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, only son of William, first earl of Northampton, by Elizabeth, sole daughter and heiress of sir John Spencer, alderman of London, was born in 1601. He was made knight of the bath in 1616, when Charles, duke of York (afterwards Charles I.) was created prince of Wales; with whom he became a great favourite. In 1622 he accompanied him into Spain, in quality of master of his robes and wardrobe; and had the honour to deliver all his presents, which amounted, according to computation, to 64,000l. At the coronation of that prince he attended as master of the robes; and in 1639, waited on his majesty in his expedition against the Scots. He was likewise one of those noblemen, who, in May 1641, resolved to defend the protestant religion, expressed in the doctrine of the church of England, and his majesty’s royal person, honour, and estate as also the power and privilege of parliaments, and the lawful rights and liberties of the subject. In 1642 he waited upon his majesty at York, and after the king set up his standard at Nottingham, was one of the first who appeared in arms for him. He did him signal services, supporting his cause with great zeal in the counties of Warwick, Stafford, and Northamptom. He was killed, March 19, 1643, in a battle fought on Hopton-heath, near Stafford; in which, though the enemy was routed, and much of their artillery taken, yet his lordship’s horse being unfortunately shot under him, he was somehow left en­“compassed by them. When he was on his feet, he killed with his own hand the colonel of foot, who first came up to him; notwithstanding which, after his head-piece was struck off with the butt-end of a musquet, they offered him quarter, which he refused, saying,” that he scorned to accept quarter from such base rogues and rebels as they were:“on this he was killed by a blow with an halbert on the hinder part of his head, receiving at the same time another deep wound in his face. The enemy refused to deliver up his body to the young earl of Northampton, unless he would return, in exchange for it, all the ammunition, prisoners, and cannon he had taken in the late battle: but at last it was delivered, and buried in Allhallows church in Derby, in the same vault with his relation the old countess of Shrewsbury. His lordship married Mary, daughter of sir Francis Beaumont, knt. by whom he had six sons and two daughters. The sons are all said to have inherited their father’s courage, loyalty, and virtue particularly sir William, the third son, who had the command of a regiment, and performed considerable service at the taking of Banbury, leading his men on to three attacks, during which he had two horses shot under him. Upon the surrender of the town and castle, he was made lieutenantgovernor under his father; and on the 19th of July, 1644, when the parliament’s forces came before the town, he returned answer to their summons;” That he kept the castle for his majesty, and as long as one man was left alive in it, willed them not to expect to have it delivered:“also on the 16th of September, they sending him another summons, he made answer,” That he had formerly answered them, and wondered they should send again." He was so vigilant in his station, that he countermined the enemy eleven times, and during the siege, which held thirteen weeks, never went into bed, but by his example so animated the garrison, that though they had but two horses left uneaten, they would never suffer a summons to be sent to them, after the preceding answer was delivered. At length, his brother the earl of Northampton raised the siege on the 26th of October, the very day of the month, on which both town and castle had been surrendered to the king two years before. Sir William continued governor of Banbury, and performed many signal services for the king, till his majesty left Oxford, and the whole kingdom was submitting to the parliament; and then, on the 8th of May, 1646, surrendered upon honourable terms. In 1648, he was major-general of the king’s forces at Colchester, where he was so ni'ich taken notice of for his admirable behaviour, that Oliver Cromwell called him the sober young man, and the godly cavalier. At the restoration of king Charles II. he was made one of the privy-council, and master-general of the ordnance; and died October 19, 16h3, in the 39th year of his age. There is an epitaph to his memory in the church of Compton- Winyate. Henry, the sixth and youngest, who was afterwards bishop of London, is the subject of the next article.

, an eminent prelate of the church of England, was the youngest son of the preceding Spencer second earl of Northampton, and born at Compton in 1632. Though he was but ten years old when his father was killed, yet he received an education suitable to his quality; and when he had gone through the grammarschools, was entered a nobleman of Queen’s college, Oxford, in 1649. He continued there till about 1652; and after having lived some little time with his mother, travelled into foreign countries. Upon the restoration of Charles II. he returned to England; and became a cornet in a regiment of horse, raised about that time for the king’s guard: but soon quitting that post, he dedicated himself to the service of the church; and accordingly went to Cambridge, where he was created M, A. Then entering into orders, when about thirty years of age, and obtaining a grant of the next vacant canonry of Christ church in Oxford, he was admitted canon-commoner of that college, in the beginning of 1666, by the advice of Dr. John Fell, then dean of the same. In April of the same year, he was incorporated M. A. at Oxford, and possessed at that time the rectory of Cottenham in Cambridgeshire, worth about 500l. per annum. In 1667, he was made master of St. Crosse’s hospital near Winchester. On May 24, 1669, he was installed canon of Christ church, in the room of Dr. Heylin deceased; and two days after took the degree of B. D. to which, June 28 following, he added that of doctor. He was preferred to the bishopric of Oxford in December 1674; and about a year after was made dean of the chapel royal, and was also translated to the see of London.

