bee,” which he continued for about a hundred numbers, making seven or eight volumes, 8vo. During the progress of this work, which was entirely filled with his own disputes and concerns, and exhibited many proofs of a mind deranged by oppression, or debased by desperate efforts to retrieve his character, Dr. Tindal died, by whose will Mr. Budgell had 2000l. left him; and the world being surprised at such a gift from a man entirely unrelated to him, to the exclusion of the next heir, a nephew, and the continuator of Rapin’s History of England, immediately imputed! it to his making the will himself. Thus the satirist:

And write whatever he please——except my Will." Pope.

It was thought he had some hand in publishing Dr. Tindal’s “Christianity as old as the Creation,” for he often talked of another additional volume on the same subject, but never published it. However, he used to inquire very frequently after Dr. Conybeare’s health, who had been employed by queen Anne to answer the first volume, and rewarded with the deanery of Christ-church for his pains; saying, “he hoped Mr. Dean would live a little longer, that he might have the pleasure of making him a bishop; for he intended very soon to publish the pther volume of Tindal, which would certainly do the business.”

After the cessation of “The Bee,” he became so involved in law-suits, that he was reduced to a very unhappy situation. He now returned to his original destination of the bar, and attended for some time in the courts of law; but finding himself incapable of making any progress, and being distressed to the utmost, he determined at length on suicide. Accordingly, in 1736, betook a boat At Somerset stairs, after filling his pockets with stones, and ordered the waterman to shoot the bridge; and, while the boat was going under, threw himself into the river, wiiere he perished immediately. Several days before, he had been visibly distracted in his mind, but no care was taken of him. He was never married, but left one natural daughter behind him, who afterwards took his name, and was some time an actress at Drury-lane. The morning before he committed this act upon himself, he endeavoured to persuade this lady, who was then only eleven years old, to accompany him, which she very wisely refused. Upon his bureau was found a slip of paper, on which were written these words:

"What Cato did, and Addison approv'd,

Mr. Budgell, as a writer, is very agreeable; not argumentative, or deep, but ingenious and entertaining; and his style was thought peculiarly elegant, and almost ranked with Addison’s, and it is certainly superior to that of most English writers. Besides what are above mentioned, he published: “Memoirs of the Lives and Characters of the family of the Boyles,” 1737, 8vo, third edition, a work of unquestionable authority, in most of the facts. Except this and his papers in the Spectator, none of his works are now in request; but his life is interesting and instructive. His wayward temper; indulgence of passion and spleen; irregular ambition; and his connection with Tindal, which ended in a dereliction of moral and religious principle, sufficiently explain the causes of his unhappiness, and afford an important lesson.

, an eminent Italian painter, was born at Florence in 1262, and was for some years a disciple of Andrea Tassi. He was pleasant in his conversation, and somewhat ingenious in his compositions. A friend, whose name was Bruno, consulting him one day how he might give more expression to his subject, Buffalmacco answered, that he had nothing to do, but to make the words come out of the mouths of his figures by labels, on which they might be written, which had been before practised by Cimnbue. Bruno, thinking him in earnest, did so, as several German painters did after him; who, improving upon Bruno, added answers to questions, and made their figures enter into a kind of conversation. Buffalmacco died in 1340.

