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, an English dramatic writer, but in much greater eminence as an actor, was born in 1659, in Staffordshire. It is probable, that he went early upon the stage, as it is certain that he died young; and Jacob informs us, that, after his attaining a degree of excellence in his profession, he was entertained for some time in the family of the lord-chancellor JerTeries, “who,” says sir John Reresby, “at an entertainment of the lordmayor and court of aldermen, in the year 1685, called for Mr. Mountfort to divert the company (as his lordship was pleased to term it): he being an excellent mimic, my lord made him plead before him in a feigned cause, in which he aped all the great lawyers of the age in their tone of voice, and in their action and gesture of body, to the very great ridicule not only of the lawyers, but of the law itself; which, to me (says the historian) did not seem altogether prudent in a man of his lofty station in the law: diverting it certainly was; but prudent in the lord high-chancellor I shall never think it. 7 ' After the fall of Jefferies, our author again returned to the stage, in which profession he continued till his death, in 1,692. Gibber, in his” Apology,“says that he was tall, well made, fair, and of an agreeable aspect; his voice clear, full, and melodious; a most affecting lover in tragedy, and in comedy gave the truest life to the real character of a fine gentleman. In scenes of gaiety, he never broke into that respect that was due to the presence of equal or superior characters, though inferior actors played them, nor sought to acquire any advantage over other performers by finesse, or stage-tricks, but only by surpassing them in true and masterly touches of nature. He might perhaps have attained a higher degree of excellence and fame, had he not been untimely cut off, by the hands of an assassin, in the thirty-third year of his age. His death is tlius related. Lord Mohun, a man of loose morals, and of a turbulent and rancorous spirit, had, from a kind of sympathy of disposition, contracted the closest, intimacy with one captain Hill, a still more worthless character, who had long entertained a passion for that celebrated actress Mrs. Bracegirdle. This lady, however, had rejected him, with the contemptuous disdain which his character justly deserved; and this treatment, Hill’s vanity would not suffer him to attribute to any other cause than a pre-engagement in favour of some other lover. Mountfort’s agreeable person, his frequently performing the counter-parts in love scenes with Mrs. Bracegirdle, and the respect which he used always to pay her, induced captain Hill to fix on him, though a married man, as the supposed bar to his own success. Grown desperate then of succeeding by fair means, he determined to attempt force: and, communicating his design to lord Mohun, whose attachment to him was so great as to render him the accomplice in all his schemes, and the promoter even of his most criminal pleasures, they determined on a plan for carrying her away from the play-house; but, not finding her there, they got intelligence where she was to sup, and, having hired a number of soldiers and a coach for the purpose, waited near the door for her coming out; and, on her so doing, the ruffians actually seized her, and were going to force her into the coach; but her mother, and the gentleman whose house she came out of, interposing till farther assistance could come up, she was rescued from them, and safely escorted to her own house. Lord Mohun and captain Hill, however, enraged at their disappointment in this attempt, immediately resolved on one of another kind, and, with violent imprecations, openly vowed revenge on Mr. Mountfort. Mrs. Bracegirdle’s mother, and a gentleman, who were earwitnesses to their threats, immediately sent to inform Mrs. Mountfort of her husband’s danger, with their opinion that she should warn him of it, and advise him not to come home that night; but, unfortunately, no messenger Mrs. Mountfort sent was able to find him. In the mean time, his lordship and the captain paraded the streets with their swords drawn, till about midnight, when Mr. Mountfort, on his return home, was met and saluted in a friendly manner by lord Mohun; but, while that scandal to the rank and title which he bore was treacherously holding him in a conversation, the assassin Hill, being at his back, first gave him a desperate blow on the head with his left hand, and immediately afterwards, before Mr Mountfort had time to draw and stand on his defence, he, with the sword he held ready in his right, ran him through the body. This last circumstance Mr. Mountfort declared, as a dying man, to Mr. Bancroft, the surgeon who attended him. Hill immediately made his escape; but lord Mohun was seized, and stood his trial: but as it did not appear that he immediately assisted Hill in the perpetrating this assassination, and that, although lord Mohun had joined with the captain in his threats of revenge, yet the actual mention of murder could not be proved, his lordship was acquitted by his peers. He afterwards, however, himself lost his life in a duel with duke Hamilton, in which it has been hinted that some of the same kind of treachery, which he had been an abettor of in the above-mentioned affair, was put in practice against himself. Mr. Mountfort’s death happened in Norfolk-street in the Strand, in the winter of 1692. His body was interred in the churchyard of St. Clement Danes. He left behind him six dramatic pieces, which are enumerated in the” Biographia Dramatica."

, an English lawyer, and classical editor, the son of Richard Mounteney of Putney in Surrey, was born there in 1707, and educated at Eton school, whence he went, in 1725, to King’s college, Cambridge, and took his degrees of A. B. in 1729, and A. M. 1735, and obtained a fellowship. He then studied law in the Inner Temple, and became, in 1737, one of the barons of the exchequer in Ireland. In 1743 he distinguished himself in the famous trial between James Annesley, esq. and Richard earl of Anglesey. In 1759 he married the countess dowager of Mount Alexander, and died in 1768. To these scanty memoirs, we have only to add that, in 1731, he published the first edition of his “Select Orations” of Demosthenes, which has been often reprinted, but seldom with accuracy. The best part of the work is the critical observations upon the Ulpian commentary by Dr. Chapman, fellow of King’s college, Cambridge; and perhaps the most curious is his dedication to the deceased sir Robert Walpole, in the edition of 1748. It was to the Walpoles he owed his promotions. In 1748 he also published “Observations on the probable issue of the Congress,” 8vo, printed by Mr. Bowyer. Mounteney’s Demosthenes was long a favourite book with the university students to give up, as it is called, on their examinations, but at Oxford it has of late been rejected by the examiners, as an insufficient proof of classical proficiency.

, a political character, was born at Lanerk, in Scotland, 1573, and, while very young, became one of the pages to king James, and afterwards one of the gentlemen of his privy chamber. In that station he continued many years, and became well acquainted with most of the secrets at court. He was present with king James at Perth, 1600, when the famous conspiracy of the earl of Gowry took place; but the account he has given us of that problematical affair contains nothing either interesting or satisfactory. He accompanied king James into England, where he remained some years; but afterwards returned to Scotland, and spent his days in retirement. He kept a diary of what passed at court, the ms. of which is now in the advocates’ library in Edinburgh; and an edition of it was printed in 1753, under the title of “Memoirs of the affairs of Scotland from 1577 to 1603, with a discourse on the conspiracy of Cowrie,” Edin. 12mo. It contains many curious particulars, which have not been taken notice of by general historians. He died at Edinburgh, 1630, aged fifty-seven.

, an eminent musician, was the son of Leopold Mozart, vice-chapel-master to the prince archbishop of Salzburg. This Leopold, who was born at Augsburg in 1719, became early in life a musician and composer; and in 1757 published a treatise on the art of playing the violin; but what, according to Dr. Burney, did him most honour was his being father of such an incomparable son as Wolfgang, and educating him with such care. His son was born at Salzburg, Jan. 17, 1756, and at seven years old went with his father and sister to Paris, and the year following to London. In 1769 he went to Italy; and in 1770 he was at Bologna, in which city Dr. Burney first saw him, and to which city he had returned from Rome and Naples, where he had astonished all the great professors by his premature knowledge and talents. At Rome he was honoured by the pope with the order of Speron d'Oro. From Bologna he went to Milan, where he was engaged to compose an opera for the marriage of the princess of Modena with one of the archdukes. Two other composers were employed on this occasion, each of them to set an opera; but that of the little Mozart, young as he was, was most applauded.

, an eminent mechanist, was born at Exeter, September 1715. He was the second son of the rev. Zachariah Mudge, prebendary of Exeter, and vicar of St. Andrew’s, Plymouth, who died April 3, 1769, and was honoured by Dr. Johnson with a very elegant testimony of respect, which was inserted in the London Chronicle at that time, and may be seen in Mr. Boswell’s Life of the doctor. Mr. Z. Mudge had three other sons besides the subject of this article. The eldest, Zachariah, was a surgeon and apothecary at Taunton, and afterwards surgeon on board an East Indiaman; he died in 1753 on ship-board, in the river Canton in China. The third, the rev. Richard Mudge, was officiating minister of a chapel of ease at Birmingham, and had a small living presented to him by the earl of Aylesford. He was not only greatly distinguished by his learning, but by his genius for music. He excelled as a composer for the harpsichord; and as a performer on that instrument is said to have been highly complimented by Handel himself. The fourth son, John, was originally a surgeon and apothecary at Plymouth, but during the latter part of his life practised as a physician with great success. Like his brother Thomas, he had great mechanical talents; and, until prevented by the enlargement of his practice, he found time to prosecute improvements in rectifying telescopes. In 1777 the Royal Society adjudged to him Sir Godfrey Copley’s gold medal, for a paper which he presented to that learned body on the best methods of grinding the specula of reflecting telescopes. He also considerably improved the inhaler, an ingenious contrivance for the curing of coughs, by inhaling steam. In 1777 he published “A Dissertation on the inoculated Small-pox;” which was followed, some years after, by “A Treatise on the Catarrhous Cough and Vis Vitae.” He died in 1792. It was to this gentleman, Mr. Boswell informs us, that Dr. Johnson, during his last illness, addressed many letters on his case.

, Hebrew professor of the Royal College of France, and one of the ablest scholars in that language, was born at Orleans in 1587. Few particulars are known of his life, except that he was educated for the church, and attained the preferments of canon and archdeacon of Soissons. His skill in the Hebrew language made him be considered as a proper person to succeed Cayet as Hebrew professor, and he was accordingly promoted by his majesty to that office in July 1614. He fulfelled its duties with great reputation for thirty years, and died in 1644, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. Dupin says, that he joined to a perfect knowledge of the Hebrevr, a solid and acute judgment, and wrote in a pure, concise, and easy style, and had such acquaintance with sacred history, and the fundamentals of religion, that few could be better qualified to interpret scripture. The most esteemed of his works is his commentary on the Psalms, “Commentarius litteralis et historicus in omnes Psalmos,” &c. 1630, fol. His whole works were published in two volumes folio, at Paris, 1650, including the above on the Psalms: his “Varia Sacra,” explaining the most difficult passages of the Old Testament from Genesis to Judges: his “Assertio yeVitatis Hebraicae,” against father Morin, &c. &c.

, an eminent school -master, was descended from an ancient family in Cumberland. His father, William Mulcaster, resided at Carlisle, where, according to Wood, his son Richard was born. He was educated on the foundation at Eton, whence, in 1548, he gained his election to King’s college, Cambridge. Here he took no degree, but while scholar removed to Oxford; for what reason we know not. In 1555, he was elected student of Christ-Church; and, in the next year, was licensed to proceed in arts, and became eminent for his proficiency in Eastern literature. He began to be a teacher about 1559, and on Sept. 24, 1561, for his extraordinary accomplishments in philology was appointed the first master of Merchant Taylors’ school, then just founded; and he provided the first usher, and divided the boys into forms, &c. In this school he passed nearly twenty-six years; a severe disciplinarian, according to Fuller, but beloved by his pupils when they came to the age of maturity and reflected on the benefit they had derived from his care. Of these, bishop Andrews appears always to have preserved the highest respect for him, had his portrait hung over his study-door, behaved with great liberality to him, and by his will bequeathed a handsome legacy to his son. In April 1594, he was collated to the prebendal-stall of Gatesbury in the cathedral of Sarum; and, in 1596, he resigned the mastership of Merchant Taylors. The company were desirous that he should remain with them; but Fuller has recorded that he gave for answer, Fidelis semus, perpetuus asinus; and it appears from Mr. Wilson’s History that he had at last reason to think himself slighted . With his profession he certainly was not dissatisfied, nor, able to give it up for when he left the Merchant Taylors, he was chosen, in the same year, 1596, upper master of St. Paul’s School, in which office he remained for twelve years, and then retired to the rich rectory of StamfordRivers, in Essex, to which he had been instituted at the presentation of the queen. His retirement might also have been hastened by the loss of an affectionate wife, as well as by the decaying state of his own health; for, two years after putting up a plate with an inscription to her memory, in the church of Stamford, he died April 15, 1611, and was buried in the same church, but without any memorial.

, a celebrated German traveller and writer, was born in 1705, in Herforden, in Westphalia, and was educated at the age of seventeen at llinteln and Leipsic, at which last place he so distinguished himself, that professor Mencke obtained for him the place of adjunct in the historical class of the academy founded at Petersburgh by Peter the Great. In tbat city he was some time employed in teaching Latin, geography, and history, and as assistant secretary to the institution. In 1728, he was made under-keeper of the imperial library, and in 1730 he was chosen professor of history. He now applied for leave of absence, in order to gratify his wish of seeing foreign countries. In the year 1731 he visited London, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and after his return to Petersburgh he was appointed to accompany Gmelin and De l'Isle de la Croyere on their travels through Siberia, which occupied ten years, during which they travelled 4480 German miles, or more than three times that number of English miles. An account of their travels was published by Gmelin, in four volumes, 8vo. After this, Mullef, who was not rewarded in any degree equal to the labours and sufferings which he had undergone, undertook, at the desire of prince Jusupof, “A Dissertation on the Trade of Siberia,” which, though written, or at least begun, in 1744, was not published till 1750, and then only the first part. In 1747, he was appointed historiographer of the Russian empire, and in 1754 he was nominated by the president to be the secretary of the Academy of Sciences, and was employed in superintending the publication of their transactions, and in other literary undertakings. In 1763, he was appointed director ^of the school for foundlings, established by Catherine at Moseow, and in 1766, he was appointed keeper of the archives in that city, with an additional salary of 1000 roubles. From this period till his death, which took place in 1783, he devoted himself entirely to the pursuits of literature, having been previously raised to the rank of counsellor of state, and invested with the order of Wladimir. Mr. Coxe, in his Travels, vol. I. in speaking of Muller, who was then living, says, “He collected during his travels the most ample materials for the history and geography of this extensive empire, which was scarcely known to the Russians themselves before his valuable researches were given to the world in various publications. His principal work is” A Collection of Russian Histories,“in nine volumes octavo, printed at different intervals at the press of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. The first part came out in 1732, and the last in 1764. This storehouse of information pnd literature in regard to the antiquities, history, geography, and commerce of Russia, and many of the neighbouring countries, conveys the most indisputable proofs of the author’s learning, diligence, and fidelity. To this work the accurate and indefatigable author has successively added many other valuable performances upon similar subjects, both in the German and Russian languages, which elucidate various parts in the history of this empire.” Mr. Coxe adds, that he spoke and wrote the German, Russian, French, and Latin tongues, with surprizing fluency; and read the English, Dutch, Swedish, Danisn, and Greek, with great facility His memory was surprising; and his accurate acquaintance with the minutest incidents of the Russian annals almost surpassed belief. His collection of state papers and manuscripts were all arranged in the exactest order, and classed into several volumes, distinguished by the names of those illustrious personages to whom they principally relate; such as Peter L, Catherine I. Menzikof, Osterman, &c."

, commonly called Regiomontanus, from his native place, Mons Regius, or Koningsberg, a town in Franconia, was born in 1436, and became the greatest astronomer and mathematician of his time. He was indeed a very prodigy for genius and learning. Having first acquired grammatical learning in his own country, he was admitted, while yet a boy, into the academy at Leipsic, where he formed a strong attachment to the mathematical sciences, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, &c. But not finding proper assistance in these studies at this place, he removed, at only fifteen years of age, to Vienna, to study under the famous Purbacb, the professor there, who read lectures in those sciences with the highest reputation. A strong and affectionate friendship soon took place between these two, and our author made such rapid improvement in the sciences, that he was able to be assisting to his master, and to become his companion in all his labours. In this manner they spent about ten years together, elucidating obscurities, observing the motions of the heavenly bodies, and comparing and correcting the tables of them, particularly those of Mars, which they found to disagree with the motions, sometimes as much as two degrees.

, a celebrated German enthusiast, called sometimes Moncerus and Monetardus, was born at Stollberg in the Hartz, towards the end of the fifteenth century. His father is said to have been executed for some crime, and on this account the son was thought desirous of taking his revenge on the government of Stollberg. He studied probably at Wirtemberg, and acquired that knowledge in divinity which Melancthon praises, and which appears in his writings. By his own account he taught, in early life, in the schools of Aschersleben and Halle in Saxony; and most probably he was then in orders. It is certain, however, that he soon became attached to the mystics, and entertained the wildest notions of fanaticism, which pleased the lower classes of the people, while he preached at Stollberg and Zwickau, where he was settled as a preacher in 1520. Here, while he was violent against popery, he was as little contented with the progress of Luther’s reformation; the church, he maintained, was but half reformed, and a new and pure church of the true sons of God remained to be established. About this time he connected himself with Nicholas Storck, a leader among the baptists, who pretended to have communications with the Almighty, and to hold greater purity of doctrine than the r^st of the party. Muncer was a convert to his notions, and became ardent in making proselytes. He maintained that for men to avoid vice, they must practise perpetual mortification. They must put on a grave countenance, speak but little, wear a plain garb, and be serious in their whole deportment. Such as prepared their hearts in this manner, might expect that the Supreme Being would direct all their steps, and by visible signs discover his will to them; if that illumination be at any time withheld, he says we may expostulate with the Almighty, and remind him of his promises. This expostulation will be acceptable to God, and will at last prevail on him to guide us with the same unerring hand which conducted the patriarchs of old. He also maintained, that all men were equal in the sight of God, and that, therefore, they ought to have all things in common, and should on no account exhibit any marks of subordination or pre-eminence. With these sentiments he endeavoured to establish in Alstadt a new kingdom upon earth, or a society of pious, holy, and awakened people. With these people he was accused, in 1524, of having plundered a church in a neighbouring village, burnt a chapel, and committed many other outrages; and as the affair made a great noise, he was cited to answer to the charges at Weimar; but finding that the utmost severity was to be used against him, he remained at Alstadt, where his companions were so riotous, that he was under the necessity of removing to a distance. After some little time he settled at Nuremberg, where he published a vehement censure upon Luther, which, with some irregularities, occasioned his expulsion by the government. Taking then a journey into Swabia, he found every where numerous and attentive hearers. His stay in Swabia gave rise to the report that he was the author of the famous twelve articles of the peasants; but his biographer endeavours to prove that he had no part in the insurrection which broke out in that part of the country. In the beginning of 1525, he returned back into Saxony, and was received with great favour by the citizens of Muhlhausen, and, against the consent of their council, appointed their preacher. Here his influence soon became predominant: the old council was entirely set aside, and a new one chosen: the monks were driven away, and their estates sequestered. Muncer himself was elected into the council, and proposed an equal communication of property, and similar reforms, agreeable to the taste of the people. The tumults in Swabia and Franconia were the signal ta Muncer to attempt the same in Thuringia. Churches, monasteries, castles, were plundered and the success attending these first attempts increased the popular fury and the monks, the nuns, and the nooility, were the particular objects of their resentment. It is unnecessary to repeat here the history of these troubles; suffice it, that Muncer was at last overpowered in 1526, and put to death. At his execution he is said to have shewn signs of penitence.

, or Mondino, a physician deservedly celebrated in the dark ages, was born at Milan, according to Freind and Douglas, and flourished early in the fourteenth century. He held the professorship of medicine at Bologna in 1316, and enjoyed an extensive reputation throughout Italy, principally for his anatomical pursuits, in which, however, Eloy thinks he shewed more zeal than success, although he was the first among the moderns who dissected human bodies. He was the author of a work, entitled “Anatomia omnium humani Corporis interiorum Membrorum,” first printed at Pavia in 1478, in fol. reprinted at least fourteen times, the last in 1638, 12mo, with various commentaries. It is a methodical treatise, very copious upon the subject of the viscera, in the description of which he introduced many original observations, but passes lightly over the subject of the nerves and blood-vessels. With all its errors, which are very copious, it conferred a real benefit on the infant science, and the statutes of Padua, and some other medical schools of Italy, prohibited the use of every other work, as a text-book for the students of anatomy. Mundinus died at Bologna, Aug. 30, 1318, and was buried in the church of St. Vital.

, a celebrated military officer, was born at New Huntorf, in the county of Oldenburgh, in 1683. He was the son of a Danish officer, and received an excellent education. When only seventeen he entered into the service of the landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt. He was present at the siege of Landau, and learned the art of war under the duke of Marlborough and prince Eugene. He was always remarkable for his braveryj for which, at the battle of Malplaquet, he was made a lieutenant-colonel. In 1716 he quitted the Hessian, and entered into the Polish service; but, in 1721, on some disgust, he went into Russia, and was honourably received by Peter I. After many offices of trust in the army and state, he was made a marshal by the empress Anne, and placed at the head of the war-department; and, in 1737-8, served with great success against the Turks. Soon after the death of the empress, not being appointed generalissimo as he expected, he resigned his employments, but remained in Russia, though strongly invited to the court of Prussia. In 1741 he was arrested, by order of Elizabeth, and, when examined, was so disgusted by the questions proposed to him, that he desired his judges, who appeared resolved to convict him, to put down the answers they wished him to make, and he would sign them. He was thus, after a mock trial, condemned to lose his life; but Elizabeth changed this into perpetual imprisonment, which he suffered for twenty years at Pelim in Siberia. At the accession of Peter III. an order arrived for his release, which so affected him that he fainted away. Departing for Petersburgh, he appeared there in the same sheep-skin dress he had worn during. his captivity. The emperor received him with kindness, and restored him to his former rank. He enjoyed the favour of Peter and Catharine till the time of his death, which happened in October 1767, at the age of eighty -five. He was a man of great talents, and possessed many and distinguished virtues, but he was not without his defects. His faults, however, scarcely injured any but himself, but his excellencies were of vast benefit to Russia. He favoured literature, and frequented the company of learned men. He was acquainted with the arts, for which he had a considerable taste, but he distinguished himself most as a general, and by his knowledge of tactics: he has, however, been accused of exercising too much severity to those who were under his command. It is said that a system of fortifications, and some other writings of count Munich’s have been published, but we have not met with them in this country, nor with a life of him published in German at Oldenburgh in 1803.

, a Spanish historian, was born in 1745 at Museros, a village near Valentia, and studied in the university of Madrid. From his earliest years he discovered a taste superior to what was inculcated in the usual course of academic studies, and made uncommon progress in the sciences and in polite literature. At the age of twenty-two, he wrote prefaces to the Rhetoric of Louis of Grenada, and the Logic of Vernei, in both which he displayed great erudition. He was afterwards, doubtless from having turned his thoughts to that branch, appointed by government cosmographer of the Indies, and filled this office with distinguished ability, until the prime minister Galvez, by order of the king, employed him on a history of America. This undertaking he commenced in 1779, and obtained access, not only to all the papers and documents preserved in the archives of the India department at Madrid, and in the Escurial, but likewise, on a farther recommendation of his Catholic majesty, to all the public and private libraries at Simancas, Seville, Salamanca, Valladolid, Grenada, &c. &c. and even in the Torre di tombo at Lisbon, and other places to which preceding writers had not obtained access. This research occupied above five years, in the course of which he collected a vast mass, in one hundred and thirty volumes, of original and hitherto undescribed documents, letters of Columbus, Pizarro, Ximenes, &c. from which he composed his “Historia del nuovo Mondo,” published at Madrid, 1795, in fol. and which is known in this country by a translation published in 1797, in one vol. 8vo. This volume is divided into six books; in the first two the author describes the imperfect state of geographical knowledge among the ancients the accessions which it received in the middle ages the voyages of discovery made by the French, Portuguese, and Spaniards, previously to the time of Columbus, with the circumstances that produced his conjectures respecting the existence of a new continent, &c. The third and remaining books commence and continue the history of his discoveries to 1500. More of this work, however, has not appeared. The author, we are told, had finished nearly three books of the second volume, at the time of his death, July 19, 1799, and we do not find that he has had a successor, for which perhaps the subsequent political state of his country may account. Before this he acquired great reputation by his other works; namely, 1. “De recto philosophies recentis in theologia 'usu, dissertatio,” Valent. 1767. 2. “De scriptorum gentilium lectione, et profanarum disciplinarum studiis ad Christianaepietatisnormam exigendis,” ibid. 1768. 3. “Institutiones philosophies,” ibid. 1768. 4. “A Treatise on the Philosophy of Aristotle,” &c. 1768, &C.

, an eminent German divine and mathematician, was born at Inghelheim in 1489; and, at fourteen commenced his studies at Heidelberg. Two years after, he entered the convent of the Cordeliers, where he laboured assiduously; yet did not content him self with the studies relating to his profession, but applied himself also to mathematics and cosmography. He was the first who published a “Chaldee Grammar and Lexicon;” and gave the world, a short time after, a “Talmudic Dictionary.” He went afterwards to Basil, and succeeded Pelicanus, of whom he had learned Hebrew, in the professorship of that language. He was one of the first who attached himself to Luther, but meddled little in the controversies of the age, employing his time and attention chiefly to the study of the Hebrew and other Oriental languages, mathematics, and natural philosophy. He published a great number^ of works on these subjects, of which the principal is a Latin version from the Hebrew of all the books of the Old Testament, with learned notes, printed at Basil in 1534 and 1546. This is thought more faithful than the versions of Pagninus and Arias Montanus; and his notes are generally approved, though he dwells a little too long upon the explications of the rabbins. For this version he was called the German Esdras, as he was the German Strabo for an “Universal Cosmography,” in six books, which he printed at Basil in 1550. He published also a treatise on dialling, in fol. 1536, in which is the foundation of the modern art of dialling a translation of Josephus into Latin “Tabulae novae ad geog. Ptolemaei,” “Rudimenta mathematica,” &c. He was a pacific, studious, retired man, and, Dupin allows, one of the most able men that embraced the reformed religion. For this reason Beza and Verheiden have placed him among the heroes of the reformation, although he wrote nothing expressly on the subject. He died at Basil, of the plague, May 23, 1552.

, a learned Italian antiquary, and one of the most voluminous writers of his age and country, was born at Vignola in the duchy of Modena, Oct. 21, 1672. He was educated at Modena, and his inclination leading him to the church, as a profession, he went through the regular courses of philosophy and divinity, but without neglecting polite literature, to which he was early attached. Bacchiiri recommended the ecclesiastical writers to his attention, and he at length became so devoted to general reading, as to pay little attention to his destined profession. In 1695, the knowledge of books which he had accumulated, procured him the place of one of the librarians of the celebrated Ambrosian collection at Milan; and although he had by this time received his doctor’s degree and been admitted into orders, it was now that he entered upon that course of study and research which distinguished him in future life. His first publication was vols. I and II. of his “Anecdota Latina,” printed at Milan in 1697 and 1698, 4to. In 1700 he went to Modena to take possession of the office of keeper of the archives of the house of Este, and that of librarian to the duke of Modena, his patron. Here he remained for some years, with the exception of an interruption occasioned by the war in 1702, when the French took possession of Modena. The same year that he came here he was editor of “Vita et Rime di Carlo M. Maggi,” printed at Milan, 5 vols. and in 1703 published his “Primi disegni della Republica Letteraria d'ltalia;” this was followed by “Prolegomena, &c. in librum, cui titulus, Elucidatio Augustiniange de divina gratia doctrinae,” Cologn, 1705; “Lettere ai generosi e cortesi Letterati d'ltalia,” Venice, 1705; “Delia Perfetta Poesia Italiana, &c.” 2 vols. a very ingenious dissertation on Italian poetry, which occasioned a prolonged controversy, now no longer interesting. Two editions, however, were afterwards published, with critical notes by Salvini, the one in 1724, 2 vols. 4to. and the other, which is esteemed the best, in 1748. He published also at Bologna in 1707, “Lettera in disesa del March. G. G. Orsi;” and “Introduzione alle paci private,” Modena, 1708. In the same year he first began to write tinder the assumed name of Lamindo Pritanio, “Riflessioni SDpra il buon gusto, &c.” of which a second part appeared at Naples in 1715. After this appeared, under his proper name, “Osservazioni sopra una lettera intitolata, II dominio temporale della sede Apostolica sopra la citta di Comacchio,” &c. Modena, 1708; and “Epistola ad Jo. Albert. Fabricium,” 1709. In this last year he published another of his valuable collections under the title of “Anecdota Grseca,” Gr. & Lat. 4to, which, as well as his “Anecdota Latina,” (completed in 4 vols. at Padua, 1713) were taken from Mss. in the Ambrosian library. He published also before 1715 some other works of lesser value, which, however, showed how intense his labours were, for he had accepted of some preferments in the church, the duties of which he performed with great assiduity, and wai particularly distinguished for his humane care of the poor, who indeed shared the greater part of the profits of his benefices, and the rest went to the repairs or furniture of the churches under his care.

, one of the most pleasing painters Spain ever produced, was born at Pilas, near Seville, in 1613, and be.came a disciple of Juan del Castillo, whose favourite subjects were fairs and markets; of which Murillo painted many pictures before he left him to go to Madrid. There he studied and copied the works of Titian, Rubens, and Vandyke, in the royal palaces, and the houses of the nobility; and having very much advanced himself in the knowledge and practice of his art, returned to Seville, where he was employed to paint for most of the principal churches there, as well as at Granada, Cadiz, and Cordova. The style of Murillio is his own. He copied his objects from nature, but combined them ideally; that is, his back-grounds are generally confused and indistinct, and the parts very much blended together, with a loose pencil and indeterminate execution; but most of them have a very pleasing effect, and perhaps the principal objects acquire a degree of finish and beauty from this very circumstance. An instance may be recollected in his very pleasing picture of the good shepherd, an excellent copy of which is at the marquis of Stafford’s gallery. But it was in small pictures of familiar life that this artist most completely succeeded, for in his large pictures, skilfully wrought as they are, he does not appear to have penetrated the arcana of grandeur or style; but in the amiable and tender sentiments which are expressed by the silent actions of the human features, he was eminently successful. He died in 1685.

, a dramatic and miscellaneous writer, was born at Clooniquin, in the county of Roscommon, in Ireland, Dec. 27, 1727. His father, Richard Murphy, who was a merchant, perished in 1729, in one of his own trading-vessels for Philadelphia, probably in a violent storm, but no intelligence of the ship, or any of its passengers or crew, ever transpired. From this time the care of the subject of the present article devolved upon his mother, who, in 1735, removed, with her children, to London but Arthur was sent, at the age of ten, to the English college at St. Omer’s, where he remained six years and made very extraordinary proficiency in Greek and Latin, a love for which he retained all his life, and particularly improved his acquaintance with the Latin classics. On his return to England, in 1744, he resided with his mother till August 1747, when he was sent to Cork, to an uncle Jeffery French, in whose counting-house he was employed till April 1749. After this his uncle destined him to go to Jamaica to overlook a large estate which he possessed in that island; but his inclination was averse to business of every kind, and he returned to his mother in London, in 1751. Here he either first contracted, or began at least to indulge, his predominant passion for the theatre, although placed in the counting-house of Ironside and Belchier, bankers. In October 1752, he published the first number of “The Gray’s-Inn Journal,” a weekly paper, which he continued for two years, and which served to connect him much with dramatic performers and writers, as well as to make him known to the public as a wit and a critic. On the death of his uncle, he was much disappointed in not finding his name mentioned in his will, and the more so as he had contracted debts, in faith of a good legacy, to the amount of three hundred pounds. In this embarrassed state, by the advice of the celebrated Foote, he went on the stage, and appeared for the first time in the character of Othello. Jn one season, by the help of strict economy, he paid off his debts, and had at the end of the year four hundred pounds in his pocket. With this sum he determined to quit the stage, on which, as a performer, notwithstanding the advantages of a fine person, and good judgment, he made no very distinguished figure, and never used to be more offended than when reminded of this part of his career.

, a clergyman of Scotland, was born at Dunkeld in that country, in 1702, and educated in the Marishal college, Aberdeen, where he took his degrees, and was licensed as a probationer in the ministry. Being of a romantic turn of mind, although an excellent classical scholar, he refused a living in Scotland, and came to London, where, it is said, but we know not upon what authority, he was made choice of as an assistant-preacher to the congregation in Swallow-street, Westminster. But his pulpit-oratory did not acquire him popularity, and his sentiments were rather disgustful to his hearers. This induced him to solicit the protection of James late duke of Athol, who took him into his family, where he wrote a work, entitled “Aletheia, or a System of Moral Truths,” which has been published in the form of letters, in 2 vols. 12mo. He died in London in 1758, aged fifty-five.

, an eminent English lawyer, was fourth son of David, earl of Stormont, and was born March 2, 1705, at Perth, in Scotland. He was brought to England at the age of three years, for his education, which accounts for his always being free from the accent so peculiar in the natives of that country. He was educated at Westminster-school, being admitted a king’s scholar at the age of fourteen years. During the time of his being at school, he afforded proofs of his ability, not so much in poetry, as in declamation, and other exercises, which gave promise of the eloquence that grew up to such perfection when at the bar, and in parliament. At the election in May 1723, he stood first on the list of those scholars who were to go to Oxford, and was entered of Christ church June 18 of that year, where in 1727, he appears to have taken the degree of bachelor of arts; and, on the death of king George I. he was amongst those who contributed their poetical compositions, in Latin, on that event.

, an Italian historian and poet, was born at Padua in 1261. When young he lost his father, and was left with a numerous family of brothers and sisters, whom he at first endeavoured to maintain by copying books for the scholars of the university. He was also permitted to attend the lectures there, and made very considerable progress in belles lettres and the law. Theiatterhe chose as the profession most likely to enable him to maintain his family, nor was he disappointed; and the very great ability he displayed at other times occasioned his being employed in political affairs. His talents in this respect were first called forth when Henry VII. made a descent on Italy; on which event he was five times se nt by the Paduans to that prince, who conceived a very high opinion of him. In his history we find the speeches he ma ie to Henry, and those he addressed to the senate of Padua. He also distinguished himself in the war which the Paduans carried on against Can Grande de la Scala, and when wounded and taken prisoner in 1314, Can Grande paid him the attention due to his merit, and restored him to liberty. The war raging more furiously, Mussato went first to Tuscany to negociate an alliance with the Tuscans and Paduans against Can Grande, but not succeeding, went next to Austria and Carint*hia, where he partially achieved his purpose, and at last, in 1324, had the honour of concluding a peace between Can Grande and his country.

, an eminent mathematician and natural philosopher, was born at Leyden in 1692. He appears first to have studied medicine, as he took his doctor’s degree in that faculty in 1715, but natural philosophy afterwards occupied most of his attention. After visiting London, where he became acquainted with Newton and Desaguliers, probably about 1734, when he was chosen a fellow of the royal society, he returned home, and was appointed professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Utrecht, which he rendered as celebrated for those sciences as it had long been for law studies. He was afterwards placed in the same chair at Leyden, and obtained great and deserved reputation throughout all Europe. Besides being elected a member of the Paris academy and other learned bodies, the kings of England, Prussia, and Denmark, made him tempting offers to reside in their dominions; but he preferred his native place, where he died in 1761. He published several works in Latin, all of them demonstrating his great penetration and accuracy: 1. “Disputatio de Aeris praesentia in humoribus animalibus,” Leyd. 1715, 4to. 2. “Epitome Elementorum Pbysico-mathematicorum,” ib. 1729, 4to. 3. “Physicx, experimentales, et geometries Dissertationes: ut et Ephemerides meteorologicae Utrajectenses,” ibid. 1729, 4to. 4. “Tentamina Experinientorurn naturalium, in academia del Cimento, ex Ital. in Lat. conversa,” ibid. 1731, 4to. 5. “Elementa Physicsc,” 1734, 8vo, translated into English by Colson, 1744, 2 vols. 8vo. His “Introduction to Natural Philosophy,” which he began to print in 1760, was completed and published at Leyden in 1762 by M. Lulofs, after the death of the author. There is a French translation, of Paris, 1769, 3 vols. 4to. Musschenbroeck is also the author of several papers, chiefly on meteorology, printed in the volumes of the “Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences” for 1734, 1735, 1736, 1753, 1756, and 1760.