While this matter was in dependence, the princess of Orange thought it became her to interpose in the bishop’s favour; and wrote to the king, earnestly begging him to be gentle tp the bishop, who she could not think would offend willingly. She also wrote to the bishop, expressing the great share she took in the trouble he was fallen into; as did also the prince. The king wrote an answer to the princess, reflecting severely on the bishop, not without some sharpness on her for meddling in such matters. The bishop in the mean time acquiesced in his sentence; but being suspended only as a bishop, and remaining still whole in his other capacities, he made another stand against the king, as one of the governors of the Charter-house, in refusing to admit one Andrew Popham, a papist, into the first pensioner’s place in that hospital. While he was thus sequestered from his episcopal office, he applied himself to the improvement of his garden at Fulham; and having a great genius -for botany, enriched it with a variety of curious plants, domestic and exotic*. His suspension, however, was so flagrant a piece of arbitrary power, that the prince of Orange, in his declaration, could not omit taking notice of it; and when there was an alarm of his highness’s coming over, the court was willing to make the bishop reparation, by restoring him, as they did on Sept. 23, 1688, to his episcopal function. But he made no haste to resume his charge, and to thank the king for his restoration; which made some conjecture, and, as appeared afterwards with good reason, that he had no mind to be restored in that manner, and that he knew well enough what had been doing in Holland. On Oct. 3, 1688, however, he waited upon king James, with the archbishop of Canterbury, and seven other bishops, when they suggested to his majesty such advice as they thought conducive to his interest, but this had no effect. The first part the bishop acted in the revolution, which immediately ensued, was the conveying, jointly with the earl of Dorset, the princess Anne of Denmark safe from London to Nottingham; lest she, in the present confusion of affairs, might have been sent away into France, or put under restraint, because the prince, heir consort, had left king James, and was gone over to the prince of Orange.

At length, after eight years 1 serious deliberation upon the nature and lawfulness of conformity, his conscience was satisfied, and he resolved to comply in all parts; and in particular with that about which he had probably most scruple, the being re-ordained. To this, however, he consented, and the ceremony was performed Sept. 28, 1670, by Reynolds bishop of Norwich; whose daughter he had married in August 1651, and by whom he had six sons and as many daughters. Preferments were offered him immediately, and the same year he was elected minister of St. Mary Aldermanbury, in London; but, having spent some years in the town of Northampton, where he was much beloved, he chose rather to accept the invitation of his neighbours to remain among them; and Dr. Simon Ford, who was then minister of All-saints in Northampton, going to St. Mary’s Aldermanbury, he was nominated to succeed him. On Sept. 20, 1675, he had the mortification to see the greatest part of his parish, together with his church, burnt to the ground, though providentially his own house escaped. In 1676, the archdeaconry of Norwich becoming vacant, the bishop offered him that preferment, with this singular compliment, “I do not expect thanks from you, but I will be very thankful to you, if yon will accept of it.” He accepted it after some deliberation, and discharged the office worthily, as long as health permitted him. Dec. 3, 1681, he was installed a prebendary in the church of Worcester. The earl of Radnor, an old friend and contemporary of his at Exeter college, asked it for him from Charles 11. in these terms: “Sir, I come to beg a preferment of you for a very deserving person, who never sought any thing for himself:” and upon naming him, the king very kindly consented. In 1686, after his eyes had been for some time weak, he lost his sight entirely: but he did not die till March 12, 1693, when he was in his 86th year. He was buried in his own parish church of All-saints in Northampton, where a monument was erected over him by his widow, with a suitable inscription.

The greater part of the last twenty years of his life was spent in ease and retirement; but towards the end of it, he was much afflicted with gout, which brought on a gradual decay. It was for this, that in the summer of 1728, he went to Bath for the benefit of the waters, where he had the misfortune to be overturned in his chariot; from which time he complained of a pain in his side, which was supposed to arise from some inward bruise. Upon his return to London, his health declined more and more; and he died at his house in Surry-street in the Strand, Jan. 19, 1729. On the 26th, his corpse lay in state in the Jerusalem chamber; whence the same evening it was carried with great solemnity into Henry Vllth’s chapel at Westminster, and afterwards interred in the abbey. The pall was supported by the duke of Bridgewater, earl of Godolphin, lord Cobham, lord Wilmington, the hon. George Berkeley, esq. and brigadier-general Churchill; and colonel Congreve followed as chief mourner. Some time after, a neat and elegant monument was erected to his memory*, 'y^ Henrietta duchess of Marlborough, to whom he be­* It is remarkable that on this mo- thinking that he was one of his counritmient he is s>ai<] to he only fifty-six trymen (an Irishman). Jacob only,