, a learned metaphysician, and voluminous writer, was born in Poland, of French parents, May 25, 1661. His parents having removed to Rouen, he was educated there, and afterwards entered among the Jesuits at Paris in 1679, and took the four vows “in 1695. In 1698 he went to Rome, not at the invitation of the general of his order, as has been asserted, but merely to see that celebrated city, in which he remained about four months, and then returned to Paris, where he passed the greater part of his life in the Jesuits college. Here he was first employed on the” Memoires de Trevoux,“and afterwards wrote his numerous separate publications. He died May 17, 1737. His eloge appeared in the” Memoires“in the same year, but principally regards his writings, as his life appears to have passed without any striking or characteristic circumstances, being entirely devoted to the composition of works of learning or piety, of which the following is supposed to be a correct list: 1. Some French verses on the taking of Mons and Montmelian, inserted in the” Recueil de vers choisis,“Paris, 1701, 12mo. 2.” La vie de PHermite de Compiegne,“Paris, 1692, 1737, 12mo. 3.” Vie de Dominique George,“abbot of Valricher, Paris, 1696, 12mo. 4.” Pratique de la memoire artificielle pour apprendre et pour retenir la chronologic, Phistoire universeile, c.“Paris, 1701, 3 vols. and often reprinted and extended to 4 vols. 5.” Verites consolantes du Christianisme,“ibid. 1718, 2d edit. 16mo. 6.” Histoire de Porigine du royaume de Sicile et de Naples,“ibid. 1701, 12mo. 7.” La pratique des devoirs des cures,“from the Italian, Lyons, 1702, 12mo. 8.” Abrege de l‘histoire d’Espagne,“Paris, 1704, 12mo. 9.” Examen de prejuges vulgaires pour disposer F esprit a juger sainement detout,“ibid. 1704, 12mo. 10.” Les Abeilles,“a fable. 11.” Le degat du Parnasse, ou La Fausse litterature,“a poem, ibid. 1705. 12.” La vie du comte Louis de Sales,“ibid. 1708, 12mo, afterwards translated into Italian, and often reprinted. 13.” Grammaire Franchise sur un plan nouveau,“ibid. 1709, 12mo, often reprinted. 14. e6 Le veritable esprit et le saint emploi des fetes de l'eglise,” ibid. 1712, 12mo. 15. “Les prlncipes du raisonnement exposes en deu:: logiques nouvelles, avec des remarques sur les logiques,” &c. ibid. 1714, 12mo. 16. “Geographic universelle avec le secours des vers artificiels et avec des cartes,” ibid. 1715, 2 vols. 12mo. 17. “Homere en arbitrage,” ibid. 1715; two letters addressed to the marchioness Lambert, on the dispute between madame Dacier and de la Motte, on Homer. 18. “Hist, chronologique da dernier siecle, e.” from the year 1600, ibid. 1715, 12mo. 19. “Introduction a l‘histoire de maisons souveraines de l’Europe,” Paris, 1717, 3 vols. 12mo. 20. “Exercice dela piete,” &c. ib. 1718, often reprinted. 21. “Tableau chronologique de l'histoire universelle en forme de jeu,” Paris, 1718. 22. “Nouveau x elomens d'histoire et de geographic,” Paris, 1718. 22. “Sentimens Chretien sur les principales verites de la religion,” in prose and verse, and with engravings, 1718, 12mo. 24. “Traite* des premieres verites,” Paris, 1724, 12mo. A translation of this, one of father Buffer’s most celebrated works, was published in 1781, under the title of “First Truths, and the origin of our opinions explained; with an inquiry into the sentiments of moral philosophers, relative to our primary notions of things,” 8vo. The author has proved himself to be a metaphysician of considerable abilities, and with many it will be no diminution of his merit, that he starts some principles here, which were afterwards adopted and expanded by Drs. Reid, Oswald, and Beattie, under the denomination of common sense. To prove how much these gentlemen have been indebted to him, appears to be the sole object of this translation, and especially of the preface, which, says one of the literary Journals, “though it is not destitute of shrewdness, yet is so grossly illiberal, that we remember not to have read any thing so offensive to decency and good manners, even in the rancorous productions of some of the late controvertists in metaphysics. The writer hath exceeded Dr. Priestley in the abuse of the Scotch doctors; but with a larger quantity of that author’s virulence, hath unluckily too small a portion of his ingenuity and good sense, to recompense for that shameful affront to candour and civility which is too flagrant in every page, to escape the notice or indignation of any unprejudiced reader.”

Father Buffier’s next work, which may be considered as a supplement to the former was, 25. “Elemens de Metaphysique a la portée de tout le monde,” ibid. 1725, 12 mo. 26. “Traite” de lasociete civile,“ibid. 1726. 27.” Traites philosophiques et pratiques d'eloquence et de poesie,“ibid. 1728, 2. vols. 12mo. 28.” Exposition des preuves les plus sensibles de la veritable religion,“ibid. 1732, 12mo. Besides these he contributed some papers on philological subjects to the” Memoires de Trevoux.“The greater and best part of the preceding works were collected and published in a folio volume in 1732, under the title,” Cours des Sciences sur des principes nouveaux et simples, &c." with additions and corrections, the whole forming an useful and perspicuous introduction to the sciences. Buffier was not only one of the ablest and most industrious writers of his time, but one of the safest; and his having made no progress in infidelity, while he professed to be a metaphysician, seems to be the principal objection which succeeding French philosophers brought against him.

, the most eminent French naturalist of the eighteenth century, the son of a counsellor of the parliament of Dijon, was born at Moytbard in Burgundy, September the 7th, 1707. Having manifested an early inclination to the sciences, he gave up the profession of the law, for which his father had designed him. The science which seems to have engaged his earliest attachment was astronomy; with a view to which he applied with such ardour to the study of geometry, that be always carried in his pocket the elements of Euclid. At the age of twenty he travelled into Italy, and in the course of his tour he directed his attention to the phenomena of nature more than to the productions of art: and at this early period he was also ambitious of acquiring the art of writing with ease and elegance. In 1728 he succeeded to the estate of his mother, estimated at about 12,000l. a year; which by rendering his circumstances affluent and independent, enabled him to indulge his taste in those scientific researches and literary pursuits, to which his future life was devoted. Having concluded his travels, at the age of twenty-five, with a journey to England, he afterwards resided partly at Paris, where, in 1739, he was appointed superintend ant of the royal garden and cabinet, and partly on his estate at Montbard. Although he was fond of society, and a complete sensualist, he was indefatigable in his application, and is said to have employed fourteen hours every day in study; he would sometimes return from the suppers at Paris at two in the morning, when he was young, and order a boy to call him at five; and if he lingered in bed, to drag him out on the floor. At this early hour it was his custom, at Montbard, to dress, powder, dictate letters, and regulate his domestic concerns. At six he retired to his study, which was a pavilion called the Tower of St. Louis, about a furlong from the house, at the extremity of the garden, and which was accommodated only with an ordinary wooden desk and an armed chair. Within this was another sanctuary, denominated by prince Henry of Prussia “the Cradle of Natural History,” in which he was accustomed to compose, and into which no one was suffered to intrude. At nine his breakfast, which consisted of two glasses of wine and a bit of bread, was brought to his study; and after breakfast he wrote for about two hours, and then returned to his house. At dinner he indulged himself in all the gaieties and trifles which occurred at table, and in that freedom of conversation, which obliged the ladies, when any of character were his guests, to withdraw. When dinner was finished, he paid little attention either to his family or guests; but having slept about an hour in his room, he took a solitary walk, and then he would either converse with his friends or sit at his desk, examining papers that were submitted to his judgment. This kind of life he passed for fifty years; and to one who. expressed his astonishment at his great reputation, he replied, “Have not I spent fifty years at my clesk?” At nine he retired to bed. In this course he prolonged his life, notwithstanding his excessive indulgences with women, and his excruciating sufferings occasioned by the gravel and stone, which he bore with singular fortitude and patience, to his 81st year; and retained his senses till within a few hours of his dissolution, which happened on the 16th of April, 1788. His body was embalmed, and presented first at St. Medard’s church, and afterwards conveyed to Mont-bard, where he had given orders in his will to be interred in the same vault with his wife. His funeral was attended by a great concourse of academicians, and persons of rank, and literary distinction; and a crowd of at least 20,000 spectators assembled in the streets through which the hearse was to pass. When his body was opened, 57 stones were found in his bladder, some of which were as large as a small bean: and of these 37 were crystallized in a triangular form, weighing altogether two ounces and six drams. All his other parts were perfectly sound; his brain was found to be larger than the ordinary size; and it was the opinion of the gentlemen of the faculty who examined the body, that the operation of the lithotomy might have been performed without the least danger; but to this mode of relief M. Buffon had invincible objections. He left one son, who fell a victim to the atrocities under Robespierre. This son had erected a monument to his father in the gardens of Montbard; which consisted of a simple column, with this inscription:

