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As a physician, he commenced practice at Northampton soon after his return from Leyden. But not finding the success which he expected, or being desirous of moving in a more extensive sphere, he removed to Hampstead, where he resided more than two years, and then settled in London. That he might be enabled to support the figure which was necessary for his introduction to practice in town, his generous friend Mr. Dyson allowed him 300l. a year. Whether any bond or acknowledgment was taken is uncertain; but it is known that after his death Mr. Dyson possessed his effects, particularly his books and prints, of which he was an assiduous collector.

Having commenced his career in medicine, our author distinguished himself by various publications in his profession; and having read the Gulstonian lectures on anatomy, he began the Cronia,n lecture, in which he intended to give a history of the revival of learning, but soon desisted. He was admitted to a doctor’s degree at Cambridge, after having taken it at Edinburgh and Leyden; was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians, and one of the physicians at St. Thomas’s Hospital; and, upon the establishment of the queen’s household, appointed one of the physicians to her majesty. His discourse on the Dysentery, 1764, was admired for its pure and elegant Latinity; and he might probably have attained a still greater eminence in his profession if his life had been longer. He died of a putrid fever, June 23, 1770, in the 59th year of his age; and is buried in the parish church of St. James, Westminster.

His poems, published soon after his death in 4to and 8vo, consist of the “Pleasures of Imagination,” two books of “Odes,” a Hymn to the Naiads, and some Inscriptions. “The Pleasures of Imagination,” as before observed, was first published in 1744; and a very extraordinary production it was, from a man who had not reached his 23d year. He was afterwards sensible, however, that it wanted revision and correction, and he went on revising and correcting it for several years; but finding this task to grow upon his hands, and despairing of ever executing it to his own satisfaction, he abandoned the purpose of correcting, and resolved to write the poem over anew upon a somewhat different and enlarged plan. He finished two books of his new poem, a few copies of which were printed for the use of the author and certain friends; of the first book in 1757, of the second in 1765. He finished also a good part of a third book, and an introduction to a fourth; but his most munificent and excellent friend, conceiving all that is executed of the new work, too inconsiderable to supply the place, and supersede the republication of the original poem, and yet too valuable to be withheld from the public, has caused them both to be inserted in the collection of his poems. Dr. Akenside, in this work, it has been said, has done for the noble author of the “Characteristics,” what Lucretius did for Epicurus formerly; that is, he has displayed and embellished his philosophic system, that system which has the first-beautiful and the first-good for its foundation, with all the force of poetic colouring; but, on the other hand, it has been justly objected that his picture of man is unfinished. The immortality of the soul is not once hinted throughout the poem. With regard to its merit as a poem, Dr. Johnson has done ample justice to it, while he speaks with more severity of his other poems. It is not easy to guess, says that eminent critic, why he addicted himself so diligently to lyric poetry, having neither the ease and airiness of the lighter, nor the vehemence and elevation of the grander ode. We may also refer the reader to an elegant criticism prefixed by Mrs. Barbauld to an ornamented edition of the “Pleasures of Imagination,” 12mo, 1795.

His medical writings require some notice. Besides his “Dissertatio de Dysenteria,” which has been twice transiated into English, he wrote in the Philosophical Transactions, 1. “Observations on the Origin and Use of the Lymphatic vessels,” part of his Gulstonian lectures, 1755 and 1757. Dr. Alexander Monro, the second of that name at Edinburgh, having taken notice of some inaccuracies in this paper, in his “Observations Anatomical and Physical,” Dr. Akensidc published a small pamphlet, 1756, in his own vindication. 2. “An account of a Blow on the Heart and its effects,” 1763. He published also, 3. “Oratio Harveiaua,” 4to, 1760; and three papers in the first volume of the Medical Transactions. Being appointed Krohnian lecturer, he chose for his subject “The history of the Revival of Learning,” and read three lectures on it before the colIfge. But this he gave up, as was supposed, in disgust; some one of the college having objected that he had chosen a subject foreign to the institution. He wrote also, in Dodsley’s Museum, vol. I, on “Correctness,” “Table of Modern Fame;” and in vol. II, “A Letter from a Swiss Gentleman.”

, a famous Rabbin, who flourished a little after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, was a Jew only by the mother’s side, and it is pretended that his father was descended from Sisera, general of the army of Jabin king of Tyre. Akiba, for the first forty years of his life, kept the flocks of Calba Schwa, a rich citizen of Jerusalem, whose daughter is said to have induced him to study in hopes of gaining her hand, if he should make any considerable progress. He applied himself accordingly to his studies with so much assiduity and success, for upwards of twenty years, that he was considered as one of the most able teachers in Israel, and was followed by a prodigious number of scholars. He declared himself for the impostor Barchochebas, and asserted that he was the true Messiah; but the troops which the emperor Hadrian sent against the Jews, who under the conduct of this false Messiah had committed horrid massacres, exterminated this faction, and Akiba was taken and put to death with great cruelty. He lived an hundred and twenty years, and was buried with his wife in a cave upon a mountain not far from Tiberias. The Jewish writers enlarge much upon his praises, and his sayings are often mentioned in the Mishnu and Talmud. When he died, they say, the glory of the law vanished away. This happened in the year 135. He was in truth a gross impostor, and the accounts handed down to us of him are entitled to very little credit. He is said to have forged a work under the name of the patriarch Abraham, entitled “Sepher Jezirah,” or, “The Book of the Creation,” which was translated into Latin by Postel, and published at Paris in 1552, 8vo, at Mantua in 4to, and at Basil in folio, 1587. Some charge him also with having altered the Hebrew text of the Bible, in order to contend with the Christians on certain points of chronology.

, an English divine, was born in Suffolk, and educated in Trinity college, Cambridge, where he took the degree of M. A. and was afterwards incorporated of the university of Oxford, June 7, 1592. Wood says, he was the rarest poet and Grecian that any one age or nation produced. He attended the unfortunate earl of Essex in his voyage to Cadiz, as his chaplain; and entertaining some doubts on religion, he was prevailed upon to declare himself a Roman Catholic, and published “Seven Motives for his Conversion,” but he soon discovered many more for returning to the church of England. He applied himself much to caballistic learning, the students of which consider principally the combination of particular words, letters, and numbers, and by this, they pretend to see clearly into the sense of scripture. In their opinion there is not a word, letter, number, or accent, in the law, without some mystery in it, and they even venture to look into futurity by this study. Alabaster made great proficiency in it, and obtained considerable promotion in the church. He was made prebendary of St. Paul', doctor of divinity, and rector of Thai-field in Hertfordshire. The text of the sermon which he preached for his doctor’s degree, was the first verse of the first chapter of the first book of Chronicles, namely “Adam, Seth, Enoch,” which he explained in the mystical sense, Adam signtfying misery, &c. He died April 1640. His principal work was “Lexicon Pentaglotton, Hebraicum, Chaldaicum, Syriacum, &c.” Lond. 1637, fol. He published also, in 1621, “Commentarius de bestia Apocalyptica,” and other works of that stamp. As a poet he has been more highly applauded. He wrote the Latin tragedy of “Roxana,” which bears date 1632, and was acted, according to the custom of the times, in Trinity college hall, Cambridge. “If,” says Dr. Johnson, in his life of Milton, “we produced any thing worthy of notice before the elegies of Milton, it was perhaps Alabaster’s Roxana.” He also began to describe, in a Latin poem entitled “Elisceis,” the chief transactions Of queen Elizabeth’s reign, but left it unfinished at the time of his death. The manuscript was for some time in the possession of Theodore Haak, and some manuscript verses of his are in the library of Gonvil and Caius college, Cambridge, and the Elisceis is in that of Emmanuel.

, an eminent Italian poet, was born of a noble family at Florence, in 1475, and passed the early part of his life in habits of friendship with Bernardo and Cosimo Rucellai, Trissino, and other scholars who had devoted themselves more particularly to the study of classical literature. Of the satires and lyric poems of Alamanni, several were produced under the pontificate of LeoX. In the year 1516, he married Alessandra Serristori, a lady of great beauty, by whom he had a numerous offspring. The rank and talents of Alamanni recommended him to the notice and friendship of the cardinal Julio de Medici, who, during the latter part of the pontificate of Leo X. governed on the behalf of that pontiff the city of Florence. The rigid restrictions imposed by the cardinal on the inhabitants, by which they were, among other marks of subordination, prohibited from carrying arms under severe penalties, excited the indignation of many of the younger citizens of noble families, who could ill brook the loss of their independence; and among the rest, of Alamanni, who, forgetting the friend in the patriot, not only joined in a conspiracy against the cardinal, immediately after the death of Leo X. but is said to have undertaken to assassinate him with his own hand. His associates were Zanobio Buondelmonti, Jacopa da Diaceto, Antonio Brueioli, and several other persons of distinguished talents, who appear to have been desirous of restoring the ancient liberty of the republic, without sufficiently reflecting on the mode by which it was to be accomplished. The designs of the conspirators, however, were discovered, and Alamanni was under the necessity of saving himself by flight. After many adventures and vicissitudes, in the course of which he returned to Florence, and took an active part in the commotions that agitated his country, he finally withdrew to France, where he met with a kind and honourable reception from Francis I. who was a great admirer of Italian poetry, and not only conferred on him the order of St. Michael, but employed him in many important missions.

On an embassy from Francis I. to the emperor Charles V. Alamanni gave a singular instance of his talents and promptitude. Among the several poems which he had composed in the praise of Francis I. there was one pretty severe upon the emperor, wherein, amongst several other satirical strokes, there is the following, where the cock says to the eagle,

The emperor had read this piece; and when Alamanni now appeared before him, and pronounced a fine speech in his praise, beginning every period with the word Aquila, he heard him with great attention, and at the conclusion thereof made no reply, but repeated

This, however, did not disconcert Alamanni, who immediately made the following answer: “Sir, when I composed these lines, it was as a poet, who is permitted to use fictions; but now I speak as an ambassador, who is bound in honour to tell the truth. I spoke then as a youth, I speak now as a man advanced in years: I was then swayed by rage and passion, arising from the desolate condition of my country; but now I am calm and free from passion.” Charles, rising from his seat, and laying his hand on the shoulder of the ambassador, told him with great kindness that he had no cause to regret the loss of his country, having found such a patron as Francis I. adding, that to a virtuous man every place is his country.

On the marriage of Henry duke of Orleans, afterwards Henry II. with Catherine de Medici, Alamanni was appointed her maitre d'hotel; and the reward of his services enabled him to secure to himself great emoluments, and to establish his family in an honourable situation in France, where he died at Amboise, of a dysentery, April 18, 1556, His principal works are, 1. “Opere Toscane,” a collection of poems on different subjects, and “Antigone,” a tragedy, Lyons, 1532 and 1533, 8vo, 2 vols.; Florence, vol. I. 1532; Venice, 2 vols. 1533—1542. Notwithstanding thesa frequent editions, they were prohibited in the pontificate of Clement VII. both at Florence and Rome, in the latter of which places they were publicly burnt. 2. “La Coltiva­?ione,” Paris, 1546, a beautiful edition corrected by the author and dedicated to Francis I. again reprinted the same year at Florence; and frequently reprinted, particularly a correct and fine edition, in large 4to, by Comino, at Padua, 1718, with the Api of Rucellai, and the epigrams of Alamanni; and at Bologne in 1746. This work, which Alamanni completed in six books, and which he appears to have undertaken rather in competition with, than in imitation of, the Georgics, is written not only with great elegance and correctness of style, but with a very extensive knowledge of the subject on which he professes to treat, and contains many passages which may bear a comparison with the most celebrated parts of his immortal predecessor. 3. “Girone il Cortese,” an heroic poem in 24 cantos, Paris, 1548, 4to; Venice, 1549. This work is little more than a transposition into the Italian ottava rima, of a French romance entitled Gyron Courtois, which Alamanni undertook at the request of Francis I. a short time before the death of that monarch, as appears from the information of the author himself in his dedication to Henry II. in which he has described the origin and laws of the British knights errant, or knights of the round table. 4. “La Avarchide,” or the siege of Bourges, the Avaricum of Caesar, an epic, also in 24 cantos, Florence, 1170, 4to. The plan and conduct of it is so closely founded on that of the Iliad, that if we except only the alteration of the names, it appears rather to be a translation than an original work. Neither of these have contributed much to the author’s fame, which rests chiefly on “La Coltivazione.” 5. “Flora,” a comedy in five acts, and in that verse which the Italians call Saruccioli, Florence, 1556 and 1601, 8vo.

Alamanni left two sons, who shared in the good fortune due to his talents and reputation. Baptist was almoner to queen Catherine de Medicis, afterwards king’s counsellor, abbot of Belle-ville, bishop of Bazas, and afterwards of Macon; he died in 1581. Nicholas, the other son, was a knight of St. Michael, captain of the royal guards, and master of the palace. Two other persons of the name of Louis Alamanni, likewise natives of Florence, were distinguished in the republic of letters. One was a colonel in the French service, and in 1591 consul of the academy of Florence. Salvino Salvini speaks of him in “Fastes Consulaires.” The other lived about the same time, and was a member of the same academy. He wrote three Latin eclogues in the “Carmina illustrium Poetarum Italorum,” and a funeral oration in the collection of “Florentine Prose,” vol. IV. He was the grandson of Ludovico Alemanni, one of the five brothers of the celebrated poet.

, a Spanish writer, born at Medina del Campo, in Castile, about the end of the sixteenth century. After having studied the law at Salamanca, he entered into the service of Anthony Perez, secretary of state under Philip II. He was in high esteem and confidence with his master, upon which account he was imprisoned after the disgrace of this minister, and kept in confinement eleven years, when Philip III. coming to the throne, set him at liberty, according to the orders given by his father in his will. Alamos continued in a private capacity, till the duke of Olivarez, the favourite of Philip IV. called him to public employments. He was appointed advocate-general in the court of criminal causes, and in the council of war. He was afterwards chosen member of the council of the Indies, and then of the council of the king’s patrimony, and a knight of the order of St. James. He was a man of wit as well as judgment, but his writings were superior to his conversation. He died in the 88th year of his age. His Spanish translation of Tacitus, and the aphorisms which he added in the margin, gained him great reputation: the aphorisms, however, have been censured by some authors, particularly by Mr. Amelot, who says, “that instead of being more concise and sententious than the text, the words of the text are always more so than the aphorism.” This work was published at Madrid in 1614, and was to have been followed, as mentioned in the king’s privilege, with a commentary, which, however, has never yet appeared. The author composed the whole during his imprisonment. He left several other works which have never yet been printed.

, in Latin Alanus de Lynna, a famous divine of the fifteenth century, was born at Lynn, in the county of Norfolk, and educated in the university of Cambridge; where he applied himself diligently to the study of philosophy and divinity, and, having taken the degree of doctor, became an eminent preacher. Bale, who gives Alan an advantageous character, yet blames him for using allegorical and moral expositions of scripture; while Pits commends the method he took to explain the holy scriptures, which was by comparing them with themselves, and having recourse to the ancient fathers of the church. But he is more generally celebrated for the useful pains he took in making indexes to most of the books he read. Of these Bale saw a prodigious quantity in the library of the Carmelites at Norwich. Alan flourished about the year 1420, and wrote several pieces, particularly “De vario Scripturæ sensu;” “Moralia Bibliorum;” “Sermones notabiles;” “Elucidarium Scripturæ;” “Prelectiones Theologiæ;” “Elucidationes Aristotelis.” At length he became a Carmelite, in the town of his nativity, and was buried in the convent of his order.

, of Tewkesbury, another English writer, who flourished about the year 1177, and died in 1201. He wrote “De vita et exilio Thomas Cantuarensis,” of the life and banishment of Thomas a Becket, archbishop of Canterbury.

, cardinal priest of the Roman church, and styled Cardinal of England, was the son of John Allen, by Jennet Lyster, sister to Thomas Lyster, of Westby, in Yorkshire, and was born at Rossal in Lancashire, in 1532. His father, according to Camden, was a gentleman of a reputable family, and had him educated at home until his fifteenth year, 1547, when he was entered of Oriel college, Oxford, and had for his tutor Morgan Philips, or Philip Morgan, a zealous Roman Catholic, and usually called the Sophister, which was a title, in the learning of those times, highly honourable. Young Alan made a rapid progress both in logic and philosophy, and was elected a fellow of his college, and took his bachelor’s degree in 1550. In the Act celebrated July 16, he went out junior of the act, having completed his degree of M. A. with the distinguished reputation of great parts, learning, and eloquence. Of this we have a proof in his being chosen principal of St. Mary hall, in 1556, when only twenty-four years of age, and the same year he served the office of proctor. In 1558, he was made canon of York; but on the accession of queen Elizabeth, when the reformed religion was again established, although he remained for a short time at Oxford, yet, as he refused to comply with the queen’s visitors in taking the oaths, &c. his fellowship was declared void; and in 1560 he found it necessary to leave England, and retire to Louvain, then a general receptacle of the expatriated English Catholics, and where they had erected a college. Here his talents and zeal recommended him to his countrymen, who looked up to him as their supporter, while they were charmed with his personal appearance, and easy address, chastened by a dignified gravity of manners.

He now began to write in support of the cause for which he had left his country; and his first piece, published in 1565, was entitled “A defence of the doctrine of Catholics, concerning Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead,” 8vo. This was intended as an answer to the celebrated bishop Jewell’s work on the same subject; and if elegance of style, and somewhat of plausibility of matter, could have prevailed, it would have served his cause very essentially; but, unluckily, of all the subjects which Jewell had handled, there was none in which he reasoned with such irresistible force. Alan’s work was at the same time answered by Dr. William Fulke; but whatever its fate in England, it procured him the highest reputation abroad, among the chiefs of his party, who, as a mark of their confidence, put under his care a young man, afterwards sir Christopher Blount, and who was concerned in the earl of Essex’s insurrection.

The care of this pupil, and his constant application to study, having injured his health, his physicians recommended him to try his native air; and with this advice, although it subjected him to personal danger, he complied, and arrived in Lancashire sometime in 1565. He had scarcely reached this place, before he began to exert his powers of persuasion in the making of converts; and in order to promote this object, wrote and circulated little treatises wherever they were likely to be successful. This open hostility to the church alarmed the magistrates, and they were in search of him, when he retired to the neighbourhood of Oxford, and wrote a kind of apology for his party, under the title of “Brief Reasons concerning the Catholic Faith.” Some, however, think that this was written at the duke of Norfolk’s house, in Norfolk, where it is certain he was for some time concealed. It appears likewise, that he returned to the neighbourhood of Oxford, and distributed his pamphlet with much boldness; and was so fearless in his zeal, that he refused a convenient opportunity of a ship going to the Netherlands. He now ventured to establish a correspondence with his old friends in the university, who were considerably numerous, and succeeded in bringing over one who had formerly been a Papist, but was now of the establishment. This so exasperated the relations of this person, that they forced Alan to fly to London, whence in 1568 he made his escape into Flanders. It has been supposed that some friends in power, who knew him formerly, connived at his easy departure. It is even said that sir Christopher Hatton bore a regard for him, in consequence of having received part of his education in St. Mary’s hall, while Alan was principal; and that Alan repaid this kindness with such honourable mention of sir Christopher abroad, as occasioned some very invidious reflections against the latter at home.

Be this as it may, Alan, having arrived safely in the Netherlands, went to Mecklin, in the duchy of Brabant, where he read a divinity lecture in one of the monasteries with great applause. Thence he went to Doway, where he became Doctor in Divinity, and laboured very assiduously in founding a seminary for the support of English scholars; and, knowing how obnoxious such institutions were in England, wrote a book in defence of them. While thus employed, a canonry of Cambray was conferred on him, as a reward for his zeal. Erythraeus (Jean Vincent Le Roux) in his Pinacotheca, gives us some reason to think that a pretended miracle contributed to this promotion, by inspiring his patrons with an idea of the sacredness of his person. The miracle is, than when in England, a person who knew him well was employed to apprehend him, but had such a mist before his eyes when he came for that purpose, as to pass him without knowing him. Such miracles, however, are capable of a very easy explanation.

In this seminary of Doway, many books were composed to justify the Popish religion, and to answer the books written in defence of the church of England, which occasioned a proclamation from the queen, forbidding the Doway books to be either sold or read; and we shall soon see that they were not merely books of religious controversy. In 1569, Alan appointed one Bristow to be moderator of studies at Doway, the same, it is supposed, whom he gained over when in the neighbourhood of Oxford. Not long after, Alan was appointed canon of Rheims, through the interest of the Guises, and to this city he transferred the seminary which had been settled at Doway; a matter, however, not of choice, as the then governor of the Netherlands, Don Lewis de Requesens, had obliged the English fugitives to withdraw out of his government. In the mean time, Alan laboured incessantly in the service of his party, by writing various treatises in defence of the doctrines or practices of the Papists, by licensing and recommending many books written by others, and by many journeys into Spain and Italy. He also procured a seminary to be established in Rome, and two in Spain, for the education and support of the English youth.

In England, he was justly reputed an enemy to the state, and all correspondence with him was considered as a species of high treason; and Thomas Alfield, 'a Jesuit, was executed for bringing some of his writings into England, and particularly his “Defence of the Twelve Martyrs in one Year.” In this work he insinuates, in language which, in those days, must have been very well understood, that queen Elizabeth, by reason of her heresy, had fallen from, her sovereignty. The indictment of Alfield, taken from the treasonable expressions in these writings, was among the papers of the lord treasurer Burleigh.

Alan therefore, having overstepped the bounds of religious controversy, was now determined to measures of more open hostility. The celebrated Parsons, the Jesuit, who was his great friend and counsellor, is supposed to have suggested to him the project of invading England. For many years there had been differences, discontents, and even injuries committed between the English and Spaniards; and now Alan, and some fugitive English noblemen, persuaded Philip II. to undertake the conquest of England. To facilitate this, the pope, Sixtus V. renewed the excommunication thundered against queen Elizabeth by his predecessor Pius V. While this was in agitation, sir William Stanley, commander of the English and Irish garrison at Daventer, betrayed it to the Spaniards, and went into their service with 1200 men; and Rowland York, who had been intrusted with a strong fort in the same country, performed the same act of treachery. Alan, no longer the conscientious controversialist, wrote a defence of this base proceeding, and sent several priests to Stanley, in order to instruct those he had drawn over to the king of Spain’s service. Alan’s defence, which appeared the year after these transactions, 1588, was first printed in English in the form of a letter, and afterwards in Latin, under the title of “Epistola de Daventrise ditione,” Cracov. His only argument, if it deserve the name, was, that sir William Stanley was no traitor, because he had only delivered to the king of Spain a city which was his own before; and he exhorts all Englishmen, in the service of the states, to follow his example.

Such writings, however, were too valuable to the popish cause, to go unrewarded. Accordingly on July 28, 1587, Alan was created cardinal by the title of St. Martin in Montibus; and soon after, the king of Spain gave him an abbey of great value in the kingdom of Naples, with assurances of greater preferment. In April 1588, he composed that work, entitled The Admonition, which rendered him most famous abroad, and infamous at home. It consisted of two parts; the first explaining the pope’s bull for the excommunication and deprivation of queen Elizabeth; the second, exhorting the nobility and people of England to desert her, and take up arms in favour of the Spaniards. It contains the grossest abuse of the queen, and threatens the nobility with judgments from heaven, and devastation by the Spaniards, unless they joined the forces of Philip; it boasts of the vast strength of these forces, and asserts that they had more good captains than Elizabeth had soldiers; that the saints in heaven all prayed for victory, and that the holy angels guarded them. Of this libel, well calculated at that time to effect its purpose, many thousand copies were printed at Antwerp, in order to have been put on board the Armada, and circulated in England. But the Armada, it is well known, completely failed, and covered its projectors with disgrace and destruction; and these books were so carefully destroyed, that a genuine copy waa scarcely to be found.

No part of the failure of this vast enterprize, however, was attributed to Alan, to whom the king of Spain now gave the archbishopric of Mecklin, and would have had reside there, as a place where he might more effectually promote the popish and Spanish interests in England; but the pope had too high an opinion of his merit to suffer him to leave Rome, where, therefore, he continued to labour in the service of his countrymen, and in promoting the Catholic faith. Some have asserted, that he and sir Francis Inglefield assisted Parsons, the Jesuit, in composing-his treasonable work concerning the succession, which he published under the name of Doleman, in 1593, and which was reckoned of such dangerous consequence, that it was made capital by law for any person to have it in his custody. Others, however, maintain that he had no hand in it, and that he even objected to it, because of its tendency to promote those dissentions which had for so many years distracted his native country; and this last opinion is probable, if what we have been told be true, that towards the close of his life he had changed his sentiments, as to government, and professed his sorrow for the pains he had taken in promoting the invasion of England. It is even asserted, by a very eminent popish writer (Watson), that when he perceived that the Jesuits intended nothing but desolating and destroying his native land, he wept bitterly, not knowing how to remedy it, much less how to curb their insolence. Such conduct, it is added, drew upon him the ill-will of that powerful society, who chose now to represent him as a man of slender abilities, and of little political consequence. On his death-bed, he was very desirous of speaking to the English students then at Rome, which the Jesuits prevented, lest he should have persuaded them to a loyal respect for their prince, and a tender regard for their country. He is generally said to have died of a retention of urine; but, as the Jesuits had shown so much dislike, they have been accused of poisoning him. Of this, however, there is no proof. He died Oct. 6, 1594, in the sixty-third year of his age; and was buried with great pomp in the chapel of the English college at Rome, where a monument was erected to his memory, with an inscription setting forth his titles and merits. What these merits were, the reader has been told. We have seen cardinal Alan in three characters: that of a zealous propagandist; of apolitical traitor to his country; and lastly, repenting the violence of his endeavours to ruin his country on pretence of bringing her back to popery. In the first of these characters he seems to have acted from the impulse of a mind firmly persuaded that every deviation from popery was dangerous heresy; and the only weapons he employed were those of controversy. As a writer, the popish party justly considered him as the first champion of his age; and both his learning and eloquence were certainly of a superior stamp. But in his worst character, as a traitor, there is every reason to think him influenced by the Jesuits, who at that time, and ever while a society, had little scruple as to the means by which they effected their purposes. Yet even their persuasions were not sufficient to inspire him with permanent hostility towards the political existence of his country. Some writers, not sufficiently attending to his history, have called him a Jesuit; but in all controversies between the Jesuits and the secular priests, the latter always gloried in cardinal Alan, as a man to whom no Jesuit could be compared, in any respect.

At Rome, and every where abroad, he was styled Cardinal of England, and regarded as the protector of the nation. After his death, however, and when all hopes of conquering England had vanished, less notice was taken of English priests, and few of them were made bishops; nor was it until the reign of Charles II. when the popish interest was supposed likely to gain the ascendancy in England, that Philip Thomas Howard, younger brother to the Duke of Norfolk, was created cardinal, and sometimes called the Cardinal of England.

Of his works, besides those already mentioned, there are extant, 1. “A defence of the lawful power and authority of the Priesthood to remit Sins,” with two other tracts on Confession and Indulgences, Louvain, 1567, 8vo. ?. “De Sacramentis in genere, de sacramento Eucharistice, et de Missae Sacrificio, libri tres,” Antwerp, 1576, 4to, and Doway, 1605. 3. “A true, sincere, and modest defence of English Catholics,” without place, 1583. This was an answer to the “Execution of Justice in England,” written by lord Burleigh, the original of which, Strype says, is yet preserved. It is esteemed the best of Alan’s works. 4. “An apology and true declaration of the institution and endeavours of the two English colleges, the one in Home, the other now resident in Rheims, against certain sinister insinuations given up against the same,” Mons, 1581. Besides these, he wrote some other small treatises, without his name, of which we have nowhere seen a correct account. That in the Athenae is perhaps the best. Foppen, on the authority of Possevin in his “Apparatus Sac.” says, that he translated the English Bible printed at Rheims, in conjunction with Gregory Martin and Richard Bristow, two English divines; and that he wrote a letter to the bishop of Liege, “de miserabili statu et calamitate r'egni Anglise, fervente schismate,” which is printed in the “Gesta Episcoporum Leodiensium,” vol. III. p. 588. Le Long, who also mentions his translation of the Bible, adds, that he was employed by pope Gregory XIV. in reforming the Vulgate.