, a physician and learned writer, was descended of an ancient family in Ireland, and born in the county of Kerry about 1666. His family being of the popish religion, he was not educated regularly in the grammar-schools or university, but was assisted by private tutors, and when he grew up, applied himself to the study of physic. About 1686 he went to France, and resided for some time in the university of Montpelier; and from thence to Paris, where he distinguished himself in his profession, particularly in the branches of anatomy and chemistry. He professed himself desirous of travelling; and as there were two sons of the high chancellor of Poland then on the point of returning to their own country, it was thought expedient that they should take that long journey under the care and inspection of Connor. He accordingly conducted them very safely to Venice, where, having an opportunity of curing the honourable William Legge, afterwards earl of Dartmouth, of a fever, he accompanied him to Padua; whence he went through Tyrol, Bavaria, and Austria, down the Danube, to Vienna; and after having made some stay at the court of the emperor Leopold, passed through Moravia and Silesia to Cracow, and thence in eight days to Warsaw. He was well received at the court of king John Sobieski, and was afterwards made his physician, a, very extraordinary preferment for a young man of only twenty-eight. But his reputation in the court of Poland was raised by the judgment he made of the duchess of Radzevil’s distemper, which the physicians of the court pronounced to be an ague, from which she might easily be recovered by the bark; and Connor insisted, that she had an abscess in her liver, and that her case was desperate. As this lady was the king’s only sister, his prediction made a great noise, more especially when it was justified by the event; for she not only died within a month, but, upon the opening of her body, the doctor’s opinion of her malady was fully verified. Great as Connor’s fame was in Poland, he did not propose to remain longer there than was requisite to finish his inquiries into the natural history, and other curiosities of that kingdom; and foreseeing the king’s decease, and that he had no prospects of advantage afterwards, he resolved to quit that country, and to return to England, for which a very advantageous opportunity occurred. The king had an only daughter, the princess Teresa Cunigunda, who hud espoused the Elector of Bavaria by proxy in August 1694. As she was to make a journey from Warsaw to Brussels, of near 1000 miles, and in the midst of winter, it was thought necessary that she should be attended by a physician. Connor procured himself to be nominated to that employment; and, after reaching Brussels, took leave of the princess, set out for Holland^ and thence to England, where he arrived in Feb. 1695.