The father, upon seing this monument, burst into tears, and said to the young man, “Son, this will do you honour.” Buffon was a member of the French academy, and perpetual treasurer of the academy of sciences. With a view to the preservation of his tranquillity, he wisely avoided the intrigues and parties that disgracefully occupied most of the French literati in his time; nor did he ever reply to the attacks that were made upon his works. In 1771 his estate was erected into a comte; and thus the decoration of rank, to which he was by no means indifferent, was annexed to the superior dignity he had acquired as one of the most distinguished members of the republic of letters.

With respect to personal character, his figure was noble and manly, and his countenance, even in advanced age, and notwithstanding excruciating pains, which deprived him of sleep sometimes for sixteen successive nights, was calm and placid, and exhibited traces of singular intelligence. Vanity, however, which seemed to have been his predominant passion, extended even to his person and to all his exterior ornaments. He was particularly fond of having his hair neatly dressed, and for this purpose he employed the friseur, in old age, twice or thrice a day. To his dress he was peculiarly attentive; and took pleasure in appearing on Sundays before the peasantry of Montbard in laced clothes. At table, as already noticed, he indulged in indelicate and licentious pleasantries, and he was fond of hearing every gossiping tale which his attendants could relate. In his general intercourse with females he was as lax and unguarded as in his conversation. During the life of his wife, he was chargeable with frequent infidelities; and he proceeded to the very unwarrantable extreme of debauching young women, and even of employing means to procure abortion. His confidence, in the latter period of his life, was almost wholly engrossed by a mademoiselle Blesseau, who lived with him for many years. His vanity betrayed itself on a variety of occasions in relation to his literary performances, which were often the subjects of his discourse, and even of his commendation. When he was recommending the perusal of capital works in every, department of taste and science, he added, with singular presumption and self-confidence; “Capital works are scarce; I know but five great geniuses; Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz, Montesquieu, and myself” He was in the habit of reciting to those who visited him whole pages of his compositions, for he seemed to know them almost all by heart; but notwithstanding his vanity, he listened to objections, entered into a discussion of them, and surrendered his own opinion to that of others, when his judgment was convinced. He expressed himself with rapture concerning the pleasures accruing from study; and he declared his preference of the writings to the conversations of learned men, which almost always disappointed him; and therefore he voluntarily secluded himself from society with such, and in company was fond of trifling. He maintained, however, an extensive correspondence with persons of rank and eminence, but his vanity was perpetually recurring, particularly towards the end of his life, when his infidelity suggested to him that immortal renown was the most powerful of death-bed consolations .

Of his infidelity, his works afford ample evidence; but in his contempt for religion, he contrived to add hypocrisy to impiety, attending with regularity the external observances of religion, under pretence that, as there mustrbe a religion for the multitude, we should avoid giving offence. “I have always,” he said, “named the Creator; but it is only putting, mentally in its place, the energy 'of nature, which results from the two great laws of attraction and impulse. When the Sorbonne plagued me, I gave all the satisfaction which they solicited: it was a form that I despised, but men are silly enough to be so satisfied. For the same reason, when I fall dangerously ill, I shall not hesitate to send for the sacraments. This is due to the public religion. Those who act otherwise are madmen.” Yet, gross as this hypocrisy was as to externals, it was not permitted to interfere with his personal vices. These he practised to the last with a zest of unfeeling profligacy that has, perhaps, never been exceeded; the debauching of female children forming his constant and his last delight. He never fails to allude to sensual gratifications in his works, and never lost sight of the object in practice. Yet this is the man to whom one of his countrymen, Herault de Sechelles, applied the epithets “great and good,” an encomium which has been translated in some of the English journals without remark.

