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

, bart. a judge of the court of king’s-bench and common-pleas, the son of James Buller, esq. member of parliament for the county of Cornwall, by Jane, his second wife, one of the daughters of Allen earl Bathurst, was born in 1745, and educated at a private school in the west of England. After this he removed ta London, and was admitted of the Inner Temple, Feb. 1763, and became a pupil of sir William Ashurst, who was at that time a very eminent spe'cial-pleader, but whom, it has been thought, he excelled. He was always ranked among the most eminent of the profession in this branch, and his business, as a common -law draughtsman, was immediate, and immense. His practice also at the bar, to which he was called by the honourable society of the Middle Temple in Easter Term, 1772, was at first considerable, and in a very short period, became equal to that of almost any of his brethren. Devoting himself entirely to it, he never came into parliament. On Nov. 24, 1777, he was appointed king’s-counsel, and on the 27th of the same month, second judge of the Chester circuit. In Easter term, May 6, 1778, by the patronage of lord Mansfield, who had a high opinion of his talents, he was made a judge of the king’s-bench, in the room of sir Richard Aston. During the indisposition of lord Mansfield, for the last three or four years that he held the office of chief justice, sir Francis Buller executed almost all the business at the sittings ap nisi prius, with great ability, and lord Mansfield left him 2000l. in his will, which, it is said, Mr. justice Buller declined receiving of his lordship, when offered as a compensation for his trouble. On the resignation of lord Mansfield, his expectations were directed to the succession to the high office so long and ably filled by that venerable lawyer, but, for various reasons, sir Lloyd Kenyon was preferred. In 1794, in consequence of his declining state of health, which rendered him unequal to the laborious duties of that court, he was, on the death of judge Gould, removed to the court of common-pleas, but his health still continuing to decay, he was about to have obtained his majesty’s leave to resign, when he died suddenly, at his house in Bedford-square, June 4, 1800, and was interred in a vault in St. Andrew’s burying-ground. He was created a baronet in 1789, and was succeeded in titles and estate by his son sir F. Buller Yarde, which last name he took for an estate. Sir Francis Buller was allowed to be ably and deeply versed in the law, and was certainly more distinguished for substantial than showy talents. His eloquence at the bar was seldom admired, but his addresses from the bench were perspicuous, dignified, and logical. He possessed great quickness of perception, saw the consequences of a fact, and the drift of an argument at its first opening, and could immediately reply to an unforeseen objection, but was on some occasions thought rather hasty. He seldom, however, formed his opinions without due ^consideration, and was particularly tenacious of what he had thus considered.

As a writer he has conferred some obligations on the profession. His “Introduction to the law relative to Trials at Nisi Prius,” 1772, 4to, has passed through six editions, with occasional corrections and additions, the last of which was printed in 1793, and is considered as a standard work.

, a learned French writer, member of the academies of Besanc, on, Lyons, and Dijon, and a corresponding member of the academy of inscriptions, was born in 1699, and was professor of divinity in the university of Besangon from the year 1728; and afterwards dean. He had a surprising memory, and although devoted to controversial -studies, was of a mild and affable disposition. His works are of two kinds; some turning on religious matters, and others on literary inquiry. They are all accurate and solid; but we are not to look in them for elegance of style. The principal of them are: 1 “History of the establishment of Christianity, taken from Jewish and Pagan authors alone,” 1764, 4to. 2. “The existence of God demonstrated by nature,” 2 vols. 8vo. 3. “Answer to some objections of unbelievers to the Bible,” 3 vols. 12mo. 4. “De apostolica ecclesise Gallicanae origiue,” 1752, 12mo. 5. “Memoirs on the Celtic tongue,” 1754—59, 3 vols. fol. 6. “Researches into the history of Cards,” 1757, 8 vo. 7. “A dissertation on the history of France,” 1757, 8vo.

Of these works, the first was translated into English, and published in 1776, under the title of “The History, &c. translated by William Salisbury, B. D. with notes by the translator, and some strictures on Mr. Gibbon’s account of Christianity, and its first teachers,” 8vo. This is a very valuable work, but the original was long a scarce one in this country. Dr. Lardner, before he published the third volume of his “Collection of Testimonies,” endeavoured to procure a copy, but without success, and was therefore obliged to publish his last volume without being able to make any use of it. Dr. Lardner’s work is undoubtedly more complete and perfect, but the present contains within a narrow Compass, and therefore more useful to the general reader, a clear and distinct view of the facts on which Christianity is founded, during the first three centuriej, which are by far the most important. There are also in professor Bullet’st work some useful things which are not in Lardner; particularly a vindication of certain contested proofs; an argument in favour of the Christian cause, huilt upon the supposed silence of Josephus concerning Jesus Christ, &c. His plan is also different from Lardner’s, forming a connected discourse, without interruption, and therefore probably better suited to a numerous class of readers.

Our learned professor’s “Researches into the history o Cards” is at least amusing; but his “Memoires sur la langue Celtique” contributed most to his reputation as a scholar of profound research. In these he has endeavoured to prove that all Europeans are descended from one common origin, and, consequently, now speak only different dialects of the same language. In this investigation an immense number of books and Mss. appear to have been consulted, and he made some progress in all the languages of the earth, and had recourse to every living and dead tongue, where the smallest vestiges of the Celtic were to be found. In his dissertations on different subjects of the history of France are many curious inquiries.

, a learned English physician and botanist, was descended from an ancient family, and born in the isle of Ely, about the beginning of Henry the Eighth’s reign. He was bred up at Cambridge, as some say, at Oxford according to others; but probably both those nurseries of learning had a share in his education. We know, however, but little of his personal history, though he was famous in his profession, and a member of the college of physicians in London, except what we are able to collect from his works. Tanner says, that he was a divine, as well as a physician; that he wrote a book against transubstantiation; and that in June 1550 he was inducted into the rectory of Blaxhall, in Suffolk, which he resigned in November 1554. From his works we learn that he had been a traveller over several parts of Germany, Scotland, and especially England; and he seems to have made it his business to acquaint himself with the natural history of each place, and with the products of its soil. It appears, however, that he was more permanently settled at Durham, where he, practised physic with great reputation; and, among others of the most eminent inhabitants, was in great favour with sir Thomas Hilton, knight, baron of Hilton, to whom he dedicated a book in the last year of queen Mary’s reign. In 1560, he went to London, where, to his infinite surprise, he found himself accused by Mr. William Hilton of Biddick, of having murdered his brother, the baron aforesaid; who really died among his own friends of a malignant fever. The innocent doctor was easily cleared, yet his enemy hired some ruffians to assassinate him, and when disappointed in this, arrested Dr. Bulleyn in an action, and confined him in prison a long time; where he wrote some of his medical treatises. He was a very learned, experienced, and able physician. He was very intimate with the works of the ancient physicians and naturalists, both Greek, Roman, and Arabian. He was also a man of probity and piety, and though he Jived in the times of popery, does not appear to have been tainted with its principles. He died Jan. 7, 1576, and was buried in the same grave with his brother Richard Bulleyn, a divine, who died thirteen years before, in the church of St. Giles, Cripplegate. There is an inscription on their tomb, with some Latin verses, in which they are celebrated as men famous for their learning and piety. Of Dr. Bulleyn particularly it is said, that he was always as ready to accommodate the poor as the rich, with medicines for the relief of their distempers. There is a profile of Bulleyn, with a long beard, before his “Government of Health,” and a whole-length of him in wood, prefixed to his “Bulwarke of defence.” He was an ancestor of the late Dr. Stukeley, who, in 1722, was at the expence of having a small head of him engraved.

He wrote, 1. “The Government of Health,” 1558, 8vo. 2. “Regimen against the Pleurisy,” 1562, 8vo. 3. “Bulwark of defence against all sickness, soreness, and wounds, that daily assault mankind,” &c. 1562, folio. This work consists of, first, The book of compounds, with a table of their names, and the apothecaries rules or terms; secondly, The book of the use of sick men and medicines. These are both composed in dialogues between Sickness and Health. Then follows, thirdly, The book of simples, being an Herbal in the form of a dialogue; at the end of which are the wooden cuts of some plants, and of some limbecks or stills; and, fourthly, a dialogue between Soreness and Chirurgery, concerning impostumations and wounds, and their causes and cures. This tract has three wooden cuts in it; one representing a man’s body on the forepart full of sores and swellings; the other, in like manner, behind; the third is also a human figure, in which the veins are seen directed to, and named, which are to be opened in phlebotomy. 4. A dialogue both pleasant and pitiful, wherein is shewed a godly regimen against the plague, with consolations and comfort against death, 1564, 8vo. Some other pieces of a smaller nature are ascribed to Dr. Bulleyn, but of very little consequence.

Dr. Pulteney is of opinion that Bulleyn’s specific knowledge of Botany seems to have been but slender; but his zeal for the promotion of the useful arts of gardening, the general culture of the land, and the commercial interests of the kingdom, deserve the highest praise, and for the information he has left of these affairs, in his own time, posterity owe him acknowledgements. His travels, and the great attention he had paid to the native productions of his own country, had given him a comprehensive view of the natural fertility of the soil and climate of England; which, from the tenour of his writings, seems to have been, at that time, by some people musch depreciated. He opposes this idea with patriotic zeal and concern, and alleges various examples to prove, that we had excellent apples, pears, plums, cherries, and hops, of our own growth, before the importation of these articles into England by the London and Kentish gardeners, but that the culture of them had been greatly neglected.

, a celebrated astronomer and scholar, was born of protestant parents, at Houdun in France, September the 28th, 1605; and having finished his studies in philosophy at Paris, and in civil law at Poictiers, he applied to mathematics, theology, sacred and profane history, and civil law, with such assiduity, that he became eminent in each of these departments, and acquired the reputation of an universal genius. As he had travelled for his improvement into Italy, Germany, Poland, and the Levant, he formed an extensive acquaintance with men of letters, and maintained a correspondence with the most distinguished persons of his time. Although he had been educated a protestant, he changed his profession at the age of 27 years, and became a catholic priest. His life was prolonged to his 89th year; and having retired to the abbey of St. Victor at Paris in 1689, he died there November the 25th, 1694. Besides his pieces concerning ecclesiastical rights, which excited attention, and the history of Ducas, printed at the Louvre, in 1649, in the original Greek, with a Latin version and notes, he was the author of several other works, chiefly mathematical and philosophical. His “Treatise on the Nature of Light” was published in 1638; and his work entitled, “Philolaus, sive de vero Systema Mundi,” or his true system of the world, according to Philolaus, an ancient philosopher and astronomer, in the same year, and republished in 1645, under the title of “Astronomia Philolaica,” grounded upon the hypothesis of the earth’s motion, and the elliptical orbit described by the planet’s motion about a cone. To which he added tables entitled “Tabulæ Philolaicæ:” a work which Riccioli says ought to be attentively read by all students of astronomy. He considered the hypothesis, or approximation of bishop Ward, and found it not to agree with the planet Mars; and shewed in his defence of the Philolaic astronomy against the bishop, that from four observations made by Tycho on the planet Mars, that planet in the first and third quarters of the mean anomaly, was more forward than it ought to be according to Ward’s hypothesis; but in the 2d and 4th quadrant of the same, the planet was not so far advanced as that hypothesis required. He therefore set about a correction of the bishop’s hypothesis, and made it to answer more exactly to the orbits of the planets, which were most eccentric, and introduced what is called by Street, in his “Caroline Tables,” the Variation: for these tables were calculated from this correction of Bullialdus, and exceeded all in exactness that went before. This correction is, in the judgment of Dr. Gregory, a very happy one, if it be not set above its due place; and be accounted no more than a correction of an approximation to the true system: For by this means we are enabled to gather the coequate anomaly a priori and directly from the mean, and the observations are well enough answered at the same time; which, in Mercator’s opinion, no one had effected before. It is remarkable that the ellipsis which he has chosen for a planet’s motion, is such a one as, if cut out of a cone, will have the axis of the cone passing through one of its foci, viz. that next the aphelion.

In 1657, was published his treatise “De Lineis Spiralibus, Exerc. Geom.& Astron.” Paris, 4to. In 1682 came out at Paris, in folio, his large work entitled, “Opus novum ad Arithmeticam Infinitorum:” a work which is a diffuse amplification of Dr. Wallis’s Arithmetic of Infinites, and which Wallis treats of particularly in the 80th chapter of his historical treatise of Algebra. He wrote also two admonitions to astronomers. The first, concerning a new star in the neck of the Whale, appearing at some times, and disappearing at others. The 2d, concerning a nebulous star in the northern part of Andromeda’s girdle, not discovered by any of the ancients. This star also appeared and disappeared by turns. And as these phenomena appeared new and surprizing, he strongly recommended the observing them to all that might be curious in astronomy.

, one of the reformers, was born, at Bremgarten, “a village near Zurich, in Switzerland, July 18, 1504. At the age of twelve he was sent by his father to Emmeric, to be instructed in grammar-learning, and here he remained three years, during which his father, to make him feel for the distresses of others, and be more frugal and modest in his dress, and temperate in his diet, withdrew that money with which he was wont to supply him; so that Bullinger was forced, according to the custom of those times, to subsist on the alms he got by singing from door to door. While here, he was strongly inclined to enter among the Carthusians, but was dissuaded from it by an elder brother. At fifteen years of age he was sent to Cologn, where he studied logic, and commenced B. A. at sixteen years old. He afterwards betook himself to the study of divinity and canon law, and to the reading of the fathers, and conceived such a dislike to the schooldivines, as in 1520, to write some dialogues against them; and about the same time he began to see the errors of the church of Rome, from which, however, he did not immediately separate. In 1522, he commenced M. A. and returning home, he spent a year in his father’s house, wholly employing himself in his studies. The year after, he was called by the abbot of La Chapelle, a Cistercian abbey near Zurich, to teach in that place, which he did with great reputation for four years, and was very instrumental in causing the reformation of Zuinglius to be received. It is very remarkable that while thus teaching and changing the sentiments of the Cistercians in this place, it does not appear that he was a clergyman in the communion of the see of Rome, nor that he had any share in the monastic observances of the house. Zuinglius, assisted by Oecolampadius and Bucer, had established the reformed doctrines at Zurich in 1523; and in 1527, Bullinger attended the lectures of Zuinglius in that city, for some months, renewed his acquaintance with Greek, and began the study of Hebrew. He preached also publicly by a licence from the synod, and accompanied Zuinglius at the famous disputation held at Bern in 1528. The year following, he was called to be minister of the protestant church, in his native place at Bremgarten, and married a wife, who brought him six sons and five daughters, and died in 1564. He met with great opposition from the papists and anabaptists in his parish, but disputed publicly, and wrote several books against them. The victory gained by the Romish cantons over the protestants in a battle fought 1531, forced him, together with his father, brother, and colleague, to fly to Zurich, where he was chosen pastor in the room of Zninglius, slain in the late battle. He was also employed in several ecclesiastical negociations, with a view to reconcile the Zuiuglians and Lutherans, and to reply to the, harsh censures which were published by Luther against the doctrine of the Swiss churches respecting the sacrament. In 1549, he concurred with Calvin in drawing up a formulary, expressing the conformity of belief which subsisted between the churches of Zurich and Geneva, and intended on the part of Calvin, for obviating any suspicions that he inclined to the opinion of Luther with respect to the sacra, ment. He greatly assisted the English divines who fled into Switzerland from the persecution raised in England by queen Mary, and ably confuted the pope’s bull excommunicating queen Elizabeth. The magistrates of Zurich, by his persuasion, erected a new college in 1538. He also prevailed with them to erect, in a place that had formerly been a nunnery, a new school, in which fifteen youths were trained up under an able master, and supplied with food, raiment, and other necessaries. In 1549, he by his influence hindered the Swiss from renewing their league with Henry It. of France; representing to them, that it was neither just nor lawful for a man to suffer himself to be hired to shed another man’s blood, from whom himself had never received any injury. In 1551 he wrote a book, the purport of which was to shew, that the council of Trent had no other design than to oppress the professors of sound religion; and, therefore, that the cantons should pay no regard to the invitations of the pope, which solicited their sending deputies to that council. In 1561 he commenced a controversy with Brentius concerning the ubiquity of the body of Christ, zealously maintained by Brentius, and as vehemently opposed by Bullinger, which Continued till his death, on the 17th of September, 1575. His funeral oration was pronounced by John Stukius, and his life was written by Josias Simler (who had married one of his daughters), and was published at Zurich in 1575, 4to, with Stukius’s oration, and the poetical tributes of many eminent men of his time. Bullinger' s printed works are very numerous, doctrinal, practical, and controversial, but no collection has ever been made of them. His high reputation in England, during the progress of the reformation, occasioned the following to be either translated into English, or published here: 1.” A hundred Sermons upon the Apocalypse,“1561, 4to. 2.” Bullae papisticae contra reginam Elizabetham, refutatio,“1571, 4to. 3.” The Judgment of Bullinger, declaring it to be lawful for the ministers of the church of England to wear the apparel prescribed by the laws, &c.“Eng. and Lat. 1566, 8vo. 4.” Twenty-six Sermons on Jeremiah,“1583. 5.” An epistle on the Mass, with one of Calvin’s,“1548, 8vo. 6.” A treatise or sermon, concerning Magistrates and Obedience of Subjects, also concerning the affairs of War,“1549, 8vo. 7,” Tragedies of Tyrants, exercised upon the church of God from the birth of Christ unto this present year 1572,“translated by Tho. Twine, 1575, 8vo. 8.” Exhortation to the ministers of God’s Word, &c.“1575, 8vo. 9.” Two Sermons on the end of the World,“1596, 8vo. 10.” Questions of religion cast abroad in Helvetia by the adversaries of the same, and answered by M. H. Bullinger of Zurich, reduced into seventeen common places,“1572, 8vo. 11.” Common places of Christian Religion,“1572 and 158J, 8vo. 12.” Bullinger’s Decades, in Latin,“1586. 13.” The Summe of the Four Evangelists,“1582, 8vo. 14.” The Sum or Substance pf St. Paul’s Epistle to the Thessalonians,“1538, 8vo. 15.” Three Dialogues between the seditious Libertine or rebel Anabaptist, and the true obedient Christian,“1551, 8vo. 16.” Fifty godly and learned Sermons, divided into five decades, containing the chief and principal points of Christian religion," a very thick 4to vol. 1577, particularly described by Ames. This book was held in high estimation in the reign of queen Elizabeth. In 1586, archbishop Whitgift, in full convocation, procured an order to be made that every clergyman of a certain standing should procure a copy of them, read one of the sermons contained in them every week, and make notes of the principal matters.

, a man of learning in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and the friend of Erasmus, who corresponded with him by the name of Bovillus, was a native of Berkshire, according to Fuller. He was educated at Queen’s college, Cambridge, where he took his bachelor’s degree in 1504, and his master’s in 1507, and was chosen fellow in the last mentioned year. He commenced D. D. in 1520, and was vice-chancellor in 1524—5. He was esteemed a man of abilities, and chosen by cardinal Wolsey to answer Luther. The cardinal also made him his chaplain, but we do not find that he raised him to any higher dignity, yet the oration he spoke in favour of the cardinal, now printed in Fiddes’s life of that great churchman, seems to have merited a higher reward. By his letters to Erasmus, it appears that he was an able Grecian at a time when that language was little known. In 1513, in conjunction with Mr. Walden, he read a mathematical lecture, and had a salary from the university for it. He was also one of the twelve preachers sent out by that university in 1515. The biographers of Erasmus profess their ignorance of the time of his death. Tanner fixes it in 1526, but Dodd says he was living in 1530. He wrote, 1. “De Captivitate Babylonica contra Lutherum.” 2. “Epistolse et Orationes.” 3. “De Serpentibus siticulosis,” a translation from the Greek of Lucian, printed at Cambridge, 1521, 4to. 4. “Oratio coram Archiepiscopo Eboracensi,” ibid. 1521, s 4to.

, a lawyer of some note during the usurpation, was the second son of Edward Buistrode of Hughley or Hedgley, near Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire, and was born in 1588. 'In 1603 he became a commoner of St. John’s college, Oxford, but left it without a degree, and removed to the Inner Temple, London, where he studied law, under the patronage of sir James Whitlock, whose learning Bulstrode celebrates in high terms. After being called to the bar, he was in 8 Car. I. Lent-reader, and taking part with the presbyterians in the rebellion, was promoted to be one of the justices of North Wales in 1649, by the interest of his nephew the celebrated Bulstrocle Whitlock. He was also an itinerant justice, particularly at Warwick in 1653, in which county he had an estate at Astley. He died at the Inner Temple, of which he was a bencher, in April 1659, and was buried in the Temple church. He published “A Golden Chain, or Miscellany of divers sentences of the sacred scriptures, and of other authors, &c.” London, 1657, 8vo, but what he is best known by is his “Reports of Cases in B. R. regn. Jac. 1. & Car. I.” which were first published in 1657, 1658, and 1659, in three parts, fol. Mr. Bridgman remarks that in 2 Bulstrode, 1658, there is a chasm in the paging from 99 to 109. In 1688 a second edition was published, in which there is also a chasm from 104 to 114; yet there are the same number of pages in both editions, and the book is perfect. Wood mentions an edition of 1691. Biilstrode is said to have adopted the method of Plowden in his reports, than which there cannot be a stronger recommendation.

, eldest son of the preceding, was educated at Pembroke-hall, Cambridge, whence he went to London, and after studying law became a barrister; but being of very different principles from his father, joined the forces of his unhappy sovereign Charles I. and was quarter-master general until the forces were disbanded at Truro. At the restoration, he was sent to reside as agent at Brussels, and on his return in 1675, Charles II. knighted and made him resident, and James II. made him his envoy. Disapproving of the revolution, he adhered to the abdicated monarch, and accompanied him to St. Germains, where he remained twenty-two years. We know not if this be meant as the period of his life, but he is said to have died aged 101, which brings him to the year 1782, contrary to all probability, or even fact, for his great age at the time of his death is mentioned in a panegyric upon him, inserted in 1715, in the ninth volume, or what is called the spurious volume of the Spectator, and if he died much before 1715, he could not have attained the vast age attributed to him, consistently with the dates of his father’s age.

At eighty he is said to have composed, 1. 185 elegies and epigrams, all on religious subjects; and before that, in early life, a poem on the birth of the duke of York, 1721. 2. “Letters to the Earl of Arlington,” 1712, 8vo. 3. “Essays” on subjects of manners and morals, 1715, 8vo. 4. “Memoirs and Reflections upon the reigns and governments of Charles I. and II.” He appears to have been a man of talents and considerable learning, and in his political course, able and consistent. His son Whitlocke Buistrode, who published his “Essays,” enjoyed the office of prothonotary of the marshal’s court, and published a treatise on the transmigration of souls, which went through two editions, 1692, 1693, 8vo, and was translated into Latin by Oswald Dyke, 1725. 2. “Essays, ecclesiastical and civil,” 1706, 8vo. 3. “Letters between him and Dr. Wood,” physician to the pretender. 4. “Compendium of the crown laws, in three charges to the grand jury at Westminster,” 1723, 8vo. He died Nov. 27, 1724, in his seventy-fourth year, and was buried in Heston church, Middlesex, where there is a monument and inscription on the north wall of the chancel.

, a learned French author, was born at Rouen in 1615, and succeeded his uncle, as king’s secretary, which office he occupied for fourteen years, at the end of which he withdrew to study and religious retirement among the Benedictines of St. Maur, with whom he passed the remainder of his days. His principal works were “An Essay on the monastic History of the East,” 1680, 8vo, describing the manners, &c. of the Coenobites, and proving that monastic institutions are not so modern as has been supposed. “Abridgment of the History of the Order of St. Benedict, as far as the tenth century,” 1684, 2 vols. 4to. “Translation of the Dialogues of Gregory the Great,” with notes, 1689, 12mo; but his modesty would not permit him to annex his name to his works. His style was formed on the model of the writers of the Port Royal; and his knowledge of languages was very extensive. He died of an apoplexy in 1693. His brother, Charles Bulteau, published, in 1674, a “Treatise on the precedence of the Kings of France over those of Spain,” 1764, 4to. He died, dean of the king’s secretaries, in 1710.

, of the seventeenth century, was author of several books of the language of the hand, of physiognomy, and of instructions to the deaf and dumb, intended, as he expresses it, “to bring those who are so born to hear the sound of words with their eyes, and thence to learn to speak with their tongues.” This is explained in his “Chirologia, or the natural Language of the Hand, &c.” 1644, 8vo. He was also, author of “Pathomyotomia,” or a dissection of the significative muscles of the affections of the mind, 1649, 12mo. The most curious of his works is his “Anthropo-metamorphosis; Man transformed, or the artificial changeling;” 1653, 4to, in which he shews what a strange variety of shapes and dresses mankind have appeared in, in the different ages and nations of the world. At the end bf the first edition of this book in 12mo is a catalogue of the author’s works in print and ms. What he calls the language of the hand, or the art of speaking by the fingers, is yet known in every boardingichool and nursery, where, however, the more natural substitute is very soon learned.

, an elegant Latin scholar, was born at Toulouse in 1499, and studied at Paris, where he was distinguished by his quick progress and promising talents. On his return to Toulouse, finding his family unable to maintain him, he went to Padua, where he was supported by Emilius Perrot. He was afterwards taken into the family of Lazarus de Baif, the French ambassador at Venice, by whose generosity he was not only maintained, but enabled to study the Greek tongue, and he afterwards studied Hebrew. George de Selve, bishop of Lavaur, who succeeded de Baif as ambassador, retained Bunel in his service, and when his embassy was finished, carried him with him to Levaur. Upon the death of that prelate, which happened in 1541, Bunel returned to Toulouse^ where he would have been reduced to the greatest indigence, had not messieurs de Faur, the patrons of virtue and science, extended their liberality to him unasked. One of these gentlemen appointed him tutor to his sons; but whilst he was making the tour of Italy with them, he was cut off at Turin by a fever, in 1546. Mr. Bayle says, that he was one of the politest writers of the Latin tongue in the sixteenth century; but though he was advantageously distinguished by the eloquence of his Ciceronian style, he was still more so by the strictness of his morals. The magistrates of his native town of Toulouse set up a marble statue to his memory in their town-house. He left som'e Latin epistles written with the utmost purity, which were first published by Charles Stevens in 1551, and afterwards by Henry Stevens in 1581. Another, but a more incorrect edition, was printed at Toulouse in 1687, with notes by Mr. Gravero, advocate of Nimes.

, descended from an ancient family in Yorkshire, was born at a house called the Vache, near Chalfont St. Giles’s, in Buckinghamshire, in 1540, and when sixteen years old was sent to Oxford, and having taken his bachelor’s degree, was elected probationer fellow of Magdalen college. He was at this time distinguished for his knowledge of logic and philosophy, and soon after went to Staple’s Inn, and then to Gray’s Inn, where he spent about two years in the study of the law, which profession his father wished him to follow. His own inclination, however, was for the study of divinity, which displeased his father so much, that, to use his own words, he “cast him off,” although a man of piety himself, and one that had fled for his religion in queen Mary’s days. He returned accordingly to Oxford, and took his master’s degree in 1564. In, the year following he was elected fellow of Merton college, an irregular act of the society, which, however, Wood says was absolutely necessary, as there was no person then in Merton college able to preach any public sermon in the college turn; and not only there, but throughout the university at large, there was a great scarcity of theologists. In 1570 he was admitted to the reading of the sentences, and about the same time became chaplain to 'archbishop Grindall, who gave him a prebend in that church, and the rectory of Bolton-Percy about six miles distant. This rectory he held twenty-five years, and then resigned it, but retained his prebend. In 1570 we also find that he was subdean of York, which he resigned in 1579. In 1585 he was collated, being then B. D. to a prebend in Carlisle, and had likewise, although we know not at what period, a prebend in St. Paul’s. It appears that he preached and catechised very frequently, both in Oxford and in many other places, travelling over a considerable part of the kingdom, and preaching wherever there appeared a want of clergy. This zeal, his being a Calvinist, and his preaching extempore, brought him under the imputation of being too forward and meddling, against which he vindicated himself in “A Defence of his labours in the work of the Ministry,” written Jan. 20, 1602, but circulated only in manuscript. He died at Cawood in Yorkshire, Feb. 26 (on his monument, but 27 in archbishop Matthews’s ms diary) 1617, and was buried in York cathedral. He published, 1. “The Sum of Christian Religion,” Lond. 1576, 8vo. 2. “Abridgment of Calvin’s Institutions,” from May’s translation, ibid. 1580, 8vo. 3. “Sceptre of Judah,” &c. ibid. 1584, 8vo. 4. “The Coronation of King David, &c.” 4to, 1588. 5. Three or four controversial pamphlets with Parsons, the Jesuit. 6. “The Corner Stone, or a form of teaching Jesus Christ out of the Scriptures,” ibid. 1611, fol.

, younger brother of the preceding, was born at Vache, May 8, 1543, came to Oxford in 1558, and after taking his bachelor’s degree, was chosen perpetual fellow of Magdalen college in 1562. He then took his master’s degree, and entered into holy orders in 1567. He was appointed chaplain to the earl of Bedford, and leaving his fellowship in 1571, went to the north of England, where he became a frequent and popular preacher, like his brother. In May 1572 he was inducted into a prebend of Durham; in 1573 he was made archdeacon of Northumberland, and in 1578 he was presented to the rectory of Ryton in the bishopric of Durham, on which he resigned his archdeaconry. He died April 16, 1617, a few weeks after his brother, and wa’s buried in Ryton church. Wood represents him as a zealous enemy of popery, an admirer of Calvin, and a man of great charity. His works are three tracts against cardinal Bellarmm and popery; an “Exposition of Romans iii. 28, on Justification b) Faith,” London, 1616, 4to; and “Plain and familiar exposition of the Ten Commandments,” ibid. 1617, 8vo. He also wrote a commentary on the prophet Joel, being the substance of some sermons; but, according to Wood, this was left in manuscript.

, author of the justly-admired allegory of the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” was born at Elstow, near Bedford, 1628. His parents, though very mean, took care to give him that learning which was suitable to their condition, bringing him up to read and write, both which he quickly forgot, abandoning himself to all manner of wickedness, but not without frequent checks of conscience. One day being at play with his companions (the writer of his life tells us), a voice suddenly darted from heaven into his soul, saying, “Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell!” This put him into such a consternation, that he immediately left his sport; and looking up to heaven, thought he saw the Lord Jesus looking down upon him, as one highly displeased with him, and threatening him with some grievous punishment for his ungodly practices. At another time, whilst he was uttering many oaths, he was severely reproved by a woman, who was herself a notorious sinner: she told him he was the ugliest fellow for swearing that ever she heard in all her life, and that he was able to spoil all the youth of the town, if they came but into his company. This reproof coming from a woman, whom he knew to be very wicked, filled him with secret shame; and made him, from that time, very much refrain from it. His father brought him up to his own business, which was that of a tinker. Being a soldier in the parliament army, at the siege of Leicester, in 1645, he was drawn out to stand sentinel; but another soldier of his company desired to take his place, to which he agreed, and thus escaped being shot by a musket-ball, which took off his comrade. About 1655 he was admitted a member of a baptist congregation at Bedford, and soon after was chosen their preacher. In 1660, being convicted at the sessions of holding unlawful assemblies and conventicles, he was sentenced to perpetual banishment, and in the mean time committed to gaol, from which he was discharged, after a confinement of twelve years and an half, by the compassionate interposition of Dr. Barlow, bishop of Lincoln. During his imprisonment, his own hand ministered to his necessities, making many an hundred gross of long-tagged thread laces, a trade which he had learned since his confinement. At this time he also wrote many of his tracts, particularly the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Afterwards, being at liberty, he travelled into several parts of England, to visit and confirm the brethren, which procured him the epithet of Bishop Bunyan. When the declaration of James II. for liberty of conscience was published, he, by the contributions of his followers, built a meeting-house in Bedford, and preached constantly to a numerous audience. He died in London of a fever, 1688, aged sixty. He had by his wife four children, one of whom, named Mary, was blind. This daughter, he said, lay nearer his heart whilst he was in prison, than all the rest; and that the thought of her enduring hardship would be sometimes almost ready to break his heart, but that God greatly supported him by these two texts of scripture, “Leave the fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let the widows trust in. me. The Lord said, Verily it shall be well with thy remnant; verily I will cause the enemy to entreat thee well in the time of evil.” Jer. xlix. 11. and chap. xv. 11. His works are collected in two volumes in folio, printed at London in 1736-7, and reprinted in 1760, and often since in various forms. The continuator of his life, in the second of those volumes, tells us, that “he appeared in countenance to be of a stern and rough temper, but in his conversation mild and affable; not given to loquacity, or much discourse in company, unless some urgent occasion required it; observing never to boast of himself or his parts, but rather seem low in his own eyes, and submit himself to the judgment o others; abhorring lying and swearing; being just in all that lay in his power to his word; not seeking to revenge injuries, loving to reconcile differences, and making friendship with all. He had a sharp quick eye; accompanied with an excellent discerning of persons, being of good judgment and quick wit. As for his person, he was tall of stature, strong boned, though not corpulent: somewhat of a ruddy face, with sparkling eyes, wearing, his hair oil his upper lip, after the old British fashion; his hair reddish, but in his latter days time had sprinkled it with gray; his nose well-set, but not declining or bending, and his mouth moderately large; his forehead something high, and his habit always plain and modest.”

Of all his works, the “Pilgrim’s Progress” has attained the greatest popularity, and greater than any other human composition. It w.as remarked by the learned Dr. Samuel Johnson, that the Pilgrim’s Progress has had the best evidence of its merit, namely, the general and continued Approbation of mankind. No work of human composition can certainly be compared with it in universality and extent of popularity. Besides having been translated into several European languages, scarce a year has passed, since its first appearance, in which the public has not called for a new edition. For many years, however, this work was confined to the serious part of the world for whom it was intended, and was seldom noticed by others but as the production of an illiterate man, calculated only to please illiterate people: an objection which, if it had been just, could not be said to militate very strongly against its merit. However necessary learning may be to guard the outworks of Christianity against the attacks of infidels, pure and undefiled religion requires so little literature to inculcate it in the case of others, or to receive it ourselves, that we find it had no hand in the first promulgation of the gospel, nor much in the various means that have been taken to perpetuate it. But Banyan’s want of education is the highest praise that can be given. Such a defect exhibits the originality of his genius in the strongest light: and since more attention has been paid by men of critical taste to his “Pilgrim’s Progress,” he has been admitted into a higher rank among English writers, and it seems universally acknowledged that nothing was wanting to advance him yet higher but the advantages of education, or of an intimacy with the best writers in his own language.

Dr. Johnson, whose opinion has been already quoted in part, conceived so high an opinion of the allegorical structure of the Pilgrim, that he thought Bunyan must have read Spenser, and observes, as a remarkable circumstance, that the Pilgrim’s Progress begins very much like the poem of Dante, although there was no translation of Dante when Bunyan wrote. Dr. Beattie says that some of the allegories in the Pilgrim are well conceived, and prove the author to have possessed powers of invention, which, if they had been refined by learning, might have produced something very noble. What learning might have done to Bunyan we no more can tell than we can tell what it might have done to Shakspteare; but, in our opinion, Bunyan, without its aid, has produced “something very noble,” because he has produced a work the most perfect in its kind, and which has baffled, and continues to baffle all attempts at imitation. The elegant author, whom we have just quoted, goes on to say “that the work has been imitated, but with little success. The learned bishop Patrick wrote the ‘ Parable of the Pilgrim,’ but I am not satisfied that he borrowed the hint, as it is generally thought he did, from John Bunyan. There is no resemblance in the plan, nor does the bishop speak a word of the Pilgrim’s Progress, which I think he would have done, if he had seen it. Besides, Bunyan’s fable is full of incident; Patrick’s is dry, didactic, verbose, and exceedingly barren in the invention.”