, a learned divine and prelate of the church of England, was born at Pinhoe, near Exeter, on the 31st of January, 1691-2. His father was the rev. John Conybeare, vicar of Pinhoe; and his mother, Grace Wilcocks, was the daughter of a substantial gentleman farmer of that place. At a proper age, he was sent to the free-school of Exeter for grammatical education, where Hallet and Foster, afterwards two eminent dissenting divines, were his contemporaries. On the 23d of February, 1707-8, Mr. Conybeare was admitted a battler of Exeter college, Oxford, under the tuition of Mr. Thomas Kennel, afterwards Dr. Kennel, many years rector of Drew’s Teington, Pevon. Mr. Conybeare, on his coming to the university, was, according to the language of that place, chum with Mr. Richard Harding, who was elected fellow of Exeter college in 1709, and died rector of Marwood in Devonshire, in 1782, in the ninety-fifth year of his age. How early our young student obtained the esteem of the learned society with which he was connected, appears from his having been chosen on the 30th of June, 1710, and admitted on the 8th of July following, a probationary fellow of his college, upon sir William Petre’s foundation, in the room of Mr. Daniel Osborrie. When he was proposed as a candidate, it was only with the design of recommending him to future notice; but such was the sense entertained of his extraordinary merit, that he was made the object of immediate election. Mr. Harding used to say, that Mr. Conybeare had every way the advantage of him, excepting in seniority; and that he should have had no chance in a competition with him, if they had both been eligible at the same time. The patronage of Dr. Ilennel, Mr. Conybeare' s worthy tutor, concurred with his own desert, in bringing him forward thus early to academical advantages. On the 17th of July, 1713, he was admitted to the degree of bachelor of arts; and at the next election of college officers, upon the 30th of June, 1714, he was appointed praelector, or moderator, in philosophy. On the 19th of December following, he received deacon’s orders from the hanclaof Dr. William Talbot, bishop of Oxford; and on the 2rikof May, 1716, he was ordained priest by sir Jonathan Trelawny, bishop of Winchester. On the 16th of April, 1716, he proceeded to the degree of master of arts; soon after which he entered upon the curacy of Fetcham, in Surry, where he continued about a year. He was advised to this change of scene for the benefit of his health, which was always delicate, and had been greatly impaired by the intenseness of his application. Upon his return from Fetcham to Oxford, he became a tutor in his own college, and was much noticed in the university as a preacher. In the beginning of the year 1722, he published a sermon, which he had delivered before the university, on the 24th of December preceding, from Hebrews ii. 4, entitled “The nature, possibility, and certainty of Miracles, &c.” This discourse was so well received, that it went through four editions. Mr. Conybeare was hence encouraged to commit to the press a second sermon, from 1 Corinthians xiii. 12, which he had preached before the university, on the 21st of October, 1724, and the title of which was, “The Mysteries of the Christian Religion credible.” It is probable, that the reputation our author gained by these discourses, recommended him to the notice of the bishop of London (Dr. Gibson), who appointed him one of his majesty’s preachers at Whitehall, upon the first establishment of that institution. The esteem in which his abilities and character were held, procured him, also, the favour of the lord chancellor Macclesfield, who, in May 1724, presented him to the rectory of St. Clement’s in Oxford; a preferment of no great value, but which was convenient to iiim from his constant residence at that place, and from its being compatible with his fellowship. In 1725, he was chosen senior proctor of the university, which office he served in conjunction with Mr. Barnaby Smyth, fellow of Corpus-Christi college, and a scholar of eminence. In the same year, Mr. Conybeare was called upon to preach a visitation sermon before the bishop of Oxford, at whose request it was published, under the title of “The Case of Subscription to Articles of Religion considered,” and obtained no small degree of celebrity, being referred to in the controversy relating to subscription. The position of Mr. Conybeare is, that “every one who subscribes the articles of religion, does thereby engage, not only not to dispute or contradict them; but his subscription amounts to an approbation of, and an assent to, the truth of the doctrines therein contained, in the very sense in which the compilers are supposed to have understood them.” Mr. Conybeare’s next publication was an assize sermon, preached at St. Mary’s, Oxford, in 1727, from Ezra vii. 26, and entitled “The Penal sanctions of laws considered.” This discourse was dedicated by him to the honourable Charles Talbot, at that time solicitor-general, afterwards lord high chancellor of Great Britain, who had honoured our author with the care of his two eldest sons, Mr. Charles Talbot, celebrated by the poet Thomson, and the late earl Talbot, steward of his majesty’s household. On the llth of July, 1728, Mr. Conybeare was admitted to the degree of bachelor of divinity; and on the 24th of January following, he took his doctor’s degree. In the year 1729, he again appeared from the press, in a sermon that had been preached before the lord mayor and aldermen at St. Paul’s cathedral, and which was entitled ^The Expediency of a Divine Revelation represented.“It was accompanied with a dedication to bishop Talbot, father of the solicitor-general. From Dr. Conybeare’s introduction to this family, and the reputation he had acquired as a divine, it was expected that he would soon have been promoted to some dignity in the church. But the good bishop was taken off before he had a proper opportunity of carrying his benevolent intentions in our author’s favour into execution. In 1730, the headship of Exeter college becoming vacant, by the death of Dr. Hole, Dr. Conybeare was chosen to succeed him. His competitor, on this occasion, was the rev. Mr. Stephens, vicar of St. Andrew’s, Plymouth, a truly worthy clergyxpan, and the author of several ingenious discourses, Nevertheless, as he had retired early from the society, he could not be supposed to carry such weight with him as Dr. Conybeare, who had resided constantly in the college. In this year Dr. Tindal’s famous deistical book had appeared, entitled” Christianity as old as the Creation, or the Gospel a Republication of the Law of Nature.“This work excited the greatest attention, and drew forth the pens of some of the ablest divines of the kingdom, both in the church of PZngland, and among the protestant dissenters. Bishop Gibson, who had himself engaged in the controversy in his” Pastoral Letters,“encouraged Dr. Conybeare to undertake the task of giving a full and particular answer to Tindal’s production. Accordingly, he published in 1732, his” Defence of Revealed Religion,“Londoq, 8vo, by which he gained great credit to himself, and performed an eminent service to the cause of Christianity. In his dedication to the learned prelate now mentioned, he observes, that if he has not succeeded in his book according to his wishes, he may plead that it was drawn up amidst a variety of interruptions, and under a bad state of health.” This,“says he,” will in some sort excuse the author, though it may detract from the performance.“But Dr. Conybeare’s work did not stand in need of an apology. It is distinguished by the perspicuity of its method, and the strength of its reasoning; and is, indeed, one of the ablest vindications of revelation which England has produced. So well was the work received, that the third edition of it was published in 1733. Dr. Warburton justly styles it one of the best reasoned books in the world. It is likewise recommended by the temper and candour with which it is composed. Dr. Conybeare' s Defence will always maintain its rank, and perhaps be thought to sustain the first place among the four capital answers which Tindal received. The other three were, Foster’s” Usefulness, Truth, and Excellency of the Christian Revelation;“Leland’s” Answer to a late book, entitled Christianity as old as the Creation;“and Mr. Simon Browne’s” Defence of the Religion of Nature and the Christian Revelation."