His first publication was a translation from the English of “Hales’s Vegetable Statics,” 1735, which was followed in 1740 by a translation from the Latin of “Newton’s Fluxions.” His “Theory of the Earth” was first published in 1744, which was included in his more celebrated work entitled “Natural History, general and particular,” which commenced in 1749, and at its completion in 1767 extended to 15 vols. 4to, or 3 1 vols. 12mo; and supplements, amounting to several more volumes, were afterwards added. In the anatomical part the author was aided by M. D'Aubenton, but in all Ihe other parts Buffon himself displays his learning, genius, and eloquence, and indulges his fancy in exploring and delineating the whole oeconomy of nature. To this work, which includes only the history of quadrupeds, he added, in 1776, a supplementary volume, containing the history of several new animals, and additions to most of those before described. As this, as well as his other works, has been so long before the public, it would be unnecessary to enter in this place on their excellences or defects. All succeeding naturalists have found something to blame and something to praise in his works, with respect to facts, and much indeed with regard to theory.

After the completion of his history of quadrupeds in 1767, Buffon was interrupted in the progress of his labours by a severe and tedious indisposition; and therefore the two first volumes of his “History of Birds” did not appear till 1771. In the composition of the greatest part of these he was indebted to the labours of M. Gueneau de Montbeillard, who adhered so closely to Buffon’s mode of thinking and of expression, that the public could not perceive any difference. The four subsequent volumes were the joint production of both writers: and each author prefixed his name to his own articles. The three remaining volumes were written by Buffon himself, with the assistance of the abbe Bexon, who formed the nomenclature, drew up most of the descriptions, and communicated several important hints. The work was completed in 1783, but on account of the much greater number of species of birds than of quadrupeds, the want of systematic arrangement is more to be regretted in this than in the other history. A translation of Buffon’s “Natural History,” by Mr. Smellie of Edinburgh, comprised in 3 vols. 8vo, was published in 1781; to which a 9th volume was added in 1786 r containing a translation of a supplementary volume of Buffon, consisting chiefly of curious and interesting facts with regard to the history of the earth. The translator has omitted the anatomical dissections and mensurations of M. D‘Aubenton, which greatly enhanced the bulk, as well as the price of the original, and which the author himself had omitted in the last Paris edition of his performance. There are likewise some other omissions, which are not very important, ’respecting the method of studying natural history, methodical distributions, and the mode of describing animals. These omissions have been amply compensated by the translator’s addition of short distinctive descriptions to each species of quadrupeds, of the figures of several new animals, and of the synonyms, as well as the generic and specific characters given by Linnæus, Klein, Brisson, and other naturalists, together with occasional notes. Buffon’s “History of Birds,” in 9 vols. 8vo, with notes and additions, translated by Mr. Leslie, was also published in 1793.

In 1774 Buffon began to publish a “Supplement” to his Natural History, consisting of the “History of Minerals,” which contains many curious and valuable experiments, as well as much theory, too lax for the rigour of modern science. The concluding volume may be considered as a kind of philosophical romance. It comprehends what the author fancifully denominates the “Epochas of Nature,” or those great changes in the state of the earth which he supposes to have successively resulted from his hypothesis of its original formation out of the sun. Of these epochas he enumerates seven, of which six are supposed to have been previous to the creation of man. In the description of these epochas, as to both their causes and effects, the author has indulged the sport of fancy, and formed a sort of fairy tale, which he has contrived to render amusing and instructive. His works have been collected and published in 35 vols. 4to, and 62 vols. 12mo, and of the whole or parts of them new editions occasionally appear. After he had completed his “History of Minerals,” he had formed a design of composing the “History of Vegetables;” but this project was defeated by his death. Several of the subjects that occur in his “Natural History,” and its supplements, have been discussed in separate memoirs, and may be found in the Memoirs of the royal academy of sciences at Paris, for the years 1737, 1738, 1739, 1741, and 1742.

, one of the German reformers, sometimes, from his native country, called Pomeranus, was born at Julin, or Wollin, near Stetin, in Pomerania, June 24, 1485, and his parents being of some rank in the state were enabled to give him a very liberal education. He was sent early to the university of Grypswald, where he employed his time so assiduously in classical learning, that, at the age of twenty, he taught school at Treptow, and raised that school to a very high degree of reputation. The first impressions he appears to have received of the necessity of a reformation was from a tract of Erasmus: this induced him to look with more attention into the sacred volume, and he proceeded to instruct others by lecturing in his school on various parts of the Old and New Testament. As a preacher he likewise became very popular, and chiefly on account of his learning, in which he exceeded many of his contemporaries. His knowledge extending also to history and antiquities, prince Bogislaus engaged him to write a “History of Pomerania,” furnishing him with money, books, and records, and this was completed in two years, but it was long unpublished, the prince reserving it in manuscript, for the use of himself and his court. It appeared at last in 1727, 4to. He was still, however, attached to the religious principles in which he had been brought up, until in 1521 Luther’s treatise on the Babylonish captivity was published. Even when he began first to read this, he declared the author to be “the most pestilent heretic that ever infested the church of Christ;” but after a more attentive perusal, he candidly recanted this unfavourable opinion, in the following strong terms, “The whole world is blind, and this man alone sees the truth.” It is probable that he had communicated this discovery to his brethren, for we find that the abbot, two aged pastors of the church, and some other of the friars, began to be convinced of the errors of popery about the same time. Bugenhagius now avowed the principles of the reformation sa openly, that he found it necessary to leave Treptow, and being desirous of an interview with Luther, went to Wittemberg, where he was chosen pastor of the reformed ^church. Here he constantly taught the doctrines of the reformation, both by preaching and writing, for thirty-six years. He always opposed the violent and seditious practices of Carlostadt, and lived on the most friendly terms with Luther and Melancthon. At first he thought Luther had been too.violent in his answer to Henry VIII. of England, but he changed his opinion, and declared that the author had treated that monarch with too much lenity.