, a learned Spanish physician, divine, and botanist, was born at Cadiz in 1734. He studied medicine at his native place and at Seville, and having obtained much reputation, was appointed professor of anatomy at Madrid, where he signalized himself by his physiological knowledge. In 1760 the marquis della Vega, being appointed viceroy of New Granada, solicited Mutis to accompany him as his physician. On his arrival at Santa Fe de Bogota, the capital of New Granada, Mutis, by permission of the viceroy, undertook to introduce the mathematics as a branch of study in the university, and his lectures on that subject were heard with attention and admiration, and he was at length, by the authority of the Spanish government, established professor of philosophy, mathematics, and natural history, at Santa Fe. While enjoying this post, some unfortunate speculations in the mines, which exhausted his pecuniary resources, occasioned his taking orders in the church, and his clerical duties now shared a considerable portion of his time. Part of it likewise was employed in botanical researches, and he corresponded with Linnæus, to whom he sent numerous specimens [of his own discover) 7 particularly the Mutisia, so named in honour of him by Linnæus. In 1776 he settled at Sapo, in the government of Mariquita, where he had many enviable opportunities of discovering and collecting singular plants and flowers. In 1778 don Antonio Caballeroy Gorgora, the new archbishop, on his arrival at Santa Fe, discovered the superior merits of Mutis, and determined to extricate him from his difficulties, and procure him a pension, with the appointment of botanist and astronomer to the king. Accordingly, under the patronage of this liberal prelate, he became the superintendant of a botanical school for investigating the plants of America. In 1783, attended by some of his pupils, and several draughtsmen, he made a tour through the kingdom of New Granada; and by his diligence much new light was thrown upon the history of the Peruvian bark, and its various species. He also taught his countrymen the culture and the value of indigo. His health having suffered from the climate of Mariquita, he was directed to repair to Santa F, and to fix on some of his pupils, whose y; uth and constitutions might be more adequate to such labours. In 1797 he had an opportunity to visit Paris, to consult with Jussieu, and the other eminent botanists of that capital, concerning the composition of a “Flora Bogotensis,” and to make himself master of all the new improvements and discoveries. He remained at Paris till 1801, when he went back to Madrid. Whether he subsequently returned to his native country, we know not, but in 1804 he was appointed to the professorship of Botany, and superintendance of the royal garden at Madrid. Although his advancing age made repose now in some measure necessary, he continued to be serviceable to the government of his native country, and to the prosperity of that in which he had so long been naturalized. He lived to an advanced age, but of the precise date of his death we are not informed.

, an able mathematician, was born at Paris in 1585, and was educated to the law. He became counsellor to the Chatelet, and afterwards treasurer of France in the generality of Amiens, but was too much attached to mathematical pursuits, and master of too ample a fortune, to pursue his profession as a source of emolument. He was the friend and acquaintance of Des Cartes, and entered into a vindication of him, in the dispute which he had with M. Fermat, and was afterwards a mediator of the peace which was made between those learned men in 1638. In the same year Mydorge published a Lutin treatise “On Conic Sections,” in four bt oks, which Meisenne has inserted in his “Abridgment of Universal Geometry.” In 1642, he and Des Cartes received an invitation from sir Charles Cavendish to settle in England, which he declined, on the approach of the rebellion. He died at Paris in 1647, in the sixty-third year of his age. He was a practical mechanic, as well as an able mathematician, and spent more than a thousand crowns on the fabrication of glasses for telescopes, burning mirrors, mechanical engines, and mathematical instruments.

, an eminent architect, to whose memory Black Friars Bridge will be a lasting monument, was born at Edinburgh, Jan. 4, 1734. His father, Thomas Mylne, was an architect, and a magistrate of that city; and his family, it has been ascertained, held th office of master-masons to the kings of Scotland for five hundred year’s, till the union of the crowns of England and Scotland. Mr. Mylne was educated at Edinburgh, and travelled early in life for improvement in h;s hereditary science. At Rome he resided five years, and in September 1758, gained the first prize in the first class of architecture, adjudged by the academy of St. Luke, and was also unanimously elected a member of that body. On this occasion prince Altieri, distinguished for his knowledge of the fine arts, obtained from the pope the necessary dispensation, Mr. Mylne being a protestant. He was also elected a member of the academies of Florence and Bologna. He visited Naples, and viewed the interior of Sicily with an accuracy never before employed; and from his skill in his profession, and his classical knowledge, was enabled to illustrate several very obscure passages in Vitruvius. His fine collection of drawings, with his account of this tour, which he began to arrange for publication in 1774, but was interrupted by his numerous professional engagements, are still in the possession of his son, and will, it is hoped, at no very distant period, be given to the public. He was often heard to remark in his latter days, that in most of his observations and drawings, he had neither been anticipated by those who traversed the ground before him, nor followed by those who came after him.

, an historical writer, was born probably about 1638, and educated at Cambridge, of which he became LL. D. We have discovered very few particulars of his life. He appears to have been zealous in the royal cause during the usurpation, and became rector of Doddington cum March, in the Isle of Ely. He was also in 1684 collated to a prebend in that cathedral. Wood and Bentham say that he died March 24, 1685-6, aged fortyeight years, and was buried in Ely cathedral. If Bentham did not copy this date from Wood, but took it from the registers of Ely, we know not how to reconcile it with a letter from Dr. Nalson, printed in Gutch’s “Collectanea,” and dated 1688, at the time the bishops were sent to the Tower by the infatuated James II. Be this as it may, he published “An Impartial Collection of the Great Affairs of State, from the beginning of the Scotch rebellion in 1639, to the murder of king Charles I, &c.” Lond. 1682-3, 2 vols. fol. This collection was intended as an antidote to that of Rush worth, whose prejudices were in favour of the parliament; and contains many authentic and curious circumstances not to be found in other writers. Nalson’s statements are reviewed by Roger Coke, esq. in his *' Treatise of the Life of Man,“1685, fbl. Besides this historical collection, Dr. Nalson wrote, 1.” The Countermine: or, a short, but true discovery of the dangerous principles, and secret practices of the dissenting party, especially the presbyterians; shewing, that religion is pretended, but rebellion intended,“&c. Lond. 1677, 8vo. 2.” The Common Interest of King and People, shewing the original, antiquity, and excellency, of monarchy compared with aristocracy and democracy, and particularly of our English monarchy; and that absolute, papal, and presbyterian popular supremacy are utterly inconsistent with prerogative, property, and liberty;“ibid. 1678, 8vo. 3.” A True Copy of the Journal of the High Court of Justice, for the' trial of Charles I. as it was read in the House of Commons, and attested under the hand of Phelps, clerk to that infamous court,“with an introduction, ibid. 1684, fol. He also translated Maimbourg’s” History of the Crusade," &c. ibid. 1685, fol.

, so called from the village of Nancel, his native place, between Noyon and Soissons, was born in 1539. He studied at the college de Presles at Paris, and was employed to teach Greek and Latin there when scarcely eighteen years of age, probably by the interest of Peter Ramus, principal of the college, who conceived very highly of his talents. He was afterwards proKssor in the university of Douay, where he made two pei.:ches “On the excellence and importance of the Greek Language.” Being invited to return to Paris, he was again professor in the college de Presles, and took a doctor’s degree in physic. He went afterwards to practise at Soissons; but principally at Tours, which he found an eligible situation. He was lastly appointed physician to the abbey of Fontevrauld, in 1587; and died there in 1610, leaving a son, who wrote some sacred tragedies. His principal works are, 1. “Stichologia Grseca Latinaque informanda et reformanda,” 8vo. In this work he endeavours to subject the French poetry to the rules of the Greek and Latin, for the purpose, as he says, of rendering it more difficult and less common; a whimsical project, which, it may be supposed, did not succeed. 2. A treatise “On the Plague,” 8vo. 3. “Tr. de Deo, de immortalitate animse contra Galenum, et de sede anima? in corpore,” 8vo. 4. “Declamationuin Liber, eas complectens orationes quas vel ipse juvenis habuit ad populum, vel per discipulos recitavit,” &c. 8vo. 5. “Petri Kami vita,” 8vo. This Life is curious and interesting, and the best of Nancel’s works.

, a French historian, who flourished in the fourteenth century, was a Benedictine monk of the abbey of St. Denis, and supposed to have taken his name from the place where he was born. He wrote the lives of St. Lewis, and of Philip le Hardi, and two chronicles; the first from the creation to 1300, the second a chronicle generally of the kings of France. The lives were printed, for the first time, in Pithou’s collection in 1596, and the chronicle from 1113, in the “Spicilegium” of D. Luc d' Archery. The life of St. Lewis was again reprinted along with Joinville’s history of the same prince, with a glossary, &c. by J. B. Mellot, Ch. Sallier, and J. Capperonier, at Paris in 1761, fol.

, or Nannius, or in his native language, Nanningh (Peter), a very learned philologer, and general scholar, was born at Alcmaer, in Holland, in 1500; he studied at Louvain, and then was employed in the private education of some young men until the death of Conrad Goclenius, when the university unanimously appointed him to pronounce a funeral oration on that eminent teacher, and to succeed him as Latin professor. In this office he gave such satisfaction, that all his scholars, who were exceedingly numerous, ever preserved the highest respect for him, and acknowledged that the care he took was the foundation of their future advancement and fame. He was also much esteemed by the cardinal de Granvelle, and by Nicholas Everard, president of the great council of Mechlin. The cardinal preferred him to a canonry in his church of ArraS, and the president placed his children under his care, and rewarded him munificently. With the patronage of these two personages, he was so satisfied as to refuse many liberal offers to remove to Italy, and remained the whole of his life at Louvain. He was a most industrious writer, as well as teacher, and in the numerous list given by Foppen of his publications, we find commentaries on Cicero, on Virgil, and Horace’s Art of Poetry; paraphrases on the Song of Solomon, and on the Proverbs; annotations on civil law, of which he acquired a profound knowledge; translations of some part of Demosthenes, Synesius, Apollonius, Plutarch, St. Athanasius, St. N Basil, Chrysostom; prefaces introductory and illustrative of Homer, and Demosthenes, &c. He also translated the Psalms into Latin verse, and, in the opinion of his contemporaries, with equal elegance and fidelity. Among his separate publications his “Miscellaoeorum decas,” a collection of critical remarks on ancient authors, and his “Dialogismi Heroinarum,” were much esteemed. This eminent scholar died at Louvain, July 21, 1557, and was buried in the church of St. Peter, where one of his scholars, Sigismond Frederic Fugger, placed a monument to his memory. He is mentioned in terms of the highest praise by Miræus, Thuanus, Melchior Adam, Gyraldus, Huet, and many other learned men.

, a celebrated engraver, was born in 1630, at Rheims, where his father kept a petty shop, suitable to his fortune, which was small, but sufficient to enable him to give his son a liberal education. Accordingly, Robert was put to the grammar-school at a proper age; and, as soon as he had made the necessary progress in classical learning, went through a course of philosophy. He had, from his childhood, a strong inclination to drawing; and he applied to it with such success, that being to maintain, according to custom, his philosophical thesis at the end of two years, he drew and engraved it himself. As he continued to cultivate his genius, his productions became the delight of the town. But finding more fame than profit at Rheims, and having married while young, he was under the necessity of seeking a situation where his talents might be more amply rewarded. With this view he left his wife and repaired to Paris, probably without introduction to any friends, as we are told he had no better way to make himself known, than the following device Seeing several young abbes standing at the door of a victualling-house, near the Sorbonne, he asked the mistress if there was not an ecclesiastic of Rheims there? telling her that he had unfortunately forgot his name, but that she might easily know him by the picture that he had of him, shewing her at the same time a portrait, well drawn, and which had the air of being an exact likeness. This drew the attention of some of the abbes, who were profuse in their praises of the portrait. “If you please, messieurs,” said Nantueil, “I will draw all your pictures for a trifle, as highly finished as this is.” The price which he asked was so moderate, that all the abbes sat to him one after another; and then bringing their friends, customers came in so fast, that he took courage to raise his price: and having in a short time acquired a considerable sum, he returned to Rheims, disposed of his little property there, and brought his wife to Paris, where his character soon became established. He applied himself particularly to drawing portraits in crayons, which he afterwards engraved for the use of the academical theses; and succeeded beyond all his predecessors in that branch. He never failed to catch the likeness; and even pretended that he had certain rules which ascertained it. His portrait of the king, as large as life, which he afterwards engraved, so pleased his majesty that he rewarded him with a present of a hundred louis d'ors, and made him designer and engraver to his cabinet, with a salary of 1000 livres per annum. Nantueil afterwards did the portrait of the queen-mother in the same manner, as also that of cardinal Mazarine, the duke of Orleans, marshal Turenne, and others. The grand duke of Tuscany hearing of his fame, requested to have Nantueil’s own portrait by himself, in crayons, in order to place it in his gallery. His works consist of 240 prints, including the portraits of almost all the persons of the first rank in France. Of his filial affection we have the following anecdote. As soon as he had made an easy fortune, his first object was to invite his father to share it; and the manner in which he received him, which happened to be before many witnesses, drew tears of joy from all. From this time the son’s greatest happiness was to comfort the declining years, and supply the wants, of his father. Nantueil died at Paris, Dec. 18, 1678, aged forty-eight.

, a celebrated genealogist, was born in 1692, at Saulx le Due in Burgundy. He studied at Dijon and Paris, and at the latter city he was entrusted with the education of some young men of rank. His general turn for history settled at last in the genealogical branch, and -he employed all his leisure in drawing up genealogical tables. From 1736 to 1738 he published a work entitled “Genealogies Historiques des Hois, des Empereurs, et de toutes les Maisons Souveraignes,” 4 vols. 4to. He also published “Tablettes Geographiques,” 1725, 12mo; “Tablettes Historiques, Genealogiques, et Chronologiques,” 1748, &c. 9 vols. 24to and “Tablettes de Themis,” 1755, 12mo. He supplied many articles for the Supplement of Moreri of the edition of 1749, and during his latter years re-wrote the genealogical part of that dictionary, and of the Mercure. He died Dec. 29, 1755, after having been deprived of his sight for the three preceding years.

, an Italian historian, was born of a noble family of Florence, in 1476. Having espoused the cause of the liberties of his country, when the Medici family gained the ascendancy, he was banished, and his property confiscated. He then went to Venice, where he passed the rest of his days in composing his various works, particularly his history of Florence, “L'Istorie de Firenze, dal 1494 sino al 1531,” &c. 1532, 4to, which bears a great character for style; but, from his being the decided enemy of the house of Medici, must probably be read with some caution; nor was it published until fifty years after his death. He acquired great reputation also by his translation of Livy, which is considered as one of the best versions of the ancient authors in the Italian language. It was first printed in 1547; but the best editions are those of 1554 and 1575, in which last there is a supplement to the second decade by Turchi. Apostolo Zeno laments, that after Nardi had been banished his country, his works should also be banished from the vocabulary della Crusca. These academicians quote him but once, under the word pronunziare. He certainly deserved not such contempt, if it was out of contempt they neglected him. Nardi, in his youth, had distinguished himself as a soldier, and shows great knowledge and experience in military affairs, in a Life of the celebrated commander Malespini, printed at Florence, 1597, 4to. He was the author of several other works, both in prose and verse, and is supposed to have given the first example of the versi sciolti, or Italian blank verse. He is thought to have died about 1555, far advanced in age.

, doctor of music, an eminent composer and teacher in that science, under whom some of the first musicians of the present day received the whole or part of their education, was tfce son of Mr. Nares, who was, for many years, steward to Montague and Willoughby, earl* of Abingdon. He was born, as well as his brother, the late Mr. Justice Nares, at Stanwell in Middlesex; the former in 1715, the latter in 1716. His musical education he commenced under Mr. Gates, then master of the royal choristers; and completed it under the celebrated Dr. Pepusch. Thus prepared, he officiated, for some time, as deputy to Mr. Pigott, organist of Windsor; but, on the resignation of Mr. Salisbury, organist of York, in 1734, was chosen to succeed him, being then only nineteen. It is related, on undoubted authority, that, when the old musician first saw his intended successor, he said, rather angrily, “What! is that child to succeed me?” which being mentioned to the organist-elect, he took an early opportunity, on a difficult service being appointed, to play it throughout half a note below the pitch, which brought it into a key with seven sharps; and went through it without the slightest error. Being asked why he did so, he said, that “he only wished to shew Mr. Salisbury what a child could do.” His knowledge in all branches of his profession was equal to his practical skill in this instance; and, during his residence at York, where he was abundantly employed as a teacher, and where he married, Mr. Nares, by his good conduct, as well as professional merit, obtained many powerful friends. Among the foremost of these was Dr. Fontayne, the late venerable dean of York; who, when Dr. Green died, towards the latter end of 1755, exerted his interest so successfully, that he obtained for him the united places of organist and composer to his majesty. He removed, therefore, to London in the beginning of 1756; and, about the same time, was created doctor in music at Cambridge.

, an Irish Roman catholic divine, of great learning, was born in the county of Kildare in 1660, and educated at Naas, in that county. In 1684 he received priest’s orders in the town of Kilkenny, and the year following went to Paris to pursue his studies in the Irish college, of which he was made afterwards provisor for about seven years. He took the degree of LL. D. in 1694, in the college of Cambray, and returning to London two years after, was appointed tutor to the earl of Antrim. He was afterwards made parish priest of St. Michan’s in Dublin, in which station he continued till his death, March 3, 1738. His principal works, rather numerous, were of the controversial kind, in defence of popery against Mr. Clayton and others, who acknowledged his learning as well as the politeness of his style and moderation of his sentiments. It was this quality which enabled him to have his works printed both at Dublin and London without molestation. Those that are not strictly of the controversial kind were, 1 “The New Testament translated into English from the Latin, with marginal notes,” Lond. 1705, 1718, 8vo. 2. “A new History of the World; containing an historical and chronological account of the times and transactions from the creation to the birth of Christ, according to the computation of the Septuagint,” &c. Dublin, 1720, fol.

a very extraordinary personage, was born at Swansea, in Glamorganshire, Oct. 18, 1674. His father was a gentleman, whose principal income arose from a partnership in a glass-house: his mother was niece to colonel Poyer, who was killed by Oliver Cromwell, for defending Pembroke-castle against the rebels. He was educated at Carmarthen-school, and thence sent to Jesus college, Oxford, in order to prepare him for the study of the law. His father had strained his little income to give his son such an education; and from the boy’s natural vivacity, he hoped a recompence from his future preferment. In college, however, he soon shewed, that, though much might be expected from his genius, nothing could be hoped from his industry. The first method Nash took to distinguish himself at college was not by application to study, but by assiduity in intrigue. Our hero was quickly caught, and went through all the mazes and adventures of a college intrigue, before he was seventeen he offered marriage, the offer was accepted but, the affair coming to the knowledge of his tutors, his happiness, or perhaps misery, was prevented, and he was sent home from college, with necessary advice to him, and proper instructions to his father. He now purchased a pair of colours, commenced a professed admirer of the sex, and dressed to the very edge of his finances; but soon becoming disgusted with the life of a soldier, quitted the army, entered his name as a student in the Temple-books, and here went to the very summit of second-rate luxury. He spent some years about town, till at last, his genteel appearance, his constant civility, and still more his assiduity, gained him the acquaintance of several persons qualified to lead the fashion both by birth and fortune. He brought a person genteelly dressed to every assembly; he always made one of those who are called good company; and assurance gave him an air of elegance and ease.

, a dramatic poet and satirist of queen Elizabeth’s reign, was born at the sea-port town of Leostoff, in Suffolk, probably about 1564, and was descended from a family whose residence was in Hertfordshire. He received his education at St. John’s college, Cambridge, where he took the degree of B. A. 1585. If we may judge from his pamphlet, entitled “Pierce Penniless,” which, though written with a considerable spirit, seems to breathe the sentiments of a man in the height of despair and rage against the world, it appears probable that he had met with many disappointments and much distress, which, from the character of his companion Robert Greene (see Greene), it is most likely arose from his own indiscretions; his “Pierce Penniless” might be no less a picture of himself, than the recantation pieces we have noticed in our account of Greene. It appears from a very scarce pamphlet, entitled “The Trimming of Tho. Nashe, gentleman, by the high tituled patron Don Richardo de Medico Campo, Barber Chirurgeon to Trinity college in Cambridge,” 1597, 4to, that Nash was, that year, in confinement on account of his having written a play, called, “The Isle of Dogs;” that while he was at Cambridge, he wrote part of a show, called “Terminus et noji Terminus,” for which the person, who was concerned with him in that composition, was expelled; that Nash left his college when he was seven years standing, and before he had taken his master’s degree, about 1587; and that after his arrival in London, he was often confined in different gaols.

, a learned divine and antiquary, was born in 1740, at Norwich, of reputable parents. His father, who was of a Scotch family, had his son’s grammatical education completed at Amsterdam. Thence he was removed to Bene't college, Cambridge, where his ingenuous and open temper gained him the love and esteem of the whole society, who elected him a fellow, after he had taken his degree of B. A. in 1764. In 1767 he took the degree of M. A. and was frequently honoured for his application and proficiency in every branch of academic studies. Having entered into holy orders, he served the sequestration of Hinxton in Cambridgeshire for some years, to which he was presented by bishop Mavvson, and was junior proctor of the university in 1771. He was afterwards elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and became one of his majesty’s justices of peace for the county of Cambridge. In this situation he was eminently conspicuous for his correct knowledge and mild administration of the laws; and he filled the office of chairman at the sessions of Cambridge and Ely with moderation, justice, and impartiality, at once distinguishing himself as the gentleman, the lawyer, and the divine.

, an Italian lawyer, who flourished about the middle of the sixteenth century, was born of a noble family, at Asti, and studied law at Pavia. He made so great progress in literature, as to receive the academical honours of his profession before he had reached his twenty-fourth year, and was at the same time advanced to be senator at Casal. Pavia offered him the professorship of civil law, but he preferred his studious retirement at Genoa, where he probably died. His principal works are “De Pulchro” “De Deo,” in fifteen books“”De immortalitateAnimi“”De Passione Domini." Each of these makes a folio, printed 1553 1587.

, a learned French writer and bibliographer, was born at Paris in the beginning of February 1600, and having discovered a strong inclination in his earliest years for reading, his parents determined to give him every benefit of education. After studying Latin, and being initiated in the principles of religion, in a community of the religious, he was sent to the university, where he made such proficiency in humanity and philosophy, as to be admitted to the degree of master of arts much before the usual age. He then, principally by the advice of his friends, began to study with a view to the church; but this was not agreeable to his sentiments, which were more free in matters of religion than consisted with a cordial profession of the prevailing tenets. He therefore soon preferred the study of medicine, and in 1626 attended the lectures with such application as to acquire a name in the world. Henry de Mesmes, president-a-mortier, hearing of him, appointed him to that for which it appeared afterwards he was best qualified, the office of librarian; and it was for this patron’s use that he wrote his excellent little work, entitled “Avis pour dresser une Bibliotheque,” printed at Paris in 1627, and again in 1644, with Louis Jacob’s “Traite des plus belles Bibliotheques.”

, an able mathematician, was born in 1654, of poor parents, at Metz. He retired to Berlin after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and there forming a friendship with Langerfield, mathematician to the court, who taught the pages, succeeded him in 1696, was admitted into the society of sciences at Berlin in 1701, and into the academy of the princes, as professor of mathematics, in 1704. He died in 1729, at Berlin. His particular study 'as divinity, on which he has written much more than on mathematics; his only work on that science being a system of geometry, in German, 4to, and some other small pieces in the “Miscellanea,” of the society at Berlin. His theological works are, “Meditationes Saintes,” 12mo, “Morale Evangelique,” 2 vols. 8vo. “La souveraine perfection de Dieu dans ses divins attributs, et la parfaite intégrité de l'Ecriture prise au sens des anciens reformes,” 2 vols. 8vo, against Bayle; “Examen de deux Traités de M. de la Placette,” 2 vols. 12mo. His eldest son distinguished himself as his successor, and died 1745. He was a skilful mathematician, member of the societies of Berlin and London; and several memoirs of his may be found in the “Miscellanea Berolinensia,”

a learned Italian scholar and poet, was born at Venice, of a patrician family, in 1483, and was instructed in Latin and Greek at Venice and Padua, under Sabellicus and Marcus Musurus. In the Latin language and composition he acquired great facility and taste, as appeared by his subsequent productions; and also cultivated Italian poetry, in his youth, with equal success. He appears to have embarked both in military and political life. He attended his friend Livanius, the Venetian general, in some of his expeditions and one of his most elegant Latin poems was a funeral elogy on that officer. His political talents recommended him t6 the office of Venetian ambassador at the court of Charles V. when the Italian States began to take the alarm at that monarch’s apparent projects of aggrandizement. He was afterwards deputed on a similar mission to Francis I.; but too great solicitude on this occasion is supposed to have been fatal to him. After travelling with great speed to France, he had scarce paid his respects to the monarch when he was seized with a fever, at Blois, and died in 1529, in his forty-sixth year.

, a Spanish painter, was born in 1562 at Logronno, and becoming, in his third year, both deaf and dumb, is generally known under the name of " E! Mudo.' His talent for the art was not, however, affected by this misfortune; a rapid progress in the school of Fr. Vicente soon enabled him to travel to Italy, and to form himself at Venice upon the works of Titian. After his return to Madrid, he was, 1568, nominated painter to the king, and gave a proof of his great talent by a small picture representing the baptism of Christ, still preserved in the Escurial; which is indeed the repository of his most distinguished works, especially of the celebrated Presepio, in which the principal light emanates from the Infant; the S. Hippolytus in nocturnal quest after the body of S. Lorenzo, where silence, secresy, and fear, appear personified; and what is commonly considered as his masterpiece, a Holy Family, not less noticed for the characteristic singularity of the accessories than the beauties of the groupe. To these his works at Valencia, Salamanca, and Estrella are little inferior; all distinguished by a colour which acquired him the title of the Spanish Titian. He died in 1579.

, a remarkable person of the society called Quakers, was born at Ardsley, near Wakefield, in Yorkshire, about 1616. His father was a husbandman, who had some estate of his own, and gave to his son such an education as enabled him to express himself with facility in his native tongue. James married and settled in Wakefield parish about 1638; and, in 1641, became a private soldier in the parliament army, in which he was afterwards made a quarter-master under major-general Lambert, but quitted it, on account of sickness, in 1649. Being convinced of the doctrines of the people called Quakers, by the means of George Fox, in 1651, the next year he believed himself divinely required to. quit his relations and go into the West, not knowing what he was to do there; but when he came there he had it given him what to declare; and thus he continued, not knowing one day what he was to do the next; but relying on that divine aid which he believed himself to receive.

, an eminent dissenting divine, and the historian of the Puritans, was born in London, Dec. 14, 1678, and educated at Merchant-Taylors’ school, of which he was head scholar in 1697. He appears to have then declined proceeding to St. John’s, Oxford, and determined to enter as a student in a dissenting academy, under the direction of the rev. Thomas Rowe. Three years after he removed, for the farther prosecution of his studies, to Holland, where he heard the lectures of Graevius and Burman, during two years, and afterwards passed a year at Leyden. Soon after his return to London, in 1703, he began to officiate as a preacher, and in 1706 succeeded Dr. Singleton as minister to a congregation at Loriners’ Hall. Of this congregation, which, for want of room, rmoved afterwards to a more commodious meeting in Jewinstreet, he remained pastor for thirty-six years, and was esteemed one of the most useful, laborious, and learned divines of his communion.

, an Oxford divine, was born at Yeate, in Gloucestershire, in 1519, and was educated under the care of his uncle Alexander Belsire, who was afterwards first president of St. John’s college, at Winchester school. From this he was removed to New college, Oxford, in 1538, and admitted fellow in 1540. He also took his degree of M. A. and six years afterwards was admitted into holy orders. He was reckoned an able divine, but was most noted for his skill in Greek and Hebrew, on which account sir Thomas White, the founder of St. John’s college, encouraged him by a yearly pension often pounds. His adherence to the popish religion induced him to go to the university of Paris, during king Edward the Sixth’s reign, where he took his degree of bachelor of divinity. On his return during Mary’s reign, he held the rectory of Thenford in Northamptonshire, and became chaplain to bishop Bonner but on the accession of queen Elizabeth, according to Dodd, he suffered himself to be deprived of his spiritualities, retired to Oxford, and entered himself a commoner in Hart-hall. He had not been long here before he professed conformity to the newly-established religion, and in 1559 was appointed Hebrew professor of the foundation of Henry VIII. in which office he remained until 1569. When first appointed he built lodgings opposite Hart-hall, joining to the westend of New college cloister, which were for some time known by the name of Neal’s lodgings. During queen Elizabeth’s visit to the university in 1566, he presented to her majesty, a ms. now in the British Museum, entitled “Rabbi Davidis Kimhi commentarii super Hoseam, Joellem, Amos, Abdiam, Jonam, Micheam, Nahum, Habacuc, et Sophonian; Latine redditi per Thomam Nelum, Heb. linguae profess. Oxonii; et R, Elizabethse inscripti.” He presented also to her majesty a little book of Latin verses, containing the description of the colleges, halls, &c.; and a few days after exhibited a map of Oxford, with small views very neatly drawn with a pen by Bereblock. These views, with the verses, were published by Hearne at the end of “Dodwell de parma equestri.” The verses are in the form of a dialogue between the queen and the earl of Leicester, chancellor of the university, and are not wanting in that species of pedantic flattery so frequently offered to her majesty. Neal, however, was never a conformist irr his heart, and in 1569 either resigned, or being known to be a Roman catholic, was ejected from his professorship, and then retired to the village of Cassington near Oxford, where he lived a private and studious life. Wood can trace him no further, but Dodd says that he was frequently disturbed while at Cassington on account of his religion, and being often obliged to conceal, or absent himself, went abroad. The records of Doway mention that one Thomas Neal, an ancient clergyman, who had suffered much in prison in England, arrived there June 1, 1578, and returned again to England January 7, 1580. How long he lived afterwards is uncertain. He was certainly alive in 1590, as appears by an inscription he wrote for himself to be put upon his tomb-stone in Cassington church, which also states that he was then seventy-one years old. In the British Museum, among the royal Mss. is another ms. of his, entitled “Rabbinicae qusedam Observationes ex praedictis commentariis.” Wood speaks of one of his names, of Yeate in Gloucestershire, who dying in 1590, his widow had letters of administration granted, and adds, “whether it be meant of our author I cannot justly say, because I could never learn that he was married.” But nothing can be more improbable than the marriage of -a man who had suffered so much for a religion that prohibits the marriage of the clergy, and who was so inveterate against the reformed religion, that we are told the fable of the Nag’s-head ordination was first propagated by him.

, one of the most learned men of the sixteenth century, was born at Soraw, a town in Lower Silesia, in 1525, where his father was a merchant. He received his early education under Henry Theodore, who was superintendant of the churches of the duchy of Lignitz. He then studied principally at Wittemberg, where, among other able men, he was instructed by Melanchthon, and became conspicuous for his critical acquaintance with Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and his knowledge of the eminent authors in these respective languages. In 1549, he was invited to Northusen, an imperial town of Thuringia; and being appointed regent of the school, acquired the esteem of the senate. He was of the reformed religion, and Thomas Stangius, the last abbot of Isfeld, who was of the same sentiments, havfng, by the advice of Luther and Melanchthon, turned his abbey into a college, Neander was appointed regent, and taught there with great reputation for forty-five years, producing many able scholars. He died at Isfeld, May 6, 1595, in the seventieth year of his age.

From his works he appears to have deserved the high character he enjoyed during his life-time, and which some critics of modern times have revived. He was one of the very few in those days who turned their thoughts to the history of literature. His first publication was “Erotema Grascae Linguae, cum proefatione Philippi Melanchthonis de utilitate Grsecae linguse,” Basil, 1553, and 1565, 8vo. In a subsequent edition Neander gives a list of the works he had published, or which he had projected, and among the latter was an universal history of authors, “Pandectae variorum auctorum et scriptorum.” From the sketch he had given of the proposed contents of this work, there is great reason to regret that he did not complete it; in the second edition of his “Erotemata” he has given a specimen of what he could have done, in a dissertation on ancient libraries, on books that are lost, and on the libraries of his own time which contained the most valuable Mss. and an account of the principal Greek and Latin authors, whose works have been published, with a minuteness of description which would have reflected credit on a modern bibliographer. The last edition of his “Erotemata” was edited at Leipsic in 1589, 8vo, by his disciple, John Volland. Neander’s other works are, 2. “Graecae Linguae Tabulae,” Basil, 1564, and Wittemberg, 1581, 8vo. 3. “Linguae Hebreae Erotemata, cum veterurn Rabbinorurn testimoniis de Christo, apophthegmatibus veterum Hebreeorum et notitia de Talmude, Cabbala, &c.” Basil, 1556, 8vo, often reprinted. The preface to this work is on the same plan with that to the “Erotemata Graecae Linguae,” containing notices of the most eminent Oriental scholars, the writings of the rabbins, the editions of the Bible, &c. 4. “Aristologia Pindarica Graeco-Latina, et Sententiae novem Lyricorum,” Basil, 1556, 8vo, with prolegomena on the life of Pindar, the Greek games, &c. 5. “Aristologia GraecoLatina Euripidis; argumenta quoque singulis tragcediis praemissa sunt,” ibid. 1559, 4to. 6. “Anthologicum Graeco-Latinum,” ibid. 1556, 8vo. This is a collection of sentences from Hesiod, Theognes, and other ancient poets, with three books of similar extracts from Plato, Xenophon, Plutarch, &c. but is by no means, as some bibliographers have called it, a new edition of the Greek Anthology. 7. “Gnomonologia Graeco-Latina, sive insigniores sententiae philosophorum, poetarum, oratorum, et historicorum, ex magno Anthologio Joannis Stobaei excerptae, et in locos supra bis centum digests,” ibid. 1558, 8vo. 8. “Opus aureum et Scholasticum,” Leipsic, 1577, or, according to Fabricius, 1575, a collection somewhat like the former, but with some entire pieces, as the poem of Comthus on the rape of Helen, that of Tryphiodorus on the destruction of Troy, and three books of Quintus Calaber, which last are translated into Latin prose by Lawrence Rhodoman, one of Neander’s pupils. 9. “Sententiae Theologicae selectiores, Græco-Latinæ,” Basil, 1557, 8vo. 10. “Catechesis parva Martini Lutheri Graeco-Latina,” &c. ibid. 1564­and 1567, 8vo. 11. “Loci communes Philosophic! Graeci,” Leipsic, 1588, 8vo, a work by Volland, above-mentioned, with notes by Neander. 12. “Gnomonologia Latina ex omnibus Latinis vetustis ac probatis autoribus, recentioribus etiam aliquot, in locos communes digesta,” Leipsic, 1581, and 1590, 8vo. 13. “Phraseologia Isocratis GraecoLatina,” Basil, 1558, 8vo. 14. “Joannis Vollandi de re Poetica Graecorum libri quatuor, e noutionibus et bibliotheca Mich. Neandri collecti,” Leipsic, 1582, 1592, ancl 1613, 8vo. 15. “Argonautica, Thebaica, Troica, Ilias parva; poematia Graeca anonymi (Laur. Rhodomani) primum edita cum argumentis a Mich. Neandro,” Leipsic, 1588, 8vo. Some other works have been attributed to Neander, on less certain authority, which are mentioned by Fabricius and Baillet; and more ample information respecting him may probably be found in a work which we have not seen, a life of him by Volborth, in German, published at Gottingen in 1777. There flourished about the same time with our author, a physician of the same names, who was born in 1529, and died in 1581, whose forgotten works, however, cannot easily be mistaken for those of the learned Greek professor.