, lord Fortescue of the kingdom of Ireland, a baron of the exchequer, and puisne judge of the king’s bench and common pleas in the reigns of George I. and II. was born March 7, 1670, being the second son of Edmund Fortescue, of London, esq. and Sarah, daughter of Henry Aland, of Waterford, esq. in honour of whom he added Aland to his name. He was descended from sir John Fortescue, lord chief justice and lord high chancellor of England under king Henry VI. He was educated probably at Oxford, as that university, in complimenting him with a doctor’s degree, by diploma, in 1733, alluded to his having^tudied there. On leaving the university he became a member of the Inner Temple, where he was chosen reader in 1716, 2 Geo. I. as appears by a subscription to his arms, and was called to the bar about the time of the Revolution. For his arguments as pleader in the courts of justice, the reader is referred to the following authorities; viz. the Reports of Mr. justice Fortescue Aland; Mr. serjeant Carthew; Mr. recorder Comberbach; lord chancellor (of Ireland) Freeman; lord chief baron Gilbert’s Cases; Mr. justice Levintz; Mr. justice Lutwyche; lord chief justice Raymond; Mr. Serjeant Salkeld; Mr. serjeant Skinner; and Mr. justice Ventris.

We may presume our barrister shone as an advocate with meridian lustre, since the celebrated Pope has recorded his name, by prefixing it to his Imitation of Horace, Sat. II. 1. and distinguished his legal abilities, by asking his opinion, as to libels, in the following lines:

You'll give me, like a friend both sage and free,

Advice, and (as you use) without a fee.” The reader is informed in a note on the first line, that the delicacy of the address does not so much lie in the ironical application to himself, as in seriously characterising the person for whose advice the poet applies.

On Friday, October 22, 1714, he was appointed solicitorgeneral to his royal highness the prince of Wales, afterwards king George the Second; and on December 21, 1715, he was constituted solicitor-general to the king, in the room of Nicholas Lechmere, resigned; which arduous and important office he executed so much to the satisfaction of his majesty and the people, that he was thought deserving of a higher post; and accordingly, 24th January, 1716-7, Hilary term, the king appointed him one of the barons of the exchequer, in which court he succeeded sir Samuel Dodd, the late lord chief baron, deceased. In the office of solicitor-general he was himself succeeded by sir William Thompson the recorder of London. The reader is referred to the reports of the lord chief baron Comyns, and of the lord chief baron Gilbert, sir John Strange and Bunbury, for our baron’s resolutions and opinions while he sat in this court.

In May 1718, he was constituted one of the justices of the court of king’s bench; but after the accession of king George II. all the judges had new patents, except Mr. justice Aland, whose commission was superseded, for reasons which have not transpired. It appears, however, that he regained his majesty’s favoifV, as in January 1728 he was appointed one of the justices of the court of common pleas. He continued on this bench from Michaelmas vacation, 2 Geo. II. 1728, until Trinity term 19 and 20, A. D. 1746, when he resigned the same, having sat in the superior courts of Westminster for the long period of thirty years, and eighteen of them in the court alluded to. His majesty, in further testimony of his judicial integrity and abilities, was pleased to create him a peer of Ireland, by the style and title of John lord Fortescue Aland, baron Fortescue of Credan, in the kingdom of Ireland, by privy seal, dated at Kensington, June 26, 1746, 19 Geo. II. and by patent dated at Dublin, August 15. But he did not enjoy this honour long, dying Dec. 19 of the same year, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. The family is now extinct.

The juridical writings of sir John Fortescue Aland are: 1. “The Difference between an absolute and limited Monarchy, as it more particularly regards the English constitution; being a treatise written by sir John Fortescue, knight, lord chief justice, and lord high chancellor of England, under king Henry VI. faithfully transcribed from the ms copy in the Bodleian library, and collated with three other Mss. published with some remarks by John Fortescue Aland, of the Inner Temple, esq. F. R. S.” Lond. 1714: reprinted, 1719. 2. “Reports of Select Cases in all the courts of Westminster hall, tempore William the Third and queen Anne; also the opinion of all the judges of England relating to the grandest prerogative of the royal family, and some observations relating to the prerogatives of a queen-consort,” London, 1748, fol. This is a posthumous publication.

Sir John, in his preliminary remarks to the work of his great ancestor, proves himself to be a distinguished proficient in Saxon literature. He lived also in habits of intimacy with Pope and his associates; and many of Pope’s letters to him are published in Mr. Bowles’s edition of the works of that Poet. Mr. Fortescue also furnished Pope with the admirable burlesque of “Stradling vtrsus Styles” in vol. VI.

, or Alainde L'Isle or de Lille, is the name under which two persons, who were contemporaries, have been confounded by most biographers. The subject of the present article, usually termed Alanus senior, or major, was born at Lille in Flanders, about the beginning of the twelfth century; and his parents having demoted him from his birth to the service of religion, he received a suitable education. When the fame of St. Bernard began to spread abroad, Alanus was sent, in 1128, to study at Clairvaux, under that celebrated ecclesiastic, and very soon acquired a distinction above his companions. St. Bernard afterwards placed him at the head of the abbey of Rivour, in the diocese of Troyes in Champagne; and in 1151, procured him the bishopric of Auxerre, over which he presided until 1167, when he resigned it, and returned to Clairvaux, where he remained until his death in October 1181. His works, still in existence, are, 1. “Vita sancti Bernard!,” printed in the second volume of St. Bernard’s works, 1690, fol. 2. “Testamentum suum,” or his Testament, made in 1181, printed in Nicholas Camusat’s collection. 3. “Explanationes in Prophetias Merlini Angli,” in seven books, Francfort, 1608, 8vo. Alanus composed this treatise under the reign of Louis-the-Young, about 1171, on account of the noise which these pretended prophecies made. The subject is curiously illustrated by quotations from the English, Norman, and French historians, and even from the Latin poets. In the chapter-house of Auxerre is a manuscript life of Alanus, compiled in 1182 by one of the canons.

, or Alain de L‘Isle, surnamed the Universal Doctor, from his extensive knowledge, was born about the middle of the twelfth century, not at Lille in Flanders, as most biographers have asserted, but either at L’Isle, in the Comtat-Venaissain, according to the abbe Le Beuf, or in the island or peninsula of Madoc in the Bordelais. In all the accounts we have of him, he seems to be mistaken for the preceding. He appears to have taught theology in the university of Paris; but it is not true that he ever was a lay-brother of the Cistertians, or fed the sheep belonging to that abbey, or that he was called to Rome to assist at a general council. He died in the early part of the thirteenth century, in the abbey of the Cistertians, whither, after the example of many distinguished persons of his time, he retired to pass the remainder of his days. He was buried in the abbey with an inscription of seven lines, the last four of which Casimir Oudin, the ecclesiastical biographer and historian, discovered to have been added long after his death, and with a view to authenticate the stories that he had been a lay-brother, &c. But although our accounts of him are imperfect and confused, it appears that he enjoyed the esteem and admiration of his contemporaries, and that it was usual to say, “To have seen Alanus, is enough.” Sufficiat vobis vidisse Alanum. Among his works are, 1. “Anti-Claudianus, seu de viro optimo, et in omni virtute perfecto, lib. ix. Carmine,” Basil, 1536, and Antwerp, 1621. 2. “De planctu naturæ contra Sodomiæ vitium,” published with notes by Leo Allatius. 3. “Contra Albigenses, Waldenses, Judæos, et Paganos,” Paris, 1618, 8vo. 4. “Dicta de Lapide philosophico,” Leyden, 1600, 8vo. All his works, both prose and verse, were collected by Charles de Visch, and published at Antwerp, 1654, fol. but some of them have been attributed to the preceding Alanus. His “Parables” have been translated into French, Paris, 1492, fol. and by Denys Janot, 8vo, without a date.

, of a noble family at Brussels, was born about the beginning of the sixteenth century. His father William Alard de Centier, a zealous convert to popery, obliged him to enter the order of Dominican friars, where he was much admired for his talents as a preacher. While thus employed, a Hamburgh merchant, who was pleased with his preaching, procured him privately the works of Luther, which Alard read with conviction, and the same merchant having assisted him in escaping from his convent, he studied divinity at Jena and Wittemberg. But the death of this faithful friend having deprived him of resources, he ventured to return to Brussels and solicit assistance from his father. Before, however, he could obtain a private interview with him, he was discovered in one of the streets of Brussels by his mother, a violent bigot, who, after some reproaches, denounced him to the Inquisition; and when no persuasions could induce him to return into the bosom of the church which he had left, his mother was so irritated, as to call forth the rigour of the law, and even offered to furnish the wood to burn him. Sentence of death being pronounced, he was conducted to prison, but on the night previous to the appointed execution, he is said to have heard a voice saying, “Francis, arise and depart:” how far this and other particulars of his escape are true, we know not; but it is certain he cleared the prison, and after some hardships and difficulties, arrived in safety at Oldenburgh, where he became almoner to the prince. Here he remained until hearing that freedom of religion was granted at Antwerp, his affection for his native country induced him to return, which he did twice, notwithstanding the persecutions of the duke of Alba a.nd the dangers to which he was exposed; and when his father came to see him at Antwerp, in hopes of bringing him back to popery, he argued with so much power, as to make a sincere convert of this bigotted parent. At length, when it was not longer safe for him to remain in the Netherlands, Christian IV. king of Denmark, gave him the curacy of Wilster in Hoistein, at which asylum he died July 10, 1578. His works, which are In Flemish or German, consist of, 1. “The Confession of Antwerp.” 2. “Exhortation of the Ministers of Antwerp.” 3. “Agenda, or Discipline of Antwerp.” 4. “Catechism.” 5. “Treatise on original Sin,” &c.

, son of the preceding, was born Nov. 22, 1572. Aftet having received the principles of education in the college of Itzehoe, which he left at the age of sixteen, he passed rive years in the college of Luneburgh, and went from that to Wittemherg, where he distinguished himself by the able defence of his theses. In 1595, he was called home, and made joint rector of the college of Krempen, and afterwards chosen pastor of the church of that place. He died May 8, 1644. aged 72 years and six months. His works, in Latin, are, 1. “Christianus, hoc est, de nomine, ortu, &c. Christianorum,” Leipsic, 1637, 1640. “Pericopa pentateuchi biblica, triglossometrica,” &c. 1618, 4to. 3. “De diversis ministrorum. gradibus contra Bezam.” 4. “Defensiotractationis,” &c. a defence of the preceding against Beza’s answer, Francfort, 1600.

, son of the preceding, was born at Krempen in 1600, and first studied there and at Harhburgh. At the age of nineteen, he went to the academy of Leipsic, where he entered on a course of theology and political science. In 1624, he had acquired much reputation both as a philosopher and a poet. When he returned to Krempen, he was made dean of the college, and held that station during five years. After this, the king of Denmark appointed him inspector of the schools at Brunswick, and assessor of the council of Meldorf, In 1643, by order of the emperor, he was created master of arts, and not being able, on account of the war, to go into Saxony, he was made a licentiate in divinity by diploma, or bull, which was sent to him. He died May 29, 1672. His works are, 1. “Delicia? Atticae,” Leips. 1624, 12mo. 2. “Heraclius Saxonicus, &c.” ibid. 1624, 12mo. 3. “Græcia in nuce, seu lexicon novurn omnium Græcae lingua primogeniarum,” Leips. 1628, 1632, 12mo. 4. “Promptuarium pathologicum Novi Testamenti,” Leips. 1635, 1636, 12mo. 5. “Laurifolia, sive poematum juvenilium apparatus,” 1627, 12mo, and some other works both in prose and verse, particularly a commentary on the Argonauticon of Valerius Flaccus, which is very little esteemed.

A Lasco, or Lasco, or Laski (John), usually styled the Polish reformer, a man of high rank, talents, and pious zeal, is said by Fox, the martyrologist, who was his contemporary, to have been uncle to Sigismond, king of Poland. He certainly was of a noble family in Poland, which took its name from Lasco, Latzki, or Latzeo, and subsisted under one of those titles long after his time. He was born, according to Saxius, in 1499, but we have no particulars respecting his family, unless that his brother Jerome was an able politician, and employed by the emperor Ferdinand, as his ambassador to the Turkish government. He had also an uncle, of the same name, who was archbishop of Gnesua, to whom Erasmus dedicated his edition of the works of St. Ambrose, and whom Le Clerc mistakes for our John Alasco. Erasmus in one of his epistles (ep. 862) mentions two others of the same illustrious family, Hieroslaus, and Stanislaus Alasco (usually written à Lasco); and in ep. 1167, he speaks of a John à Lasco (Joannes Lascanus), a young man, who died in Germany.

After receiving an education suitable to his birth and talents, his thirst for knowledge induced him to travel into various countries, where he acquired considerable distinction. In 1525 he was at Basil, lodging and boarding with Erasmus, and at the same time, which proves his high rank, he was the correspondent of Margaret, sister to Francis I. and queen of Navarre. Erasmus highly commends him wherever he has occasion to introduce his name, as we shall notice hereafter. Alasco probably chose to dwell with Erasmus, that he might improve in literature by having free access to him; and the biographer of Erasmus remarks that many of his friends were led by his conversation and writings to embrace the principles of Luther and the other reformers, although he himself did not go scrfar. While under the roof of this eminent scholar, Alasco appears to have contributed to keep up a liberal domestic establishment, which occasioned Erasmus to observe to him in a letter, that “his departure was unfortunate in many respects; for, omitting other matters, it cost him, some months labour to reduce the grand establishment, Alasco had introduced, to the former frugal system pursued.”

It appears by another letter from Erasmus to Pole, afterwards the celebrated cardinal, that Alasco left him to go to the university of Padua. “You will love him,” says Erasmus, “because he has all those qualities which make you amiable: noble extraction, high posts of honour, and still greater expectations, a wonderful genius, uncommon erudition, and all this without any pride. I have hitherto been happy in his company, and now lose it with great regret.” This letter is dated Basil, Oct. 4, 1525. His stay at Padua was probably short, as he went afterwards to Rome, and thence into Switzerland, where he became acquainted with Zuinglius, who, struck with his talents and amiable character, prevailed on him to examine more seriously the controversies of the times respecting religion. The result of this was his embracing Protestantism according to the tenets of the Geneva reformers, and with respect to the sacrament, he zealously adopted the opinion of Zuinglius. In 1526, he returned to Poland, where he was made provost of Gnesna and Lencziez, and was nominated bishop of Vesprim in Hungary. His family and connections would have added to these, but preferment in the popish church was no longer consistent with his principles; and after struggling with much opposition, he quitted the kingdom, with the knowledge and consent of the king, by whom, Lavater the historian says, he was much respected and frequently consulted.

He left Poland in 1540, fourteen years after he had returned from his travels, and during this long period we have very few particulars of his history, except that on the death of Erasmus in 1536, he generously offered an hundred pieces of gold to Froben and Episcopius, to assist them in publishing his works, and at this time he completed his purchase of Erasmus’s library, which he had contracted for in 1525, while under his roof. The agreement between them stated that, during Erasmus’s life, both should have the use of the books, but the property should be in Alasco and his heirs. The price was three hundred crowns of gold.

About the latter end of the year 1542, we find Alasco at Embden, where he took upon him the office of pastor, and preached constantly at a church in that town. In the following year he was engaged by Anne, countess dowager of Oldenburg, in East Friesland, to introduce and establish the reformed religion in that territory. This he was pursuing with great success, when he was invited by Albert, duke of Prussia, to a similar undertaking; but as that prince was a zealous Lutheran in the article of the sacrament, and Alasco had candidly informed him of his strict adherence to the Zuinglian doctrine on the same subject, the engagement did not take place, and Alasco continued for some years, nearly in the same quarter, labouring to promote the reformation by assiduous preaching, lecturing, and exhortation.

When Germany became an unsafe residence for the friends of the reformatiou, and the contest respecting the interim was eagerly pursued, Alasco, whose fame had reached England, was invited thither by archbishop Cranmer. This illustrious founder of the English church had for some time afforded a quiet asylum to such learned foreigners as bad been expatriated on account of their religion; and had at one time residing at Lambeth palace, those celebrated reformers Bucer, Martyr, Fagius, Ochin, and others of inferior note. Alasco arrived accordingly about the year 1548, and was introduced not only to the archbishop, but by his means to sir John Cheke, sir William Cecil, and to the duke of Somerset, the protector. In a conference with the latter, he was encouraged to request that be and his congregation might have leave to come over to London, and be protected in the exercise of their religion; and he urged that such a favour would be a matter of policy as well as charity, as by this step many useful manufactures might be introduced into England. He requested also that they might be incorporated by the king’s jetters patent; and some old dissolved church, or monastery, given them as a place of worship. Having proposed these measures, and obtained the assistance of the archbishop and other friends of rank and power, to assist in forwarding them, he returned again to Embden, where be corresponded with the archbishop and Cecil, As soon as they informed him that his request would be complied with, he again came to England, and brought with him a considerable number of German Protestants, who found an asylum for their persons, and toleration for their principles, under the mild reign of Edward VI. Three hundred and eighty of these refugees were naturalized, and erected into a species of ecclesiastical corporation, which was governed by its own laws, and enjoyed its own form of worship, although not exactly agreeing with that of the church of England. A place of worship in London, part of the once splendid priory of the Augustine friars, in the ward of Broad-street, which is still standing, was granted to them July 24, 1549, with the revenues belonging to it, for the subsistence of their ministers, who were either expressly nominated, or at least approved of by the king. His majesty also fixed the precise number of them, namely, four minisiers and a superintendant. This last office was conferred on Alasco, who, in the letters patent, is called a person of singular probity, and great learning; and it was an office which comprehended many important duties. It appears that as among the refugees from the Continent there were sometimes concealed papists, or dangerous enthusiasts, a power was given to Alasco to examine into their characters, and none were tolerated in the exercise of their religion but such as were protected by him. His office likewise extended not only over this particular congregation of Germans, but over all the other foreign churches in London, of which we find there was a French, a Spanish, and an Italian church or congregation; and over their schools and seminaries, all which were subject to his inspection, and declared to be within his jurisdiction. In 1552, we find him using his influence to procure for a member of the French church the king’s licence to set up a printing-house for printing the liturgy, &c. in French, for the use of the French islands (Jersey and Guernsey) under the English government.

It is to be regretted that a reception so hospitable, an establishment so munificent, and a toleration so complete, should not have induced this learned reformer to abate the zeal of controversy. But he had not enjoyed his new office long before he published a book against the church of England, her ritual, ecclesiastical habits, and the gesture of kneeling at the sacrament. It is an excuse, indeed, that he was requested by Edward VI. to write on some of these subjects; and it was probably owing to this circumstance, that no censure was passed en his book.

The reign of Edward VI. was short; and on the accession of his bigotted and remorseless sister, the reformation was overthrown; and those who chose to adhere to it soon saw that they must be consistent at the expence of their lives. At the commencement, however, of the Marian tyranny, whether from a respect for Alasco’s illustrious family, or some regard for the rites of hospitality to those foreigners who had been invited into the country under the royal pledge of safety, Alasco and his congregation had the fair warning of a ' proclamation which ordered all foreigners to depart the realm, particularly heretics. Accordingly, about one hundred and seventy-five persons, consisting of Pules, Germans, French, Scotch, Italians, and Spaniards, belonging to the various congregations. under his superintendance, embarked in two ships, Sept. 17, 1553, with Alasco and his colleagues, and set sail for the coast of Denmark. Their reception here has been very differently represented. It has been said that, although known to be Protestants, yet because they professed the opinions of Zuinglius respecting the sacrament, they were not suffered to disembark, or to remain at anchor more than two days; during which their wives and children were prohibited from landing. Such is the account given by Melchior Adam, and by those who have followed him without examining other writers. According, however, to Hospinian, who may be the more easily credited as he was unfriendly to the Lutherans, it appears that the landing was not opposed, and that the Lutherans even admitted of a conference with Alasco and one of his colleagues, Micronius; but in the end, as neither party would give way, Alasco and his company were obliged to leave the kingdom in the depth of winter, and were refused admittance, with equal inhumanity, at Lubeck, Wismar, and Hamburgh. After 1 thus suffering almost incredible hardships at sea, during the whole of a very severe winter, they arrived in March, 1554, at Embden; and being received with kindness and hospitality, most of them settled there. Anne, countess dowager of Oldenburgh, again extended her friendship to Alasco, became the patroness of his flock, and procured them every comfort their situation required.

In 1555, Alasco went to Franckfort on the Maine, where he obtained leave of the senate to build a church for reformed strangers, and particularly for those of the Netherlands. While here, he wrote a defence of his conduct to Sigismond, king of Poland, against the aspersions of Joachim Westphale (one of the most violent controversial writers on the side of Luther), Bugenhagen, and others. In the same year, with the consent, if not at the desire of the duke of Wirtemberg, he maintained a disputation against Brentius, then a Lutheran, upon the subject of the eucharist. The unfair representation Brentius published of this controversy, and the garbled account he gave of Alasco’s arguments, obliged the latter to publish an apology for himself and his church, in 1557; in which he proved that their doctrine did not militate with the Augsburgh confession concerning the presence of Christ in the supper; but that, if they had differed from that confession, it did not follow that they were to be condemned, provided they could justify their dissent from the holy scriptures. Westphale was yet more illiberal than Brentius in his censure of Alasco and his flock; and reviled them with a virulence that would have better become their professed persecutors.

After an absence of nearly twenty years, Alasco returned to his native country, where he was protected from the hostility of the ecclesiastics, by the king, who employed him in various important affairs; and when addressed by the popish clergy to remove him, answered that “he had indeed heard, that the bishops had pronounced him a heretic, but the senate of the kingdom had determined no such matter; that John Alasco was ready to prove himself untainted with heretical pravity, and sound in the Catholic faith.” This answer, however, so unfavourable to their remonstrances, did not prevent their more secret efforts to injure him; but we do not find that these were effectual, and he died in peace at Franckfort, Jan. 13, 1560, after a short illness. His piety, extensive learning, liberality, and benevolence, have been celebrated by all his contemporaries, and the bigoted part of the Lutherans were his only enemies; and even of these some could not bring any other accusation against him than that he differed from their opinion respecting the corporal presence in the sacrament; a subject which unfortunately split the early reformers into parties, when they should have united against the common enemy. We have already quoted Erasmus’s opinion of him when a very young man; and it may be added (from ep. iii. lib. 28.) that he pronounced him “young, but grave beyond his years; and that himself was huppy in his conversation and society, and even became better by it; having before him, in Alasco, a striking example of sobriety, moderation, modesty, and integrity.” In another letter he calls him, “a man of so amiable a disposition, that he should have thought himself sufficiently happy in his single friendship.” Nor was Melanchthon less warm in his praise. On the accession of queen Elizabeth, although he did not return to England, he corresponded with her on affairs of the church; and according to Zanchius, had much influence both with her, and the leading ministers of her court. It may here be noticed that the congregation he had settled in Austin Friars were tolerated again under her reign, and that bishop Grindall was appointed superintendant of this foreign church, the last of whom we have any account as holding that office. The church is to this day vested in a congregation of Dutch Calvinistic protestants, and the library belonging to it contains a vast collection of the manuscript letters and memorials of the reformers, and particularly of Alasco, whose portrait was there before the fire of London.

Alasco was twice married: his first wife died in 1552, and the second survived him; he appears to have had children by both. It was probably a descendant of his, Albertus Alasco, who was most magnificently entertained by the university of Oxford in 1583, by special command of queen Elizabeth. “Such an entertainment it was,” says Wood, “that the like before or since was never made for one of his degree, costing the university, with the colleges, about c350. And, indeed, considering the worthiness of the person for whom it was chiefly made, could not be less. He was one tarn Marti quam Mercuric: a very good soldier, and a very good scholar, an admirable linguist, philosopher, and mathematician.”

Of his works we have a catalogue in Melchior Adam, Verheiden, and others, but mostly without dates. His book on the sacrament, already noticed, bore this title: “Brevis et dilucida de Sacramentis ecclesiae Christi tractatio in qua fons ipse et ratio totius sacramentariae nostri temporis controversies, paucis exponitur,” Lond. 1552, 8vo. Together with this, says Strype, was bound up a tract entitled “Consensio mutua in re Sacramentaria ministrorum Tigurinae ecclesiae, et D. Jo. Calvini, ministri Genevensis ecclesiae, data Tiguri, Aug. 30, 1549.” The whole was introduced by an epistle dedicatory to king Edward, which Strype has given at large. It treats chiefly of the controversy respecting the habits, and was reprinted in 1633, when these matters were considered as of sufficient Importance to hazard the existence of church and state. Of this work on the sacrament, an abridgement was afterwards published under the title “Epistola continens in se summam controversiæ de cœna Domini breviter explicatam.” His other works are: 1. “Confessio de nostra cum Christo Domino communione, et corporis item sui in coena exhibitione, ad ministros ecclesiarum Frisii orientalis.” 2. “Epistola ad Bremensis Ecclesiae ministros.” 3. “Contra Mennonem catabaptistarum prineipem.” 4. “De Recta Eccles arum instituendaruni ratione Epistolse tres,” 6. “Epistola ad regeni Polonise Sigismundum, &c. in qua doctrinae ministeni tidem, ac nominis sui existimationem, contra adversariorum calumnias vindicat.” 6. “Purgatio ministrorum in ecclesiis peregrinis Francofurti, qua demonstrat ipsorum doctrinam de Christ! domini in coena sua pncsentia non pugnare cum Augnstana confessione, ut adversarii eos accusabant.” 7. “Responsio ad virulentam, calumniisque et mendariis consarcinatam, Joachirri Westphali Epistolam, qua purgationem ecclesiarum peregrinarum Francofurti convellere conatur.” -8. “Forma ac ratio totius Ecclesiastici Ministeni Edwardi VI. in peregrinorum maxime Germanorum ecclesia.” He also published a form of prayer and religious service, used in the church at London, df which we find a notice of a translation from Latin into French, printed at London in 1556.

, a celebrated Spanish bishop, who lived in the sixteenth century, was a native of Vitoria, a city of Alava in the province of Biscay. He studied the civil and canon law at Salamanca, and made such considerable progress, that having been admitted one of the judges in several courts of judicature, he was at lant made president of the council of Granada. He afterwards entered into holy orders, and was advanced to the bishopric of Astorga. In that rank he assisted at the fifth Council of Trent, where his principal endeavours were to restrain pluralities. On his return he was made bishop of Avila, and afterwards of Cordova. He died in 1562. The only work he has left, the subject of which is general councils, is said to be well written “De Conciliis universalibus, ac de his quce ad reiigionis et reipublicie Christ, reformationem instituenda videutur,” Granada, 1582, fol. The family of D‘Alava produced at least two other writers of some eminence, Diego d’Alava de Beaumont, the sou of the master of the ordnance to the king of Spain, an able engineer, who wrote “El Perfecto Capitan, &c.” or the Perfect Captain instructed in the military science, and the art of fortification, Madrid, 1590, fol.; and Francis Ruis de Vergara y Alava, who wrote the history of the college of St. Bartholomew, in the university of Salamanca; and by order of Philip IV. superintended an edition, 1655, fol. of the Statutes of the order of the knights of St. James.