The rev. Mr. Granger, in his Biographical History of England, is yet more decided in his admiration of* Bunyan’s talents. “Bunyan, who has been mentioned among the least and lowest of our writers, and even ridiculed as a driveller by those who have never read him, deserves a much higher rank than is commonly imagined. His ' Pilgrim’s Progress’ gives us a clear and distinct idea of Calvinisftcal divinity. The allegory is admirably carried on, and the characters justly drawn and uniformly supported. The author’s original and poetic genius shines through the coarseness and vulgarity of his language, and intimates that if he had been a master of numbers, he might have composed a poem worthy of Spenser himself. As this opinion may be deemed paradoxical, I shall venture to name two persons of eminence of the same sentiments; one, the late Mr. Merrick of Reading (who has been heard to say in conversation, that Bunyan’s invention was like that of Homer); the other, Dr. Roberts, now (late) fellow of Eton college.”

These opinions of Bunyan will be found amply justified by an impartial perusal of the work in question, except with regard to what is said of “the coarseness and vulgarity” of Bunyan’s style, which is certainly very unjust His style, if compared with the writers of his age on subjects of religion, and particularly, if his want of education be taken into consideration, will suffer very little. On the other hand, there is reason to suspect that, by some of these critics, simplicity has been mistaken for vulgarity, although we are willing to allow that a few phrases might be elevated in expression without injury to the sentiment. But of what author in the seventeenth century may not this be said? It ought also to be remembered that the “Pilgrim’s Progress” was written while the author was suffering a long imprisonment, during which the only books to which he had access were the Bible and Fox’s Martyroiogy; and it is evident that the whole work is sprinkled over with the phraseology of scripture, not only because it was that in which he was most conversant, but that which was the best adapted to his subject.

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

Of late years many imitations have been attempted, and many rivals have appeared to Bunyan, but while candour obliges us to allow, in some instances, the goodness of the intention, and that they are written in a style which promises to be useful, it is at the same time justice to our author to say, that they fall very short of his performance in almost every requisite: in simplicity, in the preservation of the allegorical characters, and in that regular and uniform progress which conducts the hero through every scene, and renders every scene and every episode subservient to the main purpose. How well this has been executed, the constant and increasing popularity of the “Pilgrim’s Progress” is sufficient to demonstrate. What pleases all, and pleases long, must have extraordinary merit: and that there is a peculiar fascination about the Pilgrim has never been denied either by those who do not read to be instructed, or “who are averse to the author’s religious opinions. Of this latter, we have a striking instance in dean Swift. In his celebrated Letter to a yeung Clergyman he says,” I have been better entertained, and more informed, by a few pages in the Pilgrim’s Progress, than by a long discourse upon the will, and the intellect, and simple and complex ideas." It must be allowed to be no small merit to have fixed the attention of such a man as Swift, and to have conciliated the esteem of men of critical taste, on account of the powers of invention, and the exercise of a rich and fertile imagination.

It may be proper here to remark, that there is a small book, which has been often printed with it under the title of a Third Part of the Pilgrim’s Progress; but the purpose of our making the remark is to guard our readers against it as a very gross imposition. The late rev. John Newton, by a very happy figure, asserts that “a common hedgestake deserves as much to be compared with Aaron’s rod, which yielded blossoms and almonds, as this poor performance to be obtruded upon the world under the title of the” Third Part of the Pilgrim’s Progress." Besides that this forgery contradicts Bunyan’s doctrines, it is evident that his plan was completed in his Second Part, and that no addition could have been made even by his own ingenious pen, that would not have partaken of the nature of a repetition. It remains to be noticed, that they who have read no other production of Bunyan, have yet to learn the extent of the wonderful powers displayed in his various works. Considering his narrow and confined education, we have been almost equally struck with the perspicuous an^ clear views of his various theological and practical treatises, as the works of a man gifted in a most uncommon degree.

, an Italian historian, was born at Lucca in 1710, of a reputable family, and first embraced the ecclesiastical state. His studies being finished, he went to Rome, and during a stay of some years in that city, attracted the notice of the cardinal de Polignac, who was desirous of gaining his attachment, but whom he refused, to accompany into France. Not meeting iif the church with the advantages he had promised himself, he gave it up, in order to bear arms in the service of the king of the Two Sicilies, which, however, did not prevent his devoting himself to the study of the belles-lettres. He wrote in Latin the history of the war of Velletri in 1745, between the Austrians and Neapolitans, in which he was employed, under the title of “De rebus ad Velitras gestis commentarius,” 1746, 4to. This obtained him a pension from the king of Naples, and the rank of commissary general of artillery. But his most considerable work is the history of the war in Italy, which appeared in 1750 and 1751, under this title, “Debello Italico commentarii,” 4to, in three books, for which he got the title of count to himself and his descendants. These two histories are much esteemed for the correctness of the narration and the purity of the Latinity, and have been several times reprinted. The count de Buonamici also composed a treatise “De scientia militari,” but which has not hitherto been published. He died in 1761, at Lucca, the place of his nativity, whither he was come for the benefit of his health. The name of Castruccio being very famous in the history of Lucca, he adopted it on his going into the Neapolitan service, instead of his baptismal name, which was FrancisJoseph-Mary. His work on the war in Italy was translated into English, and published in 1753 at London by A. Wishart, M. A. under the title of “Commentaries of the late war in Italy,” 8vo.

, a most illustrious painter, sculptor, and architect, was born in the castle of Gaprese, in Tuscany, March 6, 1474, and descended from the noble family of the counts of Canossa. At the time of his birth, his father, Lodovico di Leonardo Buonarroti Sinione, was podesta, or governor of Caprese and Chiusi, and as he had not risen above the superstitious belief in astrological predictions, so common in that age, he was probably pleased to hear that “his chikl would be a very extraordinary genius.” His biographers indeed go so far as to tell us of a prediction, that he would excel in painting, sculpture, and architecture. When of a proper age, Michel Angelo was sent to a grammar-school at Florence, where, whatever progress he might make in his books, he contracted a fondness for drawing, which at first alarmed the pride of his family, but his father at length perceiving that it was hopeless to give his mind any other direction, placed him under Domenico Ghirlanda‘io, the most eminent painter at that time in Florence, and one of the most celebrated in Italy. He was accordingly articled for three years to Ghirlanda’io, from April 1488, but is said to have reaped no benefit from his instructions, as his master soon became jealous of his talents. He rapidly, however, surpassed his contemporary students, by the force of his genius, and his study of nature; and adopted a style of drawing and design more bold and daring than Ghirlandaio had been accustomed to see practised in his school; and, from an anecdote Vasari tells, it would seem Michel Angelo soon felt himself even superior to his master. One of the pupils copying a female portrait from a drawing by Ghirlandu'io, he took a pen and made a strong outline round it on the same paper, to shew him its defects; and the superior style of the contour was as much admired as the act was considered confident and presumptuous. His great facility in copying with accuracy whatever objects were before him sometimes forced a compliment even from Ghirlandaio himself.

When about this time Lorenzo de Medici established a school for the advancement of sculpture, in a garden in Florence, under the superintendence of Bertoldo, Lorenzo requested Ghirlandaio to permit any of his scholars to study there, who were desirous of drawing from the antique, and from that time the Medici garden became the favourite school of Michel Angelo. No sooner had he entered upon his studies here, than seeing a student modelling some figures in clay, he felt an emulation to do the same; und Lorenzo, who frequently visited the gardens, observing his progress, encouraged him with expressions of ap^ probation. He was, not long after, desirous to try his skill in marble, and being particularly interested in a mutilated old head, or rather a mask representing a laughingFaun, he chose it for his original. Although this was hig first essay in sculpture, he finished it in a few days, supplying what was imperfect in the original, and making some other additions. Lorenzo visiting his garden as usual, found Michel Angelo polishing his mask, and thought it an extraordinary work for so young an artist; yet jestingly remarked, “You have restored to the old Faun all his teeth, but don't you know that a man of such an age has generally some wanting?” Upon this observation, the moment Lorenzo departed, Michel Angelo broke a tooth from the upper jaw, and drilled a hole in the gum to represent its having fallen out.

To this little circumstance Michel Angelo, who was now between fifteen and sixteen years old, owed the patronage of Lorenzo, who adopted him into his. family, provided him with a room, and eVery accommodation in the palace, treated him as his own son, and introduced him to men of rank and genius. Among others he formed an intimacy with Politiano, who resided under the same roof, and soon became warmly attached to his interests. At his recommendation he executed a basso-relievo in marble, the subject of which was the battle of the Centaurs, of which it is sufficient praise, that it stood approved in the riper judgment of Michel Angelo himself, who, although not indulgent to his own productions, did not hesitate on seeing it, even in the decline of life, to express his regret that he had not entirely devoted himself to sculpture. In 1492, death deprived him of the patronage of Lorenzo, which, however, was in some measure continued to him by Lorenzo’s successor, a man of corrupt and vitiated taste, of whose discrimination in merit we have this notable proof that he boasted of two extraordinary persons in his house, Michel Angelo, and a Spanish footman who could out -run u horse. Michel Angelo, however, prosecuted his studies, and produced some fine specimens of art, until the tranquillity of Florence was disturbed by the haughty and pusillanimous conduct of his patron, Piero de Medici, when he thought proper to retire to Bologna to avoid the impending evils. Here he was invited into the house of Aldovrandi, a Bolognese gentleman, and one of the sixteen constituting the government, and during his stay executed two statues in marble for the church of St. Domenico. After remaining with this hospitable friend somewhat more than a year, the affairs of Florence being tranquillized, he returned home to his father’s house, pursued his profession, and produced a statue of a sleeping Cupid, that advanced his reputation, but not without the aid of some trick. He was advised by a friend to stain the marble so as to give it the appearance of an antique, and in this state it was sent to Rome to an agent who pretended to have dug it up in a vineyard, and sold to cardinal St. Giorgio for two hundred ducats. What rendered this imposition unnecessary to Michel Angelo' s fame, was, that on the discovery of the real artist, he received the most flattering praises, and was invited to Rome, as the proper theatre for the exercise of his talents. At Rome he made several statues, which placed him in an enviable rank among his contemporaries, and a cartoon of St. Francis receiving the stigmata, painted in distemper for St. Pietro in Montorio; and while he executed these commissions both with credit and profit to himself, he was also indefatigable by observation and study to improve and elevate his style.

On the promotion of Pietro Soderini, to the rank of perpetual gonfaloniere, or chief magistrate of Florence, Michel Angelo was advised to return thither, as Soderini had the reputation of an encourages of genius, and he introduced himself to his patronage by a colossal statue of David, a figure in bronze, name unknown, and a groupe of David and Goliath. At the same time, that he might not entirely neglect the practice of painting, he painted a holy family for one Angelo Dorii, concerning which Vasari relates the following anecdote. When the picture was finished, it was sent home with a note requesting the payment of seventy ducats: Angelo Doni did not expect such a charge, and told the messenger he would give forty, which he thought sufficient: Michel Angelo immediately sent back the servant, and demanded his picture, or an hundred ducats: Angelo Doni, not liking to part with it, returned the messenger, agreeing to pay the original sum, but Michel Angelo, indignant at being haggled with, then doubled his first demand, and Angelo Doni, still wishing to possess the picture, acceded, rather than try any further experiment to abate his price.

That Michel Angelo might have an opportunity of adding to his lame as a painter, the gonfaloniere commissioned him to paint a large historical subject, to ornament the hall of the ducal palace; and as it was the honourable ambition of Soderini to employ the talents of his country in the establishment of its fame, he engaged the abilities of Leonardo da Vinci, at the same time, to execute a corresponding picture to occupy the opposite side of the hall. An event in the war between the Florentines and Pisans, was the subject Michel Angelo chose, and that of Leonardo da Vinci was a battle of cavalry. Michel Angelo’s cartoon was the most extraordinary work that had appeared since the revival of the arts in Italy, but as no part of it now remains, an idea of it can be formed only from Vasari’s account and description. Such was the excellence of this work, that some thought it absolute perfection; not to be rivalled, and hopeless to be approached; and certainly some credit is due to this opinion, as from the time it was placed in the papal hall, it was for many years constantly visited by foreigners as well as natives, who, by studying and drawing from it, became eminent masters. It requires to be added, however, that the cartoon was all that was finished; from various causes, the picture itself was never begun, and the cartoon, which was exhibited to students for their improvement, was by degrees mutilated and destroyed, an irreparable injury to posterity.

On the accession of pope Julius II. a patron of genius and learning, Michel Angelo was among the first invited to his court, and after some time the pope, gave him an unlimited commission to make a mausoleum. Having received full powers, he commenced a design worthy of himself and his patron. The plan was a parallelogram, and the superstructure to consist of forty statues, many of which were to be colossal, interspersed with ornamental figures and bronze basso-relievos, besides the necessary architecture, with appropriate decorations, to unite the composition into one stupendous whole. When this magnificent design was completed, it met with the pope’s entire approbation, and Michel Angelo was desired to go into St. Peter’s to see where it could be conveniently placed. Michel Angelo fixed upon a particular spot, but the church itself, now old, being considered as ill-adapted, for so superb a mausoleum, the pope, after many consultations with architects, determined to rebuild St. Peter’s; and this is the origin of that edifice which took a hundred and fifty years to complete, and is now the grandest display of architectural splendour that ornaments the Christian world. To those, says his late excellent biographer, who are curious in tracing the remote causes of great events to their source, Michel Angelo perhaps may be found, though very unexpectedly, to have thus laid the first stone of the reformation. His monument demanded a building of corresponding magnificence; to prosecute the undertaking money was wanting, and indulgences were sold to supply the deficiency of the treasury. A monk of Saxony (Luther) opposed the authority of the church, and this singular fatality attended the event, that whilst the most splendid edifice which the world had ever seen was building for the catholic faith, the religion to which it was consecrated was shaken to the foundation.

The work was begun, but before it had proceeded far, Michel Angelo met with some affront from the servants of the papal palace, who were jealous of his favour with the pope, and not being admitted to his holiness when he came on business, set off from Rome for Florence. As soon as this was known, couriers were dispatched after him, but, as he had got beyond the pope’s territories, they could not use force, and only obtained of Michel Angelo a letter to the pope explaining the cause of his departure. But after some time, and the intercession of friends, Michel Angelo consented to return to Rome, where, to his great disappointment, he found that the pope had changed his mind, and instead of completing the monument, had determined to decorate with pictures the ceilings and walls of the Sistine chapel, in honour of the memory of his uncle Sixtus IV. The walls of this chapel were already ornamented with historical paintings by various masters, but these were now to be effaced, and the entire chapel to be painted by Michel Angelo, so as to correspond in its parts, and make one uniform whole. Michel Angelo was diffident of his powers in fresco-painting, and recommended Raffaello, but the pope was peremptory, and our artist obliged to yield. He accordingly prepared the cartoons, and endeavoured to engage persons experienced in frescopainting, but being disappointed in the first specimen of their abilities, he determined himself to try how far he could overcome the difficulties which made it necessary for him to seek their aid, and succeeded in painting the ceiling to the astonishment and admiration even of his enemies. For the description of this stupendous monument of human genius, we must refer to our authority, but the circumstance not the least remarkable, was, that the whole was completed in twenty months, and on AllSaints-Day, 1512, the chapel was opened, and the pope officiated at high mass to a crowded and admiring audience. Michel Angelo next applied himself to make designs for other pictures for the sides of the chapel, to complete the original plan: but on Feb. 21, 1513, the pope died, and to ^Michel Angelo his loss was not supplied. The old paintings still remain on the walls of this chapel.

Julius II. was succeeded by the celebrated Leo X. who professed the same warmth of attachment, and the same zeal to promote the talents of Michel Angelo. But we have already seen that the attachment of this great artist’s patrons was mixed with a degree of caprice which reduced him often to a state of servitude. Michel Angelo had received instructions to construct a monument for Julius II. on a lesser scale than the mausoleum which we have already mentioned. This Leo X. immediately interrupted, by insisting on his going to Florence to build the fagade of the church of S. Lorenzo, which remained unfinished from the time of his grandfather Cosmo de Medici, and Michel Angelo, after in vain pleading the engagement he was under, was obliged to comply. Nor was this all. While at Carrara, ordering the necessary marble, he received a letter from Leo desiring him to go to Pietra Santa, where his holiness had been told there was marble equal to that of Carrara. Michel Angelo obeyed, and reported that the marble was of an inferior quality, and that there was no means of conveying it to Fldrence without making a road of many miles to the sea, through mountains, and over marshes, &c. The pope, however, flattered with the prospect of procuring marble* from a territory which he could at any time call his own, ordered him to proceed, the result of which was that the talents of this great man were buried in those mountains, and his time consumed during the whole reign of Leo X. (above eight years) in little other than raising stone out of a quarry, and making a road to convey it to the sea. At the death of Leo the fagade of S. Lorenzo was not advanced beyond its foundation, and the time of Michel Angelo had been consumed in making a road, in seeing that five columns were made at the quarry of Pietra Santa, in conducting them to the sea-side, and in transporting one of them to Florence this employment, with occasionally making some models in wax, and some trifling designs for the interior of a room in the Medici palace, appears to have been all the benefit. that was derived from his talents during the whole of this pontificate.

During the pontificate of Adrian VI. who succeeded Leo, the facade of S. Lorenzo was altogether laid aside, and Michel Angelo endeavoured to resume his labours on the monument of Julius II. for which the heirs of Julius were impatient, and threatened to make the artist accounjt for the monies received in the pontificate of Julius. He found a friend, however, in the cardinal Giuliano de Medici, who commissioned him to build a library and new sacristy to the church of S. Lorenzo, to serve as a mausoleum for the Medici family; and also to execute monuments to the memory of the dukes Giuliano and Lorenzo, to be placed in it; and these works took up the whole Of Michel Angelo’s attention during the short pontificate of Adrian VI. which lasted only twenty months, ending Sept. 14, 1523. During the first part of the pontificate of his successor Clement VII. formerly Giuliano de Medici, Michel Angelo went on with the chapel and library of S. Lorenzo, which Giuliano had ordered, and executed a statue of Christ, of the size of nature, to be placed on an altar in the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, at Rome, and which is still in that church, but on a pedestal at the entrance of the choir. During the wars which succeeded, we find him employing his talents on works of fortification at Florence, when besieged by the prince of Orange, but hearing of some treacherous plans to undermine the republic, he withdrew secretly to Ferrara, and thence to Venice. Being, however, solicited by persons high in office not to abandon the post committed to his charge, he returned, and resumed his situation, until the city surrendered to the pope, when he was obliged to secrete himself in an obscure retreat. The pope having by a public manifesto given him assurances, that if he would discover himself he should not be molested, qn condition that he would furnish the two monuments in St. Lorenzo, already begun, Michel Angelo, on this, with little respect for the persons his genius was to commemorate, and with less affection for his employer, hastened to complete his labour; not with any ardour of sentiment, but as a task which was the price of his liberty.

Tranquillity being restored in Italy, Michel Angelo was again called upon by the duke of Urbino, to complete the monument of Julius II, agreeable to the last design, and was again interrupted by the pope, who wished to employ him at Florence, and Afterwards ordered him to paint the two end walls of the Sistine chapel. Our artist being unable openly to oppose the will of the pope, procrastinated the work as much as possible, and while he was engaged in making a cartoon for the chapel, secretly employed as much of his time as circumstances would allow, in forwarding the monument to Julius II. But this was again interrupted by the next pope, Paul III. although at length, after much riegociation, and after changing the design three times, he was permitted to complete, his task, which was placed, not in St. Peter’s, as originally intended, but in the church of S. Pietro, in Vincoli.

As there now remained no objection to Michel Angelo’s devoting his time to the service of the pope, he commenced painting the great work of the Last Judgment, in the Sistine chapel, which was finished in 1541, and the chapel opened on Christmas day. Persons are described to have come from the most distant parts of Italy to see it, and the public and the court were rivals in admiration, which must have been peculiarly grateful to Michel Angelo, not only from that pleasure common to all men who are conscious of deserving well, and having those claims allowed, but in succeeding to give the pope Paul III. entire satisfaction, who, in the first year of his pontificate, liberally provided him with a pension for his life of six hundred pounds a year, to enable him to prosecute the undertaking to his own satisfaction.

Near to the Sistine chapel, in the Vatican, Antonio de San Gallo built another by the order of Paul III. which is called after its founder the Paoline chapel, and the pope being solicitous to render it more honourable to his name, desired Michel Angelo would paint the walls in fresco. Although he now began to feel he was an old man, he undertook the commission, and on the sides opposite to each other painted two large pictures, representing the martyrdom of St. Peter, and the conversion of St. Paul. These pictures, he said, cost him great fatigue, and in their progress declared himself sorry to find fresco painting was not an employment for his years; he therefore petitioned his holiness that Perino del Vaga might finish the ceiling from his designs, which was to have been decorated with painting and stucco ornaments; but this part of the work was not afterwards carried into execution. The pope often consulted Michel Angelo as an architect, although Antonio de San Gallo was the architect df St. Peter’s church, and promoted to that situation by his interest when cardinal Farnese, and now employed in his private concerns. The Farnese palace in Rome was designed by San Gallo, and the building advanced by him during his life; yet Michel Angelo constructed the bold projecting cornice that surrounds the top, in conjunction with him, at the express desire of the pope. He also consulted Michel Angelo in fortifying the Borgo, and made designs for that purpose; but the discussion of this subject proved the cause of some enmity between these two rivals in the pope’s esteem. In 1546 San Gallo died, and Michel Angelo was called upon to fill his situation as architect of St. Peter’s: he at first declined that honour, but his holiness laid his commands upon him, which admitted neither of apology nor excuse; however he accepted the appointment upon those conditions, that he would receive no salary, and that it should be so expressed in the patent, as he undertook the office purely from devotional feelings; and that, as hitherto the various persons employed in all the subordinate situations had only considered their own interest to the extreme prejudice of the undertaking, he should be empowered to discharge them, and appoint others in their sjead; and lastly, that he should be permitted to make whatever alterations he chose in San Gallo’s design, or entirely supply its place with what he might consider more simple, or in a better style. To these conditions his holiness acceded, and the patent was made out accordingly: vi

San Gallo’s model being more conformable to the principles of Saracenic than of Grecian or Roman architecture in the multiplicity and division of its parts, Michel Angelo made an original design upon a reduced scale, on the plan of a Greek cross, which met with the pope’s approbation; for, although the dimensions were less, the form was more grand than that of San Gallo’s model. Having commenced his labours on this edifice, it advanced with considerable activity, and before the end of the pontificate of Paul III. began to assume its general form and character. This, however, was only a part of his extensive engagements. He was commissioned to carry on the building of the Farnese paictfee, left unfinished by the death of San Gallo; and employed to build a palace on the Capitoline-hill for the senator of Rome, two galleries for the reception of sculpture and pictures, and also to ornament this celebrated site with antique statues and relics of antiquity, from time to time dug up and discovered in Rome and its environs.

As in proceeding with St. Peter’s, he had, agreeably to his patent, chosen his own workmen, and dismissed others, the latter seldom failed of exerting such malice against him as they could display with impunity; and being exasperated by disappointments, they endeavoured to represent him as an unworthy successor of San Gallo, and upon the death of Paul III. an effort was mad^ to remove him from his situation, but Julius III. who succeeded to the pontificate, was hot less favourably disposed towards him than his predecessor; however, they presented a memorial, petitioning the pope to hold a committee of architects in St. Peter’s at Rome, to convince his holiness that their accusations and complaints were not unfounded. At the head of this party was cardinal Salviati, nephew to Leo X. and cardinal Marcello Cervino, who was afterwards pope by the title of Marcellus II. Julius agreed to the investigation, and the parties appeared in his presence. The complainants stated, that the church wanted light, and the architects had previously furnished the two cardinals with a particular example to prove the basis of the general position, which was, that he had walled up a. recess for three chapels, and made only three insufficient windows; upon which the pope asked Michel Angelo. to give his reasons for having done so; he replied, “I should wish first to hear the deputies.” Cardinal Marcello immediately said for himself and cardinal Salviati, “We ourselves are the deputies.” Then said Michel Angelo, “In the part of the church alluded to, over those windows are to be placed three others.” “You never said that before,” replied the cardinal; to which he answered with some warmth: “1 am not, neither will I ever be obliged to tell your eminence, or any one else, what I ought or am disposed to do; it is your office to see that the money be provided, to take care of the thieves, and to leave the building of St. Peter’s to me.” Turning to the pope, “Holy father, you see what I gain; if these machinations to which I am exposed are not for my spiritual welfare, I lose both my labour and my time.” The pope replied, putting his hands upon his shoulders, “Do not doubt, your gain is Dpw, and will be hereafter;” and at the same time gave him assurance of his confidence and esteem. Julius prosecuted no work in architecture or sculpture without consulting him. What was done in the Vatican, or in his villa on the Flaminian way, was with Michel Angelo’s advice and superintendance. He was employed also to rebuild a bridge across the Tiber, but as his enemies artfully pretended to commiserate his advanced age, he so far fell into this new snare as to leave the bridge to be completed by an inferior artist, and in five years it was washed away by a flood, as Michel Angelo had prophesied. In 1555 his friend and patron pope Julius died, and perhaps it would have been happier for Michel Angelo if they had ended their days together, for he was now eighty-one years old, and the remainder of his life was interrupted by the caprices of four successive popes, and the intrigues under their pontificates. Under all these vexations, however, he went on by degrees with his great undertaking, and furnished designs for various inferior works, but his enemies were still restless. He now sawthat his greatest crime was that of having lived too long; and being thoroughly disgusted with the cabals, he was solicitous to resign, that his last days might not be tormented by the unprincipled exertions of a worthless faction. That he did not complain from the mere peevishness of age will appear from a statement of the last effort of his enemie.s, the most formidable of whom were the directors of the building. Their object was to make Nanni Biggio the chief architect, which they carefully concealed, and the bishop of Ferratino, who was a principal director, began the contrivance by recommending to Michel Angelo not to attend to the fatigue of his duty, owing to his advanced age, but to nominate whomever he chose to supply his place. By this contrivance Michel Angelo willingly yielded to so courteous a proposition, and appointed Daiiiello da Volterra. As soon as this was effected, it was made the basis of accusation against him, for incapacity, which left the directors the power of choosing a successor, and they immediately superseded da Volterra, by appointing Biggio in his stead. This was so palpable a trick, go untrue in principle, and so injurious in its tendency, that in justice to himself, he thought it necessary to represent it to the pope, at the same time requesting that it might be understood there was nothing he more solicited than his dismission. His holiness took up the discussion with interest, and begged he would not recede until he Vol. VII. X had made proper inquiry, and a day was immediately appointed for the directors to meet him. They only stated in general terms, that Michel Angelo was ruining the building, and that the measures they had taken were essentially necessar}*, but the pope previously sent Signor Gabrio Serbelloni to examine minutely into the affair, who was a man well qualified for that purpose. Upon this occasion he gave his testimony so circumstantially, that the whole scheme was shown in one view to originate in falsehood, and to have been fostered by malignity. Biggio was dismissed and reprimanded, and the directors apologized, acknowledging they had been misinformed, but Michel Angelo required no apology; all he desired was, that the pope should know the truth; and he would have now resigned, had not his holiness prevailed upon him to hold his situation, and made a new arrangement, that his designs might not only be strictly executed as long as he lived, but adhered to after his death.

After this discussion, the time left to Michel Angelo for the enjoyment of his uncontrolled authority was short, for in the month of February 1563, he was attacked by a slow fever, which exhibited symptoms of his approaching death, and he desired Daniello da Volterra to write to his nephew Leonardo Buonarroti to come to Rome; his fever, however, increased, and his nephew not arriving, in the presence of his physician and others who were in his house, whom he ordered into his bed-room, he made this short nuncupative will: “My soul I resign to God, my body to the earth, and my worldly possessions to my nearest of kin;” then admonished his attendants: “In your passage through this life, remember the sufferings of Jesus Christ,” and soon after delivering this charge, he died, Feb. 17, 1563, aged eighty-eight years, eleven months, and fifteen days, which yet was not the life of his father, who attained the age of ninety-two. Three days after his death, his remains were deposited with great funeral pomp in the church of S. Apostoli, in Rome, but afterwards, at the request of the Florentine academy, were removed to the church of Santa Croce at Florence, and again with great solemnity finally deposited in the vault by the side of the altar, called the Altare de Cavalcanti.

The merits of Michel Angelo, as an artist, have been so frequently the object of discussion, that it would be impossible to examine or analyse the various opinions thsrt have been published, without extending this article to an immoderate length. Referring, therefore, to our authorities, and especially to Mr. Duppa’s elaborate “Life of Michel Angelo,” which we have followed in the preceding sketch, we shall present the following outline from Mr. Fuseli, and conclude with some interesting circumstances in the personal history of this great artist: “Sublimity of conception,” says Mr. Fuseli, “grandeur of form, and breadth of manner, are the elements of Michel Angelo’s style; by these principles he selected or rejected the objects of imitation. As painter, as sculptor, as architect, he attempted, and above any other man succeeded, to unite magnificence of plan, and endless variety of subordinate parts, with the utmost simplicity and breadth. His line is uniformly grand. Character and beauty were admitted only as far as they could be made subservient to grandeur. The child, the female, meanness, deformity, were by him indiscriminately stamped with grandeur. A beggar rose from his hand the patriarch of poverty; the hump of Jiis dwarf is impressed with dignity; his women are moulds of generation; his infants teem with the man; his men are a race of giants. This is the” Terribil Via“hinted at by Agostino Carracci. To give the most perfect ease to the most perplexing difficulty, was the exclusive power of Michel Angelo. He is the inventor of epic painting in the sublime compartments of the Sistine chapel. He has personified motion in the groupes of the Cartoon of Pisa; embodied sentiment on the monuments of St. Lorenzo; unravelled the features of meditation in his Prophets and Sibyls; and, in the Last Judgment, with every attitude that varies the human body, traced the mastertrait of every passion that sways the human heart. Neither as painter or sculptor he ever submitted to copy an individual, Julio II. only excepted, and in him he represented the reigning passion rather than the man. In painting he contented himself with a negative colour, and, as the painter of mankind, rejected all meretricious ornament. The fabric of St. Peter’s, scattered into infinity of jarring parts by his predecessors, he concentrated, suspended the cupola, and to the most complex gave the air of the most simple of edifices. Such, take him all in all, was Michel Angelo, the salt of art; sometimes he, no doubt, had moments, and perhaps periods of dereliction, deviated into manner, or perplexed the grandeur of his forms with futile and ostentatious anatomy; both met with herds of copyists, and it has been his fate to have been and still to be censured for their folly.”

Michel Angelo was of the middle stature, bony in his make, and rather spare, although broad over the shoulders. He had a good complexion; his forehead was square, and somewhat projecting; his eyes rather small, of a hazel colour, and on his brows but little hair; his nose was flat, being disfigured from a blow he received when young from Torngiano, a fellow student; his lips were thin, and speaking anatomically, the cranium on the whole was rather large in proportion to the face. He wore his beard, which was divided into two points at the bottom, not very thick, and about four inches long; his beard and the hair of hrs head were black when a youug man, and his countenance animated and expressive.

In his childhood he was of a weakly constitution, and to guard his health with peculiar care, he was abstemious and continent; he seldom partook of the enjoyments of the table, and was used to say, “however rich I may have been, I have always lived as a poor man.” Although he ate little, he was extremely irregular in his meals; he had a bad digestion, and was much troubled with the head-ach, which he attributed to his requiring little sleep, and the delicate state of his stomach: notwithstanding these evils, during the meridian of life his general health was but little impaired. Many years before his death he was afflicted with stone and gravel, and when advanced in years, with the cramp in his legs.

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

The love of wealth made no part of Michel Angelo’s character; he was in no instance covetous of money, nor attentive to its accumulation. When he was offered commissions from the rich with large sums, he rarely accepted them, being more stimulated by friendship and benevolence than the desire of gain. He was also liberal, and freely assisted literary men as well as those of his own profession, who stood in need of his aid. He had a great love for his art, and a laudable desire to perpetuate his name. A friend of his regretted that he had no children to bequeath the profits acquired by his profession, to which he answered, “My works must supply their place; and if they are good for any thing, they must live hereafter.” He established it as a principle, that to live in credit was enough, if life was virtuously and honourably employed for the good of others and the benefit of posterity; and thus he laid up the most profitable treasure for his old age, and calculated upon its best resources.

Michel Angelo was never married, and whether he was at any time on the point of being so, is not known: that he was a man of domestic habits is certain, and he possessed ardent and affectionate feelings. Although love is the principal subject which pervades his poetry, and Petrarch the sole object of his imitation, no mention is made of his Laura, his Stella, or Eliza: her name is concealed if she had any; but the prevalency in his day of consolidating all personal feeling into Platonism, and a species of unintelligible metaphysics, may probably have given birth to most of his sonnets.

In his professional labours he continued to study to the end of his life, but never was satisfied with any thing he did: when he saw any imperfection that might have been avoided, he easily became disgusted, rather preferring to commence his undertaking entirely anew than attempt an emendation. With this operating principle in his mind he completed few works in sculpture. Lomazzo tells an anecdote, that cardinal Farnese one day found Michel Angelo, when an old man, walking alone in the Colosseum, and expressed his surprize at rinding him solitary amidst the ruins; to which he replied, “I yet go to school that I may continue to learn something.” Whether the anecdote be correctly true or not, it is evident he entertained this feeling, for there is still remaining a design by him, of an old man with a long beard in a child’s go-cart, and an hour-glass before him; emblematical of the last stage of life, and on a scroll over his head, Anchora Inparo, denoting that no state of bodily decay or approximation to death was incompatible with intellectual improvement. An outline of this, as well as of many of the principal works of Michel Angelo, is given in his Life by Mr. Duppa, who concludes the best and most ample account of any artist in our language, with remarking that although Michel Angelo’s high-minded philosophy made him often regardless of rank and dignity, and his knowledge of human nature in one view concentrated the plausible motives and the inconsistent professions of men, yet he was not morose in his disposition, nor cynical in his habits. Those who knew him well esteemed him most, and those who were worthy of his friendship knew how to value it. The worthless flatterers of powerful ignorance, and the cunning, who at all times trust to the pervading influence of folly, feared and hated him. He was impetuous in the highest degree when he felt the slightest attack upon his integrity, and hasty in his decisions, which gave him an air of irascibility; but to all who were in need of assistance from his fortune or his talents he exercised a princely liberality; and to those of honourable worth, however low their station, he was kind and benevolent, he sympathized with their distresses, nor ever refused assistance to lessen the weight of oppression. In the catholic faith of his ancestors he was a sincere Christian, and enjoyed its beneficent influence; he was not theoretically one man, and practically another; nor was his piety ever subservient to caprice or personal convenience; his religion was not as a staff he leaned upon, but the prop by which he was supported.

, a native of Verona, who flourished in the sixteenth century, was disciple to Bagolinus, who explained Aristotle’s Logic in the university of Bologna. Burana shewed great subtlety in his disputations, which made the scholars very desirous of hearing him read public lectures on this part of philosophy, which he did, illustrating his subject from the Greek and Arabian interpreters. He had studied Hebrew with great success. Having quitted his profession, he applied himself to the practice of physic. He also undertook to translate some treatises of Aristotle and of Averroes, and to write commentaries on them; but death hindered him from finishing this work. He desired however that it might be printed, and charged his heirs to publish it, after his manuscript had been corrected by some learned man. Bagolinus undertook that task, and published the work under the title of “Aristotelis Priora resolutoria, &c.” Paris, 1539, folio. Bayle seems to think there was a prior edition printed at Venice; but by Moreri we find that the Paris edition, was of 1533, and that of Venice of the date above mentioned.