His. public services were not confined to Wittemberg. In 1522, he was requested to go to Hamburgh, to draw up for them certain doctrinal articles, the mode of church government, &c. and he also erected a school in the monastery of St. John. In 1530 he performed the same services for the reformed church of Lubeck. In 1537, he was solicited by Christian king of Denmark to assist his majesty in promoting the reformation, and erecting schools in his donrU nions. All this he appears to have performed on an extensive scale, for his biographers inform us that besides new modelling the church of Denmark, and substituting superintendants for bishops, he appointed ministers in the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, to the number of twentyfour thousand. He assisted likewise in 1542, in the advancement of the reformation in the dukedom of Brunswick and other places. At length, after a life devoted to these objects, he died April 20, 1558. He wrote a “Commentary on the Psalms;” annotations on St. Paul’s Epistles; a harmony of the Gospels, &c. and assisted Luther in translating the bible into German. He used to keep the day on which it was finished as a festival, calling it the “Feast of the translation.” His own works were principally written in Latin.

, a protestant dissenting minister, was born in London, Oct 18, 1719. His mother was the daughter, by a second wife, of the celebrated Matthew Henry. He was educated first at Chester, from whence he went to Dr. Doddridge’s academy at Northampton in 1736, and commenced preacher in the summer of 1740, his first settlement being at Welford, in Northamptonshire. He appears to have afterwards removed to London, but quitted the presbyterian sect, was baptized by immersion, and joined the general baptists. He preached likewise at Colchester, but how long cannot be ascertained. In 1743, he was chosen minister of a meeting in White’s alley, Moorfields. In 1745, this congregation removed to Barbican, and in 1780 to Worship-street, Shoreditch, where it remained until his death April 15, 1797. Before this event his infirmities had unfitted him for. public service; yet at one period he must have enjoyed great popularity, as he was chosen to succeed Dr. James Foster, in the Old Jewry lecture. Besides several single sermons, preached on particular occasions, he published 1. “Discourses on several subjects,” 1752. 2. “A Vindication of Lord Shaftesbury’s writings,” 1753. 3. “Notes on Lord Bolingbroke’s Philosophical Writings,” 1755, 8vo. 4v “Observations on Natural Religion and Christianity, candidly proposed in a Review of the Discourses lately published by the lord bishop of London,” 1757. 5. “Œconomy of the Gospel,” 1764, 4to. 6. “Discourses on the Parables and Miracles of Christ,” 1770, 4 vols. 7. “Catechetical Exercises,” 1774. 8. “Preface to notes on the Bible,” 1791, and after his death, “Notes on the Bible,” 3 vols. 8vo.

, an English divine, wa<s born at Woodhill, in Bedfordshire, 1582, and educated at St. John’s college, Cambridge, where he obtained a fellowship. He had an estate left to him by his father, whom he succeeded in the living of Woodhill. Here he remained for twenty-one years, until he was silenced for non-conformity by archbishop Laud. On this he converted his estate into money, and went to New England in 1635, and carrying with him some planters, they settled at a place which they called Concord, and where they succeeded better than Mr. Bulkley did, who sunk his property in improvements. He died there March 9, 1658—9. His only publication was entitled “The Gospel Covenant opened,” 1651, 4to, which passed through several editions, and was one of the first books published in that country.

, bishop of St. David’s, was born March 25, 1634, in the parish of St. Cuthbert, at Wells in Somersetshsre. He was descended from an ancient and genteel family, seated at Shapwick in that county. Our prelate’s father, Mr. George Bull, dedicated his son to the church from his infancy, having declared at the font, that he designed him for holy orders, but he died when George was but four years old, and left him under the care of guardians, with an estate of two hundred pounds per annum. When he was fit to receive the first rudiments of learning, he was placed in a grammar-school at Wells, from whence he was soon removed to the free-school of Tiverton, in Devonshire, where he made a very quick progress in classical learning, and became qualified for the university at fourteen years of age.

He was entered a commoner of Exeter-college, in Oxford, the 10th of July, 1648, under the tuition of Mr. Baldwin Ackland, and though he lost much time in the pursuit of pleasures and diversions, yet, by the help of logic, which he mastered with little labour, and a close way of reasoning, which was natural to. him, he soon gained the reputation of a smart disputant, and as, such was taken notice of and encouraged by his superiors, particularly Dr. Conant, rector of the college, and Dr. Prideaux, bishop of Worcester, who at that time resided in Oxford. He continued in Exeter-college till January, 1649, at which time having refused to take the oath to the Commonwealth of England, he retired with his tutor, Mr. Ackland, who had set him the example, to North-Cadbury, in Somersetshire, where he continued under the care of that good and able man, till he was about nineteen years of age. This retreat gave him an opportunity of frequent converse with one of his sisters, whose good sense, and pious admonitions, weaned him entirely from all youthful vanities, and influenced him to a serious prosecution of his studies. And now, by the advice of his friends and guardians, he put himself under the care of Mr. William Thomas, rector of Ubley, in Somersetshire, a puritan divine, in whose house he boarded, with some of his sisters, for the space of two years. To this gentleman’s principles, however, he had no lasting attachment, and as he advanced in reading, he beg'an to study Hooker, Hammond, Taylor, Episcopius, &c. with which his friend Mr. Samuel Thomas, the son of his host, supplied him, much against the old gentleman’s will, who told his son that he would “corrupt Mr. Bull.” Soon after he had left Mr. Thomas, he entertained thoughts of entering into holy orders, and for that purpose applied himself to Dr. Skinner, the ejected bishop of Oxford, by whom he was ordained deacon and priest in the same day, being at that time but twenty-one years of age, and consequently under the age prescribed by the canons, with which, however, in times of such difficulty and distress, it was thought fit to dispense. Not long after, he accepted the small benefice of St. George’s, near Bristol, where, by his constant preaching twice every Sunday, the method he took in governing his parish, his manner of performing divine service, his exemplary life and great charities, he entirely gained the affections of his flock, and was very instrumental in reforming his parish, which he found overrun with quakers and other sectarists.