, a celebrated physician of Sicily, was born in 1590 at Ragalbuto, in the valley of Demona, and when young acquired great reputation for his proficiency in classical learning, and in the study of philosophy. He then made choice of the profession of medicine, and received his doctor’s degree at Messina in 1610. In 1616 he settled at Palermo, where he practised with uncommon success, his advice being eagerly sought at home and abroad, by persons of all ranks who corresponded with him in cases where his visits could not be procured. His fame rose highest, however, in 1624, when he practised with so much skill, humanity, and success, during the rage of the plague in Palermo, and other parts of Sicily. While in this prosperous career, he was in vain solicited to accept a professor’s chair in the university of Bologna, and the office of first physician to the king of Naples. Nothing could seduce him from his connexions in Palermo, where he had the principal hand in founding the medical academy. He is celebrated also for his piety and munificence towards religious institutions. He died August 29, 1662. His principal works are in Latin. 1. “Consultatio pro ulceris Syriaci nunc vagantis curatione,” Palermo, 1632, 4lo. 2. “De succedaneis Medicamentis,” ibid. 1637, 4to. 3. And in Italian, “Discorso intorno alia preservatione del morbo contagioso, e mortale, che regna al presente in Palermo, tkc.” ibid. 1625, 4to. 4. “Consigli Medico-politici,” also relating to the plague, ibid. 1652, 4to. He left, likewise, some works in manuscript, on the treatment of malignant fevers, and a commentary on the epidemics of Hippocrates.

, is said to have been the first person who suffered martyrdom for Christianity in Britain; he is therefore usually styled the protomartyr of this island. He was born at Verulam, and flourished towards the end of the third century. In his youth he took a journey to Rome, in company with Amphibalus, a monk of Caerleon, and served seven years as a soldier under the emperor Dioclesian. At his return home he settled in Verulam; and, through the example and instruction of Amphibalus, renounced the errors of Paganism, in which he had been educated, and became a convert to the Christian religion. It is generally agreed that Alban suffered martyrdom during the great persecution under the reign of Diocletian; but authors differ as to the year when it happened: Bede and others fix it in the year 286, some refer it to 296, but Usher reckons it amongst the events of 303. His death is said to have been accompanied with several miracles, to which, however, it is impossible to give credit. Collier, only, of all our historians, contends for their credibility. Between 400 and 500 years after St. Alban’s death, Offa, king of the Mercians, built a very large and stately monastery to his memory; and the town of St. Alban’s in, Hertfordshire takes its name from our protomartyr.

, an eminent virtuoso, was born at Urbino, Oct. 15, 1692, and promoted to the rank of cardinal by Innocent XIII. He died Dec. 2, 1779, aged 87, He showed great dignity in his embassy to the emperor; and displayed much learning while he held the place of librarian of the Vatican. He had great taste and knowledge of antiquities, and became a munificent patron of learning and learned men. His house, known by the name of the Villa Albani, was decorated with valuable statues and other treasures of the fine arts. He also found leisure from his political engagements to write some historical and literary works, which are held in much esteem. In 1762, his collection of drawings, consisting of three hundred volumes, one third of which are original drawings of the first masters, the others, collections of the most capital engravings, were sold to his present majesty of Great Britain, for 14,000 crowns.

, nephew to the preceding, and heir to his taste and munificence, was born in Rome, 1720, and educated for the church, in which he was speedily promoted to the highest honours, being advanced to the purple, soon after he entered the priesthood, in 1747, and not long afterwards appointed arch-priest of the Basilic of St. Maria Maggiore, and bishop of Porto, one of the seven suburban sees which depend on the pope as on their immediate metropolitan. He derived more lustre, however, from following the example of his uncle in patronizing learning and learned men, and in adding to those rare and valuable monuments of art, which so long rendered the villa Albani the resort of the virtuosi of Europe.

In 1767, when the question of the suppression of the Jesuits was agitated, the cardinal took an active part at the court of Rome in their favour, but without discovering the principles of a very enlightened mind. He dreaded in this suppression the commencement of the downfall of the church, and considered any concession to those monarchs who were for the measure, as a dangerous symptom of servility on the part of the church. In 1775, he was appointed bishop of Ostia and Velletri, and consequently dean of the sacred college; and in 1779, he succeeded to his uncle Alexander in almost all the charges which that prelate had long possessed. He was appointed plenipotentiary of the house of Austria, protector of the kingdom of Poland, of the order of Malta, of the republic of Ragusa, and what was most congenial to his temper, of the college of La Sapienza in Rome. He was also presented with some rich abbeys and priories, both in the Roman and in the Neapolitan state.

The circumstances of his being almost set apart from every affair of government, and of possessing a large income, were a source of refined gratifications to himself, and of signal benefit to all the literary characters in Rome who had gained his esteem. He renewed towards the close of the century, that example which about the middle of it had been set by his illustrious uncle. Besides his patronage of men of established fame, of such men as Visconti, Fea, Testa, and Piranesi, whenever among the children of his servants and dependants he discovered a promising, genius, he took upon himself the care of his education. He increased the valuable library of his uncle from twenty-five to thirty thousand volumes; and in the year 1793, it was computed that the villa Albani contained about two hundred thousand works of art, and specimens of antiquities.

The cardinal w r as now in his seventy-seventh year, and. in all probability expected to close his life in the full enjoyment of his. splendid and unrivalled collections, when the French took possession of Rome. The depredations they committed in the Vatican and other public places of Rome, and the violences offered by them to the most eminent persons in that metropolis, may be easily accounted for from their characteristic rapacity, and the hatred which they then professed for religion under any shape. But the outrages which they practised on the family of Albani had such a Jjase and spiteful motive, as to brand them with eternal infamy. Owing to the successive marriages of the two last princesses of Carrara and of Modena, the family of Albani was a relative to the imperial house of Austria; and the French thought that the distress and humiliation, of the one would be communicated to the other. The estates were confiscated, the magnificent and elegant palace, within the precincts of Rome, was, sacked, and the unrivalled villa was plundered and destroyed. “This palace,” says Mr. Duppa, “which is not yet razed to the ground, nor its villa made an absolute heath, now remains (1798) a melancholy monument of the Vandalism of the eighteenth century. Every statue, every bust, every column, every chimney-piece, every piece of marble that served for ornament or use, was torn from its situation, and was either sent to Paris, or became the perquisite of certain agents employed by the Directory to see that there might be nothing wanting to the entire completion of its ruin: even the shrubs in the garden were rooted up, and sold.”

During this devastation, the cardinal took refuge, first, in a Camaidolese convent on the southern frontiers of the Roman state; but, it being intimated that he could not be safe there, he went to Naples; and, on the approach of the French, to Messina. In 1800 he was present at Venice, at the election of the reigning pope; and when the Austrian and Neapolitan troops reconquered the Roman territory, he returned to Rome, where he took private lodgings, but never had strength of mind to view either his palace or villa, nor could they be mentioned in his presence without throwing him into the deepest sorrow. Here he died, in 1803, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. He was handsome in person, sprightly and eloquent; sincere, cordial, unassuming, and affable; and both from his intellectual and moral qualifications, he was justly considered as one of the most accomplished characters of the age.

, of the same family with the preceding, born in 1504, at Bergamo, was the son of count Francis Albani, and intended by his father for the army, but preferred the study of the civil and canon law, in which, as well as in polite literature, he attained great eminence. At first, however, he bore arms in the Venetian army, and afterwards went into the church. Pope Pius V. was no sooner raised to that dignity, than he made Albani a cardinal, in 1570. It is even said that after the death of Gregory XIII. the conclave would have elected him pope, but he was then a widower and had children, a circumstance which interfered with their intentions. He died April 25, 1591. His principal works are: 1. “De Immunitate ecclesiarum,” 1553. 2. “De potestate Papæ et concilii,” Lyons, 1558; Venice, 1561, 4to. 3. “De Cardinalibus, et de douatione Constantini,” 1584, fol. Moreri gives an account of a lawyer of Bergamo, who wrote on these subjects, and is evidently the same person.

, a celebrated painter, born at Bologna, March 17, 1578. His father was a silk merchant, and intended to bring up his son to that business; but Albano having a strong inclination to painting, when his father died, devoted himself entirely to that art, though then but twelve years of age. He first studied under Denys Calvart; Guido Rheni being at the same tune under this master, with whom Albano contracted very great friendship. Calvart drew but one profile for Albano, and afterwards left him entirely to the care of Guido; under whom he made great improvement. He followed Guido to the school of the Caraccis, but a little after their friendship for each other began to cool; which was owing perhaps to the pride of Albano, who could not bear to see Guido surpass him, or to the jealousy of Guido at finding Albano make so swift a progress. They certainly endeavoured to eclipse one another; for when Guido had set up a beautiful altar-piece, Albano would oppose to it some fine picture of his: and yet they continued to speak of each other with the highest esteem. Albano, after having greatly improved himself under the Caraccis, went to Rome, where he continued many years, and married in that city; but his wife dying in childbed, at the earnest request of his relations, he returned to Bologna, where he entered again into the state of matrimony. His second wife (Doralice) was well descended, but had very little fortune; which he perfectly disregarded, so strongly was he captivated with her beauty and good sense. Besides the satisfaction of possessing an accomplished wife, he reaped likewise the advantage of having a most beautiful model; so that he had now no occasion for any other woman to sit to him for Venus, the Graces, Nymphs, and other deities, whom he took a particular delight in representing. His wife answered this purpose admirably well; for, besides her bloom of youth, and the beauty of her person, he discovered in her so much modesty, so many graces and perfections, so well adapted to painting, that it was impossible for him to find a more finished woman. She afterwards brought him several boys, all extremely beautiful and finely proportioned; and she and her children were the originals of his most agreeable and graceful compositions. It was from them too that the famous sculptors Flamand and Algardi modelled their little cupids.

Albano was well versed in some branches of polite liteMature; but, not understanding Latin, he endeavoured to supply this defect by carefully perusing the Italian translations of such books as could be serviceable to him in his profession. He excelled in all parts of painting, but was particularly admired for his small pieces; though he himself was much dissatisfied that his large pieces, many of which he painted for altars, were not equally applauded. He delighted much in drawing the fair sex, whom he has represented with wonderful beauty; but has been reckoned not so happy in his imitation of men. He sometimes represented divine stories, but his compositions on love subjects were most eagerly sought after. “He did not,” says Malvasia, “feign Cupid heavy and sleeping, as Guido did, but represented him seated majestically on a throne; now directing the sportive exercises of the little Loves shooting at a heart fixed on a trunk of a tree; now presiding over their sprightly dances, round the marble monument of Flora crowned with a chaplet of blooming flowers; and now surveying the conquest of the little winged boys over the rural satyrs and fauns. If he represented a dead Adonis, he always introduced a band of loves, some of whom, viewing the wound, drew back in the utmost horror; while others, exasperated, broke to pieces their bows and arrows, as being no longer of use to them since Adonis was no more; and others, again, who, running behind the fierce wild boar, brandished their darts with an air of vengeance.” Albano was of a happy temper and disposition; his paintings, says the same author, breathing nothing but content and joy; happy in a force of mind that conquered every uneasiness, his poetical pencil carried him through the most agreeable gardens to Paphos and Cytherea: those delightful scenes brought him over the lofty Parnassus to the delicious abodes of Apollo and the Muses.

Our countryman, sir Robert Strange, gives this character of Albano’s paintings: “The pictures of Albano are exceedingly agreeable. His subjects are in general of the poetical kind. We may be almost sure of finding, in any picture of this master, beautiful figures of women; and children, who seem as if they had been nourished by the Graces. This artist, bred in the school of the Carracci, could not fail being an agreeable painter; and if he was not always successful in expressing the stronger passions of the soul, he knew how to touch and flatter the senses, by offering to his spectators the most pleasing and delightful images; where reigns with decency, an agreeable, and if I may be allowed the expression, even a voluptuous pleasure. What contributes to render his works inestimable, is a pencil whose freshness of colour and delicacy of touch is admirable: but he may be reprehended with overfinishing many of his pictures.” This eminent artist engraved three of his pictures: “The Three Maries at the Sepulchre; A Holy Family, with Angels; and another Holy Family.” Albani’s pictures of the “Four Elements,” formerly in the palace of the king of Sardinia, at Turin, and now in Paris, are of extraordinary beauty, and well preserved. The design is excellent, the draperies perfectly elegant, the colouring lovely, and the whole very correct. The composition is perhaps a little too dissipated, but that is a circumstance frequently observed in his works. His pictures were formerly in most of the palaces of Europe, but the greatest assemblage, we believe, is now at Paris. At Burghley house, are some fine tapestries from his designs; and there were probably some of his pictures in king Charles the First’s collection, as that prince once invited him to England.

Albano died Oct. 4, 1660, and left a brother, John Baptist Albano, who painted much in the style of his brother, but excelled principally in landscape.

, an Arabic prince of Batan in Mesopotamia, was a celebrated astronomer, about the year 880, as appears by his observations. He is also called Muhammed ben Geber Albatani (Mahomet, the son of Geber) and Muhamedes Aractensis. He made astronomical observations at Antioch, and at Racah or Aracta, a town of Chaldea, which some authors call a town of Syria or of Mesopotamia. He is highly spoken of by Dr. Halley, as a man of great acuteness, and accuracy in making observations. Finding that the tables of Ptolemy were imperfect, he computed new ones, which were long used as the best among the Arabs: these were adapted to the meridian of Aracta or Racah. He composed in Arabic a work under the title of “The Science of the Stars,” comprizing all parts of astronomy, according to his own observations and those of Ptolemy. The original of this, which has never been published, is in the library of the Vatican. It was translated into Latin by Plato of Tibur, and was published at Nuremberg in 1537, with some additions and demonstrations of Regiomontanus; and the same was reprinted at Bologna in 1645, with this author’s notes. Dr. Halley detected many faults in these editions. (Philos. Trans, for 1693, No. 204.) In this work Albategni gives the motion of the sun’s apogee since Ptolemy’s time; as well as the motion of the stars, which he makes one degree in seventy years. He made the longitude of the first star of Aries to be 18 2‘; and the obliquity of the ecliptic 23 35’; and upon his observations were founded the Alphonsine tables of the moon’s motion.

, a lawyer and antiquary, was born at Nismes, and not at Vivarais, as Castel asserts in his history of Languedoc. His family was noble, but more famous for the talents of Poldo, and his father James. He originally studied with a view to practice at the bar, but Nismes becoming, in 1552, the seat of the presidial court, he was appointed to the office of counsellor, which he held during life with much reputation, and employed his leisure hours in the cultivation of jurisprudence and polite literature. His first work was a French translation, of St. Julian, archbishop of Toledo, on death, and a future state. This was followed by a translation, from the Latin of Æneas Sylvius (Pius II.) of a history of the Taborites of Bohemia; but his most curious work is his “History of Nismes,” fol. 1557, illustrated with many curious views and monuments engraven in wood, and very singular specimens of the art at that time. D'Albenas was among the first who embraced the reformed religion, and. contributed not a little to the extension of it. Before his death, in 1563, the greater part of the inhabitants of Nismes, and its neighbourhood, professed Calvinism.

, a native of Bologna, flourished in the middle of the sixteenth century. He was the author of a work entitled “El Cardinale,” Bologna, 1599, 4to. and of “Trattato del modi di ridurre a pace l'inimicitie private,” Venice, 8vo, 1614; a subject which has been treated by J. B. Olevano. In 1573, Zanetti published at Rome six volumes of Albergati’s moral works.

, an Italian lawyer, the sort of Alberic Rosiati of Bergamo, one of the most learned men of his time, was born at Arezzo, near Florence, in the fourteenth century. He studied under the celebrated Baldi, and made a rapid progress in philosophy, law, history, &c. He afterwards became an advocate at Arezzo, but went to Florence in 1349. Here his learning, talents, and integrity, procured him one of those titles which were frequently bestowed at that time on men of celebrity. He was called doctor solids veritatis. By the republic of Florence he was entrusted to negociate several very important affairs, particularly with the Bolognese in 1558; and as the recompense of his services, he was ennobled. He died at Florence in 1376, leaving three sons; two eminent in, the church, and one as a lawyer. His works are principally “Commentaries on the Digest,” on “some books of the Civil Code,” and consultations, much praised by Bartholi. His father, mentioned above, wrote on the sixth book of the Decretals, a work much esteemed and often reprinted, and a Dictionary of Law, with other professional treatises.

, a historian and monk of the Cistertian order, in the monastery of Trois-Fontaines, in the diocese of Chalons-sur-Marne, was born near that place, in the beginning of the thirteenth century. He is the author of a “Chronicle” containing the remarkable events from the creation to 1241. Leibnitz and Menckenius have printed it, the first in Vol. II. of his “Accessiones Histories,” Leipsic, 1698, 4to; and the second in vol. I. of“Scriptores rerum Germanicarum et Saxonic.” ibid. 1728, foL This chronicle, of which the imperial library at Paris possesses a more complete manuscript than those used by the above editors, is valued on account of the curious particulars it contains, although it is not very exact in chronological points, particularly in the very ancient periods. Alberic wrote also several poetical pieces, of which mention is made in father du Visch’s “Bibl. ordin. Cisterc.”

, an eminent Spanish statesman, and cardinal, was born May 15, 1664. His birth and early employments afforded no presage of his future ambition and fame. He was the son of a gardener near Parma, and when a boy, officiated as bell-ringer, and attended upon the parish church of his village. The rector, finding him a shrewd youth, taught him Latin. Alberoni afterwards took orders, and had a small living, on which he resided. While here, M. Campistron, a Frenchman^ secretary to the duke of Vendome, who commanded Louis XIV's armies in Italy, was robbed, and stripped of his clothes and money, by some ruffians near Alberon^s village. Alberoni, hearing of his misfortune, took him into his house, furnished him with clothes, and gave him as much money as he could spare, for his travelling expences. Campistron, no less impressed with the strength of his understanding than with the warmth of his benevolence, took him to the head quarters, and presented him to his general, as a man to whom he haxi very great obligations.

M. de Vendome first employed him in discovering where the people in his neighbourhood had concealed their grain; an undertaking which rendered Alberoni’s departure for Spain, with Vendome, as prudent as it turned out to be advantageous. By degrees he obtained the marshal’s confidence, and ventured to propose the daughter of his sovereign, the duke of Parma, to him, as a fit match for the king of Spain. Alberoni’s proposal was attended to, and the princess was demanded in marriage by that monarch, then Philip V. The duke of Parma consented with great readiness to a match that was to procure for his daughter the sovereignty of so great a kingdom as that of Spain, When every thing was settled, and immediately before the princess was to set out for her new dominions, the ministers of Spain had heard that she was a young woman of a haughty imperious temper, and extremely intriguing and ambitious. They therefore prevailed upon the king to write to the duke, requesting another of his daughters in marriage, to whose quiet disposition they could not possibly have any objections,. The king did as he was desired, and sent his letter by a special messenger. Alberoni, who was then at Parma, hearing of this, and afraid that all his projects of ambition would come to nothing, unless the princess whom he recommended, and who of course would think herself highly obliged to him for her exalted situation, became queen of Spain, caused the messenger to be stopped at one day’s journey from Parma, and gave him his choice, either to delay his coming to Parma for a day, or to be assassinated. He of course chose the first, and the princess set out upon her journey to Spain, and became queen.

Alberoni was now prime minister of Spain, a cardipal, and archbishop of Valentia; and exercised his ministry with the most complete despotism. One of his projects was, to dispossess the duke of Orleans of the regency of France, and to bestow it upon his own sovereign, as the oldest representative of the house of Bourbon: to place the pretender on the throne of England, and to add tq Spain the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily. This project, however, was discovered by the regent; and one of the conditions he made with the king of Spain was, the banishjnent of Alberoni from his councils and his kingdom. With this he was obliged to comply, and the cardinal received orders to leave Madrid in twenty-four hours, and the kingdom of Spain in fifteen days. Alberoni, who took with him great wealth, had not proceeded far, when it was discovered that he was carrying out of the kingdom the celebrated will of Charles II. of Spain, which gave that kingdom to its then sovereign. Persons were immediately detached from Madrid, to wrest this serious and important document from him, which it was supposed he intended ta take to the emperor of Germany, to ingratiate himself with him. With some violence they effected their purpose, and the cardinal proceeded on his journey to the frontiers of France, where he had the additional mortification of being received by an officer, sent by the regent to conduct him through that kingdom, as a state prisoner. Unembarrassed, however, by this circumstance, Alberoni wrote to the regent, to offer him his services against Spain, but his highr ness disdained to return any answer.

The cardinal’s disgrace happened in 1720, and he retired to Parma for some time, till he was summoned by the pope to attend a consistory, in which his conduct was to be examined by some of the members of the sacred college, respecting a correspondence he was supposed to have kept up with the Grand Signior; and he was sentenced to be confined one year in the Jesuits college at Rome. After this, he returned to Parma, near which city he founded, at a very great expence, an establishment for the instruction of young men destined for the priesthood. In the disastrous campaign of 1746, the buildings of this academy were destroyed by the three armies that were in the neighbourhood: and as the cardinal was not supposed to have been over delicate in procuring the means by which his establishment was to have been supported, his countrymen, did not appear to express much dissatisfaction at the demolition of it. He soon after this went to Rome, and was made legate of Romana by pope Clement XII. He died at Rome in 1752, at the age of 87 years, having preserved entire to the last, the powers of his mind and of his body. In the account given of his old age, by the editor of the Dictionnaire Historique, he is said to have been very chatty in conversation, and talked in so lively and so agreeable a manner, that it made even the verv curious facts he had to tell more interesting to those who heard them. His stories were interlarded with French, Spanish, or Italian, as the circumstances required. He was continually applying some maxim of Tacitus, in Latin, to corroborate his own observations, or to support those of others. His general topics of conversation were, the campaigns in which he attended M. de Vendome, his ministry in Spain, or the common political events of the day. He was rather impatient of contradiction, and expected that in argument or in narration the company should defer to him.

Our own history shews, that his spirit was always very high, and his temper very violent. During the time that he was prime minister of Spain, colonel Stanhope, afterwards lord Harrington, the English envoy, carried him a list of the ships of his country that were then before Barcelona, and would act against it, if he persisted in his endeavours to enioroil the peace of Europe, by arming the Porte against the Emperor, and by making the Czar and the king of Sweden go to war with England, in order to establish the Pretender upon the English throne. Alberoni snatched the paper which contained the numbers out of the envoy’s hands, and, according to the continuator of Rapin’s history, threw it on the ground with much passion. Mr. Seward, from whose “Anecdotes of distinguished Persons” we have taken the principal part of this article, says, that he tore it in a thousand pieces. Col. Stanhope, nothing abashed, went on coolly with the thread of his conversation, which may be seen in the continuation of Rapin. That Alberoni wrote with the same spirit he acted, is evinced by three letters of his to lord Melcombe, which Mr. Seward has published.

From the same authority, we shall conclude this article with two anecdotes, which, although different in their kind, are highly characteristic of the humorous pride and turbulent spirit of this statesman. When the marshal de Maillebois commanded the French troops at Parma, in 1746, Alberoni waited upon him concerning some business, but was refused admittance to him by his secretary, who told him the marshal was engaged in some affairs of importance, and could not see him. “Mon ami,” replied the cardinal, very indignantly, and opening the door of the marshal’s apartment at the same time, “sachez que M. de Vendome me recevoit sur la chaise percee.”

When he was legate of Romagna, and at the age of seventy, he endeavoured to bring the little republic of San Marino, which was near his government, under the dominion of the pope. He had intrigued so successfully with some of the principal inhabitants, that the day was fixed on which these republicans were to swear allegiance to the sovereign under whose protection they had put themselves, On the day appointed, Alberoni rode up to the mountain with his suite, and was received at the door of the principal church by the priests and the chief inhabitants of the place, and conducted to his seat under a canopy, to hear high mass and Te Deum sung (a ceremony usual in all Catholic countries upon similar occasions). Unluckily, however, for him, the mass began, as probably is usual in that republic, with the word Libertas (liberty). This word had such an effect upon the minds of the hearers, who began then, for the first time perhaps, to recollect that they were about to lose the thing itself, that they fell upon the cardinal and his attendants, drove them out of the church, and made them descend the very steep mountain of San Marino with great rapidity; and the popes ever after left the inhabitants of San Marino to their old form of government. This singular event took place in the year 1740, and was communicated to Mr. Seward by general Paoli. A bon mot of Benedict XIV. on the occasion was current in every mouth.“Alberoni is like a glutton, who, after having eaten a large salmon, cannot help casting a wistful eye at a minnow.” The “Testament Politique” of cardinal Alberoni, collected from his memoirs and letters, was published at Lausanne in 1753, but is a compilation of no authority, and was written by Maubert de Gouvest. His life, to the year 1719, was published by John Rousset, translated from the Spanish into French, and in the same year was translated into English, and published in London.

M. Beauchamp, his latest biographer, observes, that it has been said he was rather an intriguer than a politician; that he was as ambitious as Richelieu, and as supple as Mazarine, but had less forecast and less depth than either. Such is the character, adds M. Beauchamp, which most French writers have given of Alberoni, either from judging of events after they happened, or from prejudice against him, because he showed himself the enemy of France. But if we reflect, that within a very few years Alberoni retrieved a considerable part of the ancient glory of the Spanish monarchy; that in midst of his complicated and extensive designs, his genius, which comprehended every branch of public administration, established regulations favourable to agriculture, arts, and commerce; that he neglected no endeavours which might inspire the Spaniards with a love of industry, while he prompted them to display their ancient valour; and if we lastly consider, that the failure of his projects was owing to the indiscretion of his agents, it may probably appear, that he wanted nothing to place him in a rank with Ximenes or Richelieu, but that success which justifies every thing, and which oftener depends on chance than on genius.

, or Alberic, canon and guardian of the church of Aix in Provence, his country, and where he died, about the year 1120, in his sixtieth year, is the author of a “History of the First Crusade,” from the year 1095 to 1120, the second year of the reign of Baldwin II. king of Jerusalem. Albert was not a witness of the exploits he records, but appears to have had recourse to the best information for his facts. Like most of his contemporaries, however, he abounds in the marvellous, and often disfigures the names of persons and places. Rhener Reinech printed this work, for the first time, in 1584, at Helmstadt, '2 vols. 4to, under the title of “Chronicon Hierosolimitanum,” with notes by the editor, and by Matthew Dresser; and Bougar reprinted it in the first volume of his “Gesta Dei per Francos.” Some late compilers of biography have divided Albert into two persons, Albert and Alberic, both of whom wrote the above chronicle; but Albert went to the crusade, and Alberic staid at home.

, a Lutheran divine, born, according to some, in Weteraw, or, according to others, at a small village near Francfort on the Main, studied divinity at Wittemberg, and became one of the most zealous adherents of Luther, who had a great friendship for him. He was for some time preacher to Joachim II. elector of Brandenburgh, but on a dispute respecting the revenues of the clergy, he lost that situation, and travelled intw various places, maintaining the doctrines of the reformation. In 1548 he was a preacher at Magcleburgh; but the Interim, proposed by Charles V. and fatal to so many of the Protestant clergy, oblige'd him to leave that place, and reside in a private station at Hamburgh. He was afterwards appointed &uperintendant-general of New Brandenburgh, in Mecklenburgh, where he died May J, 1553. He collected from the book, written by Albizzi (See Albizzi), of the conformities of St. Francis with Jesus Christ, the most remarkable absurdities and follies, and published them under the title of the “Alcoran of the Cordeliers.” He printed this collection in German, in the year 1531, without name of place or printer; and again in Latin at Wittemberg, in 1542 4, and called the Alcoran, because the Franciscans of his time paid as much veneration to the conformities as the Turks do to their alcoran. Luther honoured the compilation of his disciple with a preface. Conrad Baudius augmented it with a second book, translated it into French, and published it in 1556, one vol. 12mo; afterwards at Geneva, in 1560, in 2 vols. 12 mo. The last edition of this satirical work is that of Amsterdam in 1734, in 3 vols. 12mo, with copper-plates. There is also of this Albert, “Judicium de Spongia Erasmi, Roterodami;” and several other pieces in Latin and German, particularly a collection of forty-nine fables, called “The book of Wisdom and Virtue,” Francfort, 1579, 8 vo, in German verse. His satirical turn pervades all his writings.