, a celebrated statesman and financier of France, brother to the preceding Louis Necker, was born at Geneva in 1732. After such an education as might qualify him for business, he was in his fifteenth year sent to Paris, where he was employed, first in the bankinghouse of Vernet, and then in that of Thelluson, of which last he became first cashier, and afterwards a partner. Upon the death of Thelluson he established a bank of his own, in partnership with Girardot and Haller, in which, we have just noticed, his brother had a concern. In 1776, when the French finances were in a disordered state, he was appointed director, and soon after comptroller-general of that department. Besides his reputation for financial knowledge and probity, which was now at its height, he had in the reign of Louis XV. adjusted some differences subsisting between the East India company and the crown in such a manner as to obtain, what rarely occurs in such cases, the approbation of both parties. His appointment to the comptrollership of the finances was hailed as an instance of enlargement of mind and liberality of sentiment, and as honourable to the reign of Lewis XVI.; Necker being the first protestant since the revocation of the edict of Nantes, who had held any important place in the French administration. Of the wisdom of his plans, in this critical situation, various opinions have been entertained, which this is not the place to examine, but it seems generally agreed that his intentions were pure, and his conduct disinterested. He refused all emolument for his services, and advanced a large sum to government from his private property, which he never drew from the public funds. His administration was generally popular, but he had enemies at court, and alter having filled the office of minister of finance for five years, he resigned. Previously to this he had published his “Compte Rendu,” in explanation of his financial system, which was followed by a work entitled “De P Administration des Finances.” This was read and circulated with great avidity, and unhappily scattered opinions on matters of government, by which the people knew not how to profit. M. Calonne, who was his successor, made an attack, before the assembly of notables, upon the veracity of his statements. Necker drew up a reply, which he transmitted to the king, who intimated that if he would forbear making it public, he should shortly be restored to his place. This he refused, and appealed to the nation by publishing his defence, which was so displeasing to the court, that he was exiled to his country-seat at St. Ouen, at the distance of 120 miles from the capital. During his retreat he wrote his work entitled “De l'Importance des Opinions R6ligieuses,” in which he speaks of religion like one who felt its power operating on his own mind, and who was fully convinced of its importance both to individuals and society. Calonne, however, and Brienne, another minister, finding it impossible to lessen the deficiencies of the revenue, thev resigned in their turn; and in August 1788, Necker was reinstated in his former post, to the apparent satisfaction of the court, as well as to the joy of the people; but the acclamations of the latter could not banish from his mind the difficulties with which he had to struggle. He was aware that de Calonne and the archbishop of Sens had both sunk under the public distress, and the impracticability of raising the necessary supplies; and he well knew that the evil was not diminished, and unless some expedient could be hit on to re-establish public credit, he foresaw his own fate must be similar to that of his predecessors. first intentions were to recal the banished members of the parliament of Paris, and to restore that body to its functions; to replenish the treasury, which he found almost empty; and to relieve the scarcity of corn under which the kingdom, and the capital in particular, then laboured. His next plan was the convocation of the states-general, which had been already promised by the king, and which, in fact, proved the immediate fore-runner of the revolution. Necker was particularly blamed for having consented that the number of members of the tiers etat should be equal to that of the nobles and clergy united, as the nobility and clergy would very naturally insist on voting by orders, while the tiers etat would contend with equal obstinacy for a plurality of voices. The consequences were therefore exactly such as had been foreseen. When the assembly of the states opened, Necker addressed them in a studied speech that pleased no party; even the tiers etat, already taught the sentiments of democracy, resented his saying that the meeting was the effect of royal favour, instead of a right. Nor was he more successful in the plan of government which he drew up, and which the king was to recommend in a speech, for this underwent so many alterations that he absented himself when it was delivered. At this time the prevalence of the democratic party was such as to induce the king to assemble troops around Paris, which measure Necker opposed, and on July 11, 1789, was therefore ordered to quit the kingdom within twenty ­four hours. This he immediately obeyed, and went to Brussels. As soon as his absence was known, the populace assembled, destroyed the Bastille, and proceeded to such other outrages, that the king thought it necessary to recal Necker to appease their fury. He accordingly returned in triumph, but his triumph was short. The populace was no longer to be flattered with declamations on their rights, nor was Necker prepared to adopt the sentiments of the democratic leaders, while it became now his duty to propose financial expedients that were obnoxious to the people. He that had just before been hailed as the friend of the people, was now considered as an aristocrat, and his personal safety was endangered. In this dilemma he desired to resign, offering to leave, as pledges for his integrity, the money which he had advanced to government, viz. about 80,000l. sterling, and his house and furniture. His resignation being accepted, he left Paris, and in his retreat he was more than once insulted by the very people whu, but a few months before, had considered him as their saviour. Gibbon, who passed four days with him at this period, says, “I could have wished to have exhibited him as a warning to any aspiring youth possessed with the demon of ambition. With all the means of private happiness in his power, he is the most miserable of human beings; the past, the present, and the future, are equally odious to him. When I suggested some domestic amusements, he answered, with a deep tone of despair, * in the state in which I am, I can feel nothing but the blast which has overthrown me.'” Shortly after this, his mind was diverted from public disappointment by the more poignant grief of domestic calamity; his wife died, after a long illness, in which he had attended her with the most affectionate assiduity. He now had recourse to hia favourite occupation of writing, and several works of different kinds were the product of his solitary hours. His principal pieces are entitled “Sur I' Administration de M. Necker, par lui-meme;” “Reflections,” &c. which were intended to benefit the king during his captivity and trial; “Du Pouvoir Exécutif,” being an essay that contained his own ideas on the executive part of government; “Dernieres Vue’s de Politiques, et de Finance,” of which the chief object was to discuss what was the best form of government France was capable of receiving. Besides these, he published a “Course of Religious Morality,” and a novel, written at the suggestion of his daughter, entitled “The fatal Consequences of a single Fault.” Though deprived of three- fourths of his fortune, he had sufficient for all his wants, and also to indulge his benevolent disposition. He had been placed on the list of emigrants, but the directory unanimously erased his name, and when the French army entered Swisserland, he was treated by the generals with every mark of respect. His talents and conduct have been alike the subject of dispute, and perhaps the time is not yet come when the latter can. be fully understood. It is well known that all who suffered by the revolution blamed Necker as a principal cause of that event; but it may be questioned whether any talents, guided by the utmost probity and wisdom, could have averted the evils that had been prepared by so long a course of infatuation. Necker passed the latter years of his life in the rational pursuits of a philosopher and a man of sound judgment and true taste, His only daughter, who married the baron de Stael, ambassador from Sweden to France, and who has made herself known to the literary world by several publications, published some “Memoirs of the Character and Private Life of her Father,” written in a high style of panegyric.

, a philosopher and divine of the Roman catholic persuasion, was born at London Sept. 10, 1713. His father possessed a considerable patrimony at Hilston, in the county of Monmouth, being of the younger or catholic branch of the Needham family, but died young, leaving only a small fortune to his four children. Our author, his eldest son, studied in the English college of Douay, where he took orders, and taught rhetoric for several years, but was particularly distinguished for his knowledge of experimental philosophy.

, an English political writer, and a model of political prostitutes, was born at Burford, in Oxfordshire, in August 1620. His mother was daughter to an inn-keeper at Burford, and Hftarried to Mr. Marchamont Needham, an Oxford student. He died in 1621, and Mrs. Marchamont, his mother, the next year re-married with Christopher Glynn, vicar of Burford;, and master of the free-school there. This gentleman, perceiving his step-son to have very pregnant parts, took him under his own tuition; and, at the age of fourteen, he was-sent to Alt-Souls college. Here, being made one of the choristers, he continued till 1637; when taking the degree of B. A. which was inconsistent with his chorister’s place, he retired to St. Mary’s Hall, and in 1640 became third under-master of Merchant Taylors’ School. This, however, he resigned in 1642, and his next employment was that of a writer to an attorney in Gray’s Inn, but this too he soon quitted, and commenced his political career in a weekly paper under the title of “Mercurius Britannicus,” on the side of parliament. This procured him popularity, apparently without respect, as he was familiarly known among the populace by the name of captain Needham, of Gray’s Inn. In this publication he pretended to communicate “the affairs of Great Britain, for the better information of the people.” It began about the middle of August 1643, and came out on Mondays in one sheet, to the“latter end of 1646, or beginning of 1647. Perhaps our author might take the Me from a tragicomedy called” Mercurius Britannicus, or the English Intelligencer," reprinted in 1641, in 4to, written by Richard Brathwayte.

, a celebrated painter of architecture, was born, as is supposed, at Antwerp, in 1570, and was a disciple of Henry Stenwyck. His favourite objects were views of the interior of churches, convents, splendid halls, &c. Of these he described the rich decorations, and every member of the architecture, with uncommon neatness of pencilling, but with such attention to the most minute parts, as must have required a vast deal of patience, and has indeed in some cases made them objects of wonder rather than of imitation. The columns, capitals, or the ornamental paiatings of the churches he represents, are all marked with the utmost precision, and finished with an exquisite touch, and a light clean pencil. It is said, however, that he sometimes took liberties with the originals by introducing objects that he thought improved them to the eye. Tins was making a pleasing picture, but was a violation of truth. As he designed figures but indifferently, other artists assisted him in these, particularly Velvet Breughel and Tenters. He died in 1651, aged eighty-one, leaving a son, called The Young, who painted the same subjects, but with inferior skill.

, a landscape painter, was born at Amsterdam in 1619, and is well known to the connoisseurs in painting, by a peculiarity of style, and also by the handling and transparence of his landscapes. His subjects are views of villages, or the huts of fishermen, oiv the banks of rivers and canals, by moon -light, generally finished 2 with a remarkable neatness of pencilling. His touch rsextremely light, free, and clean, and his imitation of nature true; particularly in the lustre of his skies about the moon, and the reflection of the beams of that luminary on the surface of the waller. His figures are usually well designed, and their actions and attitudes are well adapted to their employments and occupations. In all parts of Europe his pictures are still in good esteem, but are seldom found uninjured, owing to the simplicity of his manner, and his painting very thin. This artist died in 1683, leaving a son, Eglon Hendrick Vender Neer, who was born at Amsterdam in 1643. He was at first a pupil to his father, and afterwards of Jacob Vanloo. He had an extensive talent, and executed subjects drawn from various branches of the art, with an equal degree of merit. His portraits, in large and small, are well coloured, and touched with spirit and delicacy; in history he designed with correctness, and composed with ingenuity; his conversations have the manner, the breadth, and the finish, of Terburg; his landscape is varied and well chosen, but too much loaded, and too anxiously discriminated in the fore-grounds. The portrait of this artist, painted by himself, and inscribed “Eglon Hendric Vander Neer f. 1696,” has a place in the gallery of Florence. He died in 1703, aged sixty.

, a celebrated bishop of the catholics in Holland, known by the title of bishop of Castoria, was born at Gorcum in 1626. He entered the congregation of the oratory at Paris, and, having finished his plan of education there, went to be professor of philosophy at Saumur, then of divinity at Mechlin, and was afterwards archdeacon of Utrecht, and apostolical provincial. James de la Torre, archbishop of Utrecht, being dead, M. de Neercassel was elected in his place by the chapter of that city; but, Alexander VII. preferring M. Catz, dean of the chapter of Harlem, they agreed between them, as a means to preserve peace, that M. Catz should govern the diocese of Harlem under the title of archbishop of Philippi, and M. de Neercassel that of Utrecht, under that of bishop of Castoria. This agreement being approved by the nuncio of Brussels, they were both consecrated in the same day at Cologn, September 9, 1662; but, M. Catz dying a year after, M. de Neercassel remained sole bishop of all the catholics in Holland, of which there were above four hundred thousand. He governed them with great prudence, and, after having discharged the duties of his office in the most exemplary manner, died June 8, 1686, aged sixty, in consequence of the fatigues attending the visitation of his churches. This prelate left three tracts in Latin, the first “On reading of the Holy Scriptures;” to which he has added a dissertation “On the Interpretation of Scripture;” the second “On the worship of the Saints and the Holy Virgin;” the third, enticed “Amor Prerii tens.” This last is a treatise on the necessity of the love of God in the sacrament of penitence. The two first have been translated into French by M. le Roy, abbot of Haute- Fontaine, 2 vols. 8vo, and the third by Peter Gilbert, a Parisian, 1741, 3 vols. 12mo. The best Latin edition of “Amor Pcenitens” is that of 1684, 2 vols. 8vo; the second part of the Appendix, which is in this edition, was written by M. Arnauld, and only approved by M. de Neercassel. The above three tracts having some expressions which were thought to favour the errors of Jansenius, an attempt was made to get the “Amor Prenitens” condemned at Rome but pope Innocent XL to whom the application was addressed, declared that “the book contained sound doctrine, and the author was a holy man.”

, one of the bravest, and the most successful navai commander that 'ever appeared in the world, the fourth son of the rev. Edmund Nelson, rector of Burnham- Thorpe, in the county of Norfolk, was born in the parsonage-house of that parish, September 29, 1758. His father’s progenitors were originally settled at Hilsborough, where, in addition to a small hereditary estate, they possessed the patronage of the living, which our hero’s grandfather enjoyed for several years. His father married, in May 1749, Catherine, daughter of Maurice Suckling, D. D. prebendary of Westminster, whose grandmother had been sister to sir Robert Walpole, earl of Orford. By this lady he had eight sons and three daughters. Horatio, so called after the late earl of Orford, was placed at the high-school of Norwich, whence he was removed to NorthWalsham, both within the precincts of his native county. In his twelfth year, the dispute having taken place between the courts of St. James’s and Madrid, relative to the possession of the Falkland Islands, an armament was immediately ordered, and captain Maurice Suckling, his maternal uncle, having obtained a ship, young Nelson was, at his own earnest request, placed on his quarter-deck as a midshipman, on board the Raisonable, of 64 guns. But in consequence of the dispute being terminated, and capt. Suckling being appointed to a guard-ship in the Medway, Nelson was sent a voyage to the West Indies, and on his return he was received by his uncle on board the Triumph, then lying at Chatham, in the month of July 1772. It was observed, however, that although his voyage to the East Indies had given him a good practical knowledge of seamanship, he had acquired an absolute horror of the royal navy and it was with some difficulty that captain Suckling was enabled to reconcile him to the service; but an inherent ardour, coupled with an unabating spirit of enterprize, and utter scorn of danger, made him at length ambitious to partake in every scene where knowledge was to be obtained or glory earned.

, a learned and pious English gentleman, was born June 22, 1656, at London. He was the son of Mr. John Nelson, a considerable Turkey merchant of that city, by Delicia his wife, sister of sir Gabriel Roberts, also a London merchant. His father dying when he was but two years old, he was committed to the care of his mother, and her brother sir Gabriel, who was appointed his guardian. His first education was at St. Paul’s school, London; but, after some time, his mother wishing to have him more under her eye, took him home to her house at Dryfield, near Cirencester, in Gloucestershire, and procured the learned Dr. George Bull, then rector of Suddington in that neighbourhood, to be his tutor. As soon as he was fit for the university, he was sent to Trinity college, Cambridge, first as pensioner, and afterwards was admitted a fellow commoner. It is not improbable, that Dr. (afterwards archbishop) Tillotson was consulted on this occasion, as he was intimately acquainted with the guardian, sir Gabriel Roberts: however, it is certain that Mr. Nelson was early known to that eminent divine, and very much esteemed by him.

, a Latin poet, was born at Carthage, and flourished about the year 281, under the emperor Carus, and his sons Carinus and Numerian; the last of whom was so fond of poetry, that he contested the glory with Nemesianus, who had written a poem upon fishing and maritime affairs. We have still remaining a poem of our author, but in an imperfect state, called “Cynegeticon,” and four eclogues; they were published by Paulus Manutius in 1538; by Berthelet in 1613, and at Leyden, in 1653, with the notes of Janus Vlitias. Giraldi hath preserved a fragment of Nemesianus, which was communicated to him by Sannazarius; to whom we are obliged for all our poet’s works: for, having found them written in Gothic characters, he procured them to be put into the Roman, and then sent them to Paulus Manutius. Although this poem has acquired some reputation, it is greatly inferior to those of Oppian and Gratian upon the same subject; yet Nemesianus’s style is natural, and not without some degree of elegance. Such was the reputation of this poem in the eighth century, that it was read among the classics in the public schools, particularly in the time of Charlemagne, as appears from a letter of the celebrated Hincmar, bishop of Rheims, to his nephew, of Laon. There was another poet of the same name and century, who wrote a piece termed “Ixeutica,” published in the “Poetse Rei Venaticae,” but of far inferior merit.

was a Greek philosopher, who embraced Christianity, and was made bishop of Emesa in Phoenicia, where he was born about the year 370. We have a piece by him, entitled “De Natura Hominis;” in which he refutes the fatality of the Stoics, and the errors of the Manichees, the Apollinarists, and the Eunomians: but he espouses the opinion of Origen concerning the pre-existence of souls. Brucker calls this treatise one of the most elegant specimens, now extant, of the philosophy which prevailed among the ancient Christians. The writer relates and examines the opinions of the Greek philosophers on the subject of his dissertation with great perspicuity of thought, and correctness of language. But the treatise is chiefly curious, as it discovers a degree of acquaintance with physiology, not to be paralleled in any other writers of this period. Brucker adds, that he treats clearly concerning the use of the bile, the spleen, the kidneys, and other glands of the human body, and seems to have had some idea of the circulation of the blood. But Brucker was not aware that his knowledge of this last discovery has been shewn to be a mistake by Dr. Freind, in his “History of Physic.” This treatise was translated by Valla, and printed in 1535. Another version was afterwards made of it by Ellebodius, and printed in 1665; it is also inserted into the “Bibliotheca Patrum,” in Greek and Latin. The last and best edition was published at Oxford, in 1671, 8vo.

, a Latin historian, flourished in the time of Julius Caesar, and lived, according to St. Jerome, to the sixth year of Augustus, about the year of Rome 716. He was an Italian, if we may credit Catullus, and born at Hostilia, a small town in the territory of Verona, in Cisalpine Gaul. Ausonius, however, will have it that he was born in the Gauls; and they may both be in. the right, provided that, under the name of Gaul, is comprehended Gallia Cisalpina, which is in Italy. Leander Alberti thinks Nepos’s country was Verona; and he is sure that he was born either in that city or neighbourhood. He was the intimate friend of Cicero and Atticus, and wrote the lives of the Greek historians, as he himself attests in that of Dion, speaking of Philistus. What he says in the lives of Cato and Hannibal, proves, that he had also written the lives of the Latin captains and historians. He wrote some other excellent works, which are lost.

, founder of the congregation of priests of the Oratory in Italy, was born July 23, 1515, of a noble family at Florence. His piety and zeal acquired him uncommon reputation. He died at Rome, 1595, aged eighty, and was canonized by pope Gregory XV. 1622. The congregation founded by St. Philip de Neri was confirmed, 1574, by pope Gregory XIII. and took the name of the Oratory, because the original assemblies, which gave rise to its establishment, were held in an oratory of St. Jerome’s church at Rome but it differs from the congregation of the Oratory founded by cardinal de Berulle, in France. Its members take no vows; their general governs but three years; their office is to deliver such instructions every day in their church as are suited to all capacities. Each institution has produced great numbers of men who have been celebrated for their learning, and services to the Romish church. It was at St. Philip de Neri’s solicitation that cardinal Baronius, who had entered his congregation, wrote his Ecclesiastical Annals.

, a celebrated historian, was born at Florence in 1485, of one of the most conspicuous families of that city, mentioned by Dante, in the fifteenth canto ic Del Paradiso," where, speaking of the parsimony of the Florentines, he gives two instances of it in two of the most illustrious families of his days, the Nerli and the Vecchi:

, a non-conformist divine of considerable learning, was born at North Cowes, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, Dec. 26, 1621. He was educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he resided seven years, and appears to have taken orders, as he preached soon after in various parts of his native county, and in 1650 succeeded Dr. Winter in the valuable living of Cottingham, near Hull. He appears also to have been for some years a lecturer at Leeds. In 1662 he was ejected for non-conformity, and after preaching occasionally in Yorkshire, for which he incurred the penalties of the law, he removed to London in 1675, and there preached privately for thirty years, to a congregation in Salisbury-court, Fleet-street. He died on his birth-day, Dec. 26, 1705, aged eighty-four, and was interred in the dissenters’ burying-ground, Bunhill Fields. He published a considerable variety of small treatises, mostly of the practical, and some of the controversial kind, the latter against popery and Arminianism; but the work for which he is best known, is his “History and Mystery of the Old and New Testament, logically discussed, and theologically improved,” 1690,4 vols. fol. To this Matthew Henry, in compiling his “Exposition,” is thought to owe considerable obligations. The style is indifferent, but, as Granger allows, “the reader will find some things well worth his notice.”

was born in 1056, at Bielzier; and, in his twenty-ninth year, assumed a monastic habit, and took the name of Nestor. At Kiof he made a considerable proficiency in the Greek language, but seems to have formed his style and manner rather from Byzantine historians, Cedrenus, Zona' as, and Syncellus, than from the ancient classics. The time of Nestor’s death is not ascertained; but he is supposed to have lived to an advanced age, and to have died about 1115. His great work is his “Chronicle;” to which he has prefixed an introduction, which, after a short sketch of the early state of the world, taken from the Byzantine writers, contains a geographical description of Russia and the adjacent countries; an account of the Sclavonian nations, their manners, their emigrations from the banks of the Danube, their dispersion, and settlement in several countries, in which their descendants are now established. He then enters upon a chronological series of the Russian annals, from the year 858 to about 1113. His style is simple and unadorned, such as suits a mere recorder of facts but his chronological exactness, though it renders his narrative dry and tedious, contributes to ascertain the aera and authenticity of the events which he relates. It is remarkable, that an author of such importance, whose name frequently occurs in the early Russian books, should have remained in obscurity above 600 years; and been scarcely known to his modern countrymen, the origin and actions of whose ancestors he records with such circumstantial exactness. A copy of his “Chronicle” was given, in 1668, by prince Radzivil, to the library of Konigsburgh, where it lay unnoticed until Peter the Great, in his passage through that town, ordered a transcript of it to be sent to Petersburg. But it still was not known as the performance of Nestor; for, when Muller, in 1732, published the first part of a German translation, he mentioned it as the work of the abbot Theodosius of Kiof; an error, which arose from the following circumstance: the ingenious editor, not being at that time sufficiently acquainted with the Sclavonian tongue, employed an interpreter, who, by mistaking a letter in the title, supposed it to have been written by a person whose name was Theodosius. This ridiculous blunder was soon circulated, and copied by many foreign writers, even long after it had been candidly acknowledged and corrected by Muller.

, from whom the sect of the Nestorians derive their name, was born in Germanica, a city of Syria, in the fifth century. He was educated and baptized at Antioch, and soon after the latter ceremony withdrew himself to a monastery in the suburbs of that city. When he had received the order of priesthood, and began to preach, he acquired so much celebrity by his eloquence and unspotted life, that in the year 429 the emperor Theodosius appointed him to the bishopric of Constantinople, at that time the second see in the Christian church. He had not been long in this office before he began to manifest an extraordinary zeal for the extirpation of heretics, and not above five days after his consecration, attempted to demolish the church in which the Arians secretly held their assemblies. In this attempt he succeeded so far, that the Brians, grown desperate, set fire to the church themselves, and with it burnt some adjoining houses. This fire excited great commotions in the city, and Nestorius was ever afterwards called an incendiary. From the Arians he turned against the Novatians, but was interrupted in this attack by the emperor. He then began to persecute those Christians of Asia, Lydia, and Caria, who celebrated the feast of Easter upon the 14th day of the moon; and for this unimportant deviation from the catholic practice, many of these people were murdered by his agents at Miletum and at Sardis. The time, however, was now come when he was to suffer by a similar spirit, for holding the opinion that “the virgin Mary cannot with propriety be called the mother of God.” The people being accustomed to hear this expression, were much inflamed against their bishop, as if his meaning had been that Jesus was a mere man. For this he was condemned in the council of Ephesus, deprived of his see, banished to Tarsus in the year 435, whence he led a wandering life, until death, in the year 439, released him from farther persecution. He appears to have been unjustly condemned, as he maintained in express terms, that the Word was united to the human nature in Jesus Christ in the most strict and intimate sense possible; that these two natures, in this state of union, make but one Christ, and one person; that the properties of the Divine and human natures may both be attributed to this person; and that Jesus Christ may be said to have been born of a virgin, to have suffered and died: but he never would admit that God could be said to have been born, to have suffered, or to have died. He was not, however, heard in his own defence, nor allowed to explain his doctrine. The zealous Cyril of Alexandria (see Cyril) was one of his greatest enemies, and Barsumas, bishop of Nisibis^ one of the chief promoters of his doctrines, and the co-founder of the sect. In the tenth century the Nestorians in Chaldsea, whence they are sometimes called Chaldaeans, extended their spiritual conquest beyond mount Imaus, and introduced the Christian religion into Tartary, properly so called, and especially into that country called Karit, and bordering on the northern part of China. The prince f that country, whom the Nestorians converted to the Christian faith, assumed, according to the vulgar tradition, the name of John, after his baptism, to which he added the surname of Presbyter, from a principle of modesty; whence it is said, his successors were each of them called Prester John, until the time of Jenghis Khan. But Mosheim observes, that the famous Prester John did not begin to reign in that part of Asia before the conclusion of the eleventh century. The Nestorians formed so considerable a body of Christians, that the missionaries of Rome were industrious in their endeavours to reduce them under the papal yoke. Innocent IV. in 1246, and Nicolas IV. in 1278, used their utmost efforts for this purpose, but without success. Till the time of pope Julius III. the Nestorians acknowledged but one patriarch, who resided first at Bagdat, and afterwards at Mousul; but a division arising among them in 1551, the patriarchate became divided, at least for a time, and a new patriarch was consecrated by that pope, whose successors fixed their residence in the city of Ormus, in the mountainous part of Persia, where they still continue distinguished by the name of Simeon; and so far down as the seventeenth century, these patriarchs persevered in their communion with the church of Rome, but seem at present to have withdrawn themselves from it. The great Nestorian pontiffs, who form the opposite party, and look with a hostile eye on this little patriarch, have, since 1559, been distinguished by the general denomination of Elias, and reside constantly in the city of Mousul. Their spiritual dominion is very extensive, takes in a great part of Asia, and comprehends also within its circuit the Arabian Nestorians, and also the Christians of St. Thomas, who dwell along the coast of Malabar. It is observed, to the honour of the Nestorians, that of all the Christian societies established in the East, they have been the most careful and successful in avoiding a multitude of superstitious opinions and practices that have infected the Greek and Latin churches* About the middle of the seventeenth century the Romish missionaries gained over to their communion a small number of Nestorians, whom they formed into a congregation or church, the patriarchs or bishops of which reside in the city of Amida, or Diarbekir, and all assume the denomination of Joseph. Nevertheless, the Nestorians in general persevere, to our own times, in their refusal to enter into the communion of the Romish church, notwithstanding the earnest entreaties and alluring offers that have been made by the pope’s legate to conquer their inflexible constancy.

, an eminent painter, was born in 1639, at Prague in Bohemia. His father dying in the Polish service, in which he was an engineer, his mother was constrained, on account of the catholic religion, which she professed, to depart suddenly from Prague with her three sons, of whom Gaspard was the youngest* At some leagues from the town she stopped at a castle, which wafc afterwards besieged; and Gaspard’s two brothers were famished to death. The mother, apprehensive of the same fate, found means to escape in the night-time out of the castle, and with her son in her amis reached Arnheim, ifo Guelderland, where she met with some relief to support herself and breed op her son. A physician, named Tutkens, a man of wealth and humanity, became the patron of Netscher, and put him to school, with the view of educating him to his own profession; but Netscher’s decided turn for the art he afterwards practised, induced his patron to place him with a glazier to learn to draw, this being the only person at Arnheim who could give him any instructions. As soon as tie had iearned all this man could teach, he went to Deventer, to a painter, whose name was Gerhard Terburg, an able artist, and burgomaster of the town, under whom he acquired a great command of his pencil and, going to Holland, worked there a long time for the picture-merchants, who, abusing his easiness, paid him very little for his pieces, which they sold at a good price.

, another son of Gaspard, who was born at the Hague in 1670, also practised the art of painting under the tuition of his father, whose works he carefully studied and though he never was able to equal them, yet he arrived at no mean degree of skill in his profession. His principal practice was in portraiture, in which he was much encouraged; but being of an infirm habit of constitution, he was much interrupted in his labours, and died in 1722, at the age of fifty-two.

, a physician and miscellaneous writer, the son of John Nettleton, was born in 1683, at Dewsbury, and settled at Halifax, in Yorkshire, where he practised physic for several years with great success, having taken the degree of M. D. at Utrecht. He and Mr. West, of Underbank, near Penniston, in Yorkshire, were the first who instructed professor Sanderson in the principles of mathematics; and Dr. Nettleton used to say, that the scholar soon became more knowing than his master. We find several communications from Dr. Nettleton in the Philosophical Transactions, as “An account of the height of the Barometer at different elevations above the surface of the earth;” and two papers on the small-pox. It appears that he had inoculated sixty-one persons, when the whole amount of persons inoculated by other practitioners was only one hundred and twenty-one. In 1729, he published a pamphlet, entitled “Some thoughts concerning virtue and happiness, in a letter to a clergyman,” 8vo, which he afterwards much enlarged. It was reprinted at London in 1736 and 1751, both in small octavo, but the former of these is the most valuable, because it had the author’s finishing hand. The design is to shew that happiness is the end of all our actions; but that it must be founded on virtue, which is not only the support and ornament of society, but yields the greatest pleasure, both in its immediate exercise, and in its consequence and effects. Dr. Nettleton married, in March 1708, Elizabeth Cotton, of Haigh-hall, by whom he had several children. He died Jan. 9, 1742, at Halifax, and was buried at Dewsbury, with a Latin epitaph on the south wall of the church. To the account of his publications, not noticed in our authority, we may add his thesis on taking his degree, “Disput. de Inflammatione,” Utrecht, 1706; and his “Account of the success of inoculating the Smallpox.” Lond. 1722, 4to; neither of which his biographer appears to have seen.

, an eminent chemist, the son of an apothecary, was born at Zullichau, in the duchy of Crossen, July 11, 1682. Caspar was educated under his father, and commenced practice at Unruhstadt, in Poland; but after a short residence there, he went to Berlin in 1705, and was employed several years as traveller for the pharmaceutic establishment of the king of Prussia. In consequence of the ability which he manifested in the performance of this duty, the king sent him to prosecute his studies at the university of Halle, and subsequently defrayed the expences of a journey, for the purpose of acquiring chemical information. He commenced this chemical tour in 1711 by visiting the mines of Germany and thence went to Holland, where he profited by the instructions of the celebrated Boerhaave. He then visited England, and while here had the misfortune to lose his royal patron, Frederick I., by death. His talents and character, however, soon afforded him relief from this temporary embarrassment for, on his return to the continent he was detained at Franeker by Cyprianus, who employed him in the execution of many chemical experiments; and he was at the same time invited to Berlin. At that time, however, he preferred accompanying George I., king of England, to Hanover, whither he went in 1716. He subsequently visited Berlin, for the purpose of settling some private affairs, where he obtained the friendship of Stahl, through whose influence at court he was again sent on a tour of chemical investigation, through England, France, and Italy, where he was introduced to all the celebrated chemists of the day. On his return to Berlin, he was appointed apothecary to the court and in 1723, when the king instituted the Royal College of Medicine and Surgery, he was nominated professor of practical chemistry, and was elected a member of that body in the following year. In 1725, he was chosen a fellow of the Royal Society of London; and in 1727, was honoured with the degree of M. D. by the university of Halle. In the course of the same year, he travelled through Silesia and Moravia to Vienna; and on his return through Bohemia he visited the baths of Tb'plitz, and examined the mines, in passing by the way of Dresden and Freyberg, with all the attention of a chemical philosopher.

, an English divine, was born at Wotton, in the parish of Stanton Lacy, near Lud'low in Shropshire, in 1694, and was educated at St. John’s college, Cambridge, where he took his degree of B. A. in 1714. He appears then to have left college, and became schoolmaster of Spalding, and minor-canon of Peterborough, where he was a joint-founder of “The Gentleman’s Society,” and became its secretary. He was afterwards prebendary of Lincoln, archdeacon of Huntingdon in 1747, and rector of Alwalton in Huntingdonshire, where he died Feb. 3, 1757, aged sixty-three. There is an inscription to his memory against the West wall of the North transept, in which he is styled D. D. In 1727, he communicated to the Spalding Society “An Essay on the invention of Printing and our first Printers,” and bishop Rennet’s donation of books to Peterborough cathedral. In the first leaf of the catalogue (3 vols. in folio, written neatly in the bishop’s own hand) is this motto “Upon the dung-­hill was found a pearl. Index librorurn aliquot vetustiss. quos in commune bonum congessit W. K. dec. Petriburg. 1712.” These books are kept with dean Lockyer’s, in the library of Lady-chapel, behind the high altar, in deal presses, open to the vergers and sextons. In a late repair of this church, which is one of the noblest monuments of our early architecture, this benefactor’s tomb-stone was thrust and half-covered behind the altar, and nothing marks the place of his interment. Mr. Neve was chaplain to, and patronised by Dr. Thomas, bishop of Lincoln, and published one sermon, being his first visitation-sermon, entitled “Teaching with Authority;” the text Matth. vii. 28, 29. Dr. Neve bore an excellent character for learning and personal worth. He married, for his second wife, Christina, a daughter of the rev. Mr. Greene, of Drinkstone, near Bury, Suffolk, and sister to lady Davers of Rushbrook. His son Timothy was born at Spalding, Oct. 12, 1724, and was elected scholar of Corpus Christi college, Oxford, where he proceeded M. A. 1744; and in 1747 was elected fellow. In 1753, he took his degree of B. D. and that of D. D. in 1758, and on being presented by the college to the rectory of Geddington in Oxfordshire, resigned his fellowship in 1762. He was also presented by Dr. Green, bishop of Lincoln, to the rectory of Middleton Btoney, in the same county. On the death of Dr. Randolph (father to the late bishop of London), in 1783, he was elected Margaret professor of divinity, at Oxford, and was installed prebendary of Worcester in April of that year. He was early a member of the Literary Society of Spalding. He died at Oxford Jan. 1, 1798, aged seventy-four, leaving a wife and two daughters.

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

, dean of Canterbury, and an eminent benefactor to Trinity college, Cambridge, brother to the preceding, was born in Canterbury, to which city his father, who had spent his younger days at court, had, in his declining years, retired. He entered early at Pembroke-hall, Cambridge, of which he was elected a fellow in November 1570. In 1580, he was senior proctor of the university, and in 1582 was presented to the mastership of Magdalen -college by the then patron of that office, Thomas lord Howard, first earl of Suffolk. In 1587, the queen, to whom he was chaplain, conferred on him the second prebend in the church of Ely, at which time he was also rector of Doddington cum Marchj in the isle of Ely. In 158S, he was elected vice-chancellor of the University, but relinquished the office, in the following year, to Dr. Preston, master of Trinity-hall. While he presided in this station, he took the degree of D. D. During his being vice-chancellor, it is only recorded, that he had occasion to repress the freedoms which two of the university preachers took when speaking in their sermons of the established church.

, a republican writer, the second son of sir Henry Nevile, of Billingbeare, in Berkshire, was born in 1620, and became a commoner of Merton college, Oxford, in 1635, but appears to have left it without taking a degree. In the beginning of the rebellion, he travelled on the continent, but returned in 1645, and became an active agent for republicanism. In November 1651, he was elected one of the council of state, but when he found Cromwell aspiring to the crown, under the pretence of a protectorate, he retired. He caballed with Harrington and others for their imaginary commonwealth until the Restoration, when he was taken into custody, but soon after released. From this time he lived privately until his death, Sept. 20, 1694, at Warfi eld in Berkshire. The only one of his publications worthy of notice was, his “Plato Redivivus: or a Dialogue concerning Government,” 168 I, which Mr. Hollis, in his republican zeal, reprinted in 1763. His other works were, 1. “The Parliament of Ladies,” 1647, 4to, a kind of banter on sir Henry Blount, for certain loose sentiments respecting the female sex. 2. “Shuffling, cutting, and dealing, in a game at Piquet,” 1659, 4to, another satire on Cromwell. 3. “The Isle of Pines: or a late discovery of a fourth island near Terra australis incognita, by Hen. Cornelius Van Sloetten,” Lond. 1668, 4to. He was also the editor of Machiavel’s works, and the defender of his principles. Wood says he wrote some poems, inserted in various collections. One in Mr. Nichols’s collection, vol. VII. p. 1, gives us no very favourable idea of his genius or decency.

, commonly known by his Latin name of Gul. Neubrigensis, an early English historian, was born at Bridlington in Yorkshire, in the first year of king Stephen’s reign, 1136, and educated in the abbey of Newborough, of which he became a member. Besides the name of Neubrigensis, which he derived from his abbey, we find him called Parvus, or “Little;” but whether this was a surname or nickname, is somewhat dubious. Tanner notices him under the name of Petyt; and Nicolson says, that his true surname was Little; and that he calls himself Petit, or Parvus. Hearne allows that others called him so but does not remember where he styles himself so. Mr. Denne thinks it remarkable, that with allusion to himself, he twice uses the word “Parvitas,” thereby insinuating how little qualified he was to discharge the office of a historiographer, or to hastily form a judgment of the actions of so great a man as Becket.

, M. A. son of a worthy clergy, man in Herefordshire, and great grandson, by his mother’s side, to the famous Spenser, was born in 1675, and was, for some time, educated at Corpus Christi college, Oxford; but we do not find his name among the Graduates. He was afterwards chaplain to the second duke of Richmond, and rector of Stopham in Sussex, in 1734, when he published a translation of “Velleius Paterculus.” For some time before this he lived at Hackney, in rather distressed circumstances. So early as 1718, he was author of an excellent poem, under the title of “Bibliotheca,” which is preserved in the third volume of Nichols’s “Select Collection of Miscellany Poems,” and on which Dr. Warton thinks Pope must have formed his goddess Dulness, in the “Dunciad.” Besides the many productions of Dr. Newcomb reprinted in that collection, he was author of several poems of merit; particularly of “The last Judgment of Men and AngeU, in twelve books, after the manner of Milton,” 1723, folio, adorned with a fine metzotinto portrait; of another, “To her late majesty queen Anne, upon the Peace of Utrecht;” “An Ode to the memory of Mr. Rowe;” and another, “To the memory of the countess of Berkeley.” He also translated several of Addison’s Latin poems, and Philips’s “Ode to Mr. St. John.”