A little occurrence, soon after his coining to this living, contributed greatly to establish his reputation as a preacher. One Sunday, when he had begun his sermon, as he was turning over his Bible to explain some texts of scripUm which he had quoted, his notes, which were wrote on several small pieces of paper, flew out of his Bible into the middle of the church: many of the congregation fell into laughter, concluding that their young preacher would be non-plussed for want of materials; but some of the more sober and better-natured sort, gathered up the scattered notes, and carried them to him in the pulpit. Mr. Bull took them; and perceiving that most of the audience, consisting chiefly of sea-faring persons, were rather inclined to triumph over him under that surprize, he clapped them into his book again, and shut it, and then, without referring any more to them, went on with the subject he had begun. Another time, while he was preaching, a quaker came into the church, and in the middle of the sermon, cried out “George, come down, thou art a false prophet, and a hireling;” whereupon the parishioners, who loved their minister exceedingly, fell upon the poor quaker with such fury, as obliged Mr. Bull to come down out of the pulpit to quiet them, and to save him from the effects of their resentment; after which he went up again, and finished his sermon. The prevailing spirit of those times would not admit of the public and regular use of the book of common-prayer; but Mr. Bull formed all his public devotions out of the book of common prayer, and was commended as a person who prayed by the spirit, by many who condemned the common-prayer as a beggarly element and carnal performance. A particular instance of. this v happened to him upon his being sent for to baptize the child of a dissenter in his parish. Upon this occasion, he made use of the office of baptism as prescribed by the church of England, which he had got entirely by heart, and which he went through with so much readiness, gravity, and devotion, that the whole company were extremely affected. After the ceremony, the father of the child returned him a great many thanks, intimating at the same time, with how much greater edification those prayed, who entirely depended upon the spirit of God for his assistance in their extempore effusions, than they did who tied themselves up to premeditated forms; and that, if he had not made the sign of the cross, the badge of popery, as he called it, nobody could have formed the least objection to his excellent prayers. Upon which Mr. Bull shewed him the office of baptism in the liturgy, wherein was contained every prayer he had used on that occasion; which, with other arguments offered by Mr. Bull in favour of the common prayer, wrought so effectually upon the good old man, and his whole family, that from that time they became constant attendants on the public service of the church.