, grandson of the constable de Luynes, was the ninth child of Louis-Charles, duke de Luynes, grand almoner of France. He was born in 1672, and had in his youth the title of the chevalier d‘Albert. In 1688, he served as a volunteer at the siege of Philipshurgh; in 1690 he was twice wounded in the battle of Fleurus; and in 1693, commanded the Dauphin regiment of dragoons at Steinkirk, where he was again wounded. In 1703, he accompanied marshal Villars into Bavaria, where the elector promoted him to the rank of lieutenant-general. He was then known by the title of count d’ Albert, and was successively chamberlain, master of the horse, minister, and colonel of the Bavarian guards. The elector having arrived at the throne in 1742, by the royal title of Charles VII. appointed count d' Albert field marshal, and sent him to France as ambassador extraordinary. The same year the emperor created him a prince of the holy Roman empire, by the title of prince of Grimberghen, taken from the rich domains he acquired by marrying a princess of Berghes. He died Nov. 10, 1758, aged eighty-seven. Amidst all his campaigns and political engagements, he cultivated a taste for literature. His works are “Le Songe d'AlcU biade,” a supposed translation from the Greek, Paris, 1735, 12mo, reprinted with “Timandre instruit par son genie,” and other pieces, published at Amsterdam, 1759, 12 mo, under the title “Recueil de differentes pieces de litterature.”

, an abbe of the cloister of St. Mary at Stade, in the thirteenth century, and supposed to be an Italian by those writers who have mistaken him for Albert of Pisa. The monks of Stade living in great disorder, their abbe went to Rome, and obtained a bull against them; but this not producing any good effect, he joined the order of the Franciscans. He wrote in Latin, a “Chronicle,” from the creation to the year 1256, to which Andre Hoier added a supplement, bringing it down to the year 1316. It was published at Helmstadt, in 1587, 4to, by Reiner Reineck, with notes.

, sometimes called Argentinensis, lived in the fourteenth century, and wrote a history, or chronicle, from the time of the emperor Ilodolphus I. to that of Charles IV. or from the year 1270 to 1378. Cuspiuian quotes him often, and has given a fragment of the work; and Ursticius has published the whole in his collection of German historians. There is usually joined to it, the fragment of a chronicle, from the year 631 to 1267. His other works are enumerated in Du Pin’s Bibliotheque for the fourteenth century.

lived in the thirteenth century, in the reign of the emperor Frederic II. While he was judge and governor of Gavardo, he was taken prisoner, and in confinement wrote a treatise, entitled “De dilectione Dei et proximi, de formula vitae honestac.” He afterwards wrote two others, “De consolatione et consilio,” and “De doctrina loquendi et tacendi.” Bastian de Rossi, called in the academy of De la Crusca l'Inferiguo, published an Italian edition, compared with several manuscripts, under the title of “Trattati di Albertano, &c.” Florence, 1610, 4to, a very rare book. There was a second edition, finely printed, at Mantua, 1732, 4to.

, a mathematician and poet, of the thirteenth century, was a gentleman of Provence, and born in the environs of Gap, from which circumstance he was surnamed Gapencois. He resided a long time at Sisteron, where he died. Others writers say, that he was of Tarascon, of the family of Malespine; bnt perhaps he only lived in the latter of these towns. He was equally devoted to polite literature and to the fair sex, and composed several poems in honour of his platonic mistress, the marchioness of Malespine, who was the most accomplished lady of Provence in that age. He wrote also some treatises on mathematical subjects. It is said that he died of grief, and that he delivered his poems to a friend, in order to be presented to his favourite marchioness; but this friend sold them tp Faber d‘Uzes, a lyric poet, who published them as his own. When the fraud was discovered, d’Uzes was seized, and underwent the punishment of whipping for his plagiarism, agreeably to the law established by the emperors against that crime, but which, unfortunately for authors, has been repealed in all countries.

, otherwise called Ridolfo Fioraventi, a celebrated mechanic, born at Bologna, lived in the 15th century. Astonishing performances are ascribed to this artist. In 1455 he transported, at Bologna, the campanile of St. Mary del Tempis, with all its bells, to the distance of 35 paces. In the town of Cento he righted that of the church of St. Blaise, which was got five feet and a half out of its perpendicular. Being invited to Hungary, he rebuilt several bridges on the Danube, and constructed many other works, with which the reigning sovereign was so highly satisfied, that he created him a chevalier, and allowed him to coin money with the impress of his own bust. He was likewise employed by Ivan Vassillievitch, grand duke of Russia, in the construction of several churches.

, a painter of some distinction, but whose reputation is chiefly established by his engravings, was born in 1552 atBorgo S. Sepolcbro, from which he derived one of his names. From his father, Michele Alberti, he learned the first rudiments of historical painting, in which art he made very considerable progress. His greatest works are in fresco at Rome; and he also painted in oil, and combined some thought with much practice. From whose instructions he became an engraver is uncertain, but his best style of execution seems evidently to have been founded on the prints of C. Cort and Agostino Caracci, though in his friezes and other slighter plates he owed much to the works of Francesco Villemena. The engravings of Alberti are never very highly finished, or powerful in effect. The lights are scattered and left untinted, as well upon the distances, as upon the principal figures of the fore-ground, which destroys the harmony, and, prevents the proper gradation of the objects. The drawing of the naked parts of the figure, in the works of this artist, is rarely incorrect: the extremities are well marked, and the characters of the heads generally very expressive: but his draperies are apt to be rather stitf and hard. His prints may be considered as very extraordinary efforts of a great genius, whilst the art was as yet at some considerable distance from perfection. The number of plates, great and small, engraved by this artist, amounts to nearly one hundred and eighty, of which seventy-five are from his own compositions, the rest from Michael Angelo Buonaroti, Raphael, Polidoro, Andrea del Sarto, &c. The “Miracle of St. Philip Benizzo” is one of the most excellent. Alberti died in 1615.

, brother of the above, was born near Florence in 1558, and received his early instructioa from his father, but afterwards went to Rome, where he studied geometry, and also the works of Buonaroti, and other great masters. He devoted his principal attention to perspective, in which branch he arrived at eminence, and gave a demonstrative proof of his great abilities in one of the pope’s palaces, having painted a design in that style which procured him much fame. The chief nobility at Rome were solicitous to employ him, and he worked in many of the chapels and convents with general approbation, for he recommended himself to all persons of taste by the elegance of his composition, the firmness and delicacy of his pencil, the grandeur of his thoughts, the judicious distribution of the parts, and by the spirit visible throughout the whole.

, a preacher at Tundern in Hanover, was born, in 1725, and having finished his education, spent some years in England, where, after he had acquired the language, he wrote “Thoughts on Hume’s Essays on Natural Religion,”, and on this occasion disguised himself under the name of Alethophilns Gottingensis. On his return to Germany, he published “Letters on the state of Religion and the Sciences in Great Britain,” Hanover, 1752—54, and “An Essay on the religion, worship, manners and customs of the Quakers,” 1750. He died in 1758.

, a German lawyer of the 16th century, born at Widmanstadt, deeply learned in the Oriental languages, gave an abridgment of the Koran, with critical notes, 1543, 4to; a work which procured him the title of chancellor of Austria, and chevalier of St. James. He published in 4to, in 1556, a New Testament in Syriac, from the manuscript used by the Jacobites, at the expence of the emperor Ferdinand I. It contains neither the second epistle of Peter, nor the second and third of John, nor that of Jude, nor the Apocalypse. Only 1000 copies were printed, of which five hundred remained in Germany, and the rest were sent to the Levant. It is impossible for any thing to be more elegant, or better proportioned, says pere Simon, than the characters of this edition. Some copies have the date of T562. He also composed a Syriac grammar, to which is prefixed a very curious preface. He died in 1559.

, professor of Divinity in the university of Leyden, was born 1698, at Asse in Holland. After the example of Eisner, Raphelius, and the celebrated Lambert Bos, who had been his tutors at the university of Franeker, and of some other divines who have been called sacred philologians, he collected from prophane authors all the parallel passages in favour of the Greek phrases in the New Testament, with a view to defend the style of the evangelists and apostles against those critics who maintain that it is barbarous and full of Hebraisms. The result of his labours he published in 1725, under the title of “Observationes Philologicæ in sacros Novi Feederis libros,” 8vo, Leyden; and encouraged by the reputation he derived from this work, he next published “Periculum criticum in quo loca quædam cum V. ac N. T. tum Hesychii et aliorum, illustrantur, vindicantur, emendantur,” Leyden, 1727, 8vo. In this he displayed an uncommon acquaintance with the Greek lexicographers and grammarians, and some years after conceived a design of a new edition of Hesychius. While making collections for this undertaking, Fabricius sent him an unpublished glossary of the words of the New Testament, which he thought worthy of publication by itself, with a comment and some critical pieces. It appeared accordingly in 1735, under the title “Glossarium Græcum in sacros N. T. libros. Accedunt miscellanæ critica in glossas nomicas, Suidam, Hesychium, et index auctorum ex Photii lexico inedito,” Leyden, 8vo. Ten years after, in 1746, the first volume of his edition of Hesychius made its appearance, and fully, gratified the expectations of the learned world. He had arrived at the letter K in the second volume, when he was attacked by the cholic of Poitou, and although restored ia some measure by the waters of Aix-la-Chapelle, he was obliged to desist from his labours for about three years. He then resumed them, but the manuscript was left unfinished at his death, which was occasioned by the erysipelas, Aug. 13, 1762. The Hesychius was afterwards completed by Rhunkenius, Leyden, 1766. This is the best edition, and is thought by some critics to be one of the best edited books the learned world can boast.

, adominican and provincial of his order, was born at Bologna in 1479, and died in 1552. He wrote in Italian, 1. “Historic di Bologna, deca e libro primo deca secunda sino all' anno 1253,” Bologna, 1541, 4to. The second and third books were not published until long after his death, by F. Lucio Caccianemici, who added two supplements, 1590 and 1591, 4to. 2. “Cronica delle principali Famiglie Bolognesi, &c.” Vincenza, 1592, 4to. 3. “Descrizione di tutta l'Italia,” printed at Bologna in his life-time, fol. 1550, and reprinted, Venice, 1551 and 1553, 1561, 1581, and 1588. This work, so often published, is replete with curious facts, but the author has shewn less judgment in adopting the fables of Annius of Viterbo. 4. In Latin, “De Viris illustribus ordinis praedicatorum, libri sex in unum congesti,” Bologna, 1517, fol. 5. “Dialriba de increments Domini Venetæ,” and “De claris viris reipublicse Venetæ,” which are printed in Contarini’s VenetianRepublic, ed. 2, Leiden, 1628.

, an eminent Italian artist, and one of the earliest scholars that appeared in the revival of letters, was of a noble and very ancient family at Florence, but was born at Venice in the end of the fourteenth, or beginning of the fifteenth century. Various authors have given 1398, 1400, and 1404, as the date of his birth. In his youth he was remarkable for his agility, strength, and skill in bodily exercises, and an unquenchable thirst of knowledge possessed him from his earliest years. In the learned languages he made a speedy and uncommon proficiency. At the age of twenty, he first distinguished himself by his Latin comedy entitled “Philodoxius,” copies of which he distributed among his friends, as the work of Lepidus, an ancient poet. The literati were completely deceived, and bestowed the highest applauses on a piece which they conceived to be a precious remnant of antiquity. It was written by him during the confinement of sickness, occasioned by too close an application to study, and appeared first about the year 1425, when the rage for ancient manuscripts was at its height, and Lepidus for a while took his rank with Plautus and Terence. Even in the following century, the younger Aldus Manutius having met with it in manuscript, and alike ignorant of its former appearance, and the purpose it was intended to serve, printed it at Lucca, 1588, as a precious remnant of antiquity. Alberti took orders afterwards in order to have leisure to prosecute his studies. In 1447 he was a canon of the metropolitan church of Florence, and abb of St. Savino, or of St. Ermete of Pisa. Although he became known to the world as a scholar, a painter, a sculptor, and an architect, it is to his works of architecture that he owes his principal fame. He may be regarded as one of the restorers of that art, of which he understood both the theory and practice, and which he improved by his labours as well as his writings. Succeeding to Brunelleschi, he introduced more graceful forms in the art; but some consider him notwithstanding as inferior to that celebrated architect. Alberti studied very carefully the remains of ancient architecture, which he measured himself at Rome and other parts of Italy, and has left many excellent specimens of his talents. At Florence, he completed the Pitti palace, and built that of Ruccellai, and the chapel of the same family in the church of St. Pancras; the facade of the church of Santa Maria Novella, and the choir of the church of Nunziata. Being invited to Rome by Nicholas V. he was employed on the aqueduct of PAqua Vergine, and to raise the fountain, of Trevi; but this having since been reconstructed by Clement XII. from the designs of Nicholas Salvi, no traces of Alberti’s work remain. At Mantua, he constructed several buildings, by order of Louis of Gonzaga, of which the most distinguished are the churches of St. Sebastian, and that of St. Andrew: the latter, from the grandeur and beauty of its proportions, is esteemed a model for ecclesiastical structures. But his principal work is generally acknowledged to be the church of St. Francis at Rimini.

As a writer, Alberti was not less esteemed. He was well acquainted with philosophy, mathematics, antiquities, and poetry, and enjoyed the intimacy of Lorenzo de Medici. On one occasion this Meecenas of his age, with a view to pass the sultry season more agreeably, assembled some of the most eminent literary men in the grove of Camaldoli, amongst whom were Marsilio Ficino, Donato Acciajuoli, Alamanno Rinuccini, Christoforo Landino, and our Alberti. The subjects of their conversations, in which Alberti took a distinguished part, were published by Landino, in his “Disputationes Camaldulenses,” and a short sketch has been given by Mr. Roscoe in his life of Lorenzo.

Among the moral works of Alberti, written in Latin, are, 1. his dialogue, entitled, “Momus, de Principe,” of which there were two editions at Rome in 1520. 2. “Trivia, sive de causis senatoriis, &c.” Basil, 1538, 4to. Cosimo Bartoli, who translated into Italian most of the works of Albertij has made the fifth and sixth books of the Momus from his treatise “De Jure,” or On the administration of justice. He composed an hundred “Fables,” or Apologues, and a poem, entitled “Hecatomphile,” on the art of love, which was translated by Bartoli into Italian, 1568, and into French in 1534 and 1584. There are extant many other writings by Alberti on philosophy, mathematics, perspective, and antiquities. He also wrote some Italian poems, in which he wished to introduce the Latin rythm, but in this he has not been successful. His writings, however, on the arts, are in highest estimation. He wrote a treatise on sculpture, and another on painting “De Pictura, prestantissima et nunquam satis laudata arte, &c.” Basil, 1540; printed likewise at Leyden by the Elzevirs, in 1649. The work from which he derives most reputation is his treatise on architecture, “De re aidificatoria,” in ten books, which was not published until after his death, in 1485, by his brother Bernard. It was translated into Italian by Peter Lauro, Venice, 1549, and in 1550 by Bartoli, with wood-cuts. A beautiful edition was also published in London, 1726, 3 vols. fol. by James Leoni, in Italian and English, with fine copper-plates. The last edition, that of Bologna, 1782, fol. contains the treatise before mentioned. Alberti died probably in 1485, or as Tiraboschi thinks, in 1472; and was buried in his family-vault in the church of St. Croix. He was indefatigable in study and business; in his temper amiable and conciliating, and extremely liberal to the merits of other artists. Politian, in the dedication of his work on architecture to Lorenzo de Medici, bestows the highest encomiums on him, and attributes to him the discovery of a great variety of curious mechanical inventions; and Vasari gives him the invention of the camera obscura; but it is more certain that we owe to him the optical machine for exhibiting drawings so as to imitate nature.

, avery eminent German physician, and one of the ablest scholars, and supporters of the opinions of Stahl, was born at Nuremberg, Nov. 13, 1682. He became professor of medicine at Hall, and an author of great celebrity. The object of the principal part of his works is to oppose the system of the mechanicians, and to establish that of Stahl; and although he may not be completely successful in this, it is generally agreed that his works contributed to throw great light on the sound practice of physic. Haller has given a copious list of his works, as well as of the disputations he maintained. Those which have contributed most to his fame, are, 1. “Introductio in universam medicinam,” 3 vols. 4to, Hall, 1718, 1719, 1721. In this he maintains the power of nature in the cure of diseases, and the danger of interfering with her operations. 2. “Systema Jurisprudentiae Medicse,” 1725 47, 6 vols. 4to, a work which embraces every possible case in which the opinion of the physician may be necessary in the decisions of law. 3. “Specimen medicoe Theologicae,” Hall, 1726, 8vo. 4. “Tentamen lexici medici realis,” 2 vols. 4to, 1727—1731, ibid. 5. “De Sectarum in medicina noxia instauratione,” 1730, 4to. 6. “Commentatio ad constitutionem criminalem Caroli V.” 1739, 4to. In most of these works the subjects are treated in a philosophical as well as practical manner. Albert! died at Hall, 1757, aged seventy-four.

, the pupil of Jerome Fabricius at Padua, was born at Nuremberg, in 1540, and became professor of medicine at Wittemberg. He may be joined with Vesalius, Eustachius, and others who founded the new school of anatomy, and himself made several important discoveries in the structure of the ear, the eye, &c. His “Historia plerarumque humani corporis partium membratim scripta,” Wittemberg, 1583, 8vo, and his “Tres Orationes,” Norimberg, 1585, 8vo, are still in considerable estimation, on account of the many excellent observations they contain on questions of physiology and the materia medica. He died at Dresden in 1600.

, professor of divinity at Leipsic, was born in 1635, at Lehna in Silesia, and died at Leipsic in 1697. He wrote a great many controversial treatises against Puffendorf, Thomasius, the Cartesians, Cocceians, and the adversaries of the Augsburgh communion, especially Bossuet and count Leopold de Collonitsch, bishop of Wienerisch-Nenstadt. Alberti attacked also the orthodoxy of the pious Spener, the Fenelon of the Lutheran church, but who has been censured for his leaning too ranch to the pietists and mystics. Among his writings, which have been most favourably received and frequently reprinted, we may notice his “Compendium Juris naturae,” against Puffendorff, and his “Interesse prsecipuarum religionum Christian.” He also wrote two curious dissertations, “De fide hsereticis servanda,” Leipsic, 1662, 4to. Adelung, who has given a list of his works, says that his German poems are not bad, if we consider the imperfections of that language, and the false taste which prevailed in his time.

, author of the best French and Italian, and Italian and French Dictionary we have, was born at Nice, 1737. The success of the first three editions of this work encouraged him to publish a fourth, enlarged and corrected, Marseilles, 1796, 2 vols. 4to. His “Dizionario universale critico enciclopedico della lingua Italiana,” printed at Lucca, 1797, is much esteemed, and to foreigners may supply the place of the dictionary de la Crusca. Alberti was employed on a new edition, when he died at Lucca in 1800. The abbé Francis Federighi, his assistant in the work, was requested to complete it, and it was accordingly published in 1803, Lucca, 6 vols. 4to.

, an ecclesiastic of Florence, and an able antiquary, flourished in the beginning of the sixteenth century. He published, 1. “De mirabilibus novae etveteris urbis Romae,” a work divided into three books, and dedicated to pope Julius II. Rome, 1505, 4to; reprinted 1510, 1515, 1519, and 1520; and although more able works have been published on the same subject since, this of Albertini still enjoys its reputation. 2. “Tractatus brevis de laudibus Florentias et Saonse,” written in 1509, and added to the third edition of the preceding. 3. In Italian, “Memoriale di molte Statue, e Picture sono mellinclita Cipta di Florentia per mano di Sculptori, et Pictori excellenti moderni, ed antiqui.” Florence, 1510, 4to.

, a celebrated divine and politician of Venice, was born there in 1430, and at the age of ten, entered into the religious order of the Servites, where he made profession for six years. He afterwards taught philosophy, and became a popular preacher, and his zeal and talents pointed him out as the proper person to succeed to the vacant bishopric of Torcello, which, however, was given to another. The republic of Venice employed him in many affairs of state, and even sent him as ambassa dor to Turkey. He died in the prime of life in 1475, when his reputation was such, that a medal was struck in honour of his memory. He left, according to Sansovino, several works in Latin, on the knowledge of God, the history of the Servites, and other theological subjects, and an explanation of some passages in Dante. Possevin, in his “Sacred Apparatus,” improperly attributes the two firstmentioned works to Paul Nicoletti.

, called also Albertus Teutonicus, Frater Albertus de Colonia, Albertus Ratisbonensis, and Albertus Grotus, of the family of the counts of Bollstrcdt, was born, according to some, in 1193, and according to others, in 1205, at Lavingen in Suabia. It has been supposed that the epithet of Great, which was certainly conferred upon him by his contemporaries, in whose eyes he appeared a prodigy of learning and genius, was the family name Grsot, but none of the counts of Bollstcedt ever bore such a name. He received his early education at Pavia, where he surpassed all his schoolfellows, and that every circumstance belonging to him might have an air of miracle, it is said that he owed his rapid progress to a vision in which the holy Virgin appeared to him, and promised that he should be one of the greatest luminaries of the church. By the advice of one of his masters, the celebrated dominican Jordanus, he resolved to enter into that order in 1221. After having for some time taught the scholars of the society, he went to Paris, and gave lectures on Aristotle with great applause. As the Aristotelian philosophy had been just before forbidden by a papal bull, some of the biographers of Albertus have questioned his lecturing on the subject at Paris; but the fact is recorded by all the ancient writers on his history, and it is even probable that he was the means of having the bull rescinded as he was permitted publicly to comment on Aristotle’s physics. In 1254, his reputation was such among the Dominicans, that he was raised to the dignity of provincial in Germany. In this character he took up his residence at Cologn, a city at that time preferable to most others for a man so addicted to study, and for which he entertained so strong a predilection, that neither the invitation of pope Alexander IV. to come to Rome, nor his promotion to the bishopric of Ratisbon, in 1260, were inducements sufficient to draw him from Cologn for any considerable time. It was at Cologn probably, that he is said to have constructed an automaton, capable of moving and speaking, which his disciple, the celebrated Thomas Aquinas, broke in pieces, from a notion that it was an agent of the devil. This city is likewise said to have been the site of another of his miracles, that of raising flowers in winter to please William, count of Holland. Such tricks, or such reports of his ingenuity, procured him the reputation of a magician, in an age in which he probably had attained only a superior knowledge of mechanics. What he really did, or how far he was indebted to the arts of deception, in these and other performances, it is difficult to determine; but we know that the most common tricks, which now would only make a company of illiterate villagers stare, were then sufficient to astonish a whole nation.

In 1274, after he had preached the crusades in Germany and Bohemia, by order of the pope, he assisted at a general council held at Lyons, and returned thence to his favourite residence at Cologn, where he died in 1280, leaving a greater number of works than any philosopher before his time had ever written. Peter Jammi, a dominican, collected as many as he could procure, and published them in 1651, Lyons, 21 vols. fol. We have nowhere a complete catalogue of his works. The largest is in the first volume of the “Scriptores ordinis Priedicatorum,” by Quetif and Echard, and extends to twelve folio pages. Many pieces which have been erroneously attributed to him, have no doubt swelled this catalogue, but when these are deducted, enough remains to prove the vast fertility or his pen. In the greater part of his works he is merely a commentator on Aristotle, and a compiler from the Arabian writers, yet he every where introduces original discussions and observations, some of which may yet be thought judicious. He treats on philosophy in all its branches, and although he does not erect a system of his own, a very complete body of the Aristotelian doctrines maybe found in his writings, which of late have been studied and analysed by Brucker, in his “History of Philosophy;” by Buhle in his “Lehrbuch der Gesch. der Philosophic,” vol. V.; and especially by Tiedman, who gives a very luminous and complete analysis of Albert’s system, in his “History of Speculative Philosophy,” vol. V. Albert was a very bad Greek scholar, and read Aristotle, &c. only in the Latin translations, but he was better acquainted with the Arabian writers and rabbis. In divinity, Peter Lombard was his guide and model. His wish was to reconcile the Nominalists with the Realists, but he had not the good fortune to please either. His treatises on speculative science are written in the abstract and subtle manner of the age, but those on natural subjects contain some gems, which would perhaps, even in the present age, repay the trouble of searching for them. It is remarked by Brucker, that the second age of the scholastic philosophy, in which Aristotelian metaphysics, obscured by passing through the Arabian channel, were applied with wonderful subtlety to the elucidation of Christian doctrine, began with Albert and ended with Durand.

, a native of Bolene in the comtat Venaissin, was born in 1590, and entered the order of the Jesuits at the age of sixteen. After having taught the languages for seven years, he studied divinity, which he afterwards taught, with philosophy, for twelve years, and was successively rector of the colleges of Avignon, Aries, Grenoble, and Lyons. He died at Aries, Octobers, 1659. He wrote, 1. “Eloges historiques des Cardinaux Francais et etrangers, mis en parallele,” Paris, 1644, 4to, a superficial work, of which father Le Long mentions an edition in 1653, with the additional lives of the cardinals de Berulle, Richelieu, and Rochefoucault. 2. “L'Anti-Theophile paroissial,” Lyons, 1649, 12mo. Bonaventure Bassee, a capuchin, had published at Antwerp, in 1635, his “Theophilus Parochialis,” and Benoit Puys, the curate of St. Nizier at Lyons, gave a translation of it in 1649, in which he professed to have undertaken this labour as an answer to those who declaimed against performing and attending mass in parishes; and when Albi’s Anti-Theophile appeared, answered him in a work entitled “Reponse Chretienne.” On this Albi wrote, 3, “Apologie pour l'Anti-Theophile paroissial,” Lyons, 1649, under the feigned name of Paul de Cabiac. The following year these two adversaries became reconciled. 4. A translation from the Latin of father Alexander of Rhodes, of the “History of Tunquin, and the progress of the Gospel there from 1627 to 1646,” Lyons, 1651, 4to, a very curious work, but heavy in point of style. 5. The Lives of various pious persons, and some religious pieces, of which Niceron has given a catalogue in vol. XXXIII.

, archbishop of Prague, slightly mentioned in our former edition, deserves some farther notice on account of his character having been much misrepresented by Popish writers, from design, and by one or two late Protestant writers, from ignorance of his real history. He was born at Mahrisch-Netistadt in Moravia, and probably there first educated. When a young man, he entered the university of Prague, and studied medicine, in which faculty he took his degree in 1387. To the study of medicine he joined that of the civil and canon law, and in order to prosecute these sciences with more success, went to Italy, where at that time the ablest lawyers were; and at Padua, in 1404, received his doctor’s degree. On his return, he taught medicine in the university of Prague for nearly thirty years, and attained such reputation, that Wenceslaus IV. king of Bohemia, appointed him his first physician. In 1409, on the death of the archbishop of Prague, Wenceslaus recommended him to be his successor, and the canons elected him, although not very willingly. For some time they had no reason to complain of his neglecting to suppress the doctrines of Wicklifte and Huss, which were then spreading in Bohemia; but afterwards, when Huss came to Prague, and had formed a strong party in favour of the reformation, he relaxed in his efforts, either from timidity or principle, and determined to resign his archbishopric, which he accordingly did in 1413, when Conrade was chosen in his room, a man more zealous against the reformers, and more likely to gratify his clergy by the persecution of the Hussites. Albicus lived afterwards in privacy, and died in Hungary, 1427, and so little was his character understood, that the Hussites demolished a tomb which he bad caused to be built in his life-time, while the Popish writers were equally hostile to him for the encouragement he had given to that party. They reproached him in particular for his extreme parsimony and meanness while archbishop. Balbinus, however, the historian of Prague, asserts, that in his household establishment he was magnificent and bountiful. His last biographer allows, that in his old age he was more desirous of accumulating than became his character. During the time he held the archbishopric, he had the care of the schools and students, and bestowed every attention on the progress of literature. The only works he left are on medical subjects; “Practica medendi,” “Regimen Pestilentiae,” “Regimen Sanitatis,” all which were published at Leipsic in 1484, 4to.