, an eminent prelate, descended from a non-conformist family, was born at Barton-le-Clay, in Bedfordshire, April 10, 1729, and educated at Abingdon school. In 1745 he entered of Pembroke college, Oxford, but removed some time after to Hertford college, where he took his degree of M. A. in 1753, and became a tutor of considerable eminence. Among other pupils who preserved a high respect for his memory, was the late hon. Charles James Fox. In 1765 he took his degrees of B. D. and D. D. and was appointed chaplain to the earl of Hertford, then lord lieutenant of Ireland, who conferred on him, withiti a year, the see of Dromore. In 1775, he was translated to Ossoryj and in 1778 produced his first workj “An Harmony of the Gospels,” which involved him in a controversy with Dr. Priestley respecting the duration of our Lord’s ministry, Dr. Priestley confining it to one year, while the bishop extended its duration to three years and a half. In 1779 Dr. Newcome was translated to the see of Waterford; and in 1782 published “Observations on our Lord’s conduct as a divine Instructor, and on the excellence of his moral character.” This was followed, ia 1785, by “An attempt towards an improved version, a metrical arrangement, and an explanation of the Twelve Minor Prophets,” 4to, and in 1788, by “An attempt towards an improved version, a metrical arrangement, and an explanation of the prophet Ezekiel,” 4to. He published also about the same time “A Review of the chief difficulties in the Gospel history respecting our Lord’s Resurrection,” 4to, the purpose of which was to correct some errors in his “Harmony.” In 1792 he published at Dublin one of his most useful works, “Art historical view of the English Biblical translations; the expediency of revising by authority our present translation; and the means of executing such a work,” 8vo. Concerning the latter part of this scheme there are many differences of opinion, and in the learned prelate’s zeal to effect a new translation, he is thought, both in this and his former publications, to have been too general in his strictures on the old. He lived, however, to witness Dr. Geddes’s abortive attempt towards a new translation, and the danger of such a work falling into improper hands. For the historical part, the bishop is chiefly indebted to Lewis, but his arrangement is better, and his list of editions more easily to be consulted, and therefore more useful. Except a very valuable Charge, this was the last of Dr. Newcorae’s publications which appeared in his life-time. In January 1795 he was translated to the archbishopric of Armagh. He died at his house in St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, Jan. 11, 1800, in the seventy-first year of his age; and was interred in the new chapel of Trinity college. Soon after his death was published his “Attempt towards revising our English Translation of the Greek Scriptures, or the New Covenant of Jesus Christ,” &c. The writer of his life in the Cyclopaedia says that this work “has been made the basis of an” Improved Version of the New Testament, published by a Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, &c.“much to the mortification, as we have heard, of some of the archbishop’s relatives;” nor will our readers fail to sympathize with them, when they are told that this “Improved version” is that which has been so ably and justly censured and exposed by the Rev. Edward Nares, in his “Remarks on the Version of the New Testament lately edited by the Unitarians,” &c. 1810, 8vo. Archbishop Newcome’s interleaved Bible, in four volumes folio, is in the library at Lambeth-palace. He was, unquestionably, an excellent scholar, and well-qualified for biblical criticism; but either his zeal for a new version, or his views of liberality, led him to give too much encouragement to the attempts of those witb whom he never could have cordially agreed, and who seem to consider every deviation from what the majority hold sacred, as an improvement.

, of Arbury in Warwickshire, an elegant scholar, and an eminent benefactor to the university of Oxford, was born May 30, 1719. He was the seventh and youngest son of sir Richard Newdigate, bart. by his second lady Elizabeth, daughter of sir Roger Twisden, bart. In his sixteenth year he succeeded, in title and estate, his elder brother, sir Edward. Sir Roger was at that time a king’s scholar at Westminster school, where by his own choice he continued three years, and then entered of University college, Oxford. Here he was created M. A. in May 1738, and afterwards set out on one of those continental tours which his classical knowledge and fine taste enabled him to turn to the best advantage, by accumulating a vast collection of monumental antiquities, and drawings of ancient ruins, buildings, statues, &c. Of these last there are two ample folios in his library at Arbury, the produce of his indefatigable and accurate pencil. He also brought home some curious antique marbles and vases of exquisite workmanship (some of which are engraved in Piranesi, where his name occurs several times), casts from the most admired statues at Rome and Florence, and copies of many celebrated paintings, particularly a fine one of the famous Transfiguration, by Raphael, which adorns the magnificent saloon at Arbury.

, a Dutch author, was the son of a carpenter at Dimmermeer, near Amsterdam, and was born in 1764. In his childhood he evinced extraordinary proofs of genius, and at the age of ten years produced some excellent pieces of poetry, and was, even then, able to solve problems in mathematics without having had any instruction from a master. The Batavian government appointed him one of the commissioners of longitude, and he was successively professor of mathematics and philosophy at Utrecht and Amsterdam. He died in 1794. He was author of several works, among which may be mentioned the following: 1. Poems in the Dutch language; 2. A tract on the means of enlightening a People; 3. On the general utility of the Mathematics; 4. Of the System of Lavoisier; and 5. A treatise on Navigation. To these may be added treatises on the form of the globe on the course of comets, and the uncertainty of their return and on the method of ascertaining the latitude at sea.

, an eminent English mathematician and divine, the grandson of John Newton, of Axmouth, in Devonshire, and the son of Humphrey Newton of Oundle, in Northamptonshire, was born at Oundle in 1622, and was entered a commoner of St. Edmund’s hall, Oxford, in 1637. He took the degree of B. A. in 1641; and the year following, was created master, in precedence to several gentlemen that belonged to the king and court, then residing in the university, on account of his distinguished talents in the higher branches of science. His genius being inclined to astronomy and the mathematics, he made great proficiency in these sciences, which he found of service during the times of the usurpation, when he continued stedfest to his legal sovereign. After the restoration he was created D. D. at Oxford, Sept. 1661, was made one of the king’s chaplains, and rector of Ross, in Herefordshire, in the place of Mr. John Toombes, ejected for non-conformity. He held this living till his death, which happened at Ross, Dec. 25, 1678. Mr. Wood gives him the character of a capricious and humoursome person; but whatever may be in this, his writings are sufficient monuments of his genius and skill in the mathematics. These are, 1. “Astronomia Britannica, &c. in three parts,” 1656, 4to. 2. “Help to Calculation; with tables of declination, ascension, &c.” 1657, 4to. 3. “Trigonometria Britannica, in two books,” 1658, folio one composed by our author, and the other translated from the Latin of Henry Gellibrand. 4, “Chiliades centum Logarithmorum,” printed with, 5. “Geometrical Trigonometry,” 1659. 6. “Mathematical Elements, three parts,” 1660, 4to. 7. “A perpetual Diary, or Almanac,” 1662. 8. “Description of the use of the Carpenter’s Rule,” 1667. 9. “Ephemerides, shewing the Interest and Rate of Money at six per cent.” &c. 1667. 10. “Chiliades centum Logarithmorum, et tabula partium proportionalium,” 1667. 11. “The Rule of Interest, or the case of Decimal Fractions, &c. part II.” 1668, 8vo. 12. “School-Pastime for young Children,” &c. 1669, 8vo. 13. “Art of practical Gauging,” &c. 1669, 14. “Introduction to the art of Rhetoric,” 1671. 15. “The art of Natural Arithmetic, in whole numbers, and fractions vulgar and decimal,” 1671, 8vo. 16. “The English Academy,” 1677, 8vo. 17. “Cosmography.” 18. “Introduction to Astronomy.” 19. “Introduction to Geography,” 1678, 8vo.

, an English clergyman, whose extraordinary history has long been before the public, was born in London, July 24, 1725. His father was many years master of a ship in the Mediterranean trade, and in 1748 went out as governor of York Fort, in Hudson’s Bay, where he died in 1750. His mother, who died when he was only seven years old, had given him such religious instruction as suited his capacity, which was apt and good. By school education he profited little. He appears indeed to have been at a school at Stratford, in Essex, about two years, and acquired some knowledge of the L&tin, but his master’s method being too precipitate, he soon lost all he had learned. At the age of eleven he was taken to sea by his father, and before 1742 had made several voyages, at considerable intervals, which were chiefly spent in the country, excepting a few months in his fifteenth year, when he was placed with a very advantageous prospect at Alicant, where, as he says, “he might have done well, if he had behaved well.” For about two years something like religious reformation appeared in him, but he adds, “it was a poor religion, and only tended to make him gloomy, stupid, unsocial, and useless;” and from this he was seduced into the contrary extreme, by perusing some of the writings of Shaftesbury, which he found in a petty shop at Middleburgh, in Holland. In 1742, when his father proposed to leave off going to sea, he endeavoured to provide his son with a situation, and an eligible one occurred of his going to Jamaica; but happening to meet with the lady who became afterwards his wife, he abhorred the thought of living from her at such a distance as Jamaica, and that perhaps for four or five years, and therefore absented himself on a visit to Kent, until the ship sailed without him. His father, though highly displeased, became reconciled, and in a little time Mr. Newton sailed with a friend of his father’s to Venice. In this voyage, being a common sailor, and exposed to the company of some profligate comrades, he began to relax from the regularity which he had preserved in a certain degree, for more than two years; and in this and his subsequent voyages, represents himself as extremely thoughtless, vi-r cious, and abandoned. The consequences of this conduct led to those adventures which he has so interestingly de-r tailed in his life, published in 1764, and to which we must refer as to a work that does not admit of a satisfactory abridgment. If his vices were great, his sufferings seem also to have amounted to the extremes of misery and disgrace; but at length, about 1747, he was rescued by his father from this state of wretchedness, and in 1748, appears to have been for the first time awakened to a proper sense of his past life, which gradually improved into a real reformation. After this he was employed in ships concerned in the African slave-trade, and acquired that knowledge which many years afterwards enabled him to contribute, by his evidenoe before parliament, to the abo-i lition of that detestable traffic.

, the most splendid genius that has yet adorned human nature, and by universal consent placed at the head of mathematics and of science, was born on Christmas-day, O. S. 1642, at Woolsthorpe, in the parish of Colsterworth, in the county of Lincoln. When born he was so little, that his mother used to say he might have been put into a quart mug, and so unlikely to live, that two women who were sent to lady Pakenham’s, at North Witham, for something for him, did not expect to find him alive at their return. He was born near three months after the death of his father, who was descended from the eldest branch of the family of sir John Newton, bart. and was lord of the manor of Woolsthorpe. The family came originally from Newton, in the county of Lancaster, from which, probably, they took their name. His mother was Hannah Ayscough, of an ancient and honourable family in the county of Lincoln. She was married a second time to the rev. Barnabas Smith, rector of North Witham, a rich old bachelor, and had by him a son and two daughters. Previously, however, to her marriage, she settled some land upon Isaac. He went to two little day-schools at Skillington and Stoke till he was twelve years old, when he was sent to the great school at Grantham, under Mr. Stokes, who had the character of being a very good schoolmaster. While at Grantham he boarded in the house of Mr. Clark, an apothecary, whose brother was at that time usher of the school.

, an eminent English prelate, was born at Lichfield Jan. 1, 1704, N. S. His father, John Newton, was a considerable brandy and cyder merchant, a man of much industry and integrity; his mother was the daughter of Mr. Rhodes, a clergyman, and died when this, ber only son, was about a year old. He received the first part of his education in the free-school of Lichfield, which, at that time flourished greatly under the direction of Mr. Hunter, and at all times has sent forth several persons of eminence, from bishop Smalridge to Dr. Johnson When he was of an age to be sent out into the world, his father married a second wife, the daughter of the rev. Mr. Trebeck of Worcester, and sister to Dr. Trebeck, the first rector of St. George’s, Hanover-square; and by the advice of Pr. Trebeck, and the encouragement of bishop Smalrulge, young Newton was removed from Lichfield to Westminster school in 1717. Here he was placed at the lower- end of the fourth form, and the year following became a king’s scholar, being admitted into the college by the nomination of bishop Smalridge.

, a celebrated grammarian, poet, and physician, flourished in the 160th olympiad, about 140 B. C. in the reign of Attains; or, according to some, in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphia. Suidas tells us, that he was the son of Xenophon of Colophon, a town in Ionia and observes, that, according to others, he was a native of Ætolia but, if we may believe Nicander himself, he was born in the neighbourhood of the temple of Apollo, at Claros, a little town in Ionia, near Colophon yet the name of his father was Damphæus. He was called an Ætolian, only because he lived many years in that country, and wrote a history of it. A great number of writings are ascribed to him, of which we have remaining only two: one entitled “Theriaca;” describing, in verse, the accidents which attend wounds made by venomoug beasts, with the proper remedies; the other, “Alexipharmaca” in which he treats of poisons and their antiuotes, or counter-poisons these are both excellent poems. Demetrius Phalereus, Theon, Plutarch, and Diphilus of Laodicea, wrote commentaries upon the first; and we have still extant very learned Greek “Scholia” upon both, the author of which is not known; though Vossius imagines they were made by Diphilus just mentioned. He wrote also “Ophiaca,” upon serpents; “Hyacinthia,' 1 a collection of remedies, and a commentary upon the” Prognostics of Hippocrates“in verse. The Scholiast of Nicander cites the two first of these, and Suidas mentions two others. Athenseus also cites, in several places, some poetical works of our author upon agriculture, called his” Georgics,“which were known likewise to Curio. Besides these he composed five books of” Metamorphoses,“some verses of which are copied by Tzetzes, and the” Metamorphoses“of Antonius Liberalis were apparently taken from those of Nicander. He composed also several historical works, among which” The History of Colophon,“his birth-place, is cited by Athenaeus we are told likewise of his history of Ætolia, Bœotia, and Thebes, and of” A History and description of Europe in general.“He was undoubtedly an author of merit, and deserves those eulogiums which are given of him in some epigrams in the” Anthologia.“This Nicander has been confounded with Nicander the grammarian of Thyatira, by Stephanus Byzantius: and Vossius, in giving the titles of the books written by both these Nicanders, does not distinguish them very clearly. Merian, in his essay on the influence of the sciences on poetry (in the Memoirs of the royal academy of Berlin for 1776), mentions Nicander to show the antipathy that there is between the language of poetry and the subjects which he treated. He considers Nicander as a therapeutic bard, who versified for the apothecaries, a grinder of anecdotes, who sung of scorpions, toads, and spiders. The” Theriaca“and” Alexipharmaca“are inserted in the Corp. Poet. Greec. Of separate editions, the best is that of Aldus, 1522; of the” Theriaca,“that of Bandini, 1764, 8yo, and of the” Alexipharmaca," that of Schneider, 1792, 8vo.

, a very eminent contributor to the restoration of literature, and founder of the library of St. Mark at Florence, was the son of Bartholomew Nicolas, a merchant of Florence, and was born in 1363. He was intended, and as some say, for a time engaged, in mercantile pursuits, but preferring the cultivation of the liberal arts, he placed himself, on the death of his father, under Marsigli, or Marsilius, a scholar of considerable fame. So ardent was his love of learning, that when he had attained a competent knowledge of the Latin language, he went to Padua, for the express purpose of transcribing the compositions of Petrarch. To this laborious task he was compelled, according to Tiraboschi, by the mediocrity of his fortune, which prevented his purchasing manuscripts of any great value. His fortune, however, such as it was, and his whole time, he devoted to the collection of manuscripts or making transcripts, and accumulated about eight hundred volumes of Greek, Roman, and oriental authors. What he copied, was executed with great accuracy, and he was one of the first who corrected the defects and arranged the text of the manuscripts which he had an opportunity of studying. His house was the constant resort of scholars and students, who had free access to his library, and to many of whom he was a liberal patron. Poggio Bracciolini valued him highly in this character, and on Niccoli’s death, Jan. 23, 1437, published a funeral oration, in which he celebrated his prudence, benevolence, fortitude, &c. He was not, however, without his faults, and had disgusted some eminent scholars of his time by his sarcastic wit and irritability of temper. By his will he directed that his library should be devoted to the use of the public, and appointed sixteen curators, among whom was Cosmo de Medici; but as he died in a state of insolvency, this legacy would have been lost, had not Cosmo offered to pay his debts on condition of obtaining a right to dispose of the books. This being agreed to, he deposjted them in the Dominican monastery of St. Mark at Florence. This collection was the foundation of another celebrated library in Florence, known by the name of the Bibliotheca Marciana, or library of St. Mark, which is yet open to the inspection of the learned, at the distance of three centuries. It does not appear that he was the author of any literary work, except a short treatise on the orthography of the Latin language, in which he attempted to settle various disputed points on this subject, by the authority of ancient inscriptions.

, a Greek historian, was born about the close of the thirteenth century, and flourished in the fourteenth, under the emperors Andronicus, John Palacologus, and John Cantacuzenus. He was a great favourite of the elder Andronicus, who made him librarian of the church of Constantinople, and sent him ambassador to the prince of Servia. He accompanied Andronicus in his misfortunes, and attended at his death; after which he repaired to the court of the younger Andronicus, where he appears to have been well received; and it is certain, that, by his influence over the Greeks, that church was prevailed on to reject any conference with the legates of pope John XXII. But, in the dispute which arose between Barlaam and Palamos, happening to take the part of the former, he maintained it so zealously in the council that was held at Constantinople in 1351, that he was cast into prison, and continued there till the return of John Palseologus, who released him; after which he held a disputation with Palamos, in the presence of that emperor. He compiled the Byzantine history in a barbarous style, and very inaccurately, from 1204, when Constantinople was taken by the French, to the death of Andronicus the younger, in 1341. Besides this work, he is the author of some others. His history, with a Latin translation by Jerome Wolf, was printed at Basil in 1562, and again at Geneva in 1615. We have also a new version of it, and a new edition more correct than any of the preceding, printed at the Louvre in 1702, by Boivin the younger, the French king’s librarian, 2 vols. fol. This edition contains, in the first volume, the thirty-eight books of Gregoras, which end with the year 1341; and in the second are the thirteen following, which contain a history of ten years. There are still fourteen remaining to be published; as also fourteen other pieces of Gregoras. Gregoras also wrote Scholia upon “Synesius de Insomniis,” published by Turnebus in 1553; the version of which, by John Pichon, is printed among the works of the same Synesius.

, an able mathematician, was born at Paris in 1613. Having finished his academical studies with the most promising success, he entered into the order of Minims, took the habit in 1632, and as usual, changed the name given him at his baptism for that of Francis, the name of his paternal uncle, who was also a Minim, or Franciscan. The inclination which he had for mathematics appeared early during his philosophical studies; and he devoted to this science all the time he could spare from his other employments, after he had completed his studies in theology. Ah the branches of the mathematics, however, did not equally engage his attention; he confined himself particularly to optics, and studied the rest only as they were subservient to his more favourite pursuit. He informs us in the preface to his “Thaumaturgus Opticus,” that he went twice to Rome; and that, on his return home, he was appointed teacher of theology. He was afterwards chosen to accompany father Francis de la Noue, vica^r-general of the order, in his visitation of the convents throughout all France. Amidst so many employments, it is wonderful that he found so much time to study, for his life was short, and must have been laborious. Being taken sick at Aix, in Provence, he died there, September 22, 1646, aged only thirty-three. He was an intimate acquaintance of Des Cartes, who had a high esteem for him, and presented him with his works. Niceron’s writings are, 1. “L'Interpretation des Chiffres, ou Regies pour bien entendre et expliquer facilement toutes sortes des Chiffres Simples,” &c. Paris, 1641, 8vo. This was only a translation oh the art of decyphering, written by Cospi in Italian, but is much improved by Niceron, who justly conceived it to be a work of utility. 2. “La Perspective curieuse, ou Magie artificielle des effets marveilleux de l'Optique, Catroptique, et Dioptrique,” intended as an introduction to his, 3. “Thaumaturgus Opticus: sive, Admiranda Optices, Catoptrices, et Dioptrices, Pars prima, &c.” 1646, fol. He intended to add two other parts, but was prevented by death.

, one of the most useful French biographers, was born at Paris, March 11, 1685. He was of an ancient and noble family, who were in very high repute about 1540. He studied with success in the Mazarine college at Paris, and afterwards at the college Du Plessis. He appears to have been of a serious turn of mind, and of great modesty, and from a dread of the snares to which he might be exposed in the world, de termined to quit it for a religious life. On this subject he consulted one of his uncles, who belonged to the order of Barnabite Jesuits. This uncle examined him; and, not diffident of his election, introduced him as a probationer to that society at Paris. He was received there in 1702, took the habit in 1703, and made his vows in 1704, at the age of nineteen. After he had professed himself, he was sent to Montargis, to study philosophy and theology, a course of both which he went through with credit, although he confesses that he never could relish the scholastic system then in vogue. His superiors then, satisfied with his proficiency and talents, sent him to Loches, in Touraine, to teach the classics and rhetoric. Here his devout behaviour and excellent conduct as a teacher, made him be thought worthy of the priesthood, which he received at Poitiers in 1708, and as he was not arrived at the age to assume this orders a dispensation, which his uncommon piety had merited, was obtained in his favour. The college of Montargis having recalled him, he was their professor of rhetoric during two years, and philosophy during four. In spite of all these avocations, he was humanely attentive to every call and work of charity, and to the instruction of his fellow-creatures, many of whom heard his excellent sermons, pure and unadorned in style, but valuable in matter, which he delivered not only from the pulpits of most of the churches within the province, but even from those of Paris. In 1716 his superiors invited him to that city, that he might have an opportunity of following, with the more convenience, those studies for which he always had expressed the greatest inclination. He not only understood the ancient, but almost all the modern languages; a circumstance of infinite advantage in the composition of those works which he has given to the public, and which he carried on with great assiduity to the time of his death, which happened after a short illness, July 8, 1738, at the age of fifty-three. His works are, 1. “Le Grand Fébrifuge; or, a dissertation to prove that common Water is the best remedy in Fevers, and even in the Plague; translated from the English of John Hancock, minister of St. Margaret’s, London, in 12mo.” This treatise made its appearance, amongst other pieces relating to this subject, in 1720; and was attended with a success which carried it through three editions; the last came out in 1730, in 2 vols. 12mo, entitled “A Treatise on common Water;” Paris, printed by Cavelier. 2. “The Voyages of John Ouvington to Surat, and divers parts of Asia and Africa; containing the History of the Revolution in the kingdom of Golconda, and some observations upon Silk- Worms,” Paris, 1725, 2 vols. 12mo. 3. “The Conversion of England to Christianity, compared with its pretended Reformtion;” a work translated from the English, and written by an English catholic, Paris, 1729, 8vo. 4. “The Natural History of the Earth, translated from the English of Mr. Woodward, by Mons. Nogues, doctor in physic with an answer to the objections of doctor Camerarius containing, also, several letters written on the same subject, and a methodical distribution of Fossils, translated from the English, by Niceron,” Paris, 1735, 4to. 5. “Memoirs of Men illustrious in the republic of letters, with a critical Account of their Works. Paris,” 12uio. The first volume of this great work appeared in 1727; the others were given to the public in succession, as far as the thirty-ninth, which appeared in 1738. The fortieth volume was published after the death of the author, in 1739. Since that event three others were added, but in these are many articles of which Niceron was not the author. It is not easy to answer all the objections which may be offered to a work of this kind. The author himself, in one of his prefaces, informs us that some of his contemporaries wished for a chronological order; some for the order of the alphabet; some for classing the authors according to the sciences or their professions, and some according to the countries in which they were born. As his work, however, appeared periodically, he thought himself justified in giving the lives without any particular order, according as he was able to procure materials. That the French critics should dwell upon the unavoidable mistakes in a work of this magnitude, is rather surprizing, for they have produced no such collection since, and indeed Niceron has been the foundation, as far as he goes, of all the subsequent accounts of the same authors. Chaufepie only treats him with respect while he occasionally points out any error in point of date or fact.

, a Greek historian, was born at Chone, or Colossus, a town in Phrygia. He flourished in the thirteenth century, and was employed in several considerable affairs at the court of the emperors of Constantinople. When that city was taken by the French in 1204, he withdrew, together with a young French captive, whom he afterwards married at Nice in Bithynia, and died there in 1206.

pope, and the only pontiff of that name much deserving of notice, was originally named Thomas of Sarzana, and was born in 1398. He was the son of Barth. dei Parentucelli, a professor of arts and medicine in Pisa. His mother, Andreola, was a native of Sarzana, a small town on the borders of Tuscany, and the republic of Genoa, whence he derived his surname. In his seventh year his father died, and his mother marrying again, a man who had no affection for her offspring, his younger days were embittered by domestic neglect and harshness. He. obtained a friend, however, in cardinal Nicholas Albergati, who took him under his protection, and supplied him with whatever was necessary for pursuing his studies at the university of Bologna. At the age of twenty-four he enrolled himself in the priesthood, but continued to live in the family of his patron until the death of the latter, when his learning and virtues procured him another friend in the cardinal Gerard Andriani. By his means he was introduced to. the court of Eugenius IV. and employed in all the disputes between the Latins and Greeks at the councils ef Ferrara and Florence, for his admirable management of which he was rewarded in 1445 by the bishopric of Bologna. In 1446 he was promoted to the purple, and in March 1447 he was elevated to the papal throne, on which occasion he assumed the name of Nicholas V. The temporalties of the holy see being in a lamentable state of disorder, he had uncommon difficulties to struggle with, which, however, he encountered by a wise and temperate conduct. It was first his object to restore the finances, and to cultivate the arts of peace, which furnished him with the means of gratifying his passion for the encouragement of learning. Fostered by his patronage, the scholars of Italy no longer had reason to complain that they were doomed to obscurity and contempt. Nicholas invited to his court all those who were distinguished by their proficiency in ancient literature; and whilst he afforded them full scope for the exertion of their talents, he requited their labours by liberal remunerations. Poggio was one of those who experienced his kindest patronage.

, a celebrated Dominican, was born at Gironna, in Catalonia, about 1320. He was made inquisitor general by Innocent VI. about 1356, and afterwards chaplain to Gregory XL and judge of heretical causes. He died Jan. 4, 1399, leaving a precious monument of inquisitorial tyranny, entitled “Directorium Inquisitorium,” or the Inquisitor’s Directory, the best editions of which are those with corrections, particularly that “cum comment. Fran. Pegnse,” printed at Rome, 1587, fol. This book, says L'Avocat, contains the most pernicious and horrible maxims, according to which, not only private persons, but princes and kings, may be condemned secretly by the inquisition, without being permitted to speak in their own defence, and afterwards put to death by poison, or other means. It is astonishing, adds this liberal ecclesiastic, that a work which inculcates such dietestable principles should have been printed at Barcelona, afterwards at Rome, and at Venice. The commentary, he says, is as pernicious as the text. The French have an abridgment of the work, by the abbé Morellet, 1762, 12mo.

, a physician and anatomist of eminence, was born in London in 1699, where his father was a barrister. After receiving the rudiments of his education at a private school in the country, where his docility and sweetness of temper endeared him to his master and school- fellows, he was in a few years removed to Westminster, and thence to Oxford, where he was admitted a commoner of Exeter college, under the tuition of Mr. John Haviland, in 1714. He applied himself to the usual academical exercises with great assiduity, and took his degrees in arts at the accustomed periods, that of M. A. in 1721. He paid his greatest attention to natural philosophy, and after reading a few books on anatomy, engaged in dissections, which he pursued with so much reputation as to be chosen reader of anatomy in the university in 1726, about two years after taking his degree of B. M. In this office he used his utmost endeavours to introduce a zeal for this neglected study, and obtained a high and well merited reputation. His residence at Oxford, however, was only temporary; for at the close of his course he returned to London, where he bad determined to settle, after having made a short trial of practice in Cornwall, and a subsequent visit to the principal schools of France and Italy. At Paris, by conversing freely with the learned, he soon recommended himself to their notice and esteem. Winslow’s was the only good system of physiology at that time known in France, and Morgagni’s and Santorini’s, of Venice, in Italy. On his return to England he resumed his anatomical and physiological lectures in London, and they were frequented, not only by students from both the universities, but by many surgeons, apothecaries, and others. His reputation rapidly extended, and in 1728 he was elected a fellow of the royal society, to which he communicated several papers, which were published in the Philosophical Transactions, especially some observations on the nature of aneurisms, in which he controverted the opinion of Dr. Freind; and a description of a singular disease, in which the pulmonary vein was coughed up. He also made observations on a treatise by Helvetius, on the lungs. In 1729, he received the degree of M. D at Oxford, and became a fellow of the college of physicians in. 1732. In 1734 he was appointed to read the Gulstonian lectures at the college, and chose the structure of the heart, and the circulation of the blood, for his subjects. At the request of the president, Dr. Nichols again read the Gulstonian lectures in 1736, choosing for his topics the urinary organs, and the nature and treatment of calculous diseases; and in 1739 he delivered the anniversary Harveian oration. In 1743 he married one of the daughters of the celebrated Dr. Mead, by whom he had a son and daughter, both living.

, whom Mr. Headley considers as a poet of great elegance and imagination, and one of the ornaments of the reign of Elizabeth, was born in London, of genteel parents, in 1584. In 1602 he entered a student of Magdalen college, Oxford, whence, after a short time, he removed to Magdalen hall, and took the degree of B. A. in 1606. After remaining at the university some years, and being esteemed among the most ingenious men of his day, according to Wood, he quitted Oxford for London, where he “obtained an employment suitable to his faculty.” What this employment was, we are left to conjecture. The time of his death is also uncertain, but he appears to have been alive at least in 1616, and was then but young. The most material of his works are his additions to “The Mirror for Magistrates,” a book most popular in its time (see Higgins), containing a series of pieces by Sackville, Baldwyne, Ferrers, Churchyard, Phayer, Higgins, Drayton. It was ultimately completed, and its contents new arranged by Nichols, whose supplement to the edition of 1610 is entitled “A Winter Night’s Vision,” To this likewise is improperly subjoined “England’s Eliza; or the victorious and triumphant reigneof that virgin Empress, &c. Elizabeth, queen of England,” &c. His other writings are, “The Cuckow, a Poem,” London, 1607; “Monodia, or Waltham’s complaint upon the death of the most vertuous and noble lady, late deceased, the lady Honor Hay,” ibid. 1615; a play called “TheTwynnes Tragedye” is attributed to him in the Biog. Dram.; but we can, on better authority, add “London’s Artillery, briefly containing the noble practice of that worthie Society,” &c. &c. 1616, 4to; “The Three Sisters’ Tears, shed at the late solernne Funerals of the royal Henry, prince of Wales,” &c. 1613, 4to; and “The Furies, with Vertue’s encomium, &c. in two books of epigrammes, satirical and encomiastic,” 1614, 8vo. Ample specimens of his poetry are given in Headley’s “Beauties,” and the “Bibliographer.”

, an English divine of great learning and merit, was the son of John Nichols, of Donington, in Bucks, an eminent counsellor, and was born, in 1664. He was educated at St. Paul’s school, London, whence, in 1679, he went to Magdalen hall, Oxford. He removed afterwards to Wadham college, where he took the degree of B. A. Nov. 27, 1683; but being admitted probationer- fellow of Merton college in October 1684, he completed his degree of M. A. there on June 19, 1688. About that time he entered into holy orders, became chaplain to Ralph earl of Montague, and in September 1691, rector of Selsey, near Chichester, in Sussex. He was admitted B. D. July 2, 1692, and D. D. Nov. 29, 1695. After a life entirely devoted to piety and study, we find him, in the close of it, thus describing his situation, in a letter to Robert earl of Oxford:

"I was in hopes that her majesty would have bestowed the prebend of Westminster upon me, being the place where I live, and that I might be nearer to books, _to finish my work on the liturgy and articles, for which she was pleased to tell to me, with her own mouth, she would consider me. My good lord, I have taken more pains in this matter than any divine of our nation, whjch I hope may bespeak the favour of a church-of-England ministry. Therefore I most humbly beseech your lordship for your interest for the next prebend of that church (if this be disposed of) that shall be void; for if I had merited nothing, my circumstances want it. I am now forced on the drudgery of being the editor of Mr. Selden’s books, for a little money to buy other books to carry on my liturgical work. I have broken my constitution by the pains of making my collections myself throughout that large work, without the help of an amanuensis, which I am not in a condition to keep, though the disease of my stomach (being a continual cholic of late, attended by the rupture of a vein) might plead pity, and incline my superiors not to suffer me all my days to be a Gibeonite in the church without any regard or relief. Pray f my lord, represent my case to the queen; and I shall never be wanting to make my most ample acknowledgment for so great a favour. I could long since have made my way to preferment without taking all this pains, by a noisy cry for a party; but as this has been often the reproach, and once the ruin of our clergy, so I have always industriously avoided it, quietly doing what service I could to the church I was born in, and leaving the issue thereof to God’s Providence, and to the kind offices of some good man, who some time or other might befriend me in getting some little thing for me to make my circumstances easy, which is the occasion that your lordship has the trouble of this application, from,

, a learned doctor of the Sorbonne, and Dominican, was born in 1594, at Monza, a village in the diocese of Verdun, near Stenay. After taking a doctor’s degree in 1632, he taught theology in tl?e house of his order at Paris, for about twenty years. He was elected prior in 166 1, and died May 7, 1673, aged seventyeight. He was the editor of a good edition of the “Summary” of St. Thomas, with notes, and of all that doctor’s works, Lyons, 1660, 19 vols. fol. He also published five Dissertations on several points of ecclesiastical discipline, againstM.de Launoi, 12mo; “Judicium, seu censorium suffragium de propositions Antonii Arnaldi,” &c. 4to, which last he likewise published in French by the title of “Avis deliberatif,” &c. 4to. This relates to the much contested proposition of M. Arnauld, that “Grace failed in St. Peter,” and it was answered by M. Arnauld, Nicole, and de la Lane. He was the author of other works, in which are some singular opinions, but which are now of little consequence. He must, however, be distinguished from Philip Nicolai, a learned divine, who died in 1608, and from Melchior Nicolai, a celebrated professor of divinity at Tubingen, who died in 1659. Both these wrote commentaries and controversial treatises, noticed in “Freheri Theatrum,” and our other authorities.

, a very celebrated French mathematician, was born at Paris, December 23, 1683. His early attachment to the mathematics induced M. Montmortto take the charge of his education, and initiate him in the higher geometry. He first distinguished himself by detecting the fallacy of a pretended quadrature of the circle. A M. Mathulon was so confident that he had discovered this quadrature, as to deposit in the hands of a public notary at Lyons, the sum of 3000 livres, to be paid to any person who in the judgment of the academy of sciences, should demonstrate the falsity of his solution. M. Nicole having undertaken the task, the academy’s judgment was, that he had plainly proved that the rectilineal figure which Mathulon had given as equal to the circle, was not only unequal to it, but that it was even greater than the polygon of 32 sides circumscribed about the circle. It was the love of science, however, and not of money, which inspired Nicole on this occasion, for he presented the prize of 300O livres to the public hospital of Lyons. The academy named Nicole eleve-mechanician, March 12, 1707; adjunct in 1716, associate in 1718, and pensioner in 1724, which he continued till his death, which happened January 18, 1758, at seventy-five years of age.

, cousin-german of the preceding, was son of Nicolas Nicole, receiver of the town of Chartres, where he was born Sept. 4, 1611; and became one of the king’s council, and president in the elections of Chartres. He died Nov. 22, 1685. He was a good Greek, Latin, and Italian scholar, and had a talent for French poetry; which, however, he abused, the greatest part of his poems being grossly indelicate. Of these he published a collection at Paris, 1660, in 2 vols. 12mo, with a dedication to the king, under the title of “The Works of the President Nicole.” This collection appeared again after his death, enlarged with several new pieces, some of which are upon subjects of piety, in 1693, at Paris. They consist chiefly of translations of several works of “Ovid,” “Horace,” “Persius,” “Martial,” “Seneca the Tragedian,” “Claudian,” and others, “A Translation of an Elegy and Ode of Anacreon,” and of “A Poem upon the Loves of Adonis, by the cavalier Marin, &c.”