Whilst he remained minister of this parish, the providence of God wonderfully interposed for the preservation of his life; for his lodgings being near a powder-mill, Mr. Morgan, a gentleman of the parish, represented to him. the danger of his situation, and at the same time invited him to his own house. Mr. Bull, at first, modestly declined the offer, but after some importunity accepted it; and, not many days after his removal to Mr. Morgan’s, the mill was blown up, and his apartment with it. In this part of his life he took a journey once a year to Oxford, where he stayed about two months, to enjoy the benefit of the public libraries. In his way to and from Oxford, he always paid a visit to sir William Masters, of Cirencester, by which means he contracted an intimacy with Mr. Alexander pregory, the minister of the place, and after some time married Bridget, one of his daughters, on the 20th of May, 1658. The same year he was presented by the lady Pool, to the rectory of Suddington St. Mary, near Cirencester, in Gloucestershire. The next year, 1659, he was made privy to the design of a general insurrection in favour of king Charles II. and several gentlemen of that neighbourhood who were in the secret, chose his house at Suddington for one of the places of their meeting. Upon the restoration, Mr. Bull frequently preached for his father-in-law, Mr. Gregory, at Cirencester, where there was a large and populous congregation; and his sermons gave such general satisfaction, that, upon a vacancy, the people were very solicitous to have procured for him the presentation; but the largeness of the parish, and the great duty attending it, deterred him Trom consenting to the endeavours they were making for that purpose. In 1662, he was presented by the lord high-chancellor, the earl of Clarendon, to the vicarage of Suddington St. Peter, which lay contiguous to Suddington St. Mary, at the request of his diocesan Dr. Nicholson, bishop of Gloucester, both livings not exceeding 100l. a year. When Mr. Bull came first to the rectory of Suddington, he began to be more open in the use of the liturgy of the church of England, though it was not yet restored by the return of the king; for, being desired to marry a couple, he performed the ceremony, on a Sunday morning, in the face of the whole congregation, according to the form prescribed by the book of common -prayer. He took the same method in governing these parishes, as in that of St. George’s, and with the same success; applying himself with great diligence to the discharge of his pastoral functions, and setting the people an admirable example in the government and œconomy of his own family. During his residence here, he had an opportunity of confirming two ladies of quality in the protestant communion, who were reduced to a wavering state of mind by the arts and subtleties of the Romish missionaries. The only dissenters he had in his parish were quakers; whose extravagances often gave him no small uneasiness. In this part of his life, Mr. Bull prosecuted his studies with great application, and composed most of his works during the twenty-seven years that he was rector of Suddington. Several tracts, indeed, which cost him much pains, are entirely lost, through his own neglect in preserving them; particularly a treatise on the posture used by the ancient Christians in receiving the Eucharist; a letter to Dr. Pearson concerning the genuineness of St. Ignatius’ s epistles; a long one to Mr. Glanvil, formerly minister of Bath, concerning the eternity of future punishments; and another, on the subject of popery, to a person of very great quality. In 1669, he published his Apostolical Harmony, with a view to settle the peace of the church, upon a point of the utmost importance to all its members; and he dedicated it to Dn William Nicholson, bishop of Gloucester. This performance was greatly disliked, at first, by many of the clergy, and others, on account of the author’s departing therein from the private opinions of some doctors of the church, and his manner of reconciling the two apostles St. Paul and St. James, as to the doctrine of justification. It was particularly opposed by Dr. Morley, bishop of WinChester; Dr. Barlow, Margaret-professor of divinity at Oxford; Mr. Charles Gataker, a presbyterian divine; Mr. Joseph Truman, a non-conformist minister; Dr. Tully, principal of St. Edmund’s-hall; Mr. John Tombes, a famous anabaptist preacher; Dr. Lewis Du Moulin, an independent; and by M. De Marets, a French writer, who tells us, “that the author, though a professed priest of the church of England, was more addicted to the papists, remonstrants, and Socinians, than to the orthodox party.” Towards the end of 1675, Mr. Bull published his “Examen Censuræ,” &c. in answer to Mr. Gataker, and his “Apologia pro Harmonia,” &c. in reply to Dr. Tully. Mr. Bull’s notion on this subject was “That good works, which proceed from faith, and are conjoined with faith, are a necessary condition required from us by God, to the end that by the new and evangelical covenant, obtained by and sealed in the blood of Christ the Mediator of it, we may be justified according to his free and unmerited grace.” In this doctrine, and throughout the whole book, Mr. Bull absolutely excludes all pretensions to merit on the part of men; but the work nevertheless excited the jealousy of many able divines both in the church and among the dissenters, as appears from the above list. About three years after, he was promoted by the earl of Nottingham, then lord chancellor, to a prebend in the church of Gloucester, in which he was installed the 9th of October, 1678. In 1680, he finished his “Defence of the Nicene Faith,” of which he had given a hint five years before in his Apology. This performance, which is levelled against the Arians and Socinians on one hand, and the Tritheists and Sabellians on the other, was received with universal applause, and its fame spread into foreign countries, where it was highly esteemed by the best judges of antiquity, though of different persuasions. Five years after its publication, the author was presented, by Philip Sheppard, esq. to the rectory of Avening in Gloucestershire, a very large parish, and worth two hundred pounds per annum. The people of this parish, being many of them very dissolute and immoral, and many more disaffected to the church of England, gave him for some time great trouble and uneasiness; but, by his prudent conduct and diligent discharge of his duty, he at last got the better of their prejudices, and converted their dislike iuto the most cordial love and affection towards him. He had not been long at Avening, before he was promoted, by archbishop Sancroft, to the archdeaconry of Landaff, in which he was installed the 20th of June, 1686. He was invited soon after to Oxford, where the degree of doctor in divinity was conferred upon him by that university, without the payment of the usual fees, in consideration of the great and eminent services he had done the church. During the reign of James II. the doctor preached very warmly against popery, with which the nation was then threatened. Some time after the revolution, he was put into the commission of the peace, and continued in it, with some little interruption, till he was made a bishop. In 1694, whilst he continued rector of Avening, he published his “Judicium Ecclesia? Catholicse, &c.” in defence of the “Anathema,” as his former book had been of the Faith, decreed by the first council of Nice. The last treatise which Dr. Bull wrote, was his “Primitive Apostolical Tradition,” &c. against Daniel Zwicker, a Prussian. All Dr. Bull’s Latin works, which he had published by himself at different times, were collected together, and printed in 1703, in one volume in folio, under the care and inspection of Dr. John Ernest Grabe, the author’s age and infirmities disabling him from undertaking this edition. The ingenious editor illustrated the work with many learned annotations, and ushered it into the world with an excellent preface. Dr, Bull was in the seventy-first year of his age, when he was acquainted with her majesty’s gracious intention of conferring on him the bishopric of St. David’s; which promotion he at first declined, on account of his ill state of health and advanced years; but, by the importunity of his friends, and strong solicitations from the governors o*f the church, he was at last prevailed upon to accept it, and was accordingly consecrated in Lambeth-chapel, the 29th of April, 1705. Two years after, he lost his eldest son, Mr. George Bull, who died of the small-pox the 11th of May, 1707, in, the thirty-seventh year of his age. Our prelate took his seat in the house of lords in that memorable session, when the bill passed for the union of the two kingdoms, and spoke in a debate which happened upon that occasion, in favour of the church of England. About July after his consecration, he went into his diocese, and was received with all imaginable demonstrations of respect by the gentry and clergy. The episcopal palace at Aberguilly being much out of repair, he chose the town of Brecknock for the place of his residence; but was obliged, about half a year before his death, to remove from thence to Abermarless, for the benefit of a freer air. He resided constantly in his diocese, and carefully discharged all the episcopal functions. Though bishop Bull was a great admirer of our ecclesiastical constitution, yet he would often lament the distressed state of the church of England, chiefly owing to the decay of ancient discipline, and the great number of lay-impropriations, which he considered as a species of sacrilege, and insinuated that he had known instances of its being punished by the secret curse which hangs over sacrilegious persons. Some time before his last sickness, he entertained thoughts of addressing a circular letter to all his clergy; and, after his death, there was found among his papers one drawn up to that purpose. He had greatly impaired his health, by too intense and unseasonable an application to his studies, and, on the 27th of September, 1709, was taken with a violent fit of coughing, which brought on a spitting of blood. About the beginning of February following, he was seized with a distemper, supposed to be an ulcer, or what they call the inward piles; of which he died the 17th of the same month, and was buried, about a week after his death, at Brecknock/ leaving behind him but two children out of eleven.