, a Latin poet, who lived under Augustus and Tiberius, about thirty-five years before the Christian tera. He wrote elegies, epigrams, and a poem on Germanicus’s voyage to the north. There are, however, only extant, an elegy addressed to Livia on the death of her son Drusus; another on the death of Maecenas, but so inferior in elegance to the former, that some critics have thought it did not come from the same pen; and a third, entitled “The last words of Maecenas,” which was usually found joined to the elegy on his death, until Scaliger discovered they were distinct pieces. Le Clerc, under the assumed name of Theodore Goralle, published an edition of these fragments of Albinovanus, with the notes of Scaliger, Heinsius, &c. Amsterdam, 1703, 8vo, and has adopted Scaliger’s opinion respecting the last mentioned poem, that it consisted of the actual last words of Maecenas versified. There is an other edition of these fragments, with critical notes and a philological index, by J. C. Bremer, Helmstadt, 8vo. The only fragment that remains of the voyage of Germanicus has been preserved by Seneca. It represents the dangers which threatened the prince and his soldiers on a sea Bo little known to the Romans. Seneca prefers it to all other poems on the same subject, nor is Martial less warm in his praises of Albinovanus. Ovid, who was very intimate with him, congratulates himself, that in all his disIgrace (by banishment, Ex Ponto. lib. iv. ep. x.) he preserved the friendship of Albinovanus. We must not, however, confound him, as Dacier has done, with another Albinovanus, mentioned by Horace in the Art of Poetry, as a plagiarist.

, an eminent physician, whose proper name was Weiss, was born at Dessau, in the province of Anhalt, in 1653, and was the son of a burgomaster of that town. He studied first at Bremen, and afterwards at Leyden. In 1676, after taking his doctor’s degree in medicine, he travelled in Flanders, France, and Lorraine, and returned, in 1681, to the possession of a professor’s chair at Francfort on the Oder. In his mode of teaching he discovered those talents and that penetration, of which he exhibited some proofs while a student, and soon rose to wealth and distinction. He was appointed physician to the successive electors of Brandenburgh, who bestowed many honours upon him, and among other marks of their favour, gave him a prebend of Magdeburgh, exempting him, at the same time, from the duties of the place; but this he resigned, as the possession of so rich a preferment, under such circumstances, might give offence to his brethren. For a long time the obligations which these princes conferred prevented Albinus from accepting the many offers made to him by the universities of Europe; but at length, in 1702, he went to Leyden, where he was professor until his death in 1721. Carrere, in his “Bibl. de Medicine,” gives a list of twenty-two medical works by Albinus, among which are, 1. “De corpusculis in sanguine contends.” 2. “De Tarantula mira.” 3. “De Sacro Freyenwaldensium fonte,” &c. The illustrious Boerhaave pronounced his eloge, which was afterwards printed, and contains an account of his life, to which this article is indebted.

, son of the preceding, and one of the most celebrated anatomists of modern times, was born at Francfort in 1697. He received his first instructions from his father, and from the celebrated professors at Leyden, Rau, Bidloo, and Boerhaave; and in 1713 visited France, where he formed an acquaintance with Winslow and Senac, and afterwards corresponded with them on, his favourite science, anatomy. But he had scarce spent a year there when he was invited by the curators of the university of Leyden, to be lecturer in anatomy and surgery, in place of Rau. With this request, so flattering to a young man, he resolved to comply, although contrary to his then views and inclination, and on his arrival was created doctor in medicine without any examination. Soon after, upon the death of his father, he was appointed to succeed him as professor of anatomy, and on his admission, Nov. 9, 1721, he read a paper, “De vera via ad fabricae humani corporis cognitionem ducente,” which was heard with universal approbation.

In 1725, his first publication appeared under the modest title of “Index supellectilis anatomies Ravianae,” Leyden, 4to, in which he pays a handsome tribute to the memory of his learned master and predecessor, Rau, whose labours only he pretends to give in this work, although it contains many observations the result of his own experience. In 1726 he published a history of the bones, “De Ossibus corporis humani,” Leyden, 8vo; but this he reprinted in, 1762, in a more complete edition, and with plates of great beauty and accuracy. In 1734 appeared his “Historia musculorum hominis,” ibid. 4to, the plates of which were prepared with uncommon care, as he employed his artists to multiply copies until they had attained a close resemblance to the muscle in all its connexions and insertions. Haller, whose testimony will not be suspected after the many angry disputes between him and Albinus, pronounces it the best executed work in anatomy; if it has any fault, it is that all the muscles are drawn upon the same scale, which creates some confusion in estimating the proportions of the smaller ones. He afterwards published treatises on the vascular system of the intestines, on the bones of the foetus, seven plates of the natural position of the foetus in the womb, 4 vols. 4to of “Annotationes Academicae,” all illustrated with plates of great beauty. While thus labouring on original works, he became not less distinguished as an editor, and published very correct editions of the works of Harvey, the anatomy of Vesalius, and Fabricius of Aquapendente, and lastly, the fine anatomical plates of Eustachius. This very eminent anatomist died Sept, 9, 1770, at Leyden, where he had filled the professor’s chair nearly fifty years.

His brother, Christian Bernard, was professor of anatomy at Utrecht, and died there in 1752. He published, 1. “Specimen anatomicum exhibens novam tennium homipis intestinorum descriptionem,” Leyden, 1722, 4to; 1724, 8vo. 2. “De anatome errores detegente in medicina,” Utrecht, 1723, 4to.

, a historian and poet, whose name also was originally Weiss, or White, was born at Schneeberg, in Misnia. After studying at Leipsic and Francfort, he was appointed professor of poetry at Wittemberg, and soon after historiographer, and private secretary to the house of Saxony, a situation which he held under the electors Augustus and Christian I. He died at Dresden in 1598. The faults in the style and arrangement of his historical works are rather those of his age, while his learning and accuracy have justly entitled him to the praise he has received from his countrymen. Among his numerous works are: 1. A chronicle of Misnia, “Meisnische Landund Berg-Chronica,” Wittemberg and Dresden, 1580, 1599, fol. 2. “Scriptores varii de Russorum religione,” Spire, 1582. 3. “Genealogical tables of the house of Saxony,” in German, Leipsic, 1602. 4. “Historiæ Thuringorum novæ specimen,” which is printed in the “Antiquit. regni Thuringici,” by Sagittarius. His “Latin Poems” were printed at Francfort, 1612, 8vo.

, also called Bartholomew of Pisa, was born in the fourteenth century at Rivano in Tuscany, and was of the order of the Franciscans, or Friars minorites; and derived much fame in the eyes of his brethren by a work in Latin, on the “Conformity of St. Francis with Jesus Christ,” which he presented to the chapter of his order in 1399. (See Albert, Erasmus.) The impiety of this work may be partly guessed from the title; but as Tiraboschi has thought proper to blame the Protestants who either answered it seriously, or turned it into ridicule, and according to him raised a clamour against the friars, who could not be supposed responsible for the act of an individual, it may be necessary to remind the readers of that learned historian, that the friars did in fact take upon them a very high degree of responsibility. They not only bestowed the highest praise on Albizzi; but after receiving his book in a full chapter, the representatives of the whole order, they presented him with a complete dress which St. Francis wore in his life-time. This foolish book, which not only raises St. Francis above all other saints, but impiously compares him with the Saviour, was first printed at Venice, fol. without date, or printer’s name. The second edition, which Dr. Clarke calls the first, was printed at Milan, 1510, a folio of 256 leaves in the black letter, and sells on the continent at from ₤5. to ₤20. The third was also printed at Milan, 1513, in the same form, and type, with a new preface by Mapelli, a Franciscan. All these are uncommonly scarce, and hardly ever to be found complete. Jeremy Bucchi, another Franciscan, published a new edition at Bologna in 1590, in which he omitted many passages, and added the lives of the illustrious men of the order of St. Francis; but as this did not sell, the first two leaves were cancelled, and it was again published in 1620, as a new work. It contains the approbation of the chapter-general, dated Aug. 2, 1399. This work, with more alterations and omissions, was again published at Cologn in 1632, under the title “Antiquitates Franciscanae, sive Speculum vitae B. Francisci et sociorum,” &c. The last we shall notice is that of father Valentine Maree, ' or Marcus, a reco^let, or reformed Franciscan, entitled “Traite de conformites du disciple avec le maitre, c'est a dire, de S. Francois avec J. C. en tout le mysteres de sa naissance, vie, passion, mort, &c.” Liege, 1658, 4to. Although in this many extravagances are retrenched, there is yet enough to demonstrate its folly. Some other works, sermons, &c. have been attributed to Albizzi, which are little known.

, a learned Spanish rabbi, a native of Soria, in Old Castille, assisted in 1412 at a famous dispute on religion between the Christians and Jews, held in the presence of the anti-pope Benedict XIII. He wrote in 1425, under the title of “Sepher Hikkarim,” the foundation of the faith, against the Christian religion, with a view to bring back those whom the above dispute had induced to doubt the Jewish persuasion. Of this work there have been several editions, the first published by Soncino in 1486; and according to Wolfius, it has been translated into Latin. In the more modern editions, the 23th chap, of the 3d book, which is particularly directed against the Christians, has been omitted.

, marquis de Fronsac, seigneur de St. Andre, marechal of France, and one of the greatest captains of the sixteenth century, better known by the name of marechal de St. Andre, descended from an industrious and ancient family in Lyonnois. He gained the esteem of the dauphin, who, when he came to the crown by the name of Henry II. loaded him with riches and honours, made him marechal of France^ 1547, and afterwards first gentleman of his bed-chamber. He had already displayed his courage at the siege of Boulogne, and the battle of Cerisolles. He was then, it is said, chosen to carry the collar of his order to Henry VIII. king of England, who decorated him with that of the garter; but we do not find his name among the knights of that order, and it is more likely that he was the bearer of the insignia of the garter to Henry II. of France, from our Edward VI. In 1552, he had the command of the army of Champagne, and contributed much to the taking of Marienberg in 1554. He destroyed Chateau-Cambresis, and acquired great reputation at the retreat of Quesnoy; was at the battle of Renti; was taken prisoner at that of St. Quintin 1557, and bore an active part in the peace of Cambresis. He afterwards joined the friends of the duke ofGuise, and was killed by Babigny de Mezieres, with a pistol, at the battle of Dreux, 1562. He was handsome, noble, brave, active, insinuating, and much engaged in the important transactions of his time. Brantome asserts, that he had a presentiment of his death, before the battle of Dreux, He had only one daughter by his marriage with Margaret de Lustrac, who died very young in the monastery of LongChamp, at the time when her marriage was agreed upon with Henry of Guise.

, a descendant of the preceding, was born at Lyons in 1753, and died at Paris, 1789. He passed the greater part of his life in travelling and writing, and was a member of various academies. His works are: 1. “Dialogue 'entre Alexandre et Titus,” 8vo; in which he pleads the cause of humanity against those who are called heroes and conquerors. 2. “Observations d‘un citoyen sur le nouveau plan d’impositions,” 1774, 8vo. 3. “Œuvres diverses, lues le jour de sa reception a l'academie de Lyon,” 1774, 8vo. 4. “Eloge de Quesnoy,” 1775, 8vo; since inserted in the “Necrologe des Hommes celebres.” His attachment to the economists induced him to pay this respect to one of the chief of those writers. 5. “Eloge de Chamousset,” 1776, 8vo. 6. “La Paresse,” a poem; pretended to be translated from the Greek of Nicander, 1777, 8vo. 7. “CEuvres diverses,” 1778, 12mo; consisting of fables, verses, a memoir addressed to the economical society of Berne, and a letter to a suffragan bishop. 8. “Discours,” &c. on the question whether the Augustan age ought to be preferred to that of Louis XIV. as to learning and science, 1784, 8vo. This he determines in favour of the age of Louis; but a severe criticism having appeared in the Journal de Paris, he published an answer, dated Neufchatel, but printed at Paris. 9. “Discours politiques, historiques, et critiques, sur quelques Gouvernments de l'Europe,” 1779, &c. 3 vols. 8vo. The governments are Holland, England, Germany, Italy, Spain; and his remarks are chiefly valuable where he treats of commerce, agriculture, and the other subjects which the French cecjpnomists studied. In matters of government, legislation, manners, &c. he is jejune, superficial, and confused; sometimes through prejudice, and sometimes through wilful ignoranoe. This is particularly striking in his accounts of the constitutions of England and Holland. His account of Spain is perhaps the best. 10. “Discours prononcé a la seance de la societé d'agriculture de Lyon,” 1785, 8vo. 11. “Eloge de Count de Gebelin,” 1785, 8vo. This learned Protestant being denied Christian burial, according to the laws then established in France, Count d'Albon caused him to be buried in his garden, at Franconville, in the valley of Montmorency, and erected a handsome monument to his memory. These gardens, which were laid out in the English fashion, are described in a set of nineteen plates published in 1780; and they are also described by Dulaure in his “Curiosites des environs de Paris.” His numerous writings, his attachment to Quesnoy, and his liberality to count de Gebelin, procured him a considerable share of celebrity during his life, although his character was tinged with some personal oddities, and peculiarities of opinion, which frequently excited the pleasantry of his contemporaries. It is given as an instance of his vanity, that when he had erected some buildings for the accommodation of the frequenters of a fair, he inscribed on the front: “Gentium commodo, Camillus III.”

, an eminent Spanish statesman and cardinal, of the fourteenth century, descended from the royal families of Leon and Arragon, was born at Cuen^a, and educated at Toulouse. Alphon­$us XI. appointed him, in succession, almoner of his court, and archdeacon of Calatrava; and lastly, although he was then very young, promoted him to the archbishopric of Toledo. He accompanied the king of Castille in his expedition against the Moors of Andalusia, in which his rank of archbishop did not prevent him from carrying arms; and he first displayed his bravery in saving the king’s life m the hottest onset of the battle of Tarifa. Alphonsus, in return, knighted him, and in 1343 gave him the command at the siege of Algesiras; but on the death of this prince, he lost his influence with his successor, Peter the cruel, whom he reproved for his irregularities, and who would have sacrificed him to the resentment of his mistress Maria de Padilla, if he had not made his escape to Avignon. Here the pope Clement VI. admitted him of his council, and made him a cardinal; on which he resigned his archbishopric, saying, that he should be as much to blame in keeping a wife with whom he could not live, as Peter king of Castille, in forsaking his wife for a mistress. Innocent VI. the successor of Clement, sent him to Italy in 1353, both as pope’s legate and as general, to reconquer the ecclesiastical states which had revolted from the popes during the residence of the latter at Avignon. This commission Albornos executed in the most satisfactory manner, either by force or intrigue; but in the midst of his career, he was recalled in 1357, and another commander sent on the expedition. He, however, having been unfortunate, the pope saw his error, and again appointed Albornos, who completed the work by securing the temporal power of the popes over those parts of Italy which have been, down to the present times, known by the name of the Ecclesiastical States. Having thus achieved his conquest, Albornos, as a minister of state, rendered himself for many years very popular. To Bologna he gave a new constitution, and founded in that city the magnificent Spanish college; and for the other parts of the ecclesiastical dominions, he enacted laws which remained in force for four centuries after. At length he announced to pope Urban V. that he might now enter and reign at Rome without fear, and was receiving him in pomp at Viterbo, when the pope, forgetting for a moment the services Albornos had rendered to the holy see, demanded an account of his expenditure during his legation. Albornos immediately desired him to look into the court-yard of the palace, where was a carriage full of keys, telling him that with the money intrusted to him, he had made the pope master of all the cities and castles of which he now saw the keys. The pope on this embraced and thanked him. He then accompanied Urban to Rome, but returned afterwards to Viterbo, where he died August 24, 1367, regretted by the people, and by the pope; who, finding himself embarrassed with new cares, more than ever wanted his advice. Albornos’s body was removed to Toledo, at his own request, and interred with great pomp. He wrote a book on the constitutions of the Roman church, which was printed at Jesi, in 1475, and is very rare. His will also was printed, with this injunction, characteristic of the man and the age he lived in, that the monks should say 60,000 masses for his soul. His political life was written by Sepulveda, under the title “Historia de hello administrate in Italia per annos 15, et confecto abÆg. Albornotio,” Bologna, 1623, fol.

, or Albricius, a philosopher and physician, born in London in the eleventh century; but of whom our accounts are very imperfect and doubtful. He is said to have studied both at Oxford and Cambridge, and to have afterwards travelled for improvement. He had the reputation of a great philosopher, an able physician, and well versed in all the branches of polite literature. Of his works, Bale, in his third century, has enumerated only the following: “De origine Deorum;” “De Ratione Veneni;” “Virtutes Antiquorum;” “Canones Speculative.” He adds, that in his book concerning the virtues of the ancients, he gives us the character of several philosophers and governors of provinces. But the full title of this work, which is extant in the library of Worcester cathedral, is “Summa de virtutibus Antiquorum Principum, et Philosophorum.” The same library contains a work by Albricius, entitled “Mythologia.” None of these have been printed. In the “Mythographi Latini,” Amsterdam, 1681, 2 vols. 12tno, is a small treatise “De Deorum imaginibus,” written by a person of the same name; but it is doubtful whether this was not Albricus, bishop of Utrecht in the eighth century. The abbé de Bceuf attributes it to the bishop; but D. Rivet in his literary history thinks it was of older date than either.

, a celebrated Arabian surgeon; called also Albucasa, Albuchasius, Buchasis, Bulcaris-Ga-Laf, Alsaharavius, and Azaravius, but whose proper name was Aboul-Casem-Khalaf-Ben-Abbas, was a native of Alzahrah, a city of Spain. He is supposed to have lived about the year 1085; but Dr. Freind thinks he is not so ancient, as in treating of wounds, he describes the arrows of the Turks, a nation which scarcely made any figure until the middle at least of the twelfth century. From what he says of surgery being in a manner extinct in his time, the same historian supposes that he lived long after Avicenna; as in the time of the latter, surgery was in good repute. Albucasis, however, revived it, and is the only one among the ancients who has described the instruments in each operation, and explained the use of them; and the figures of these instruments are in both the Arabic manuscripts now in the Bodleian library (Marsh, N 54, and Huntington, N 156.) The use of the cautery was very common with him, and he appears to have ventured upon incisions of the most hazardous kind. In Dr. Freind’s history is a very elaborate analysis of his works and practice. His works, collected under the title of “Al-Tacrif,” or the method of practice, have been translated and often printed in Latin, Venice, 1500, and 1520, folio; Augsburgh, 1519; Strasburgh, 1532; and Basil, 1541.

, or Abou-Machar, a noted Arabian astrologer and philosopher, was born at Balkh in the Khorasan, about the year 805 or 806. For a long time he was addicted to the Mahometan traditions, and a determined enemy to philosophy; but in his forty-seventh year he began to study the sciences, and acquired the reputation of an astronomer and astrologer; and, although he is now principally known by his writings on astrology, he cannot be refused a place among the most distinguished easterns, who have made astronomical observations. The table called Zydj Abou-Machar was calculated from his observations; but the work from which he derives his principal reputation, is his treatise on astrology, entitled “Thousands of years;” in which, among other singular positions, he maintains that the world was created when the seven planets were in conjunction in the first degree of Aries, and will end when they shall assemble in the last degree or Pisces. He died in 885. His astrological work was published at Venice, 1506, 8vo; with the title “De magnis conjunctionibus, annorum revolutionibus, ac eorum perfectionibus;” but his “Introductio ad Astronomiam” was printed before this in 4to,. Augsburgh, 1489; and reprinted at Venice, 1490, 1506, and 1515, 4to.

, surnamed the Great, and one of the most illustrious characters of the Portuguese nation, was born at Lisbon in 1452, of a family who traced their origin to the kings of Portugal, and in an age remarkable for the heroism, the discoveries, and the conquests of Portugal. The Portuguese navigators had already subdued the greater part of the west coast of Africa, and were bent on extending their conquests to India. D' Albuquerque was accordingly appointed viceroy of the new settlements in Asia, and the commander of a squadron destined for that quarter, of six ships, which set sail 1503; and the same year three more were sent under his brother, Francis Albuquerque. The latter arrived in India some time before the other, with two ships only, the third having perished by the way. Arriving at the islands of Anchedive, he found some Portuguese officers, from whom he learned the distressed situation of their ally Trimumpar, king of Cochin, and sailed to Vipian, where the king then was. The arrival of the Portuguese so alarmed the garrison who then had possession of Cochin, that they precipitately left it. Here one of the ships that had sailed from Portugal with Alphonso, joined him. Francis restored Trimumpar to his capital, and subdued some islands near it. Having rendered the king such essential service, he desired leave to build a fort as a mutual defence against their enemies: this was granted, and the fort immediately begun. Four days after it began, Alphonso joined him, and with the additional number of hands he brought with him it was soon completed.

A consultation was then held among the Portuguese officers, when it was resolved to etttack some towns belonging to the prince of Repelsin, about twenty miles distant from Cochin. The Portuguese set out in boats, and surprised the towns, but were soon after attacked by a large army, and obliged to retreat. They returned to Cochin, and the same night made an attack on some other villages, when Alphonso being advanced with a fresh party, was attacked by some of the enemy who lay in ambush, and in this dangerous situation signalized himself by his courage, having fought with great intrepidity till break of day, when his brother Francis came to his assistance. The Portuguese then put the enemy to flight, pursued, and slew a great number of them. The fame of the Portuguese being spread everywhere, Alphonso Albuquerque sailed to Coulon to load three ships, which he completed without opposition, made an alliance with the people, and returned to Cochin. On his return, he found the Zamorin ready to enter into a treaty of peace with him, which was concluded. The two brothers soon after sailed to Cananor, and thence proceeded for Portugal. Alphonso arrived safe at Lisbon; but it is most probable Francis perished at sea, as he was never more heard of.

In 1508, Alphonso was appointed to succeed to the government of India, and dispatched with five ships; he sailed in company with Cugna, another Portuguese officer. Having plundered and taken some towns on the coast of Arabia, they sailed to Zocatora, and made themselves masters of the fort there. After which Cugna returned to Portugal, and Albuquerque, who now acted alone, immediately formed the design of attacking Ormuz island, situated at the mouth of the Persian Gulph, and subject to a king of its own, who had extended his dominions over several cities in Arabia. With a small army of 470 men, he proceeded along the Arabian coast, took many towns, and proceeded to the island itself. He found several ships fitted for war in the harbour; these it was determined to burn. However, he first offered peace to the king, who entered into a treaty, with a view to gain time until a reinforcement arrived. The expected force came, and an engagement ensued, in which the Portuguese were victorious. Albuquerque then pressed the city, and the king, finding no resource, solicited peace, on condition of becoming tributary to the king of Portugal, which was agreed to. Albuquerque went on shore, had an interview with the king; and, knowing the perfidy of the Arabians, began to build a fortress. While this was carrying on, some deputies arrived from the king of Persia to demand tribute. of the king of Ormuz. The latter consulted Albuquerque., who with great spirit told the deputies that his master paid no tribute, but arms. Albuquerque was, however, forced to desist by the perfidy of his officers, and to repair on board his fleet. He then renewed the war; but receiving a letter from the governor (AJmeed) blaming his conduct, he proceeded for India; when, after some hesitation, Almeed resigned the government to him, and sailed to Europe.

Being now invested with the supreme command, he prepared a fleet, and sailed against Calicut; where, in a desperate and imprudent attack, he was dangerously wounded and forced to retreat.

Albuquerque, being recovered, went to sea with twentythree ships, two thousand Portuguese, and several Indian auxiliaries, designed for Ormuz; but, by the persuasion ofTimoia, a piratical prince^ changedhis intention, and proceeded to attack Goa. The forts near it on the continent were taken and destroyed: and learning that the city was in the greatest consternation, he sent deputies to offer the people his protection, and the enjoyment of their religion. The citizens accepted the conditions, and Albuquerque catered Goa the following day, being the 16th of Feb.1510. This city has long been the head of the Portuguese dominions in India. Here Albuquerque fixed his winter quarters, and behaved himself in such a manner as to merit universal esteem. But, while he was thus employed, some of the chief Portuguese began to murmur against him. However, by seizing and imprisoning the leaders, he quieted the disturbance. The enemy, being informed of the dissentions among the Portuguese, made an attack upon the island; and landing men, laid siege to the city, pressing it hard. The situation of Albuquerque became now truly distressing; an enemy vastly superior without, discontent among his officers within, and his troops greatly diminished. These circumstances determined him to embark on board his ships, and evacuate the city; which he effected after a fierce combat, having first set fire to the magazines.

He then steered to a place called Rapander to winter; but the enemy soon obliged him to remove, and take shelter between the continent and the island of Divar, where he was informed his enemies were also preparing to make an attack upon him,. In this extremity, being very scarce of provisions, he determined to make a desperate effort on a strong castle, called Pangin. Accordingly, having stationed a force to prevent succours being sent to it, he proceeded under cover of the night, and succeeded in surprising both the fort and camp of the enemy, both which were taken without much resistance. Such an unexpected turn of good fortune determined him not only to object to offers of peace, but also to make an attack on Goa. In this he succeeded, having in the attack killed 3000 of the enemy, and began to aim at greater enterprizes. Having collected his forces, he sailed from Goa for the island of Sumatra, and in every voyage made many captures; there having concluded a treaty with the princes of this island, he proceeded to the city of Malacca, and made himself master of it. Having settled affairs there, he returned to Goa, laid siege to the city of Benastar, and having been unsuccessful, consented to a peace with the Zamorin. He then built a fort at Calicut, and sailed to Aden, in hopes of making himself master of it, but was disappointed, and obliged to return. Soon after he fell sick and died, Dec. 16, 1515, having first had the mortification to hear of his being recalled by the king.

To this great man the Portuguese owe the foundation of the immense power they once possessed in India; and, had they pursued the maxims he laid down, might possibly have enjoyed to this day. He was a man of great humanity, dreaded for his bravery, and beloved for his benevolent disposition. His death was most sincerely felt by all the people of Goa, where he was buried with great funeral honours.

, son of the preceding, was born in 1500, and on his father’s death, Emmanuel king of 'Portugal made him take the name of Alphonso, that he might be the more frequently reminded of his illustrious viceroy, and in time promoted him to the highest offices in the kingdom. He published, in the Portuguese language, memoirs of his father, Lisbon, 1576, fol. under the title “Commentarios de grando Alfonso de Alboquerque, capitan general da India.”

, a celebrated Roman orator in the time of Augustus, was a native of Novarre, and advanced to the office of sedile, but he left it on account of an insult offered to him by some persons who had lost their suit. He then went to Rome, where he associated himself v.-ith Munacius Plancus, the orator, but rivalship soon parted them, and he formed a separate auditory, and at length ventured to plead causes. In this office, he met with a disgrace which obliged him to renounce it. In the warmth of pleading he one day made use of an expression which he meant only as a nourish: “Swear,” said he to his adversary, “by the ashes and by the memory of your fathers, and you shall gain your cause.” After he had amplified this thought, the advocate on the opposite side coolly replied, “We accept the condition;” and the judges admitting the oath, Albutius lost his cause, and his temper, at least, if not his credit. We hear no more of him, until he returned to Novarre, old and afflicted with an abscess, when he called the people together, and explained to them in a long speech the reasons that hindered him from desiring to live, and so starved himself to death. Seneca the father gives him the singular character of one who could neither bear nor offer an injury. A passage in Quintilian seems to intimate that he composed a “Treatise on Rhetorick.”