, third daughter of sir Anthony Cooke, was born about the year 1529, and having enjoyed the same liberal education which was bestowed upon her sisters, was equally happy in improving it, and gained the applause of the most eminent scholars of the age. It was observed by sir John Harrington, that if Madam Vittoria, an Italian lady, deserved to have her name celebrated and transmitted to posterity by Ariosto, for writing some verses, in the manner of an epitaph, upon her husband, after his decease; no less commendation was due to the lady before us, who did as much and more, not only for two husbands, but for her son, daughter, brother, sister, and venerable old friend Mr. Noke of Shottesbrooke, in the Greek, Latin, and English tongues. She was married, first, to sir Thomas Hobby, and accompanied him to France, when he went there as ambassador from queen Elizabeth, and died there July 13, 1566. His disconsolate lady having erected a chapel in the chancel of the church at Bisham, in Berkshire, carefully deposited the remains of her husband, and of his brother, air Philip Hobby, in one tomb together, which she adorned with large inscriptions, in Latin and English verse, of her own composition. She had by sir Thomas Hobby four children, Edward, Elizabeth, Anne, and Thomas Posthumus. It does not appear that she had great comfort in either of her sons; and the youngest in particular, as is manifest from a letter written by her to lord treasurer Burleigh, was guilty of such extravagancies and undutifulness, as gave her much uneasiness. It is evident, from the letter, that she was a woman of uncommon spirit and sense, and an excellent economist. Some years after the decease of sir Thomas Hobby, she married John, lord Russel, son and heir to Francis Russel, earl of Bedford. Her husband dying before his father, in the year 1584, was buried in the abbey church of Westminster, where there is a noble monument erected to his memory, and embellished with inscriptions in Greek, Latin, and English, by this his surviving lady. Her children, by John lord Russel, were one son, who died young in 1580, and two daughters, Anne and Elizabeth. The last of them survived her father but a little time, and is said to have bled to death by the prick of a needle in the forefinger of her left hand. This story has been supported by the figure placed on her monument, which is in the same grate with that of her father; where, on a pedestal of black and white marble made column-wise, in imitation of a Roman altar, may be seen the statue of a young lady seated in a most curiously-wrought osier chair, of the finest polished alabaster, in a very melancholy posture, inclining her head to the right hand, and with the forefinger of her left only extended downwards, to direct us to behold the death’s head underneath her feet, and, as the tradition goes, to signify the disaster that brought her to her end. Mr. Ballard thinks, that if the fact be true, it must be attributed to some gangrene, or other dangerous symptom, occasioned perhaps at first by the pricking of an artery or nerve, which at last brought her to the grave. The matter, however, does not deserve to be reasoned upon; being, in truth, no other than an idle and groundless tale, which very well answers the purpose of amusing the crowd who go to visit the tombs in the Abbey.

Lady Russel translated out of French into English a tract entitled, “A way of reconciliation of a good and learned man, touching the true nature and substance of the body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament.” This work was printed in 1605, and is dedicated to her only daughter, Anne Herbert, wife to Henry lord Herbert, son and heir to Edward earl of Worcester.

The time of lady Russel' s death has not been ascertained. In a letter written by her ta sir Robert Cecil, without date, she complains of her bad health and infirmities, and mentions her having compleated sixty-eight years. She seems to have been buried at Bisham, in Berks, near the remains of her first husband, and in the chapel which she herself had founded. From Birch’s Memoirs of the reign of queen Elizabeth, it appears that lady Russel interested herself in the concerns of her nephew Anthony Bacon, and endeavoured to do him service with the lord treasurer Burleigh. In that work there are some extracts from two of her letters upon this occasion, and a long account of a curious conversation which she had with her nephew, relative to the disputes between him and the treasurer. The fact was, that lord Burleigh was dissatisfied with the connections both of Mr, Anthony and Mr. Francis Bacon, and especially with their attachment to the Earl of Essex, and on these accounts was not favourable to their promotion.