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

, an eminent bookseller at Paris, is well known to the learned throughout Europe for the able assistance he has afforded to the study of bibliography. Of his personal history very little is related by his countrymen, unless that he was a man of high character in trade; and, as appears from his works, more intimately acquainted with the history of books and editions than perhaps any man of his time in any country. He died July 15, 1782. He first published his “Museum Typographicum,” Paris, 1755, 12mo, a small edition of only twelve copies, which he gave away among his friends. It was published under the name of G. F. Rebude, and according to the Dict. Hist, was reprinted in 1775. Afterwards appeared the “Bibliographic Instructive,” 1763 68, 7 vols. 8vo, succeeded by a small volume of a catalogue of the anonymous publications, and an “Essay upon Bibliography.” The merits of this work are universally acknowledged. The abbe Rive having attacked this work with considerable asperity, De Bure replied in “Appel aux Savans,” 1763, 8vo, and “Reponse a une Critique de la Bibliographic Instructive,” 1763, 8vo. In 1769 he published the catalogue of Gaignat’s library, 2 vols. 8vo, which completely established his reputation as a bibliographer. He was succeeded in these labours by his cousin William, who, with Mons. Van Praet, ^prepared the catalogue of the duke de la Valliere’s library in 1783, and published other valuable catalogues as late as the year 1801.

, born at Paris in 1665, was the son of a surgeon, who, not being very prosperous in his practice, had recourse for his support to music; and first performed, professionally, at Lyons; and afterwards went to Paris and played on the harp to Louis XIV. who was much pleased with his performance. His son, Peter John, was so sickly and feeble during infancy, that he passed almost his whole youth in amusing himself on the spinet, and in the study of music; but he had so strong a passion for this instrument, that he had scarcely arrived at his ninth year when he was heard at court, accompanied by his father on the harp. Two years after, the king heard him again, when he performed a duet with his father on the harp, and at eleven years of age he assisted him in giving lessons to his scholars. His taste for music, however, did not extinguish his passion for other sciences. He taught himself Latin and Greek with little assistance from others; and the study of these languages inclined him to medical inquiries. At eighteen years old he attended, for the first time, the public schools, went through a course of philosophy, and took lessons in the schools of medicine. And even during this time he learned Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Italian, Spanish, German, and English, sufficiently to understand them in books. He was at length admitted of the faculty at Paris, and practised with reputation during thirty-three years. In 1705, he was received into the academy of belleslettres, and in 1706 he had a considerable share in the publication of the “Journal des Scavans,” at which he laboured more than thirty years. In 1718, he had an appointment in the royal library. The public are obliged to the abbe Fraguier for the learned dissertation which M. Burette produced on the music of the ancients. This learned abbe, supposing that the Greeks applied the same sense to the word harmony, as is given to it by the moderns, and that, consequently, they knew counterpoint, or music in parts, Burette proved that he was mistaken, and that the ancients meant no more by the term harmony, than we do by proportion. He demonstrated, that the Greeks practised no other simultaneous consonances than unisons and octaves. This learned and indefatigable inquirer after the music of the ancient Greeks, was seized, in 1745, with a paralytic affection, and after languishing during during the whole year 1746, he died in 1747, at eighty-two. His library, consisting of 15,000 volumes, was composed of the most curious and well-chosen books that could be procured in all languages. He has supplied the Memoires of the Acad. des inscrip. et belles-lettres with dissertations on the dancing of the ancients, on play or gaming, on single combat, and on horse-racing, and enriched these memoirs with a translation of Plutarch’s treatise on music, with notes and remarks. He must be allowed, oil every subject concerning ancient music, the merit of great diligence and learning; but he does not seem always to have been possessed of an equal share of sagacity, or with courage sufficient to confess himself unable to explain inexplicable passages in his author. He never sees a difficulty; he explains all. Hence, amidst great erudition, and knowledge of antiquity, there are a thousand unintelligible explanations in his notes upon Phrtarch.

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

, a Nonconformist clergyman, was the son of a schoolmaster at Watford, in Hertfordshire^ and educated at St. John’s college, Cambridge. He afterwards became a fellow of Emanuel college, and took his master’s degree. He obtained the living of SuttonColfield, in Warwickshire, in 1635, by the death of the rev. John Burgess, but no relation. He was afterwards one of the assembly of divines, and although inclined to conformity before the rebellion, acquired such opinions on the subject as induced him to submit to ejectment aftet the restoration. Dr. Racket, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, who had a high opinion of his learning, and said he was fit for a professor’s chair in the university, endeavoured by every argument to retain him in the church, but in vain, although Mr. Burgess went to the parish church of Tamworth, where he spent the remainder of his days, and lived in cordiality with the incumbent. At what time he died, is not mentioned. The celebrated Dr. John Wallis was his pupil, and says he was “a pious, learned, and able scholar, a good disputant, a good tutor, an eminent preacher, and a sound and orthodox divine.” (See Hearne’s Langtoft, publisher’s appendix to his preface, p. cxlviii). His principal works are: 1. “Spiritual Refinings; or a Treatise of Grace and Assurance,” 1658, foJ. 2. Sermons on John xvii.“fol. 1656. 3.” The Doctrine of Original Sin,“1659, fol. 4.” Commentary on the 1. and 2. of Corinthians," 1661, 2 vols. fol. with some smaller tracts, and several sermons before the long parliament.

, D. D. another Nonconformist, but of a very different stamp, was descended from the Burgesses of Batcomb, in Somersetshire. In 1611 he was entered at Oxford, but in what college is uncertain. He translated himself, however, to Wadham, and afterwards to Lincoln. When he took orders, he had the rectory of St. Magnus, London-bridge, the date of which promotion is not mentioned, and the living of Watford, in Hertfordshire, in 1618. In the beginning of Charles the First’s reign he became one of his chaplains in ordinary, and in 1627 took both degrees in divinity, at which time Dr. Prideaux, the regius professor, told him he was a sorry disputant, but might make a good preacher. At this time and for several years after he was a zealous friend to the church of England, but either from being disappointed in certain expected preferments, as Wood insinuates, or from being vexed, as Calamy says, for opposing archbishop Laud’s party, he became a powerful advocate for the principles which soon overthrew church and state; and particularly directed his attacks against the revenues of deans and chapters, and bishops. He procured, however, that St. Paul’s cathedral might be opened, and himself appointed lecturer there, with a salary of 400l. and the dean’s house to reside in. Enriched by this and similar advantages, he not only purchased church lands, but even wrote a book in vindication of such purchases. On the restoration, however, he lost all this plunder, to the amount of many thousand pounds, and died in extreme poverty, June 9, 1665. Calamy, his continuator, and Mr. Neal, find great difficulty in refuting Wood’s account of this Dr. Burgess. Their strongest plea is, that he was against the king’s murder, and drew up the paper signed by the London ministers to prevent that act. At his death, although he had been obliged from poverty to dispose of his library, he left some curious editions of the Prayer-book to the university of Oxford. He wrote some devotional tracts, enumerated by Calamy, and several of the controversial kind.

, a dissenting divine of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a wit himself, and “the cause of wit in other men,” particularly dean Swift and his contemporaries, was born in 1645 at Staines in Middlesex, where his father then was minister, but was afterwards, at the restoration, ejected for nonconformity from the living of Collingbourne Ducis, in Wiltshire. Daniel was educated at Westminster school, and in 1660 went to Magdalen-hall, Oxford, but having some scruples of the nonconformist stamp, he left the university without a degree. It would appear, however, that he had taken orders, as we are told that immediately after he was invited to be chaplain to a gentleman of Chute in Wiltshire, and afterwards to a Mr. Smith of Tedworth, where he was tutor to that gentleman’s son. In 1667, the earl of Orrery, lord president of Munster, took Mr. Burgess over to Ireland, and appointed him master of a school which he had established at Charleville for the purpose of strengthening the protestant interest in that kingdom, and Mr. Burgess, while here, superintended the education of the sons of some of the Irish nobility and gentry. After leaving this school, he was chaplain to lady Mervin, near Dublin; but about this time, we are told, he was ordained in Dublin as a presbyterian minister, and married a Mrs. Briscoe in that city, by whom he had a son and two daughters.

He resided seven years in Ireland, at the end of which he returned, at the request of his infirm father, and notwithstanding the strictness of the laws against nonconformity, preached frequently in Marlborough in Wiltshire, and other places in the neighbourhood. For this he was imprisoned for some time, but was released upon bail, and in 1685 came to London; and the dissenters now having more liberty, his numerous admirers hired a meeting for him in Brydges-street, Covent-garden. “Being situated,” says one of his biographers, “in the neighbourhood of the theatre, and surrounded by many who are fools enough to mock at sin and religion, he frequently had among his hearers those who came only to make themselvesmerry at the ex pence of religion, dissenters, and Daniel Burgess. This his undaunted courage, his pointed wit, and ready elocution, turned to great advantage: for he frequently fixed his eye on those scoffers, and addressing them personally in a lively, piercing, and serious manner, was blessed to the conversion of many who came only to mock.” Much of this may be true, but it cannot, on the other hand, be denied that Daniel provoked the mirth of his hearers by a species of buffoonery in language, to laugh at which was not necessarily connected with any contempt for religion.

He continued as a pastor over this congregation for thirty years, during which a new place of worship was built by them in Carey-street, and when much injured, or as it is called, gutted, by Dr. Sacheverell’s mob, was repaired at the expence of government. He died January 1712-13, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, and was buried in St. Clement Danes, Strand. It has escaped the notice of his biographers, that the celebrated lord Bolingbroke* was once his pupil, and the world has perhaps to regret that his lordship did not learn what Daniel Burgess might have taught him, for Daniel, with all his oddities, which made him for so many years the butt of Swift, Steele, and the other wits of the time, was a man of real piety. Unfortunately, like his successor Bradbury, he had a very considerable portion of wit, which he could not restrain, and where he thought an argument might be unsuccessful, he tried a pun. One of his biographers has furnished us with two instances that may illustrate the general character of his preaching. When treating on “the robe of righteousness,” he said, “If any of you would have a good and cheap suit, you will go to Monmouth-street; if you want a stiit for life, you will go to the court of chancery; but if you wish for a suit that will last to eternity, you must go to the Lord Jesus Christ, and put on his robe of righteousness.” In the reign of king William, he assigned a new motive for the people of God who were the descendants of Jacob, being called Israelites; namely, because God did not choose that his people should be called Jacobites! His works were numerous, but principally single sermons, preached on funeral and ether occasions, and pious tracts. One of his sermons is entitled “The Golden Snuffers,” and was the first sermon preached to the societies for the reformation of manners. It is a fair specimen of Daniel’s method and style, being replete with forced puns and quaint sayings, and consequently, in our opinion, better adapted to amusement than edification.

, a moral and political writer, was born at Madderty, in Perthshire, Scotland, in the latter end of the year 1714. His father was minister of that parish, and his mother was aunt to the celebrated historian Dr. Robertson. His grammatical education he received at the school of the place which gave him birth, where he discovered such a quickness and facility in imbibing literary instruction, that his master used to say, that his scholar would soon acquire all the knowledge that it was in his power to communicate. In due time young Burgh was removed to the University of St. Andrew’s, with a view of becoming a clergyman in the church of Scotland; but he did not continue long at the college, on account of a bad state of health, which induced him to lay aside the thoughts of the clerical profession, and enter into trade, in the linen, way; which he was enabled to do with the greater prospect of advantage, as he had lately obtained a handsome fortune by the death of his eldest brother. In business, however, he was not at all successful; for, by giving injudicious credit, he was soon deprived of his property. Not long after this misfortune, he came to London, where his first employment was to correct the press for the celebrated Mr. Bowyer; and at his leisure hours he made indexes. After being engaged about a year in this way, during which, he became acquainted with some friends who were highly serviceable to him in his future plans of life, he removed to Great Marlow, in Buckinghamshire, as an assistant at the free grammar-school of that town; and whilst he continued in this situation, the school is said to have been considerably increased. During his residence at Marlow, he met with only one gentleman who was suited to his own turn of mind. With that gentleman, who was a man of piety, and of extensive reading in divinity, though no classicai scholar, he contracted a particular friendship. At Marlow it was that Mr. Burgh first commenced author, by writing a pamphlet, entitled Britain’s Remembrancer," and which was published, if we mistake not, a little after the beginning of the rebellion, in 1745. This tract contained an enumeration of the national blessings and deliverances which Great Britain had received; with pathetic exhortations to a right improvement of them, by a suitable course of piety and virtue. It appeared without Mr. Burgh’s name, as was the case with his works in general, and was so much read and applauded by persons of a religious temper, that it went through five editions in little more than two years, was reprinted in Scotland, Ireland, and America, and again in London 1766. Mr. Barker, at that time one of the most eminent ministers among the protestant dissenters in London, spoke highly of it, in a sermon preaghed at Salters’-hall and publicly thanked the unknown author, for so seasonable and useful a performance.

Mr. Burgh being of a sociable disposition, and not meeting, at Marlow, with company which was suited to his liberal taste, he quitted that place, and engaged himself as art assistant to Mr. Kenross at Enfield. Here he remained only one year; for, at the end of that term, Mr. Kenross very generously told him, that he ought no longer to lose his time, by continuing in the capacity of an assistant; that it would be adviseable for him to open a boardingschool for himself; and that, if he stood in need of it, he would assist him with money for that purpose. Accordingly, in 1747, Mr. Burgh commenced master of an academy at Stoke Newington, in Middlesex; and in that year he wrote “Thoughts on Education.” The next production of his pen was “An hymn to the Creator of the world,” to which was added in prose, “An Idea of the Creator, from his works.” A second edition, in 8vo, was printed in 1750. After Mr. Burgh had continued at Stoke Newington three years, his house not being large enough to contain the number of scholars that were offered to him, he removed to a more commodious one at Newingtongreen, where, for nineteen years, he carried on his school with great reputation and success. Few masters, we believe, ever existed, who have been animated with a more ardent solicitude for forming the morals as well as the understandings of their scholars. In 1751, Mr. Burgh married Mrs. Harding, a widow lady, and a woman of excellent sense and character, who zealously concurred with him in promoting all his laudable and useful undertakings. In the same year, at the request of Dr. Stephen Hales, and Dr. Hayter, bishop of Norwich, he published a small piece, in 12mo, entitled “A Warning to Dram Drinkers.” Our author’s next publication was his great work, entitled “The Dignity of Human Nature; or, a brief account of the certain and established means for attaining the true end of our existence.” This treatise appeared in 1754, in one volume quarto, and has since been reprinted in two volumes octavo. It is divided into four books, in which the author treats distinctly concerning prudence, knowledge, virtue, and revealed religion; and makes a great number of important observations under each of these heads. In 1762 Mr. Burgh published, in octavo, “The Art of Speaking;” consisting, first, of an essay, in which are given rules for expressing properly the principal passions and humours that occur in reading, or in public elocution; and secondly, of lessons taken from the ancients and moderns, exhibiting a variety of matter for practice. The essay is chiefly compiled from Cicero, Quintilian, and other rhetorical writers. In the lessons, the emphatical words are printed in Italics, and marginal notes are added to shew the various passions, in the several examples, a they change from one to another. It is evident, from an inspection of this work, that it must have cost our author no small degree of labour. It has gone through three editions, and was much used as a school-book. The late sir Francis Blake Delaval, who had studied the subject of elocution, and who had distinguished himself in the private acting of several plays in conjunction with some other persons of fashion, had so high an opinion of Mr. Burgh’s performance, that he solicited on that account an interview with him. Our author’s next appearance in the literary world was in 1766, in the publication of the first volume, in 12mo, of “Crito, or Essays on various subjects.” To this volume is prefixed a dedication, not destitute of humour, “To the right rev. father (of three years old) his royal highness Frederic bishop of Osnaburgh.” The essays are three in number: the first is of a political nature; the second is on the difficulty and importance of education, and contains many pertinent remarks, tending to shewthat Mons. Rousseau’s proposals on this head are improper, ineffectual, or impracticable; and the third is upon the origin of evil. In this essay Mr. Burgh has collected together and arranged, though with but little regard to order, the sentiments of many writers, both ancient and modern, on the subject, and endeavoured to shew the inconsistency of their reasonings. His own opinion is, that the natural and moral evil which prevails in the world, is the effect of the hostility of powerful, malignant, spiritual beings; and that Christianity is the deliverance of the human species from this peculiar and adventitious distress, as an enslaved nation is by a patriotic hero delivered from tyranny. In 1767 came out the second volume of “Crito,” with a long dedication (which is replete with shrewd and satirical observations, chiefly of a political kind) to the good people of Britain of the twentieth century. The rest of the volume contains another “Essay on the Origin of Evil,” and the rationale of Christianity, and a postscript, consisting of farther explanations of the subjects before considered, and of detached remarks on various matters. If our author has not succeeded in removing the difficulties which relate to the introduction of evil into the world, and to the ceconomy of the gospel, it may be urged in his favour, that he is in the same case with many other ingenious philosophers and divines.

Mr. Burgh having, for many years, led a very laborious life, and having acquired also a competem, though not a large fortune (for his mind was always far raised above pecuniary views), he determined to retire trona business. In embracing this resolution, it was by no means his intention to be unemployed. What he had particularly in contemplation was, to complete his “Political Disquisitions,” for which he had, during ten years, been collecting suitable materials. Upon quitting his school at Newrngton-greenj which was in 1771, he settled in a house at Colebrooke-row, Islington, where he continued till his decease. He had not been long in his new situation before he became convinced (of what was only suspected before) that he had a stone in his bladder. Witn this dreadful malady he was deeply afflicted the four latter years of his life; and for the two last of these years his pain was exquisite. Nevertheless, to the astonishment of all who were witnesses of the misery he endured, he went on with his “Political Disquisitions.” The two first volumes were published in 1774, and the third volume in 1775. Their title is, “Political Disquisitions: or, an enquiry into public errors, defects, and abuses. Illustrated by, and established upon, facts and remarks extracted from a variety of authors ancient and modern. Calculated to draw the timely attention of government and people to a due consideration of the necessity and the means of reforming those errors, defects, and abuses; of restoring the constitution, and saving the state.” The first volume relates to government in general, and to parliament in particular; the second treats of places and pensions, the taxation of the colonies, and the army; and the third considers manners. It was our author’s intention to have extended his Disquisitions to some other subjects, if he had not been prevented by the violence of his disease, the tortures of which he bore with uncommon patience and resignation, and from which he was happily released, on the 26th of August, 1775, in the sixty-first year of his age. Besides the publications already mentioned, and a variety of manuscripts which he left behind him, he wrote, in 1753 and 1754, some letters in the General Evening Post, called “The Free Enquirer;” and in 1770, a number of papers entitled “The Constitutionalist,” in the Gazetteer; which were intended to recommend annual parliaments, adequate representation, and a place bill. About the same time he also published another periodical paper in the Gazetteer, under the title of “The Colonist’s Advocate;” which was written against the measures of government with respect to the colonies. He printed likewise for the sole use of his pupils, “Directions, prudential, moral, religious, and scientific;” which were pirated by a bookseller, and sold under the title of “Youth’s friendly Monitor.”

With regard to Mr. Burgh’s character, he was a man of great piety, integrity, and benevolence. He had a warmth of heart which engaged him to enter ardently into the prosecution of any valuable design; and his temper was communicative and chearful. Whilst his health permitted it, he had great pleasure in attending a weekly society of some friends to knowledge, virtue, and liberty, among whom were several persons of no small note in the philosophical and literary world. He had once the honour of being introduced to his present majesty, when prince of Wales, and to the late princess dowager of Wales, from whom he met with a most gracious reception, and with whom he had much discourse on the subject of education, and other important topics. In his compositions, our author paid greater regard to strength than elegance; and he despised, perhaps unjustly, that nice attention to arrangement of language which some writers think desirable; and which is indeed desirable, when thereby the force and vigour of style are not obstructed. Mr. Burgh’s widow died in 1788.

, a Frenchman, born at Bethune in Artois, was a renowned philosopher or schoolman of the fourteenth century. He discharged a professor’s place in the university of Paris with great reputation; and wrote commentaries on Aristotle’s logic, ethics, and metaphysics, which were much esteemed. Some say that he was rector of the university of Paris in 1320. Aventine relates, that he was a disciple of Ockam; and that, being expelled Paris by the power of the realists, which was superior to that of the nominalists, he went into Germany, where he founded the university of Vienna. “Buridan’s Ass,” has been a kind of proverb a long time in the schools; though nobody has ever pretended to explain it, or to determine with certainty what it meant. He supposed an ass, very hungry, standing betwixt two bushels of oats perfectly equal; or an ass, equally hungry and thirsty, placed betwixt a bushel of oats and a tub of water, both making an equal impression on his organs. After this supposition he used to ask, What will this ass do? If it was answered, He will remain there as he stands: Then, concluded he, he will die of hunger betwixt two bushels of oats; he will die of hunger and thirst with plenty of food and drink before him. This seemed absurd, and the laugh was wholly on his side: But, if it was answered, This ass will not be so stupid as to die of hunger and thirst with such good provision on each side of it: then, concluded he, this ass has free will, or of two weights in equilibre one may stir the other. Leibnitz, in his Theodicea, confutes this fable; he supposes the ass to be between two meadows, and equally inclining to both: concerning this he says, it is a fiction which, in the present course of nature, cannot subsist. Indeed, were the case possible, we must say, that the creature would suffer itself to die of hunger. But the question turns on an impossibility, unless God should purposely interfere to produce such a thing; for the universe cannot be so divided, by a plane drawn through the middle of the ass, cut vertically in its length, so that every thing on each side shall be alike and similar; for neither the parts of the universe, nor the animal’s viscera, are similar, nor in an equal situation on both sides of this vertical plane. Therefore will there always be many things, within and without the ass, which, though imperceptible to us, will determine it to take to one side more than the other. After all this, not very edifying discussion, the world must confess its obligations to Buridan for one of the most common proverbs, denoting hesitation in determining between two objects of equal or nearly equal value.

, was born at Rheims in 1691, and was member of the academy of belles-lettres at Paris, He died in that city Oct. 8, 1785, at the age of ninetyfour, at that time the father of French literature, and perhaps the oldest author in Europe. His great tranquillity of mind, and the gentleness of his disposition, procured him the enjoyment of a long and pleasant old age. In his youth he passed some time in Holland, and was a writer in the Journal de l'Europe. On his return he was much caressed by the learned, and in his latter days had a pension of 2000 livres granted, without any application, by the last king of France. At ninety-two his health was robust, his memory extensive, and he composed and wrote with facility. His works are, 1. “A treatise on the Authority of the Popes,” 1720, 4 vols. 12mo. 2.“History of the Pagan Philosophy,” 1724, 12mo, a learned performance, published in 1754 under the title of “The*ologie pa'ienne.” 3. “General History of Sicily,” 1745, 2 vols. 4to. 4. “Porphyry on Abstinence from Meats,” 1747, 12mo. 5. “History of the Revolutions of Constantinople,” 3 vols. 12mo, 1750. 6. “Life of Grotius,” 1754, 2 vols. 12mo. 7. “Life of Erasmus,” 1757, 2 vols. 12mo. 8. Life of Bossuet,“1761, 12mo. 9.” Life of cardinal du Perron," 1768, 12mo. The historical works of M. de Burigny are esteemed for the accuracy and abundance of the facts they contain. But he is a cold narrator; has but little force and expression in his portraits, and is sometimes rather prolix in his details. His Life of Grotius is a very valuable work, and was published in English in 1754, 8vo. For that of Erasmus, Dr. Jortin may be consulted.

, was one of the most distinguished politicians and political writers of the last century, whose life, it has been long expected, would have been written by those to whom he entrusted the care of his fame. Nothing, however, has yet appeared, except compilations by strangers, from public documents and records, published to gratify present curiosity. Some of these, however, are written with care and ability, and must form the basis of the following sketch.

Mr. Burke’s biographers are not agreed as to his birthplace. Some say he was born in the city of Dublin; others, in a little town in the county of Cork; but all are agreed in the date, Jan. 1, 1730. His father was an attorney of considerable practice, who had married into the ancient and respectable family of the Nagles, and besides the results of his practice, possessed a small estate of 150l. or 200l. a year. Edmund was his second son, and at a veryearly age, was sent to Balytore school; a seminary in the North of Ireland, well known for having furnished the bar and the pulpit of Ireland with many eminent characters. This school has been kept by quakers for near a century; and the son of Mr. Abraham Shackleton, to whom Mr. Burke was a pupil, has been for these many years past the head-master. It has been creditable to both parties (viz. the present preceptor and the quondam pupil of his father), that the strictest friendship has always subsisted between them; not only by a constant correspondence, but by occasional visits. At this school young Burke soon distinguished himself by an ardent attachment to study, a prompt command of words, and a good taste. His memory unfolded itself very early, and he soon became distinguished as (what was called) the best capper of verses in the school; but as this phrase is not so generally known in England as in Ireland, it may be necessary to explain it: What is called capping of verses is repeating any one line out of the classics, and following it up by another, beginning with the same letter with which the former line ended; for instance,

This was carried on, in the way of literary contest, between two boys, which begat an emulation for reading above the ordinary line of duty, and at the same time called out and strengthened the powers of memory. Burke not only took the lead in this, but in all general exercises: he was considered as the first Greek and Latin scholar; to these he added the study of poetry and belles lettres; and, before he left the school, produced a play in three acts, founded on some incidents in the early part of the history of England, of which little is now remembered, unless that Alfred formed the principal character, and that this part contained many sublime sentiments on liberty.

Before he left Balytore school his elder brother died, which determined his father to send Edmund to the university. He was accordingly entered of 'Trinity college, Dublin, where some say he pursued his studies with th same unceasing application as at school; while Goldsmith, and others, his contemporaries, assure us that he displayed no particular eminence in the performance of his exercises. Both accounts may be, in some measure, true. Burke might huve pursued his studies, those desultory studies which occupied the time of Milton and Dryden at Cambridge, and of Johnson and Gibbon at Oxford, without much desire to obtain academical distinctions. We are told, however, that he applied himself with sufficient diligence to those branches of mathematical and physical science which are most subservient to the purposes of life; and though he neglected the syllogistic logic of Aristotle, he cultivated the method of induction pointed out by Bacon Pneumatology likewise, and ethics, occupied a considerable portion of his attention; and whilst attending to the acquisition of knowledge, he did not neglect the means of communicating it. He studied rhetoric, and the art of composition, as well as log c, physics, history, and moral philosophy; and, according to one of his biographers, had at an early part of his life planned a confutation of the metaphysical theories of Berkeley and Hume. For such a task as this, Dr. Gleig (in the wellwritten life of Burke inserted in the Supplement to the Encycl. Britannica) doubts whether nature intended him. Through the ever active mind of Burke ideas seem to have flowed with too great a rapidity to permit him to give that patient attention to minute distinctions, without which it is vain to attempt a confutation of the subtleties of Berkeley and Hume. Dr. Reid, the ablest antagonist of these two philosophers, was remarkable for patient thinking, and even apparent slowness of apprehension; and we have not a doubt, but that if he had possessed the rapidity of thought which characterised Burke, his confutation of Hume and Berkeley would have been far from conclusive. In 1749 we find Burke employed in a way more suitable to his talents, and more indicative of his future pursuits. At that period Mr. Lucas, afterwards Dr. Lucas, a political apothecary, wrote a number of papers against government, and acquired by them as great popularity in Dublin, as Wilkes afterwards obtained by his North Briton in London. Burke, although young, perceived almost intuitively, the pernicious tendency of Lucas’s effusions, and resolved to counteract it, which he did by writing several essays in the style of Lucas, imitating it so exactly as to deceive the public, and pursuing his principles to consequences necessarily resulting from them, which demonstrated their absurdity. This was the first instance of that imitative skill which he afterwards displayed in a mimicry of Boiingbroke; and it has been observed, that his first literary effort, like his last, was calculated to guard his country against anarchical innovations.

According to some accounts, he went from Dublin, where there was little prospect of a settlement adequate to his talents and wishes, to London, where he entered himself as a student in the Middle Temple. According to other accounts, however, he was by design or accident at Glasgow, where he became a candidate for the professorship of logic, then vacant, but whether the application was made too late, or that the university was unwilling to receive a stranger, certain it is thai he was unsuccessful. One account says, that he was passing the old college gate, when a label affixed to it struck his eye, which had teen pasted up as -a mere matter of form, inviting all candidates for the professorship to a competition, although it was known that a successor was already fixed upon. If this be the fact, Mr. Burke’s mistake must have been very soon rectified, without his having the mortification of a disappointment after trial.

It is certain, however, that about 1753 he came to London, and entered himself, as already noticed, as a student of the Middle Temple, where he is said to have studied, as in every other situation, with unremitting diligence. Many of his habits and conversations were long remembered at the Grecian coffee-house (then the great rendezvous of the students of the Middle Temple), and they were such as were highly creditable to his morals and his talents. With the former, indeed, we should not know jhow to reconcile a connection imputed to him at this time with Mrs. Woffington, the actress, if we gave credit to the report; but it is not very likely, that one in Mr. Burke’s narrow circumstances would have been admitted to more than a slight acquaintance with a lady of that description. Though by the death of his elder brother, he was to have succeeded to a very comfortable patrimony, yet as his. father was living, and had other children, it could not be supposed that his allowance was very ample. This urged him to draw upon his genius for the deficiency of fortune, and we are told that he became a frequent contributor to the periodical publications. His first publication is said to have been a poem, which did not succeed. There is no certain information, however, concerning these early productions, unless that he found it necessary to apply with so much assiduity as to injure his health. A dangerous illness ensued, and he resorted for medical advice to Dr. Nugent, a physician whose skill in his profession was equalled only by the benevolence of his heart. He was, if we are not mistaken, a countryman of Burke’s, a Roman catholic, and at one time an author by profession. This benevolent friend, considering that the noise and various disturbances incidental to chambers, must retard the recovery of his patient, furnished him with apartments in his own house, where the attention of every member of the family contributed more than medicine to the recovery of his health. It was during this period that the amiable manners of miss Nugent, the doctor’s daughter, made a deep impression on the heart of Burke; and as she could not be insensible to such merit as his, they felt for each, other a mutual attachment, and were married soon after his recovery. With this lady he appears to have enjoyed uninterrupted felicity. He often declared to his intimate friends, “That, in all the anxious moments of his public life, every care vanished when he entered his own house.” Mr. Burke' s first known publication, although not immediately known, was his very happy imitation of Bolingbroke, entitled “A Vindication of Natural Society,” 1756, 8vo. To assume the style and character of such a writer, who had passed through all the high gradations of official knowledge for near half a century, a fine scholar, a most ready and eloquent speaker, and one of the best writers of his time, was, perhaps, one of the boldest attempts ever undertaken, especially by a young man, a stranger to the manners, habits, and connections of the literati of this country, who could have no near view of the great character he imitated, and whose time of life would not permit of those long and gradual experiments by which excellence of any kind is to be obtained. Burke, however, was not without success in his great object, which was to expose the dangerous tendency of lord Bolingbroke’s philosophy. When this publication first appeared, we are told that almost every body received it as the posthumous work of lord Bolingbroke, and it was praised up to the standard of his best writings. “The critics knew the turn of his periods; his style; his phrases; and above all, the matchless dexterity of his nietaphysical pen: and amongst these, nobody distinguished himself more than the lately departed veteran of the stage, Charles Macklin; who, with the pamphlet in his hand, used frequently to exclaim at the Grecian coffee-house (where he gave a kind of literary law to the young Templars at that time),” Oh! sir, this must be Harry Bolingbroke: I know him by his cloven foot." But much of this account is mere assumption. Macklin, and such readers as Macklin, might be deceived; but no man was deceived whose opinion deserved attention. The public critics certainly immediately discovered the imitation, and one at least of them was not very well pleased with it. We are told, indeed, that lord Chesterfield and bishop Warburton were at first deceived; but this proves only the exactness of the imitation; a more attentive perusal discovered the writer’s real intention.

The next production of Mr. Burke’s pen was “A Philosophical Enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful,” 1756, 8vo, which soon engaged all readers who had the least pretensions to taste or science. Beside possessing novelty of opinion in many particulars, this book attracted by its style and ingenuity of reasoning: every body read it; and even those who could not assent to many of the general principles, concurred in praising the author for talents of a very extraordinary kind. A criticism on it, ascribed to Johnson, but really written by Mr. Murphy, concludes in the following manner: “Upon the whole, though we think the author of this piece mistaken in many of his fundamental principles, and also in his deductions from them, yet we must say, we have read his book with pleasure. He has certainly employed much thinking: there are many ingenious and elegant remarks, which, though they do not enforce or improve his tirst position, yet, considering them detached from his system, they are new and just. And we cannot dismiss this article without recommending a perusal of the book to all our readers, as we think they will be recompensed by a great deal of sentiment, perspicuous, elegant, and harmonious style, in many passages both sublime and beautiful /” Some time after this, Mr. Burke, who had devoted much of his time to the study of history and politics, proposed to Mr. Dodsley, the plan of an “Annual Register” of the civil, political, and literary transactions of the times; and the proposal being acceded to, the work was begun, and carried on for many years, either by Mr. Burke himself, or under his immediate inspection, and was uncommonly successful.

The celebrity of such works soon made Mr. Burke known to the literati; amongst whom were the late George lord Lyttelton, the right honourable William Gerard Hamilton, the late Dr. Markham, archbishop of York, Dr. Johnson, sir Joshua Reynolds, and many other eminent characters, who were proud to patronize a young man of such good private character, and such very distinguished talents. It was in consequence of these connections that we soon after find Mr. Burke in the suite of the earl of Halifax, appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland, October 1761. Here, by his talents, as well as by his convivial and agreeable manners, he made himself not only useful at the castle, but renewed and formed several valuable acquaintances.

Before he left Ireland he had a pension settled on him, on that establishment, of 200l. per year (some say 30Q/.), which was said to be obtained through the interest of the right hon. William Gerard Hamilton, the official secretary to the lord lieutenant. Report said at the same time, that Mr. Burke had obliged Mr. Hamilton in turn, by writing that celebrated speech for him, which (as he had never afterwards spoken another of such consequence) procured him through life the name of “Single Speech Hamilton.” This, however, although talked of in the better circles of that day, is totally without foundation, nor is it strictly true, as will be noticed in that gentleman’s article, that Mr. Hamilton spoke only once. The connection, however, between these gentlemen did not last very long; for a few years afterwards, on some political contest, Mr. Hamilton telling Mr. Burke, as coarsely as it was unfounded, “that he took him from a garret,” the latter very spiritedly replied, “Then, sir, by your own confession, 'it was I that descended to know you.” He at the same time flung up his pension; and a coolness, it is said, ever after subsisted between them. Mr. Malone, however, in his late Life of Mr. Hamilton, takes no notice of his connection with Burke.