, the son of Garsia, a celebrated physician of the twelfth century, became one of the professors of Salerno, where he studied. His reputation soon extended throughout the whole kingdom of Naples, and even to Sicily, to which he was invited by the emperor Henry VI. then afflicted with a dangerous complaint. Alcadinus cured him, and was appointed his physician in ordinary, an office which he continued to hold under his son Frederic II. For this prince, when young, he composed a series of Latin epigrams, in elegiac verse, entitled “De Balneis Puteolanis,” which were first printed in a collection under the title of “De Balneis omnibus quae extant apud Graecos et Arabes,” Venice, 1553, fol. with a small work “De Balneis Puteolorum, Bajorum et Pithecusarum,” which was printed in 8vo, Naples, 1591, and often reprinted in similar collections. Alcadinus left also two other treatises. 1. “De triumphis Henrici imperatoris.” 2. “De his quae a Frederico II. imperatore, prseclare et fortiter gesta sunt.” The time of his death is not ascertained.

, an ancient lyric poet, was born at Mytilene, the capital of Lesbos, according to Eusebius, in the 44th olympiad, or in the year 604 B. C.; and was consequently the countryman and contemporary of Sappho, with whom he is said to have been violently enamoured. A verse in which he insinuated his passion, with her answer, is preserved in Aristotle, Rhet. lib. 1. cap. 9. He was born with a restless and turbulent disposition, and seemed at first inclined to adopt the profession of arms, which he preferred to every other pursuit. His house was filled with swords, helmets, shields, and cuirasses; but on his first essay in the field he shamefully fled, and the Athenians, after their victory, branded him with disgrace, by suspending his arms in the temple of Minerva at Sigseum. He made great pretensions to the love of liberty, but was suspected of harbouring a secret wish for its destruction. With his brothers, he first joined Pittacus, to expel Melanchrus, tyrant of Mytilene, and then took part with the malcontents to subvert the government of Pittacus, on whom he lavished the grossest epithets of personal abuse. At length he attacked Pittacus in a pitched battle, and his party being defeated, he became the prisoner of Pittacus, who generously gave him his life and liberty. After the failure of his political enterprizes he travelled into Egypt, but when he died is uncertain.

He is generally allowed to have been one of the greatest lyric poets of antiquity, and as he lived before the separation of the twin-sisters, poetry and music, he was probably the friend and favourite of both. His numerous poems, on different subjects, were written in the Æolian dialect, and chiefly in a measure of his own invention, which has ever since been distinguished by the name of Alcaic. He composed hymns, odes, and epigrams, upon very different subjects; sometimes railing at tyrants, and singing their downfall; sometimes his own military exploits; his misfortunes; his sufferings at sea; his exile; and all, according to Quintilian, in a manner so chaste, concise, magnificent, and sententious, and so nearly approaching to that of Homer, that he well merited the golden plectrum bestowed upon him by Horace:

Sometimes he descended to less serious subjects, as the praises of Bacchus, Venus, &c.; but these were thought inferior tp his other poems. His genius, it is also said, required to be stimulated by intemperance, and it was in a kind of intoxication that he composed his best pieces. Of all his works, however, there are only a few fragments preserved by Athenaeus and Suidas, and printed by Henry Stephens at the end of his Pindar, among the “Poet. Lyric, diversarum editionum,” Geneva, 1623, tbi. and 12mo, and in the “Corpus Poetarum” of Maittaire, fol. 1714.

, a Spanish poet of the seventeenth century, who was born at Lisbon in 1599, and carried on the business of a merchant. Devoting his leisure hours to literature, he wrote a work entitled “Viridarium anagrammaticum,” and five “Novels,” which procured him, it is said, much reputation, not from their merit, but from their originality. In each of these novels, the author has contrived to get rid of one or other of the vowels: a is not to be found in the first, nor e in the second, &c. But this idle whim was not original, the same having been practised by Tryphiodorus, whom Addison so pleasantly ridicules as one of the lipogrammatists, or letterdroppers of antiquity. Moreri gives us the title of another work by this author, printed at Lisbon, 1664. “Psalteriurn quadruplex anagrammaticum, angelicum, immaculatum, Marianum, Deiparse dicatum, sexaginta anagrammata Latina complectens.” Alcala died Nov. 21, 1682.

, Alçazar, or Alcasar, (Louis D'), a Spanish Jesuit, was born at Seville in 1554, and entered among the Jesuits in 1569, against the will of his family, who were in possession of a large estate. After he had been a teacher of philosophy, he taught divinity at Cordova and at Seville, for abov e twenty years. M uch of his life was spent in endeavouring to explain the book of the Revelations, and his first volume on the subject, “Vestigatio arcani sensus in Apocalypsi,” is said to have been the result of twenty years’ study and investigation. This work was printed at Antwerp, fol. 1604 and 1619, and at Lyons, 1616, fol.; and is accounted one of the best commentaries which had been produced by any writer of the Romish church. It is said that Grotius was considerably indebted to it; but neither Grotius, nor any other writer has followed him in supposing that the prophecies of the Apocalypse have been accomplished to the twentieth chapter. Pursuing this investigation, however, his next work was a commentary on such parts of the Old Testament as have any connexion with the Apocalypse; this was published in 1631, Lyons, fol. under the title, “In eas veteris Testament! partes, quas respicit Apocalypsis, nempe Cantica Canticorum, Psahnos complures, multa Danielis aliorumque librorum capita, libri V.” There is a supplement to the first, on weights and measures, and to the second, on bad physicians. He died at Seville, June 16, 1613.

, or Abdelazyz, an Arabian astrologer, lived in the reign of Seif-Eddaulah, prince of the dynasty of the Hamdanites, or about the middle of the tenth century of the Christian sera. His reputation extended to Hurope, where John Hispalensis translated into Latin, about the twelfth or thirteenth century, his treatise “On judicial Astrology.” This was printed at Venice in 1503, 4to, under the title “Alchabitius cum commento,” and under the title a figure representing the circle and the armillary sphere. There is, however, an edition mentioned by Panzer of the date 1473, 4to, which is the most scarce and valuable. Bayle says that he wrote also a treatise on optics, which was found in a German convent.

, a celebrated and learned lawyer, was the son of a rich merchant of Milan, according to Pancirolus, and born in that city in 1492. After having studied the liberal sciences under Janus Parrhasius at Milan, he attended the law-lectures of Jason at Pavia, and those of Charles Ruinus at Bologna. Then taking a degree in law in his twenty-second year, he followed his profession at the bar, in the city of Milan, till he was called to the law-chair by the university of Avignon. He discharged his office with so much capacity, that Francis I. thought he would be a very proper person to promote the knowledge of the law in the university of Bourges, and accordingly prevailed on him to remove thither in 1529; and the next year he doubled his salary, which before was six hundred crowns. Alciati acquired here great fame and reputation; he interspei’sed much polite learning in his explication of the law, and abolished that barbarous language, which had hitherto prevailed in the lectures and writings of the lawyers. Francis Sforza, duke of Milan, thought himself obliged to bring back to his native country a man who could do it so much honour; and this he compassed at last, by giving him a large salary and the dignity of a senator. Alciati accordingly went to teach the law at Pavia, but soon after removed to the university of Bologna, where he continued four years, and then returned to Pavia; from whence he went to Ferrara, being solicited thither by duke Hercules d'Este, who was desirous to render his university famous. It resumed its reputation under a professor so much followed; but at the end of four years Alciati left it, and returned to Pavia. Paul III. gave him an honourable reception as he passed by Ferrara, and offered him ecclesiastical preferment; but Alciati was contented with that of prothonotary, and would not give up his profession of the law. He seems to rejoice that he had refused Paul’s offers, in a letter to Paulus Jovius, whom the pope had a long time amused with fallacious promises: “I am very glad,” says he, “that I did not suffer myself to be deceived by this pope’s offers, who, under the promise of a great recompense, wanted to draw me to Rome.” The emperor created Alciati a count-palatin and a senator; and Philip, afterwards king of Spain, presented him with a golden chain as he passed by Pavia.

Alciati died at Pavia, on the 12th of January, 1550, being then in his 58th year. After the death of his mother, who died in a very advanced age, he intended to have employed his wealth in the foundation of a college; but, having received an affront from some insolent scholars, he dropped that design, and chose for his heir Francis Alciati, his nephew, a promising youth, whom he had brought up at his house. Mr.Teissier says, that Andrew Alciati passed his life in celibacy; but this is a mistake, as may be seen from a passage of a letter he wrote to his friend Francis Calvus, after he had withdrawn from Milan to Avignon. He was a man of unquestionable abilities and learning, but tainted with avarice, which often obscured the lustre of his reputation. He was very young when his talents began to attract the admiration of his countrymen. His “Paradoxes of Civil Law,” or an explanation of the Greek terms which occur in the Digest, was written in his fifteenth year, and published in his twenty-second. His works have been collected and published at Lyons, 1560, 5 vols. folio; at Basil, 1571, 6 vols. folio; and there also 1582, 4 vols. folio; Strasburgh, 1616, 4 vols. folio; Francfort, 1617, 4 vols. folio. So many editions of a work of this magnitude afford a striking proof of the reputation of Alciati. Some of the contents of these volumes have been printed separately, as his “notes on Tacitus,” and a “treatise on Weights and Measures;” but besides these he wrote, 1. “Responsa nunquam antehac edita,” Lyons, 1561; Basil, 1582, folio; published by his heir Francis Alciati. 2. “De Formula Romani Imperii,” Basil, 1559, 8vo. 3. “Epigrammata selecta ex anthologia Latine versa,” Basil, 1521, 8vo. 4. “Rerum patriae, seu Historise Mediolanensis libri quatuor,” 1625, 8vo, reprinted in Graevius’ Thesaurus. 5. “De Plautinorurn carminum ratione,” and “De Plautinis vocabulis Lexicon,” in an edition of Plautus, Basil, 1568, 8vo. 6. “Judicium de legum interpretibus parandis,” printed with Conrad Page’s treatise “Methodica juris traditio,” 1566, 8vo. 7. “Encomium Historiae,” 1530, 4to. 8. “Palma,” inserted in the “Amphitheatrum sapientiae Socraticae Dornavii.” 9. “Judiciarii processus compendium,” 1566, 8vo. 10. “Contra vitam monastic-am,” 1695, 8vo. II. “Notae in Epistolas familiares Ciceronis,” printed with Thierry’s edition of these epistles, Paris, 1557, folio. 12. “Twentyseven letters in ‘Gudii Epistolas,’” 1697, 4to. Perhaps the work for which he is now most generally known is his “Emblems,” highly praised by the elder Scaliger. Of these there have been various editions and translations. The best is that of Padua, 1661, 4to. The piece above noticed, “Contra vitam monasticam,” was addressed to Bernard Mattius, and shews that Alciati entertained the same notions with his friend Erasmus concerning the religious orders of the church. Mattius, to whom this treatise, or rather letter, is addressed, was a learned, modest, and ingenious man, who suddenly left his friends and his aged mother to embrace the monastic life; but whether Alciati’s persuasions were effectual is not known.

, born at Milan 1522, the nephew and heir of the preceding, was likewise a lawyer of considerable eminence, and a professor of law at Pavia, where cardinal Borromeo was his pupil. Pius VI. employed him as datary or chancellor of Rome, and afterwards made him a cardinal. His contemporaries, particularly Vettori and Muret, applaud him as a man of general learning, and the ornament of his age. He died at Rome in 1580, and left several works which have not been printed.

, a native of Milan, was one of those Italians who forsook their country in the sixteenth century, to join with the Protestant church; but afterwards explained away the mystery of the Trinity in such a manner as to form a new party, no less odious to the Protestants than to the Catholics. Alciati had borne arms. He began his innovations at Geneva, in concert with a physician named Blandrata, and Gribaud, a lawyer, with whom Valentine Gentilis associated himself. The precautions, however, that were taken against them, and the severity of the proceedings instituted against Gentilis, made the others glad to remove to Poland, where they professed their heresies with more safety and success, and where they were soon joined by Gentilis. It was indeed at Alciati’s request that the bailiff of Gex had released him out of prison. From Poland these associates went to Moravia; but Alciati retired to Dantzick, and died there in the sentiments of Socinus, although some report he died a Mahometan, which Bayle takes pains to refute. Of his Socinianism, however, there can bfe no doubt. He published “Letters to Gregorio Pauli,” 156-t, in defence of that heresy. Calvin and Beza speak of him as a raving madman.

, a native of Rome, and a Jesuit of great reputation for learning. Urban VIII. who highly esteemed him, thought him worthy of the rank of cardinal, but he died before that honour was conferred upon him, in 1651, leaving some curious materials for a history of the council of Trent, to which he gave the title of “Historic concilii Tridentini a veritatis hostibus evulgatae elenchus.” His object, which was countenanced by the pope, was to refute or answer father Paul Sarpi’s history of that celebrated council; and his collections were made use of, after his death, in a new history of the same by cardinal Pallavicino.

, a celebrated Athenian, of whom Barthelemi has justly remarked, that some historians have stigmatized his memory with every reproach, and others have honoured it with every eulogium, without its being possible for us to charge the former with injustice, or the latter with partiality. He was born in the eighty-second olympiad, about the year 450 B. C. Clinias, his father, was descended from Ajax of Salamis, and his mother, the daughter of Megacles, was of the family of the Alcmteonides. In his person, while a youth, he was beautiful, and when a man, remarkable for his comeliness; his fortune was large beyond most of the nobility of Athens. His abilities were so great, that an ancient author (C. Nepos) has asserted that nature in him had exerted her utmost force, since, whether we consider his virtues or his vices, he was distinguished from all his fellow-citizens; he was learned, eloquent, indefatigable, liberal, magnificent, affable, and knew exactly how to comply with the times; that is, he could assume all those virtues when he thought proper; for, when he gave a loose to his passions, he was indolent, luxurious, dissolute, addicted to women, intemperate, and impious. Socrates had a great friendship for him, corrected in some degree his manners, and brought him to the knowledge of many things of which he would otherwise have remained ignorant: he also prevented the Athenians from resenting many of those wanton acts of pride and vanity which he committed when a lad. His family had always been on good terms with the Lacedemonians; Clinias, his father, indeed, disclaimed their friendship, but Alcibiades renewed it, and affected to shew great respect to people of that country, until he observed the ambassadors of Lacedemon applied themselves wholly to Nicias, his rival, and his dependants; he then resented it very much, and used every influence on the minds of the Athenians to the prejudice of that people.

The first public affair of any material consequence in which he embarked, was soon after the peace, for fifty years was concluded between the Athenians and Lacedemonians. Some discontents still prevailed: the people of Athens had complied with the terms of the peace, but the Lacedemonians having taken and demolished the town of Panactus, made them very uneasy; these discontents were heightened by Alcibiades, now beginning to rival Nicias, who, with his party, at that time ruled in Athens. Alcibiades declaimed, that the Spartans were taking measures for humbling Argos, that they might afterwards attack the Athenians; he artfully put them in mind of Nicias having declined making a descent on Spacteria, and drew conclusions from thence very much against him. When the ambassadors from Sparta arrived, and were introduced into the senate, by Nicias, on their retiring, Alcibiades, as the old friend of their nation, invited them to his house, assured them of his friendship, and persuaded them to declare that they were not vested with full powers (although they had in the senate declared they were), to avoid making unreasonable concessions. When, therefore, they first appeared in the forum, Alcibiades addressed himself to the people, saying, “You, see, my countrymen, what credit ought to be given to these Lacedemonians, who deny to you to-day what they affirmed yesterday.” The people then refused to hear them.

Alcibiades next promoted a league with the Argives, in order to keep the war at a distance, in case the feuds between Sparta and Athens were revived. This happened in, the twelfth year of the Peloponnesian war. The next summer he was invested with the command of a considerable army, passed into the territory of Argos and to Patrae, and at both places laboured to persuade them to build walls towards the sea, to enable them to receive succours from Athens; but jealousy of the Athenian power prevented them. No action took place this year.

Two years after, some dissentions taking place at Argos, Alcibiades sailed with a fleet of twenty ships into their territories, to assist his friends, and put an end to their disputes. To effect this, he caused three hundred of the inhabitants, who were suspected of favouring the Lacedemonians, to be seized and carried away. After this, he sailed to the island of Melos, which, although small and of inconsiderable force, had always acted with inflexible obstinacy against the Athenians. Alcibiades laid siege to it; but finding the siege attended with difficulties, he turned it into a blockade, and leaving a considerable body of forces there, returned to Athens; the place afterwards surrendered at discretion.

The Athenians, in the sixteenth year of the war, determined to send a fleet into Sicily, to the assistance of the Egistines; Nicias was appointed to command, and Alcibiades and Lamachus were his colleagues. During the preparations for this expedition, an accident happened which put the whole city of Athens into confusion: the Hermae, or statues of Mercury, of which there were a multitude in the city and neighbourhood, were all defaced in one night, nor could the authors of this fact be discovered, notwithstanding a proclamation was issued, offering impunity and a reward for the informer; yet, in consequence of a clause therein, inviting any person of what condition soever to discover any former sacrileges, some servants and slaves deposed, that a long time before, certain young men, heated with wine, had ridiculed some religious mystery, and that Alcibiades was among them. His enemies immediately commenced a prosecution against him, to which Alcibiades offered to answer, asserting his innocence, and protesting against accusations brought against him while he should be absent. His enemies, determined to attempt his destruction, procured others to move that he should have liberty to depart on his command, and that, after his return, a day of trial should be assigned him; to this proposition he was unwillingly obliged to consent.

The fleet sailed; but they had not been long in Sicily before orders from Athens arrived, directing Alcibiades to return and take his trial; the whole city being in a confusion on the affair of defacing the Hermae. This was probably a scheme of the enemies of Alcibiades, to ruin the mighty interest, which his birth, fortune, and accomplishments had gained him in Athens: to effect their purpose, they also reported that he had entered into a conspiracy to betray the city to the Lacedemonians, and that he had persuaded the Argives to undertake something to their prejudice. It was therefore determined to put him to death on his return; but it being apprehended, that the attempt to arrest him in sight of the army might produce commotions, those who were sent to bring him home, were ordered to treat him with great decency, and not to discover by any means the severe resolution taken against him. They executed their commission very exactly, so that neither he nor his army, who were likewise accused, had any suspicion: but, in the course of the voyage, gathering from the seamen something of what was intended, and being informed that a person, out of fear of death, had acknowledged himself guilty, and impeached them, they wisely determined not to trust an enraged and superstitious multitude, but to provide for their own safety by withdrawing as soon as they had an opportunity: this offered quickly after; they escaped from their convoy, and retired to such parts of Greece as, out of hatred to Athens, were most likely to give them shelter.

Alcibiades went to Sparta, where he was well received. In the spring, when Agis king of Sparta invaded Attica, he gave him advice to seize and fortify Dicelea. This was a severe stroke on the Athenians; but their misfortunes fell much heavier on them in Sicily, and their allies began to waver. They afterwards had some slight successes at sea, which discouraged the Peioponnesians; but Alcibiades exerted his eloquence to persuade them to continue the war; he advised them to send a small fleet to Ionia, promising to engage the cities to revolt from the Athenians, and to negociate a league between Sparta and theking of Persia, the advantages of which he pointed out to them. The Lacedemonians entering into his measures, he passed over into Ionia, and there actually effected what he had promised. He also found means to draw Tissaphernes, the king of Persia’s lieutenant, into a league with them. The Spartans, however, were displeased with the terms of it, and seeking to have them altered, the Persians likewise grew displeased. Alcibiades did not long continue in favour with the Spartans; and having debauched the wife of Agis, that prince conceived the most inveterate hatred against him, and persuaded the Lacedemonians to send orders, to their general in Ionia to put the Athenian to death. Alcibiades gained some intelligence of this, retired to Tissaphernes, and laying aside the Lacedemonian, as he had before done the Athenian, became a perfect Persian. By the politeness of his address, he gained so much on Tissaphernes, although a professed enemy to all Greeks, that he gave his name to his gardens of pleasure, after he had spent immense sums in adorning them; they were afterwards called Alcibiades. When the Athenian saw that Tissaphernes placed a confidence in him, he gave him much information respecting the affairs of Greece; told him that it was not the interest of the Persian monarch that Athens should be destroyed, but that she and Sparta should be supported as rivals to each other, and that then the Greeks would never have an opportunity to turn their united arms against his master; but added, that if it should become necessary to rely on one of them, he advised him to trust to Athens, because she would be content with the dominion of the sea; but that the pride of the Spartans would always stimulate them to new conquests, and excite in them a desire of setting the Greek cities in Asia at liberty.

Tissaphernes approving of these counsels, Alcibiades wrote privately to some officers of the Athenian army at Samos, intimating that he was treating with the Persian on their behalf; but would not return to his native country until the demoeratical form of government was abolished. The reasons he advanced for this measure were, that the Persian king hated a democracy, but would immediately assist Athens, if the government was put into the hands of a few. These fickle people, the Athenians, prone to novelty, dissolved the democracy, and sent deputies to treat with Alcibiades and Tissaphernes; and, in case the terms offered by the Persian vtere reasonable, they were to declare that the Athenians would vest the sovereignty in the hands of a few. Before the deputies arrived, Alcibiades had discovered tha.t Tissaphernes did not incline to keep the Athenians on any terms; therefore, he set up such high conditions in the name of the Persians, that the Athenians themselves broke off the treaty. The democracy of Athens was, however, destroyed, and a new form of government was set up. This did not give general satisfaction the army at Samos declared for the democracy and, at the request of their general Thrasybulus, recalled Alcibiades.

On his return, he made a most eloquent speech to the army, shewing them the true source of his misfortunes, the injustice of his countrymen, and the danger attending the state. The soldiers, pleased with his harangue, created him general, with full power, and proposed sailing immediately to Athens to restore the ancient form of government. Alcibiades opposed this extravagant, measure; and told them, that since they had chosen him general, he must return to Tissaphernes to prepare things to make a speedy end of the war: accordingly, with the consent of the army, he departed. When he came to Tissaphernes, he extolled the great power of the Athenians; and, by this means, made himself formidable to the one party, and necessary to the other.

On his return to the army, the deputies from Athens were, by his request, received. The army declared to them they would not acknowledge the present government, but would sail to Athens and restore the democracy: this he opposed, and persuaded them to remain where they were; and told the deputies to return and demand of the tyrants to. resign their authority. On their return, evert thing was in confusion at Athens; a new form of government was proposed, and Alcibiades recalled, and the favourers of an oligarchy withdrew to the enemy, Alcibiades meantime sailed with thirteen gallies to Arpendus, where he had frequent conferences with the Persian lieutenant. In hjs return, he took nine gallies belonging to the Peloponnesian fleet: and with this addition to his own squadron, he constrained the Halicarnassians to pay a large sum of money, and fortified Cos. An engagement soon after took place between the Athenian and Peloponnesian fleets; and, while the event was doubtful, Alcibiades came in sight with twenty gallies, and secured the victory.

The Athenians, after this, dividing their fleet into three parts, Alcibiudes, with his squadron, fell in with th enemy’s fleet under Mindarus, and fled from them, till he came in sight of the other divisions, and then pursued them in his turn towards Claros, sinking and taking their ships. When the enemy approached the shore, they were joined by the Persians; a second battle ensued, and a second victory was obtained. Thus, Alcibiades gained ttvo victories in one day; and his fame now rose so high among his countrymen that they sent one thousand foot, three hundred horse, and thirty gallies, to reinforce him. He sailed, and did good service in the Hellespont, and afterwards sat down before Byzantium, then well fortified and defended by a Lacedemonian garrison. Some of the inhabitants betrayed the city, and let in Alcibiades and his army; while the garrison made so brave a defence, that he was on the point of being driven out; but, making a proclamation that the Byzantines should be safe in their persons and effects, they joined him, and the garrison was almost aliput to the sword.

Alcibiades, and his colleague Theramenes, returned in triumph to Athens; they brought with them such immense spoils as had not been seen at Athens since the Persian war. The people almost deserted the city to behold Alcibiades when he landed. After he had made his harangue in the assembly, they directed the record of his banishment to be thrown into the sea, ordered him to be absolved from the curses he lay under, created him general, and conferred many other favours upon him. The sweetness of his temper, his complacence, and his applying the riches he brought home to the discharge of taxes, made the most virtuous of the citizens confess he deserved the honours that were paid him. He did not long remain in a state of inactivity, but put to sea again with a fleet of one hundred ships for the Hellespont, to assist some cities still kept firm to the Athenians he left part of his fleet under Antiochus, with strict orders not to engage; but the latter disregarded his instructions, and was defeated. On this news, Alcibiades returned; but met with another stroke of ill fortune; for his enemies had found means to persuade the Athenians that the defeat was owing to his inattention, and that he held a correspondence with the Lacedemonians: they instantly deprived him of his command, and appointed ten new generals. To Conon, one of the ten, he delivered the fleet; but refused to return to Athens, and in his own ship passed into Thrace, built a castle there for his own security, and founded a little principality in the sight of his many and powerful enemies.

Alcibiades, though an exile, endeavoured to restore the power of his country. He was in a small town of Phrygia, Under the government of Pharnabazus, when he was informed of the levies the younger Cyrus was making in Asia Minor, and concluding that this prince meditated an expedition against his brother Artaxerxes, he determined to repair to the court of the king of Persia, to apprise him cf the danger, and to obtain succours for the deliverance of his country. But assassins sent by the satrap suddenly surrounded his ho^use, and wanting the courage to attack him, set fire to it. Alcibiades rushed forth sword in hand through the flames, repulsed the barbarians, and fell beneath a shower of darts. This happened when he was only forty years old, in the ninety-fourtn olympiad, or 404 B.C.

That elevation of sentiment, says the abbe Barthelemi, which is produced by virtue, was not to be sought in the heart of Alcibiades; but in it was found that intrepidity which is inspired by the consciousness of superiority. No obstacle, no danger, could either surprize or discourage him; he seemed persuaded that when minds of a certain order do not perform all they wish, it is because they have not courage to attempt all they can. Compelled by circumstances to serve the enemies of his country, it was as easy for him to acquire their confidence by the ascendancy he had over them, as to govern them by the wisdom of his counsels: he possessed this pre-eminence peculiar to himself, that he uniformly procured a triumph for the party that he favoured, and that his numerous actions were never tarnished by a single reverse of fortune.

In negotiations, he sometimes employed the light of his understanding, which was as vigorous as profound; sometimes he had recourse to stratagems and perfidy, which no reasons of state can ever justify; on other occasions he availed himself of the pliability of a character which the thirst of power or the desire of pleasing accommodated without difficulty to every conjuncture and change of situation. In every nation he commanded respect, and swayed the public opinion. The Spartans admired his frugality; the Thracians his intemperance; the Boeotians his love of the most violent exercises; the lonians his taste for indolence and voluptuousness; the satraps of Asia a luxury they could not equal. He would have shown himself the most virtuous of men had he never known the example of vice; but vice hurried him on without making him its slave. It should seem as if the profanation of laws and the corruption of manners were considered by him only as so many victories gained over manners and the laws; it might be said too, that his faults were no more than the errors of his vanity. Those excesses of levity, frivolity, and imprudence which escaped his youth or idle hours, were no longer sjeen on occasions that demanded firmness and reflection. He then united prudence with activity, and pleasure never stole from him any of those moments which were necessary to the advancement of his glory, or the promotion of his interest.

, a rhetorician, born at Elaea, about the year 420 B. C. was contemporary with Isocrates, and the disciple of Gorgias. He composed a work on rhetoric, quoted by Plutarch; another in praise of death, mentioned by Cicero and Menander, and other works, noticed by Athenseus and Diogenes Laertius. There are only now extant two orations, one of Ulysses against Palamedes: the other, a declamation against the rhetoricians of his time, Περι Σοφιστων. They are both in Reiske’s collection, vol. VIII. The abbé Auger translated them along with his Isocrates.