, a celebrated French divine, was born at Chartres, Oct. 6, 1625. He was the son of John Nicole above mentioned, who, discovering him to be a youth of promising talents, gave him his first instructions in grammar, and so grounded him in classical knowledge, that at the age of fourteen he was qualified to go to Paris, and commence a course of philosophy; and at its completion, in about two years, he took the degree of M. A. July 23, 1644. He afterwards studied divinity at the Sorbonne, in 1645 and 1646 and, during this course, learned Hebrew, improved himself farther in Greek, acquired a knowledge of Spanish and Italian. He also devoted part of his time to the instruction of the youth put under the care of messieurs de Port-royal. As soon as he had completed three years, the usual period, in the study of divinity,he proceeded bachelor in that faculty in 1649, on which occasion he maintained the theses called the Tentative, He afterwards prepared himself to proceed a licentiate;, but was diverted from it by the dispute which arose about the five famous propositions of Jansenius, added to his connections with Mr. Arnauld. By this means he was at more leisure to cultivate his acquaintance with gentlemen of the Port-royal, to which house he now retired, and assisted Mr. Arnauld in several pieces, which that celebrated divine published in his own defence. They both went to M. Varet’s house at Chatillon near Paris, in 1664, and there continued to write, inconcert. Nicole afterwards resided at several places, sometimes at Port-royal, sometimes at Paris, &c. He was solicited to take holy orders but, after an examination of three weeks, and consulting with M. Pavilion, bishop of Aleth, he remained only a tonsured priest. It has been asserted by some, that having failed to answer properly when examined for the subdeaconship, he considered his being refused admission to it, as a warning from heaven. He continued undisturbed at Paris till 1677, when a letter which he wrote, for the bishops of St. Pons and Arras, to pope Innocent XI. against the relaxations of the casuists, drew upon him a storm, that obliged him to withdraw. He went 6rst to Chartres, where his father was lately dead; and, having settled his temporal affairs, he repaired to Beauvais, and soon after took his leave of the kingdom, in 1679. He retired first to Brussels, then went to Liege, and, after that, risited Orval, and several other places. A letter, dated July 16, 1679, which he wrote to Harlai, archbishop of Paris, facilitated his return to France: and Robert, canon of the church of Paris, obtained leave of that archbishop, some time after, for Nicole to come back privately to Chartres. Accordingly he repaired immediately to that, city, under the name of M. Berci, and resumed his usual employments. The same friend afterwards solicited a permission for him to return to Paris, and having obtained it at length in 1683, he employed his time in the composition of various new works. In 1693, perceiving himself to be grown considerably infirm, he resigned a benefice, of a very moderate income, which her had at Beauvais; and after remaining for about two years more in a very languishing state, died of the second stroke of an apoplexy, Nov. 16, 1695, aged 70 years.

, a learned English prelate and antiquary, was both by the father and mother’s side of Cumberland extraction. His grandfather was Joseph Nicolson, of Averas Holme in that county, who married Radigunda- Scott, heiress to an estate at Park Broom, in the parish of Stanvvix which estate descended to Catherine eldest surviving daughter of our prelate. His father, who married Mary daughter of John Brisco of Grofton, esq. was a clergyman, of Queen’s college, Oxford; and rector of Orton near Carlisle. He was born at Orton in 1655, and in 1670 was entered of Queen’s college, under the tuition of Dr. Thos. Barlow, afterwards bishop of Lincoln, and took his degree of B. A. in 1676. While here he became known to sir Joseph Williamson, then secretary of state, the great benefactor to Queen’s college, and the patron of many of its scholars, who in 1678 sent him to Leipsic to learn the septentrional languages. While there he translated into Latin an essay of Mr. Hook’s, containing a proof of the motion of the earth from the sun’s parallax, which was printed at Leipsic by the professor who had recommended the task.

, an eminent Russian prelate, was born in a village under the government of Nishnei Novogorod, in 1613. His parents were so obscure that neither their names nor stations are known. He was educated under the care of a monk in the convent of St. Macarius, and here he imbibed a strong and increasing prejudice in fa*­vour of the monastic life. In compliance, however, with the wishes of his family, he married, and was ordained a secular priest. The loss of his children by death disgusted him with the world, and he persuaded his wife to take the veil, whilst he became a monk. He retired into an island in the White Sea, and instituted a society in this solitude remarkable for its great austerities. He had not been in this place many years before he was made, after a series of ecclesiastical dignities, archbishop of Novogorod; and, finally, patriarch of Russia. He was not only eminent as a priest, but discovered the great and energetic talents of a statesman; and to them he fell a victim. In 1658 he was compelled to abdicate his dignity of patriarch, on which he returned to his cell, and lived over his former austerities; but his degradation did not satisfy the malice of his enemies, who procured his imprisonment. He obtained, after a number of years, his release, with permission to return to his favourite cell; but, whilst on the road to this spot, he expired in his 66th year, in 1681. Nicon did not spend his whole time in the performance of useless austerities, but occasionally employed himself in compiling a regular series of Russian annalists from Nestor, the earliest historian of that country, to the reign of Alexey Michaelovitch. This collection is sometimes called, from its author, “The Chronicle of Nicon,” and sometimes, from the place where it was begun and deposited, “The Chronicle of the Convent of Jerusalem.” It is considered as a work of authority.

, a learned Frenchman, was born at Nismes in the beginning of the sixteenth century. He came to Paris early in life, and acquired the esteem of the learned men of that time. He was also so favourably received at court, that in 1559 he was made master of requests in the lung’s household, and the same year was sent as ambassador to Portugal. Of the nature of his embassy, or his talents in executing its duties, we have no information; but he was the means while in that country of introducing the use of tobacco in Europe. Of this herb, then called Petun, he received some seeds from a Dutchman, who had them from Florida. It then became an object of cultivation or importation in France, and the name Nicotiana was given to it in honour of him. This, it has been observed by Dr. Johnson, is a proper compliment, for a plant is a monument of a more durable nature than a medal or an obelisk; and yet, he adds, “as a proof that even this is not always sufficient to transmit to futurity the name conjoined with them, the Nicotiana is now scarcely known by any other term than that of tobacco.”

, an eminent Dutch philosopher and mathematician, was born Aug. 10, 1654, at Westgraafdyk in North Holland, of which place his father vvas minister. He discovered a turn for learning in his first infancy, and his father designed him for the ministry; but when he found him averse from this study, he suffered him to gratify his own taste. He then applied himself to logic, and the art of reasoning justly; in which he grounded himself upon the principles of Des Cartes, with whose philosophy he was greatly delighted. Thence he proceeded to the mathematics, where he made a great proficiency; and added so much to his stock of various knowledge, that he was accounted a good philosopher, a great mathematician, a celebrated physician, and an able and just magistrate. Although naturally of a grave and serious disposition, yet his engaging manner in conversation made him be equally admired as a companion and friend, and frequently drew over to his opinion those who, at first, differed very widely from him. Thus accomplished, he acquired great esteem and credit in the council of the town of Purmerende, where he resided; as he did also in the states of that province, who respected him the more, as he never interfered in any cabals or factions. His disposition inclined him to cultivate the sciences, rather than to obtain the honours of the government and he therefore contented himself with being counsellor and burgomaster of the town, without wishing for more bustling preferments, which might interfere with his studies, and draw him too much out of his library. He died May 30, 1718, in the sixty-third year of his age. His works are, 1. “Considerationes circa Analyseos ad Quantitates infinite parvas applicator principia,” &c. Amst. 1694, 8vo. 2. “Analysis infinitorum seu curvilineorum Proprietates ex Polygpnorum natura deductse,” ibid. 1695, 4to. 3. “Considerationes secundoe circa differentialis Principia r & Responsio ad Yirum nobilissimum G. G. Leibnitium,” ibid. 1696, 8vo. This piece was attacked by John Bernoulli and James Hermant, celebrated geometricians at Basil. 4. “A Treatise upon a New Use of the Tables of Sines and Tangents.” 5. “Le veritable Usage de la Contemplation de TUnivers, pour la conviction des Athees & des Incredules,” in Dutch. This is his most esteemed work; and went through four editions in three or four years. It was translated into English by Mr. John Chamberlaine, and printed three or four times under the title of the “Religious Philosopher,” &c. 3 vols. 8vo. This was, until within these forty years, a very popular book in this country. We have also, by our author, one letter to Bothnia of Burmania, upon the 27th article of his meteors, and a refutation of Spinosa, 1720, 4to, in the Dutch language.

, professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Leyden, was born at Diemermeer, a village near Amsterdam, Nov. 5, 1764. His father, by trade a carpenter, having a great fondness for books, and being tolerably well versed in the mathematics, instructed his son himself till he attained his eleventh year, who appears to have exhibited very extraordinary proofs of genius long before that time. When only three years old, his mother put into his hand some prints, which had fifty verses at the bottom of them by way of explanation. These verses she read aloud, without any intention that her son should learn them, but was much surprized some time after to hear him repeat the whole from memory, with the utmost correctness, on being only shown the prints. Before he was seven years old he had read more than fifty different books, and in such a manner that he could frequently repeat passages from them both in prose and in verse. When about the age of eight, Mr. Aenese of Amsterdam, one of the greatest calculators of the age, asked him if he could tell the solid contents of a wooden statue of Mercury which stood upon a piece of clock-work. “Yes,” replied young Nieuwland, “provided you give me a bit of the same wood of which the statue was made for I will cut a cubic inch out of it, and then compare it with the statue.” Poems which (says his eulogist) display the utmost liveliness of imagination, and which he composed in his tenth year, while walking or amusing himself near his father’s house, were received with admiration, and inserted in different poetical collections. Such an uncommon genius must soon burst through those obstacles which confine it. Bernardus and Jeronirao de Bosch, two opulent gentlemen of Amsterdam, became young Nieuwland’s patrons, and he was taken into the house of the former in his eleventh year, and received daily instruction from the latter for the space of four years. While in this situation he made considerable progress in the Latin and Greek languages, and studied philosophy and the mathematics under Wyttenbach. In 1733 he translated the two dissertations of his celebrated instructors Wyttenbach and de Bosch, on the opinions which the ancients entertained of the state of the soul after death, which had gained the prize of the Teylerian theological society. From September 1784 to 1785 he studied at Leyden, and afterwards applied with great diligence at Amsterdam to natural philosophy, and every branch of the mathematics, under the direction of professor Van Swinden. He had scarcely begun to turn his attention to chemistry, when he made himself master of Lavoisier’s theory, and could apply it to every phenomenon.

a learned Italian, was born at Sessa, in the kingdom of Naples, in 1473. About 1500, he was appointed professor of philosophy at Padua, where he composed a treatise “De Intellectu et Duemonibus,” in which he maintained that there is but one soul, which animates all nature. This raised many opponents, and he was forced to publish his treatise with amendments in 1492, fol. reprinted 1503 and 1527. He afterwards gained so much reputation by his other works, however insignificant they may now appear, that the most celebrated universities of Italy offered him professorships with large stipends; and he had a salary of a thousand crowns in gold, when professor at Pisa, about 1520. Pope Leo X. had such a value for Niphus, that he made him count palatine, permitted him to quarter his arms with those of the Medici family, and granted him power to create masters of arts, bachelors, licentiates, doctors of divinity, civil and canon law, to legitimate bastards, and to ennoble three persons. The letters patent which conveyed these singular privileges, are dated June 15, 1521. Niphus was a philosopher in theory only, being remarkable even in old age for levity and intrigue. He also loved high living; and such were the charms of his conversation, that he had easy access to the nobility and ladies of rank. The year in which he died is not exactly known, but it is certain that he was living in 1545, and dead in 1550, and that he was above seventy at the time of his death. He left Commentaries in Latin on Aristotle and Averroes, 14 vols. fol.; some smaller works on subjects of morality and politics, Paris, 1645, 4to a treatise “on the Immortality of the Soul,” against Pomponatius, Venice, 1518, fol. “De amore, de pulchro, Veneris et Cupidinis venales,” Leydae, 1641, 16to, &c.

, a French historian of the ninth century, the son of Angilbert, abbot of St. Riquier, and of Bertha, daughter of Charlemagne, was born before the year 790, and was probably educated at the court of his grandfather. He appears to have been distinguished both as a soldier and politician, and was occasionally employed by Charles the Bald, king of France, as a negociator. His history contains an account of the divisions between the sons of Louis le Debonnaire, in four books, of which the first three were written in the year 842, and the fourth is lost. It was published in 1594, by M. Pithou, in his “Annalium et Historiæ Francorum Scriptores,” &c. and has since been translated by Duchesne and Bouquet, in their collection of French Historians, and by Cousin in his “History of the Western Empire.”

, a French academician and dramatic writer, was born at Paris in 1692. Being the nephew of a farmer-general, he might have acquired opulence, by so valuable a connection, but he preferred the study of polite literature. His first work was a criticism on the fables of La Motte, who was his friend, but who never objected to any liberties of that kind which his friends might take with him. When La Motte advanced his famous paradox on the in utility of versification in tragedy, &c. Nivelle joined la Faye as one of his opponents, and published an “Epitre a Clio,” 1733, 12mo, which was much admired, and in which he has taken considerable freedoms with La Motte. As a dramatic writer, Nivelle brought into fashion what the French call the comedies larmoy antes, or comedies in which there are more scenes of tenderness than of wit and humour. Of these his “Prejuge a la mode” “Ecole des Amis,” and “Melanide,” are still much admired in France as are his “Ecole des Meres,” and “La Gbuvernante,” although not received at first so favourably. He wrote many other dramatic pieces, with moderate success, which with his other works, were published at Paris, in 1762, 5 vols. 12mo. La Harpe ranks him among the authors who have done honour to the French theatre. He died May 14, 1754, in the sixty-second year of his age.

, was born at Paris, Dec. 16, 1716. After he had served in the army some time, he was appointed ambassador to Rome, then to Berlin, and lastly, in 1763, was entrusted with the important negociation of the definitive treaty of peace at London, where he was highly respected, as a prudent and enlightened minister, who united amenity of manners with the dignity of his station. After his return to Paris, he devoted himself entirely to letters, and by some publications he obtained an admission into the French academy, and that of inscriptions. This worthy and excellent man lived to be a sufferer from the revolution, and was committed to prison during the tyranny of Robespierre, in which he was forced to remain till 1796. He died Feb. 25, 1798, at the age of eighty-two. Of his works, his “Fables” have not been thought to preserve the reputation they had originally, when handed about in private. Many of them, however, equal any of the French productions of that class. An English translation, very ably executed, was published in 1799. The duke’s reflections on the genius of Horace, Boileau, and Rousseau, are highly esteemed; and his “Dialogues of the Dead,” “Moral Letters,” “Lives of the Troubadours,” &c. are distinguished proofs of an acute and well-cultivated mind. He was very conversant in English literature, and translated Pope’s “Essay on Man,” and Horace Walpole’s “Modern Gardening,” of which, in imitation of Walpole, he printed only a few copies for friends. Didot, while the author was alive, printed a fine edition of his works, in 1796, 8 vols. 8vo, the demand for which, according to Brunet, is not great.

, an eminent Italian scholar, was born in 1498, at Bresdiello, on the Po, in the duchy of Modena. He appears to have been first patronized by the counts Gambara of Brescia, with whom he lived for some years, amply provided with the means of study and improvement. When his writings had made him known, he was invited by the princes Farnese to Parma, to give public lectures on rhetoric, which he continued for many years. Prince Vespasian Gonzaga, a great patron of literature, having founded an university at Sabionetta, appointed Nizolius chief director or principal. In 1562 this university was opened, at which ceremony Nizolius delivered a speech, which was printed at Parma the following year. Some years after, being now advanced, he lost his sight, and retired to his native place, where he died in 1575.

, one of the most indefatigable writers of his time, was born in 1643, at Troyes, of a good family. He soon made himself known in the literary world by ingenious pasquinades, and other jeux d'esprit. He was once attorney-general to the parliament of Metz but his bad conduct having involved him in difficulties, he was accused of drawing up false acts for his own advantage, confined at the Chatelet, and there sentenced to make amende honorable, and to be banished nine years. From this sentence he appealed, and being removed to the Conciergerie, became there the lover and advocate of Gabrielle Perreau, commonly called la belle Epiciere (the handsome grocer’s wife), whom her husband had shut up in that prison for her irregular conduct, and wrote several memoirs and other pieces in her favour, which were much read. Le Noble finding means to get out of the Conciergerie, 1695, lived a long time concealed with this woman, who had escaped from a convent to which she had been transferred, and had three children by her; but, being retaken, was condemned, notwithstanding his eloquent speech to his judges, while at the bar, March 24, 1698. The sentence passed upon him was for forgery, and condemned him to make an amende seche, privately, in the hall of the Chatelet, and to be banished for nine years. He left his prison four days after, and obtained a repeal of the sentence of banishment the next year, on condition that he should exercise no judicial office. His mistress was tried in May following, and le Noble was charged, by her sentence, with the three children, who were declared bastards. He died at Paris, January 31, 1711, aged 68, so poor, that the alms-house, in the parish of St. Severin, was obliged to bury him. His works have been printed at Paris, 19 vols. 12mo. The principal are, “Dialogues sur les affaires du Terns.” “Le Bouclier de la France, ou les Sentimens de Gerson et des Canonistes touchant les diflerends des Rois de France avec les Papes.” A prose “Translation of the Psalms.” “Relation de PEtat de Gnes.” Hist, de PEstablissement de la Republique d'Hollande.“This is little more than an extract from Grotius. He wrote also tales and fables; and romances, or historiettes, founded on facts;” L'Ecole du Monde,“4 vols. 12mo, consisting of twenty-four dialogues; and published a translation of the” Travels of Gemelli Carreri," Paris, 1727, 6 vols. 12mo.

, an heresiarch, who appeared in the third century, was a native of Smyrna, originally an obscure man, and of mean abilities. He affirmed, that the Supreme God, whom he called the Father, and considered as absolutely indivisible, united himself to the man Christ, whom he called the Son, and was born, and crucified with him. From this opinion, Noetus and his followers were tlistinguished by the title of Patripassians, i. e. persons who believed that the Supreme Father of the universe, and not any other divine person, had expiated the guilt of the human race. For these opinions he and his followers were expelled the church.

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

, an eminent Danish divine, was born June 22, 1626, at Hoybia, in Scania; and, after acquiring some grammatical and classical knowledge at Lunden, was removed to the university of Copenhagen in 1644, and continued there till 1650; when he was made rector of the college at Landscroon. He took the degree of master of arts the following year; and, in 1654, for farther improvement, made the tour of Germany, visited several universities there, and became acquainted with the most learned persons of that time. From Germany he continued his route to Holland, England, and France, and returned to Denmark in 1657. Hence, after a residence of only three months, he went to pursue his studies at Leyden and Franeker. In 1660, the lord of Gerstorff, master of the palace of Denmark, appointed him tutor to his children; and, in 1644, he obtained the chair of professor of divinity at Copenhagen, probably by the interest of this nobleman. Noldius, entering into holy orders, was made minister, and obtained the professor’s chair of divinity at Copenhagen, in which city he died, Aug. 22, 1683. He wrote several books, as “Concordantiae particularum Hebraeo-Chaldaicarum Veteris Testament!,” an excellent work, the best edition of which is that of Jena, 1734, 4to. “Historia Iduinsea, seu de Vita et gestis Herodum Diatribse.” “Sacrarum Historiarum et Antiquitatum Synopsis.” “Leges distinguendi seu de Virtute et Vitio distinctiones.” “Logica,” &c.

, a French abbe, and member of most of the literary societies of Europe, was born at Pimpre“, in the district of Noyon, Nov. 19, 1700. Notwithstanding the obscurity in which his finances obliged him to live, he soon acquired fame as an experimental philosopher. M. Dufay associated him in his electrical researches; and M. de Reaumur assigned to him his laboratory and these gentlemen may be considered as his preceptors. M. Dufay took him along with him in a journey he made into England; and Nollet profited so well of this opportunity, as to institute a friendly and literary correspondence with some of the most celebrated men in this country. The king of Sardinia gave him an invitation to Turin, to perform a course of experimental philosophy to the duke of Savoy. From thence he travelled into Italy, where he collected some good observations concerning the natural history of the country. In France he was master of philosophy and natural history to the royal family; and professor royal of experimental philosophy to the college of Navarre, and to the schools of artillery and engineers. The academy of sciences appointed him adjunct-mechanician in 1739, associate i 1742, and pensioner in 1757. Nollet died the 24th of April, 1770, regretted by all his friends, but especially by his relations, whom he always succoured with an affectionate attention; but his fame, as an electrician, in which character he was best known, did not survive him long. His’ works are, 1.” Recueils de Lettres sur TElectricite;“1753, 3 vols. 12mo. '2.” Essai sur l'Electricite des corps;“1 vol. 12mo. 3. Recherches sur les causes particulieres des Phenomenes Electriques,” 1 vol. 12mo. 4. “L'Art des Experiences,” 1770, 3 vols. 12mo. In these are contained his theory on electricity, which he maintained with the most persevering obstinacy against all the arguments of his antagonists, who were perhaps all the eminent electrical philosophers of Europe. It is no easy matter to form a very adequate notion of this theory, which has been long since abandoned by every person. When an electric is excited, electricity flows to it from all quarters, and when thus effluent (as he termed it), it drives light bodies before it. Hence the reason why excited bodies attract. When the electricity is effluent, the light bodies are of course driven from the electric, which in that state appears to repel. He conceived every electric to be possessed of two different kinds of pores, one for the emission of the electric matter, and the other for its reception. Besides his papers in the “Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences” from 1740 to 1767, we have in our “Philosophical Transactions,” the result of a great number of experiments, made by the abbe Nollet, on the eflect produced by electricity on the flowing of water through capillary tubes; on the evaporation of liquids; the transpiration of vegetables; and the respiration of animals. These last experiments have been often repeated since, but the results drawn by the abbe are not considered as established.

, a very eminent Portuguese mathematician and physician, was born in 1497, at Alcazar in Portugal, anciently a remarkable city, known by the name of Salacia, from whence he was surnamed Salaciensis. He was professor of mathematics in the university of Cojmbra, where he published some pieces which procured him great reputation. He was mathematical preceptor to Don Henry, son to king Emanuel of Portugal, and principal cosmographer to the king. Nonius was very serviceable to the designs which this court entertained of carrying on their maritime expeditions into the East, by the publication of his book “Of the Art of Navigation,” and various other works. He died in 1577, at eighty years of age.

, a Greek poet, surnamed Panoplites, from the place of his birth, was born at Panopolis, in Egypt, in the fifth century. He is the author of two works of a very different character; one a miscellany of heathen mythology and learning, in heroic verse, entitled “Dionysiacorum libri xlviii.” which was printed by Falkenburgh, from a ms. in the library of John Sambucb, at Antwerp, in 1569, 4to, and afterwards translated into Latin by Eiihard Lubin, professor at Rostock, who reprinted it at Hanover in 1610, with the notes of various persons, 8vo. There is also an edition printed at Eton, 1610, 4to. This is one of the most irregular poems extant, both with regard to the style, sentiments, method, and constitution: nothing is natural, nothing approaching to the purity of Homer; nothing of the free, easy manner, and beautiful simplicity, of the ancients. In short, this piece is as much beneath, as his other work, his “Paraphrasis,” is above, censure. In his paraphrase in Greek verse, upon the Gospel of St. John, the diction is perspicuous, neat, elegant, and proper for the subject. Hence he is styled by Isaac Casaubon “poeta eruditissimus.” Heinsius, indeed, reproaches him with leaning to Arianism but he appears to hold the same sentiments concerning the Trinity with Gregory Nazianzen and St. John Chrysostom. The first edition of this piece is that of Aldus Manutius at Venice in 1501, 4to; it has since gone through several editions, the last of which, and the best, is that by Heinsius, Gr. and Lat. 1627, 8vo. His various readings, which are deemed important, have been selected by Mill, Bengelius, Wetstein, and Griesbach.

, a celebrated civilian, was born Sept. 4, 1647, at Nimeguen, where his father, Peter Noodt, held a law office in the corporation. He was first educated at the school at Nimeguen; and, having gone through the usual classes, removed, in 1663, to the university which then subsisted, although in a decayed state, in that city . Here he began his studies with history and polite literature under John Schulting, professor of eloquence and history. Besides these, he applied himself to philosophy and the mathematics, which he would have made his principal study, had he not been diverted by Mr. Arnauld Coerman, German counsellor of the duchy of Guelderland, &c. who prevailed upon him to apply himself to law, as likely to be of more advantage to himself and to the public. Complying with this advice he studied law three years under Peter de Greve; during which time he maintained two public theses with uncommon reputation. The second of these, “De acquirenda, et retinenda, et amittenda possessione,” which was of his own composition, he defended with such masterly knowledge, that the professor had not occasion to say a word throughout the whole disputation. As soon as he had completed his course of study here, he visited the other universities of Leyden, Utrecht, and shortly after Franeker, where he was created LL. D. in June 1669. He then returned to his own country, and entered upon the practice of his profession, in which he soon had an opportunity of acquiring fame by his defence of two criminals, who were accused of murder in 1671. Noodt appeared advocate for them, by the special appointment of the magistrates of Nimeguen; and he exerted himself so well in their behalf, that one of them was entirely acquitted, and the other only sentenced to banishment for two years. This cause established his reputation, and, the same year, he was elected professor of law in ordinary in the university of Nimeguen, although only in his twenty-fourth year.

, the biographer of Charles XII. of Sweden, was born at Stockholm in 1677. After entering the church, he was appointed an army chaplain, and accompanied the troops for some years. There is little else in the accounts of him that is interesting. Having had many opportunities of acquiring the necessary knowledge and information, he was selected to write the life of Charles XII, which was published at Stockholm in 1740, in 2 vols, folio, and afterwards translated into the German and French languages. The author of it died in 1744. Voltaire, who also wrote a life of Charles XII. speaks with little respect of Nordberg’s labours; and indeed the work seems rather a collection of useful materials than a well-digested narrative.

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

, one of the most celebrated scholars of the seventeenth century, was born at Verona, Aug. 29, 1631. His baptismal name was Jerom, which he changed tO'Henry, when he entered the order of the Augustines. His family is said to have been originally of England, whence a branch passed into Ireland, and even to Cyprus. When this island was taken by the Turks, a James Noris, who had defended it as general of artillery, settled afterwards at Verona, and it is from this person that the subject of the present article descended. His father’s name was Alexander, and, according to Niceron, published several works, and among them a History of Germany. Maffei, however, attributes this work only to him, which is not a history of Germany, but of the German war from 1618 to the peace of Lubec, translated from the Italian by Alexander Noris. His son discovered, from his infancy, an excellent understanding, great vivacity, and a quick apprehension. His father, having instructed him in the rudiments of grammar, procured an able professor of Verona to be his preceptor. At fifteen, he was admitted a pensioner in the Jesuits’ college at Rimini, where he studied philosophy; after which, he applied himself to the writings of the fathers of the church, particularly those of St. Augustine; and, taking the habit in the convent of Augustine monks of Rimini, he so distinguished himself among that fraternity, that, as soon as he was out of his noviciate, the general of the order sent for him to Rome, in order to give him an opportunity of improving himself in the more solid branches of learning. Here he indulged his favourite propensity for study to the utmost, and spent whole days, and even nights, in the library of his order at Rome. His daily course of reading was fourteen hours, and this practice he continued till he became a cardinal. It, is easy to conceive that a student of such diligence, and whose memory and comprehension were equally great, must have accumulated a vast stock of knowledge. But for some time his reading was interrupted by the duties of a regent master being imposed on him, according to the usual practice; and we find that for some time he taught at Pesaro, and afterwards at Perugia, where he took his degree of doctor of divinity. Proceeding then to Padua, he applied himself to finish his “History of Pelagianism,” which he had begun at Rome, when he was no more than twentysix: and, having now completed his design, it was printed at Florence in 1673. The great duke of Tuscany invited him, the following year, to that city, made him his chaplain, and professor of ecclesiastical history in the university of Pisa, which the duke had founded with that view.

, a learned English divine and Platonic philosopher, was born in 1657, at Collingborne-Kingston, in Wiltshire, of which place his father, Mr. John Norris, was then minister. After being educated in grammar, &c, at Winchester school, he was entered of Exeter college in Oxford in 1676; but was elected fellow of All Souls in 1680, soon after he had taken his degree of bachelor of arts. From his first application to philosophy, Plato became his favourite author; by degrees he grew deeply enamoured with beauties in that divine writer, as he thought him, and took an early occasion to communicate his ideal happiness to the public, by printing an English translation of a rhapsody entitled “Effigies Arnoris,” but which he called “The Picture of Love unveiled,” in 1682. He commenced master of arts in 1684, and the same year opened a correspondence with that learned mystic Dr. Henry More, of Christ’s college in Cambridge, and with those learned females, lady Masham, and Mrs. Astell.

, who appears to be the first of this family entitled to notice in a work of this description, was born in 1581, and succeeded his grandfather Roger, second lord North, in 1600. From the biographer of the family, we learn that “he was a per on full of spirit and flame, yet after he had consumed the greatest part of his estate in the gallantries of king James’s court, or rather his son, prince Henry’s, retired, and lived more honourably in the country, upon what was left, than ever he had done before.” He is said, however, in another authority, to have carried into the country with him the dregs of an old courtier, and was capricious, violent, vindictive, tyrannical, and unprincipled. In 1645 he pears to have acted with the parliament, and was nominated by them to the administration of the admiralty, in conjunction with the great earls of Northumberland, Essex, Warwick, and others. He died Jan. 16, 1666, being then eighty-five years of age, and was buried at Kertling, or Cartlage. He lived to see his grandchildren almost all grown up, and Francis, the second of them, beginning to rise at the bar. He was the author of a miscellany in prose and verse, entitled “A Forest of Varieties, first part,” 1645 a second part had the title of “Exonerations” and a third part included “Privadoes, or Extravagants.” The whole were reprinted in 1659. The prose, says lord Orford, which is affected and obscure, with many quotations and allusions to Scripture and the classics, consists of essays, letters, characters in the manner of sir Thomas Overbury, and devout meditations on his misfortunes.' The verse, though not very poetic, is more natural. Sir E. Brydges, in his “Memoirs of the English Peerage, has given considerable extracts from this publication,” as it is by no means common, and as it lays open many traits of the noble author’s life and character, with much energy, feeling, ability, and eloquence." He appears likewise from these essays and letters to have been perfectly conscious of the errors of his early life, although he might not be able to conquer his temper in old age.

, lord Guilford, lord keeper of the great seal in the reigns of Charles II. and James II. was the second son of the preceding, and was born about 1640. He had his grammar learning, in which he was a great proficient, at Bury-school, whence he was admitted a fellowcommoner of St. John’s college, in Cambridge, in 1653. His conversation is said to have been remarkably agreeable and facetious, while his diligent advancement in his studies afforded him more solid claims on the esteem of the society. But, as he was originally designed for the law, after two or three years spent at the university, he was removed to the Middle Temple. Here he applied with great diligence to the main object, yet continued to improve himself in history, classics, and languages. He acquired French, Italian, Spanish, and Dutch, and became not only a good lawyer, but was esteemed very accomplished in mathematics, philosophy, and music. He used to say, that, if he had not diverted his attention by these studies, and by the practice of music particularly, he should never have been a lawyer. He used to spend much of his early vacations with his grandfather, who loved to hear him talk of philosophy, and the news of London. The biographer of the Norths informs us that he made him “play at backgammon, and fid lie, whenever he thought fit; and the course of life altogether was not displeasing to a young person, for here was fishing, billiards, hunting, visiting, and all the country amusements.”

, fourth son of Dudley lord North, and brother to the preceding lord Guilford, was born in London, Sept. 4, 1645. In his youth he was of a delicate constitution, and serious turn of mind, circumstances which are said to have determined his parents in the choice of the church as a profession. He received the first principles of education at Bury school, and afterwards, while at home, his father initiated him in logic and metaphysics. In 1661 he was admitted a fellow-commoner of Jesus college, Cambridge, but on the barony descending to his father, he appeared in the academic garb of a nobleman, although without varying from his plan of study, or the punctual obedience he gave to every part of college discipline. He is said to have been particularly attentive to the public exercises and lectures, but was one of the first who conceived that the latter mode of instruction was less useful since students had more easy access to books. The collection of these was one of his earliest passions, and we learn from his brother that he had the usual predilections of a collector for the best editions, fine printing, and elegant bindings, and bought many editions of the same author, and many copies of the same edition, and in this way soon became master of a very valuable library, particularly rich in Greek authors, that and the Hebrew being his favourite studies while at college. After taking his degree of B. A. he was admitted fellow of Jesus, Sept. 28, ie66, by the king’s mandate. He afterwards took his master’s degree, and was incorporated in the same at Oxford, June 15, 1669. In 1671 he was admitted to holy orders, and preached his first, or one of “his first sermons, before Charles II. at Newmarket, which was published the same year. About the same time he assisted Dr. Gale with the” Pythagorica Fragmenta,“published in that learned author’s” Opuscula," who handsomely acknowledges the favour in his preface.

, more familiarly known as Lord North, was the eldest son of Francis, first earl of Guilford, and was born April 13, 1732. He commenced his education at Eton school, and completed it at Trinity college, Oxford, of which his father had been a member, and which the family have generally preferred, from their relationship to the founder, sir Thomas Pope. At school and college, where he took both his degrees in arts (that of M. A. in March 1750) he obtained considerable reputation for his proficiency in classical literature; and was not less respected for the vivacity of his conversation, and his amiable temper, qualities which he displayed during life, and for which his family is still distinguished. He afterwards made what used to be called the grand tour, and applied with much assiduity to the acquisition of diplomatic knowledge. He also studied with great success the Germanic constitution, under the celebrated Mascow, one of the professors of Leipsic, whose lectures on the droit publique were at that time much frequented by young Englishmen of fortune and political ambition; and this mode of education being much a favourite with George II. courtiers thought it a compliment to his majesty to adopt his sentiments in this branch of their sons’ accomplishments. Celebrated, however, as professor Mascow once was, when we came to his name we were not able to discover any biographical memoir of him, or any information, unless that he outlived his faculties for some years, and died about 1760.

, an English antiquary, was the son of George North, citizen of London, and was born in 1710. He received his education at St. PauPs school, whence, in 1725, he went to Bene't college in Cambridge, where he took his degrees of B. A. in 1728, and M. A. in 1744. In 1729 he was admitted into deacon’s orders, and went to officiate as curate at Codicote, a small village near Welwyn, in Herts. In 1741 he published, without his name, “An Answer to a scandalous libel, entitled The Impertinence and Imposture of Modern Antiquaries displayed.” This “scandalous libel,” a quarto pamphlet, professed to be a “refutation of the *ev. Mr. Wise’s Letter to Dr. Mead, concerning the white horse, and other antiquities in Berkshire,” and was written by the rev. Will. Asplin, vicar of Banbury, and had a preface added to it by William Burnstead of Upton, co, Warwick, esq. formerly the supercargo of the prince Frederic, East Indiaman. Mr. North’s refutation and censure of the pert arrogance of Messrs. Asplin and Bumstead recommended him not only to the notice and esteem of the gentleman whose cause he had so generously espoused (to whom he was at that time a perfect stranger), but also of several dignified members of the Society of Antiquaries, into which he was elected early in 1742, and soon distinguished himself as a very useful member, and drew up in that year, a catalogue of the earl of Oxford’s coins, for the public sale of them.

, a physician and celebrated astrologer, was born Dec. 14, 1503, at St. Remy, in the diocese of Avignon. His father was a notary public, and his grandfather a physician, who instructed him in the elements of the mathematics. He Afterwards completed his courses of humanity and philosophy at Avignon, and studied physic at Montpelier; but the plague raging in 1525, he became a travelling physician for five years, and undertook all such patients as were willing to put themselves under his care. After this fee returned to Montpelier, and was created doctor of his faculty in 1529, and then revisited the places where he had practised physic before. At Agen, he contracted an acquaintance with Julius Caesar Scaliger, which induced him to make some stay in that town, where he married; but upon the death of his wife, four years after, he went first to Marseilles, and then, in 154-4, to Salon, where he married a second time.