Mr. Burke’s fame as a writer was now established; and what added another wreath to this character were some pamphlets written before the peace of 1763. These introduced him to the acquaintance of the late Mr. Fitzherbert, father of the present lord St. Helen’s; a gentleman who esteemed and protected men of letters; and who possessed, with a considerable share of elegant knowledge, talents for conversation which were very rarely equalled. Through the medium of Mr. Fitzherbert, and owing to some political essays in the Public Advertiser, he became acquainted with the late marquis of Rockingham, and the late lord Verney; events which opened the first great dawn of his political life: and soon after his acquaintance with lord Rockingham, a circumstance took place which gave this nobleman an opportunity to draw forth Mr. Burke' s talents. The administration formed in 1763, under the honourable George Grenville, becoming unpopular from various causes, his majesty, through the recommendation of his uncle, the duke of Cumberland, appointed a new ministry, of which the duke of Grafton and general Conway were secretaries of state, and the marquis of Rockingham first lord of the treasury. In this arrangement, which took place in 1765, Mr. Burke was appointed private secretary to the marquis of Rockingham, and soon after, through the interest of lord Verney, was returned one of the representatives in parliament for the borough of Wendover in Buckinghamshire. On this he prepared himself for becoming a public speaker, by studying, still more closely than he had yet done, history, poetry, and philosophy; and by storing his mind with facts, images, reasonings, and sentiments. He paid great attention likewise to parliamentary usage; and was at much pains to become acquainted with old records, patents, and precedents, so as to render himself complete master of the business of office. That he might communicate without embarrassment the knowledge which he had thus acquired, he frequented, with many other men of eminence, the Robin Hood society; and, thus prepared, he delivered in the ensuing session his maiden speech, which excited the admiration of the house, and drew very high praise from Mr. Pitt, afterwards earl of Chatham. The proceedings of the administration with which Mr. Burke was connected, belong to history; and it may be sufficient here to notice, that the principal object which engaged their attention was the stamp-act, which had excited great discontents in America. Mr. Grenville and his party, under whose auspices this act was passed, were for inforcing it by coercive measures; and Mr. Pitt and his followers denied that the parliament of Great Britain had a right to tax the Americans. By Mr. Burke’s advice, as it has been said, the marquis of Rockingham adopted a middle course, repealing the act to gratify the Americans, and passing a law declaratory of the right of Great Britain to legislate for America in taxation, as in every other case. But by whatever advice such a measure was carried, it argued little wisdom, the repeal and the declaratory act being inconsistent with each other. The ministry were therefore considered as unfit to guide the helm of a great empire, and were obliged to give way to a new arrangement, formed under the auspices of Mr. Pitt, then earl of Chatham. This change created a considerable deal of political commotion; and the public papers and pamphlets of that day turned their satire against the newly-created earl of Chatham; they charged him with weakening and dividing an interest which the public wished to be supported; and lending his great name and authority to persons who were supposed to be of a party which had been long held to be obnoxious to the whig interest of the country. Though these charges were afterwards fully refuted by the subsequent conduct of the noble earl, the late ministry were entitled to their share of praise, not only for being very active in promoting the general interests of the state by several popular acts and resolutions, but by their uncommon disinterestedness; as they shewed, upon quitting their places, that they retired without a place, pension, or reversion, secured to themselves or their friends. This was a stroke which the private fortune of Mr. Burke could ill bear; but he had the honour of being a member of a virtuous administration; he had the opportunity of opening his great political talents to the public; and, above all, of shewing to a number of illustrious friends (and in particular the marquis of Rockingham) his many private virtues and amiable qualities, joined to a reach of mind scarcely equalled by any of his contemporaries.

In July 1766, Mr. Burke, finding himself disengaged from political business, visited Ireland after an absence of many years; and here he renewed many of those pleasing friendships and connections which engaged the attention of his younger days, always rendered still more pleasing by the prospect of a rising fortune, and a capacity of doing good to those we love and esteem. He returned to England towards the close of the year; and, finding a strong opposition formed against the duke of Grafton, who was tapping the spirit and force of those resolutions passed under the late administration, he threw himself into the foremost ranks, and there soon shewed what a formidable adversary he was likely to be. The opinion which Mr. Burke had of the Grafton administration is thus humorously described by himself. After paying many merited eulogiums on the character of lord Chatham, he claims the freedom of history to speak of the administration he formed, and thus proceeds: “He made an administration so chequered and speckled; he put together a piece of joining so crossly indented and whimsically dove-tailed; a cabinet so variously inlaid; such a piece of diversified Mosaic; such a tessellated pavement without cement; here a bit of black stone, and there a bit of white; patriots and courtiers; king’s friends and republicans; whigs and tories; treacherous friends and open enemies; that it was indeed a very curious show, but utterly unsafe to touch, and unsure to stand upon. The colleagues, whom he had assorted at the same boards, stared at each other, and were obliged to ask, ‘Sir, your name? Sir, you have the advantage of me Mr. Such-a-one Sir, I beg a thousand pardons.’ I venture to say, it did so happen that persons had a single office divided between them who had never spoken to each other in their lives, until they found themselves, they knew not how, pigging together, heads and points, in the same truckle-bed.”

An administration, of which he had this opinion, was not likely to proceed uncensured; particularly, when his favourite repealing act “began to be in as bad an odour in the house as the stamp act had the session before.” Other revenue acts following this, called out the force and variety of his talents; and the house began to perceive, that to whatever side this young statesman threw in his weight, it must add consideration and respect to his party.

The session of 1768 opened with a perturbed prospect. The distresses occasioned by the high price of provisions, the restraining act relative to the East India company, the nullum tempus bill, and other matters, afforded great room for discussion, in which Mr. Burke took a part which not only shewed the powers of his eloquence, but the great resources of his information. He was soon considered as the head of the Rockingham party in the house of commons; and his great assiduity in preparing business for discussion, joined to his powers for speaking and writing, fully qualified him for this character. It is true, there were other persons of great name on the same side; such as the late right honourable W. Dowdeswell-r-the gravity of whose deportment, whose practical knowledge of business, and great integrity of character, made him always well hearJt and respected; Mr. Dunning (late lord Ashburtoh), whose legal knowledge and powers of elocution will be long remembered; and colonel Barre, whose political observation, and pointed replies, were always formidable to administration. But, notwithstanding the acknowleged merit of these gentlemen and others, Burke stood foremost for uniting the powers of fancy with the details of political information. In his speeches there was something for every mind to be gratified, which we have often seen occasionally exemplified even by those who disliked his general politics.

The parliament being dissolved in 1768, Mr. Burke was re-elected for Wendover. The opposition to the duke of Graf ton’s administration consisted of two parties, that of the marquis of Rockingham, and that of Mr. Grenville, but these two parties had nothing in common except their dislike of the ministry. This appeared very strikingly in a pamphlet written by Mr. Grenville, entitled “The present state of the Nation,” which was answered by Burke, in “Observations on the present state of the Nation.” One of the first subjects which occupied the attention of the new parliament was the expulsion of Wilkes for various libels, and the question, whether, after being so expelled, he was eligible to sit in the same parliament. Burke, on this occasion, endeavoured to prove that nothing but an act of the legislature can disqualify any person from sitting in parliament who is legally chosen, by a majority of electors, to fill a vacant seat. It is well known that his friend Dr. Johnson maintained a contrary doctrine in his “False Alarm;” but in this as well as other occasions during the American war, difference of opinion did not prevent a cordial intercourse between two men whose conversation during their whole lives was the admiration and ornament of every literary society. The question itself can hardly be said to have ever received a complete decision. All that followed was the expulsion of Wilkes during the present parliament, and the rescinding of that decision in a future parliament, without argument or inquiry, in order to gratify those constituents who soon after rejected Wilkes with unanimous contempt. The proceedings on this question gave rise to the celebrated letters signed Junius, which appeared in the Public Advertiser, and had been preceded by many other anti-ministerial letters by the same writer, under other signatures. They were at that time, and have often since been attributed to Mr. Burke, and we confess we once, and indeed for many years, were strongly of this opinion, but after the recent publication of these celebrated Letters, with Junius’s private correspondence with Mr. Henry Woodfall, the printer of the Public Advertiser, and with Mr. Wilkes r it is as impossible to attribute them to Burke, as it is at present to discover any other gentleman to whom they may, from any reasonable grounds, be ascribed. It may be added too, that in a confidential conversation with Dr. Johnson, he spontaneously denied them, which, as the doctor very prpperly remarks, is more decisive proof than if he had denied them on being asked the question.

Besides Burke’s speeches on the Middlesex election, he drew up a petition to the king from the freeholders of Buckinghamshire, where he had now purchased his house and lands at Beacon sfi eld, complaining of the conduct of the house of commons, in the matter of the expulsion, and praying for a dissolution of parliament. This petition was more temperate and decorous than some others addressed to the throne on that subject. About the same time he published “Thoughts on the public Discontents,” a pamphlet from which they who wish to establish a “consistent whole” in Mr. Burke’s conduct, derive some of their proofs. In this he proposed to place the government in the hands of an open aristocracy of talents, virtue, property, and rank, combined together on avowed principles, and supported by the approbation and confidence of the people; and the aristocracy which he thought fittest for this great trust, was a combination of those whig families which had most powerfully supported the revolution and consequent establishments. He expressed also, in strong terms, his disapprobation of any change in the constitution and duration of parliament; and declared himself as averse from, an administration which should have no other support than popular favour, as from one brought forward merely by the influence of the court. In all Mr. Burke' s publications there is a fascination of style and manner, which carries the reader with him to a certain distance; but to this scheme there were so many obvious objections that it made few converts, and courtiers and whigs equally opposed it, thinking it perhaps too comprehensive for the selfishness of party.

In 1770, the duke of Grafton, unable to resist the opposition within and without doors, resigned, and was succeeded by lord North, whose measures Mr. Burke uniformly opposed, particularly on the great questions agitated, and measures adopted with regard to America. So determined was he in his opposition to that minister, as to ridicule the proposition for a repeal of the obnoxious laws of the preceding administration, retaining only the duty on tea, as a mark of the authority of parliament over the colonies; although this, if wrong, could not be more so than a similar measure which he supported, and, as already noticed, some say he advised, during the marquis of Rockingham’s administration. The most brilliant of his speeches were made in the course of this disastrous war, during which, although the attempt has been made, we are totally at a loss to reconcile his principles with what he adopted on a subsequent occasion, nor are we of opinion that the question can be decided by selecting detached passages from his speeches (the most important of which he published); but from a consideration, not only of the general tendency of the whole towards the welfare of the state, and the sentiments of the nation, but on the actual effects produced. And it must not be omitted that his opposition to government continued after all Europe had leagued against Great Britain, a conduct consistent enough with the character of a partizan, but which has little in it of true independent patriotism. Much of Burke’s ardour in the course of this long political warfare has been thus accounted for by his old friend Gerard Hamilton: “Whatever opinion Burke, from any motive, supports, so ductile is jiis imagination, that he soon conceives it to be right.” We apprehend also, that Burke was more accustomed to philosophize on certain questions than is usually supposed, and that by revolving the question in every possible light, his mind was often as full of arguments on one side as on the other, neither of which he could on all occasions conceal; and hence it is that men of quite opposite opinions have been equally desirous to quote his authority; and that there are in his works passages that may be triumphantly brought forward by almost any party. Burke’s judgment, had he given it full play, would have rendered him an oracle^ to whom all parties would have been glad to appeal; but his political attachments were unfortunately strong while they lasted, and not unmixed with ambition, which frequently brought the independence of his character into suspicion. No opinion was ever more just than that of his friend Goldsmith, that Burke “gave up to party” what “was meant for mankind.”

In 1772, he took a trip to France, and while he remained in that country his literary and political eminence made him courted by all the anti-monarchical and infidel philosophers of the time. That he saw in the religious scepticism and political theories of Voltaire, Helvetius, Rousseau, and D'Alembert, even at that period, the probable overthrow of religion and government, is not surprising, for these consequences were foreseen, about the same time, by a man of much less discernment, and of no religion, the late Horace Walpole, lord Orford, Burke, however, was so impressed with the subject, that on his return he could not avoid introducing his sentiments in the house of commons, and pointing out the conspiracy of atheism to the watchful jealousy of government. He professed he was not over-fond of calling in the aid of the secular arm to suppress doctrines and opinions; but if ever it were to be raised, it should be against those enemies of their kind who would take from us the noblest prerogative of our nature, that of being a religious animal. About the same time he supported a motion for the relief of dissenters, and in the course of his speech* called the toleration which they enjoyed by connivance “a temporary relaxation of slavery,” a sort of liberty “not calculated for the meridian of England.”

In 1774, a dissolution of parliament took place, and Mr. Burke was returned one of the members for Malton; when, just as he was sitting down to dinner with his constituents after the election, an express arrived from Bristol (consisting of a deputation of some merchants), informing him, that a considerable body of the citizens of Bristol, wishing, at that critical season, to be represented by some gentleman of tried abilities and known commercial knowledge, had put him up in nomination as one of their candidates; and that they had set off express to apprise him of that event, Mr. Burke, after acknowledging this high honour, and thanking the gentlemen for their zeal and assiduity in his favour, returned into the room where his Malton constituents were about sitting down to dinner, and told them the nature of tohe express he had just received, and re-­quested their advice how to act. He observed, “That as they had done him the honour of thinking him worthy to be their member, he would, if it was their wish, endeavour to support that station with gratitude and integrity; but if they thought the general cause on which they were all embarked could be better assisted by his representing the city of Bristol, he was equally at their order.” They immediately decided for Bristol; when, after taking a short repast with them, he threw himself into a post-chaise, and without ever taking rest on the road, arrived in that city on Thursday the 13th of October, being the sixth day of the poll.

His speech to the electors was as liberal as their invitation. He did not, like other candidates, on a spur of mistaken gratitude, or the artifice of popular conciliation, pledge himself to be the mere vehicle of their instructions; he frankly told them his opinion of the trust they had reposed in him; and what rendered this conduct still more creditable to his feelings was, that his colleague (Mr. Cruger) had just before expressed himself in favour of the coercive authority of his constituents’ instructions. Mr. Burke' s sentiments on this occasion are well worth transcribing, as, in our opinion, they place that point, “How far representatives are bound by the instructions of their constituents,” out of the reach of all future litigation. “Certainly, gentlemen,” says he, “it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention; it is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own: but his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men. Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests, which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates: but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good resulting from the general reason of the whole: you choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament. If the local constituent should have an interest, or should form an hasty opinion, evidently opposite to the real good of the rest of the community, the member for that place ought to be as far as any other from any endeavour to give it effect.”

With these open and manly sentiments, Mr. Burke entered the house of commons, and we know of no instance in which he did not preserve the tenor of them; but in 1780, when he stood candidate for Bristol again, it was found that he had given offence to his constituents, by maintaining that he should be independent in his conduct, by supporting the trade of Ireland, and by voting on sir George Saville’s bill in favour of the Roman catholics; and although he endeavoured to vindicate himself with his usual eloquence, he lost his election, and took his seat in the new parliament for Malton.

The Spring of 1782 opened a new scene of great political importance. The American war had continued seven years, and having been unsuccessful, not only the people, but very nearly a majority of the parliament, became tired of it. The minister was now attacked with great force, and the several motions which the opposition introduced, relative to the extinction of the war, were lost only by a very small minority. Finding the prospect of success brightening, the opposition determined to put the subject at issue. Accordingly on the 8th of March, lord John Cavendish moved certain resolutions, recapitulating the failures, the misconduct, and the expences of ‘the war, the debate on which lasted till two o’clock in the morning, when the house divided on the order of the day. which had been moved by the secretary at war, and which was carried only by a majority often. This defection on the side of administration gave heart to the minority, and they rallied with redoubled force and spirits on the 15th of March, when a motion of sir John Rous, “That the house could have no further confidence in the ministers who had the direction of public affairs,” was negatived only by a majority of nine. The minority followed their fortune, and on the 20th of the same month (the house being uncommonly crowded) the earl of Surrey (now duke of Norfolk) rose to make his promised motion, when lord North spoke to order, by saying, “he meant no disrespect to the noble earl; but as notice had been given that the object of the intended motion was the removal of his majesty’s ministers, he meant to have acquainted the house, that such a motion was become unnecessary, as he could assure the house, on authority, that the present administration was no more! and that his majesty had come to a full determination of changing his ministers; and for the purpose of giving the necessary time for new arrangements, he moved an adjournment,” which was instantly adopted. During this adjournment a new administration was formed under the auspices of the marquis of Rockingham, on whose public principles and private virtues the nation seemed to repose, after the violent struggle by which it had been agitated, with the securest and most implicit confidence. The arrangements were as follow: The marquis of Rockingham first lord of the treasury, the earl of Shelburne and Mr. Fox joint secretaries of state, lord Camden president of the council, duke of Grafton privy seal, lord John Cavendish chancellor of the exchequer, and Mr. Burke (who was at the same time made a privy counsellor) paymaster-general of the forces.

Upon the meeting of parliament after the recess, the new ministry, which stood pledged to the country for many reforms, began to put them into execution. They first began with the affairs of Ireland; and as the chief ground of complaint of the sister kingdom was the restraining power of the 6th of George the First, a bill was brought in to repeal this act, coupled with a resolution of the house, “That it was essentially necessary to the mutual happiness of the two countries tha& a firm and solid connection should be forthwith established by the consent of both, and that his majesty should be requested to give the proper directions for promoting the same.” These passed without opposition, and his majesty at the same time appointed his grace the duke of Portland lord lieutenant of that kingdom. They next brought in bills for disqualifying revenue officers for voting in the election for members of parliament; and on the 15th of April, Mr. Burke brought forward his great plan of reform in the civil list expenditure, by which the annual saving (and which would be yearly increasing) would amount to 72,368l. It was objected by some members that this bill was not so extensive as it was originally framed; but Mr. Burke entered into the grounds of those omissions which had been made either from a compliance with the opinions of others, or from a fuller consideration of the particular cases; at the same time he pledged himself, that he should at all times be ready to dbey their call, whenever it appeared to be the general sense of the house and of the people to prosecute a more complete system of reform. This bill was followed by another for the regulation of his own office; but the lateness of the season did not afford time for the completion of all plans of regulation and retrenchment, which were in the contemplation of the new ministry, and indeed all their plans were deranged by the death of the marquis of Rockingham July 1, 1782. On this event it was discovered that there was not that perfect union of principles among the leaders of the majority, to which the country had looked up; for, lord Shelburne (afterwards marquis of Lansdowne) being appointed first lord of the treasury, a statesman who had incessantly and powerfully co-operated with the party in opposition to the late war, except in the article of avowing the independence of America, this gave umbrage to the Rockingham division of the cabinet, who were of opinion that “by this change the measures of the former administration would be broken in upon.” Mr. Fox, therefore, lord John Cavendish, Mr. Burke, and others, resigned their respective offices, and Mr. Pitt, then a very young man, succeeded lord George Cavendish as chancellor of the exchequer, lord Sidney succeeded Mr. Fox as secretary of state, and colonel Barre Mr. Burke as paymaster of the forces, lord Sherburne retaining his office as first minister.

By this change Mr. Burke fell once more into the ranks of opposition, and continued in that situation until after the general peace of 1783, when Mr. Fox, joining his parliamentary interest with that of lord North, gained a majority in the house of commons, which after some ineffectual struggles on the part of Mr. Pitt, terminated in what was called the coalition administration, composed of the duke of Portland first lord of the treasury, lord John Cavendish chancellor of the exchequer, Mr. Burke, as before, paymaster of the forces, and Mr. Fox and lord North joint secretaries of state. As this union of political interest was the most unpopular measure adopted in the present reign, and that which it has, above all others, been found most difficult to reconcile with purity and consistency of principle, it may be necessary to state what has been offered in apology, at least as far as Mr. Burke is concerned. It is well known to those in the least, conversant in the politics which immediately preceded this period, how uniformly lord North was upbraided for his conduct throughout the whole course of the American war: every thing that could attach to a bad ministry was laid to his charge, except perhaps the solitary exception of corruption in his own person, which was not much, while he was continually accused of being the mover of a mass of corruption in others; and as Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke were the two leading champions of the house of commons, in their several speeches will be found invectives of such a nature, as to men judging of others in the ordinary habits of life, perhaps would be thought insurmountable barriers to their coalition. But we are told, that forming an administration upon a broad bottom of political interest is quite a different thing from contracting a private friendship; in the former many things are to be conceded, in regard to times and circumstances, and the opinions of others; in the latter the question of right and wrong lies in a narrower compass, and is more readily judged of by the parties and their friends. Mr. Burke, therefore, may say, “that in his several attacks on lord North, he considered him as a principal promoter and encourager of the American war, a war which he held destructive of the interests and constitutional rights of this country. As a minister, therefore, he reprobated his conduct; but the American contest being over, and other measures about to be pursued, which, in his opinion, might heal the bruises of this war, he coalesced with him as a man, who (benefiting himself by his former mistakes) might still render important services to his country.”

Such a defence as this may very well be admitted in favour of Mr. Burke and others; but Mr. Fox stood pledged upon different ground. He not only inveighed against the minister in the grossest terms of abuse, but against the man; whom, he said, “he would not trust himself in a room with, and from the moment that he ever acted with him, he would rest satisfied to be termed the most infamous of men.” After such a particular declaration as this, emphatically and deliberately announced in a full house of commons, scarce nine months had elapsed when Mr. Fox cordially united with lord North, and brought a suspicion on his character, with regard to consistency, which all the exertions of his future life were not able to remove. In the mean time, however, a new administration bade fair for permanence. It was strong in talents, in rank, and in the weight of landed interest. It seemed nearly such a combination of great families as Mr. Burke had wished in his “Thoughts on the Causes of the present Discontents,” but it wanted what was necessary to complete his plan, “the approbation and confidence of the people,” Suspicion attached to all their measures, and seemed, in the opinion of the people, to be confirmed when they introduced the famous East India bill. This is not the place for discussing the merits of this important bill; it may suffice, as matter of fact, to state that it was considered as trenching too much on the prerogative, as creating a mass of ministerial influence which would be irresistible; and that the vast powers which it gave the house of commons might render the administration too strong for the crown. Had these objections been confined to the ex-ministers and their friends, the coalesced ministers might have repelled them, at least by force of numbers, but it was peculiarly unfortunate for Mr. Burke, Mr. Fox, and the whig part of administration, that they were opposed without doors by the voice of the people, and in the writings of all those authors who had the credit of being constitutional authorities. The East India bill, accordingly, although carried in the house of commons, was lost in thai of the lords, and a new administration was arranged, in December 1783, at the head of which was Mr. Pitt.

The majority of the house of commons, however, still continuing attached to the dismissed ministers, public business was interrupted, and continued in an embarrassed state until his majesty determined to appeal to the people by a dissolution of parliament in May 1784. The issue of this was, that many of the most distinguished adherents to the coalition were rejected by their 9onstituents, and Mr. Pitt, in the new parliament, acquired a majority quite decisive as to the common routine of business, but certainly for many years not comparable in talents to the opposition. Mr. Burke, again belonging to this class, exerted the utmost of those powers which so justly entitled him to the character he maintained in the world. To detail the progress of that high character through all the political business he went through would be incompatible with the nature and limits of this work; his talents will be best shewn in a general and minute review of his public life, as exemplified in his speeches, his political and other publications, and then he will be found one of the greatest ornaments of the age he lived in.

Referring, therefore, at large to these documents, the next great political object of Mr. Burke’s attention was in the impeachment of Warren Hastings, esq. governor general of Bengal. Whatever merit or demerit there was in this procedure, it originated with him; he pledged himself to undertake it long before Mr. Hastings’ s return from India, and was as good as his word on his arrival; parliament, however, sanctioned his motions for an impeachment, and from that time to its final determination it was their own act and deed. In the prosecution of this tedious and expensive trial, the variety and extent of Mr. Burke’s powers, perhaps, never came out with greater lustre; he has been charged by some with shewing too much irritability of temper on this occasion, and by others of private and interested pique; but though we acknowledge there appear to be grounds for the first charge (which is too often the concomitant of great and ardent minds in the eager and impassioned pursuits of their object) we have every reason to acquit him of the other. It was, on the contrary, his political interest to forego the impeachment, and his friends, we believe, strongly advised him to that measure, but we have every reason to think he felt it his duty to act otherwise; and though the subsequent decision of the house of lords has shewn he was in an error, we must suppose it an error of his understanding, not of his heart. Such at least is the language of some of his biographers on this subject; but, although he may be exculpated of malice or avarice in this affair, we cannot help being of opinion, that his character, the character of his heart, as well as his head) must suffer by the recollection of his many and violent exaggerations without proof, and particularly his harsh and coarse notice of Mr. Hastings, and his own personal ostentation. On one occasion, when in the moment of Mr. Hastings’ s hesitation about the ceremony of kneeling at the bar, which proceeded from accident, he commanded him to kneel, with a ferocity in his countenance which no painting could express, we question if there was a human being in that vast assembly who would have exchanged feelings with him.

The next important measure in which Mr. Burke stood forward with an unusual degree of prominence, was thfc settlement of a regency during his majesty’s illness in 1788—9. On his conduct at this time, his biographers who wish to prove him uniformly consistent in political principle, seem inclined to cast a veil; but, as in that conduct he betrayed more characteristic features of the man as well as the politician than at any other period of his life, we know not how to get rid of some notice of it in a narrative, however short, which professes to be impartial. In fact, his repeated interference in the debates to which the regency gave rise, were far more formidable to his own friends than to the ministers. Either unconscious that constitutional principles and popular opinion were against the part his friends took, or despising both in a case in which he thought himself right, prudence so completely deserted him, that, not content with the urgency of legal and speculative argument, he burst forth in expressions, respecting his majesty, so indecent, irreverent, and cruel, as to create more general dislike to his character than had ever before been entertained; and when we consider that this violence of temper and passion were exercised on the illustrious personage to whom in a very few years he was gratefully to acknowledge his obligations for the independence and comfort of his latter days, we cannot be surprised that those who intend an uniform and unqualified panegyric on his public life, wish to suppress his conduct during this memorable period.

The next and last sera of his history is, perhaps, the most important of all, as it is that concerning which the opinions of the world are still divided. We allude to his interference, for such it may be called, with the conduct and progress of the French revolution. Many of his friends in parliament, as well as numbers of wise and good men out of it, augured from the meeting of the states-general of France, great benefit to that nation, of which the government was considered as despotic and oppressive; and some were sanguine enough to predict a new and happy order of things to all the nations connected with France, when its government should become more free. These sentiments, we can well remember, were not only general, but perhaps universal, although they might not always proceed from the same sources. There were some who loved liberty, and would hail its dawn in any country. There were others who hated the French government as the perpetual enemy of Great Britain. Mr. Burke saw nothing in the proceedings of the French which was favourable either to liberty or peace. He was well acquainted with the genius of the French people, and with the principles of those philosophers, as they called themselves, by whom a total revolution in church and state had long been projected; and from the commencement of their career in the constituent assembly, when they established, as the foundation of all legal government, the metaphysical doctrine of the “rights of man,” he predicted that torrent of anarchy and infidelity which they have since attempted to pour over all Europe. Mr. Fox, and some of the other leading men in opposition, considered this as a vain fear, and a coolness took place between them and Mr. Burke, although they continued for some time to act together in parliament. In the mean time he published his celebrated “Reflections on the French Revolution,” the instantaneous effect of which was to reduce the nation, hitherto unanimous or indifferent on the subject, to two distinct parties, the one admiring the glorious prospects arising from the French revolution, the other dreading its consequences to this nation in particular, and to the world at large. Many able writers of the former class took up their pens on this occasion, in what were called “answers” to Mr. Burke, and some of them were certainly written with great ability. The controversy was long and obstinate, and cannot be said to have terminated until the commencement of the war in 1793, when the changes of government and practice in France rendered most of the points discussed with Mr. Burke no longer of immediate importance. France, as he had predicted, was plunged into barbarous and atrocious anarchy, and the friends of her projected liberty, dearly as they clung to the idea, were obliged to confess themselves disappointed in every hope, while Mr. Burke’s predictions were erroneous in one only, namely, that France was now blotted out of the map of Europe.

In the mean time, an open rupture took place between Mr. Burke and his oldest friends in opposition. In 1790 he had so far expressed his dislike of experiments on the established laws and constitution, as to oppose the repeal of the test-act, and a motion for the reform of parliament. With regard to the latter, we know not that he ever was friendly, but it is certain that he once maintained the propriety of relieving the dissenters from certain disabilities. He was now, however, as he declares in his “Reflections,” endeavouring to “preserve consistency by varying his means to secure the unity of his end; and when the equipoise of the vessel in which he sails may be in danger of overloading it upon one side, is desirous of carrying the small weight of his reasons to that which may preserve the equipoise.” He had identified the whole body of dissenters with Drs. Priestley and Price, and from their writings, particularly those of Priestley, saw nothing but a co-operation with the French in revolutionary measures. Such were his sentiments, when, in 1791, a bill was proposed for the formation of a constitution in Canada. In discussing it Mr. Burke entered on the general principles of legislation, considered the doctrines of the rights of man, proceeded to its offspring, the constitution of France, and expressed his conviction that there was a design formed in this country against its constitution.

After some members of his own party had called Mr. Burke to order, Mr. Fox, after declaring his conviction that the British Gonstitution, though defective in theory, was in practice excellently adapted to this country, repeated his praises of the French revolution; he thought it, on the whole, one of the most glorious events in the history of mankind; and proceeded to express his dissent from Mr. Burke’s opinions on the subject, as inconsistent with just views of the inherent rights of mankind. These, besides, were, he said, inconsistent with Mr. Burke’s former principles. Mr. Burke, in reply, said: “Mr. Fox has treated me with harshness and malignity; after having harassed with his light troops in the skirmishes of order, he brought the heavy artillery of his own great abilities to bear on me.” He maintained that the French constitution and general system were replete with anarchy, impiety, vice, and misery; that the discussion of a new polity for a province that had been under the French, and was now under the English government, was a proper opportunity of comparing the French and British constitutions. He denied the charge of inconsistency; his opinions on government, he insisted, had been the same during all his political life. He said, Mr. Fox and he had often differed, and that there had been no loss of friendship between them; but there is something in the “cursed French revolution” which envenoms every thing. On this Mr. Fox whispered: “There is no loss of friendship between us.” Mr. Burke, with great warmth, answered: “There is! I know the price of my conduct; our friendship is at an end.” Mr. Fox was very greatly agitated by this renunciation of friendship, and made many concessions; but in the course of his speech still maintained that Mr. Burke had formerly held very different principles. It would be difficult, says one of his biographers, to determine with certainty, whether constitutional irritability or public principle was the chief cause of Mr. Burke’s sacrifice of that friendship which he had so long cherished, and of which the talents and qualities of its object rendered him so worthy. It would perhaps be as difficult to prove that uch a sacrifice was necessary, and we fear that his reconciliation with lord North and his quarrel with Mr. Fox must, even by the most favourable of his panegyrists, be placed among the inconsistencies of this otherwise truly eminent character. From this time, Messrs. Burke and Fox remained at complete variance, nor have we ever heard that any personal interview took place afterwards between them.

Mr. Burke being now associated with Mr. Pitt, although neither soliciting, nor invited into any public station, con-; tinned to write from time to time, memorials and remarks on the state of France, and the alliance of the great powers of Europe that was formed against the new order of things in that distracted country. Some of these were published after his death, but as all of them are included in his collected works, it is unnecessary now to specify their dates and titles. Having resolved to quit the bustle of public life as soon as the trial of Mr. Hastings should be concluded, he vacated his seat when that gentleman was acquitted, and retired to his villa at Beaconsfield, where on Aug. 2, 1794, he met with a heavy domestic loss in the death of his only son. In the beginning of the same year he had lost his brother Richard, whom he tenderly loved; but though this reiterated stroke of death deeply affected him, it never relaxed the vigour of his mind, nor lessened the interest which he took in the public welfare. In this retreat he was disturbed by a very unprovoked attack upon his character by some distinguished speakers in the house of peers. Soon after the death of his son, his majesty bestowed a pension of 1200l. for his own life and that of his wife on the civil list, and two other pensions of 2500l. a year for three lives, payable out of the four and a half per cent. These gifts were now represented as a reward for having changed his principles, and deserted his friends, although they were bestowed after he had left parliament. This charge he repelled in a letter addressed to earl Fitzwilliam, written in terms of eloquent and keen sarcasm.

When the appearance of amelioration in the principles and government of France induced his majesty to make overtures of peace to the French Directory, Mr. Burke resumed his pen, and gave his opinions against the safety of such a negociation in a series of letters entitled: “Thoughts on the prospect of a Regicide Peace.” This was his last work, and in point of style and reasoning not interior to any he had produced on the subject of the French character and government.

From the beginning of July 1797, his health rapidly declined; but his understanding exerted itself with undiminished force and uncontracted range. On the 7th of that month, when the French revolution was mentioned, he spoke with pleasure of the conscious rectitude of his own intentions in what he had done and written respecting it; intreated those about him to believe, that if any unguarded expression of his on the subject had offended any of his former friends, no offence was by him intended; and he declared his unfeigned forgiveness of all who had on account of his writings, or for any other cause, endeavoured to do him an injury. On the day following, whilst one of his friends, assisted by his servant, was carrying him into another room, he faintly uttered, “God bless you,” fell back, and instantly expired in the sixty-eighth year of his age. He was interred on the 15th, in the church of Beaconsfield, close to his son and brother.

Edmund Burke in his person was about five feet ten inches high, erect, and well formed; with a countenance rather soft and open; and except by an occasional bend of his brow, caused by his being near-sighted, indicated none of those great traits of mind by his countenance which he was otherwise well known to possess. The best print of him is from a half-length by sir Joshua Reynolds, painted when Mr. Burke was in the meridian of life.

Of his talents and acquirements it would be difficult to speak, did we not trust to his long and justly-established fame to fill up the deficiencies of our description. The richness of his mind illustrated every subject he touched upon. In conversing with him he attracted by his novelty, variety, and research; in parting from him, we involuntarily exclaimed “What an extraordinary man!” As an orator, though not so grand and commanding in his manner as lord Chatham, whose form of countenance and penetrating eye gave additional force to his natural and acquired talents, yet he had excellencies which always gave him singular pre-eminence in the senate. He was not (though it was evident he drew from these great resources) like Cicero, or Demosthenes, or any one else; the happy power of diversifying his matter, and placing it in various relations, was all his own; and here he was generally truly sublime and beautiful. He had not, perhaps, always the art of concluding in the right place, partly owing to the vividness of his fancy, and the redundancy of his matter; and partly owing to that irritability of temper which he himself apologizes for to his friends in his last notice of them; but those speeches which he gave the public do not partake of this fault, which shew that in his closet his judgment returned to its usual standard.

As a writer he is still higher; and judging of him from his earliest to his latest productions, he must be considered as one of those prodigies which are sometimes given to the world to be admired, but cannot be imitated; he possessed all kinds of styles, and gave them to the head and heart in a most exquisite manner: pathos, taste, argument, experience, sublimity, were all the ready colours of his palette, ani from his pencil they derived their brightest dyes. He was one of the few whose writings broke the fascinating links of party, and compelled all to admire the brilliancy of his pen. He was a firm professor of the Christian religion, and exercised its principles in its duties; wisely considering, “That whatever disunites man from God, disunites man from man.' 7 He looked within himself for the regulation of his conduct, which was exemplary in all the relations of life; he was warm in his affections, simple in his manners, plain in his table, arrangements, &c. &c. and so little affected with the follies and dissipations of what is called” the higher classes," that he was totally ignorant of them; so that this great man, with all his talents, would be mere lumber in a modern drawing-room; not but that he excelled in all the refinements as well as strength of conversation, and could at times badinage with great skill and natural ease; but what are these to a people where cards and dice constitute their business; and fashionable phrases, and fashionable vices, their conversation?

His entire works have been published by his executors, Drs. King and Laurence, in 5 vols. 4to, and 10 vols. 8vo, and will ever form a stupendous monument of his great and unrivalled talents. For reasons, however, which we have already hinted, they will require to be read by the political student with a considerable portion of that judgment which, in the author, was frequently paralyzed by the rapidity of his ideas, and the bewitching seductions of his imagination. And when the details of his public and private life shall be given from more authentic sources, and sanctioned by his correspondence, which is said to be extensive, no reasonable doubt can be entertained that he will deserve to be considered as the most illustrious polical character of the eighteenth century.