, historian, orator, and poet, native of Agen, in the fourth century, wrote the history of Julian surnamed the apostate, and that of Sallust, consul and praefect of the Gauls under that emperor, which no longer exists; for we have nothing of him but an epigram on Homer and Virgil, in the Corpus Poetarum of Maitv taire, London, 1714, 2 vols. folio.

, a Platonic philosopher, is supposed to have lived about the beginning of the second century. We have no account of his life, nor is he known but by his “Introduction to the doctrine of Plato,” with which he appears to have been very well acquainted. Marsilius Ficinus translated it into Latin, and it was published, for the first time, with various pieces by Jamblicus, Proclus, Porphyry, Synesius, and other Platonists, Venice, by Aldus, 1497, fol. It has often been reprinted, and Charpentier wrote a commentary on it, which was published at Paris, 1575, 4to. Dennis Lambin gave an edition in Gr. and Lat. with scholia, Paris, 1567, 4to; and Michael Vascosan another, ibid. 1532, 8vo. Daniel Heinsius has inserted it in his editions of Maximus Tyrius, Leyden, 1608, 1617, and Oxford, 1667, 8vo. It is also, in Latin, in the first editions of Apuleius, Rome, 1469, and 1472; Venice, 1521, &c.; and our countryman, Stanley, printed it in his “History of Philosophy.” It was very recently translated into French, and published by M. Combes Dounous, Paris, 1800, 12mo. There is another Alcinous, mentioned by Philostratus in his lives of the Greek sophists.

, a Greek author, of whom little is known, unless by his “Epistles,” which afford much amusing information respecting the domestic manners of the Greek courtesans, fishermen, and parasites. Dr. Jortin is of opinion that he drew them up for the use of his scholars, to teach them to speak and write Greek with purity and fidelity; but this opinion the English translators have very amply refuted. The best edition of these letters is that of Bergler, Gr. and Lat. with learned notes, Leipsic, 1709, 1715, 12mo, the latter a very rare edition. There is another, Utrecht, 1791, 8vo, and reprinted, with some additions by M. Wagner, Leipsic, 1798, 2 vols. 8vo. M. Bast, a French scholar, has lately found some unpublished letters, and very important variations, among the manuscripts in the imperial library of Paris, and has some intention of publishing them in a new edition of Alciphron. An excellent translation of the Epistles was published, London, 1791, 8vo. The first and second books, and the eloquent preface, by Mr. Monro, now rector of Easton, in Essex; and the third, with the notes, by the rev. William Beloe, the able translator of Herodotus.

, a philosopher of Crotona, the son of Perithus, was one of the disciples of Pythagoras, and flourished probably about 500 B. C. He acquired a high degree of reputatjon in the Italian school by his knowledge of nature, and his skill in medicine. He is said to have been the first person who attempted the dissection of a dead body; and in the course of his operations, he made some discoveries in the structure of the eye. The sura of his philosophical tenets, as far as they can be collected from scattered fragments, is this Natural objects, which appear multiform to men, are in reality two-fold intelligent natures, which are immutable; and material forms, which are infinitely variable. The sun, moon, and stars are eternal, and are inhabited by portions of that divine fire, which is the first principle in nature. The moon is in the form of a boat, and when the bottom of the boat is turned towards the earth, it is invisible. The brain is the chief seat of the soul. Health consists in preserving a due mean between the extremes of heat and cold, dryness and moisture.

, an ancient musician, and one of the early cultivators of lyric poetry, was a native of Sardis, and flourished about 670 B. C. Heraclides of Pontus assures us that he was a slave in his youth at Sparta, but that by his good qualities and genius, he acquired his freedom, and a considerable reputation in lyric poetry. He was consequently an excellent performer on the cithara, and, if he was not a flute player, he at least sung verses to that instrument; Clemens AleKandnnus makes him author of music for choral dances; and, according to Archytas Harmoniacus, quoted by Athenseus, Alcman was one of th first and most eminent composers of songs on love and gallantry. If we may credit Suidas, he was the first who excluded hexameters from verses that were to be sung to the Jyre, which afterwards obtained the title of lyric poems. And Ælian tells us, that he was one of the great musician! who were called to Lacedcemon, by the exigencies of the state, and that he sung his airs to the sound of the flute. All the evolutions in the Spartan army were made to the sound of that instrument; and as patriotic songs accompanied by it were found to be excellent incentives to public virtue, Alcman seems to have been invited to Sparta, in order to furnish the troops with such compositions. Alcman was not more remarkable for a musical genius, than for a voracious appetite, and Ælian numbers him among the greatest gluttons of antiquity. This probably brought on the morbus pediculosus, of which he died. His tomb was still to be seen at Lacedæmon, in the time of Pausanias. But nothing, except a few fragments, are now remaining of the many poems attributed to him by antiquity. These have been published by Stephens, among other lyric fragments, at the end of his edition of Pindar, 1560; and have been often reprinted.—There is said to have been another Alcman of Messina, also a lyric poet.

, successively bishop of Rochester, Worcester, and Ely, in the latter end of the fifteenth century, was born at Beverley in Yorkshire, and educated at the University of Cambridge, where he took the degree of doctor of laws. In 146 1, he was collated to the church of St. Margaret’s, New Fish-street, London, by Thomas Kemp, bishop of that diocese, and in the same year was advanced to the deanry of St. Stephen’s college, Westminster. In 1462 he was appointed master of the rolls. Six years after, he obtained two prebends; one in the church of Sarum, and the other in that of St. Paul’s, London. In 1470, he was made a privy counsellor, and one of the ambassadors to the king of Castille; and next year, he was, together with others, a commissioner to treat with the commissioners of the king of Scotland. About the same time, he was appointed by Edward IV. to be of the privy council to his son Edward, prince of Wales, He was also in 1471 promoted to the bishopric of Rocheser; and in 1472, constituted lord high chancellor of England, in which office he does not appear to have continued longer than ten months. In 1476,. he was translated to jhe see of Worcester, and appointed lord president of Wales. During his being bishop of Worcester, he very elegantly enlarged the church of Westbury. He was in disgrace with the Protector Richard duke of York, and was removed from his office of preceptor to Edward V. on account of his attachment to that young prince. Soon after the accession of Henry VII. he had again, for a short time, the custody of the great seal. At length, in 1486, he was raised to the bishopric of Ely, and according to A. Wood, he was made president of the council of king Edward IV. in the same year, which is a palpable mistake, as Henry VII. came to the crown in 1485. Bishop Alcock, in 1488, preached a sermon at St. Mary’s church at Cambridge, which lasted from one o'clock in the afternoon till past three.

He was a prelate of singular learning and piety, and not only a considerable writer, but an excellent architect, which occasioned his being made comptroller of the royal works and buildings, under Henry VII. He founded a school at Kingston upon Hull (Fuller says, at Beverley); and a chapel on the south side of the church in which his parents were buried. He built the beautiful and spacious hall belonging to the episcopal palace at Ely, and made great improvements in all his other palaces. Lastly, he founded Jesus college, Cambridge, for a master, six fellows, and as many scholars; which, under the patronage of his successors, the bishops of Ely, has greatly increased in buildings and revenues; and now consists of a master, sixteen fellows, and thirty scholars. He wrote several pieces, particularly “Mons perfections ad Carthusianos,” Lond. 1501, 4to; “Galli Cantus ad Confratres suos curatos in Synodo apud Barnwell, 25 Sept. 1498,” Lond. per Pynson, 1498, 4to. At the beginning is a print of the bishop preaching to the clergy, with a cock (his crest) at each side, and there is another in the first page. “Abbatia Spiritns sancti in pura conscientia, fundata,” Lond. 1531, 4to. “In Psalmos penitentiales,” in English verse. “Homilise vulgares.” “Meditationes piae.” “Spousage pf a virgin to Christ,” 1486, 4to. Bishop Alcock died Oct. 1, 1500, at his castle at Wisbech, and was buried in the middle of a sumptuous chapel, which he had built for himself at the east end of the north aile of the presbytery pf Ely cathedral, and which is a noble specimen of his skill in architecture.

, an English physician of considerable celebrity as a practitioner, was the second son of David Alcock of Runcorn in Cheshire, by his wife Mary Breck, and was born in that place, Sept. 1707. He was initiated in reading and grammar by his parents, and afterwards placed at a neighbouring school, which he soon left upon some disgust. After however passing some time in idle rustic amusements, he was roused to a sense of duty, and resolved to return to school, and to qualify himself for the study of medicine, if his father would give up to him a small estate, about 50l. a year, with which he engaged to maintain himself. His father complying, he put himself under the care of his brother-in-law, Mr. Cowley, master of a public grammar-school in Lancashire, and after applying with enthusiasm to the Greek and Latin languages, mathematics, &c. he removed to Edinburgh, and went through the usual course of lectures in that medical school. Here the fame of Boerhaave was so often echoed by the professors, who had been his pupils, that Mr. Alcock felt an irresistible desire to complete his medical studies under him, and accordingly went to Leyden, where he benefited by the instructions, not only of that eminent teacher, but by those of his very learned contemporaries, Gaubius, Albinus, and Gravesand. He concluded his,studies there by taking the degree of M. D. in 1737; and the following year returned to England with a view to settle in some part of his native country.

His first design was to lecture on anatomy and chemistry at Oxford, where these sciences were at that time superficially taught; but had many difficulties placed in his way by the regular lecturers, and was permitted only to read privately in a room furnished him by the indulgence of the principal and fellows of Jesus college. Yet persevering, and exhibiting uncommon talents and zeal, he became popular, and in Nov. 17, 1741, was incorporated M. A. of Jesus college, by decree of convocation; and about 1749 read his lectures in the museum, although without the appointment of the Regius professor. He proceeded B. M. in 1744, and D. M. in 1749. In 1744 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1754 was made fellow of the college of physicians, London, to which city he had many urgent invitations, as the most proper place for one whose medical fame was now completely established. But his health had been for some time atfected by a gouty disorder, which debilitated both body and mind in such a degree, as to oblige him even to leave his favourite Oxford. Accordingly in 1759, he retired to his native place, Runcorn, where it was hoped that freedom from lecturing and extensive practice, with change of air and exercise, might enable him to resume his profession. On his arrival, however, at Runcorn, he insensibly fell into practice, which he did not think proper to decline, as it obliged him to frequent and short journies, and change of air; and this restored, in some measure, his usual vigour and spirits. But after some years, his old disorder began to return at shorter intervals, and with more violence, accompanied with hypocondriacal affections and giddiness, which terminated in a paralytic stroke, of which he died Dec. 8, 1779, and was buried in Runcorn church. He was a man of great knowledge in his art, and had a familiar acquaintance with natural philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy. In practice, he was uncommonly successful.

As an author, we know not of any thing he published; but he had sketched some treatises on physical and philosophical subjects, with a view to publication; and in 1759, just before leaving Oxford, he began to print a treatise “On the Effects of Climate on the constitutions and manners of men,” some sheets of which remained for many years in the possession of his printer, Mr. Jackson, but were probably removed by him before his death. He had also begun to prepare a work “on Air,” as a sequel to the former; and a few weeks before his death, he informed his biographer of his intention to publish a collection of “Formulae,” with notes and cases.

, one of the fevr learned Englishmen of the eighth century, was born in the north of England, and educated at York, under the direction of archbishop Egbert, as we learn from his own letters, in which he frequently calls that great prelate his beloved master, and the clergy of York the companions of his youthful studies. As he survived the venerable Bede about seventy years, it is hardly possible that he could have received any part of his education under him, as some writers have asserted; nor does he ever call that great man his master, though he speaks of him with the highest veneration. It is not well known to what preferments he had attained in the church before he left England, although some say he was deacon of the church of York, and abhot of Canterbury. The occasion of his leaving his native country was, his being sent on an embassy by Offa, king of Mercia, to the emperor Charlemagne, who contracted so great an esteem and friendship for him, that he earnestly solicited, and at length prevailed upon him, to settle in his court, and become his preceptor in the sciences. Alcuinus accordingly instructed that great prince in rhetoric, logic, mathematics, and divinity; which rendered him one of his greatest favourites. He was treated with so much kindness and familiarity by the emperor, that the courtiers called him, by way of eminence, “the emperor’s delight.”

Charlemagne employed Alcuinus to write against the opinions of Felix, bishop of Urgel, who had revived something like the Nestorian heresy, by separating the humanity from the divinity of the Son of God; and Alcuinus shewed himself a master of his subject, and wrote in a very candid and moderate spirit. He also defended the orthodox faith against Felix, in the council of Fraucfort, in 794. This likewise he performed to the entire satisfaction of the emperor and council, and even to the conviction of Felix and his followers, who abandoned their errors. The emperor consulted chiefly with Alcuinus on all things relating to religion and learning, and, principally by his advice, founded an academy in the imperial palace, over which Alcuinus presided; and other academies were established in the chief towns of Italy and France, at his instigation. In France he may be reckoned a principal instrument in founding the universities of Paris, Tours, Fulden, Soisson, and many others.

After Alcuinus had spent many years in the most intimate familiarity with Charlemagne, he at length, with great difficulty, obtained leave to retire to his abbey of St. Martin’s, at Tours. Here he kept up a constant correspondence with the emperor, and the contents of their letters show their mutual love of religion and learning, and their anxiety to promote them in the most munificent manner. In one of these letters, which Dr. Henry has translated, there is a passage which throws some light on the learning of the times “The employments of your Alcuinus in his retreat are suited to his humble sphere; but they are neither inglorious nor unprofitable, I spend my time in the halls of St. Martin, in teaching some of the noble youths under my care the intricacies of grammar, and inspiring them with a taste for the learning of the ancients; in describing to others the order and revolutions of those shining orbs which adorn the azure vault of heaven; and in explaining to others the mysteries of divine wisdom, which are contained in the holy scriptures: suiting my instructions to the views and capacities of my scholars, that I may train up many to be ornaments to the church of God, and to the court of your imperial majesty. In doing this, I find a great want of several things, particularly of those excellent books in all arts and sciences, which I enjoyed in my native country, through the expence and care of my great master Egbert. May it therefore please your majesty, animated with the most ardent love of learning, to permit me to send some of our young gentlemen into England, to procure for us those books which we want, and transplant the flowers of Britain into France, that their fragrance may no longer be confined to York, but may perfume the palaces of Tours.” Mr. Warton, who in his History of Poetry gives some account f the learned labours of Alcuinus, endeavours to undervalue his acquirements. This, in an enlightened age like the present, is easy, but is scarcely candid or considerate. Alcuinus was one of the few who went beyond the learning of his age, and it is surely impossible to contemplate his superiority without veneration. Mr. Warton has likewise asserted, what is a mistake, that Alcuinus advised Bede to write his Ecclesiastical History. He probably copied this from Leland, without examining the dates. Alcuinus must have been a mere child, if born at all, when Bede wrote his history. But there was another Alcuinus, an abbot of Canterbury, who was strictly contemporary with Bede, and may have been his adviser.

Charlemagne often solicited him to return to court, but he excused himself, and remained at Tours until his death, May 19, 804. He was buried in the church of St. Martin, where a Latin epitaph of twenty-four verses, of his own, composition, was inscribed upon his tomb. This epitaph is preserved by father Labbe, in his Thesaurus Epitaphiorum, printed at Paris 1686. He understood the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages extremely well; was an excellent orator, philosopher, mathematician, and, according to William of Malmesbury, the best English divine alter Bede and Adhelme. How greatly France was indebted to him for her flourishing state of learning in that and the following ages, we learn from a German poet, cited by Camden in his Britannia:

His works, which consist of fifty-three treatises, homilies, commentaries, letters, poems, &c. were first collected and published at Paris, by Andrew Duchesne, fol. with a life of the author; but a more complete edition was published in 1777, at Ratisbon, 2 vols. fol. by M. Froben, prince-abbe of St. Emmeraude. Father Chifllet published also in 1656, 4to, “The Confession of Alculnus,” which Mabillon proves to have been genuine. The last mentioned edition of 1777, contains most of the pieces written by A leu in us, which were pointed out by Du Pin; and the editor having procured a great number of manuscripts from Italy, France, Germany, England, and Spain, was enabled not only to revise and correct what had been already published, but to make very considerable additions; the whole arranged in a methodical order, carefully collated, and illustrated with historical and critical introductions, disquisitions, and notes.

, a learned Italian, was born at Venice, of poor parents of the lowest class, about the end of the fifteenth century. Alcyonius, or Alcyonio, was not his family name, but he is supposed to have adopted it, according to the custom of his age, to give himself an air of antiquity or classical origin. Whatever the meanness of his birth, he had the merit of applying in his youth to the learned languages with such success, as to become a very accomplished scholar. He was corrector of the press a considerable time for Aldus Manutius, and is entitled to a share in the praises given to the editions of that learned printer. He translated into Latin several treatises of Aristotle; but Sepulveda wrote against these versions, and pointed out so many errors in them, that Alcyonius had no other remedy than buying up as many copies as he could get of Sepulveda’s work, and burning them. The treatise which Alcyonius published concerning Banishment contained so many fine passages, with others quite the reverse, that it was thought he had interwoven with somewhat of his own, several fragments of Cicero’s treatise De Gloria; and that afterwards, in order to save himself from being detected in this theft, he burnt the manuscript of Cicero, the only one extant. Paulus Manutius, in his commentary upon these words of Cicero, “Libruni tibi celeriter mittam de gloria,” has the following passage relating to this affair: “He means (says he) his two books on Glory, which were handed down to the age of our fathers; for Bernard Justinian, in the index of his books, mentions Cicero de Gloria. This treatise, however, when Bernard had left his whole library to a nunnery, could not be found, though sought after with great care, and nobody doubted but Peter Alcyonius, who, being physician to the nunnery, was intrusted with the library, had basely stolen it. And truly, in his treatise of Banishment, some things are found interspersed here and there, which seem not to savour of Alcyonius, but of some higher author.” Paul Jovius repeated this accusation, and it was adopted as a fact by other writers. Alcyonius, however, has been amply vindicated by some late biographers, particularly Tiraboschi, who has proved that the charge was not only destitute of truth, but of probability.

In 1517, he aspired to the professor’s chair, which his master Marcus Musurus held, but was rejected on account of his youth. In 1521, however, he went from Venice to Florence, where he obtained, by the interest of the cardinal Julius de Medicis, the Greek professorship of that university, and, besides his’ salary, had ten ducats a month from the cardinal de Medicis, to translate Galen “De partibus animalium.” As soon as he understood that this cardinal was created pope, he asked leave of the Florentines to depart; and though he was refused, he went nevertheless to Rome, in great hopes of raising himself there. He lost all his fortune during the troubles the Columnas raised in Rome; and some time after, when the emperor’s troops took the city, in 1527, he received a wound when flying for shelter to the castle of St. Angelo: but got thither, notwithstanding he was pursued by the soldiers, and joined Clement VII. He was afterwards guilty of base ingratitude towards this pope; for, as soon as the siege was raised, he deserted him, and went over to cardinal Pompeius Colutnna, at whose house he fell sick, and died a few months after, in his fortieth year. Alcyonius might have made greater advances in learning, had he not been too much influenced by vanity and self-conceit, which hindered him from taking the advice of his friends. He was likewise too much addicted to detraction and abuse, which raised him many enemies. Menckenius reprinted his treatise “De Exilio,” in 1707, 12mo, Leipsic, with those of Valerianus and Tollius on the misfortunes of men of letters, and other pieces on the same subject, under the title of “Analecta de calamitate Literatorum.” The treatise “De Exilio” was first printed at the Aldine press, 1522, 4to. The only other original works which he left are, his orations on the taking of Rome, and on the knights who died at the siege of Rhodes; which we cannot find to have been published, but which had merit enough to prove him capable of writing the treatise on exile.

, a celebrated artist, was born at Zoust in Westphalia, in 1502; but we have no account of his family, nor are we quite certain of his Christian name, some calling him Henry, and some Albert. It is said, that he went to Nuremberg, and studied under Albert Durer, as he copied his style. As a painter, he attained considerable fame: the principal part of his works are in the churches and convents of Germany. Des Piles mentions a “Nativity” by him, which he accounts worthy of the admiration of the curious. He is, however, chiefly known by his engravings; and as, like many of the ancient engravers, particularly of Germany, he applied himself chiefly to the engraving of small plates, he has been classed by French authors among those they call little masters, and in this class he claims the first rank. The mechanical part of his engraving is extremely neat, and executed entirely with the graver. The light parts upon his flesh he has often rendered very soft and clear, by the addition of small long dots, which he has judiciously interspersed. His drawing of the naked figure, which he seems very fond of introducing, is much correcter than is usually found among the old German masters; and much less of that stiff taste, so common to them, appears in his best works. But Florent le Comte’s observation is certainly very just, that his men figures are far more correct than his women. His heads are very expressive in general, and his other extremities well marked, but sometimes rather heavy. But as his prints are very numerous, amounting, according to abbe de Marolles, to no less than 350, they cannot be supposed to be all equal; it is, therefore, necessary to see many of his prints, before any adequate judgment can be formed. The first collection of them was formed by the burgomaster Six, but to this many additions were made by Mariette, to the amount of 390 pieces, comprising many duplicates with differences. This collection was sold in France, in 1805, for 660 francs. He died at Soest, in 1558, in very poor circumstances,

, the son of Diego Garcia, one of the great officers of the house of Ferdinand and Isabella, was born about the end of the fifteenth century, and died at the age of ninety, in the reign of Philip II. His father sent him, when very young, to study at Louvain, under the care of John Louis Vives, and he made extraordinary proficiency in Greek, Latin, and philosophy. Charles V. made him his private secretary, and he was retained in the same station by Philip II. and enjoyed great favour at court. He is extolled by his countrymen, as a man of piety, wisdom, and Christian philosophy. His works are principally translations. 1. A translation of Xenophon, in elegant Spanish, Salamanca, 1552, fol. 2. Translations of the greater part of the works of Plutarch, Isocrates, Dio Chrysostom, Agapetus the deacon: 3. A Translation of Thucydides, Salamanca, 1554, fol. He also wrote a “History of the taking of Africa,” a sea-port on the coast of Barbary; and left behind him a collection of the military treatises which had appeared in Greek, Latin, andFrench, translated into Spanish for the use of his countrymen. His taste, and his rank in society, gave him a considerable influence in the progress of Spanish literature, during his long life.

, two brothers, natives of Malaga, whose history has not been separated by their biographers. They studied the belles lettres, antiquities, and civil law, with equal ardour and equal reputation. They both became ecclesiastics, and even in their persons there was a very close resemblance. Joseph obtained a prebend of Cordova, which he resigned in favour of Bernard, that he might enter among the Jesuits. He afterwards became rector of the college of Granada. While among the Jesuits, he published a work on the “Exemption of the regular Orders,” Seville, 1605, 4to; and another entitled “De religiosa disciplina tuenda,” ibid. 4to, 1615. Bernard, his brother, was appointed grand vicar by the archbishop of Seville, don Pedro de Castro, but obtained permission to reside at Cordova. He was one of the most learned and high esteemed of the Spanish literati of his time, and eminent for his knowledge of the Greek, Hebrew, and Oriental languages and antiquities. He has left two works, in Spanish: 1. “Origen de la lengua Castellana,” Rome, 1606, 4to; 1682, fol.; to which he acknowledges his brother Joseph contributed liberally. 2. “Varias antiguedades de Espana Africa y otras provincias,” Antwerp, 1614, 4to. He also wrote a letter to pope Urban VIII. on the relics of certain martyrs, Cordova, 1630, fol., and a collection of letters on the sacrament. He had composed a “Boe'tia illustrata,” the loss of which is regretted by the Spanish antiquaries. Joseph was born in 1560, and died in 1616; but the dates of the birth and death of Bernard are not known.

, a native of Zamora, in the kingdom of Leon, towards the end of the reign of Philip II. deserves some mention, to distinguish him from the preceding. He entered when very young into the society of the Jesuits, and attained so much character on account of his learning, as to be appointed first professor at Salamanca, and was the first Jesuit on whom the university, jealous of the power and ambition of that order, conferred the degree of doctor. He died, at Salamanca in 1657. He wrote, 1. “Commentaria et disputationes in tertiam partem S. Thomas, de incarnati verbi mysteriis et perfectionibus,” Lyons, 2 vols. fol. 2. Separate treatises, “De visione et scientia Dei De voluntate Dei De reprobatione et praedestinatione,” afterwards printed together at Lyons, 1662.

, an Italian physician and botanist of Cesena, in the seventeenth century, was physician to cardinal Odoard Farnese, who appointed him superintendant of his botanic garden. He is mentioned, in the last edition of this dictionary, as the author of “Descriptio plantarum horti Farnesiani,” Rome, 1625, fol. But it is necessary to mention that Albini’s name, for whatever reason, was borrowed on this occasion, and that the work, as appears by the preface, was written by Peter Castelli, a physician at Rome.

, an English divine, was bishop of Shireburn in the time of the Saxon heptarchy, and in the eighth century. William of Malmesbury says that he was the son of Kenred, or Kenter, brother of Ina king of the West-Saxons. He was born at Caer Bladon, now Malmesbury, in Wiltshire. He had part of his education abroad in France and Italy, and part at home under Maildulphus, an Irish Scot, who had built a little monastery where Malmesbury now stands. Upon the death of Maildulphus, Aldhelm, by the help of Eleutherius bishop of Winchester, built a stately monastery there, and was himself the first abbot. When Hedda, bishop of the WestSaxons, died, the kingdom was divided into two dioceses; viz. Winchester and Shireburn, and king Ina promoted Aldhelm to the latter, comprehending Dorsetshire, Wiltshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall: he was consecrated at Rome by pope Sergius I. and Godwin tells us that he had the courage to reprove his holiness for having a bastard. Aldhelm, by the directions of a diocesan synod, wrote a book against the mistake of the Britons concerning the celebration of Easter, which brought over many of them to the catholic usage in that point. He likewise wrote a piece, partly in prose and partly in nexameter verse, in praise of virginity, dedicated to Ethelburga abbess of Barking, and published amongst Bede’s Opuscula, besides several other treatises, which are mentioned by Bale and William of Malmesbury, the latter of whom gives him the following character as a writer: “The language of the Greeks,” says he, “is close and concise, that of the Romans splendid, and that of the English pompous and swelling as for Aldhelm, he is moderate in his style; seldom makes use of foreign terms, and never without necessity; his catholic meaning is clothed with eloquence, and his most vehement assertions adorned with the colours of rhetoric: if you read him with attention, you would take him for a Grecian by his acuteness, a Roman by his elegance, and an Englishman by the pomp of his language.” He is said to have been the first Englishman who ever wrote in Latin; and, as he himself tells us in one of his treatises on metre, the first who introduced poetry into England “These things,” says he, “have I written concerning the kinds and measures of verse, collected with much labour, but whether useful I know not; though I am conscious to myself I have a right to boast as Virgil did:

William of Malmesbury tells us, that the people in Aidhelm’s time were half-barbarians, and little attentive to religious discourses: wherefore the holy man, placing himself upon a bridge, used often to stop them, and sing ballads of his own composition: he thereby gained the favour and attention of the populace, and insensibly mixing grave and religious things with those of a jocular kind, he by this means succeeded better than he could have done by austere gravity. Aldhelm lived in great esteem till his death, which happened May the 25th, in the year 709.