, earl of Shaftesbury, an eminent statesman of very dubious character, was son of sir John Cooper, of llockborn in the county of Southampton, bart. by Anne, daughter of sir Anthony Ashley of Winborne St. Giles in the county of Dorset, bart. where he was born July 22, 1621. Being a boy of uncommon parts, he was sent to Oxford at the age of fifteen, and admitted a gentleman commoner of Exeter college, under Dr. John Prideaux, the rector of it. He is said to have studied hard there for about two years; and then removed to Lincoln’s inn, where he applied himself with great vigour to the law, and especially that part of it which related to the constitution of the kingdom. He was elected for Tewksbury in Gloucestershire, in the parliament which met at Westminster, April 13, 1640, but was soon dissolved. He seems to have been well affected to the king’s service at the beginning of the civil war: for he repaired to the king at Oxford, offered his assistance, and projected a scheme, not for subduing or conquering his country, but for reducing such as had either deserted or mistaken their duty to his majesty’s obedience. He was afterwards invited to Oxford by a letter from his majesty; but, perceiving that he was not in confidence, that ins behaviour was disliked, and his person in danger, he retired into the parliament quarters, and soon after went up to London, where he was well received by that party “to which,” says Clarendon, “he gave himself up body and soul.” He accepted a commission from the parliament and, raising forces, took Wareham by storm, October 1644, and soon after reduced all the adjacent parts of Dorsetshire. This, and some other actions of the same nature, induced the above-mentioned historian to say that he “became an implacable enemy to the royal family.” The next year he was sheriff of Wiltshire, in 1651 he was of the committee of twenty, appointed to consider of ways and means for reforming the law. He was also one of the members of the convention that met after Cromwell had turned out the long parliament. He was again a member of parliament in 1654, and one of the principal persons who signed that famous protestation, charging the protector with tyranny and arbitrary government; and he always opposed the illegal measures of that usurper to the utmost. When the protector Richard was deposed, and the Rump came again into power, they nominated sir Anthony one of their council of state, and a commissioner for managing the army. He was at that very time engaged in a secret correspondence with the friends of Charles II. and greatiy instrumental in promoting his restoration; which brought him into peril of his life with the powers then in being. He was returned a member for Dorsetshire, in that which was called the healing parliament, which sat in April 1660; and a resolution being taken to restore the constitution, he was named one of the twelve members of the house of commons to carry their invitation to the king. It was in performing this service that he had the misfortune to be overturned in a carriage upon a Dutch road, by which he received a dangerous wound between the ribs, which ulcerated many years after, and was opened when he was chancellor.

Upon the king’s coming over he was sworn of his majesty’s most honourable privy-council. He was also one of the commissioners for the trial of the regicides; and though the Oxford historian is very severe on him on this occasion, yet his advocates are very desirous of proving that he was not any way concerned in betraying or shedding the blood of his sovereign. By letters patent, dated April 20, 1661, he was created barou Ashley of Winborne St. Giles; soon after made chancellor and nnder-treasurer of the exchequer, and then one of the lords commissioners for executing the office of high-treasurer. He was afterwards made lord lieutenant of the county of Dorset; and, April 23, 1672, created baron Cooper of Pawlet in the county of Somerset, and earl of Shaftesbury. November 4 following, he was raised to the post of lord high chancellor of England. He shone particularly in his speeches in parliament; and, if we judge only from those which he made upon swearing in the treasurer Clifford, his successor sir Thomas Osborne, and baron Thurland, we must conclude him to have been a very accomplished orator. The short time he was at the helm was a season of storms and tempests; and it is but doing him justice to say that they could not either affright or distract him. November 9, 1673, he resigned the great seal under very singular circumstances. Soon after the breaking up of the parliament, as Echard relates, the earl was sent for on Sunday morning to court; as was also sir Heneage Finch, attorney-general, to whom the seals were promised. As soon as the earl came he retired with the king into the closet, while the prevailing party waited in triumph to see him return without the purse. His lordship being alone with the king, said, “Sir, I know you intend to give the seals to the attorney-general, but 1 am sure your majesty never intended to dismiss me with contempt.” The king, who could not do an ill-natured thing, replied, “Gods fish, my lord, I will not do it with any circumstance that may look like an affront.” “Then, sir,” said the earl, “I desire your majesty will permit me to carry the seals before you to chapel, and send for them afterwards from my house.” To this his majesty readily consented; and the earl entertained the king with news and diverting stories till the very minute he was to go to chapel, purposely to amuse the courtiers and his successor, who he believed was upon the rack for fear he should prevail upon the king to change his mind. The king and the earl came out of the closet talking together and smiling, and went together to chapel, which greatly surprised, them all: and some ran immediately to tell the duke of York, that all his measures were broken. After sermon the earl went home with the seals, and that evening the king gave them to the attorneygeneral.