, a celebrated commentator on the New Testament, the son of the rev. Miles Burkitt, who was ejected for nonconformity, was born at Hitcharn, in Northamptonshire, July 25, 1650. He was sent first to a school at Stow Market, and from thence to another at Cambridge. After his recovery from the small pox, which he caught there a he was admitted of Pembroke-hall, at the age of no more than fourteen years; and upon his removal from the university, when he had taken his degree, he became a chaplain in a private gentleman’s family, where he continued some years. He entered young upon the ministry, being ordained by bishop Reynolds; and the first employment which he had was at Milden, in Suffolk, where he continued twenty-one years a constant preacher (in a plain, practical, and affectionate manner), first as curate, and afterwards as rector of that church. In 1692 he was promoted to the vicarage of Dedham, in Essex, where he continued to the time of his death, which happened in the latter end of October, 1703. He was a pious ancT charitable man. He made great collections for the French Protestants in the years 1687, &c. and by his great care, pains, and charges, procured a worthy minister to go and settle in Carolina. Among other charities, he bequeathed by his last will and testament the house wherein he lived, with the lands thereunto belonging, to be an habitation for the lecturer that should be chosen from time to time to preach the lecture at Dedham. He wrote some books, and among the rest a Commentary upon the New Testament, in the same plain, practical, and affectionate manner in which he preached. This has often been reprinted in folio, and lately with some alterations and improvements, by the rev. Dr. Glasse. Mr. Burkitt’s other works are small pious tracts for the use of his parishioners.

, an eminent civilian, descended from one of those noble families of Lucca, which, upon their embracing the Protestant religion, were obliged, about two centuries and a half since, to take refuge in Geneva, was born at Geneva in 1694, where he became honorary professor of jurisprudence in 1720. After travelling into France, Holland, and England, he commenced the exercise of his -functions, and rendered his school famous and flourishing. One of his pupils was prince Frederic of Hesse-Cassel, who, in 1734, took him to his residence, and detained him there for some time. Upon his return to Geneva, he surrendered his professorship; and in 1740 entered into the grand council, and, as a member of this illustrious body, he continued to serve his fellow-citizens till his death, in 1750. As a writer, he was distinguished less by his originality than by his clear and accurate method of detailing and illustrating the principles of others; among whom, are Grotius, PufTendorf, and Barbeyrac. His works are: “Principles of Natural Law, 77 Geneva, 1747, 4to, often reprinted, translated into various languages, and long used as a text-book in the university of Cambridge; and” Political Law,“Geneva, 1751, 4to, a posthumous work, compiled from the notes of his pupils, which was translated into English by Dr. Nugent, 1752, 8vo. His” Principles of Natural Law“were re-published in the original by Professor de Felice, Yverdun, 1766, 2 vols. with additions and improvements. Another posthumous work of our author, was his” Elemens du Droit Naturel," being his text-book on the Law of Nature, and admirable for perspicuity and happy arrangement. Burlamaqui was much esteemed in private life, and respected as a lover of the fine arts, and a patron of artists. He had a valuable collection of pictures and prints; and a medal of him was executed by Dassier, in a style of superior excellency.

, the first upon record of a very learned family, and professor of divinity at Utrecht, was the son of Peter Burman, a Protestant minister at Frankendal, and was born at Leyden in 1632, where he pursued his studies. At the age of twenty-three he was invited by the Dutch congregation at Hanau, in Germany, to be their pastor, and thence he was recalled to Leyden, and chosen regent of the college in which he had been educated. Before he had been here a year, his high reputation occasioned his removal to Utrecht, where he was appointed professor of divinity, and one of the preachers; Here he acquired additional fame by his learning, and the flourishing state to which he advanced the university. He was reckoned an excellent philosopher, an eminent scholar in the learned languages, and a good preacher. He died Nov. 10, 1679. His principal works are Commentaries on some of the books of the Old Testament, in Dutch, besides which he wrote in Latin: 1. “An Abridgment of Divinity,” Utrecht, 1671, 2 vols. 4to, often reprinted. 2. “De Moralitate Sabbati,” 1665, which occasioned a controversy with Essenius. 3. “Narratio de controversiis nuperius in academia Ultrajectina motis, &c.” Utrecht, 1677, 4to. 4. “Exercitationes Academic^,” Rotterdam, 1683, 2 vols. 4to. 5. “Tractatus de Passione Christi,” 1695, 4to. 6. His “Academical discourses,” published by Grasvius, with some account of the author, Utrecht, 1700, 4to, and the same year they were translated and printed in Dutch.

, one of the sons of the preceding, was born at Utrecht, in 1671, studied polite literature under Graevius, and afterwards went to the university of Leyden, where he entered upon his philosophical, mathematical, and divinity course. After he had finished his academical studies, he was chosen pastor of the church of Condom, in Frieseland, and three years after, in 1698, was invited to that of the Brille. In 1702 he accompanied, as minister, a deputation of his countrymen to England. On his return he preached at Enchuysen, and at Amsterdam, where he remained ten years. In 1715 he was appointed divinity-professor at Utrecht, where he died in 1719, leaving by his wife, Elizabeth Thierrens, four sons, the eldest of whom, John, became in 1738 professor of botany at Amsterdam; the second, Francis, was minister at Nimeguen; the third, Abraham, a merchant at Amsterdam; a.nd Peter, the fourth, professor of humanity at Franeker. His works are: 1. “Burmannorum pietas, gratissimae beati parentis memoriae communi nomine ex^ hibita,” with some letters of Burman and Limborg, Utrecht­1701, 8vo. 2. “A defence of his father,” in Dutch, 1704, against the charge of Spinosism, brought against him by Limborg. His other works are chiefly orations on points of theology, sacred poetry, &c.

, the eminent philologist, was brother to the preceding, and born at Utrecht, June 26, 1668. His father died when he was in his eleventh year, by wjiich event he was thrown entirely on the care of his mother, by whose diligence, piety, and prudence, his education was so regulated, that he had scarcely any reason, but filial tenderness, to regret the loss of his father. About this time he was sent to the public school at Utrecht, to be instructed in the learned languages, and after passing through the classics with much reputation, was admitted into the university in his thirteenth year. Here he was committed to the care of the learned Grrcvius, whose regard for his father (of which we took some notice in his life) induced him to superintend his studies, with more than common attention, which was soon confirmed and increased by his discoveries of the genius of his pupil, and his observation of his diligence. He was soon enabled to determine that Burman was remarkably adapted to classical studies, and to predict the great advances that, he would make, by industriously pursuing the direction of his genius. Animated by the encouragement of a tutor so celebrated, he continued the vigour of his application, and for several years not only attended the lectures of Gnevius, but made use of every other opportunity of improvement with such diligence, as might justly be expected to produce an uncommon proficiency.

Having thus attained a sufficient degree of classical knowledge to qualify him for inquiries into other sciences, he applied himself to the study of the law, and published a dissertation, “De Vicesima Haereditatum,” which he publicly defended, under the professor Van Muyden, with such learning and eloquence, as procured him great applause. He then went to Leyclen, where he studied for a year, under M. de Voider, a man of great celebrity, and attended at the same time Ryckius’s explanations of Tacitus, and James Gronovius’s lectures on the Greek writers, and has often been heard to acknowledge, at an advanced age, the assistance which he received from them. After passing a year at Leyden, he returned to Utrecht, and once more applied himself to philological studies, by the assistance of Graevius; and here, in March 1688, he was advanced to the degree of doctor of laws, on which occasion he published a learned dissertation “De Transactionibus,” and defended it with his usual eloquence, learning, and success. He then travelled into Switzerland and Germany, where he gained an increase both of fame and learning.

On his return he engaged in the practice of the law, and was attaining high reputation in the courts of justice, when he was summoned in 1691, by the magistrates of Utrecht, to undertake the charge of collector of the tenths, an office in that place of great honour, and which he accepted therefore as a proof of their confidence and esteem. While thus engaged, he married Eve Clotterboke, a young kdy of a good family, hy whom he had ten children, two of whom only survived him. But neither public business, nor domestic cares, detained Bui-man from the prosecution of his literary inquiries; by which he so much endeared himself to Graevius, that he was recommended by him to the regard of the university of Utrecht, and accordingly, in 1696, was chosen professor of eloquence and history, to which was added, after some time, the professorship of the Greek language, and afterwards that of politics; so various did they conceive his abilities, and so extensive his knowledge. Having now more frequent opportunities of displaying his learning, he rose, in a short time, to a high reputation, of which the great number of his auditors was a sufficient proof, and which the proficiency of his pupils shewed not to be accidental, or undeserved.

In 1714, during the university vacation of six weeks, he visited Paris, for the purposes of literary research. In this visit he contracted an acquaintance, among other learned men, with the celebrated Montfaucon; with whom he conversed, at his first interview, with no other character than that of a traveller; but their discourse turning upon ancient learning, the stranger soon gave such proofs of his attainments, that Montfaucon declared him a very uncommon traveller, and confessed his curiosity to know his name; which he no sooner heard than he rose from his seat, and, embracing him with the utmost arJour, expressed his satisfaction at having seen the man whose productions of various kinds he had so often praised; and as a real proof of his regard, offered not only to procure hiui an immediate admission to all the libraries of Paris, bu t <o those in remoter provinces, which are not generally open to strangers, and undertook to ease the expences of his journey, by procuring him entertainment in all the monasteries of his order. This favour, however, Burman was hindered from accepting, by the necessity of returning to his professorship at Utrecht.

He had already extended to distant parts his reputation for knowledge of ancient history, by a treatise “De Vectigalibus populi Romani,” on the revenues of the Romans; and for his skill in Greek learning, and in ancient coins, by a tract called “Jupiter Fulgurator,” and after his return from Paris, he published “Phsedrus,” first with the notes of various commentators, and afterwards with his own. He printed also many poems, and made many orations upon different subjects, and procured an impression of the epistles of Gudius and Sanavius. While he was thus employed, the professorships of history, eloquence, and the Greek language, became vacant at Leyden, by the death of Perizonius, which Burman’s reputation incited the curators of the university to offer him upon very liberal terms, which, after some demur, he accepted, and on entering on his office, in 1715, pronounced an oration upon the duty and office of a professor of polite literature, “De publici humanioris discipline professoris proprio officio et munere.” He was twice rector of the university, and discharged that important office with ability. Indeed, by his conduct in every station he gained so much esteem, that when the professorship of history of the United Provinces became vacant, it was conferred on him, as an addition to his honours and revenues which he might justly claim; and afterwards, as a proof of the continuance of their regard, they made him chief librarian, an office which was the more acceptable to him, as it united his business with his pleasure, and gave him an opportunity at the same time of superintending the library, and carrying on his studies.

Such was his course of life, till, in his old age, leaving off his practice of taking exercise, he began to be afflicted with the scurvy, which tormenting disease he bore, though not without some degree of impatience, yet without despondency, and applied himself in the intermission of his v pains, to seek for comfort in the duties of religion. While he lay in this state of misery, he received an account of the promotion of two of his grandsons, and a catalogue of the king of France’s library, presented to him by the command of the king himself, and expressed some satisfaction on all these occasions; but soon 'diverted his thoughts to the more important consideration of his eternal state, into which he passed March 31, 1741, in the seventy-third year of his age.

He was a man of moderate stature, of great strength and activity, which he preserved by temperate diet, without medical exactness, and by allotting proportions of his time to relaxation and amusement, not suffering his studies to exhaust his strength, but relieving them by frequent intermissions. In his hours of relaxation he was gay, and sometimes gave way so far to his temper, naturally satirical, that he drew upon himself the ill-will of those who had been unfortunately the subjects of his mirth; but enemies so provoked he thought it beneath him to regard or to pacify; for he was fiery, but not malignant, disdained dissimulation, and in his gay or serious hours, preserved a settled detestation of falsehood. So that he was an open and undisguised friend or enemy, entirely unacquainted with the artifices of flatterers, but so judicious in the choice of friends, and so constant in his affection to them, that those with whom he had contracted familiarity in his youth, had, for the greatest part, his confidence in his old age.

His abilities, which would probably have enabled him to have excelled in any kind of learning, were chiefly employed, as his station required, on polite literature, in which he arrived at very uncommon knowledge, but his superiority, however, appears rather from judicious compilations than original productions. His style is lively and masculine, but not without harshness and constraint, nor, perhaps, always polished to that purity which some writers have attained. He was at least instrumental to the instruction of mankind, by the publication of many valuable performances, which lay neglected by the greater part of the learned world; and, if reputation be estimated by usefulness, he may claim a higher degree in the ranks of learning than some others of happier elocution, or more vigorous imagination. The malice or suspicion of those who either did not know, or did not love him, had given rise to some doubts about his religion, which he took an opportunity of removing on his death-bed, by a voluntary declaration of his faith, his hope of everlasting salvation from the revealed promises of God, and his confidence in the merits of our Redeemer, of the sincerity of which declaration his whole behaviour in his long illness was an incontestable proof; and he concluded his life, which had been illustrious for many virtues, by exhibiting an example of true piety. His literary contests are now forgotten, and although we may agree with Le Clerc, that Barman might have been better employed than in illustrating such authors as Petronius Arbiter, yet we are at a loss to find an apology for Le Clerc’s personal abuse and affected contempt for Burman. Burman has^ by the gerteral voice of modem critics, been allowed the merit of giving to the public some of the best editions of the Latin classics, among which we may enumerate his 1. “Phsedrus,” Leyden, 1727, 4to. 2. “Quintilian,” ibid* 1720, 2 vols. 4to. 3. “Valerius Flaccus,” Traj, ad Rhenum “(Utrecht), 1702, 12mo. 4.” Ovid,“Amst. 1727, 4 vols. 4to. To this admirable edition, according to the Bipont editors, he had composed a long and learned preface, which did not appear until fifteen years after his death, when it was published under the title” P. Burmanni Praefatio ad Ovidii editionem majorem excusam Amst. 1727,“175G, 4t6. 5.” Poetoe Latini Minores,“1731, 2 vols. 4to. 6.” Velleius Paterculus,“Leyden, 1719, and 1744, 2 vols. 8vo. 7.” Virgil,“Amst. 1746, 4 vols. 4to. 8.” Suetonius,“ibid. 1736, 2 vols. 4to. 9.” Lucau,“Leyden, 1740, 4to. 10.” Buchanani Opera,“Leyden, 1725, 2 vols. 4to. To these may be added:” Sylioges Epistolarum a viris illustribus scriptarum,“Leyden, 1727, 5 vols. 4to, a work of great curiosity and utility in literary history; and his” Orationes, antea sparsim editae, et ineditis auctae. Accedit carminum Appendix," Hague, 1759, 4to. To these orations the editor annexed his funeral oration, pronounced by the learned Mr. Oesterdyke, professor of medicine in Leyden, which contains those particulars of his life, which are given above, and were first translated by Dr. Johnson, and published in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1742.

, is said to have been the son of the preceding, but little is recorded of him, unless that he was a magistrate of Utrecht, and died in 1755. He wrote in Latin a “Life of Pope Adrian VI.” Utrecht 1727, and in 1738 a quarto volume, to which we have been considerably indebted, entitled “Trajectum eruditum,” or, an account of the learned men of Utrecht.

, called the second, or the younger, was son to Francis Burman and nephew to the first Francis Burman, whose life* we have given above, and was celebrated for philosophical knowledge. He was born at Amsterdam in 1713, and educated principally by his uncle, He rose to the offices of professor of history and eloquence atFraneker; and in 1742 removed to Amsterdam, where he died June 24, 1778, of an apoplexy. A year before, he had resigned his professorship, and had retired to a country house between Leyden and the Hague. He published editions, 1. of “Aristophanes,” properly Bergler^s edition, but under the care of Burman, Leyden, 1760, 2 vols. 4to, 2. “Claudian,” Amst. 1760, 4to. 3. “Anthologia,” of the Latin poets, Amst. 1759, 2 vols. 4to. 4. “Propertius,” Utrecht, 1780, 4to, a posthumous work superintended by Santenius, by far the best edition of Propertius ever published. 5. “Poematum Libri Quatuor,” Leyden, 1774, 4to.

, father of the preceding, once a pupil of Boerhaave, and professor of botany at Amsterdam, employed much labour and expence in editing various botanical works, particularly those giving accounts of plants procured from the Indies. In 1736 he published an edition of Weinman’s Herbal, to Which he added several plates with African plants. His next publication, in which he had the assistance of Linnæus, then a young man, was the “Thesaurus Zeylanicus, exhibens Plantas in Insula Zeylana nascentes, Iconibus illustratus,” 4to, 1737, taken from, various travellers, with new descriptions and plates. The following year he was appointed professor to the botanical garden at Amsterdam, and soon after published “Rariarum Africanarum Plantarum Decades Decem,” 4to, principally from Witsen and Vanderstell, to which, however, hemadeseveral additions. He translated Rumphius’s great work into Latin, which he enriched with valuable notes, and published under the title of “Everhardi Rumphii Herbarium Amboinense, continens plantas in ea, et adjacentibus Insulis repertas.” His last labour was procuring engravings to be executed from the drawings of American plants left by Plumier, to which he added descriptions, with the modern and former names. He died at a very advanced age in 1779. It must not be forgot that he was one of the earliest and kindest patrons of Linnæus, and when the latter, who had been introduced to him by Boerhaave, pleaded his poverty as an excuse why he could not remain at Amsterdam, Dr. Burman boarded and lodged him at his house for a considerable time, free of all expence. He was not always so liberal, or even courteous to strangers of eminence, according to the account of Dr. Smith in his Tour, p. 29.

, an eminent law-writer, was born at Winton in Westmoreland some time about the beginning of the last century; he was educated at Queen’s college, Oxford, which university conferred on him March 22. 1762, the honorary degree of LL. D. He died at Orton, of which place he had been vicar forty-nine years, Novembet 20, 1785. He was one of his majesty’s justices of the peace for the counties of Westmorland and Cumberland, and was made by bishop Lyttelton chancellor of the diocese of Carlisle. In 1755, he first published his “Justice of Peace and Parish Officer, upon a plan entirely new, and comprehending all the law to the present time, 57 2 vols. 8vo, reprinted in the same form in 1756, and in the same year in folio, in 1757, 3 vols. 8vo, &c. The fourteenth edition was enlarged to 4 vols. 8vo, in which form it has passed, with gradual amendments and improvements, through various editions; the last of which is the twentyfirst. In 1760 he published his” Ecclesiastical Law,“2 vols. 4to, which afterwards was reprinted in 4 vols. 8vo. Both works were strongly recommended by Judge Blackstone, and both are extraordinary examples of unrivalled popularity and permanence. In 1764 he wrote” A History of the Poor Laws,“8vo, and in 1776” Observations on the Bill proposed in parliament for erecting County Workhouses.“He likewise published” The History and Antiquity of the two counties of Westmoreland and Cumberland, " in conjunction with Joseph Nicolson, esq. nephew to the bishop of Carlisle, 1771, 2 vols. 4to, in which work he has given the above brief notices of himself.

, D. D. archdeacon of Leicester and vicar of Greenwich, was born in 1732, at Asfordby in Leicestershire, of which place his father, grandfather, and great grandfather, were in succession patrons and rectors, as his youngest brother is at this time. He was elected into Westminster college in 1748, but removed from that school, and was entered of Queen’s college, Cambridge, where he took his bachelor’s degree in 1754, and his master’s in 1757. After having travelled through the middle settlements in North America in 1759 and 1760, Dr. Burnaby was appointed chaplain to the British factory at Leghorn, were he resided five years; in occasional excursions visited Corsica, and almost every part of Italy; and during the last of those years (sir John Dick having obtained his majesty’s leave to return to England for his private concerns) had the honour to do the consular business, by the appointment of government, under the denomination of proconsul. In 1769 he was presented to the vicarage of Greenwich; and in 1786 the archdeaconry of Leicester was conferred on him by bishop Thurlow, without the least expectation or solicitation on his part; both which preferments he enjoyed till his death, March 9, 1812. His widow, the heiress of John Edwyn, esq. of Bagrave in Leicestershire, died on the 16th of the same month, aged seventy-six. Dr. Burnaby was distinguished by the purest integrity and benevolence of heart, the most unaffected urbanity of manners, and a lively and ardent zeal for his profession. His principal works were, 1. “Travels through the middle settlements in North America in the years 1759 and 1760, with observations upon the state of the colonies,” 1775, 4to, of which a third edition, considerably enlarged, was published in 1798-9. 2. Various Sermons, preached on Fast, Thanksgiving, and other public occasions, and some charges, reprinted together in one vol. 8vo, 1805. Most of them were highly valued both for matter and manner. He printed also, for the use of particular friends, “A Journal of a Tour to Corsica in the year 1766, with a series of original letters from general Paoli to the author, referring to the principal events which have taken place in that island from the year 1769 to 1302, with explanatory notes,” 1804.

, the celebrated bishop of Salisbury, was born at Edinburgh, Sept. 18, 1643. His father was the younger brother of an ancient family in the county of Aberdeen, and was bred to the civil law, which he studied for seven years in France. His excessive modesty so far depressed his abilities, that he never made a shining figure at the bar, though he was universally esteemed to be a man of judgment and knowledge in his profession. He was remarkably generous in his practice, never taking a fee from the poor, nor from a clergyman, when he sued in the right of his church; and bestowing great part of his profits in acts of charity and friendship. In 1637, when the troubles in Scotland were breaking out, he was so disgusted at the conduct of the governing bishops there, whom he censured with great freedom, and was, at the same time, so remarkable for his strict and exemplary life, that he was generally called a Puritan. But when he saw, that instead of reforming abuses in the episcopal order, the order itself was struck at, he adhered to it with great zeal and constancy, as he did to the rights of the crown, not once complying with that party which afterwards prevailed in both nations. For though he agreed with Barclay and Grotius (with the latter of whom he had been intimately acquainted) as to their notions of resistance where the laws are broken through by a limited sovereign, yet he did not think that was then the case in Scotland. He married the sister of the famous sir Archibald Johnstoun, called lord Warristoun; who, during the civil wars, was at the head of the presbyterian party, and so zealously attached to that interest, that neither friendship nor alliance could dispose him to shew favour to those who refused the solemn Jeague and covenant. Our author’s father, persisting in this refusal, was obliged, at three several times, to quit the kingdom; and, when his return was afterwards connived at, as his principles would not permit him to renew the practice of the law, much less to accept the preferments in it offered him by Oliver Cromwell, he retired to his own estate in the country, where he lived till the restoration, when he was made one of the lords of the session by the title of lord Cramond. His wife, our author’s mother, was very eminent for her piety and virtue, and a warm zealot for the presbyterian discipline, in which way she had been very strictly educated.

Our author received the first rudiments of his education from his father, under whose care he made so quick a progress, that, at ten years of age, he perfectly understood the Latin tongue; at which time he was sent to the college of Aberdeen, where he acquired the Greek, and went through the usual course of Aristotelian logic and philosophy, with uncommon applause. He was scarcely fourteen when he commenced master of arts, and then applied himself to the study of the civil law; but, after a year’s diligent application to that science, he changed his resolution, and turned his thoughts wholly to the study of divinity. At eighteen years of age, he was put upon his trial as a probationer or expectant preacher; and, at the same time, was offered the presentation to a very good benefice, by his cousin-german sir Alexander Burnet, but thinking himself too young for the cure of souls, he modestly declined that offer. His education, thus happily begun, was finished by the conversation and advice of the most eminent Scotch divines. In 1663, about two years after his father’s death, he came into England, where he first visited the two universities. At Cambridge he had an opportunity of conversing with Dr. Cud worth, Dr. Pearson, Dr. Burnet, author of the “Sacred Theory,” and Dr. Henry More, one of whose sayings, in relation to rites and ceremonies, then made a great impression on him: “None of these,” said he, “are bad enough to make men bad, and 1 am sure none of them are good enough to make men good.” At Oxford our author was much caressed, on account of his knowledge of the councils and fathers, by Dr. Fell, and Dr. Pocock, that great master of Oriental learning. He was much improved there, in his mathematics and natural philosophy, by the instructions of Dr. Waliis, who likewise gave him a letter of recommendation to the learned and pious Mr. Boyle at London. Upon his arrival there, he was introduced to all the rnost noted divines, as Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Patrick, Lloyd, Whitchcot, and Wilkins; and, among others of the laity, to sir Robert Murray.

About six months after he returned to Scotland, where he declined accepting the living of Saltoun, offered him by sir Robert Fletcher of that place, resolving to travel for some time on the continent, in 1664, he went over into Holland; where, after he had seen what was remarkable in the Seven Provinces, he resided for some time at Amsterdam, and afterwards at Paris. At Amsterdam, by the help of a learned Rabbi, he increased his knowledge in the Hebrew language, and likewise x became acquainted with the leading men of the different persuasions tolerated in that country: among each of whom, he used frequently to declare, he had met with men of such real piety and virtue, that he contracted a strong principle of universal charity. At Paris he conversed with the two famous ministers of Charenton, Dailie and Morus. His stay in France was the longer, on account of the great kindness with which he was treated by the lord Holies, then ambassador at the French court. Towards the end of the year he returned to Scotland, passing through Londo/rr, where he was introduced, by the president sir Robert Murray, to be a member of the royal society. In 1665, he was ordained a priest by the bishop of Edinburgh, and presented by sir Robert Fletcher to the living of Saitoun, which had been kept vacant during his absence. He soon gained the affections of his whole parish, not excepting the presbyterians, though he was the only clergyman in Scotland that made use of the prayers in the liturgy of the church of England. During the five years he remained at Saitoun, he preached twice every Sunday, and once on one of the week-days; he catechized three times a-week, so as to examine every parishioner, old or young, three times in the compass of a year: he went round the parish from house to house, instructing, reproving, or comforting them, as occasion required: the sick he visited twice a day: he administered the sacrament four times a year, and personally instructed all such as gave notice of their intention to receive it. All that remained above his own necessary subsistence (in which he was very frugal), he gave away in charity. A particular instance of his generosity is thus related: one of his parishioners had been in execution for debt, and applied to our author for some small relief; who inquired of him, how much would again set him up in his trade: the man named the sum, and he as readily called to his servant to pay it him: “Sir,” said he, “it is all we have in the house.” “Well,” said Mr. Burnet, “pay it this poor man: you do not know the pleasure there is in making a man glad.” This may be a proper place to mention our author’s practice of preaching extempore, in which he attained an ease chiefly by allotting many hours of the day to meditation upon all sorts of subjects, and by accustoming himself, at those times, to speak his thoughts aloud, studying always to render his expressions correct. His biographer gives us here two remarkable instances of his preaching without book. In 1691, when the sees, vacant by the deprivation of the nonjuring bishops, were filled up, bishop Williams was appointed to preach one of the consecration -sermons at Bow-church; but, being detained by some accident, the archbishop of Canterbury desired our author, then bishop of Sarum, to supply his place; which he readily did, to the general satisfaction of all present. In 1705, he was appointed to preach the thanksgiving-sermon before the queen at St. Paul’s; and as it was the only discourse he had ever written before-hand, it was the only time that he ever made a pause in preaching, which on that occasion lasted above a minute. The same year, he drew up a memorial of the abuses of the Scotch bishops, which exposed him to the resentments of that order: upon which, resolving to confine himself to study, and the duties of his function, he practised such a retired and abstemious course, as greatly impaired his health. About 1668, the government of Scotland being in the hands of moderate men, of whom the principal was sir Robert Murray, he was frequently consulted by them; and it was through his advice that some of the more moderate presbyterians were put into the vacant churches; a step which he himself has since condemned as indiscreet. In 1669, he was made professor of divinity at Glasgow; in which station he executed the following plan of study. On Mondays, he made each of the students, in their turn, explain a head of divinity in Latin, and propound such theses from it as he was to defend against the rest of the scholars; and this exercise concluded with our professor’s decision of the point in a Latin oration. On Tuesdays, he gave them a prelection in the same language, in which he proposed, in the course of eight years, to have gone through a complete system of divinity. On Wednesdays, he read them a lecture, for above an hour, by way of a critical commentary on St. Matthew’s Gospel;' which he finished before he quitted the chair. On Thursdays, the exercise was alternate; one Thursday, he expounded a Hebrew Psalm, comparing it with the Septuagint, the Vulgar, and the English version; and the next Thursday, he explained some portion of the ritual and constitution of the primitive church, making the apostolical canons his text, and reducing every article of practice under the head of one or other of those canons. On Fridays, he made each of his scholars, in course, preach a short sermon upon some text he assigned; and, when it was ended, he observed upon any thing that was defective or amiss in the handling of the subject. This was the labour of the mornings: in the evenings, after prayer, he every day read some parcel of scripture, on which he made a short discourse; and, when that was over, he examined into the progress of their several studies. Ail this he performed during the whole time the schools were open; and, in order to acquit himself with credit, he was obliged to study hard from four till ten in the morning; the rest of the day being of necessity allotted, either to the care of his pupils, or to hearing the complaints of the clergy, who, rinding he had an interest with men of power, were not sparing in their applications to him. In this situation he continued four years and a half, exposed, through his principles of moderation, to the censure both of the episcopal and presbyterian parties. The same year he published his “Modest and free Conference between a Conformist and a Nonconformist.” About this time he was entrusted, by the duchess of Hamilton, with the perusal and arrangement of all the papers relating to her father’s and uncle’s ministry; which induced him to compile “Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton,” and occasioned his being invited to London, to receive farther information, concerning the transactions of those times, by the earl of Lauderdale; between whom and the duke of Hamilton he brought about a reconciliation. During his stay in London, he was offered a Scotch bishopric, which he refused. Soon after his return to Glasgow, he married the lady Margaret Kennedy, daughter of the earl of Cassilis. In 1672, he published his “Vindication of the Authority, Constitution, and Laws, of the Church and State of Scotland,” against the principles of Buchanan and others; which was thought, at that juncture, such a public service, that he was again courted to accept of a bishopric, with a promise of the next vacant archbishopric, but he persisted in his refusal of that dignity. In 1673, he took another journey to London; where, at the express nomination of the king, after hearing him preach, he was sworn one of his majesty’s chaplains in ordinary. He became likewise in high favour with his majesty and the duke of York. At his return to Edinburgh, finding the animosities between the dukes of Hamilton and Lauderdale revived, he retired to his station at Glasgow; but was obliged the next year to return to court, to justify himself against the accusations of the duke of Lauderdale, who had represented him as the cause and instrument of all the opposition the measures of the court had met with in the Scotch parliament. Thus he lost the favour of the court; and, to avoid putting himself into the hands of his enemies, he resigned the professor’s chair at Glasgow, and resolved to settle in London, being now about thirty years of age. Soon after, he was offered the living of St. Giles’s Cripplegate, which he declined accepting, because he heard that it was intended for Dr. Fowler, afterwards bishop of Gloucester. In 1675, our author, at the recommendation of lord Holies, and notwithstanding the interposition of the court against him, was appointed preacher at the Rolls chapel by sir Harbottle Grimstone, master of the Rolls. The same year he was examined before the house of commons in relation to the duke of Lauderdale, whose conduct the parliament was then inquiring into. He was soon after chosen lecturer of St. Clement’s, and became a very popular preacher. In 1676, he published his “Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton;” and the same year, “An account of a Conference between himself, Dr. Stillingfleet, and Coleman.” About this time, the apprehensions of popery increasing daily, he undertook to write the “History of the Reformation of the Church of England.” The rise and progress of this his greatest and 'most useful work, is an object of too great curiosity to require any apology on account of its length. His own account of it is as follows: “Some time after I had printed the ‘ Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton,’ which were favourably received, the reading of these got me the acquaintance and friendship of sir William Jones, then attorney-general. My way of writing history pleased him; and so he pressed me to undertake the History of England. But Sanders’s book, that was then translated into French, and cried up much in France, made all my friends press me to answer it, by writing the History of the Reformation. So now all my thoughts were turned that way. I laid out for manuscripts, and searched into all offices. I got for some days into the Cotton Library. But duke Lauderdale hearing of my design, and apprehending it might succeed in my hands, got Dolben, bishop of Rochester, to divert sir John Cotton from suffering me to search into his library. He told him, I was a great enemy to the prerogative, to which Cotton was devoted, even to slavery. So he said, I would certainly make an ill use of all 1 had found. This wrought so much on him, that I was no more admitted, till my first volume was published. And then, when he saw how I had composed it, he gave me free access to it.” The first volume of this work lay near a year after it was finished, for the perusal and correction of friends; so that it was not published tiii the year 1679, when the affair of the popish plot was in agitation. This book procured our author an honour never before or since paid to any writer: he had the thanks of both houses of parliament, with a desire that he would prosecute the undertaking, and complete that valuable work. Accordingly, in less than two years after, he printed the second volume, which met with the same general approbation as the first: and such was his readiness in composing, that he wrote the historical part in the compass of six weeks, after all his materials were laid in order. The third volume, containing a supplement to the two former, was published in 1714. “The defects of Peter Heylyn’s” History of the Reformation,“as bishop Kicolson observes,” are abundantly supplied in our author’s more complete history. He gives a punctual account of all the affairs of the reformation, from its beginning in the reign of Henry VIII. to its final establishment under queen Elizabeth, A. D. 1559. And the whole is penned in a masculine style, such as becomes an historian, and is the property of this author in all his writings. The collection of records^ which he gives at the end of each volume, are good vouchers of the truth of what he delivers in the body of the history, and are much more perfect than could reasonably be expected, after the pains taken, in queen Mary’s days, to suppress every thing that carried the marks of the reformation upon it.“Our author’s performance met with a very favourable, reception abroad, and was translated into most of the European languages; and even the keenest of his enemies, Henry Wharton, allows it to have” a reputation firmly and deservedly established.“The most eminent of the French writers who have attacked it, M. Varillas and M. Le Grand, have received satisfactory replies from -the author himself. At home it was attacked by Mr. S. Lowth, who censured the account Dr. Burnet had given of some of archbishop Cranmer’s opinions, asserting that both our historian and Dr. Stillingfleet had imposed upon the world in that particular, and had” unfaithfully joined together“in their endeavours to lessen episcopal ordination. Our author replied to Mr. Lowth, in some” letters. in answer“to his book. The next assailant was Henry Wharton, who, under the name of Anthony Harrner, published” A specimen of some Errors and Defects in the History of the Reformation,“1693, 8vo, a performance of no great candour; to which, however, our historian vouchsafed a short answer, in a” Letter to the Bishop of Lichfield.“A third attack on this History was made by Dr. Hickes in” Discourses on Dr. Burnet and Dr. Tillotson;“in which the whole charge amounts to no more than this, that,” in a matter of no great consequence, there was too little care had in copying or examining a letter writ in a very bad hand,“and that there was some probability that Dr. Burnet” was mistaken in one of his conjectures.“Our author answered this piece, in a” Vindication“of his History. The two first parts were translated into French by M. de Rosemond, and into Latin by Melchior Mittelhorzer. There is likewise a Dutch translation of it. In 1682, our author published” An abridgment of his History of the Reformation," in 8vo, in which he tells us, he had wholly waved every thing that belonged to the records, and the proof of what he relates, or to the confutation of the falsehoods that run through the popish historians; all which is to be found in the History at large. And therefore, in this abridgment, he says, every thing is to be taken upon trust; and those who desire a fuller satisfaction, are referred to the volumes he had before published.