He was tall of stature, and in his younger years thin and pale, but fuller and more sanguine in the middle and latter part of his age; his sight quick and strong, and his constitution firm and vigorous, till indefatigable reading, and nocturnal studies, to which he was very much addicted, had first impaired, and at length quite extinguished the -one, and subjected the other to many infirmities; for his sight failed him entirely, and his strength to a great degree, some years before he died. But whatever other bodily indispositions he contracted, by intense thinking, and a sedentary life, his head was always free, and remained unaffected to the last. As to the temperature and complexion of his body, that of melancholy seemed to prevail, but never so far as to indispose his mind for study and conversation. The vivacity of his natural temper exposed him to sharp and sudden fits of anger, which were but of short continuance, and sufficiently atoned for by the goodness and tenderness of his nature towards all his domestics. He had a firmness and constancy of mind which made him not easily moved when he had once fixed his purposes and resolutions. He had early a true sense of religion; and though he made a short excursion into the paths of vanity, yet he was entirely recovered a considerable time before he entered into holy orders. His great learning was tempered with that modest and humble opinion of it, that it thereby shone with greater lustre. His actions were no less instructive than his conversation; for his exact knowledge of the holy scriptures, and of the writings of the primitive fathers of the church, had so effectual an influence upon his practice, that it was indeed a fair, entire, and beautiful image of the prudence and probity, simplicity and benignity, humility and charity, purity and piety, of the primitive Christians. During his sickness, his admirable patience under exquisite pains, and his continual prayers, made it evident that his mind was much fuller of God than of his illness; and he entertained those that attended him with such beautiful and lively descriptions of religion and another world, as if he had a much clearer view than ordinary of what he believed.

Bishop Bull’s Sermons and the larger discourses, were published in 1713, 3 vols. 8vo, by Robert Nelson, esq. with a Life, occupying a fourth volume, which was also published separately. Some of the sermons are on curious subjects, and seem rather ingenious than edifying, but as an assertor of the doctrine of the Trinity, bishop Bull must be allowed to rank among the ablest divines of the last age.

, a celebrated musician, and doctor in that faculty, was descended from a family of that name in Somersetshire, and born about the year 1563. Having discovered an excellent natural genius for music, he was educated in that science, when very young, under Mr. William Blitheman, an eminent master, and organist of the chapel to queen Elizabeth. On the 9th of July 1586 he was admitted bachelor of music at Oxford, having exercised that art fourteen years; and, we are told, he would have proceeded in that university “had he not met with clowns and rigid puritans there, that could not endure church-music.” Some time after, he was created doctor of music at Cambridge; but in what year is uncertain, there being a deficiency in the register. In 1591 he was appointed organist of the Queen’s chapel, in the room of Mr. Blitheman, deceased; and on the 7th of July, the year following, he was incorporated doctor of music at Oxford. He was greatly admired for his fine hand on the organ, as well as for his compositions; several of which have been long since published in musical collections, besides a large number in manuscript, that made a part of the curious and valuable collection of music lately reposited in the library of Dr. Pepusch. Upon the establishment of Gresham-college, Dr. Bull was chosen the first professor of music there, about the beginning of March 1596, through the recommendation of queen Elizabeth; and not being able to speak in Latin, he was permitted to deliver his lectures altogether in English; which practice, so far as appears, has been ever since continued, though the professors of that science have often been men of learning. In 1601, his health being impaired, so that he was unable to perform the duty of his place, he went to travel, having obtained leave to substitute, as his deputy, Mr. Thomas Birde, son pf Mr. William Birde, one of the gentlemen of her majesty’s chapel. He continued abroad above a year. After the death of queen Elizabeth, our professor became chief organist to king James I. and December the 20th, the same year, he resigned his professorship of Gresham-college; but for what reason is not known. In 1613 he again left England, induced, probably, by the declining reputation of church-music, which at this time had not that regard paid to it, tfrat had been formerly. He went directly into the Netherlands, where, about Michaelmas, the same year, he was received into the service of 'the archduke; and Mr. Wood says he died at Hamburgh, or (as others, who remember him, have said) at Lubeck. His picture is yet preserved in the musicschool at Oxford, among other famous professors of that science, which hang round the room.

Ward has given a long list of his compositions in manuscript; but the only works in print are his lessons in the collection entitled “Parthenia,” the first music that ever was printed for the virginals. He appears from some lessons in this work, to have possessed a power of execution on the harpsichord far beyond what is generally conceived of the masters of that time. But Dr. Burney, who has entered very largely into the character of his music, seems to think that it evinces more labour than genius, and that the great difficulty of performing it is poorly recompensed by the effect produced.