So remarkable a prediction not a little increased the credulity of the public, and he was honoured shortly after with a visit from Emanuel duke of Savoy, and the princess Margaret of France, his consort. Charles IX. coming to Salon, being eager to see him, Nostradamus complained of the little esteem his countrymen had for him, on which the monarch publicly declared, that he should hold the enemies of Nostradamus to be his enemies. In passing, not Jong after, through the city of Aries, he sent for Nostradamus, presented him with a purse of 200 crowns, together with a brevet, constituting him his physician in ordinary, with the same appointment as the rest. But our prophet enjoyed these honours only for the space of sixteen, months, for he died July 2, 1566, at Salon. Besides his “Centuries,” we have some other pieces of his composition, and his prophetical works have been translated into English. He left three sons and three daughters John, his second son, exercised with reputation the business of a proctor in the parliament of Provence: he wrote the “Lives of the ancient Provencal Poets, called Troubadours,” which was printed at Lyons in 1575, 8vo. Cæsar, the eldest son, was born at Salon in 1555, and died in 1629: he left a “Manuscript giving an Account ofthe most remarkable events in the History of Provence, from 1080 to 1494,” in which he inserted the lives of the poets of that country. These memoirs falling into the hands of his nephew Caesar Nostradamus, gentleman to the duke of Guise, he undertook to complete the work; and being encouraged by a present, of 3000 livres from the estates of the country, he carried the account up to the Celtic Gauls the impression was finished at Lyons, in 1614, and published under the title of “Chronique de l'Histoire de Provence,” The next son of Michel is said to have imitated his father, and ventured to predict, that Pouzin, which was then besieged; would be destroyed by fire. In order to prove the truth of his prophecy, he was seen, during the tumult, setting fire to all parts of the town; which so much enraged M. De Saint Luke, that he rode over him with his horse, and killed him. But this story has been justly called in question,

, comptroller of the royal edifices of France, and an eminent planner of gardens, was born at Paris in 1613. We know little of him, except that he was brought up as a gardener under his father, until about 1653, when he was first employed by the superintendant Fouquet, to lay out the magnificent gardens of Vaux-le-Vicomte, celebrated by La Fontaine in his poems. In this work he was the creator of those porticoes, covered walks, grottoes, labyrinths, &c. which then were thought the greatest ornaments of gardens, and particularly gratified the taste of Louis XIV. who employed him in the decoration of his favourite residences at Versailles, Trianon, Fontainbleau, &c. Le Nostre went to Rome in 1678, and afterwards travelled through Italy; and it is said he found nothing in the most celebrated gardens equal to what he had himself executed. While at Rome, pope Innocent XI, was desirous of seeing le Notre, and gave him a long audience, at the conclusion of which the latter exclaimed, “I have now seen the two greatest men in the world your holiness, and the king, my master” “There is a great difference between them,” replied the pope “the king is a great and victorious prince, and I am a poor priest, servant of the servants of God.” Le Notre, delighted with this answer, and forgetting by whom it was made, clapped his hand on the pope’s shoulder, saying, “My reverend father, you are in good health, and will bury all the sacred college;” and Le Notre, more and more charmed with the sovereign pontiff’s kindness, and the particular esteem he expressed for the king, fell upon his neck, and embraced him. It was his custom thus to embrace all who praised Louis XIV.; and he embraced that prince himself every time he returned from the country. He was some time in England, and, probably on the invitation of Charles II. laid out St. James’s and Greenwich parks. In 1675, when he was again in France, his long services were rewarded by letters of noblesse, and the cross of St. Michael. The king would have given him a coat of arms, but he replied that he had one already, “consisting of three snails surmounted by a cabbage.” At the age of four-score he desired permission to retire, which the king granted him, on condition that he would sometimes come and see him. He died at Paris, in 1700, at the age of 87. He is said to have had a fine taste for the arts in general, especially for that of painting; and some pieces of his execution are mentioned as existing in the royal cabinet.

, surnamed Bras de Fer (Iron Arm), a celebrated warrior, was born in Bretany, in 1531, In his youth he served in Italy, and, returning to France, joined the Calvinists, and rendered them the most important services by his courage, prudence, and integrity. He took Orleans from the catholics, Sept. 28, 1567; commanded the rear at the battle of Jarnac in 1569, and made himself master of several strong places. His left arm being broken at the taking of Fontenay in Poitou, it was cut off at Rochelle, and he had an iron one made, which he used with great ease, and was from thence surnamed Bras de Fer. In 1578, La Noue engaged in the service of the Netherlands, gave them great assistance, and made count Egmont prisoner at the capture of Ninove; but was himself taken prisoner in 1580, and not exchanged for the count till 1585. La Noue continued to serve with great glory under king Henry IV. but was mortally wounded in the head, by a musket-ball, at the siege of Lambale in 1591, and died a few days after. He left “Discours Politiques,” Geneva, 1587, 4to. His son, Odet de la Noue, who died between 1611 and 1620, was author of some “Poesies Chretiennes,” Geneva, 1504, 8vo.

, a learned Benedictine of the congregation of St. Maur, was born at Dieppe in 1647$ and devoted his early years to the study of ecclesiastical antiquities, in which he was allowed to have attained very great knowledge. His first literary employment was on an edition of the works of Cassiodorus, which he prepared for the press in conjunction with father Garet, contributing the life, prefaces, and tables. He was next engaged on the works of St. Ambrose, published in 1686 1691. His most important work was his “Apparatus ad Bibliothecam max. veterum Patrum,” Paris, 1715, 2 vols. folio, intended as a supplement to Despont’s “Bibl. Patrum,” 27 vols. folio, but which is not always found with it. It contains a number of curious and learned dissertations on the lives, writings, and sentiments, of the fathers, with illustrations of many obscure passages. In 1710, Nourry published “Lucius Caecilius de mortibus persecutorum,” 8vo, which he contended was not the production of Lactantius (see Lactantius) but although he has supplied many useful notes and comments on this work, he failed in making converts to this last opinion. Nourry died at Paris, March 24, 1724, aged seventy-seven.

, a learned Italian monk, was born at Verona, in 1594. He entered among the Theatins when he was about eighteen years of age, and after passing his noviciate at Venice, took the vows in 1614. He afterwards studied philosophy and divinity, was ordained priest in 1621, and exercised the various functions of his office and order, applying at his leisure hours to study, and writing the many works enumerated by his biographers. The principal of these are, “Comment, in quatuor Evangel, et Acta Apostol.” in 4 vols. folio; “Adagia Sanctorum Patrum,” in 2 vols. folio; “Eiectra Sacra, in quibus qua ex Latino, Grseco, Hebraico, et Chaldaico fonte, qua ex antiquis Hebraeorum, Persarum, GnecoruiD, Romanorum, aliarumque Gentium ritibus, qusedam divinse Scripturae loca noviter explicantur et illustrantur,” in 3 vols. folio. He died at Verona Jan. 14, 1650, aged fifty-six.

, an eminent English divine, and the last surviving father of the English Reformation, descended from an ancient family of Norman origin, was the son of John Nowejl, esq, of Read, in the parish of Whailey, a,nd county of Lancaster. This gentleman, who was twice married, had, by his first wife, Dowsabel, daughter of Robert Hesketh, esq. of Rufford, in Lancashire, an only son, Roger Noweli, whose issue male, in a direct line, enjoyed the family estates for more than two centuries. By his second wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Kay of Rachdale, he had four sons, Alexander, the subject of this article, Laurence, Robert, and Nicholas; and several daughters. Alexander was born in 1507 or 1508, at Readhall, anciently Rivehead or Riverhead, a mansion on the Calder, a tributary branch of the Ribble. A view of this his birth-place, as it stood in 1750, is given in Mr. archdeacon Churton’s “Life of Alexander Noweli,” a work which has furnished the substance of this sketch.

, attorney-general in the reign of Charles I. the son of William Noy, of St. Burian, in Cornwall, gent, was born in 1577. In 1593 he was entered of Exeter-college, where he continued three years in close application to his studies. Thence he was removed to Lincoln’s- inn, to study the common law, in the knowledge of which he became very eminent. He was chosen to represent the borough of Helston in his own country, towards the end of James’s reign, in two parliaments; in both of which he shewed himself a professed enemy to the king’s prerogative. In 1625 he was elected a burgess for St. Ives, in which parliament, and another following, he continued in the same sentiments, until he was made attorney-general in 1631, which produced a total change in his views, and he became not only a supporter of the prerogative where it ought to be supported, but carried his notions of this power so far as to advise the measure of ship-money, a tax levied without consent of parliament. He was unquestionably a man of great abilities, but flattered so much upon that account, that Clarendon says he thought “he could not give a clearer testimony that his knowledge in the law was greater than all other men’s, than by making that law, which all other men believed not to” be so. So he moulded, framed, and pursued the odious and crying project of soap; and with his own hand drew and prepared the writ for ship-money; both which will be the lasting monuments of his fame. In a word,“adds this excellent historian,” he was an unanswerable instance, how necessary a good education and knowledge of men is to make a wise man, at least a man fit for business.“Noy, however, did not live to see the full effect of his measures. In 1634 his health was much impaired by the fatigue arising from his professional duties, and he retired to Tunbridge Wells, where he died in August, and was buried at New Brentford. His will, which is dated June 3, about a month or six weeks before his death, contains the following singular clause:” All the rest of my estate I leave to my son Edward (who is executor to this my will), to be squandered as he shall think fit I leave it him for that purpose, and I hope no better from him.“Steele, in the Tatler, No. 9, observes that this” generous disdain, and reflection upon how little he deserved from so excellent a father, reformed the young man, and made Edward from an arrant rake become a fine gentleman." No such effect however followed; and within two years he was killed in a duel.

, one of the restorers of literature in Spain, flourished in the sixteenth century, and was born at Vailadolid, in Latin Pinciuniy whence he was sometimes called Pingianus. His father, of the illustrious family of Guzman, was superintendant of the finances, or treasurer to Ferdinand the catholic. As entitled by birth, he received, when of proper age, the honour of knighthood of St. Jago; but his earliest taste being decidedly for literature, he put himself under a regular course of instruction for that purpose, and having a particular desire to become acquainted with the Greek language, then little known in Spain, after some elementary instruction in grammar under Antonio Lebrixa, he went to Bologna, and applied with the greatest ardour to Greek and Latin under Jovian of Peloponesus, and Philip Beroaldus. Having learned what these celebrated masters were able to teach, he determined to improve himself by every means, and laid out large sums in the purchase of Greek books and Mss. with which he returned to Spain, and devoted the whole of his time and attention to the studies he had begun with so much success. He appears to have been first employed by cardinal Ximenes on his celebrated Polyglot, and executed the greater part of the Latin version. He then succeeded Demetrius Luca of Crete, as Greek professor in the university of Alcala, then founded by the cardinal; but some disputes which occurred in this university obliged him to seek a situation of more tranquillity. This he found at Salamanca, the most famous university of Spain, where he was appointed Greek professor, and also taught rhetoric, and lectured on Pliny’s natural history. Here he formed many distinguished scholars, acquired the esteem of the learned men of his time, and was for many years the great patron and teacher of classical studies. He assisted likewise in the correction and revision of some of the ancient authors. He died about the age of eighty, in 1553, according to Antonio, or 1552, according to Thuanus and others, bequeathing his valuable library to the university of Salamanca, and his other property to the poor. His private character appears to have been estimable; he kept a plain but hospitable table, at which he loved to see his friends and scholars, whom he delighted and edified by his conversation. Among his works are, 1. “Annotationes in Senecae Philosophi Opera,” Venice, 1536, which Lipsius calls a model of just criticism. 2. “Observationes in Pomponium Melam,” Salamanca, 1543, 8vo. 3. “Observationes in loca obscura et depravata Hist. Nat. C. Plinii, cum retractationibus quorundam locorum Geographiae Pomponii Melae, locisque aliis non paucis in diversis utriusque linguae authoribus castigatis et exposuis,” Antwerp,1547, fol. Antonio thinks there was a previous edition at Salamanca in 1544, as there certainly was a subsequent one at Francfort in 1596, fol. but Saxius calls the Antwerp edition an octavo. 3. “Glosa sobre las obras de Juan de Mena,” Saville, 1528, fol. and Toledo, 1547, fol. This^is a commentary in the Spanish language on the works of John de Mena, a poet of Cordova. 4. A collection of Spanish proverbs, beguti in his old age, and published under the title “Refranes, o Proverbios en Romance,” Salamanca, fol. 1555. Of this edition there is a copy in the British Museum with ms notes. It was reprinted at Madrid in 1619, 4to.

, is the name of a family of painters, of whom Panfilo, the father, a Cremonese, was the favourite scholar of Trotti, and for some time the imitator of his style, but afterwards relinquished it for one more solid, though less alluring. Placentia and Milan possess his best works. He flourished about 1608. His eldest son, Charles Francis, was born in 1608, at Milan, and left the principles of G. C. Procaccino for the graces of Guido with a success that still insures him the name of the Lombard Guido. More choice than copious in composition, he forms his figures with grace and delicacy, and sweetly animates their countenances; hence his Madonnas always occupy a distinguished place in galleries. He died in. 1651. His younger brother, Joseph, who was born in 1619, with more fire and fancy, delighted in numerous composition, and sacrificed choice and delicacy to energy and effect. He painted much more than his brother, not only in Lombardy, but through theVenetian state and in various churches of Brescia. The large picture of a dead man resuscitated by S. Dominic, at Cremona, for expression and magnificence of arrangement, may be considered as one of his most powerful productions totally exempt from those symptoms of decay which disfigure or debilitate many of his later works; for he lived to a great age, and continued to paint till death surprised him in 1703.

, commonly known by the name of Mario da* Fiori, a flower-painter, was born in 1603, at Penna, in the kingdom of Naples. He was educated under his uncle Tomaso Salini, and being an exact observer of nature, he employed himself in copying the finest flowers, by which a dealer made an extraordinary profit in selling them again. Mario, informed of this circumstance, and also learning that his performances sold still higher at Home, resolved to visit that capital. Here he quickly rose to a high degree of reputation, and applied himself most diligently to attain perfection in his branch of the art. His representations of nature were equally exact and elegant; he chose his subjects with taste, handled his pencil with wonderful lightness, and coloured with singular beauty; but, according to Fuseli, “the charm which Mario spread over his flowers was not a permanent one: the impurity of the vehicle soon absorbed the freshness and the bloom of his glazings, and left a squalid surface.” Hence his pictures did not long maintain the extraordinary prices at which they were purchased. He was elected a member of St. Luke, and died in 1673, at the age of seventy.

Nyssenus, Gregory. See Gregory. Oates (Titus), a very singular character, who flourished in the seventeenth century, was born about 1619. He was the son of Samuel Gates, a popular preacher among the baptists, and a fierce bigot. His son was educated at Merchant Taylors’ school, from whence he removed to Cambridge. When he left the university, he obtained orders in the church of England, though in his youth he had been a member of a baptist church in Virginia-street, Ratcliffe Highway, and even officiated some time as assistant to his father; he afterwards officiated as a curate in Kent and Sussex. In 1677, after residing some time in the duke of Norfolk’s family, he became a convert to the church of Rome, and entered himself a member of the society of Jesuits, with a view, as he professed, to betray them. Accordingly, he appeared as the chief informer in what was called the popish plot, or a plot, as he pretended to prove, that was promoted for the destruction of the protestant religion in England, by pope Innocent XL; cardinal Howard; John Paul de Oliva, general of the Jesuits at Rome; De Corduba, provincial of the Jesuits in New Castille; by the Jesuits and seminary priests in England; the lords Petre, Powis, Bellasis, Arundel of Wardour, Stafford, and other persons of quality, several of whom were tried and executed, chiefly on this man’s evidence; while public opinion was for a time very strongly in his favour. For this service he received a pension of 1200l. per annum, was lodged in Whitehall, and protected by the guards; but scarcely had king James ascended the throne, when he took ample revenge of the sufferings which his information had occasioned to the monarch’s friends: he was thrown into prison, and tried for perjury with respect to what he had asserted as to that plot. Being convicted, he was sentenced to stand in the pillory five times a year during his life, to be whipt from Aldgate to Newgate, and from thence to Tyburn; which sentence, says Neal, was exercised with a severity unknown to the English nation. “The impudence of the man,” says the historian Hume, “supported itself under the conviction; and his courage under the punishment. He made solemn appeals to heaven, and protestations of the veracity of his testimony. Though the whipping was so cruel that it was evidently the intention of the court to put him to death by that punishment, yet he was enabled by the care of his friends to recover, and he lived to king William’s reign, when a pension of 400l. a year was settled upon him. A considerable number of persons adhered to him in his distresses, and regarded him as a martyr to the protestant cause.” He was unquestionably a very infamous character, and those who regard the pretended popish plot as a mere fiction, say that he contrived it out of revenge to the Jesuits, who had expelled him from their body. After having left the whole body of dissenters for thirty years, he applied to be admitted again into the communion of the baptists, having first returned to the church of England, and continued a member of it sixteen years. In 1698, or 1699, he was restored to his place among the baptists, from whence he was excluded in a few months as a disorderly person and a hypocrite: he died in 1705. He is described by Granger as a man “of cunning, mere effrontery, and the most consummate falsehood.” And Hume describes him as “the most infamous of mankind that in early life he had been chaplain to colonel Pride was afterwards chaplain on board the fleet, whence he had been ignominiously dismissed on complaint of some unnatural practices; that he then became a convert to the Catholics; but that he afterwards boasted that his conversion was a mere pretence, in order to get into their secrets and to betray them.” It is certain that his character appears to have been always such as ought to have made his evidence be received with great caution; yet the success of his discoveries, and the credit given to him by the nation, by the parliament, by the courts of law, &c. and the favour to which he was restored after the revolution, are circumstances which require to be carefully weighed before we can pronounce the whole of his evidence a fiction, and all whom he accused innocent.

, an eminent classical scholar, editor, and antiquary, the son of a schoolmaster of Strasburgh, was born in that city Aug. 7, 1735. He entered the university in 1750, and applied with great assiduity to the usual studies, but his particular attention was directed to the lectures of the celebrated Schcepflin, who was so well pleased with his ardour for instruction, that he permitted him the use of his excellent library, and his cabinet of antiquities, and there he imbibed that taste for investigating the monuments of ancient times, which, became the ruling passion of his life. In 1757 he afforded the first indication of this, by sustaining a thesis on the ancient rites in burial, “Dissertatio philologica de veterum ritu condiendi inortuos.” During three subsequent years he studied theology, but apparently rather as a philologer than a divine; and when Dr. Kennicott was endeavouring to procure the variations of the 'Hebrew text of the Old Testament from all Europe, Oberlin collated for him four manuscripts in the library of the university of Strasburgh, of which he afterwards, in his “Miscellanea Literaria Argentoratensia,” published a description with specimens. In 1755 he became assistant to his father in the school which he taught at Strasburgh, and afterwards succeeded him in that situation, but his ambition was a professorship in the university, which, however, notwithstanding his growing reputation, he did not obtain for many years.

, a learned German, was descended from a family, which came originally from Schlestadt, and had been raised to nobility in the person of his great-grandfather by the emperor Rodolphus II. in 1604. Ulric was born, July 23, 1646, at Strasburg, where he had the first part of his education, and then proceeded to study the sciences at Montbelliard and Altorf. He inherited both the inclination and taste of his ancestors, who were all distinguished by the posts they held, either in the university, or in the senate of Strasburg. The study of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew tongues was almost the first amusement of his infancy; and he learned, with equal facility, French, Spanish, and Italian. At fifteen^ he was so good a rhetorician, that he composed and pronounced a Latin speech in public, with universal applause. The method prescribed by his preceptors was, to suffer him to read only the ancient authors, and to derive the principles of eloquence from the purest sources, Demosthenes, Cicero, Quintilian, Longinus, &c. He also pursued the same plan, in his course of philosophy; Plato, Aristotle, and Pythagoras, being principally recommended to him. His general knowledge at length settled in jurisprudence and history: in both which he excelled, and filled the chairs of both in the university with great distinction, being admired, not more for the great extent of his knowledge, than for his perspicuity in communicating it. He gave an account of all ages as if he had lived in them; and of all laws as if he had been the maker of them. With all this, he spoke of such subjects as he knew best, like a man who sought rather to be informed than to decide. As soon as he had taken his licentiate’s degree, he resolved to travel for farther improvement. In this view, he went first to Vienna in Austria, with Mr. Kellerman, the Muscovite ambassador, and visited the libraries and learned men wherever he came. He commenced author at nineteen, when he published a kind of “Commentary upon Scipio’s Dream,” and “A Dissertation upon the Principles of Civil and Political Prude-nee.”

, so called from the village of Ockham in Surrey, where he was born, was, according to Wood, a fellow of Merton college, Oxford, in the thirteenth century, and was a renowned teacher of the scholastic doctrines at that university. He had the offer of the archdeaconry of Stow in the diocese of Lincoln in January 1300, but refused it. In 1302 he was collated by bishop D'Alderby to the prebend of Bedford major in that church; and having thought proper to accept the archdeaconry on a second offer, was collated to it May 15, 1305, but seems to have vacated it about the latter end of 1319. He was a pupil of Duns Scotus, and was little inferior to his master in subtlety. The school of the Scotists had, till his time, followed the popular opinion of the realists; but Occam, probably from an ambition of becoming the head of a separate body, revived the opinions of the nominalists, and formed a sect under the name of Occamists, which vehemently opposed the Scotists, upon the abstract questions concerning universals, which had been formerly introduced by Rosceline.

, one of a family' of physicians of considerable eminence, was born at Augsburgh, Oct. 17, 1524. When he had finished his medical studies under his father, a physician of Augsburgh, who died in 1572, and at the university, he soon became noted as a practitioner, and in 1564 was appointed inspector of the apothecaries, and perpetual vicar to the dean of the college of physicians. He died in 1605. He published a “Pharmacopoeia” in 1574, which continued to be reprinted as late as 1734; and “Imperatorum Romanorum Numismata a Pompeio M. ad Heraclium,” Strasburgh, 4to and folio. This is an excellent book of general reference, being a list of all the coins in every reign, digested into the years in which they were apparently struck. It was first printed in 1579, and again in 1600, which is the best edition. One afterwards published by Mezzabarba is not so highly valued, as this editor’s additions are of doubtful authority. Among Gesner’s letters is a learned “Epistola Graeca de Oxymeli helleborato, aiiisque ad rem medicam spectantibus,” written by Occo, who was an excellent Greek scholar.

, a celebrated Italian, was born at Sienna in 1487, and first took the habit of a Cordelier; but throwing it off in a short time, and returning into the world, applied himself to the study of physic, and acquired the esteem of cardinal Julius de Medici, afterwards pope Clement VII. At length, changing his mind again, he resumed his monk’s habit, and embraced, in 1534, the reformed sect of the Capuchins. He practised, with a most rigorous exactness, all the rules of this order; which, being then in its infancy, he contributed so much to improve and enlarge, that some writers have called him the founder of it. It is certain he was made vicar-general of it, and became in the highest degree eminent for his talents in the pulpit. He delivered his sermons with great eloquence, success, and applause. His extraordinary merit procured him the favour of pope Paul III. who, it is said, made him his father-confessor and preacher; and he was thus the favourite of both prince and people, when, falling into the company of one John Valdes, a Spaniard, who had imbibed Luther’s doctrine in Germany, he became a proselyte. He was then at Naples, and began to preach in favour of protestant doctrines with so much boldness, that he was summoned to appear at Rome, and was in his way thither, when he met at Florence Peter Martyr, with whom, it is probable, he had contracted an acquaintance at Naples. This friend persuaded him not to put himself into the pope’s power; and they both agreed to withdraw into some place of safety. Ochinus went first to Ferrara, where he disguised himself in the habit of a soldier; and, proceeding thence to Geneva, arrived thither in 1542, and married at Lucca, whence he went to Augsburg, and published some sermons.

, the second abbot of Clugni in France, illustrious for his learning and piety, and certainly as learned and pious as the ignorance and superstition of the times would permit, was born at Tours in 879. He was educated by Foluques, count of Anjou, and became a canon of St. Martin, at Tours, at nineteen years of age, after which he went to Paris, and was the disciple of St. Remy of Auxerre. He was fond of solitude, and took the monk’s habit in the convent of Beaume, in the diocese of Besangon. After which, he became prior and abbot of St. Clugni, in 927, where he introduced a new discipline, or set of ceremonies of a severe and rigorous kind, which, however, with the sanctity of his life contributed greatly to increase the congregation of Clugni; and such was the influence of his personal character, that popes, bishops, and secular princes, usually chose him for the arbitrator of their disputes, and the order or discipline of Clugni attained a very high degree of eminence and authority. He died about 943. He applied himself to study as well as to the aggrandizing of his order; but his original works are filled with the grossest superstitions. While he was canon, he abridged the “Morals of St. Gregory,” and the “Hymns in honour of St. Martin.” While a simple monk, he composed three books of “The Priesthood;” and another upon the “Prophecy of Jeremy,” dedicated to Turpion bishop of Limoges, which bore the title of “Collations or Conferences, or Occupations.” After he became abbot, he wrote the “Life of St. Gerard,” and of “St. Martial of Limoges,” and several sermons, and a “Panegyric upon St. Benedict.” All these are prinfed in the.“Bibliotheque of Clugni,” together with some “Hymns upon the Sacrament,” and “The Magdelain;” but the “History of St. Martyn’s Translation” is improperly ascribed to him. It appears also that he understood music; and besides some hymns, chaunts, and anthems, still preserved in the Romish church, there are two copies of a ms tract on music, of his writing, in the royal library of Paris, and one in Bene't college, Cambridge. This is noticed by Dr. Burney in his History of Music.

, a German divine, and eminent among the reformers of the church, was born in 1482, according to Dupin at Auschein in Switzerland, but others say at Weinsberg in Francouia, which is more probable, as it is only five miles from Heilbrun, where he went to school. His father intended to breed him a merchant; but, changing that resolution, devoted him to letters. He was sent first to the school of Heilbran, and thence removed to the university of Heidelberg, where he took the degree of bachelor of philosophy, at fourteen years of age. He went next to Bologna; but, the air of Italy not agreeing with him, he returned in six months to Heidelberg, and applied himself diligently to divinity. He turned over the works of Aquinas, Richard, and Gerson; but did not relish the subtleties of Scotus, and the scholastic disputations. He soon, however, acquired a reputation for learning, which, with his personal virtues, induced prince Philip, the elector Palatine, to chuse him preceptor to his youngest son: after discharging which office some time, he became tired of the gaieties of a court, and resumed his theological studies. On his return home, he was presented to a benefice in the church; but, not then thinking himself sufficiently qualified for such a charge, he quitted it, and went to Tubingen, and afterwards to Stutgard, where he improved himself in the Greek under Reuchlin, having learned Hebrew before at Heidelberg, and after this ventured to take possession of hte living.

, an eminent botanist, was born at Anspach, Feb. 3, 1728, and studied physic, but particularly botany, at Gottingen, under the celebrated Haller, through whose recommendation he was appointed professor of botany at Copenhagen. While in this station the “Flora Danica” was intrusted to him, of which he completed three volumes, containing 540 plates, when he resigned the chair, and the work was consigned to Muller, and afterwards to Vahl. He was induced, by the patronage of the unfortunate Struensee, to quit his situation and pursuits in 1773, Struensee having procured for him a considerable appointment in the college of finances, but on the death of his patron soon after, he left this place. He was afterwards appointed to the office of landvogt at Oldenburgh, which he retained until his death, Feb. 10, 1791. His other botanical publications are, “Elementa Botanica,” published at Copenhagen, in two parts, in 1764- and 1766; “Nomenclator Botanicus,” 1769; and “Enumeratio Plantarum Florae Danicge,” 1770. The Oedera, of Linnæus, was so called in honour of him.

, professor of painting, and director of the electoral academy of painting at Leipsic, was born at Presburgh in Hungary, in 1717. He became a student in the academy of painting at Vienna, and his “Sacrifice of Abraham” won the first prize, when he was in his eighteenth year. He learnt modelling of Raphael Donner, the sculptor. In 1739 he went to Dresden, and acquired some celebrity by his historic pictures. When the academy at Leipsic was founded by the elector Christian, Oeser was appointed director; and his best works are in St. Nicholas church in that city, where he died March 18, 1799. Fuseli is of opinion that, had he seen Italy, studied tfoe antique with greater assiduity, and submitted less to the dastard taste of his age, he probably would have more than rivalled Mengs, whom he excelled in invention and fire. Winkleman, with whom he became acquainted at Dresden, appears to have been indebted to him for the formation of his taste. Oeser has etched some of his own compositions in a free and picturesque manner.

, archbishop of Tuam, was otherwise called Maurice de Portu, from having been born near the port of Baltimore, in the county of Cork, though others say he was born at Down, or Galway. He was some time a student at Oxford, where he became a Franciscan. He afterwards travelled to Italy, and studied philosophy, and school-divinity at Padua. About 1480 he removed to Venice, where he was employed by Octavian, Scott, and Locatelli, as corrector of the press, which was then considered as an employment worthy of the greatest scholars. In 1506, after he had taken his degree of D. D. at Padua, pope Julius II. made him archbishop of Tuam in Ireland. In 1512 he assisted at the first two sessions of the Lateran council, and in the following year set out for Ireland, but died at Galway, May 25, 1513, where he landed, before he could take possession of his archbishopric. He was at this time not quite fifty years of age. He was buried in a church at Galway, where his humble monument is yet shown. He was a learned, pious, and amiable prelate, and held in such veneration by some authors, that they have given him the name of “Flos Mundi,” the flower of the world. His works are, 1. “Expositio in questiones dialecticas Divi Joan. Scoti in Isagogen Porphyrii,” Ferrara, 1499; Venice, 1512, fol. 2. “Commentaria doct. subtilis Joan. Scoti in XII. lib. metaphysics Aristotelis,” &c. Venet. 1507, fol. 3. “Epithemata in insigne formalitatum opus de mente doctoris subtilis,” &c. Venice, 1514, fol. This is what Possevin calls “Theorems for the explanation of the sense of Scotus.” 4. “Dictionarium sacra? scripturee,” &c. Venice, 1603, fol. which reaches no farther than the word extinguere, but there is said to be a complete ms. of it in the Bodleian, as far as the word zona. 5. “Enchiridion fidei,” 1509, 4to. &c. &c.

, an English divine, was born at Manchester, in 1716, and was educated at the free-school there. In 1733 he was admitted a poor scholar of King’s college, Cambridge, whence he removed for a Manchester exhibition to St. John’s in 1736. In the following year he took the degree of B. A. and in 1739 was elected fellow. He was ordained deacon at Chester in 1740; and in the following year he took his degree of M. A. and was ordained priest by the bishop of Lincoln. In 1744 he was elected master of the free-school at Halifax in Yorkshire. In 1753 he resigned his school, and went to reside at Cambridge; and at the ensuing commencement he took the degree of D. D. The late duke of Newcastle, who was chancellor of the university, having been present at the exercise he performed for the degree, was so much satisfied with it, that he soon after presented him with the vicarage of Damerham in Wiltshire, which was tenable with his fellowship. In 1764, Dr. Ogden was appointed Woodwardian professor. In June 1766 he was presented to the rectory of Lawford in Essex, and in the following month to that of Stansfield in Suffolk. He died March 23, 1778, in the sixty-second year of his age, and was buried in St. Sepulchre’s church, Cambridge, of which he had the cure, and where he preached most of his published sermons. In common life there was a real or apparent rusticity attending Dr. Ogden’s address, which disgusted those who were strangers to his character; but this prejudice soon wore off, as the intimacy with him increased; and, notwithstanding the sternness, and even ferocity, he would sometimes throw into his countenance, he was in truth one oC the most humane and tender-hearted men ever known. To his relations who wanted his assistance, he was remarkably kind in his life, and in the legacies he left them at his death. His father and mother, who both lived to an exceeding old age, owed almost their whole support to his piety. During the latter part of Dr. Ogden’s life he laboured under much ill health. About a year before he died he was seized with a paralytic fit as he was stepping into his chariot, and was judged to be in immediate and extreme danger, but he sustained this shock with cheerfulness, and calmly gave the necessary orders on the event of his dissolution. Such is the character given of Dr. Ogden by his learned friend Dr. (afterwards bishop) Halifax, Originally prefixed to an edition of his “Sermons, with a Vindication of his Writings against some late Objections,” 1780, 2 vols. 8vo. It seems to be fully confirmed by the testimony of two Cambridge gentlemen of very opposite sentiments, Mr. Cole, to whom we are so often indebted for memoranda of the eminent men of that university, and Mr. Gilbert Wakefield. The latter, who heard Dr. Ogden preach most of the discourses since published, says that “his person, manner, and character of composition, were exactly suited to each other. He exhibited a large Black, scowling, grisly figure, a ponderous body with a lowering visage, embrowned by the horrors of a sable perriwig. His voice was growling and morose; and his sentences desultory, tart, and snappish.” Mr. Wakefield adds that his “uncivilized appearance, and bluntness of demeanour, were the grand obstacles to his elevation in the church.” The duke of Newcastle would have brought him to court to prefer him; but found, as he expressed it, that the doctor was not a producible man. In all these particulars Mr. Cole agrees, as in some other singularities. Mr. Cole informs us that Dr. Ogden’s father had been in the army, and when he retired lived at Mansfield, where he married. Some time before his death he went to Mansfield, and put up, a monument to his father, in gratitude for having given him a good education, as he expressed it, and left the bulk of his fortune to the family into which his father married. His Arabic books he left to Mr, Craven, of St. John’s, the Arabic professor, who very disinterestedly refused the residuary legateeship, which Dr. Ogden had long designed for him. Dr. Ogden’s reputation as a divine rests on two small volumes of sermons, collected by Dr. Halifax, whose “Vindication” of them, above mentioned, respects the remarks of Mr. Mainwaring, in a “Dissertation” on the composition of sermons, prefixed to his own sermons, 1780, 8vo. Dr. Halifax’s vindication is warm, zealous, and friendly, like his character of Dr. Ogden, but not altogether satisfactory as to the principal objections to the style of his author; and even if allowed to be elegant, Dr. Ogden’s sermons are of very slight texture, and rather hortatory than instructive or doctrinal.

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

, a distinguished English officer, was the fourth and youngest son of sir Theophilus Oglethorpe, of Godalmin, in the county of Surrey, by Eleonora his wife, daughter of Richard Wall, of Rogane, in Ireland. He was born in the parish of St. James, iri 1698, and admitted of Corpus Christi college, Oxford, in 1714, but it would appear that his destination in life was soon changed, as in the same year we find he was captainlieutenant in the first troop of the queen’s guards. He afterwards employed himself in acquiring the art of war under the famous prince Eugene of Savoy, and other eminent commanders, among whom the great duke of Argyle, his patron, may be named. In his several campaigns in Germany and Hungary, having been recommended by John duke of Marlborough, he acted as secretary and aid-de-camp to the prince, and stored up much useful knowledge and if we are not mistaken, he received some preferment in the German service, in which he might have continued with as great advantages as his companion, the Veldth Marshal, afterwards obtained. But with a man of his sentiments, the obligations due to his native country, and the services it required, could not be dispensed with: he quitted his foreign engagements, and long exercised the virtues of the unbiassed senator at home. In the parliament which met May 10, 1722, he was returned member for Haslemere; as he was again in 1727, 1734, 1741, and 1747; and during that period many regulations in our laws, for the benefit of our trade, &c. were proposed and promoted by him in the senate. In the committee of parliament for inquiring into the state of the jails, formed in Feb. 1728, and of which he was chairman, he was enabled to detect many horrible abuses in some of the jails of the metropolis. But he was most instrumental in founding the colony of Georgia, situate between South Carolina and Florida, which was established by a royal charter; the fund for settling it was to arise from charitable contributions: collections were made throughout the kingdom, the bank contributed a handsome sum, and the parliament gave 10,000l. which enabled the trustees, of whom general Oglethorpe was one, to entertain many poor families, and provide for their accommodation and removal to America.

, a learned civilian, was born at Dantzic May 4, 1631. His father originally intended him for commercial life, and sent him to Holland with that view; but as he betrayed a stronger inclination to study, and employed all his leisure hours in acquiring knowledge that could be of no use in trade, he was permitted to enter upon a regular course of academic instruction at Leyden. At this university, which he entered in 1650, he was enabled to profit by the instructions of those learned contemporaries, Salmasius, Daniel Heinsius, Boxhornius, Golius, &c. and he had not been here above two years before he published an excellent edition of Minutius Felix, in quarto, dedicated to Christina queen of Sweden. Both Niceron and Morhoff accuse him of plagiarism in this work; but Chaufepie defends him, and apparently with justice. Besides the belles-lettres, he studied law, both at Leyden and Utrecht, and took his doctor’s degree at the former in 1654. Next year he visited England and France, and meant to have proceeded to Italy; but hearing at Geneva that the plague raged there, he went a second time to England and France, and returned to Holland in 1657. He afterwards resided, partly at Utrecht, and partly at Leyden and the Hague, until 1667, when he was appointed professor of law at Grofiingen. The conformity of his ideas with those of Puffendorf occasioned a great intimacy between them. Oisel accumulated a large library, a catalogue of which was published about the time of his death, which happened June 20, 1686. His other works were principally an edition of Aulus Gellius, Leyden, 1666, 8vo, and a treatise entitled “Thesaurus selectorum numismatum antiquorum aere expressorum,” Amst. 1677, 4to, a curious and scarce performance; but originally suggested to him by some booksellers who had purchased the plates of a similar work in German by Joachim Oudaan, and requested Oisel to illustrate them in the Latin language. He had a nephew Philip Oisel, a divine, who published some works on the Hebrew accents and on. the Decalogue.

, a learned, but somewhat enthusiastic divine, was born in 1718, and educated at the Charter-house, and at St. John’s college, Cambridge, where he proceeded B. A. 1739. At this time he appears to have conceived those notions which interrupted his regular ad*­vancement, and was ordained deacon in the Moravian church. He afterwards offered himself as a candidate for priest’s orders in the church of England; but, when the bishop intimated the invalidity of his first orders, Mr. Okely would not be ordained priest on such terms, and therefore adhered, through life, to the Moravian congregations, and was highly esteemed by the few who lived in communion with him, on account of his piety, benign temper, and liberal sentiments. He died at Bedford May 9, 1794, in his seventy-sixth year. The peculiar turn of his mind may be understood from the titles of his publications: 1. A translation from the High Dutch, of “Twenty-one Discourses, or Dissertations, upon the Augsburgh Confession, which is also the Brethren’s Confession of Faith, delivered by the ordinary of the Brethren’s Churches before the seminary,” &c. 1754, 8vo. 2. “Psalmorum aliquot Davidis Metaphrasis Graeca Joannis Serrani,” &c. 1770, 12mo. 3. “The Nature and Necessity of the new creature in Christ, stated and described, according to the heart’s experience and true practice, by Johanna Eleanora de Mellari translated from the German,” 1772, 8vo, 4, “The divine visions of John Englebrecht,” 1781, 2 vols. 8vo. 5. “A faithful Narrative of God’s gracious dealings with Kiel,” 1781, 8vo. 6. “A Display of God’s Wonders, done upon the person, &c. of John Englebrecht,” &c. 1781. 7. “The indispensable necessity of Faith, in order to the pleasing God being the^ substance of a discourse preached at Eydon in Northamptonshire,” 1781, 8vo.