Although our author at this time had no parochial cure, he did not refuse his attendance to any sick person who desired it, and was sent for, amongst others, to one wha had been engaged in a criminal amour with Wilmot, earl of Rochester. The manner he treated her, during her illness, gave that lord a great curiosity of being acquainted with him, and for a whole winter, in a conversation of at least one evening in a week, Burnet went over all those topics with him, upon which sceptics, and men of loose morals, are wont to attack the Christian religion. The effect of these conferences, in convincing the earl’s judgment, and leading him to a sincere repentance, became the subject of a well-known and interesting narrative which he published in 1680, entitled “An Account of the Life and Death of the Earl of Rochester.” This work has lately been reprinted more than once, perhaps owing to the character Dr. Johnson gave of it in his Life of Rochester: he there pronounces it a book “which the critic ought to read for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, and the saint for its piety.”

During the affair of the popish plot, Dr. Burnet was often consulted by king Charles, upon the state of the nation; and, about the same time, refused the vacant bishopric of Chichester, which his majesty offered him, “provided he vvould entirely come into his interest.” But, though his free access to that monarch did not procure him preferment, it gave him an opportunity of sending his majesty a most remarkable letter , in which, with great freedom, he reprehends the vices and errors both of his private life and his government The unprejudiced part he acted during the time the nation was inflamed with the discovery of the popish plot; his candid endeavours to save the lives of Staley and the lord Stafford, both zealous papists; his temperate conduct in regard to the exclusion of the duke of York; and the scheme of a prince regent, proposed by him, in lieu of that exclusion; are sufficiently related in his “History of his own Time.” In 1682, when the administration was wholly changed in favour of the duke of York, he continued steady in his adherence to his friends, and chose to sacrifice all his views at court, particularly a promise of the mastership of the Temple, rather than break off his correspondence with them. This year our author published his “Life of sir Matthew Hale,” and his “History of the Rights of Princes, in disposing of ecclesiastical Benefices and Church-lands;” which being attacked bv an anonymous writer, Dr. Burnet published, the same year, “An answer to the Animadversions on the History of the Rights of Princes.” As he was about this time much resorted to by persons of all ranks and parties, as a pretence to avoid the returning of so many visits, he built a laboratory, and, for above a year, went through a course of chemical experiments. Upon the execution of the lord Russel, with whom he was familiarly acquainted, he was examined before the house of commons, with respect to that lord’s speech upon the scaffold, in the penning of which he was suspected to have had a hand. Not long after, he refused the offer of a living of three hundred pounds a year, in the gift of the earl of Halifax, who would have presented him, on condition of his residing *till in London. In 1683, he went over to Paris, where he was well received by the court, and became acquainted with the most eminent persons, both popish and protestant. This year appeared his “Translation and Examination of a Letter, writ by the last General Assembly of the Clergy of France to the Protestants, inviting them to return to their Communion, &c.;” also his “Translation of Sir Thomas More’s Utopia,” with a “Preface concerning the Nature of Translations.” The year following, the resentment of the court against our author was so great, that he was discharged from his lecture at St, Clement’s, by virtue of the king’s mandate to Dr. Hascard, rector of that parish; and in December the same year, bv an order from the lord-keeper North to sir Harbottle Grimstone, he was forbidden preaching any more at the Rolls chapel. In 1685 came out our author’s “Life of Dr. William Bedell, Bishop of Kilmore in Ireland.” Upon the death of king Charles, and accesion of king James, having obtained leave to go out of the kingdom, he went first to Paris, where he lived in great retirement, to avoid being involved in the conspiracies then forming in favour of the difke of Monmbuth. But, having contracted an acquaintance with brigadier Stouppe, a protestant officer in the French service, he was prevailed upon to take a journey with him into Italy, and met with an agreeable reception at Rome and Geneva. After a tour through the southern parts of France, Italy, Switzerland, and many places of Germany, of which he has given an account, with reflections on their several ojovernments, &c. in his “Travels,” published in 1687, he came to Utrecht, and intended to have settled in some quiet retreat within the Seven Provinces; but, being invited to the Hague by the prince and princess of Orange, he repaired thither, and had a great share in the councils then carrying on, concerning the affairs of England. In 1687, our author published a “Translation of Lactantius, concerning the Death of the Persecutors.” The high favour shewn him at the Hague disgusting the English court, king James wrote two severe letters against him to the princess of Orange, and insisted, by his ambassador, on his being forbidden the court; which, at the king’s importunity, was done; though our author continued to be employed and trusted as before. Soon after, a prosecution for high-treason was commenced against him, both in Scotland and England; but the States refusing, at the demand of the English court, to deliver him up, designs were laid of seizing his person, and even destroying him, if he could be taken. About this time Dr. Burnet married Mrs. Mary Scott, a Dutch lady of large fortune and noble extraction. He had a very important share in the whole conduct of the revolution in 1688; the project of which he gave early notice of to the court of Hanover, intimating, that the success of this enterprise must naturally end in an entail of the British crown upon that illustrious house. He wrote also several pamphlets in support of the prince of Orange’s designs, which were reprinted at London in 1689, in 8vo, under the title of “A Collection of eighteen Papers relating to the affairs of Church and State during the Reign of King James II. &c.” And when his highness undertook the expedition to England, our author accompanied him as his chaplain, notwithstanding the particular circumstances of danger to which he was thereby exposed. At Exeter, after the prince’s landing, he drew up the association for pursuing the ends of his highness’s declaration. During these transactions, Dr. Crew, bishop of Durham, who had rendered himself obnoxious by the part he had acted in the high-commission court, having proposed to the prince of Orange to resign his bishopric in favour of Dr. Burnet, on condition of an allowance of 1000l. per annum out of the revenue, our author refused to accept it on those terms. But king William had not been many days on the throne before Dr. Burnet was advanced to the see of Salisbury, and consecrated March 31, 1689 . Our prelate had scarcely taken his seat in the house of lords, when he distinguished himself by declaring for moderate measures with regard to the clergy who scrupled to take the oaths, and for a toleration of the protestant dissenters; and when the bill for declaring the rights and privileges of the subject, and settling the succession of the crown, was brought into parliament, he was the person appointed by king William to propose naming the duchess (afterwards electress) of Brunswick, next in succession after the princess of Denmark and her issue; and when this succession afterwards took place, he had the honour of being chairman of the committee to whom the hill was referred. This made him considered by the house of Hanover as one firmly attached to their interests, and engaged him in an epistolary correspondence with the princess Sophia, which lasted to her death. This year bishop Buruet addressed a “Pastoral Letter” to the clergy of his diocese, concerning the oaths of allegiance and supremacy to king Wiliiam and queen Mary; in which having grounded their majesties title to the crown upon the right of conquest, some members of both houses took such offence at it, that about three years after, they procured an order for burning the book by the hands of the common executioner. After the session of parliament was over, the bishop went down to his diocese, where, by his pious, prudent, and vigilant discharge of the episcopal functions, he gained universal esteem.

As we have before given some account of his conduct as a parish priest, and as professor of divinity, it is no less necessary to specify some particulars of his management when in this higher station.

As he had always looked upon Confirmation as the likeliest means of reviving a spirit of Christianity, he wrote a short “Directory,” for preparing the youth upon such occasions, and sent copies of it, some months beforehand, to the minister of every parish where he intended to confirm. Every summer, he made a tour, for six weeks or two months, through some district of his bishopric, daily preaching and confirming from church to church, so as, in the compass of three years (besides his triennial visitation), to go through all the principal livings of his diocese. In these circuits he entertained all the clergy that attended upon him, at his own expence, and held conferences with them upon the chief heads of divinity. During his residence at Salisbury, he constantly preached a Thursday’s lecture, founded at St. Thomas’s church: he likewise preached and confirmed, every Sunday morning, in some church of that city, or of the neighbourhood round about it; and, in the evening, he had a lecture in his own chapel, wherein he explained some portion of scripture. Every week, during the season of Lent, he catechised the youth of the two great schools in the cathedral church, and instructed them in order for confirmation. He endeavoured, as much as possible, to reform the abuses of the bishop’s consistorial court.' No part of the episcopal office was more strictly attended to by him, than the examination of candidates for holy orders. He examined them himself as to the proofs of the Christian religion, the authority of the scriptures, and the nature of the gospel covenant; and, a day or two before ordination, he submitted all those whom he had accepted to the examination of the dean and prebendaries. As the qualification of clergymen for the pastoral care was always uppermost in his thoughts, he instituted at Salisbury a little nursery of students in divinity, being ten in number, to each of whom he allowed a salary of thirty pounds a year. Once every day he examined their progress in learning, and gave them a lecture on some speculative or practical point of divinity, or some part of the pastoral function. But this foundation being considered as reflecting upon the method of education at the universities, he was prevailed upon, after some years, to lay it wholly aside. He was a warm and constant enemy to pluralities, where non-residence was the consequence of them, and in some cases hazarded a suspension, rather than give institution. In the point of residence, he was so strict, that he immediately dismissed his own chaplains, upon their preferment to a cure of souls. He exerted the principle of toleration, which was deeply rooted in him, in favour of a nonjuring meeting-house at Salisbury, which he obtained the royal permission to conAive at; and this spirit of moderation brought over several dissenting families of his diocese to the commnnion of the church.

In 1692, he published a treatise, entitled “The Pastoral Care,” in which the duties of the clergy are laid down with great strictness, and enforced with no less zeal and warmth. The next year came out his “Four Discourses to the Clergy of his Diocese.” In 1694, our author preached the funeral sermon of archbishop Tillotson, with whom he had long kept up an intimate acquaintance and friendship, and whose memory he defended in “A Vindication of Abp. Tillotson,” 1696. The death of queen Mary, which happened the year following, drew from our author’s pen that “Essay on her character,” which her uncommon talents merited at the hands of a person who enjoyed so high a degree of her favour and confidence. After the decease of that princess, through whose hands the affairs and promotions of the church had wholly passed, our prelate was one of the ecclesiastical commission appointed by the king to recommend to all bishoprics, deanries, and other vacant benefices in his majesty’s gift.

In 1698 the bishop lost his wife by the small-pox; but the consideration of the tender age of his children, and his own avocations, soon induced him to supply that loss by a marriage with Mrs. Berkley. This year he was appointed preceptor to his highness the duke of Gloucester, and employed great care in the education of that young prince. In 16.99 our author published his “Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England.” This work was censured by the lower house of convocation in 1701, first, as allowing a diversity of opinions, which the Articles were framed to prevent; 2dly, as containing many passages contrary to the true meaning of the Articles, and to other received doctrines of our church; and, 3dly, as containing some things of pernicious consequence to the church, and derogatory from the honour of the reformation: but that house refusing to enter into particulars, unless they might at the same time offer some other matters to the upper house, which the bishops would not admit of, the affair was dropped. The “Exposition” was attacked, supposed by Dr. William Binckes, in a piece entitled “A prefatory discourse to an examination of a late book, entitled ‘An Exposition, &c.’” London, 1702, 4to. An answer to this discourse came out the year following, supposed by Dr. John Hoadly, primate of Ireland. Dr. Jonathan Edwards likewise attacked our author in a piece entitled “The Exposition given by my lord bishop of Sarum of the second Article of our Religion, examined,” London, 1702, 4to. In answer to which there appeared “Remarks on the Examinist of the Exposition,” &c. London, 1702. At the same time, Mr. Robert Burscough published “A Vindication of the twenty-third Article of Religion, from a late Exposition, ascribed to my lord bishop of Sarum.” Mr. Edmund Elys likewise published, in 1704, “Reflections on a late Exposition of the Thirtynine Articles,” &c. 4to. There were two editions of the Exposition, in folio, the same year. In 1704 the scheme for the augmentation of poor livings, first projected by bishop Bur net, took place, and passed into an act of parliament. In 1706, he published a collection of “Sermons and Pamphlets,” 3 vols. 4to; in 1710, an “Exposition of the Church Catechism;” and in 17 13, “Sermons on several occasions,” with an “Essay towards a new book of Homilies.” This learned and eminent prelate died the 17th of March 1714—15, in the seventy-second year of his age, and was interred in the parish-church of St. James Clerkenwell, in London. Since his death, his “History of his own Time,” with an account of his life annexed, was published in 2 vols. fol. but the best edition is that of 1753, 4 vols. 8vo, edited by the rev. Dr. Flexman, with the life enlarged, and a very large catalogue of his publications, to which some trifling additions were made in the last edition of the Biographia Britannica.

As it would lead us, after “so long an account of the facts of Dr. Burnet’s life, into an article perhaps yet longer, were we to enter on the controversy so ably and so frequently repeated respecting the veracity of his ' History of his own Time,” we shall only notice, that as the strong party zeal which prevailed at the beginning of the last century becomes either less, or of less importance to be revived, bishop Burnet’s works seem to rise in public estimation. All that is controversial, indeed, is nearly forgotten; but his History of the Reformation, and of his own Time, and his Lives of Rochester, Bedell, Hale, &c. afford a fair prospect that his fame will yet be prolonged. The events of his life show that both at home and abroad he stood high in the estimation of his contemporaries, and his errors and prejudices, of whatever kind, would not have excited so many enemies had not his talents given him an unusual degree of consequence both in church and state. On the subject of his public character, however, we shall content ourselves with referring to our authorities, and conclude this article with some particulars of his private habits, which, as well as the above account of his life, stand uncontradicted, and surely entitle him to our respect.

His time, we are told, was employed in one regular and uniform manner: he was a very early riser, seldom in bed later than five or six o'clock in the morning. Private meditation took up the two first hours, and the last half hour of the day. His first and last appearance to his family was at the morning and evening prayers, which he always read himself, though his chaplains were present. He took the opportunity of the tea-table to instruct his children in religion, and in giving them his own comment upon some portion of scripture. He seldom spent less than six, often eight, hours a day in his study. He kept an open table, in which there was plenty without luxury: his equipage was decent and plain; and all his expences generous, but not profuse. He was a most affectionate husband to his wives; and his love to his children expressed itself, not so much in hoarding up wealth for them, as in giving them the best education. After his sons had perfected themselves in the learned languages, under private tutors, he sent them to the university, and afterwards abroad, to finish their studies at Leyden. In his friendships he was warm, open-hearted, and constant; and though his station and principles raised him many enemies, he always endeavoured, by the kindest good offices, to repay all their injuries, and overcome them by returning good for evil. He was a kind and bountiful master to his servants, and obliging to all in employment under him. His charities were a principal article of his expence. He gave an hundred pounds at a time for the augmentation of small livings: he bestowed constant pensions on poor clergymen and their widows, on students for their education at the universities, and on industrious, but unfortunate families: he contributed frequent sums towards the repairs or building of churches and parsonage-houses, to all public collections, to the support of charity-schools (one of which, for fifty children at Salisbury, was wholh' maintained by him), and to the putting out apprentices to trades. Nor were his alms confined to one nation, sect, or party; but want, and merit, in the object, were the only measures of his liberality. He looked upon himself, with regard to his episcopal revenue, as a mere trustee for the church, bound to expend the whole in a decent maintenance of his station, and in acts of hospitality and charity; and he had so faithfully balanced this account, that, at his death, no more of the income of his bishopric remained to his family than was barely sufficient to pay his debts.

, eldest son of the preceding, was educated privately at first, and when perfected in the learned languages, was removed to the university of Cambridge, where he was admitted a gentleman commoner of Trinity college. In 1706 he was sent with his two younger brothers abroad, to finish his studies at Leyden; from whence he appears to have made a tour through Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. By his own choice he was bred to the law; but it is uncertain whether he practised at the bar. In 1720 he was one of the unhappy persons who suffered greatly in the infatuation of the South-Sea scheme. He had, however, a place in the revenue, of twelve hundred pounds a year; but, being desirous of retrieving his fortune, he quitted that post, and was appointed governor of New York and the Jerseys. In this station his conduct in general was very acceptable to those colonies, and approved of in England. After the accession of king George the Second, in order to provide for a gentleman who was understood to be in particular esteem with his majesty, Mr. Burnet was removed from the governments of New York and the Jerseys to those of the Massachusets and New Hampshire. This change was highly disagreeable, and he considered it as a great hardship to be obliged to part with posts that were very profitable, for such. as would afford him, at best, only a decent support; and to leave an easy administration for one which he foresaw would be extremely troublesome. Of this he complained to his friends, and it had a visible effect upon his spirits. On the 13th of July, 1728, he arrived at Boston, and was received with unusual pomp. Having been instructed from England to insist on a fixed salary’s being settled upon him as governor, he adhered to his instructions with such unabated vigour and perseverance, as involved him in the warmest disputes with the general assembly of the province. A large detail of these contests may be seen in Mr. Hutchinson’s History of Massachusets’ Bay, from which Mr. Burnet’s abilities, firmness, and spirit will appear in a striking light. Being deprived of his salary, by refusing to receive it in the mode proposed by the assembly, and having by that means been driven to such straits as obliged him to apply to the assistance of his friends for the support of his family, he thought he might be justified in establishing a fee and perquisite which had never been known in the province before. At New York, all vessels took from the governor a pass, or permission for sailing out of the harbour, which, though it had no foundation in law, was submitted to without complaint. The same disposition did not prevail in the inhabitants of Boston. The fee which Mr. Burnet imposed on the ships, for their passes, being complained of to the king and council as illegal and oppressive, it was immediately disapproved. In all other respects his administration was unexceptionable, but this controversy with the general assembly made a great impression upon his mind. In the latter end of August, 1729, he was seized, at Boston, with a fever, which carried him off on the 7th of September, and the assembly ordered him a very honourable funeral at the public expence. Though he had been steady and inflexible in his adherence to his instructions, he discovered nothing of a grasping avaricious temper. His superior talents, and free and easy manner of communicating his sentiments, rendered him the delight of men of sense and learning; and his right of precedence in all companies, facilitated his natural disposition to take a great lead in conversation. His own account of his genius was, that it was late before it budded; and that, until he was nearly twenty years of age, his father despaired of his ever making any figure in life. This, perhaps, might proceed from the exact discipline of the bishop’s family, not calculated alike for every temper. To long and frequent religious services at home in his youth, Mr. Burnet would sometimes pleasantly attribute his indisposition to a scrupulous attendance on public worship. Mr. Burnet' s first lady was a daughter of Dr. George Stanhope, dean of Canterbury, and was a woman equally distinguished for her beauty, wit, good-humour, singing, and various accomplishments. Her sense will appear from the following anecdote: When she was dying, being worn out with a long and painful sickness, as they rubbed her temples with Hungary water, in her last faintings, she begged them not to do it, for “that it would make her hair gray.” Mr. William Burnet was the author of a tract entitled “A View of Scripture Prophecy.”

, the bishop’s second son, had the same advantages of education with his elder brother, having a distinct tutor both at home and the university. He pursued his studies, likewise, for two years at Leyden. At Oxford he was admitted a commoner of Merton college; but how long he studied there we are not informed, nor what degree he took. Having entered into holy orders, we find him a chaplain in ordinary to his majesty so early as in 1718, when he could not be thirty years of age. He is said to have been a contributor to Hibernicus’s Letters, a periodical paper carried on at Dublin in the years 1725, 1726, and 1727: and we believe there is no doubt of his having been one of the writers of another valuable paper, entitled “The Free-thinker,” which was afterwards collected into three volumes, 12mo. In the Hoadlian controversy he was an able assistant to the eminent prelate from whom that controversy received its denomination. Three pieces were published by Mr. Burnet on this occasion, the first of which was, “A Letter to the rev. Mr. Trapp, occasioned by his Sermon on the real Nature of the Church and Kingdom of Christ;” the second, “An Answer to Mr. Law’s Letter to the Lord Bishop of Bangor;” and the third, “A full and free examination of several important points relating to Church-Authority, the Christian Priesthood, the positive Institutions of the Christian Religion, and Church-Communion, in answer to the notions and principles contained in Mr. Law’s second Letter to the lord bishop of Bangor.” Dr. Hoadly considered our author as one of his best defenders. In 1719 Mr. Burnet published an abridgment of the third volume of his father’s History of the Reformation. If he had not been cut off in early life, there is no doubt but that he would have made a distinguished figure in the literary world; and it is probable that he would have risen to a high rank in the church. The Gilbert Burnet who abridged the Boylean Lectures was another person.

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

It is related of him, that he would himself have published his verses, if he had not thought that some of them were too light and sportive for the gravity of the judicial character, and would derogate, in a certain degree, from the dignity of the tribunal to which he had ascended. With regard to the poems themselves, which are for the most part very short, and chiefly upon amorous subjects, and among which are several songs, and translations from the Odes of Horace, their characteristic excellence is an easy negligence and elegant simplicity. They are such productions as might be expected from a young man of lively parts and classical taste; but who, at the same time, was not endued with any extraordinary vigour of poetical imagination.

, lord Monboddo, a learned writer of the eighteenth century, was descended from the ancient family of the Burnetts of Leys, in Kincardineshire, and was born at the family seat of Monboddo, in October or November, 1714. He was first educated at the parish school of Laurencekirk, whence he went to King’s college, Aberdeen, and after the usual courses there, studied civil law at Groningen. On his return in 1738, he was admitted to the Scotch bar, where he acquired considerable practice. During the rebellion in 1745, when the administration of justice was interrupted, he went to London, where he became acquainted with some of the literati of the time, particularly Mallet, Thomson, and Armstrong. These visits he often repeated, and enlarged his acquaintance and correspondence with the succeeding generations of learned men, most of whom he survived. During his practice at the Scotch bar, he was particularly distinguished for the part he took in the celebrated Douglas cause, and was eminently instrumental in assisting the family of Douglas, in the prosecution of a suit which was finally determined in their favour. On the death of his relation lord Milton, in 1767, he was promoted to the bench by the title of lord Monboddo, which political intrigue delayed for some time.

During his periods of leisure, the course of his studies led him to attempt the composition of a work, which should afford, to the confusion and astonishment of the moderns, a complete vindication of the wisdom and eloquence of his admired ancients. The volumes of his “Origin and Progress of Language,” were published about the year 1773, and were very variously treated by the critics. Those who were partial to modern literature, on account of their ignorance of that of antiquity, or who, though not unacquainted with the more popular of the ancient authors, were, however, strangers to the deeper mysteries of Greek erudition, condemned lord Monboddo’s work with bitter and contemptuous censure. Nothing, it was said, but the strange absurdity of his opinions, could have hindered his book from falling dead-born from the press. In the late Mr. Harris, however, (the philosopher of Malmesbury), he found an admirer and literary friend, who was himself deeply versant in Grecian learning and philosophy, and was exceedingly delighted to meet with one that had cultivated those studies with equal ardour, and worshipped the excellence of the ancient Greeks, as far above all other excellence. Lord Monboddo’s private life was spent in the practice of all the social virtues, and in the enjoyment of much domestic felicity; the latter, indeed, was for a time interrupted by the death of a wife and son whom he tenderly loved; but he endured the loss with a firmness fitted to do honour either to philosophy or religion.

In addition to his office as a judge in the supreme civil court, in Scotland, an offer was made to him of a seat in the court of justiciary, the supreme criminal court. But though the emoluments of this place would have made a convenient addition to his income, he refused to accept it, lest its business should too much detach him from the pursuit of his favourite studies. His patrimonial estate was small, not affording a revenue of more than 300l. a year. Yet he would not raise the rents, would never dismiss a poor old tenant, for the sake of any augmentation of emolument offered by a richer stranger; and, indeed, shewed no particular solicitude to accomplish any improvement upon his lands, save that of having the number of persons who should reside upon them as tenants, and be there sustained by their produce, to be, if possible, superior to the population of any equal portion of the lands of his neighbours.

The vacations of the court of session afforded him leisure to retire every year, in spring and in autumn, to the country; and he used then to dress in a style of simplicity, as if he had been only a plain farmer, and to live among the people upon his estate, with all the kind familiarity and attention of an aged father among his grown-up children. It was there he had the pleasure of receiving Dr. Samuel Johnson, when upon his well-known tour through the islands of Scotland. Johnson admired nothing in literatureso much as the display of a keen discrimination of human character, a just apprehension of the principles of moral action, and that vigorous common-sense, which is the most happily applicable to the ordinary conduct of life. Monboddo delighted in the refinements, the subtleties, the abstractions, and what may be called the affectations of literature; and in comparison with these, despised the grossness of modern taste and of common affairs. Johnson thought learning and science to be little valuable, except so far as they could be made subservient to the purposes of living usefully and happily with the world on its own terms. Monboddo’s favourite science taught him to look down with contempt upon all sublunary, and especially upon all modern things; and to fit tife to literature and philosophy, not literature and philosophy to life.

As the work on the “Origin and Progress of Language” was intended chiefly to vindicate the honours of Grecian literature, he was induced to undertake another for the purpose of defending the cause of Grecian philosophy. The philosophy of ideas, first interestingly taught by Plato, had been recently pursued by Berkeley and Hume, into consequences of unavoidable scepticism and absurdity; the dialectics and metaphysical arrangements of Aristotle had been exploded by the general reception of the inductive logic of Bacon. To confound the scientific pride of the puny moderns, and to prove that Aristotle and Plato were despised and neglected only because they were not understood, Monboddo wrote his “Ancient Metaphysics,” which extended to six 4to volumes, published at various periods from 1778. This work evinces, like the other, his extravagant fondness for Grecian learning and philosophy, and his scorn for all that was modern. It proves, that, though versed in the science of Aristotle and Plato, he knew not, for want of a sufficient acquaintance with modern literature, how to explain that science to his contemporaries.

Amidst this progress of his literary and philosophical studies, lord Monboddo neglected not his duties as a judge. Whether officiating singly, in the character of lord ordinary or reporting judge; assisting his brother judges in full court; or attending to those parts of his judicial duty which were to be discharged by private study, he was still solemnly and indefatigably diligent in these engagements, in preference to all others. As a lawyer, his arguments. opinions, and decisions, were sound, learned, marked with acute discrimination, and free from fantastic peculiarity. He was no favourer of the rich in preference to the poor; nor yet of the poor, at the expence of injustice to the rich. All his whimsies and partialities as a scholar disappeared, when he came to determine concerning the rights of his fellow subjects.

His character is thus given by one of his successors on the bench, lord Woodhouselee. Lord Monboddo " was a man of great worth, honour, and moral rectitude, but of much singularity of opinions and character, which appeared both in the doctrines contained in his writings, in the strain of his conversation, and in the habits of his life. His notions of the origin of language, arts r and sciences, are much akin to those of the Epicureans, of which Lucretius has given an ample detail in his fifth book ‘De rerurn Natura,’ and which Horace has abridged in the third of his satires:

The confirmation of his theory of language, his lordship finds in the condition of savage nations, in those few examples of human creatures discovered in an insulated state, in deserts, and in the rude and defective nature of some languages, and the highly artificial and philosophical structure of others, as the Greek, the Sanscreet, &c. Lord Monboddo carried his admiration of the ancients to such a pitch, as to maintain their superiority over the moderns, not only in philosophical attainments, recondite science, the arts of painting, sculpture, architecture, music, poetry, oratory, and all the various species of literary composition; but even in bodily strength, stature, and longevity; esteeming the present race of mortals a degenerate breed, both with respect to mental and corporeal endowments. Yet, with all these eccentricities of opinion, his writings display great erudition, an uncommon acquaintance with Greek philosophy and literature, and a just and excellent spirit of criticism, both on the authors of antiquity, and on the English classical writers of the last and preceding ages. amidst a select party of literary friends, whom he invited to an early supper. The entertainment itself partook of the costume of the ancients; it had all the variety and abundance of a principal meal; and the master of the feast crowned his wine, like Anacreon, with a garland of roses. His conversation, too, had a race and flavour peculiarly its own; it was nervous, sententious, and tinctured with genuine wit. His apothegms were singularly terse and forcible; and the grave manner in which he often conveyed the keenest irony, and the eloquence with which he supported his paradoxical theories, afforded the highest amusement of those truly attic banquets, which will be longremembered by all who had the pleasure of partaking in them."

, D. D. rector of West Kington, Wiltshire, and prebendary of Sarum, was educated in New-college, Oxford, where he became M. A. and on the 8th of July, 1720, he accumulated the degrees of B. D. and D.D. for which he went out grand compounder. His four principal works are, an “Answer to Tindal’s Christianity as old as the Creation,” a “Treatise on Scripture Politics,” a course of Sermons preached at Mr. Boyle’s Lecture,“and an” Essay on the Trinity,“in which last performance he endeavours, with great ingenuity and plausibility, to unite the rationality claimed by the Unitarians, with the orthodox language of those who admit the Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity. This curious tract is now so little known, as not to have been noticed in any of the late Trinitarian controversies, excepting in a pamphlet entitled” Orthodoxy and Chanty united." Dr. Burnet died in May 1750.

, a most ingenious and learned writer, was born at Croft, in Yorkshire, about the year 1635. His first education was at the free-school of North-­Alverton, in that county, from whence he was removed in June 1651, to Clare-hall in Cambridge, where he had Dr. Tillotson for his tutor. Dr. Cud worth was at that time master of Clare-hall, but removed from it to the mastership of Christ’s college, in 1654; and thither our author followed him. Under his patronage he was chosen fellow in 1657, commenced M. A. in 1658, and became senior proctor of the university in 1661; but it is uncertain how long after ward she continued his residence there. He was afterwards governor to the young earl of Wiltshire, son of the marquis of Winchester, with whom he travelled abroad ^ and gave such satisfaction, that, soon after his return to England, he was invited and prevailed on by the first duke of Ormond, to travel in the same capacity with the young earl of Ossory, his grace’s grandson and heir-apparent. These honourable connections introduced him into what may properly be called the world: in which he afterwards confirmed the reputation he already had for talents ad learning, by the publication of his “Telluris theoria sacra, orbis nostri originem & mutationes generales, quas olim subiit et subiturus est, complectens.” This Sacred Theory of the Earth was originally published in Latin, in 2 vols. 4to, the two first books concerning the deluge, and paradise, 1681; the two last, concerning the burning of the world, and the new heavens and new earth, in 1689. The uncommon approbation this work met with, and the particular encouragement of Charles II. who relished its beauties, induced the author to translate it into English. Of this translation he published the two first books in 1684, folio, with an elegant dedication to the king; and the two last in 1689, with a no less elegant dedication to queen Mary. “The English edition,” he tells us, “is the same in substance with the Latin, though, he confesses, not so properly a translation, as a new composition upon the same ground, there being several additional chapters in it, and several new moulded.”

On May 19, 1685, he was made master of the Charterhouse, by the interest of the duke of Ormond; and soon after commenced LL. D. At what time he entered into orders is not exactly known; but it is plain that he was a clergyman at his election to this mastership, from the objection then made against him by some of the bishops who were governors, namely, “that he generally appeared in a lay-habit,” which was over-ruled by his patron the duke of Ormond, by asserting in his favour, that he had no living or other ecclesiastical preferment; and that his life and conversation were in all respects suitable to the clerical character. In the latter end of 1686, Dr. Burnet’s integrity, prudence, and resolution, were fully tried in his new station, upon the following occasion: one Andrew Popham, a Roman Catholic, came to the Charter-house, with a letter from king James to the governors, requiring them to choose and admit him the said Andrew Popham a pensioner thereof, “without tendering any oath or oaths unto him, or requiring of him any subscription, recognition, or other act or acts, in conformity to the doctrine and discipline of the church of England as the same is now established; and notwithstanding any statute, order, or constitution, of or in the said hospital; with which, says his majesty, we are graciously disposed to dispense in his behalf.” On the meeting of the governors, the king’s letter was read, and the lord chancellor Jefferies moved, that without any debate they should proceed to vote whether Andrew Popham should be admitted a pensioner of the hospital, according to the king’s letter. The master, Dr. Burnet, as the junior, was to vote first, but he told the governors, that he thought it was his duty to acquaint their lordships with the state and constitution of that hospital; and, though this was opposed by some, yet, after a little debate, he proceeded to observe, that to admit a pensioner into the hospital without his taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, was not only contrary to the constitution of the ho&pital, but to an express act of parliament for the better establishment thereof. One of the governors asked what this was to the purpose? The duke of Ormond replied, that he thought it much to the purpose; for an act of parliament was not so slight a thing as not to deserve a consideration. After some other discourse, the question was put, whether Popham should be admitted? and passed in the negative. A second letter from the king was afterwards sent; to which the governors, in a letter addressed to his majesty, humbly replied, and gave their reasons why they could not admit Andrew Popham as a pensioner of the hospital. This not satisfying king James, he ordered chancellor Jefferies to find out a way how he might compel their submission, and the master was particularly threatened to be summoned before the ecclesiastical commissioners. But his subsequent quarrels with the universities, and the commotions which followed, prevented any farther proceeding on the part of the king. This was the first stand made against the dispensing power of that reign, by any society in England, and was of great importance to the public, A relation of the Charter-house proceedings upon this occasion was published by Dr. Burnet in 1689. After the revolution, he was introduced to court by his tutor and friend, archbishop Tillotson, and was made chaplain to the king, and soon after, clerk of the closet. He was now considered as in the high road to great preferment, and had certainly a fine prospect before him; when he ruined all by some unadvised strokes of his pen. In 1692 he published “Archæologiæ philosophiæ; sive doctrina antiqua de rerum originibus,” 4to, with a dedication to king William, whose character he diws with great strength of genius and art, and in that beautiful style which was peculiar to himself. But neither the high rank and authority of his patron, nor the elegance and learning displayed throughout the work, could protect the author from the clamours raised against him for allegorizing in a very indelicate manner the scripture account of the fall of Adam and Eve. In consequence of which, as appears from a Latin letter written by himself to Walters, a bookseller at Amsterdam, dated Sept. 14, 1694, he desires to have the most offensive parts omitted in the future editions of that work. He had expressed himself to the same purpose, some time before the date of this letter, in a Latin epistle, “Ad virum clarissimum circa nuper editum de Archæologiis Philosophicis libellum;” where he says, that he cheerfully wished that any passages which have given offence to the pious and wise, and particularly the dialogue between Eve and the Serpent, may be expunged. The person to whom this letter is addressed, and also a second afterwards upon the same subject, was generally understood to be archbishop Tillotson. Both the letters are subjoined to the second edition of “Archæologiæ philosophicæ,” printed in 1728, in 8vo, and in both he acknowledges sacred scripture, whether literally or mystically understood, to be given us from heaven, as the rule of our faith, the guide of our life, and the refuge of our salvation; and professes to pay to it all possible respect, honour, and veneration.

But all this proved insufficient; and the storm raised against him was rather increased than abated, by the encomium which Mr. Charles Blount, the deistical author of the “Oracles of Reason,” thought proper to bestow upon his work. Blount, in a letter to his friend Gildon, tells him, that “according to his promise, he has sent him a translation of the seventh and eighth chapters, and also the appendix, of the great and learned Dr. Burnet’s” Arehseologiae philosophic^," &c. a piece which he thinks one of the most ingenious he ever read, and full of the most acute as well as learned observations. The* seventh and eighth chapters, here translated for Mr. Gildon’s use, were, unfortunately, the most objectionable in the whole work; and being immediately adopted by an infidel writer, gave such support to the complaints of the clergy, that it was judged expedient, in that critical season, to remove him from his place of clerk of the closet. He withdrew accordingly from court; anc if Mr. Oldmixon can be credited, ac-. tually missed the see of Canterbury, upon the death of Tillotson, on account of this very work, which occasioned him to be then represented by some bishops as a sceptical writer. He then retired to his studies in the Charter-house, without seeking, or perhaps desiring, any farther preferment; for he does not appear to have been a man of ambition; and there he lived, in a single state, to a good old age, dying Sept. 27, 1715.