After he had thus quitted the court, he continued to make a great figure in parliament: his abilities enabled him to shine, and he was not of a nature to rest. In 1675, the treasurer, Danby, introduced the test-bill into the house of lords, which was vigorously opposed by the earl of Shaftesbury; who, if we may believe Burnet, distinguished himself more in this session than ever he had done before. This dispute occasioned a prorogation; and there ensued a recess of fifteen months. When the parliament met again, Feb. 16, 1677, the duke of Buckingham argued, that it ought to be considered as dissolved: the earl of Shaftesbury was of the same opinion, and maintained it with so much warmth, that, together with the duke before mentioned, the earl of Salisbury, and the lord Wharton, he was sent to the Tower, where he continued thirteen, mouths, though the other lords, upon their submission, were immediately discharged. When he was set at liberty he conducted the opposition to the earl of Danby' s administration with such vigour and dexterity, that it was found impossible to do any thing effectually in parliament, without changing the system which then prevailed. The king, who desired nothing so much as to be easy, resolved to make a change; dismissed all the privy-council at once, and formed a new one. This was declared April 21, 1679; and at the same time the earl of Shaftesbury was appointed lord president. He did not hold this employment longer than October the fifth following. He had drawn upon himself the implacable hatred of the duke of York, by steadily promoting, if not originally inventing, the project of an exclusion bill: and therefore the duke’s party was constantly at work against him. Upon the king’s summoning a parliament to meet at Oxford, March 21, 1681, he joined with several lords in a petition to prevent its meeting there, which, however, failed of success. He was present at that parliament, and strenuously supported the exclusion bill: but the duke soon contrived to make him feel the weight of his resentment. For his lordship was apprehended for high treason, July 2, 1681; and, after being examined by his majesty in council, was committed to the Tower, where he remained upwards of four months. He was at length tried, acquitted, and discharged; yet did not think himself safe, as his enemies were now in the zenith of their power. He thought it high time therefore to seek for some place of retirement, where, being out of their reach, he might wear out the small remainder of his life in peace. It was with this view, November 1682, he embarked for Holland; and arriving safely at Amsterdam, after a dangerous voyage, he took a house there, proposing to live in a manner suitable to his quality. He was visited by persons of the first distinction, and treated with all the deference and respect he could desire. But being soon seized by his old distemper, the gout, it immediately flew into his stomach, and became mortal, so that he expired Jan. 22, 1683, in his 62d year. His body was transported to England, and interred with his ancestors at Winbprne; and in 1732, a noble monument, with a large inscription, was erected by Anthony earl of Shaftesbury, his great grandson.

It was perhaps lord Shaftesbury’s misfortune, that those who were angry with him, have transmitted to posterity the history of the times in which he lived, and of that government in which he had so large a share. Marchmont Needham published a severe pamphlet against him, entitled “A packet of advices and animadversions, sent from London to the men of Shaftesbury, which is of use for all his majesty’s subjects in the three kingdoms,” Lond. 1676; and much of it is transferred verbatim into the account given of him by the Oxford historian. He was also represented as having had the vanity to expect to be chosen king of Poland; and this made way for calling him count Tapsky, alluding to the tap, which had been applied upon the breaking out of the ulcer between his ribs, when he was chancellor. It was also a standing jest with the lower form of wits, to style him Shiftsbury instead of Shaftesbury, The author who relates this, tells us also, that when he was chancellor, one sir Paul Neal watered his mares with rhenish and sugar: that is, entertained his mistresses. In his female connections he was very licentious; and it is recorded, that Charles II. who would both take liberties and bear them, once said to the earl at court, in a vein of raillery and good humour, and in reference only to his amours, “I believe, Shaftesbury, thou art the wickedest fellow in my dominions:” to which, with a low bow and very grave face, the earl replied, “May it please your majesty, of a subject I believe I am;” at which the merry monarch laughed heartily.

His character in the Biog. Britannica is one continued panegyric, from which more recent and impartial writers have made many and heavy deductions, particularly Macpherson and Dalrymple. Referring to these authorities for a character which, involved as it is in the history of the times, might form a volume, we shall conclude this article with some information respecting the various attempts to produce a life of him. The earl himself had written a history of his own times, which, when he was obliged to flee to Holland, he entrusted to the care of Mr. Locke. Unfortunately for the public, when Algernon Sidney was put to death, on a charge of' treason grounded upon papers found in his closet, Mr. Locke, intimidated with the apprehension of a like prosecution, committed lord Shaftesbury’s manuscript to the flames. The professed design of the work was to display to the world the principles and motives by which his enemies had been actuated, and to give a true and impartial account of his own conduct. It began with the reformation, and traced the course of events down to the civil war, with a view of pointing out the defects of the constitution, and of stating what ought farther to be done, in order to strengthen and confirm the liberties of the people. It is understood that the earl was particularly excellent in his characters, some of which, in loose papers, are still in the possession of the family. The largest fragment now remaining is in the early part of the work, where the author has drawn the characters of the principal gentlemen who flourished in the county of Dorset, at the time in which he arrived to man’s estate. From this fragment, a curious extract, giving an account of the hon. William Hastings, of Woodlands in Dorsetshire, was published in the Connoisseur. It affords a striking example of lord Shaftesbury’s talent in characteristic composition; and Mr. Walpole, who in no other respect has spoken favourably of his lordship, has observed, that it is a curious and well-drawn portrait of our ancient English gentry.