, a learned prelate, was born at Hermanstadt, in 1493. After various preferments, he was nominated by Ferdinand, king of Hungary, bishop of Zagrat, and chancellor of the kingdom. He was afterwards elevated to the see of Agria, and being present at the famous siege of that town by the Turks in 1552, he contributed greatly to the spirited and successful defence made by the inhabitants. In 1553 he was appointed archbishop of Strigonia, and held two national councils at Tyrnau, the acts of which were printed at Vienna in 1560, and was instrumental in founding the first Jesuits’ college in Hungary $rt Tyrnau. In 1562 he was created palatine of the kingdom, in which quality he crowned Maximilian as king of Hungary. He died at Tyrnau in 1568; leaving behind him, as monuments of his industry and learning, “A Chronicle of his own Times:” “A History of Attila,” Presb. 1538, and “A Description of Hungary.” His life is given in father Muszka’s history of the Palatines of Hungary, printed in 1752, folio.

, called the good lord Cobham, the first author, as well as the first martyr, among our nobility, was born in the fourteenth century, in the reign of Edward III. He obtained his peerage by marrying the heiress of that lord Cobham, who, with so much virtue and patriotism opposed the tyranny of Richard IL and, with the estate and title of his father-in-law, seems also to have taken possession of his virtue and independent spirit. The famous statute against provisors was by his means revived, and guarded by severer penalties. He was one of the leaders in the reforming party, who drew up a number of articles against the corruptions which then prevailed among churchmen, and presented them, in the form of a remonstrance, to the Commons. He was at great expence in collecting and transcribing the works of Wickliff, which he dispersed among the people; and he maintained a great number of his disciples as itinerant preachers in many parts of the country. These things naturally awakened the resentment of the clergy against him. In the reign of Henry IV. he had the command of an English army in France, which was at that time a scene of great confusion, through the competition of the Orleanand Burgundian factions; and obliged the duke of Orleans to raise the siege of Paris. In the reign of Henry V. he was accused of heresy, and the growth of it was particularly attributed to his influence. The king, with whom lord Cobham was a domestic in his court, delayed the prosecution against him; and undertook to reason with him himself, and to reduce him from his errors. Lord Cobham’s answer is upon record. “I ever was,” said he, “a dutiful subject to your majesty, and ever will be. Next to God, I profess obedience to my king; but as to the spiritual dominion of the pope, I never could see on what foundation it is claimed, nor can I pay him any obedience. It is sure as God’s word is true, he is the great antichrist foretold in holy writ.” This answer so exceedingly shocked the king, that, turning away in visible displeasure, he withdrew his favour from him, and left him to the censures of the church. He was summoned to appear before the archbishop; and, not appearing, was pronounced contumacious, and excommunicated. In hopes to avoid the impending storm, he waited upon the king with a confession of nis faith in writing, in his hand; and, while he was in his presence, a person entered the chamber, cited him to appear before the archbishop, and he was immediately hurried to the Tower. He was soon after brought before the archbishop, and read his opinion of these articles, on which he supposed he was called in question, viz. the Lord’s supper, penance, images, and pilgrimages. Hewas told, that in some parts he had not been sufficiently explicit that on all these points holy church had determined by which determinations all Christians ought to abide and that these determinations should be given him as a direction of his faith; and in a few days he must appear again and give his opinion. At the time, he said among other things, “that he knew none holier than Christ and the apostles and that these determinations were surely none of theirs, as they were against scripture.” In conclusion, he was condemned as an heretic, and remanded to the Tower, from which place he escaped, and lay concealed in Wales. The clergy, with great zeal for the royal person, informed the king, then at Eltham, that 20,000 Lollards were assembled at St. Giles’s for his destruction, with lord Cobham at their head. This pretended conspiracy, though there were not above 100 persons found, and those poor Lollards assembled for devotion, was entirely credited by the king, and fully answered the designs of the clergy; but there is not the smallest authority for it, in any author of reputation. A bill of attainder passed against lord Cobham; a price of a thousand marks was set upon his head; and a perpetual exemption from taxes promised to any town that should secure him. After he had been four years in Wales, he was taken at last by the vigilance of his enemies, brought to London in triumph, and dragged to execution in St. Giles’s-fields. As a traitor, and a heretic, he was hung up in chains alive upon a gallows; and, fire being put under him, was burnt to death, in December, 1417.

, a celebrated English actress, and most accomplished woman, was born in Pall-mall, London, in 1683. Her father, once possessed of a competent estate, was then an officer in the guards; but, being improvident, left his family, at his death, almost destitute. In these circumstances, the widow was forced to live with a sister, who kept a tavern in St. James’s market; and the daughter was placed with a sempstress in King-street, Westminster. Miss Oldfield, in the mean time, conceived an extraordinary taste for the drama, and was entertaining her relations at a tavern by reading, or attempting to act, when her voice chanced to reach the eat of Farquhar, the celebrated dramatic writer, who happened to dine in the same house. On being introduced, he was struck with her agreeable person and carriage, and presently pronounced her admirably formed for the stage. This concurring with her own inclinations, her mother opened the matter to sir John Vanburgh, a friend of the family, who having the same favourable opinion of her talents, recommended her to Mr. Rich, then patentee of the king’s theatre. She remained, however, in comparative obscurity, till 1703, when she first appeared to advantage in the part of Leonora in “Sir Courtly Nice;” and established her theatrical reputation, the following year, in th'at of Lady Betty Modish in the “Careless Husband.”

, an English poet, was born Aug. 9, 1653, at Shipton, near Tedbury in Gloucestershire, where his father was a nonconformist minister, and had a congregation. He educated his son in grammar-learning, and afterwards sent him to Tedbury school, where he spent about two years. In June 1670, he was admitted of Edmund-hall, Oxford, where he was soon distinguished for a good Latinist, and made poetry and polite literature his chief study. In May 1674, he proceeded B. A. but soon after was called home, much against his inclination. He continued sometime with his father, still cultivating his muse: one of the first fruits of which was “A Pindaric Ode,” the next year, upon the death of his friend and constant companion, Mr. Charles Morvent. Shortly after this, he became usher to the free-school at Croydon in Surrey, yet found leisure to compose several copies of verses; some of which, being seen in ms. by the earls of Rochester and Dorset, sir Charles Sedley, and other wits of distinction, were so much admired, that they surprised him with an unexpected visit at Croydon. Mr. Shepherd (then master of the school) attributed the honour of this visit to himself; but they soon convinced him, that he was not the object of their curiosity. The visit, however, brought Oldham acquainted with other persons of wit and distinction, and probably by their means, he was, in 1678, removed from Croydon, and appointed tutor to the two grandsons of sir Edward Thurland, a judge, near Rygate in-' Surrey. He continued in this family till 1681; when, being out of employment, he passed some time in London among the wits, and was afterwards engaged as tutor to a son of sir William Hickes. This gentleman, living near London, was intimately acquainted with Dr. Richard Lower, an eminent physician there, and who encouraged Oldharn to study physic, in which he made some progress; but he had no relish for protracted study, and preferred the occasional exercise of his pen on temporaty subjects. f Having discharged his trust, in qualifying young Hickes for foreign travels, he declined, though earnestly pressed, to go abroad with him, and took leave of the family. With, a small sum of money which he had saved, he now hastened to London, where company seduced him into intemperance, yet in other respects he neither degraded nor disgraced his character. Before he had been long in the metropolis, he was found out by the noblemen who had visited him at Croydon, and who now brought him acquainted with Dryden, who highly esteemed him, conceived a very great opinion of his talents, and honoured his memory with some very pathetic and beautiful lines.

, ridiculed in the Taller by the name of Mr. Omicron, “the Unborn Poet,” descended from an ancient family of the name, originally seated at Oldmixon, near Bridgewater, in Somersetshire, and was born in 1673. Where he was educated is not known. He appears to have been early a writer for the stage; his first production was “Amyntas,” a pastoral, and his second, in 1700, an opera, neither of much merit or success. He Soon, however, became a violent party-writer, and a severe and malevolent critic. In the former light he was a strong opponent of the Stuart family, whom he has, on every occasion, endeavoured to vilify without any regard to that impartiality which ought ever to be the essential characteristic of an historian. As a critic he was perpetually attacking, with evident tokens of envy and malevolence, his several contemporaries; particularly Addison, Eusden, and Pope. The last of these, however, whom he had attacked in different letters which he wrote in “The Flying Post,” and repeatedly reflected on in his “Prose essays on Criticism,” and in his “Art of Logic and Rhetoric,” written in imitation of Bouhours, has introduced him into his “Dunciad,” with some very distinguishing marks of eminence among the devotees of dulness. In the second book of that severe poem, where the dunces are contending for the prize of dulness, by diving in the mud of Fleet-ditch, he represents our author as mounting the sides of a lighter, in order to enable him to take a more efficacious plunge. Oldmixon’s malevolence of abuse entitled him to the above-mentioned honour; and, to the disgrace of the statesmen of that time, his zeal as a virulent party-writer procured him the place of collector of the customs at the port of Bridgewater, but he died at his house in Great Pulteney-street, aged sixty-nine, July 9, 1742. He left a daughter, who died in 1789, at Newiand in Gloucestershire, aged eighty-four. Another of his daughters sung at Hickford’s rooms in 1746. He lies buried in Ealing church.

, a bibliographer of great industry and accuracy, was born July 14, 1696. He was the natural son of Dr. William Oldys, chancellor of Lincoln, commissary of St. Catharine’s, official of St. Alban’s, and advocate of the Admiralty, by a woman who was maintained by her keeper in a very penurious and private manner, and whose son, it is probable, had but little assistance in his education from parents so circumstanced.

, a learned traveller, whose German name was Oelschlager, was born in 1599, or 1600, at Aschersieben, a small town in the principality of Anhalt. 43is parents were very poor, and scarcely able to maintain him, yet by some means he was enabled to enter as a student at Leipsic, where he took his degrees in arts and philosophy, but never was a professor, as some biographers have asserted. He quitted Leipsic for Holsteiu, where the duke Frederic, hearing of his merit and capacity, wished to employ him. This prince having a wish to extend the commerce of his country to the East, determined to send an embassy to the Czar Michael Federowitz, and the king of Persia, and having chosen for this purpose two of his counsellors, Philip Crusius and Otto Bruggeman, he appointed Olearius to accompany them as secretary. Their travels lasted six years, during which Olearius collected a great fund of information respecting the various countries they visited. The Czar of Moscovy on his return wished to have retained him in his service, with the appointment of astronomer and mathematician; not, however, his biographers tell us, so much on account of his skill in these sciences, as because the Czar knew that Olearius had very exactly traced the course of the Volga, which the Russians then wished to keep a secret from foreigners. Olearius had an inclination, however, to have accepted this offer, but after his return to the court of Holstein, he was dissuaded from it, and the duke having apologized to the Czar, attached him to himself as mathematician and antiquary. In 1643, the duke sent him on a commission to Moscow, where, as before, his ingenuity made him be taken for a magician, especially as on this occasion he exhibited a camera obscura. In 1650 the duke appointed him his librarian, and keeper of his curiosities. The library he enriched with many Oriental Mss. which he had procured in his travels, and made also considerable additions to the duke’s museum, particularly of the collection of Paludanns, a Dutch physician, which the duke sent him to Holland ta purchase; and he drew up a description of the whole, which was published at Sleswick in 1666, 4to. He also constructed the famous globe of Gottorp, and an armillary sphere of copper, which was not less admired, and proved how much mathematics had been his study. He died Feb. 22, 1671. He published, in German, his travels, 1647, 1656, 1669, fol. Besides these three editions, they were translated into English by Davies, and into Dutch and Italian. The most complete translation is that, in French, by Wicquefort, Amst. 1727, 2 vols. fol. who also translated Olearius’s edition of Mandelso’s “Voyages to Persia,” c. fol. Among his other and less known works, are some lives of eminent Germans “The Valley of Persian Roses,” from the Persian; “An abridged Chronicle of Holstein,” &c

, a learned Portuguese Dominican of the sixteenth century, was born at Azambaja. In 1545 he attended the council of Trent, as Theologian from John III. king of Portugal. He refused a bishopric at his return; but consented to the appointment of inquisitor of the faith, and held the principal offices of the Dominican order in his province. He died in 1563. He has Jeft “Commentaries on the Pentateuch,” Lisbon, 1556, 1558$ 5 parts in one volume, fol. and on “Isaiah,” Paris, 1628, fol. from which it appears that he was an able Latin, Greek, and Hebrew scholar.

, M. A. president of Clare r haH in Cambridge, and vicar of Great Gransden in Huntingdonshire, was born at Thorp, near Wakefield in Yorkshire (of which place his father was vicar), and was proctor of the university in 1635. On the breaking out of the rebellion, he was very active in collecting the university-plate, and was intrusted in conveying it to the king at Nottingham in August, 1642; but for this, and other acts of loyalty, he was turned out of his fellowship by the earl of Manchester, April 8, 1644, and forced to quit his vicarage. After having suffered much during the usurpation, he was, in 1660, restored both to his fellowship and vicarage; and Sept. 4, that year, installed prebendary of Worcester; and bishop Gunning (to whom he had formerly been tutor), collated him to the archdeaconry of Ely, Nov. 8, into which he was inducted, by proxy, Nov. 17, 1679. This dignity, however, after a little more than a year’s possession, he voluntarily resigned, not thinking himself, in his great humility, sufficient to discharge the duty of it. He was a Jearned man, and no less eminent for his piety and charities. He published “Dr. Jackson’s works,” and Mr. Herbert’s “Country Parson,” to each of which he prefixed a preface. He dred Feb. 20, 1C 86, and was interred in Great Gransden church, where is an inscription to his memory, recording his various charities.

, general of the Augustin monks, and a celebrated cardinal, was born at Saxoferato, in 1408, of poor parents. He was admitted young amongst the monks of Augustin, and studied at Rimini, Bologna, and Perugia: in which last place he was first made professor of philosophy, and afterwards appointed to teach divinity. At length he was chosen provincial, and some time after accepted, not without reluctance, the post of solicitor-general of his order. This office obliged him to go to Rome, where his learning and virtue became greatly admired, notwithstanding he took all possible methods, out of an extreme humility, to conceal them. The cardinal of Tarentum, the protector of his order, could not prevail upon him to engage in any of the public disputations, where every body wished to see his great erudition shine; they had, however, the gratification to hear his frequent sermons, which were highly applauded. He appeared in the pulpits of the principal cities in Italy, as Rome, Naples, Venice, Bologna, Florence, Mantua, and Ferrara; was elected first vicar-general, and then general of his order, in 1459; and at last created cardinal, in 1460, by pope Pius II. This learned pontiff gave him afterwards the bishopric of Camerino, and made use of his abilities on several occasions. Oliva died shortly after at Tivola, where the court of Rome then resided, in 1463. His corpse was carried to the church of the Augustin monks at Rome, where there is a marble monument, with an epitaph, and a Latin tetrastic by way of eulogium. His works are, “De Christi ortu sermones centum”' “De ccena cum apostolis facta;” “De peccato in spiritum sanctum; Orationes elegantes.”

, an Italian antiquary, was born July 11, 1689, at Rovigo, in the Venetian state. Having been ordained priest in 1711, he became professor of ethics at Azzoio, which office he filled for eight years, and went to Rome in 1715, where Clement XI. received him very kindly. After this pontiff’s decease, Oliva being made secretary to the conclave, obtained the notice of cardinal de Rohan, who patronized him, and in 1722 appointed him his librarian, which he held till his death, March 19, 1757, at Paris. He translated the abbe Fleury’s “Tr. des Etudes,” into Italian, and left a dissertation, in Latin, “On the necessity of joining the study of ancient medals to that of history;” another, “On the progress and decay of learning among the Romans;” and a third, “On a monument of the goddess Isis.” These three, under the title of “CEuvres diverses,” were printed at Paris, 1758, 8vo. He also published an edition of a ms. of Sylvestri’s, concerning an ancient monument of Castor and Pollux, with the author’s Life, 8vo; an edition in 4to, of several Letters written by Poggio, never published before; and formed a ms catalogue of cardinal de Rohan’s library, in 25 vols. fol.

, one of the first English miniature painters, was born in this country in 1556, and studied under Hilliard, but received some farther instructions from Frederick Zucchero, and became a painter of great eminence, His principal employment was in portraits, which he painted for the most distinguished personages of his time; but he likewise attempted historical subjects with success. He was a good designer, and very correct; his touch was neat and delicate; and although he generally worked in miniature, yet he frequently painted in a large size. His drawings are highly finished, and exceedingly valued, many of them being copies after Parmigiano. Several very fine miniatures of this master are to be seen in the collections of the English nobility and gentry. Dr. Mead’s collection was very rich in them: some of them are portraits of himself, others of queen Elizabeth, Mary queen of Scots, prince Henry, and Ben Jonson, which are admirably finished. There is also a whole length of sir Philip Sidney, of great merit. These are now in the king’s collection. At Strawberry-hill are some fine specimens, and in the closet of queen Caroline at Kensington, there is a capital drawing of Oliver’s, of which the subject is, the placing of Christ in the Sepulchre; and another drawing after Raphael’s design of the Murder of the Innocents, which has a great deal of merit. He died in 1617, aged sixty- one, and was buried in St. Anne’s, Blackfriars, where his son erected a monument to his memory, which was destroyed in the great fire. He wrote a treatise on limning, partly printed in Sanderson’s “Graphice.”

, son and disciple of the preceding, was born in 1601, and by the precepts and example of his father, he arrived at a degree of perfection in miniature portrait painting confessedly superior to his instructor, or any of his contemporaries, as he did not confine his subjects to a head only. His pictures, like his father’s, are spread among the houses of the nobility and gentry, and are alike justly esteemed. The works which he executed upon a larger scale are much more valuable than those of his father, and are also more numerous, though not very frequently to be met with. L6rd Orford mentions that there were thirteen works of Peter Oliver in the collection of Charles I. and of James II.; and that seven of them are preserved in queen Caroline’s closet at Kensington; and he also speaks of a portrait of Mrs. Oliver by her husband, in possession of the duchess of Portland, as his finest work. Lord Orford thinks it extraordinary that more of the works of this excellent master are not known, as he commonly made duplicates of his pictures, reserving one of each for himself. On this subject, he adds, that Russel the painter, related to or connected with the Olivers, told Vertue a remarkable story. The greater part of the collection of king Charles I. being dispersed in the troubles, among which were several of the Olivers, Charles II. who remembered, and was desirous of recovering them, made many inquiries about them after the Restoration; at last, he was told by one Rogers of Islevvorth, that both the father and son were dead, but that the son’s widow was living at Isleworth, and had many of their works. The king went very privately and unknown with Rogers, to see them; the widow shewed several finished and unfinished; with many of which the king being pleased, he asked if she would sell them; she replied she had a mind the king should see them first, and if he did not purchase them, she should think of disposing of them. The king discovered himself; on which she produced some more pictures, which she seldom shewed. The king desired her to set a price she said she did not care to make a price with his majesty she would leave it to him but promised to look over her husband’s books, and let his majesty know what prices his father, the late king, had paid. The king took away what he liked, and sent Rogers to Mrs. Oliver with the options of \OOOl. or an annuity of 30Q/. for her life. She chose the latter. Some years afterwards it happened that the king’s mistresses having begged aril or most of these pietures r Mrs. Oliver said, on hearing it, that if she had thought the king would have given them to such whores and strutn* pets and bastards, he never should have had them. This reached the court, the poor woman’s salary was stopped* and she never received it afterwards. The rest of the Winnings which the king had not taken, fell into the hands of Mrs. Russel’s father. Peter Oliver is supposed to have died before the restoration, probably about 1654. Isaac Oliver, the glass -painter, appears to have been of this family.

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

, a learned Italian antiquary, honorary chamberlain to Clement the XHIth, and perpetual secretary of the academy of Pesaro, in the Marche of Ancona, was born in that city on the 17th of June, 1708, of an ancient and illustrious family. His lively and active disposition, and an uncommon thirst for information, gave an early promise of his subsequent progress in the career of literature. After receiving at home the rudiments of a learned education, he went through the usual studies of polite literature, at the college of noblemen at Bologna. He then applied himself to the study of the civil and canon law at the university of Pisa, under the tuition of the illustrious civilian and literator Averani, until 1727, when he went to Rome in order to practise at the bar.

, a very excellent artist and professor of painting in the Royal Academy, was born in May 1761, at St. Agnes in Cornwall, a village about seven miles distant from the town of Truro. In his earliest years he was remarkable for the strength of his understanding, and the rapidity with which he acquired all the learning that a village-school could afford him. When ten years old, he was not only able to solve several difficult problems in Euclid, but was thought capable of instructing others: and when he had scarcely reached his twelfth year, he established an evening school at St. Agnes, and taught writing and arithmetic. His father, a carpenter, was desirous to bring him up in his own business; but this was by no means suitable to one whose mind had attained some glimpses of science, and still more of art. He was formed a painter by nature; and had not this been the case, he would probably have excelled in some branch of science or literature: with much comprehension and acuteness, his thirst of information was insatiable, and his ambition to excel, unbounded. But painting was his destination, and after many early and rude efforts, he had hung his father’s house with portraits of his family and friends in an improved style, when he became acquainted with Dr. John Wolcot, then residing at Truro, and since so well known by the name of Peter Pindar: who, having himself a taste for drawing, and a strong perception of character, saw the worth of our artist, and was well qualified to afford him instruction in many requisite points. He also recommended him so effectually that he commenced professed portrait" painter, and went about to the neighbouring towns with letters of introduction to the principal families resident in them, and henceforward entirely supported himself by his own exertions.

, a learned Lutheran divine, was born Feb. 14, 1642, at Altenburg, in Misnia. After some school education, he studied at Jena and Kiel, and acquired great knowledge of the Oriental languages, under the instructions of Matthias Wasmuth. Still ambitious to add to his stock of learning, he pursued this object at Utrecht under Leusden, at London under Edmund Castell and Matthew Poole, and at Oxford under Pocock. On his return to Germany in 1671, he failed as a candidate for the place of assessor of the faculty of philosophy at Kiel; but was more successful the following year at Jena, where he took his degrees in philosophy, and taught the Oriental languages. In 1675 he was invited to Kiel to be Greek professor, on the recommendation of Wasmuth, his old master; whom, in 1678, he succeeded in the chair of Oriental languages, and held with it his Greek professorship until 1683, when he resigned the latter to Daniel Hasenmuller. In 1689 he took his degree of doctor, and became at the same time professor of divinity; but his reputation rests chiefly on his skill in the Oriental languages; and this he might have enjoyed without diminution, had he not adopted the whimsical opinion of his master Wasmuth, and maintained the relationship between the Greek and the Oriental languages, and the connection which the dialects of the one have with those of the other. This chimerical scheme of subjecting the Greek to the rules of the Hebrew, he defended in a small work, entitled “Graecismus facilitati suse restitutus, methodo nova, eaque cum praeceptis He braicis Wasmuthianis et suis Orientalibus, quam proxime harmonica, adeoque regulis 34 succincte absolutus,” Kiel, 1676, 8vo. This was twice reprinted, but raised him many enemies, not only on account of the scheme itself, but of his extravagant praise of Wasmuih, at the expence of Buxtorf, and other eminent scholars.

, in Latin Opitius, reckoned the father of German poetry, was born at Bunzlau, in Silesia, 1597. His parents had but a moderate fortune; but his father, observing his genius, educated him carefully in grammar, in which he soon made great proficiency: and, after some time, went to Breslaw for farther improvement, and thence to Francfort upon the Oder. He spent a year in that university, and then removed to Heidelberg, where fce studied with remarkable assiduity: but the fame of the celebrated Bernegger drew him, after some time, to Strasbourg and Bernegger was so struck with the learning and wit of Opits, that he pronounced he would one day become the Virgil of Germany. At length be returned, by the way of Tubingen, to Heidelberg; but, the plague beginning to appear in the Palatinate, this, together with the troubles in Bohemia, disposed our. student to travel with a Danish gentleman into the Low Countries; and thence he went to Holstein, where he wrote his books of “Constancy.” As soon as the troubles of Bohemia were a little calmed, he returned to his own country and, that he might not live in obscurity, he frequented the cour$. Bethlem Gabor, prince of Transilvania, having founded a school at Weissenberg, Opits was recommended by Gaspar Conrade, a famous physician and poet at Breslaw, to that prince, who appointed him the school-master or professor; and there he read lectures upon Horace and Seneca. ; Puring his residence in Transilvania, he inquired into the original of the Daci, and the Roman antiquities there. He made also exact researches after the ancient Roman inscriptions, which he sometimes recovered, and sent them to Gruter, Grotius, and Bernegger. Some time after his return home, he was meditating a journey to France, when a burgrave, who was in the emperor’s service, made him his secretary, in which office he contrived to keep up a regular correspondence with Grotius, Heinsius, Salmasius, Rigaltius, and other learned men; and his employer having not only consented to, but furnished him with all the necessaries for his journey to France, he became intimate with Grotius, who then resided at Paris, and in this journey also he collected a good number of manuscripts and curious medals.

, a famous German printer, was born at Basil, Jan. 25, 1507. His father, John Herbst, was a painter; who had been deserted by his father for attachment to his art, and had settled at Basil in very indifferent circumstances. He contrived, however, to give his son some education at home, and afterwards sent him to Strasbourg, where he received the provision allotted to poor students. Here he studied Latin and Greek, and spoke and wrote the former with purity and fluency. With these accomplishments he would have returned home, but having no prospect of employment there, he went to the abbey of St. Urban, in the Canton of Lucerne, and was appointed master of the school. In this house, he formed an intimacy with the canon Xylotectus, who afterwards quitted his preferment, became a protestant, and married. Oporinus, also disliking a monastic life, followed his friend to Basil, and gained a livelihood by transcribing the works of the Greek authors published by Frobenius. On the death of his friend Xylotectus, he married his widow in 1527, a woman of a capricious temper, who rendered his life very uneasy. He had been for some time appointed schoolmaster here, but exchanged an employment of much drudgery and little reward for the study of medicine, which he hoped would be more profitable. The noted Paracelsus was at this time at Basil, and engaged to teach him all the secrets of his art within the space of a year. Oporinus, rejoiced at the prospect of becoming as wise as his master, willingly submitted to be his pupil, his servant, his amanuensis, and bore with all his eccentricities with great patience, accompanying him even to Alsace, until finding that he was egregiously duped by this quack, he returned to Basil, to encounter another disappointment. His wife died, from whom he expected great riches, but she left him only debts.

, an eminent divine, was born Oct. 3, 1651 at Beringhen, a small town in the county of Liege, He was admitted a licentiate in divinity at Louvain in 1681, and afterwards taught theology in the college of Adrian, and at the seminary of Malines; but was driven from thence by Humbert de Precipiano, archbishop of that city, for his attachment to the Jansenists; and was banished in 1704, having declared himself one of Steyaert’s principal adversaries; but, after two years, Louvain becoming part of the emperor’s dominions, M. Opstraet was appointed principal of the college de Faucon, which office he held till his death, November 29, 1720. His Latin works are numerous, and in request among the disciples of Jansenius and Father Quesnel, but are rather scarce in France. The principal are, “A Theological Dissertation on the Method of administering the Sacrament of Penitence,” against Steyaert; “Vera Doctrina de Baptismo LaborantiunV' 3 vols. 12mo, against Steyaert;” Theological Instructions for young divines;“” The good Shepherd,“which treats on the duties of pastors, and has been translated into French, 2 vols. 12mo;” The Christian Divine,“translated into French by M. de S. Andre de Beauchene, under the title of,” Le Directeur d'un jeune The*ologien,“1723, 12mo;” Theological Instructions concerning human Actions,“3 vols. 12mo;” A System of dogmatical, moral, practical, and scholastic Theology," in 3 vols, with others enumerated in our authorities.

, a learned cardinal, was born at Florence in 1577. He went to study at Rome, and resided in a small boarding-house in the city, where he experienced the same temptation as the patriarch Joseph did, and continued no less faithful to his duty. Cardinal Bellarmine being made acquainted with this young man’s virtues, placed him in a college for education. Oregius was afterwards employed by cardinal Barberini to examine Aristotle’s sentiments concerning the immortality of the soul, that the pope might prohibit the reading of lectures on this philosopher’s works, if it appeared that his writings were contrary to that fundamental article of religion. Oregius pronounced him innocent, and published on that subject, in 1631, his book entitled “Aristotelis vera de rationalis animifc immortalitate sententia,” 4to. Barberini at length becoming pope, by the name of Urban VIII. created him cardinal in 1634, and gave him the archbishopric of Benevento, where he died in 1635, aged fifty-eight. He left tracts “de Deo,” “de Trinitate,” “de Angelis,” de Opere sex dierum,“and other works printed at Rome, in 1637 and 1642, folio. Cardinal Bellarmine called Oregius his” Divine,“and pope Urban VIII. called him his” Bellarmine." A complete edition of this cardinal’s works was published by Nicholas Oregius, his nephew, in 1637, 1 vol. folio.

, Julian the Apostate’s physician, was born either at Pergamus or Sardes, in the beginning of the fourth century. He first studied in the school of Zeno the Cyprian at Sardes; and then went to Alexandria in Egypt, where he finished his studies, and afterwards became an eminent professor there, about 150 years after the death of Galen, and was esteemed the greatest scholar and physician of his time.

, an illustrious father of the church, and a man of great parts and learning, was born at Alexandria in Egypt about the year 185; and afterwards obtained the surname of Adamantius, either because of that adamantine strength of mind which enabled him to go through so many vast works, or for that invincible firmness with which he resisted the sharpest persecutions. Porphyry represents him as having been born and educated a heathen; but JEusebius has clearly proved, that his parents were Christian. His father Leonides took him at first under his own management, and trained him at home for some time: he taught him languages and profane learning, but had a particular view to his understanding the Holy Scriptures; some portion of which he gave him to learn and repeat every day. The son’s inclination suited exactly with the father’s design, so far as that he pursued his studies with most extraordinary zeal and ardour: but being endued with a quick apprehension and a strong imagination, would not content himself with that sense which at first presented itself, but farther endeavoured to dive into mysterious and allegorical explications of the sacred books. This probably suggested to his father that he might fall into that mode of interpreting, which in fact, proved afterwards the source of all his errors, and he therefore cautiously advised him not to attempt to penetrate too far in the study of the Holy Scriptures, but to content himself with their most clear, obvious, and natural sense. But it appears that from a forward conceit of his talents, he was already deeply infected with that “furor allegoricus,” as a learned modern calls it; that rage of expounding the Scriptures allegorically, which grew afterwards to be even a distemper, and carried him to excesses which can never be excused.

, a learned Italian Jesuit, was born at Florence in 1554, and descended from a noble family. He entered the society in 1572, where he was distinguished by the purity of his morals, and his general proficiency in literature, particularly in the Latin tongue. Having finished his studies, he took his master’s degree with great credit, and for some time was Latin tutor, until his tender health rendered the labours of teaching insupportable, and he was preferred to the easier offices of rector of the college at Nola, and afterwards president of the seminary for novices at Naples. In 1598 he was inviced to Rome, where he undertook to draw up a history of the Jesuits; but died in 1606, when he had completed only the first volume of that work, which was published at Rome in 1615, folio, under the title of “Historiae Societatis Jesu Pars prima, sive Ignatius,” and continued by fathers Francis Sacchini, Everard, Jouvency, and Cordara, the last of whom published his continuation in 1750. It makes in all 7 vols. bound usually in six, but is rarely found complete. Orlandini was also the author of “Anmice Litterae Societatis Jesu,” for the years 1583, 1584, and 1586 and also of “Vita Petri Fabri Soc. Jes.” &c.

, a learned and pious prince of the s blood royal of France, was the son of Philip duke of Orleans, afterwards regent, and of Mary Frances of Bourfron. He was born at Versailles, Aug. 4, 1703, and appeared first at court at the time the prince his father became regent of France. After the death of the regent he married Augusta Maria, of Baden, in 1724; a princess whose amiable qualifications made her death justly lamented by her consort, and people of all denominations. She died in 1726, having been married only two years. The prince, deeply affected with his loss, and sensible of the infelicity of titles^ pre-eminence, and all earthly enjoyments, sought for that comfort in the exercises of religion which courts cannot bestow. In 1730 he toot, in the abbey of St. Genevieve, an apartment mean and inconvenient, and in a manner sequestered from the world. He first retired to it only at the solemn festival, but resided in it more frequently after 1735; and, when he left the court in 1742, took up his constant residence there, nor returned more to his palace, except to attend the council, from which he seldom absented himself. In his retirement he practised the most rigid austerities; slept on a rough straw bed, rose early, passed several hours in prayer, fasted, drank nothing but water, and constantly deprived himself of the convenience of fire, even in the most inclement seasons; and was, in all his actions, an example of severe self-denial. His charitable disposition led him to relieve the indigent of every nation, found several public charities, and send missionaries to the remotest parts of the world.

, a Jesuit who acquired a considerable reputation in his own country as a historian, was born at Bourges in 1644. He was a teacher of the belles lettres in different colleges for several years, and became a celebrated preacher. Some separate lives which he published, in an agreeable style, and with judicious reflections, first attracted the public attention, but his reputation chiefly arose from his historical writings. Voltaire says that father D'Orleans was the first who chose revolutions for his subject, and adds, that the idea was not more happy than the execution. His “History of the Revolutions of England” met with the universal approbation of the French critics, and would have been, says Palissot, a perfect model, had the author concluded with the reign of Henry V11I, but after that he was no longer allowed to be impartial. English critics, however, have a less favourable opinion of his qualifications for writing such a history; and Echard, who translated part of the work, “History of the Revolutions in England under the family of the Stuarts, from 1603 to 1690,” 1711, 8vo, has very properly cautioned his readers against the author’s prejudices. Father D'Orleans, whose private character is represented as very amiable, died in the prime of life iti 1698. His works are, l.the history already mentioned, “Histoire des Revolutions d'Angleterre,” Paris, 1693, 3 vols. 4to, afterwards reprinted in 4 vols. 12ino, with heads. Francis Turpin published a continuation in 1786, in 2 vols. 8vo. 2. “Histoire des Revolutions d' Espagne,” ibid. 1734, 3 vols 4to. This, left incomplete by the author, was finished by Brumoy and Rouille, but it had not the same success as his revolutions of England, which his countrymen are willing to impute to the subject being less interesting. 3. “Histoire de M. Constance, premier minister du roi de Siam, et de la derniere revolution de cet etat,” ibid. 1692, 12mo. 4. “Histoire des deux conquerants Tartares Chimchi et Camhi, qui ont subjugue la Chine,” ibid. 1689, 8vo. 5. The lives, published separately, of Spinola, 1693, 12mo; of P. Cotton, 1688, 4to of Ricci, 1693, 12mo; of Mary of Savoy and the infanta Isabella, 1696, 12mo, and of Stanislaus Kostka, 1712, reprinted in 1727, with the life of Louis de Gonzaga. 6. “Sermons et instructions Chretiennes sur diverses matieres,” 1696, 2 vols. 12mo.