In 1727, two other learned and elegant Latin works of our author were published in 8vo; one, “De fide et officiis Christianorum,” the other, “De statu mortuorum et resurgentium.” Burnet had himself caused to be struck off at the press a few, copies of each of these works, for the use of himself and some private friends; but did not intend them for the public, there being some points discussed in them against the scripture account of future punishment, which he thought not so proper to be communicated openly. Yet, surreptitious copies from proofsheets getting into the world, and the works being mangled and full of faults, Mr. Wilkinson, of Lincoln’s-inn, Burnet’s particular friend, and who was in possession of all his papers, thought it proper to publish a copy of them corrected by the doctor himself; as he did in 1727. To the second edition, in 1733, of “De statu mortuorum et resurgentium,” is added an appendix, “De futura Judaeorum restauratione:” it appearing to the editor from Burnet’s papers, that it was designed tq be placed there. He is said also to have been the author of three small pieces without his name, under the title of “Remarks upon an Essay concerning human understanding;” the two first published in 1697, the last in 1699; which “Remarks” were answered by Mrs. Catherine Trotter, afterwards Mrs. Cockburn, then but twenty-three years of age, in her Defence of Mr. Locke’s Essay, printed in May, 1702. These pieces, however, were not among the acknowledged works of Dr. Burnet.

Of the Sacred Theory of the Earth, which is the principal of all his productions, the substance is this: between the beginning and end of the world, he supposes several intermediate periods, in which he conceives that nature undergoes various changes. Those which resp'ect this terraqueous globe, he believes to have been recorded in the sacred Scriptures. From these compared with profane history, he attempts to prove, that the primaeval earth as it rose out of chaos, was of a different form and structure from the present, and was such, that from its dissolution would naturally arise an universal deluge. Such a change in the state of the globe, he infers from the general aspect of its surface in the present day; and he argues, that since it is the nature of fluids to form a smooth surface, the earth, which was at first a chaotic mass in a fluid state, as it gradually became solid by the exhalation of the lighter particles of air and water, would still retain its regular superficies, so that the new earth would resemble an egg. The earth, in this paradisaical state, he supposes to be capable of sending forth its vegetable productions without rain, and to enjoy a perpetual serene and cloudless atmosphere. In process of time, he conceived that the surface of the earth, by the continual action of the rays of the sun, would become so parched, as to occasion vast fissures, through which the waters of the great abyss, contained within the bowels of the earth, would be sent forth by means of elastic vapours, expanded by heat, and acting with irresistible force upon their surface; whence a universal deluge would ensue, and in the violent concussion, lofty mountains, craggy rocks, and other varieties in the external form of the earth, would appear. Our theorist also conjectures, that the earth, in its original state, owed its universal spring to th*e coincidence of the plane of the ecliptic with that of the equator; and supposes that, at the deluge, the pole of the ecliptic changed its position, and became oblique to the plane of the equator. From similar causes he conceives that the final conflagration will be produced. This theory is well imagined, supported with much erudition, and described with great elegance of diction; but it can only be considered as an ingenious fiction, which rests upon no other foundation than mere conjecture. Yet it would be endless to transcribe all the encomiums passed on it. Mr. Addison, in 1699, wrote a Latin ode in its praise, which has been prefixed to many editions of it. An able writer, Dr. Warton, in his “Essay on Pope,” has not scrupled, from this single work, to rank Dn Burnet with the very few, in whom the three great faculties of the understanding, viz. judgment, imagination, and memory, have been found united. According to him, there have existed but few transcendant geniuses, who have been singularly blessed with this rare assemblage of different talents; and Burnet, in his Theory, he thinks has displayed an imagination very nearly equal to that of Milton.

But, notwithstanding these encomiums on Burnet, it cannot be Affirmed that his Theory is built upon principles of mathematics and sound philosophy; on the contrary, men of science were displeased at him for presuming to erect a theory, which he would have received as true, without proceeding on that foundation. Flamstead is reported to have told him, somewhat peevishly, that “there went more to the making of a world, than a fine-turned period,” and that “he was able to overthrow the Theory in one sheet of paper.” Others attacked it in form. Mr. Erasmus Warren, rector of Worlington, in Suffolk, published two pieces against it soon after its appearance in English, and Dr. Burnet answered them; which pieces, with their answers, have been printed at the end of the later editions of the Theory. Mr. John Keill, Savilian professor of geometry in Oxford, published also an Examination of it in 1698, to which Dr. Burnet replied; and then Mr. Keill defended himself. Burnet’s reply to Keill is subjoined to the later editions of his Theory; and KeilPs Examination and Defence, together with his “Remarks and Defence upon Whiston’s Theory,” were reprinted together in 1734, 8vo. It is universally allowed that Keill has solidly confuted the Theory; and it is to be lamented that he did it in the rough way of controversy; yet there are many passages in his confutation, which shew, that he at the same time entertained the highest opinion of the Author. “I acknowledge him (says he) to be an ingenious writer; and if he had taken a right method, and had made a considerable progress in those sciences that are introductory to the study of nature, I doubt not but he would have made a very acute philosopher. It was his unhappiness to begin at first with the Cartesian philosophy; and not having a sufficient stock of geometrical and mechanical principles to examine it rightly, he too easily believed it, and thought that there was but little skill required 'in those sciences to become a philosopher; and therefore, in imitation of Mons. Des Cartes, he would undertake to shew how the world was made; a task too great, even for a mathematician.”

Many, perhaps, may wonder that a nook fundamentally wrong, should run through so many editions, and be so much read; but the reason is plain. No man reads Homer’s Iliad for history, any more than he reads Milton’s Paradise Lost for divinity; though it is possible there may be true history in the one, as it is certain there is some true divinity in the other. Such works are read, purely to entertain and amuse the fancy; and it is not the story that is sought after, but the greatness of imagery, and nobleness of sentiments, with which they abound. Why may not Burnet’s Theory of the Earth be read with the same view? It is not true in philosophy; but it is full of vast and sublime conceptions, presents to the imagination new and astonishing scenes, and will therefore always furnish a high entertainment to the reader, who is capable of being pleased as well as instructed. This even Keill himself allows: “For, as 1 believe (says he) never any book was fuller of errors and mistakes in philosophy, so none ever abounded with more beautiful scenes and surprising images of nature. But I write only to those who might perhaps expect to find a true philosophy in it; they who read it as an ingenious romance, will still be pleased with their entertainment.”

, a physician of Scotland, of whose birth, life, and death, we find nothing recorded, except what the title-pages of his books set forth; namely, that he was M. D. “medicus regius, et collegii regii medicorum Edinburgensis socius.” His name deserves to be preserved, however, for the sake of two useful works which he has left. One is, “Thesaurus medicinse practice,” Lond. 1673, 4to; a collection from the best practical writers, the last edition of which, greatly enlarged by himself, was published at Geneva, 1698, 4to. Haller enumerates twelve editions of it. The other, “Hippocrates contractus, in quo Hippocratis omnia in brevem epitomen reducta debentur,” Edinb. 1685, 8vo. A neat edition of this was printed at London, 1743, 12mo.

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

It was between the fifteenth and sixteenth year of his age, that Robert, as he himself informs us, first “committed the sin of rhyme.” Having formed a boyish affection for a female who was his companion in the toils of the field, he composed a song, which is inserted in his works; but which, however extraordinary from one at his age, and in his circumstances, is far inferior to any of his subsequent performances. He was at this time “an ungainly, awkward boy,” unacquainted with the world, but who occasionally had picked up some notions of history, literature, and criticism, from the few books within his reach. These, he informs us, were Salmon’s and Guthrie’s Geographical Grammars, the Spectator, Pope’s Works, some plays of Shakspeare, Tull and Dickson on Agriculture, the Pantheon, Locke’s Essay on the Human Understanding, Stackhouse’s History of the Bible, Justice’s British Gardener’s Directory, Boyle’s Lectures, Allan Ramsay’s Works, Taylor’s Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin, a Select Collection of English Songs, and Hervey’s Meditations. Of this motley assemblage, it may readily be supposed, that some would be studied, and some read superficially. There is reason to think> however, that he perused the works of the poets with such attention, as, assisted by his naturally vigorous capacity, soon directed his taste, and enabled him to discriminate tenderness and sublimity from affectation and bombast.

It appears afterwards, that during the space of seven years in which the family lived at Tarbolton, where his father’s last farm was situated, that is, from the seventeenth to the twenty-fourth year of Robert’s age, he made no considerable literary improvement, involved, as he was, in the common difficulties of his family: but still the innate peculiarities of his character displayed themselves, always to the astonishment, and sometimes to the terror of his neighbours. He was distinguished by a vigorous understanding, and an untameable spirit. His resentments were quick, and, although not durable, expressed with a volubility of indignation which could not but silence and overwhelm his humble and illiterate associates; while the occasional effusions of his muse on temporary subjects, which were handed about in manuscript, raised him to a local superiority that seemed the earnest of a more extended fame. His first motive to compose verses, as has Wen already noticed, was his early and warm attachment to the fair sex. His favourites were in the humblest walks of life; but, during his passion, he elevated them to Lauras and Saccharissas. His attachments, however, at this time, were of the purer kind, and his constant theme the happiness of the married state; to obtain a suitable provision for which, he engaged in partnership with a flax-dresser, hoping, probably, to attain by degrees the rank of a manufacturer. But this speculation was attended with very little success, and was finally ended by an accidental fire.

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

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

It cannot be surprising if so much adulation, in this new scene of life, produced effects an Burns which were the source of much of the unhappiness of his future life: for, while he was admitted into the company of men of taste, delicacy, and virtue, he was also seduced, by pressing invitations, into the society of those whose habits, without being very gross, are yet too social and inconsiderate; and the festive indulgences of these his companions and professed admirers were temptations which often became irresistible. Among his superiors in rank and merit, his behaviour was in general decorous and unassuming; but among his more equal or inferior associates, he: was permitted to dictate the mirth of the evening, and repaid the attention and submission of his hearers by sallies of wit. which, from one of his birth and education, in addition to their sterling value, had all the fascination of wonder. His introduction, about thasame time, into certain convivial clubs of higher rank was, to say the least, an injudicious mark of respect to one who, whatever his talents, was destined, unless very uncommon aad liberal patronage should interpose, to return to the plough, and to the simple and frugal enjoyments of a peasant’s life.

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

During the greater part of the winter, 1787—8, Burns again resided in Edinburgh, and entered with peculiar, relish into its gaieties. By his patrons of the higher order he was still respected and caressed; but, as the singularities of his manner displayed themselves more openly, and as the novelty of his appearance wore off, he brcame less an object of general curiosity and attention. He lingered long in this place, however, in hopes that some situation would have been offered which might place him in independence: but as it did not seem probable that any thing of that kind would occur soon, he began seriously to reflect that he had as yet acquired *io permanent situation in the world, and that tours of pleasure and praise would not provide for the wants of a family. Influenced by these considerations, and probably ashamed of a delay which was not in unison with his native independence of mind, he quitted Edinburgh in the month of February 1788. Finding himself master of nearly 500l. from the sale of his poems, after discharging all expences, he took the farm of Ellisland, near Dumfries, and stocked it with part of this money, besides generously advancing 200l. to his brother Gilbert, who was struggling with many difficulties in the farm of Mossgiel. He was now al^o legally united to Mrs. Burns, who joined him, with their children, about the end of this year; and now rebuilt the dwelling-house on his farm, to render it more commodious to his family; and while the regulations of the farm had the charm of novelty, he passed his time in more tranquillity than he had lately experienced. But, unfortunately, his old habits were rather interrupted than broken. He was again invited into social parties, with the additional recommendation of a man who had seen the world, and lived with the great; and again partook of those irregularities for which men of warm imaginations, and conversation-talents, find too many apologies. But a circumstance now occurred which presented a new species of temptations, and threw many ob-? stacles in his way as a farmer.

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

About this time (1792), he was solicited, and cheerfully consented, to give his aid to a beautiful work, entitled “A select collection of original Scottish Airs for the Voice: to which are added introductory and concluding symphonies and accompaniments for the piano forte and violin, by Pleyel and Kozeluch; with select and characteristic verses by the most admired Scottish poets, &c.” This work was projected by Mf. George Thomson, of Edinburgh, in whom Burns would have found a generous employer, had he not, from motives understood only by himself, refused every offer of remuneration. He wrote, however, with attention and without delay, for this work, all the songs which form the third volume of the edition of his works in 3 vols. 12mo^ to which may be added those he contributed to the “Scots Musical Museum,” conducted by Mr. James Johnson, and published in volumes, from 1787 to 1797.

Burns also found leisure to form a society for purchasing and circulating books among the farmers of the neighbourhood; but these, however praiseworthy employments, still interrupted the attention he ought to have bestowed on his farm, which became so unproductive that he found it convenient to resign it, and, disposing of his stock and crop, removed to a small house which he had taken in Dumfries, a short time previous to his lyric engagement with Mr. Thomson. He had now received from the board of excrse, in consequence of his diligence and integrity, an appointment to a new district, the emoluments of which amounted to about seventy pounds sterling per annum. While at Dumfries, his temptations to irregularity, partly arising from the wandering and unsettled duties of his office, and partly from the killing kindness of his friends, recurred so frequently as nearly to overpower those resolutions, which he appears to have formed with a perfect knowledge of what is right and prudent. During his quiet moments, however, he was enlarging his fame by those admirable compositions he sent to Mr. Thomson: and his temporary sallies and flashes of imagination, in the merriment of the social table, still bespoke a genius of wonderful strength and of high captivations. It has been said, indeed, with great justice, that, extraordinary as his poems are, they afford but an inadequate proof of the powers of their author, or of that acuteness of observation and fertility of expression he displayed on the most common topics in conversation. In the society, likewise, of persons of taste and respectability, he could refrain from those indulgences which among his more constant companions probably formed his chief recommendation.

The emoluments of his office, which now composed his. whole fortune, soon appeared insufficient for the maintenance of his family. He did not, indeed, from the first, expect that they could; but he had hopes of promotion at no great distance of time, and would probably have at­'tained it, if he had not forfeited the favour of the board of excise, by some conversations on the state of public affairs, the revolution of France, &c. which were deemed highly improper, and were, probably, reported to the board in a way not calculated to lessen their effect. An inquiry was therefore instituted into his conduct, the result of which, although rather favourable, was not so much so as to reinstate him in the good opinion of the commissioners. Interest was necessary to enable him to retain his office; and he was informed that his promotion was deferred, and must depend on his future behaviour. He is said to have defended himself on this occasion in a letter addressed to one of the board with much spirit and skill. He wrote another letter to a gentleman, who, hearing that he had been dismissed from his situation, proposed a subscription, for him. In this last he gives an account of the whole transaction, and endeavours to vindicate his loyalty; he also contends for an independence of spirit, which he certainly possessed, and which, in many instances, he decidedly proved, but which yet appears to have partaken of that ardent zeal and extravagance of sentiment which are fitter to point a stanza than to conduct a life.

Although not satisfied with the issue of this affair, he continued to look up to the contingencies and gradations of promotion. In a letter written to one of his patrons (whose name is concealed), dated 1794, he states that he is on the list of supervisors; that in two or three years he should be at the head of that list, and be appointed, as a matter of course; but that then a friend might be of service in getting him into a part of the kingdom which he would like. A supervisor’s income varies from about 120l. to 2001. a year; but the business, he says, is “an incessant drudgery, and would be nearly a complete bar to every species of literary pursuit.” He proceeds, however, to observe, that the moment he is appointed supervisor in the common routine, he might be nominated on the collector’s list, “and this is always a business purely of political patronage. A collectorship varies from muck better than two hundred a year to near a thousand. Collectors also come forward by precedency on the list, and have, besides a handsome income, a life of complete leisure. A life of literary leisure, with a decent competence, is the summit of my wishes.” He then respectfully solicits the interest of his correspondent to facilitate this.

He was doomed, however, to continue in his present employment for the remainder of his days, which were not many. His constitution, which “had all the peculiarities and delicacies that belong to the temperament of genius,” was now rapidly decaying; yet, although sensible that his race was nearly run, his resolutions of amendment were but feeble. His temper, amidst many struggles between principle and passion, became irritable and gloomy, and he was even insensible to the kind forgiveness and soothing attentions of his affectionate wife. In the month of June, 1796, he removed to Brow, in Annandale, about ten miles from Dumfries, to try the effect of sea-bathing; a remedy that at first, he imagined, relieved the rheumatic pains in his limbs, with which he had been afflicted for some months; but this was immediately followed by a new attack of fever. When brought back to his house at Dumfries, on the 18th of July, he was no longer able to stand upright. The fever increased, attended with delirium and debility, and on the 2 1st he expired, in the thirty-eighth year of his age. His funeral was accompanied with military honours, not only by the corps of Dumfries volunteers, of which he was a member, but by the fencible infantry, and a regiment of the Cinque Port cavalry, then quartered in Dumfries.

He left a widow and four sons, for whom the inhabitants of Dumfries opened a subscription, which, being extended to England, produced a considerable sum for their immediate necessities. This has since been augmented by the profits of the splendid edition of his works, printed in four volumes, 8vo; to which Dr. Currie, of Liverpool, prefixed a life, written with much elegance and taste.

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

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

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

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

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

It has already been mentioned, that Burns had received a religious education, such as is common to the lower classes in Scotland; and it may be observed, that many of his sentiments run in a devotional strain, while he 'frequently, but not always with equal judgment, introduces the language and imagery of the Holy Scriptures in his writings. It is to be lamented, however, that the religious impressions of his youth were neither so strong nor so durable as to afford him consolation amidst the untoward events of his life. He appears to have been much affected by the bigotry of his neighbours, and has satirized it with peculiar humour; but in this discharge of what he might think was his duty, he overlooked the mean betwixt superstition and unbelief. In his latter days he felt severely the folly of thus removing from one extreme to another; and probably lamented the loss of that happier frame of mind in which he wrote the concluding verses of the “Cotter’s Saturday Night.” Let us hope, however, that his many and frank acknowledgments of error finally ended in that “repentance which is not to be repented of.” It is but justice to add, that he corrected certain improprieties introduced into his early poems; and it was his intention to have revised all his works, and make reparation to the individuals he had been supposed to irritate, or to the subjects he had treated with unbecoming levity. “When we reflect,” says Mr. Mackenzie, “on his rank in life, the habits to which he must have been subject, and the society in which he must have mixed, we regret, perhaps, more than wonder, that delicacy should be so often offended in perusing a volume in which there is so much to interest and please us.”

The character of Burns will still be incomplete, without some notice of his abilities as a prose-writer; for of these we have ample proofs in his familiar correspondence. That his letters were never intended for the public eye, that many of them are mutilated, and that some, perhaps, might have been suppressed, are deductions which do not affect their merit as the effusions of a very uncommon mind, enriched with knowledge far beyond what could have been reasonably expected in his situation. He appears to have cultivated English prose with care, and certainly wrote it with a sprightly fluency. His turns of expression are various and surprizing, and, when treating the most common topics, his sentiments are singular and animated. His letters, however, would have attained a higher portion of graceful expression, and would have been more generally pleasing, had they not been too frequently the faithful transcripts of a disappointed mind, gloomily bent on one set of indignant and querulous reflections. But with this, and another exception which might be made to these letters, from a frequent imitation of the discursive manner of Sterne, they must ever be considered as decided proofs of genius. They contain many admirable specimens of critical acumen, and many flights of humour, and observations on life and manners, which fully justify our belief that, had he cultivated his prose talents only, he might have risen to very high distinction in epistolary or essay writing. Upon the whole, Burns was a man who undoubtedly possessed great abilities with great failings. The former he received from nature, he prized them highly, and he improved them; the latter were exaggerated by circumstances less within his controul, and by disappointments which, trusting to the most liberal encouragement ever offered to genius, he could not have foreseen. They may yet serve to guard ambitious and ardent minds from similar irregularities and wanderings, and to explain why such a man, after the first burst of popular applause was past, lived and died more unhappily than would probably have been the case had he never known what it was to be caressed and admired.

, a puritan divine, was born in 1599, and educated at Cambridge, but was obliged to quit that university for nonconformity. He sheltered himself for some time under the hospitable roof of the earl of Warwick, and afterwards retired to Holland, where he was chosen minister of an English congregation at Rotterdam. In 1642 he returned to England, and became preacher of two of the largest and most numerous congregations in London, Stepney and Cripplegate. It was not his object to spread sedition, but peace, for which he earnestly laboured. His “Irenicum” was one of the last subjects upon which he preached. He was a man of learning, candour, and modesty, and of irreproachable life. A considerable number of his writings are in print, many of Vhich were published after his death, which happened November 14, 1646. When the assembly of divines reformed the church by placing that of Scotland in lieu of that of England, Mr. Burroughes was a dissenter from their decrees, and lamented that after all the mischiefs of rebellion and revolution, men were not allowed to have liberty of conscience any more than before. These divisions are said to have shortened his days. Baxter used to say that if all presbyterians had been like Mr. Marshall, and all independents like Mr. Burroughes, their differences might easily have been compromised. Such men, however, in those distracted times were the “rari nantes in gurgite vasto.” We have before us a list of twelve quartos, and four octavos, mostly published from his Mss. after his death, among which is an “Exposition on Hosea,” 3 vols. but none of them seem, to have attained any great degree of popularity.

, knt. garter king at arms, is said to have been the son of a gardener or a brewer at Sandwich, who appears, however, to have been a person of considerable opulence, as he married into the family of the Dennes of Dennehili, and gave his son a very liberal education. He studied law in Gray’s-inn, and in 1623, was appointed keeper of the records in the Tower, and about the same time became secretary to the Earl Marshal. In the former reign (Elizabeth) he had been created Mowbray herald extraordinary, to enable him to become a king at arms, upon, a vacancy, and was knighted by king James I. July 17, 1624. He attended Charles I. when he wetit to Scotland to be crowned. In 1633 he was made garter king at arms. In 1636, he obtained a grant to entitle him to the fees and perc “e. of his office, because he had been abroad upon the L^siness of the crown, which enabled him to take his share of the dues of his office, the same as if he had been personally present in the college. In 1640, he attended the treaty held by the sovereign with his subjects in Scotland, and upon the civil war breaking out, withdrew from the college, to attend his duty upon his royal master. Whilst in this service, a grace passed in convocation at Oxford for the degree of LL. D. but Wood says it does not appear by the register whether he was admitted, which, however, is highly probable. He died at Oxford, Oct. 21, 1643, and was buried in Christ church cathedral. He wrote, 1.” Impetus juveniles, et quaedam sedatioris aliquantulum animi epistolae,“Oxon. 1643, 8vo, in which his name is Latinized into Burrhus. Most of the epistles are written to Philip Bacon, sir Francis Bacon (lord Verulam), Thomas Famabie, Thomas Coppin, sir Henry Spelman, &c. 2.” The Sovereignty of the British Seas, proved by records, &c.“written in 1633, but not published until 1651, 12mo. Wood says he also made” A Collection of Records in the Tower of London." There are many ms pedigrees remaining of his drawing up. In the Inner Temple library is a commentary in ms. from his pen, on the formulary for combats before the constable and marshal. His abilities and erudition were universally acknowledged during his life.

, born in 1701, was made master of the crown-office in 1724, and was elected F. R. S. 1737, F. A. S. 1751. On the death of Mr. West in 1772, he was prevailed on to fill the president’s chair at the royal society till the anniversary election, when he resigned it to sir John Pringle; and Aug. 10, 1773, when the society presented an address to his majesty, he received the honour of knighthood. He retained his mastership of the 'crown-office till his death, Nov. 5, 1782. An elegant whole-length portrait of sir James Burrow was engraved, after Devis, by Basire, in 1780. During the memorable presidency of the great earl of Mansfield, sir James seems to have been the first reporter of law cases. From a series of many years’ attendance on the court of king’s bench officially, and from a constant habit and attention to accuracy in preserving notes of the business in that court, and being further assisted by the records which passed through his hands in the cpurse of his office, he was particularly enabled to give a collection of the Cases from 26 George II. to 12 George III. in which generally the arguments of the counsel as well as those of the court, are related in a very full and accurate manner, and in a method adapted to give a regular view of the actual progress of the cause as it occurred in court, which of course led the reporter into a more diffuse and circumstantial detail of the arguments than has in general been thought necessary by other reporters, but which appears to have been considered by the author as essential to an exact report of tfhe case, as well as conducive to the improvement of the student. These reports have therefore been considered as a work of the first necessity in the library of a modern lawyer. They have passed through four editions, the last of which was printed with “additional notes and references in 1790, 5 vols. royal 8vo. He also published a separate collection of his” Reports of the Decisions of the Court of King’s Bench, upon Settlement cases, from the year 1732 to 1776,“having during the whole of that period uniformly attended that court, and made it a part of his employment to record the proceedings of it; and in this part of his labours he had the satisfaction of being greatly instrumental in promoting the knowledge of this much litigated branch of the law, and his work seems to have had the effect of lessening the number of appeals to the court of king’s bench. These decisions have been twice printed, first in 4to, 1768, 1772, and 1776, to which were subjoined a few thoughts on pointing (published separately in 1769 and 1772), and secondly in 1786, with marginal notes and references. It is said that he intended to have published his reports of the cases decided in the court of king’s bench, during the time of the three chief justices immediately preceding lord Mansfield, and that the manuscripts of such cases were in the hands of Robert Burrow, esq. his nephew, lately deceased. Sir James also published, without his name, a few” Anecdotes and observations relating to Oliver Cromwell and his family, serving to rectify several errors concerning him, published by Nicol. Comnenus Papadopoli, in his “Historia gymnasii Patavini,” 1763, 4to.

, was born at Birsall in Yorkshire, about 1579; and educated at St. John’s college in Cambridge, where he took both his degrees in arts. He was afterwards incorporated M. A. at Oxford, and took the degree of B. D. He first was tutor to the sons of lord Carey of Lepington (created in 1625 earl of Monmouth), and afterwards, probably by his lordship’s interest, clerk of the closet to prince Henry; and after his death to prince Charles, whom he was appointed to attend into Spain in 1623; but, for reasons unknown, was set aside after part of his goods were shipped, and upon that prince' succession to the crown was removed from being his clerk of the closet. Burton, highly disgusted at this treatment, took every opportunity of expressing his resentment, particularly by railing against the bishops.

In April 1625, he presented a letter to king Charles, remonstrating against Dr. Neile and Dr. Laud, his majesty’s continual attendants, as popishly affected; and for this was forbidden the court. Soon after he was presented to the rectory of -St, Matthew’s, in Friday-street, London. In Dec. 1636, he was summoned to appear before Dr. Duck, one of the commissioners for causes ecclesiastical, who tendered to him the oaths ex officio, to answer to certain articles brought against him, for what he had advanced in two sermons preached in his own church on the preceding 5th of November. Burton, instead of answering, appealed to the king: but a special high-commission court, which was called soon after at Doctors’ Commons, suspended him, in his absence, from both his office and benefice; on which he thought fit to abscond, but published his two sermons under the title of “For God and the King;” together with an apology justifying his appeal. February 1, a serjeant at arms, with other officers, by virtue of a warrant from the star-chamber, broke open his doors, seized his papers, and took him into custody. Next day, he was, by an order of the privy-council, committed to the Fleet prison; from which place he dated one epistle to his majesty, another to the judges, and a third to the “truehearted nobility.” March 1!, he was proceeded against in the star-chamber, for writing and publishing seditious, schismatical, and libellous books, against the hierarchy of the church, and to the scandal of the government. To this information he (and Bastwick and Prynne who were indicted with him) prepared answers . In the end of May 1637, a person came to the Fleet to examine Burton upon his answer; but hearing that the greatest part of it had been expunged, he refused to be examined, unless his answer might be admitted as it was put in, or he permitted to put in a new answer. June 2, it was ordered by the court, that if he would not answer to interrogatories framed upon his answer, he would be proceeded against pro confesso. Accordingly, June 14, Burton, and the two others, being brought to the bar, the information was read; and no legal answer having been put in in time, nor filed on record, the court began for this contempt to proceed to sentence. The defendants cried out for justice, that their answers might be read, and that they might not be condemned unheard, but because their answers were not filed on record, the court proceeded to pass sentence: which was, that Burton, Prynne, and Bastwick pay a fine of 50OO/. each, and that Burton in particular be deprived of his ecclesiastical benefice, degraded from his ministerial function and degrees in the university, be set on the pillory, have both his ears cut off there, confined to perpetual close imprisonment in Lancaster-castle, debarred the access of his wife or any other except his keeper, and denied the use of pen, ink, and paper: all which, except the fine and the solitary part of the confinement, was executed accordingly, and the cutting off his ears with circumstances of great cruelty, they being pared so close, that the temporal artery was cut. During his twelve weeks imprisonment in the common gaol at Lancaster, great crowds pitying his misfortunes resorted to him, and some of his papers being dispersed in London, he was removed, by an order of council, to Cornet-castle in the isle of Guernsey, October 1637, where he was shut up almost three years; till in November 1640, the house of, commons, upon his wife’s petition, complaining of the severity of his sentence, ordered that he should be brought to the parliament in safe custody. Burton, on his arrival at London, presented a petition to the house of commons, setting forth his sufferings, and there was now a house of commons willing enough to listen to more trifling complaints. In consequence of this, the house resolved that the sentence against him was illegal, and ought to be reversed; that he be freed from the fine of 5000l. and from imprisonment, and restored to his degrees in the university, orders in the ministry, and to his ecclesiastical benefice in Friday-street, London; also have recompense for his imprisonment, and for the loss of his ears, which they fixed at six thousand pounds; but owing to the ensuing confusions in the kingdom, he never received that sum. He was, however, restored to his living of St. Matthew’s, after which he declared himself an Independent, and complied with all the alterations that ensued; but, according to Wood, when he saw to what extravagant lengths the parliament went, he grew more moderate, and afterwards fell out with his fellow-sufferers Prynne and Bastwick, and with Mr. Edmund Calamy. He died Jan. 7, 1648. Besides the tracts mentioned above, he wrote several others, which are thus enumerated. 1. “A Censure of Simony,” Loud. 1624. 2. “A Plea to an Appeal, traversed Dialoguewise,” Lond. 1626. 3. “The baiting of the Pope’s Bull,” Lond. 1627. 4. “A Tryal of private Devotions, or a Dyal for the Hours of Prayer,” Lond. 1628. 5. “Israel’s Fast; or, Meditations on the 7th Chapter of Joshua,” Lond. 1628. 6. “Seven Vials, or an Exposition on the loth and 16th Chapters of the Revelations,” Lond. 1628. 7. “Babel no Bethel; i. e. The Church of Rome no true visible Church of Christ, being an Answer to Hugh Cholmeley’s Challenge, and Robert Butterfield’s Maschil.” 8. “Truth’s Triumph over Trent, or the great Gulph between Sion and Babylon,” Lond. 1629. 9. “The Law and the Gospel reconciled against the Antinomians,” Lond. 1631^ 4to. 10. “Christian’s Bulwark, or the Doctrine of Justification,” Lond. 1632, 4to. 11. “Exceptions against a passage in Dr. Jackson’s Treatise of the Divine Essence and Attributes.” 12. “The sounding of the two last Trumpets; or, Meditations on the 9th, 10th, and llth Chapters of the Revelations,” Lond. 1641, 4to. 13. “The Protestation protested, or a short Remonstrance, shewing what is principally required of all those that have or do take the last Parliamentary Protestation,” London, 1641, 4to. 14. “Relation of Mr. Chillingworth.” 15. “A Narration of his own Life,” Lond. 1643, 4to. J6. “A Vindication of Independent Churches, in answer to Mr. Prynne’s two books of Church-Government, and of Independency,” Lond. 1644, 4to. 17. “Parliament’s Power for Laws in Religion,” 1645, 4to. 18. “Vindiciae Veritatis: Truth vindicated against Calumny: In a brief Answer to Dr. Bastwick’s two late books, entitled, Independency not God’s Ordinance,” Lond. 1645, 4to. 19. “Truth shut out of Doors; or, A brief Narrative of the Occasion and Manner of Proceeding of Aldermanbury Parish, in shutting their Church-Door against him,” Lond. 1645, 4to. 20. “Conformity’s Deformity, in a Dialogue between Conformity and Conscience,” Lond. 1646, 4to.

However disproportioned Burton’s punishment was to his offence, he appears to have been a man of a violent and vindictive temper, and an enthusiast, who knowing how to adapt his harangues to the correspondent enthusiasm of the people, was considered as one of the most dangerous agents of the party who were undermining the constitution. His works are now little read, although often inquired after, and it has been justly observed, that punishment made him an object of pity who never was an object of esteem.

, a divine of distinguished abilities, was educated in Magdalen college, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow, and where he was an eminent tutor. He was ordained priest by bishop Sanderson; and, in 1667, was appointed chaplain to lord keeper Bridgeman, by whom he was presented to a prebend of Norwich, and to the rectory of St. George’s in Southwark. In 1668, he was engaged, with Dr. Stiliingfleet and Dr. Tillotson, in the treaty proposed by sir Orlando Bridgeman, and countenanced by lord chief baron Hale, for a comprehension;vith the Dissenters. About a year before his death, Oct. 19, 1680, Dr. Burton, by the interest of his friend Tillotson with the Chapter of St. Paul’s, obtained the rectory of Barnes in Surry, at which place he died, of a malignant fever, in 1681. The only thing of his that appeared during his life, was the short “Alloquium ad Lectorem,” prefixed to Dr. Cumberland’s treatise “De Legibus Naturae.” After Dr. Burton’s decease, dean Tillotson published two volumes of his discourses, which reflect great credit on his memory, from the piety and just sentiments they abound with on the nature and end of religion.

, a learned divine, was born in 1696 at Wemb worth in Devonshire, of which parish his father wag rector. The first part of his grammatical education he received at Okehampton, and the remainder at Ely, under the rev. Sam. Bentham, his first cousin by the mother’s side. Such were the proofs which young Burton afforded at school of his capacity, diligence, and worthy dispositions, that the learned Dr. Ashton, master of Jesuscollege, Cambridge, designed to have him admitted into his own college. But in the mean time, Dr. Turner, president of Corpus-Christi college, Oxford, having made an accidental trial of Mr. Burton’s literary improvements, procured him a scholarship in that college in 1713, when he was 17 years of age. Here he made so distinguished a progress, that Dr. Mather, the president, appointed him to the important office of tutor, when he was only B. A. Soon after, the college conferred upon him the honour of reading the Greek lecture. During the whole course of his studies, he recommended himself both to the affection of his equals and the esteem of his superiors. Dr. Potter, in particular, at that time bishop of Oxford, conceived a great regard for him. March 24, 1720, Mr. Burton was admitted to the degree of M. A. In the exercise of his duty as a tutor, no one could exceed him in attention, diligence, and a zealous concern for the improvement of his pupils. As he was himself unacquainted with mathematics, and ignorant of the Hebrew tongue, he took effectual care that the young men under his tuition should be well instructed in these points. With regard to those of his pupils who were upon charitable foundations, he was solicitous that the acquisition of knowledge should be rendered as cheap to them as possible; and was so disinterested and beneficent in the whole of his conduct, that, after having discharged the office of a tutor almost fifteen years, he was scarcely possessed of 50l. when he quitted the university. In revising, correcting, and improving the exercises of the students, Mr. Burton displayed surprising patience and indefatigable diligence; and there are still extant his themes, declamations, orations, and poems of every kind, which he composed for the use of his own pupils, and even of others. His attention was also laudably and liberally directed to the restoration of the credit of the university press, and to enable editors to carry on their literary undertakings with diminished expence. With this view, he often prevailed upon Dr. Mather, Dr. Holmes, and other vice-chancellors, to order new types; and, by the assistance of some noble friends, he was so strenuous in behalf of the learned Hutchinson, the editor of Xenophon, that no editors since that time have had any delay or difficulty in obtaining the exemption from the duty on paper, which has been granted by parliament to books printed at the Clarendon press. It was also by Mr. Burton’s persuasion, that Mr. (afterwards lord) Rolle gave WOl. to the university, for the purpose of lending it to editors; and that Dr. Hodges, provost of Orielcollege, bequeathed 200l. to the same use. In 1725, when our learned tutor was pro-proctor and master of the schools, he spoke, before the determining bachelors, a Latin oration, entitled “Heli,” which was both written and published with a design of enforcing the salutary exercise of academical discipline. The same subject was still more fully considered by him in four Latin sermons, preached before the university; which, likewise, with appendices, were afterwards given to the public. Indeed, the labour that Mr. Burton, during two years, cheerfully went through, as master of the schools, was immense. July 19, 1729, Mr. Burton was admitted to the degree of B. D.; and in 1732, when the settlement of the colony of Georgia was in agitation, being solicitous to give his assistance in promoting that undertaking, he preached a sermon in its recommendation; and his discourse was afterwards published, with an appendix concerning the state of the colony. He was likewise, through his whole life, an ardent promoter of Dr. Bray’s admirable scheme of parochial libraries.