Such is the account that has been commonly given of this extraordinary man. We shall now advert to some circumstances upon which modern research has thrown a new light. All the accounts represent Aldhelm as having been a very considerable man for the time in which he lived. It is evident, says Dr, Henry, from his works, which are still extant, that he had read the most celebrated authors of Greece and Rome, and that he was no contemptible critic in the languages in which these authors wrote. In the different seminaries in which he was educated, he acquired such a stock of knowledge, and became so eminent for his literature, not only in England but in foreign countries, that he was resorted to by many persons from Scotland, Ireland, and France. Artville, a prince of Scotland, sent his works to Aldhelm to be examined by him, and entreated him to give them their last polish, by rubbing off their Scotch rust. Besides the instructions which Aldhelm received from Maildulphus, in France and Italy, he had part of his education, and as it would seem the most considerable part, at Canterbury, under Theodore, archbishop of that city, and Adrian, the most learned professor of the sciences, who had ever been in England. The ardour with which he prosecuted his studies at that place, is well represented in a letter written by him to Hedda, bishop of Winchester; which letter also gives a good account of the different branches of knowledge in the cultivation of which he was then engaged. These were, the Roman jurisprudence, the rules of verses ard the musical modulation of words and syllables, the doctrine of the seven divisions of poetry, arithmetic, astronomomy, and astrology. It is observable, that Aldhelm speaks in very pompous terms of arithmetic, as a high and difficult attainment: though it is now so generally taught, as not to be reckoned a part of a learned education. In opposition to what has been commonly understood, that Aldhelm was the first of the Saxons who taught his countrymen the art of Latin versification, Mr. Warton, in his History of Poetry, informs us, that Conringius, a very intelligent antiquary in this sort of literature, mentions an anonymous Latin poet, who wrote the life of Charlemagne in verse, and adds that he was the first of the Saxons that attempted to write Latin verse. But it ought to have been recollected, that Aldhelm died above thirty years before Charlemagne was born. Aldhelm’s Latin compositions, whether in prose or verse, as novelties, were deemed extraordinary performances, and excited the attention and adruiration of scholars in other countries. His skill in music has obtained for hhn a considerable place in sir John Hawkins’s History of Music.

His works are, 1. “De octo vitiis principalibus,” extant in Canisius’s Bibliotheca Palrum. 2. “Ænigmatum versus mille,” published with other of his poems by Martin Delrio at Mentz, 1601, 8vo. 3. “A book addressed to a certain king of Northumberland, named Alfrid, on various subjects.” 4. “De vita Monachorum.” 5. “De laude Sanctorum.” 6. “De Arithmetica.” 7. “De Astrologia.” 8. “On the mistake of the Britons concerning the celebration of Easter, printed by Sonius,” 1576. 9. “De laude Virginitatis,” published among Bede’s Opuscula: besides many epistles, homilies, and sonnets, in the Saxon language.

, the first bishop of Durham, was promoted to that see in the year 990, being the twelfth of the reign of king Ethelred. He was of a noble family; but, according to Simeon of Durham, more ennobled by his virtues and religious deportment. He sat about six years in the see of Lindisfarne, or Holy Island in Northumberland, during which time that island was frequently exposed to the incursions of the Danish pirates. This made him think of removing from thence; though Simeon of Durham says, he was persuaded by an admonition from heaven. However, taking with him the body of St. Cuthbert, which had been buried there about 113 years, and accompanied by all the monks and the rest of the people, he went away from Holy Island; and after wandering about some time, at last settled with his followers at Dunelm, now called Durham, where he gave rise both to the city and cathedral church. Before his arrival, Dunelm consisted only of a few scattered huts or cottages. The spot of ground was covered with a very thick wood, which the bishop, with the assistance of the people that followed him, made a shift to cut down, and clear away. After he had assigned the people their respective habitations by lot, he began to build a church of stone; which he finished in three years time, and dedicated to St. Cuthbert, placing in it the body of that saint. From that time the episcopal see, which had been placed at Lindisfarne by bishop Aidan (see Aidan), remained fixed at Durham; and the cathedral church was soon endowed with considerable benefactions by king Ethelred, and other great men.

Aldhun had a daughter named Ecgfrid, whom he gave in marriage to Ucthred, son of Waltheof earl of Northumberland, and with her, six towns belonging to the episcopal see, upon condition that he should never divorce her. But that young lord afterwards repudiating her, with a view to a nobler alliance, Aldhun received back the church lands he had given with her. This prelate educated king Ethelred’s two sons, Alfred and Edward; and, when their father was driven from his throne by Swane, king of Denmark, he conducted them, together with queen Emma, into Normandy, to duke Richard the queen’s brother. This was in the year 1017, a little before bishop Aldhun’s death; for the next year, the English having received a terrible overthrow in a battle with the Scots, the good bishop was so affected with the news, that he died a few days after, having enjoyed the prelacy twenty-nine years. RaduU phus de Diceto calls this bishop Alfhunus, and bishop Godwin, Aldwinus.

was a native of Florence, and for some time a professor of law at Pisa. Oa his return to his own country, he involved himself in the prevailing political contests; and having taken a part in opposition to the house of Medici, he was banished, and deprived of all his property. Paul III. however, received him at Rome, and appointed him advocate of the treasury and apostolic chamber. He died in 1558, aged 58, leaving several works on jurisprudence, which are enumerated by Mazzuchelli. He was the father of Hypolitus Aldobrandini, who reached the papal chair, and assumed the name of Clement VIII.

, another son of the above Sylvester, was born at Rome, where he was promoted to be secretary of the briefs after the death of Poggio in 1568. He died in the prime of life. He was the author of a translation of “Diogenes Laertius,” which was published at Rome in 1594, fol. at the expence of cardinal Peter Aldobrandini, his nephew; and also of a commentary on Aristotle’s treatise on hearing. These works have been praised by Veltori, by Buonamici, and by Casaubon. There have been several other cardinals of the same name and family.

, a native of Florence, who flourished in the fourteenth century, and died Sept. 30, 1327, was a physician of great eminence in his time, and practised principally at Sienna, whither the jealousy of his colleagues at Bologna, where he first studied, had obliged him to retire. He wrote notes on Avicenna and Galen, and on some parts of Hippocrates. The abbe Lami gives an article to his memory in his “Notices literaires,” published in 1748; and he is celebrated also in Lucques’s edition of the Eloges of illustrious Tuscans, vol. I.

, abbot of Tavistock, was promoted to the bishopric of Worcester in 1046. He was so much in favour with king Edward the Confessor, and had so much power over his mind, that he obliged him to be reconciled with the worst of his enemies, particularly with Swane, son of the earl Godwin, who had revolted against him, and came with an army to invade the kingdom. Aldred also restored the union and friendship between king Edward and Griffith king of Wales. He took afterwards a journey to Rome; and being returned into England in the year 1054, he was sent ambassador to the emperor Henry It staid a whole year in Germany, and was very honourably entertained by Herman archbishop of Cologn, from whom he learned many things relative to ecclesiastical discipline, which on his return he established in his own diocese. In 10.58, he went to Jerusalem, which no archbishop or bishop of England had ever done before him. Two years after, he returned to England; and Kinsius, archbishop York, dying the 22d of December, 1060, Aldred was elected in his stead on Christmas day following, and thought fit to keep his bishopric of Worcester with the archbishopric of Canterbury, as some of his predecessors had done. Aldred went soon after to Rome, in order to receive the pallium from the pope; he was attenc.ed by Toston, earl of Northumberland, Giso, bishop of Wells and Walter, bishop of Hereford. The pope received Joston very honourably, and made him sit by him in the synod which he held against the Simonists. He wanted to Giso and Walter their request, because they were tolerably well learned, and not accused of simony. But Aldred being by his answers found ignorant, and guilty of simony, the pope deprived him very indignantly of all his honours; so that he was obliged to return without the pallium. On his way home, he and his fellow-travellers were attacked by some robbers, who took from them all that they had. This obliged them to return to Rome; and the pope, either out of compassion, or by the threatenings of the earl of Northumberland, gave Aldred the pallium; but he was obliged to resign his bishopric of Worcester. However, as the archbishop of York had been almost entirely ruined by the many invasions of foreigners, king Edward gave the new archbishop leave to keep twelve villages or manors which belonged to the bishopric of Worcester. Edward the Confessor dying in 1066, Aldred crowned Harold his successor. He also crowned William the Conqueror, after he had made him take the following oath, viz That he would protect the holy church of God and its eaders: that he would establish and observe righteous that he would entirely prohibit and suppress all rapines and unjust judgments. He was so much in favour with the conqueror, that this prince looked upon him as a father; and, though imperious in regard to everybody else, he yet submitted to obey this archbishop; John Brompton gives us an instance of the king’s submission, which at the same time shews the prelate’s haughtiness. It happened one day, as the archbishop was at York, that the deputy-governor or lord-lieutenant going out of the city with a great number of people, met the archbishop’s servants, who came to town with several carts and horses loaded with provisions. The governor asked to whom they belonged; and they having answered they were Aldred’s servants, the governor ordered that all these provisions should be carried to the king’s store-house. The archbishop sent immediately some of his clergy to the governor, commanding him to deliver the provisions, and to make satisfaction to St. Peter, and to him the saint’s vicar, for the injury he had done them; adding, that if he refused to comply, the archbishop would make use of his apostolic authority against him (intimating that he would excommunicate him.) The governor, offended at this proud message, insulted the persons whom the archbishop had sent, and returned an answer as haughty as the message. Aldred fhen went to London to make his complaint to the king; but even here he acted with his wonted insolence; for meeting the king in the church of St. Peter at Westminster, he spoke to him in these words “Hearken, Q William when thou wast but a foreigner, and God, tQ punish the sins of this nation, permitted thee to become master of it, after having shed a great deal of blood, I consecrated thee, and put the crown upon thy head with blessings; but now, because thou hast deserved it, I pronounce a curse over thee, instead of a blessing, since thou art become the persecutor of God’s church, and of his ministers, and hast broken the promises and oaths which thou madestto me before St. Peter’s altar.” The king, terrified at this discourse, fell upon his knees, and humbly begged the prelate to tell him, by what crime he had deserved so severe a sentence. The noblemen, who were present, were enraged against the archbishop, and loudly cried out, he deserved death, or at least banishment, for having offered such an insult to his sovereign; and they pressed him with threatenings to raise the king from the ground. But the prelate, unmoved at all 'this, answered calmly, “Good men, let him lie there, for he is not at Aldred’s but at St. Peter’s feet; let him feel St. Peter’s power, since he dared to injure his vicegerent.” Having thus reproved the nobles by his episcopal authority, he vouchsafed to take the king by the hand, and to tell him the ground of his complaint. The king humbly excused himself, by saying he had been ignorant of the whole matter; and oegged of the noblemen to entreat the prelate, that he might take off the curse he had pronounced, and change it into a blessing. Aldred was at last prevailed upon to favour the king thus far; but not without the promise of several presents and favours, and only after the king had granted him to take such a revenge on the governor as he thought fit. Since that time (adds the historian) none of the noblemen ever dared to offer the least injury. The Danes having made an invasion in the north of England in 1068, under the command of Harold and Canute the sons of king Swane, Aldred was so much afflicted at it, that he died of grief on the llth of September in that same year, having besought God that he might not see the desolation of his church and country.

, bishop of Mans, the son of a Saxon gentleman and of Geraldine of Bavaria, both of royal descent, but subjects of the French empire, was born about the year 800, and spent his early years in the court of Charlemagne. Afterwards his inclination for the church prevented his accepting those employments in the state which Louis le Debonnaire would have conferred upon him. He went to Metz, and took orders, and the emperor recalled him and appointed him to be his chaplain and confessor. In the year 832 he was made bishop of Mans, where he remained quietly until the death of Louis, when he was driven thence by Lothaire, and not restored until the year 841, when Charles II. defeated that sovereign. Aldric afterwards employed his time in restoring ecclesiastical discipline, and in improving the morals of his diocese by his example. He died of the palsy Jan. 7, 856. He compiled a “Collection of Canons” for the use of his clergy, taken from the councils and decretals of the popes; but his most valuable work, his “Capitularies,” is lost. What remains of his writings was published by Baluze, and his life was written by Bollandus.

, an eminent scholar and divine, was son of Henry Aldrich of Westminster, gentleman, and born there in 1647. He was educated at Westminster under the celebrated Busby, and admitted of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1662. Having been elected student, he took the degree of M. A. in April 1669; and, entering soon after into orders, he became an eminent tutor in his college. Feb. 1681, he was installed canon of Christ Church; and in May accumulated the degrees of B. and D. D. In the controversy with the papists under James II. he bore a considerable part; and Burnet ranks him among those eminent clergj T men who “examined all the points of popery with a solidity of judgment, a clearness of arguing, a depth of learning, and a vivacity of writing, far beyond any thing which had before that time appeared in our language.” In short, he had rendered himself so conspicuous, that, at the Revolution, when Massey, the popish dean of Christ Church, fled beyond sea, the deanry was conferred upon him, and he was installed in it June 17, 1689. In this station he behaved in a most exemplary manner, zealously promoting learning, religion, and virtue in the college where he presided. In imitation of his predecessor bishop Fell, he published generally every year some Greek classic, or portion of one, as a gift to the students of his house. He wrote also a system of logic, entitled “Artis Logicae compendium;” and many other things. The publication of Clarendon’s History was committed to him and bishop Sprat; and they were charged by Oldmixon with having altered and interpolated that work; but the charge was sufficiently refuted by Atterbury. In the same year that he became dean of Christ Church he was appointed one of the ecclesiastical commissioners who were to prepare matters for introducing an alteration in some parts of the church service, and a comprehension of the dissenters. But he, in conjunction with Dr. Mew, bishop of Winchester, Dr. Sprat, bishop of Rochester, and Dr. Jane, regius professor of divinity in the university of Oxford, either did not appear at the meetings of the committee, or soon withdrew from them. They excepted to the manner of preparing matters by a special commission, as limiting the convocation, and imposing upon it, and they were against all alterations whatever. Besides attainments in polite literature, classical learning, and an elegant turn for Latin poetry, of which some specimens are in the Musae Anghcanae, he possessed also great skill in architecture and music; so great, that, as the connoisseurs say, his excellence in either would alone have made him famous to posterity. The three siues of the quadrangle of Christ Church, Oxford, called Peck water-square, were designed by him; as was also the elegant chapel of Trinity college, and the church of All-Saints in the High-street; to the erection of which Dr. Ratcliff, at his solicitation, was a liberal contributor. He cultivated also music, that branch of it particularly which related both to his profession and his office. To this end he made a noble collection of church music, and formed also a design of writing a history of the science; having collected materials, which are still extant in the library of his own college. His abilities indeed as a musician have caused him to be ranked among the greatest masters of the science: he composed many services for the church, which are well known; as are also his anthems, to the number of near 20. In the “Pleasant Musical Companion,” printed 1726, are two catches of his; the one, “Hark the bonny Christ Church Bells,” the other entitled “A Smoking Catch;” for he himself was, it seems, a great smoaker. Besides the preferments already mentioned, he was rector of Wem in Shropshire. He was elected prolocutor of the convocation in February 1702, on the death of Dr. Woodward, dean of Sarum. He died at Christ Church, December 14, 1710. The tracts he published in the popish controversy were two, “Upon the Adoration of our Saviour in the Eucharist,” in answer to O. Walker’s discourses on the same subject, printed in 1687, and 1688, 4to. We have not been able to get an account of the Greek authors he published, except these following: 1. Xenophontis Memorabilium, lib. 4, 1690, 8vo. 2. Xenophontis Sermo de Agesilao, 1691, 8vo. 3. Aristese Historia 72 Interpretum, 1692, 8vo. 4. Xenophon, de re equestri, 1693, 8vo. 5.Epictetus etTheophrastus, 1707, 8vo. 6. Platonis, Xenopliontis, Plutarchi, Luciani, Symposia, 1711, 8vo. This last was published in Greek only, the rest in Greek and Latin, and all printed at Oxford. His logic is already mentioned. He printed also Elements of Architecture, which was elegantly translated and published in 1789, 8vo. with architectural plates, by the rev. Philip Smyth, LL. B. fellow of New College, and now rector of Worthing, Shropshire. He had a hand in Gregory’s Greek Testament, printed at Oxford in 1703, folio; and some of his notes are printed in Havercamp’s edition of Josephus.

, bishop of Carlisle in the reigns of Henry VIII. Edward VI. and queen Mary, was born at Burnham in Buckinghamshire; was educated at Eton, and elected a scholar of King’s college, Cambridge in 1507, where he took the degree of M. A. afterwards became proctor of the university, schoolmaster of Eton, fellow of the college, and at length provost. In 1529 he retired to Oxford, where he was incorporated B. D. About the same time he was made archdeacon of Colchester. In 1534 he was installed canon of Windsor, and the same year he was appointed register of the most noble order of the garter. July 18, 1537, he was consecrated bishop of Carlisle. He wrote several pieces, particularly 1. “Epistola ad Gulielmum Hormannum.” 2. “Epigrammata varia.” 3. “Several Resolutions concerning the Sacraments.” 4. “Answers to certain Queries concerning the Abuses of the Mass.” He wrote also resolutions of seme questions relating to bishops and priests, and other matters tending to the reformation of the church begun by king Henry VIII. Leland was his familiar acquaintance, and gives him a 'high character for parts and learning. The prelate died March 25, 1555, at Horncastle, in Lincolnshire, which was a house belonging to the bishops of Carlisle.

When he was senior proctor, he was employed by the university to write three letters to the king, and the following curious entry in the proctor’s book for 1527, proves this fac-L “Magistro Aldryg pro tribus literis missis ad Dominum regem, IDs.” He was a correspondent of Erasmus, who termed him, when young, “blandae eloquentiae juvenis,” and appears to have associated with him during his residence at Cambridge. Fuller is of opinion that he belongs to the light rather than the dark side of the reformation; but Strype seems to doubt whether he was well affected to this great change. He was certainly, however, not a persecutor; and the mildness or timidity of his disposition may account for his retaining his offices during reigns of opposite principles. It yet remains to be noticed that in 1523, he was one of the Cambridge university-preachers, who were sent out by the university to preach in different parts of the nation, as the judges now go their circuits; there being at. that time very few men of ability in any county.

, one of the most laborious naturalists of the sixteenth century, and professor at Bologna, was born in 1527, of a noble family in that city, which still exists. He employed the greater part of his long life, and all his fortune, in travelling into the most distant countries, and collecting every thing curious in their natural productions. Minerals, metals, plants, and animals, were the objects of his curious researches; but he applied himself chiefly to birds, and was at great expence in having figures of them drawn from the life. Aubert le Mire says, that he gave a certain painter, famous in that art, a yearly salary of 200 crowns, for 30 years and upwards; and that he employed at his own expence Lorenzo Bennini and Cornelius Swintus, as well as the famous engraver Christopher Coriolanus. These expences ruined his fortune, and at length reduced him to the utmost necessity; and it is said that he died blind in an hospital at Bologna, May 4, 1605. Mr. Bayle observes, that antiquity does not furnish us with an instance of a design so extensive and so laborious as that of Aldrovandus, with regard to natural history; that Pliny indeed has treated of more subjects, but only touches them lightly, whereas Aldrovandus has collected all he could find.

His compilation, or, what at least was compiled upon his plan, consists of several volumes in folio, some of which were printed after his death. He himself published his Ornithology, or History of Birds, in three folio volumes, in 1599; and his seven books of Insects, which make another volume of the same size. The volume of Serpents, three of Quadrupeds, one of Fishes, that of exsanguineous Animals, the history of Monsters, with the Supplement to that of Animals, the treatise on Metals, and the Dendrology, or History of Trees, were published at several times after his death, by the care of different persons.

The volume “of Serpents” was put in order, and sent to the press by Bartholomseus Ambrosinus; that “of Quadrupeds which divide the Hoof” was first digested by John Cornelius Uterverius, and afterwards by Thomas Dempster, and published by Marcus Antouius Bernia and Jerome Tamburini; that of “Quadrupeds which do not divide the Hoof,” and that “of Fishes,” were digested by Uterverius, and published by Tamburini; that “of Quadrupeds with Toes or Claws,” was compiled by Ambrosinus; the “History of Monsters,” and the Supplements, were collected by the same author, and published at the charge of Marcus Antonius Bernia; the “Dendrology” is the work of Ovidius Montalbanus. “Aldrovandus,” says l'abbé Gallois, “is not the author of several books published under his name; but it has happened to the collection of natural history, of Which those books are part, as it does to those great rivers which retain during their whole course the name they bore at their first rise, though in the end the greatest part of the water which they carry into the sea does not belong to them, but to other rivers which they receive: for as the first six volumes of this great work were by Aldrovandus, although the others were composed since his death by different authors, they have still been attributed to him, either because they were a continuance of his design, or because the writers of them used his memoirs, or because his method was followed, or perhaps that these last volumes might be the better received under so celebrated a name.” All the above-mentioned volumes were reprinted at Francfort, but it is difficult to procure them all of the same edition. Those on the minerals are more scarce than the others, and the volume which contains the monsters should have also the supplement to the history of animals, which is wanting in most copies. Aldrovandus has been considered by modern naturalists as an enormous compiler without taste or genius, and much of his plan and materials is borrowed from Gessner. Buffon says, with justice, that his works might be reduced to a tenth part, if all that is useless and superfluous were expunged. When, adds that eminent naturalist, Aldrovandi treats of the natural history of the cock or the ox, he gives you all that has been said of cocks and oxen; all that the ancients have thought, all that can be imagined of their virtues, their character, their courage, and their employments; all the stories which good women have told, all the miracles performed by them in certain religions, all the subjects of superstition which they have furnished, all the comparisons which the poets have given, all the attributes which certain nations have discovered in them, all the hieroglyphics in which they have been represented, all the armorial bearings in which they are seen; in a word, every history and every fable that has been related of cocks and oxen. Buffon, however, allows that if he is redundant, he is exact in important points; and in his works are unquestionably many curious accounts not easily to be found elsewhere.

, a Roman cardinal, and one of the most determined enemies to the reformation, was the son of Francis Aleander, a physician at Motta in the duchy of Concordia, and descended from the ancient counts of Laodno. He was born in 1480, and at thirteen years of age went to Venice for education, which was interrupted by a dangerous illness; but on his recovery, he went for some time to the academy at Pordenoue, and afterwards again to Venice. Returning to his native place, Motta, he had the courage to attack and prove the ignorance of the public teacher of that place, and was elected in his room. Such was his growing reputation afterwards, both at Venice and Padua, that Alexander VI. determined to invite him to Rome, and appoint him secretary to his son Caesar Borgia, butanother illness obliged Aleander to return to Venice, after he had set out; and the pope dying soon afterwards, he returned to his studies, and in his twenty-fourth year was reputed one of the most learned men of his age. He knew Latin, Greek, and some of the oriental languages intimately. About this time Aldus Manutius dedicated to him Homer’s Iliad, as to a man whose acquirements were superior to those of any person with whom he was acquainted. At Venice, Aleander formed an intimacy with Erasmus, and assisted him in the new edition of his Adagia, which was printed at the Aldine press in 1508, and is the most correct. Erasmus for some time kept up this intimacy, but took a different part in the progress of the reformation; and although he speaks respectt'uJly of Aleander’s learning, frequently alludes to his want of veracity and principle, accusations of which Luther has borne the blame almost exclusively in all the popish accounts of ALeander.

In the above year Aleander was invited by Louis XI L king of France, to a professor’s chair in the university of Paris, notwithstanding the statutes which excluded foreign­$rs from that honour; but, after residing there some years, he was alarmed by the appearance of the plague, and went into the country of France, and gave lectures on the Greek language at Orleans, Blois, and other places. At length be took up his residence at Liege, was preferred to a canonry of the cathedral, and to the chancellorship of the diocese, and here also he gave his lectures on the Greek tongue, for two years, with distinguished success. In 1517, the prince bishop sent him to Rome, where he soon recommended himself to Leo X. who requested the princebishop that Aleander might he permitted to quit his service, and enter into that of the Roman church. The bishop, who was then anxious to be made a cardinal, and hoped that Aleander might promote that favourite object, readily consented: and Aleander was first appointed secretary to Julio de Medici, an office at that time of the highest trust; and in 1519, was made librarian of the Vatican. In 1521, he was sent as nuncio to the imperial diet at Worms, where he harangued against the doctrines of Luther for three hours, and with great success, as Luther was not present to answer him; but afterwards, when Luther was permitted to speak, Aleander refused to dispute with him; and yet, with the tyranny and cowardice of a genuine persecutor, obtained an order that his books should be burnt, and his person proscribed, and himself drew up the edict against him. On this occasion, his conduct drew upon him the just censure, not only of the decided reformers, but of his friend Erasmus, who condemned the violence of his zeal with great asperity. He did not, however, become the less acceptable to the church of Rome. After pope Leo’s death, Clement VII. gave him the archbishopric of Brindisi and Oria, and he was appointed apostolic nuncio to Francis I. whom he attended at the battle of Pavia in 1525, where he was made prisoner along with the king by the Spaniards. After his release, he was employed in several embassies, and in 1538, he was promoted to the rank of cardinal by Paul III. and was intended to be president at the council of Trent; but his death, which took place Feb. 1, 1542, prevented this important appointment. His death is said to have been accelerated by a too frequent use of medicine. His library, a very considerable one, he bequeathed to the monastery of S. Maria del Orto in Venice; and it was afterwards transferred to the canons of S. Georgio, and from them to the library of S. Marco at Venice.

Aleander’s memory is now to be respected only as a man of learning. He wrote a considerable number of works, the greater part of which have not been published. Those which have, are but insignificant: 1. “Lexicon GraecoLatinum,” Paris, 1512, fol.; a work compiled by six of his scholars, and revised, corrected, and enriched by notes from his pen. 2. “Tabulae sane utiles Graecarum musarum adyta compendio ingredi volentibus,” Argent. 1515, 4to, often reprinted. It is, however, only an abridgement of Chrysoloras’s Greek grammar. “De Concilio habendo,” a work of which he wrote only four books, and which was consulted as authority in the proceedings of the council of Trent, remains among his unpublished writings; and in the Vatican there is another manuscript, which Mazzuchelli considers as his best. It contains letters and papers respecting his offices of nuncio and legate, and his transactions against the heresies, as they are called, of Luther; and their importance appears by the use which cardinal Pallavicino made of them in his history of the council of Trent. Aleander ranks likewise among Latin poets from his verses “Ad Julium et Neasram,” published in Toscanus’s collection, entitled “Carmina illustrium poetarum Italorum.” The reason given by his admirers for the few works published by him, is his frequent and active employments in the church, and his being more familiar with extempore eloquence than with composition.

, called the younger, to distinguish him from his grand-uncle the cardinal, was born, according to La Motte, in 1574, in the principality of Friuli, and studied at Padua, where he became so distinguished in early life, that Baillet has classed him among his “Enfants celebres par leurs etudes.” He afterwards studied law with equal reputation, and in his twenty-sixth year published his commentaries on the institutions of Caius. When he went to Rome, he was employed as secretary under cardinal Octavio Bandini, and discharged this office with great honour for almost 20 years. He was one of the first members of the Academy of Humourists, wrote a learned treatise in Italian on the device of the society, ftnd displayed his genius on many different subjects.

Urban VIII. had a great esteem for Aleander, and endeavoured to draw him from the service of cardinal Bandini, and to engage him with the Barberini; in which he at length succeeded, and Aleander became secretary to cardinal Francis Barberini. He accompanied him to Rome, when he went there in the character of legate a latere; and bore the fatigues of this long journey with great alacrity, notwithstanding his delicate constitution and infirm state of health. He did not escape so well from the luxuries of the table: for having entered into an agreement with some of his intimate friends, that they should treat one another by turns every three days, he indulged to an excess on one of those occasions, which threw him into a disorder, of which he died, March 9, 1629. Cardinal Barberini gave him a magnificent funeral, at which the Academy of Humourists assisted, carrying his corpse to the grave: and Caspar de Simeonibus made his funeral oration.