, an eminent historian, the son of Dr. Alexander Orme, a physician and surgeon in the service of the East India company, was born at Anjengo, in the Travancore country, in 1728. He was sent to England for hi education, and was entered at Harrow-school when he was only six years of age. After he left school, he was a year in the office of the accomptant-general of the African company, to be initiated in commercial transactions, and then embarked for Calcutta, where he arrived in 1742. As soon as he engaged in the company’s service, he acquired the highest reputation for the zeal with which he entered into their interests, and at the same time acquired such knowledge of the institutions, manners, and customs of the natives of India, that, in 1752, when some regulations were thought necessary in the police of Calcutta, he was desired to give his opinion on the subject. He accordingly drew up the greater part of “A general idea of the Government and People of Indostan.” In 1753 he returned to England, and was frequently consulted by men in power on Indian affairs, and respecting plans, at that time in agitation, for supporting the British interest in Hindoostan. Mr. Orme revisited India in 1754, on being appointed by the court of directors a member of the council at Fort St. George, and contributed much to those measures which finally gave to the English the superiority in India which they have ever since possessed. Mr. Orme held the office of commissary and accomptant-general during the years 1757-8, but in the latter year his health obliged him to embark for England, where he arrived in the autumn of 1760, and settling in London, employed himself in preparing “The History' of the Military Transactions of the British nation in Itidostan, from the year 1745,” the first volume of which, bringing down the history to 1756, was published in 1763, and extremely well received by the public. The East India company, duly sensible of his merits, and of the importance of his historical researches, not only gave him free access to all their records, but appointed him to be their historiographer, with a salary of 400l. per annum. To obtain the most accurate information respecting the war which was to be the subject of the second volume, he went over to France in 1773, where he was furnished liberally with various authentic documents, but it was not till 1778 that the work was brought to its completion. This contained all the events which took place in the English settlements in India from 1756 to 1763, with an investigation of the rise and progress of the English commerce in Bengal, and an account of the Mahommedan government from its establishment in 1200. In 1782 Mr. Orme published a work entitled “Historical Fragments of the Mogul empire of the Marattoes, and of the English concerns in Indostau from the year 1659.” This, which was an octavo volume, was his last publication, for though his literary pursuits were unremitted, yet his health was unequal to the exertions required for the composition. In 1792 he left the metropolis to enjoy in retirement the society of. his friends, and the recreation afforded by a well- assorted library. The place of his retirement was Ealing, where he was often visited by his friends, who appear to have loved him with great affection. Amongst these may be mentioned general Richard Smith, Mr. Robarts, one of the court of directors, Mr. Dairy mple, sir George Baker, and the late Mr. Owen Cambridge. But his books were his chief companions; and such was the active curiosity of his mind, that at the age of seventy he found in them a constant source of amusement. He continued his studies to the last month of his life, and a great many of his books bear interesting evidence of the strict attention with which he perused them; for their margins are filled with observations in his own hand writing. In the beginning of January 1801, he fell into a state of weakness and languor that prognosticated his speedy dissolution; and he expired on the 14th of that month, in the seventy-third year of his age.

, a learned Spanish ecclesiastic, flourished in the fifth century, and was born at Tarragona in Catalonia. He was a disciple of St. Augustin; and, in the year 414, was sent to Africa by Eutropius and Paul, two Spanish bishops, to solicit Augustin’s assistance against heretics who infested their churches. He continued a year with this doctor, and in that time made a great proficiency in the knowledge of the Scriptures. In the year 415, Augustin dispatched him to Jerusalem, to consult St. Jeroni upon the origin of the soul; and Orosius on his return brought into Africa the relics of the martyr St. Stephen; whose body, as well as those of Nicomedes, of Gamaliel, and his son Abiba, had been found during Orosius’s residence in Palestine. At length, by the advice of Augustin, our author undertook the history we have of his in seven books, under the title, as is said, of “Miseria humana;” containing an account of the wars, plagues, earthquakes, floods, conflagrations, thunder and lightning, murder, and other crimes, which had happened from the beginning of the world to the year of Christ 416. The purpose of it was to shew, against some heathen objectors, that these calamities had not been more frequent, after the commencement of Christianity, than before; and farther, that it was owing to the Christian religion, that the Roman Cpmrnonwealth, which did not deserve to continue, was nevertheless then still subsisting. It has gone through several editions: as, Paris, 1506, 1524, and 1526, folio; Cologne, 1536, 1542, 1561, and 1572, 8vo, with the “Apologia de Arbitrii libertate;” at Mentz, in 1615, and lastly by Havercamp at Ley den, 1738, 4to, and 1767, the same edition with a different date. We have an Anglo-Saxon version by king Alfred, which was published with an English translation by the hon. Daines Barrington, in 1773, 3vo.

, or Ursatus, a celebrated antiquary, historian, grammarian, and poet, was born February 1, 1617, at Padua, of one of the most illustrious families in that city. He applied diligently to the study of antiquities and ancient inscriptions, which occasioned his taking several journies into different parts of Italy. When advanced in life, he was appointed to teach natural philosophy in the university of Padua, and acquitted himself with great success in that office. He died at Venice July 3, 1678. He was a member of the academy of the Ricovrati, and has left a great number of valuable works, some in Latin, others in Italian: the principal among the former are, “Sertum Philosophicum ex variis scientise naturaiis floribus consertum,” Padua, 1635, 4to. 2. “Monumenta Patavina,” Padua,“1652, folio. 3.” Commentarius de Dotis Romanorum,“Padua, 1672, folio, a useful work, and much esteemed. It has been inserted in torn. XI. of the” Thesaurus“of Groevius, and is printed separately, Paris, 1723, 12mo, and at the Hague, 1736. The following are his principal Italian works 4.” A Hist, of Padua, in two parts,“1678, folio. 5.” I Marmi eruditi,“1669, and 1719, 2 vols. 4to; a curious work, in two parts also. 6.” Chronologia di Reggimenti di Padoua;“revised, with notes, 1666, 4to. 7. Several” Lyric Poems,“1637, 12mo;” Comedies," andother poetical pieces, &c.

, an Italian grammarian and poet, was born in 1652, at Bologna, son of Mario Orsi, a patrician of that city. His house was a kind of academy, in which several literary men met regularly. He married twice, and died in 1733, aged eighty-one, leaving some ingenious sonnets, pastorals, and many poetical pieces, besides other works in Italian. Some of them may be found in Muratori’s and Crescembeni’s treatises on poetry. His “Thoughts” on Bouhour’s “Maniere de Penser,” were published at Modena, 1735, 2 vols. 4to.

, an eminent cardinal, was born in 1692, in Tuscany. He entered the Dominican order, in which he taught theology, was afterwards master of the sacred palace, and honoured with the purple by Clement XIII. in 1759. He wrote “Infallabilitas act. Rom. Pont.” 1741, 3 vols. 4to; “An Ecclesiastical History of the first six ages of the Church,” 20 vols 4 to, or 8vo; the last volume was published in 1761, in which year he died. His history is useful as a collection of records and facts, but is too prolix for general reading.

, a celebrated geographer, was descended from a family originally seated at Augsburg: but his grandfather William Ortelius settled, in 1460, at Antwerp, and dying there in 1511, left Leonard, the father of Abraham, who was born in that city April 1527. In the course of a learned education, he particularly distinguished himself in the languages and mathematics; and afterwards he became so famous for his knowledge in geography, that he was called the Ptolemy of his time. He travelled a great deal in England, Ireland, France, Italy, and Germany, suffering no curiosity to escape his inquiries. In England he became acquainted with Camden (see Camden). When he had finished his travels, he fixed at Antwerp, where he first published his “Theatrum orbis terrse.” This work procured him the honour of being appointed geographer to Philip II. of Spain; and he afterwards published the following pieces: “Thesaurus Geographicus;” “Deorum dearumque capita ex veteribus numismatibus;” “Aurei seculi imago, sive Gtrr manor urn veterum mores, vita, ritus, et religio;” “Itinerarium per nonnuJlas Belgiue partes.” He was possessed of many rarities, in antique statues, medals, and shells. The greatest men of that age were friends to him to his death, which happened in June 1598. Justus Lipsius wrote his epitaph; and several funeral eloges were made of him, which were published, under the title of “Lachrymae,” by Francis Svveerts, who annexed an account of his life. All his works are in Latin.

, an eminent divine among the dissenters, was born at Shrewsbury, Sept. 4, 1717, and at a proper age was sent to the free-school of his native place, where he went through the whole course of grammatical education, having stayed there somewhat more than eight years. In May 1733, he left the school, and went to Warrington, under the care of Dr. Charles Owen, the dissenting minister of that town, where he continued one year; after which, in August 1734, he went to Northampton, under the care of Dr. Doddridge, where he continued above seven years; and such was his progress in study, that in March 1738-9hewas chosen assistantto Dr.Doddridge in the academy; and he began his lectures in this capacity, with reading to the junior students in the classics and geography. About the same time he was examined before a committee of pastors in the neighbourhood, as to his qualifications for the ministerial office, and received an ample testimony of satisfaction and approbation. His first sermon was preached at Welford, in Northamptonshire, on the 15th of April, 1739. After this he continued to preach occasionally in all the neighbouring congregations, excepting on the first Sunday of every month, when he generally assisted Dr. Doddridge at Northampton. Becoming popular, he received several invitations from the congregations at Weiford, Rowell, and Harborough, to settle with them as their minister: and he was applied to, likewise, by the dissenting society at Salters’-hall, London, to preach there as a candidate; but he thought it best to decline these applications, as, while he was assistant at Northampton, he wag engaged in a very useful employment, and had daily op­'portunities of improving himself superior to what he should have had in any other station. The enjoyment which he had of Dr. Doddridge’s conversation, was esteemed by him as a most peculiar advantage.

, a very learned critic, and the correspondent of many eminent English scholars, was born at Amsterdam, July 28, 1696, of a family originally from France. He was intended for commerce by his father, who nevertheless gave him a classical education under David Hoogstraten and the celebrated Hemsterhuis. It was Peter Bdrman, however, who prevailed on his father to change his destination, and allow him to become a scholar by profession. He was accordingly sent, in 1715, to the university of Leyden, where he studied the Greek language and literature under James Gronovius; history, antiquities, and rhetoric under Peter Burman, the oriental languages underHey man and Schaaf, and jurisprudence under Schulting and No.odt. Before his academical course was completed, viz. in 1718, he visited England, where one of his brothers John-Leonard was settled as a merchant. His object on this visit was to form an acquaintance with some of the literati of that age; but principally to inspect the public libraries in London, Oxford, and Cambridge. He remained, however, here only from July to the beginning of Autumn, when he returned to Leyden; and, having finished his studies, took the degree of doctor of law Feb. 3, 1721. He then went to the Hague, with a view to the bar, but became dissatisfied with the profession, and seems from this time to have relinquished every pursuit but that of general literature. In 1723 be began his travels by visiting Antwerp, Brussels, Louvain, and lastly France, where he spent a twelvemonth. At Paris he became acquainted with many eminent characters, particularly Monfaucon, Sallier, Fraguier, Sevin, Chamillart, Bouquet, Boivin, and Tournemine, who respectively introduced him to the societies of the learned, and to the most noted libraries and museums. In the month of August 1724, he returned to Amsterdam; but had not been long there before the dangerous illness of one of his brothers rendered it necessary for him to revisit London, where he remained a year, employed as he had been at Paris, in the company of the learned, and among the libraries. Here he became intimate with Bentley, Chishull, Sherard, Cunningham, Mead, Potter, Hutchinson, Markland, Wasse, &c. &c.

He published, in 1750, in quarto, a new edition of “Chereas and Callirhoe;” and a new edition of the Greek Anthology was expected from him, for which he had some valuable materials, and one of Theocritus, perhaps also one of Catullus, Tibulius, and Propertius but all these undertakings were frustrated by the unexpected death of this labprious and acute critic, which took place Sept. 13, or 14, 1751. He left a son John, who was born in 1734. What D'Orville published is to be found in a collection, in imitation of one begun in England by Jortin, in 1731, under the title of “Observationes Miscellaneae,” a work of profound erudition, which he edited along with Burman, as far as Jo vols. 8vo; and after Burman’s death, D'Orville published four additional volumes, under the title of “Observationes Miscellaneae Novae,” the last of which was completed a few clays before his death. Of his dissertations inserted in these volumes, two have been greatly admired, “Exercitatio de inscriptionibus Deliacis,” and “Diatribe in Inscriptiones quasdam,” &c. Some years after his death, his travels and observations in Sicily were published by Peter Burman, the younger, under the title “Simula, quibus Siciliae veteris rudera, additis antiquitatum tabulis illustrantur,” &c. 1764, fol. His only other publication was a controversial pamphlet against Cornelius Pauw, Amst. 1737, 8vo, in which he retorts on that author for some of the severities he was too much accustomed to exercise upon his learned contemporaries. D'Orville had a brother Peter, who died in 1739. He wrote some elegant Latin poems, a collection of which was published at Amsterdam, in 1740.

, an English writer of considerable abilities, was born about 1589. He was descended from an ancient family, who had been long seated at Chicksand, near Shefford, in Bedfordshire, where his grandfather, and father, sir John Osborne, were men of fortune, and, according to Wood, puritans, who gave him what education he had at home, but never sent him to either school or university. This he appears to have afterwards much regretted, on comparing the advantages of public and private education. As soon, however, as he was of age, he commenced the life of a courtier, and being taken into the service of the Pembroke family, became master of the horse to William earl of Pembroke. Upon the breaking out of the civil wars, he sided with the parliament, but not in all their measures, nor all their principles; yet they conferred some public employments upon him; and, having married a sister of one of Oliver’s colonels, he was enabled to procure his son John a fellowship in All-souls’ college, Oxford, by the favour of the parliamentary visitors of that university, in 1648. After this he resided there himself, purposely to superintend his education; and also to print some books of his own composition. Accordingly, among others, he published there his “Advice to a Son,” the first part in 1656; which going through five editions within two years, he added a second, 1658, in 8vo. Though this had the usual fate of second parts, to be less relished than the first, yet both were eagerly bought and admired at Oxford, especially by the young students; which being observed by the “godly ministers,” as Wood calls them, they drew up a complaint against the said books, as instilling atheistical principles into the minds of the youth, and proposed to have them publicly burnt. Although this sentence was not carried into execution, there appeared so many objections to the volumes, that an order passed the 27th of July, 1658, forbidding all booksellers, or any other persons, to sell them. But our author did not long survive this order, dykig Feb. 11, 1659, aged about seventy. For the accusation of atheism there seems little foundation; but many of his sentiments are otherwise objectionable, and the quaintness of his style, and pedantry of his expression, have long ago consigned the work to oblivion. His other publications were, 1. “A seasonable Expostulation, with the Netherlands,” &c. 1652, 4to. 2. “Persuasive to mutual compliance under the present government.” 3. “Plea for a free State compared with Monarchy.” 4. “The private Christian’s non ultra,” &c. 1G56, 4to. 5. A volume in 8vo, containing, “The Turkish policy, &c. a Discourse upon Machiavel, &c. Observations upon the King of Sweden’s descent into Germany a Discourse upon Piso and Vindex, &c. a Discourse upon the greatness and corruption of the Court of Rome another upon the Election of Pope JLeo X. Political occasion for the defection from the Church of Rome a Discourse in vindication of Martin Luther.” Besides these were published, 1. “Historical Memoirs on the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James.” 2. “A Miscellany of sundry Essays, &c. together with political deductions from the History of the Earl of Essex,” c. Other pieces have been ascribed to him on doubtful authority. A collection of his works was published in 1689, 8vo and again, 1722, in 2 vols. 12mo.

, grandson of the preceding Andrew, was born at Blauberen, in the duchy of Wirtemburg, in 1562, and became a Lutheran minister; after which he became deacon of the church of Aurach, and pastor of the church of Gigligen. He was next appointed preacher and counsellor to prince Lewis of Wirtemburg, and in 1592 he received the degree of doctor of divinity at “Tubingen. After various other promotions and honours, he died in 1617. He was the editor of” Biblia Sacra, Latine vulgata, cum Emendationibus et Explicationibus superiorum Versionum, et Observationibus ex Thebl. Andreoe, Herbrandi," &c. which passed through five editions in a few years, and is highly commended by father Simon, in his Crit. Hist, of the Old Testament. He was like wise author of several theological works.

, a celebrated bishop of Salisbury, in the eleventh century, was born of a noble family in Normandy. He possessed great learning, joined to great prudence, and accompanied with talents for military affairs; and his life, says Butler, was that of a saint, in all the difficult states of a courtier, soldier, and magistrate. In his early years he succeeded his father in the earldom of Séez, but distributed the greatest part of his revenues to the church and poor, and followed William the Conqueror into England in 1066. This prince rewarded Osmund by making him earl of Dorset, then chancellor, and afterwards bishop of Salisbury. With a view of pleasing the king, he was weak enough to desert the cause of Anselm, his archbishop; but, repenting almost immediately, he requested absolution from him, and obtained it. He built, or rather completed, the first cathedral of Salisbury, begun by his predecessor, and dedicated it in 1092; and it being destroyed by lightning, he rebuilt it in 1099, and furnished it with a library. To regulate the divine service, he compiled for his church the breviary, missal, and ritual, since called “The Use of Sarum,” which was afterwards adopted in most dioceses in England, until queen Mary’s time, when several of the clergy obtained particular licences to say the Roman breviary, but many of them were printed even in her reign. The first Salisbury missal is dated 1494, and was printed abroad. The last was printed at London in 1557. Osmund died Dec. 3, 1099. In 1457, his remains were removed to our lady’s chapel in the present cathedral, where they are covered with a marble slab, with only the inscription of the year 1099. His sumptuous shrine was destroyed in the reign of Henry VIII.

, a learned Portuguese divine, descended from an illustrious family, was born at Lisbon in 1506. Discovering an extraordinary inclination for literature, he was sent, at thirteen, to the university of Salamanca; where having studied Greek and Latin, and law, he removed at nineteen to Paris, to be instructed in Aristotle’s philosophy, which was then the vogue. From Paris he went to Bologna, where he devoted himself to the study of the sacred Scriptures, and the Hebrew language; and he acquired such reputation, as a theologist, that, on his return home, John III. king of Portugal appointed him professor of divinity at Coimbra, Taking priest’s orders, the care of the church of Tavora was given him by Don Lewis infant of Portugal; and, soon after, the archdeaconry of Evora by cardinal Henry, archbishop of that province, and brother to king John; and at last he was nominated to the bishopric of Sylves in Algarva, by Catharine of Austria, that king’s widow, who was regent of the kingdom during the minority of her grandson Sebastian. When this prince became of age to take the administration of the kingdom into his own hands, he resolved upon an expedition against the Moors in Africa, much against the persuasions of Osorio who, to avoid being an eye-witness of the calamities he dreaded, made various pretences to go to Rome. Here pope Gregory XIII. gave him many testimonies of his esteem: but he had not been absent above a year, when the king recalled him home; and not long after, Sebastian was killed in the battle of Alcazer, against the Moors, Aug. 4, 1578. During the tumults in Portugal which succeeded this fatal event, Osorio took every means to prevent the people of his diocese from joining in them; but the miseries of his country at this juncture are said to have broke his heart, and he died of grief, Aug. 20, 1580, aged seventy-four.

, a celebrated cardinal, and one of the greatest men of his time, was born at a small village in the county of Almagnac, Aug. 23, 1526. He was descended of indigent parents, and left an orphan at nine years of age, in very hopeless circumstances; but Thomas de Marca, a neighbouring gentleman, having observed his promising genius, took the care of his education, and placed him under the tutors of the young lord of Castlenau de Mugnone, his nephew and ward. D'Ossat made such a quick progress, that he became preceptor to his companion; and was sent in that character with the young nobleman and two other youths to Paris, where they arrived in May 1559. He discharged this trust with fidelity and care, till they had completed their course of study; and then sent them back to Gascony, in 1562. During this time he had made himself master of rhetoric and philosophy, and became a good mathematician; and being now at leisure to improve himself, he repaired to Bourges, where he studied the law under Cujacius. About this time he wrote a defence of Peter Rarnus, under whom he had studied philosophy, against James Charpentier, entitled “Expositio in disputationem Jacobi Carpenterii de Methodo,” Parisi 1564, to which Charpentier published a scurrilous reply, “Ad expositionem disputationis de methodo, contra Thessalum Ossatum responsio.” D'Ossat, having obtained his diploma at Bourges, returned to Paris in 1568, and applied himself to the bar. In this station his merit procured him the acquaintance and esteem of many distinguished persons; and, among the rest, of Paul de Foix, then counsellor to the parliament of Paris, took him in his company to Rome, in 1574.

, a most celebrated Flemishpainter, was born at Lubeck in 1610, and was a disciple of Frank Hals, in company with Brouwer, with whom he contracted a close intimacy. In his choice of subjects he followed Teniers, and, as Fuseli says, may, more properly than any other Dutch, Flemish, or German artist, be said to have raised flowers from a dunghill. He has contented himself to trace the line which just discriminates the animal from the brute, and stamps his actors with instinct rather than with passions. He has personified the dregs of vulgarity without recommending them by the most evanescent feature of taste, and yet decoys our curiosity to dive with bim into the habitation of filth, beguiles our eye to dwell on the loathsome inmates and contents, and surprises our judgment into implicit admiration, by a truth of character, an energy of effect, a breadth and geniality of touch and finish, which leave no room for censure- If he is less silvery, less airy than Teniers, he is far more vigorous and gleaming; if his forms be more squat and brutal, they are less fantastic and more natural; if he group with less amenity, he far excels the Fleming in depth and real composition. His pictures, it is true, are not always of low subjects, but he seldom rises to any thing like gentility in character, and very seldom attempted it. His works are not numerous, and therefore very high-priced. He is also to be ranked among engravers; and Strutt enumerates fiftytwo etchings of various sizes, all from his own designs, and the greater part are justly held in estimation. He died in 1685, at the age of seventy-five. His younger brother, Isaac Van Ostade, was taught by him the art of painting, and imitated the style and taste of his instructor but he died young, and never arrived at any degree of skill in the art comparable to that of his brother. As, however, he wrought in the same manner, and upon the same kind of subjects, some of his original productions, and many of his copies from Adrian, are palmed upon amateurs as the works of the elder Ostade. But the disparity is easily discernible by the judicious, the touch is not so free, the colouring not so transparent; nor have they an equal warmth or force of effect, in comparison with each other.

, one of the most celebrated Swiss divines of the latter age, was born at Neufchatel, Nov. 25, 1663. He was the only son of John Rtfdolph Ostervald, minister of Neufchatel, Inhere the family of Ostervald had been settled for nearly three centuries, and had produced many persons eminent in the army and at the bar. His father determined to give him the best education, with a view to the ministry, should his inclination lead that way. Accordingly, in 1676, he took him to Zurich, to be instructed in the learned languages, and to learn German at the same time, under the care of professor John Henry Ott, who was his intimate friend. After a dilfgent application here for eighteen months, young Ostervald returned home in Oct. 1677, and continued his classical studies tinder Mr. D'Aubigne, principal of the college of Neufchatel. A year after he was sent to Saumur, where he maintained some learned theses with such ability, that the degree of master of arts was conferred upon him with every testimony of respect, although he had not yet reached his sixteenth year. In Sept. 1680, he took a voyage to Rochelle, where he was introduced to some eminent literary characters; and the following year, removed to Orleans, and began the study of divinity under the celebrated Pajou, which he continued afterwards under Mr. Allix, and the celebrated Claude, at Paris. His fellow student here was Mr. Charles Tribolet, his relation, and afterwards his colleague at Neufchatel; few friends, we are told, have been more closely connected, or more similar in sentiment on all occasions.

, a learned professor of the mathematics and of the Hebrew language, was born in the county of Merckenstein, in Austria, in 1511. He studied successively at the universities of Ingoldstadt, Leipsic, and Basil, from which last he went to Memmingen, in Swabia, on an invitation from the magistrates to become mathematical professor in that city; and afterwards to Tubingen, and was elected professor of Hebrew, with which he joined a course of lectures on the mathematics. In 1552 he accepted of the united professorships of mathematics and Hebrew at Friburg, which he held for more than twentyseven years. He died in 1579, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. He was author of “Commentaria in Theorias Planetarum;” “De primo mobili;” “Commentaria in Sphaeram Joannis de Sacrobosco;” “In Almagestum Ptolomaei Annotationes;” “Gentium Kalendarium;” “Oratio funebris de Obitu Sebastiani Munsterii,” written in the Hebrew language. He likewise translated the New Testament into Hebrew, and wrote paraphrases on several books of the Bible.

, a learned Swiss divine, was born in the canton of Zurich in 1617, where he was first educated, but in 1635 was sent to study at Lausanne, Geneva, and Groningen, and afterwards at Leyden and Amsterdam. After this he visited England and France; and upon his return to his native country, obtained the living of Dietlickon, which he held for twenty-five years. In 1651 he was nominated to the professorship of eloquence at Zurich in 1655, to that of Hebrew and in 1668, to that of ecclesiastical history. He died in 1682, leaving behind him several works which indicate great learning and acquaintance with ecclesiastical history. Of these which are written in Latin, the principal are, a treatise “On the Grandeur of the Church of Rome;” “Annals relating to the History of the Anabaptists;” “A Latin Discourse in favour of the Study of the Hebrew Language;” “A Latin Treatise oh” Alphabets, and the Manner of Writing in all Nations.“He had a son, John Baptist Ott, born in 1661, who acquired great celebrity by his knowledge of the oriental languages and antiquities. He was pastor of a church at Zollicken, and afterwards professor of Hebrew at Zurich. In 1715 he was promoted to the archdeaconry of the cathedral in that city. He was the author of several works of considerable reputation: as,” A Dissertation on Vows;“” A Letter on Samaritan Medals, addressed to Adrian Reland:“both these are written in the Latin language; a treatise in German,” On the manuscript and printed Versions of the Bible before the era of the reformation;“and” A Dissertation on certain Antiquities discovered at Klothen, in 1724." Thus far we learn from Moreri and the Dictionnaire Historique, but we suspect that this John Baptist was either the John Henry Ott, librarian to archbishop Wake, or his brother. Of this last we are told, that archbishop Wake had received many civilities from his father in the early part of his life, and recollecting this, and that he had many children, appointed his son John Henry, whom he found in England, to be Dr. Wilkins’s successor, as librarian at Lambeth. He also ordained him deacon and priest, and in. June 1721, collated him to the rectory of Blackmanston, Kent. Mr. Ott obtained other promotions, the last of which, in 1730, was a prebend of Peterborough. He continued librarian till archbishop Wake’s death, in 1737. The time of his own death we have not been able to ascertain.

, one of the first names in the English drama, was born at Trottin in Sussex, March 3, 1651— 2, the son of the rev. Humphrey Otway, rector of Woolbeding. From Winchester-school, where he was educated, he was entered, in 1669, a commoner of Christ-church, but left the university without a degree, whether for want of money, or from impatience of academical restraint, or mere eagerness to mingle with the world, is not known. The anonymous writer of his life in one of the editions of His works, reports that he removed from Oxford to St. John’s-college, Cambridge, the probability of which rests only on a copy of verses sent to him by Duke the poet, who was his intimate friend. At Cambridge, however, he could not have remained long, if ever he paid more than a visit to it, for he appeared in London in 1672 in the character of the king in Mrs. Behn’s “Forced Marriage,” and found himself unable to gain any reputation on the stage. If he ever went to Cambridge, it must have been after this period, for Duke himself was not entered of Trinity-college until 1675.

, a learned French monk, originally of a family of Rheims, was born at Mezieres, Feb. 11, 1638. His father was a weaver, and designed to breed him to his own business; but the son’s inclination leading him to literature, he retired in 1656, against the will of his parents, among the Premontres, passed his noviciate in the abbey of Verdun, and made his profession in November, 1658. He was afterwards sent into France, where he spent four years in the studies of philosophy and theology, with, however, very little assistance from his masters, who were very ignorant; he then applied himself particularly to ecclesiastical history, which was his favourite study. Thus employed, he remained in obscurity for twenty years, among those of his order, when his talents became known by one of those apparently accidental circumstances which give a turn to the lives of men. His superiors happened to place him in 1678, in the abbey of Bucilly, in Champagne, and Lewis XIV. on a journey in 1680, coming to this abbey, stopped to dine. It was usual for such a guest to receive the compliments of the society; and when Oudin found that all the monks were afraid to appear, in order to address his majesty, he undertook the task, and acquitted himself so well, that the king and court were surprized to find, in so savage and solitary a place, a person of so much address and good sense; and his majesty, greatly pleased with his reception, ordered the abbey a purse of fifty louis d'ors. Oudin’s abilities being thus discovered, he was sent in 1614, by Michael Colbert, the principal and reformergeneral of this order, to visit the abbeys and churches belonging to them, and to take from their archives whatsoever might be of use in his history. On this occasion he went to all the convents in the Netherlands, returned to France with a large collection of historical documents, and in 1685 wade the same researches in Lorrain, Burgundy, and Alsace. In 1688 he published “A Supplement of the Ecclesiastical Writers, omitted by Bellarmine,” a work which did him much honour, under the title “Supplementum de scriptoribus vel scriptis ecclesiasticis a Bellarmino omissis, ad annum 1460, vel ad artem typographical!! inventam.” He published afterwards a complete body of those works, with the title of “Commentarius de scriptoribus ecclesias antiquis, illorumque scriptis, adhunc extantibus in celebrioribus Europae bibliothecis, a Bellarmino, Possevino, Phil. Labbeo, Gul, Caveo, Ellio, Du Pin,” &c. 3 vols. folio. This is his principal work; but if we may believe Le Clerc, our author did not understand either Greek or; Latin sufficient for it and it certainly abounds in errors, a great many of which, however, belong to the press.

, a learned French Jesuit, was born November 1, 1673, at Vignory, in Champagne. He was carefully educated at Langres, by an uncle, who was an ecclesiastic, and began his noviciate among the Jesuits in 1691, His uncle bequeathed him an annuity of 400 livres on condition of his residing either at Paris or Dijon. Accordingly he settled at Dijon, where he taught rhetoric fifteen years, and theology fifteen years more, with great applause. Besides Greek and Latin, he understood Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and English, and had particularly studied antiquities, both sacred and profane. Father Oudin undertook to write commentaries on the whole Bible, but could not finish them, being employed by father Francis Retz, general of his order, in a general history, or Bibliotheque of authors belonging to the Jesuits. This important work had been begun by father Ribadeneira, and carried on to 1618. Alegambe continued it to 1643, and Sotwel to 1673. Other Jesuits were afterwards successively employed to carry it on; but as they had published nothing, and only collected some undigested materials, it was thought that father Oudin would acquit himself better in the undertaking. The learned Jesuit did indeed apply himself to it with indefatigable ardour during the rest of his life, and drew up 1928 articles, but they still remain in ms. He died at Dijon, of a dropsy in his breast, April 28, 1752, aged seventy-nine. The principal among his printed works are, 1. An excellent little poem in Latin, which he wrote at the age of twenty-two, entitled “Somnia,” 8vo and 12mo; and some other poems in the same language, most of which are in “Poemata Didascalica,” 3 vols. 12mo; 2. Harangues in Latin, and several Dissertations on different literary subjects, printed in the abbe le Boeuf 's “Dissertations,” 3 vols. 12mo; 3. Some of the Lives of learned men in* Niceron’s “Memoires;” 4. A Memoir, 4to, “in answer to the Ordinance of M. the bishop of Auxerre,” September 18, 1725, against some propositions dictated by father le Moyne, a Jesuit; 5. “A Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans,” 1743, 12mo, in Latin; 6. An edition of “Publius Syrus,” with notes, Dijon, 1734, 8vo, &C.

, an English divine, celebrated for his uncommon skill in the mathematics, was born at Eton, in Buckinghamshire, about 1573, or, according to Aubrey, March 5, 1574. His father was a scrivener there, and taught his son writing and arithmetic. He was afterwards bred a scholar upon the foundation of that school, and was elected thence, in 1592, to King’s college, in Cambridge; of which, after the regular time of probation, he was admitted perpetual fellow. He did not neglect the opportunity his education gave him, of improving himself in classical learning and philosophy, as appears from some of his works, written in very elegant Latin; but his genius leading him particularly to the mathematics, he applied himself chiefly to that study. He began at the fountain head, and read all the ancient authors in the science, as Euclid, Apollonius, Archimedes, Diophantus, &c. in perusing whose works, he did not content himself, as he tells us in the preface to his “Clavis,” with barely learning their positions, but was diligent in looking into the sagacity of their invention, and careful to comprehend the peculiar force and elegance of their demonstrations. After he had been at Cambridge about three years, he invented an easy method of geometrical dialling; which, though he did not publish it' till 164-7, was yet received with so much esteem, that Mr. (afterwards sir) Christopher Wren, then a gentleman-commoner of Wadham college, in Oxford, immediately translated it from the English into Latin. This treatise was added to the second edition of his “Clavis,” with this title, “A most easy way for the delineation of plain Sun-dials, only by Geometry,” &c. In 1599 he commenced M. A. having regularly taken his bachelor’s degree three years before. In 1600 he, projected an horizontal instrument for delineating dials upon any kind of plane, and for working most questions which could be performed by the, globe. It was contrived for his private use only, and though not executed so perfectly as if he had had access to better tools, yet he had such an opinion of it, that thirty years afterwards, he consented it should be made public; and it was accordingly published, together with his “Circles of Proportion,” in 1633, 4to, by William Forster, who had been taught the mathematics by Oughtred, but was then himself a teacher of that science. To some editions of this work is subjoined " The just apology of William Oughtred against the slanderous insinuations of Richard Delamain, in a pamphlet called * Grammelogia, or the Mathematical Ring,' in which the author claimed Oughtred’s invention. In the mean time his eager desire to promote the science of mathematics kept him twelve years at college, in which time, both by his example and instructions, he diffused a taste for mathematics throughout the university.

, a learned professor of divinity of the university of Francfort on the Oder, was born at Dantzic, Oct.7, 1671. He was descended from the ancient and noble family of Oisel or Loisel, which made a great figure in Norman history; and one of his ancestors having come to England with William the Conqueror, his descendants were not extinct in the time of queen Elizabeth. Of this descent, however, our learned professor seldom was heard to boast. He had more pleasure in relating that his immediate ancestors were pious protestants, who, having escaped the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s day in France, took refuge in Flanders; and that his great grandfather, who had lost his all on that occasion, began trade and acquired great property, of which he was again stript during the persecution under the duke of Alva, and obliged to fly to Leyden with three hundred families, who established the cloth manufactory there under his direction. One of his uncles was James Ousel or Loisel, already mentioned (see Oisel*), the editor of an excellent edition of the “Octavius” of Minutius Felix, with notes, printed at Leyden in 1652, 4to and 8vo, and reprinted in 1672. His father Michael Ousel was a merchant, who died when this his sou was very young, leaving him to the care of a step-mother, who paid every possible attention to his education.

, an English bishop, and styled by Camden a “prodigious learned man,” was born in 1559, and, after a proper foundation in grammar-learning, at Hadley school, was sent to St. John’s college, Cambridge, and became a scholar there: but, afterwards removing to Trinity-college, was chosen fellow of that society. In 1596 he was appointed regius professor of divinity, when he took the degree of D. D. and, about the same time, was elected master of Catharine-hall in the same university. In 1601 he had the honour to succeed the celebrated Dr. Alexander Nowell in the deanry of St. Paul’s, London, by the recommendation of his patron sir Fulk Greville, and queen Elizabeth; and, in the beginning of James’s reign, he was chosen prolocutor of the lower house of convocation. In 1612 he was appointed one of the first governors of the Charter-house hospital, then just founded by Thomas Sutton, esq. In April 1614, he was made bishop of Litchfield and Coventry; and, in 1618, translated to Norwich, where he died May 12, 1619. He was buried in that cathedral, where he lay unnoticed till some time after the restoration of Charles II. when Cosin, bishop of Durham, who had been his secretary, erected a monument in 1669, with a Latin inscription, in which he is declared to be, “Vir undequaque doctissimus, et omui enconiio major.” Wood observes, that he had the character of being the best scholastic divine in the English nation; and Cosin, who perhaps may be thought to rival him in that branch of learning, calls himself his scholar, and expressly declares that he derived all his knowledge from him. He is allso celebrated by Smith, for his distinguished wisdom, erudition, and piety. In the controversy, which in his time divided the reformed churches, concerning predestination and grace, he held a middle opinion, inclining rather to Arminianism , and seems to have paved the way for the reception of that doctrine in England, where it was generally embraced a few years afterwards, chiefly by the authority and influence of archbishop Laud. Overall had a particular friendship with Gerard Vosius and Grotius; and was much grieved to see the love of peace, and the projects of this last great man to obtain it, so ill requited. He laboured heartily himself to compose the differences in Holland, relative to the Quinquarticular controversy; as appears in part by his letters to the two learned correspondents just mentioned, some of which are printed in the “Præstantium et eruditorum virorum epistolæ ecclesiasticæ et theologicæ,” published by Limborch and Hartsoeker, as an historical defence of Arminianism.

, an accomplished English gentleman, and polite writer, the descendant of an ancient family, was the son of Nicholas Overbury, of Bourton on the Hill, near Morton in Marsh, in Gloucestershire, esq. by Mary his wife, daughter of Giles Palmer, of ComptonScorfen, in the parish of Ilmington, in Warwickshire. He was born at Compton-Scorfen in the house of his grandfather by the mother’s side, about 1581. In Michaelmas term 1595, he became a gentleman commoner of Queen’s college, in Oxfordshire, where he made great progress in logic and philosophy, and November 15, 1598, took the degree of B. A. which being completed by determination in the Lent following, he left the university for the Middle Temple, where he had been before entered in order to study the municipal law, but it does not appear that he remained here long. We are told that in a little time he set out for France, and on his return was accounted a very finished gentleman, and well qualified to shine at court, which, unhappily, was his ambition.