Among other youths who were committed to the tuition of Mr. Burton, there were several from Eton school, who excelled in genius and learning. This circumstance introduced him to an epistolary correspondence, and a social intercourse, with the masters of the school and the provost and fellows of the college; the consequence of which was, that they formed so good an opinion of his disposition and character, as to elect him, in 1733, into a fellowship of their society. About the same time, upon the death of Dr. Edward Littleton, he was presented to the vicarage of Maple-derham in Oxfordshire; which may be considered as a grand sera in Mr. Burton’s life. Upon going to take possession of his new preferment, he found the widow of his predecessor, and three infant daughters, without a home and without a fortune. A sight so affecting inspired him with compassion: compassion was followed by love, and love by marriage. Mr. Burton shewed the same contempt for money, and perhaps carried it to an excess, after he was settled in his living. His situation being remarkably pleasant, nothing gave him a greater delight than repairing, enlarging, and adorning his house, embellishing his gardens, planting trees, clearing fields, making roads, and introducing such other improvements as he believed would be of advantage to his Successors. Works of a similar kind were undertaken by him, when in 1766 he was instituted to the rectory of Worplesdon in Surry. In 1748, the death of his wife affected him in the tenderest manner, as is evident from the several parts of his “Opuscula metrico-prosaica;” but did not lessen his regard for her three orphan daughters, towards whom he continued to exert the greatest affection and liberality. After this event, he spent the principal part of the year at Eton-college; where he gave himself entirely up to the study of literature, and the assistance of his friends; but punctually attended any public meetings on literary or ecclesiastic affairs, whether at Oxford, London, or Cambridge. July 1, 1752, he took the degree of D. D. and afterwards published his lectures on that occasion. He was intimately connected with many of the bishops; and whilst caressed by the governors of the church, was equally dear to the lowest of the clergy. Nothing was more agreeable to him, than to see all around him easy, cheerful, and happy. To such of the young scholars at Eton as appeared so be of promising abilities and dispositions, he shewed a particular attention, made them the companions of his leisure hours, and afforded them every encouragement which lay in his power.

When Dr. Burton came to an advanced age, and his eyes began to fail him, he thought proper to collect together and publish his scattered pieces, under the title of “Opuscula miscellanea.” Scarcely had he finished this task, when he was suddenly attacked by an erysipelous fever, which disturbed his intellects, and shattered his decaying frame. He seemed however at intervals to recover, and to be desirous of resuming his studies. The day before his death, on Sunday evening, he sent, as had been his custom, for five or six promising youths; and after supper discoursed to them, with more than usual perspicuity and elegance, on some important subject of divinity. From this exertion, which he seemed to bear without inconvenience, his physician and friends conceived hopes, though mistaken ones, of his recovery; for after a most serene sleep, he quietly departed this Jife the next morning, Feb. 11, 1771, aged 76, and was buried at the entrance of the inner chapel at Eton.

Dr. Burton had some peculiarities of character, which wit or envy were accustomed to magnify; even his style, which is rather precise and pedantic, has been considered as peculiar, and called the Burtonian style; but his acknowledged virtues and talents were such as to entitle him to the serious regard of the majority of his contemporaries^ His works, some of which we have already noticed, consist of two volumes of occasional “Sermons,” 1764, and 1766, 8vo; his “Opuscula Miscellanea Theologica,” and his “Opuscula Miscellanea Metrico-prosaica.” Of these a very elegant poem, entitled “Sacerdos Parrecialis Rusticus,” has been recently (1800) translated by the Rev. Dawson Warren, under the title “The Parish Priest, a poem,” 4to. One of the most useful of Dr. Burton’s separate publications appeared in 1744, entitled “The Genuineness of Lord Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion printed at Oxford vindicated;” in which he clearly and fully refutes the slander that bad been advanced by Oldmixon, in his Critical History of England. In 1758, appeared the doctor’s “Dissertatio et Notae criticae spectantes ad Tragoedias quasdam Graecas editas in Pentalogia.” The publication. of the five select tragedies which constitute the “Pentalogia r” first begun, but interrupted by the death of Mr. Joseph Bingham, one of his pupils, took place in 1758, with a preface, dissertations, index, and additional notes, and has lately been reprinted at the university press. In 1766, he published a discourse, entitled “Papists and Pharisees compared; or, Papists the corrupters of Christianity;” occasioned by Philips’s Life of cardinal Pole. About the same time, he delivered at Oxford a set of sermons, still in manuscript, the design of which was to refute the articles of the council of Trent.

Dr. Burton is understood to have been the author, under the name of “Phileleutherus Londinensis,” of “Remarks on Dr. King’s Speech before the University of Oxford, at the Dedication of Dr. Radcliff’s Library, on the 13th of April, 1749.” This produced from Dr. King, “Elogium Famæ inserviens Jacci Etonensis, sive Gigantis; or, The Praises of Jack of Eton, commonly called Jack the Giant; collected into English metre, after the manner of Thomas Sternhold, John Hopkins, John Burton, and others. To which is added, a dissertation on the Burtonian style. By a Master of Arts.” Dr. Burton’s Life was written in Latin by Dr. Edward Bentham, his relation, and canon of Christ church, under the title “De Vita et moribus Johannis Burtoni,” 1771, addressed to Dr. Lowth, then bishop of Oxford, afterwards of London; and was translated the same year in the Gentleman? s Magazine.

, M.D. and F. R. S. and F. S.A. an eminent antiquary, of whom our accounts are very scanty, was born at Rjppon in Yorkshire 1697, and educated hi Christ church college in Oxford for some time, but took his degree in some foreign university; and on his settling at York, became very eminent in his profession. In 1745 it is said that he proposed joining himself to the pretender, then at Manchester; but that his friends had interest sufficient to dissuade him from a measure which must have terminated in his ruin. His conduct, therefore, appears to have unjustly exposed him to censure, if his own account may be relied on, to this purpose, that “going out of York, with leave of the mayor, &c. to take care of his estates, on the approach of the rebels, he was taken by them, and in consequence of that was apprehended Dec. 3, 1745, and detained till March 25, 1746—7.” This is explained in “British liberty endangered, demonstrated by the following narrative, wherein is proved from facts, that J. B. has hitherto been a better friend to the English constitution, in church and state, than his persecutors. Humbly dedicated to the most reverend and worthy the archbishop of Canterbury, late of York (Herring). With a proper preface, by John Burton, of York, M. D.” London, 3 749. There was afterwards published “An account of what passed between Mr. George Thomson of York, and doctor John Burton of that city, physician and manmidwife, at Mr. sheriff Jubb’s entertainment, and the consequences thereon, by Mr. George Thomson,” London, 1756, 8vo, a narrative, in the lowest and most abusive language, says Mr. Gough, of a quarrel and assault, for the doctor’s refusing to drink certain healths proposed to him, drawn up with all the virulence of disappointment for a verdict against the writer. Long before these events, he published “A Treatise on the Non-naturals, in which the great influence they have on human bodies is set forth, and mechanically accounted for. To which is subjoined, a short Essay on the Chin-Cough, with a new method of treating that obstinate distemper,” York, 1738, 8vo. In the title of this work, he calls himself “M. B. Cant, and M. D. Rhem.” by which it would appear that his bachelor’s was a Lambeth degree, and that he graduated as doctor at Rheims. In 1751, he published “An Essay towards a complete new system of Midwifery,” 8vo, and in 1753, “A Letter to William Smellie, M. D. containing critical and practical remarks upon his Treatise on the theory and practice of Midwifery,” 8vo. But the work by which he is principally known, and for which he was employed in making collections during his latter years, was, his “Monasticon Eboracense; and the Ecclesiastical History of Yorkshire, &c.” the first volume of which was published in 1758, folio. This is in all respects a most valuable work; and it is to be regretted that it was not completed by a second volume, for which he had ample materials. Mr. Gough seems to intimate that his conduct in 1745 was a check both to encouragement and the means for publishing his second volume. Previously to that period, his zeal for illustrating the antiquities of his native country, and his indefatigable researches, met with due encouragement from those who had many important materials in their hands; and he was himself possessed of an invaluable and unparalleled collection for illustrating the history and antiquities of that county, which before his death in 1771, he sold for a sum of money and an annuity for himself and wife to William Constable, esq. of Burton Constable, in whose, or his family’s hands, they probably now remain. Mr. Gough has given an ample list of them.

, author of the “Anatomy of Melancholy,” the younger brother of William Burton, the antiquary, the subject of the next article but one, was born at Lindley, Feb. 8, 1576, and had his grammatical education at Sutton-Colfield; after which, in 1593, he was admitted a commoner of Brazen-nose college, and elected a student of Christ church, in 1599, under the tuition (though only for form’s sake) of Dr. John Bancroft, afterwards bishop of Oxford. He took the degree of B. D. in 16 14, and was in that year admitted to the reading of the sentences. In 1616, the dean and chapter of Christ church presented him to the Vicarage of St. Thomas in Oxford, in which parish he always gave the sacrament in wafers; and George lord Berkeley bestowed upon him the rectory of Segrave in Leicestershire. Both these preferments he held till his decease, which happened at Christ church, January 25, 1639—4O. He was a curious calculator of nativities, and among others, of his own; and the time of his death answering exactly to his own predictions, it was whispered in the college, that (to use Anthony Wood’s language), rather than there should be any mistake in the calculation, he sent up his soul to heaven through a slip about his neck; but for this insinuation there appears little foundation. He was a general scholar and severe student, of a melancholy yet humourous disposition, and appears to have been a man of extensive learning, which his memory enabled him to produce upon every subject. In his moral character, he was a man of great integrity, plain-dealing, and chanty. He was principally known as the author of a very celebrated and popular work, entitled “The Anatomy of Melancholy,” published first in quarto, and which afterwards went through several editions in folio, so that the bookseller acquired an estate by it. This book was compiled by our learned writer with a view of relieving his own melancholy; but it encreased to such a degree, that nothing could divert him but going to the bridge foot, and hearing the ribaldry of the bargemen, which seldom failed to throw him into a violent fit of laughter. In the intervals of his vapours, he was one of the most facetious companions in the university. The “Anatomy of Melancholy” is for the greater part a cento, though a very ingenious one. The quotations, which abound in every page, are pertinent; but if the author had made freer use of his invention, and less of his common -place book, his work, perhaps, would have been more valuable. However, he generally avoids the affected language, and ridiculous metaphors, which were common in that age. On Mr. Burton’s monument in Christ church is his bust, with his nativity, and this description by himself, put up by his brother: “Faucis notus, paucioribus ignotus, hie jacet Democritusjunior, cui vitam dedit et mortem Melancholia. Obiit viii. Id. Jan. A. C. MDCXXXIX.” He left behind him a choice collection of books, many of which he bequeathed to the Bodleian library, and that of Brazen-nose college. He left also a hundred pounds, for a fund to purchase five pounds’ worth of books, every year, for the library of Christ church.

“Burton upon Melancholy,” says archbp. Herring (Letters, 1777, 12mo), is an author, the pleasantest, the most learned, and the most full of sterling sense. The wits of queen Anne’s reign, and the beginning of George I. were, he adds, not a little beholden to him:“but for nearly a century, the perusal of it was confined to those readers who are called” The Curious;“and within our memory it was usually rejected from the catalogues of eminent booksellers, as a work fitter for the stalls. Of late years, however, its reputation has revived in an uncommon degree, partly by incidental notices of it by Dr. Johnson, Messrs. Steevens and Malone, and the other annotators of Shakspeare, and partly by the attention paid to it by Dr. Ferriar of Manchester, who, in his” Illustrations of Sterne,“has ingeniously pointed out how much that writer owes to Burton. Mr. T. Warton, in his History of Poetry, had also frequently referred to the” Anatomy." All this not only raised the price of the old editions, but encouraged the publication of a new one in 1800, which sold rapidly; yet Burton is a writer so much above the common level, that we suspect that, even now, he has acquired more purchasers than readers.

was a name placed in the titlepages of a numerous set of popular volumes printed about the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century, and sold by Nath. Crouch, a bookseller of that period, who is supposed to have composed them. In the Bodleian Catalogue, Burton is called “alias Nat Crouch,” of whom Dunton says, “I. think I have given you the very soul of his character, when I have told you that his talent lies at * Collections.' He has melted down the best of our English histories into Twelve-penny-Books, which are filled with Wonders, Rarities, and Curiosities, for you must know his title-pages are a little swelling.” Of his brother Samuel Crouch, Dunton speaks more favourably: “He is just and punctual in all his dealings; never speaks ill of any man; has a swinging soul of his own; would part with all he has to serve a friend; and that’s enough for one bookseller.” These Burton’s books were formerly confined to the perusal of the lowest classes of readers, and were long called chapmen’s books, and sold only by the petty booksellers, and at fairs, &c. But of late years they have become a favourite object with collectors, and their price has risen accordingly; and more completely to gratify the trifling taste of the age, some of them have been reprinted in a pompous and expensive manner. Being, therefore, from whatever cause, the subjects of modern attention, we shall subjoin a list of them, for which we are indebted to Mr. Malone. 1. “Historical Rarities in London and Westminster,” 1681. 2. “Wars in England, Scotland, and Ireland,” 1681. 3. “Wonderful prodigies of Judgment and Mercy,” 1681. 4. “Strange and prodigious religious Customs and Manners of sundry Nations,” 1683. 5. “English Empire in America,” 1685, 6. “Surprising Miracles of Nature and Art,” 1685, probably the same with “Admirable Curiosities of Nature,” 1681. 7. “History of Scotland,” 1685. 8. History of Ireland,“1685. 9.” Two Journies to Jerusalem,“1685. 10.” Nine Worthies of the World,“1687. 11.” Winter’s Evening’s Entertainments,“1687. 12.” The English Hero, or the Life of Sir Francis Drake,“1687. 13.” Memorable Accidents, and unheard-of Transactions,“1693. 14.” History of the House of Orange,“1693. 15. Martyrs in flames,” 1695. 16. “Curiosities of England,” 1697. 17. “History of Oliver Cromwell,” 1698. 18. “Unparalleled Varieties,” 1699. 18. “Unfortunate Court Favourites of England,” 1706. 20. “History of the Lives of English Divines,” 1709. 21. “Ingenious Riddles.” 22. “Unhappy Princesses, or the history of Anne Boleyn, and Lady Jane Grey,” 1710. 23. “Esop’s Fables in prose and verse,” 1712. 24. “History of Virginia,” 1722. 25. “English acquisitions in Guinea and the East Indies,” 1726. 26. Female Excellency, or the Ladies’ Glory,“1728. 27.” General History of Earthquakes,“1736. 8.” The English Heroine, or the Life and Adventures of Mrs. Christian Davis, commonly called Mother Ross.“29.” Youth’s Divine Pastime."

, author of the “History of Leicestershire,” and eldest son of Ralph Burton, esq. of Lindley in Leicestershire, was born August 24, 1575, educated at the school of Nuneaton in Warwickshire, and while there distinguished himself by no common taste and skill in Latin poetry. He was admitted of Brazen-nose college, Oxford, 1591, and of the Inner Temple May 20, 1593, B. A. June 22, 1594, and was afterwards a barrister and reporter in the court of common pleas. But “his natural genius,” says Wood, “leading him to the studies of heraldry, genealogies, and antiquities, he became excellent in those obscure and intricate matters; and, look upon him as a gentleman, was accounted by all that knew him to be the best of-his time for those studies, as may appear by his description of Leicestershire.” The author himself says, he began his History of Leicestershire in 1597, not many ): ears after his coming into the Inner Temple. In 1602 he corrected Saxton’s map of that county, with the addition of eighty towns. His weak constitution riot permitting him to follow his business, he retired into the country; and his great work, the “Description of Leicestershire,” was published in folio, 1622. He tells his patron, George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, that “he has undertaken to remove an eclipse from the sun without art or astronomical dimension, to give light to the county of Leicester, whose beauty has long been shadowed and obscured;” and in his preface declares himself one of those who hold that “gloria totius res est vanissima mundi;” and that he was unfit and unfurnished for so great a business: “unfit,” to use his own words, “for that myself was bound for another study, which is jealous, and will admit no partner; for that all time and parts of time, that could possibly be employed therein, were not sufficient to be dispensed thereon, by reason of the difficulty of getting, and multiplicity of kinds of learning therein. Yet if a partner might be assigned or admitted thereto, there is no study or learning so fit or necessary for a lawyer, as the study of antiquities.” He was assisted in this undertaking by his kinsmen John Beaumont of Gracedieu, esq. and Augustus Vincent, rougecroix; but the church notes were taken by himself. He drew up the corollary of Leland’s life, prefixed to the “Collectanea,” with his favourite device, the sun recovering from an eclipse, and motto “Rilucera,” dated Faledi 1612, from Falde, a pleasant village near Tutbury, Staffordshire, and a great patrimony belonging to his family, and then to him. The County History was dated from the same village, Oct. 30, 1622. He also caused part of Leiand’s Itinerary to be transcribed 163), and gave both the transcript and the seven original volumes to the Bodleian library 1632; as also Talbot’s notes. To him his countryman Thomas Purefoy, esq. of Barwell, bequeathed Leland’s Collectanea after his death 1612. Wood charges him with putting many needless additions and illustrations into these Collectanea, from which charge Hearne defends him. Wood adds, he made a useful index to them; which, Hearne says, was only of some religious houses and some authors. In 1625 he resided at Lindley, where, among other works, he compiled a folio volume (which still remains in ms.) under the title of “Antiquitates de Dadling-­ton, manerio com. Leic, sive exemplificatio scriptorum, cartarum veterum, inquisitionum, rotulorum curiarum, recordorum, et evidentium probantium antiquitates dicti manerii de Dadlingtori, et hsereditatem de Burton in dicto manerio de Dadlington, quoe mine sunt penes me Will'mum Burton de Lindley com. Leic. modernum dominum dicti manerii de Dadlington. Lahore et studio mei Will 1 mi Burton de Lindley, apprenticii legum Angliae, et socii Interioris Templi Londini; nuper habitatitis apud Falde com. Staff, nunc apud Lindley, 25 Aug. 1625, set, 50.” He died at Falde, after suffering much in the civil wars April 6, 1645, and was buried in the parish church thereto belonging, called Hanbury. He left several notes, collections of arms and monuments, genealogies, and other matters of antiquity, which he had gathered from divers churches and gentlemen’s houses. Derby collections are mentioned in Gascoigne’s notes, p. 53, probably by himself. In Osborne’s Catalogue, 1757, was “Vincent on Brooke,” with ms notes by William Burton, probably not more than those on Cornwall, which Dr. Rawlinson had. He was one of sir Robert Cotton’s particular friends, and had the honour to instruct sir William Dugdale. He was acquainted with Somner; and Michael Drayton, esq. was his near countryman and acquaintance, being descended from the Draytons of Drayton, or Fenny Drayton, near Lindley. He married, 1607, Jane, daughter of Humphry Adderley, of Wedington, Warwickshire; by whom he had one son, Cassibelan, born 1609, heir of his virtues as well as his other fortunes, who, having a poetical turn, translated Martial into English, which was published 1658. He consumed the best part of his paternal estate, and died Feb. 28, 1681, having some years before given most, if not all, his father’s collections to Mr. Walter Chetwynd, to be used by him in writing the antiquities of Staffordshire. Several printed copies of Burton’s Leicestershire, with ms notes by different persons, are existing in various collections *. “The reputation of Burton’s book,” as Mr. Gough justly observes, “arises from its being written early, and preceded only by Lambarde’s Kent 1576, Carew’s Cornwall 1602, and Norden’s Surveys; and it is in comparison only of these, and not of Dugdale’s more copious work, that we are to understand the praises so freely bestowed on it, and because nobody has treated the subject more remotely and accurately; for Dugdale, says Burton, as well as Lambarde and Carevv, performed briefly. The present volume, though a folio of above 300 pages, if the unnecessary digressions were struck out, and the pedigrees reduced into less compass, would shrink into a small work. The typographical errors, especially in the Latin, are so numerous, and the style, according to the manner of that time, so loose, that the meaning is often doubtful. The description is in alphabetical order, and consists chiefly of pedigrees and moot-cases.” The author, sensible of its defect, greatly enlarged and enriched it with the addition of Roman, Saxon, and other antiquities, as appears from his letter to sir Robert Cotton, dated Lindley, June 9, 1627, still extant among Cotton’s correspondences, in his library, Jul. C. iii. This book, thus augmented, was, with other Mss. by the same author, in the possession of Mr. Walter Chetwynd, of Ingestry, in Staffordshire, whom Camden in Staffordshire calls “venerandae antiquitatis cultor maximus;” and afterwards came to, or was borrowed by, Mr. Charles King, tutor to Mr. Chetwynd, in whose hands Brokesby mentions it, and says Mr. Chetwynd made considerable additions to it. He died in 1693. Lord Chetwynd lent it to sir Thomas Cave, in whose hands Mr. Ashby saw it in 1763 f. It is continued to 1642. It is not necessary to say more of a work now so totally eclipsed, and rendered useless, by the more elaborate, accurate, and satisfactory “History of Leicestershire” lately published by Mr. Nichols, to which we may refer for many curious particu­* These are particularized in the History of Hinckley, p. 131. A new edition of the Description of Leicestershire was absurdly printed in 1777, without the least improvement. lars of Burton’s life, and especially an account by himself in the form of a diary.

, another antiquary of the seventeenth century, son of William Burton of Atcham in Shrop^ shire, was born in Austin Friars, London, educated in St. Paul’s school, and became a student in Queen’s college, Oxford, in 1625. When at the university, he was patronised by the learned Mr. Allen, of Glocester-hall, who appointed him Greek lecturer there. His indigence obliging him to leave the university in 1630, after he had taken the degree of bachelor of the civil law, he was for some time usher to Mr. Thomas Farnaby, a famous schoolmaster in Kent. He was afterwards master of the free grammarschool at Kingston upon Thames, in which station he continued till within two years of his death, when he retired to London, where he died in 1657, and was buried in St. Clement’s Danes, Strand. He published, 1. “Laudatio* funebris in obitum D. Thomae Alleni,” Oxon. 1633, 4tc*. 2. “Annotations on the first Epistle of Clement the Apostle to the Corinthians,” Lond. 1647, and 1652, 4to. 3. “Graecse Linguae Historia,” ibid. 1657, part of his lecttfres in Gloucester-hall, and printed with “Veteris Linguae Persicae Historia,” with a recommendatory epistle by Langbaine. 4. “A Commentary on Antoninus’s Itinerary, or Journey of the Roman Empire, so far as it concerneth Britain,” Lond. 1658, fol. He also translated from the Latin, of Alstedius, a book in favour of the doctrine of the Millenium, entitled “The beloved city, or the Saints’ reign on earth a thousand years, &c.” Lond. 1643, 4to. The “Commentary on Antoninus” procured him, from bishop Kennett, the character of the best topographer since Camden.

, Richard Of. See Aungerville; and add to the references, Archæologia, vol. X.

, founder of the society of the priests, or fathers, of the Christian doctrine, was born of a noble family at Cavaillon, Feb. 3, 1544. He at first cultivated poetry, and gave himself up to a life of pleasure, but afterwards reformed, lived in a most exemplary manner, went into holy orders, and travelled from place to place, confessing and catechising. His zeal having procured him many disciples, he formed them into a society, whose principal duty was to teach what they called the Christian doctrine. He was appointed general of this society in 1598, the institution having been first approved by pope Clement VIII. in the preceding year. That which goes by the same name in Italy was founded by Mark Cusani, a Milanese knight, and was established by the approbation and authority of Pius V. and Gregory XIII. Caesar de Bus had also some concern in establishing the Ursulines of France. He lost his sight about fourteen years before his death, which happened at Avignon, April 15, 1607. He left only a book of instructions, drawn up for his society, called “Instructions familieres sur les quatre parties de la Doctrine Chretienne,” 1666, 8vo. His life was written by James Beauvais, 4to.

, was the natural son of the lord of Bnsbec, or Boesbec, and born at Commines, a town in Flanders, 1522. The early proofs he gave of extraordinary genius induced his father to spare neither care nor expence to get him properly instructed, and to obtain his legitimation from the emperor Charles V. He was sent to study at the universities of Louvain, Paris, Venice, Bologna, and Padua, and was some time at London* whither he attended the ambassador of Ferdinand, king of the Romans, and was present at the marriage of Philip and Mary. In 1554 he was appointed ambassador at Constantinople; but made a very short stay there. Being sent back the following year, his second embassy proved longer and more fortunate; for it lasted seven years, and ended in a beneficial treaty. He acquired a perfect, knowledge of the state of the Ottoman empire, and the true means of attacking it with success; on which subject he composed a very judicious discourse, entitled “De re militari contra Turcam instituenda consilium.” Without neglecting any thing that related to the business of his embassy, he laboured successfully for the republic of letters, collecting inscriptions, purchasing manuscripts, searching after rare plants, and inquiring into the nature of animals, and when he set out the second time to Constantinople, he carried with him a painter, to make drawings of the plants and animals that were unknown in the west. The relation which he wrote of his two journies to Turkey is much commended by Thuanus. He was desirous of passing the latter part of his life in privacy, but the emperor Maximilian made choice of him to be governor to his sons; and when his daughter princess Elizabeth was married to Charles IX. of France, Busbec was nominated to conduct her to Paris. This queen gave him the whole superintendance of her houshold and her affairs, and, when she quitted France, on her husband’s death, left him there as her ambassador, in which station he was retained by the emperor Rodolph until 1592, when, on a journey to the Low Countries, he was attacked by a party of soldiers, and so harshly treated as to bring on a fever which proved fatal in October of that year. He was a man of great learning, and an able antiquary. The public is indebted to him for the “Monumentum Anciranum,” which would be one of the most curious and instructive inscriptions of antiquity, if it was entire, as it contained a list of the actions of Augustus. Passing through Ancyra, a city of Galatia, Busbec caused all that remained legible of that inscription to be copied from the marble of a ruined palace, and sent it to Schottus the Jesuit. It may be seen in Gruevius’s Suetonius. Gronovius published this Monumentum Anciranum at Leyden in 1695, with notes, from a more full and correct copy than that of Busbec. Busbec also vyrote “Letters from France to the emperor Rodolph,” which exhibit an interesting picture of the French court at that period. An edition of all his letters was published by Elzivir at Leyden, 1633, and at London in 1660, 12mo. His “Itinera Constantinopolitanum et Amasianum” was printed at Antwerp, 1582, 4to; “Legationis Turcicæ Epistolæ,” Francfort, 1595, 8vo, &c.

, the most eminent schoolmaster in his time, was the second son of Richard Busby, of the city of Westminster, gent, but born at Lutton in Lincolnshire, September 22, 1606. He received his education in Westminster-school, as a king’s scholar; and in 1624 was elected student of Christ Church. He took the degree of bachelor of arts Oct. 21, 1628; and that of master June 18, 1631; at which time he was esteemed a great master of the Greek and Latin tongues, and a complete orator. Towards the expence of taking his degrees, a sum was honourably voted him by the vestry of St. Margaret, Westminster (in all 11l. 13s. 4d.) which he afterwards as honourably repaid, adding to it an annual sum towards the maintenance of the parish school. On the 1st of July 1639, he was admitted to the prebend and rectory of Cudworth, with the chapel of Knowle annexed, in the church of Wells; of which he lost the profits during the civil wars; but found means to keep his student’s place, and other preferment. He was appointed master of Westminster-school, December 13, 1640; in which laborious station he continued above fifty-five years, and bred up the greatest number of learned scholars that ever adorned any age or nation . But he met with great uneasiness from the second master, Edward Bagshaw, who endeavoured to supplant him; but was himself removed out of his place for his insolence, in May 1658 (See Edward Bagshaw). After the restoration, Mr. Busby’s merit being noticed> his majesty conferred on him a prebend of Westminster, into which he was installed July 5, 1660; and the llth of August following, he was made treasurer and canon-residentiary of Wells. On October 19, 1660, he took the degree of D. D. At the coronation of king Charles II. April 1661, he carried the Ampulla. In the convocation, which met June 24, the same year, he was proctor for the chapter of Bath and Wells; and one of those who approved and subscribed the Common Prayer-Book. He gave two hundred and fifty pounds towards repairing and beautifying Christ Church college and cathedral; and intended, but never completed the foundation of two lectures in the same college, one for the Oriental languages, and another for the mathematics; but he left a stipend for a catechetical lecture, 10 be read in one of the parish churches in Oxford, by a member of Christ Church. He contributed also to the repair of Lichfield church. As for his many other benefactions, they are not upon record, because they were done in a private manner. This great man, after a loBg, healthy, and laborious life, died April 6, 1695, aged eighty-nine, and was buried in Westminsterabbey, where there is a curious monument erected to him. He composed several books for the use of his school, as, 1. “A short institution of Grammar,” Cambr. 1647, 8vo. 2. “Juvenalis et Persii Satira?,” Lond. 1656, purged of all indecent passages. 3. “An English Introduction to the Latin Tongue,” Lond. 1659, &c. 8vo. 4. “Pvlartiaiis Epigrammata selecta,” Lond. 1661, 12mo. 5. “Grsecae Grammaticae Rudimenta,” Lond. 1663, 8vo. 6. “Nomenclatura Brevis Reformata, adjecto cum Syllabo Verborum et Adjectivorum,” At the end is printed “Duplex Centenarius Proverbiorum Anglo-Latino-Graecorum,” Lond. 1667, &c. 8vo. 7. “Ανθολογία δευτέρα: sive Græcorum Epigrammatum Florilegium novum,” Lond. 1673, &c. 8vo. 8. “Rudimentum Anglo-Latinum, Grammatica literalis et numeralis,” Lond. 1688, 8vo. 9. “Rudimentum Grammaticæ Græco-Latinæ Metricum,” Lond. 1689, 8vo.

As to his character, we are told by those who had the best opportunities of knowing him, that he was acquainted with all parts of learning, especially Philology; and of his skill in grammar, his works are sufficient proof. Notwithstanding his being the greatest master of it, he was the freest man in the world from that pedantic humour and carriage which hath made some of that profession ridiculous to the more sensible part of the world. No one ever trained up a greater number of eminent men, both in church and state, than himself; which was a plain demonstration of his uncommon skill and diligence in his profession. He extremely liked, and even applauded, and rewarded, wit in any of his scholars, though it reflected upon himself; of which many instances, are still remembered. We are farther told, that there was an agreeable mixture of seventy and sweetness in his manners; so that if his carriage was grave, it was at the same time full of good-nature, as his conversation was always modest and learned; but in his school he was extremely severe, and his character in this respect, probably exaggerated by tradition, is become almost proverbial. Several letters, however, from his scholars have been lately discovered, by which it appears that he was much beloved by them. His piety was unfeigned and without affectation, and his steadfast zeal to the church^ and loyalty to the crown, were eminent, and not without trials in the worst of times. But his greatest virtue was chanty; in the discharge of which none ever took more care that his right hand should not know what his left did. As to his constitution of body, he was healthy to such a degree, that his old age proved altogether free from those diseases and infirmities which most commonly attend other persons: and as this was the consequence and reward of his chastity, sobriety, and temperance, so he spent this bodily strength altogether upon his indefatigable labours, in the education of youth in Westminster-school; which he never remitted till he was released of it by death, ‘to which he submitted with the utmost constancy and patience. Mr. Seward informs us that he is said not to have allowed notes to any classical author that was read at Westminster. According to the late Dr. Johnson, Busby used to declare that his rod was his sieve, and that whoever J c’ould not pass through that was no boy for him. He early discovered the genius of Dr. South, lurking, perhaps, under idleness and obstinacy. “I see,” said he, “great talents in that sulky boy, and I shall endeavour to bring them out,” which he is said to have effected by means of very great severity. When the rev. Philip Henry, who was one of his scholars, requested leave to attend the nonconformist morning lecture at Westminster abbey, Busby granted his, or rather his mother’s request, but did not suffer him to abate any part of his school-tasks. Henry says he never punished him but once, and that for telling a lie, and appointed him also to make a penitential copy of Latin verses, which When he brought, he gave him sixpence, and received him 'into favour. Henry farther informs us of the great pains Dr. Busby took with his scholars when they were to partake of the sacrament. When afterwards Henry was ejected for non-conformity, his old master said, “Prithee, child, who made” thee a non-conformist?“to which Henry answered,” Truly, sir, you made me one, for you taught me those things that hindered me from conforming.“Many of Busby’s witticisms are in circulation. His biographers give us the following: Once, in a large company, he sat at table between Mrs. South and Mrs. Sherlock, when the conversation turned upon wives. Dr. Busby said that he believed wives, in general, were good;” though, to be sure, there might be a bad one here, and a bad one there." The late Mr. Duncombe informed the editors of the Biographia Brit, that the face on Dr. Busby’s monument is said to have been copied from a cast taken after his death, as he would never sit for his picture; if so, whence came the portraits of him in Christ Church, Oxford?

, an eminent teacher and writer on commerce, was born Jan. 3, 1728, in the district of Lunebourg, and was for thirty years director of the commercial academy at Hamburgh, to which young men from all parts of Europe resorted for education in that branch. This establishment was indeed the only one of its kind, as professor Busch not only instructed his pupils in the theory, but afforded them opportunities of being introduced to the practice of commerce, for which purpose he had connexions with the first houses in Hamburgh, and himself acquired that experience which gives a peculiar value to his writings; these are all in the German language: 1. “The Theory of Commerce,” Hamburgh, 1799, 3Vols. 8vo. 2. “On Banks,” ibid. 1801, 8vo. 3. “On the Circulation of Money,” ibid. 1800, 3 vols. 8vo. 4. “Various Essays on Commerce,” ibid. 2 vols. 8vo. 5. “On Mathematical Studies as applicable to the business of civil life,” 8vo. 6. “Encyclopædia of Mathematics,” ibid. 1795. 7. “Experience and observations,” ibid. 1794, 5 vols. 8vo. In 1778 he published, also in German, “A circumstantial account of the Commercial Academy of Hamburgh,” 12mo; and in 1783, along w.th his partner Ebeling, published the first number of “The Merchant’s Library,” eight numbers of which were to be published annually, which perhaps is the work noticed above, “Experience,” &c.

, an architect of the eleventh century, was a native of the isle of Dulichio, and built the cathedral of Pisa, which still passes for one of the finest in all Italy, in the gothic style. Buschetto was a great machinist; and could move the heaviest loads with a very small force. It is marked on his tomb, “that ten girls could lift by his method, weights which a thousand yoke of oxen could not move, and a ship could scarcely carry.”