For the loss which was occasioned by Mr. Locke’s timidity or prudence, he was solicitous to make some degree of reparation. Accordingly, he formed an intention of writing, at large, the history of his noble friend; and if he had accomplished his intention, his work would undoubtedly have been a very valuable present to the public. But there was another biographer, who wrote a life of the earl, soon after his decease. This was Thomas Stringer, esq. of Ivy church, near Salisbury, a gentleman of great integrity and excellent character; who had held, we believe, under his lordship, when high-chancellor of England, the office of clerk of the presentations; and who was much esteemed by some of the principal persons of the age. With Mr. Locke in particular, he maintained an intimate friendship to the time of his death, which happened in 1702. Mr. Stringer’s account has been the ground-work on which the narrative intended for the public eye, by the noble family, has been built. It contained a valuable history of the earl’s life; but was probably much inferior in composition to what Mr. Locke’s would have been; and indeed, in its original form, it was too imperfect for publication. Sometime about the year 1732, this manuscript, together with the rest of the Shaftesbury papers, was put into the hands of Mr. Benjamin Marty n, a gentleman who was then known in the literary world, in consequence of having written a tragedy, entitled “Timoleoh,” which had been acted with success at the theatre royal in Drury-lane. Mr. Martyn made Mr. Stringer’s manuscript the basis of his own work, which he enriched with such speeches of the earl as are yet remaining, and with several particulars drawn from some loose papers left by his lordship. He availed himself, likewise, of other means of information, which more recent publications had afforded; and prefixed to the whole an introduction of considerable length, wherein he passed very high encomiums on our great statesman, and strengthened them by the testimonies of Mr. Locke and Mons. Le Clerc. He added, also, strictures on L' Estrange, sir William Temple, bishop Burnet, and others, who had written to his lordship’s disadvantage. One anecdote, which we well remember, it cannot but be agreeable to the public and to the noble family to see related. It is well known with what severity the earl of Shaftesbury’s character is treated by Dryden, in his Absalom and Achitophel. Nevertheless, soon after that fine satire appeared, his lordship having the nomination of a scholar, as governor of the Charter-house, gave it to one of the poet’s sons, without any solicitation on the part of the father, or of any other person. This act of generosity had such an effect upon IXryden, that, to testify his gratitude, he added, in the second edition of the poem, the four following lines, in celebration of the earl’s conduct as lord chancellor.

Notwithstanding the pains that had been taken by Mr. Marty n, the late earl of Shaftesbury did not think the work sufficiently finished for publication; and, therefore, somewhat more than twenty years ago, he put it into the hands of his friend Dr. Gregory Sharpe, master of the temple. All, however, that Dr. Sharpe performed, was to recommend it to the care of a gentleman, who examined Mr. Martyn’s manuscript with attention, pointed out its errors, made references, and suggested a number of instances in which it might be improved, but did not proceed much farther in the undertaking. At length, the work was consigned to another person, who spent considerable labour upon it, enlarged it by a variety of additions, and had it in contemplation to avail himself of every degree of information which might render it a correct history of the time, as well as a narrative of the life of lord Shaftesbury. The reasons (not unfriendly on either side) which prevented the person now mentioned from completing his design, and occasioned him to return the papers to the noble family, are not of sufficient consequence to be here, related. Whether the work is likely soon to appear, it is not in our power to ascertain.

, earl of Shaftesbury, the celebrated author of the Characteristics, was born Feb. 26, 1671, at Exeter-house in London. His father was Anthony earl of Shaftesbury; his mother lady Dorothy Manners, daughter of John earl of Rutland. He was born in the house of his grandfather Anthony first earl of Shaftesbury, and chancellor of England, of whom we have spoken in the preceding article; who was fond of him from his birth, and undertook the care of his education. He pursued almost the same method in teaching him the learned languages, as Montaigne’s father did in teaching his son Latin: that is, he placed a person about him, who was so thoroughly versed in the Greek and Latin tongues, as to speak either of them with the greatest fluency. This person was a female, a Mrs. Birch, the daughter of a schoolmaster in Oxfordshire or Berkshire; and a woman who could execute so extraordinary a task, deserves to have her name recorded with honour among the learned ladies of England. By this means lord Shaftesbury made so great a progress, that he could read both these languages with ease when but eleven years old. At that age he was sent by his grandfather to a private school; and in 1683 was removed to Winchester school, but such was the influence of party-spirit at the time, that he was insulted for his grandfather’s sake, by his companions, which made his situation so disagreeable, that he begged his father to consent to his going abroad. Accordingly he began his travels in 1686, and spent a considerable time in Italy, where he acquired great knowledge in the polite arts. This knowledge is very visible through all his writings; that of the art of painting is more particularly so, from the treatise he composed upon “The Judgement of Hercules.” He made it his endeavour, while he was abroad, to improve himself as much as possible in every accomplishment; for which reason he did not greatly affect the company of other English gentlemen upon their travels; and he was remarkable for speaking French so readily, and with so good an accent, that in France he was often taken for a native.

Soon after he returned to England, he became earl of Shaftesbury; but did not attend the house of lords, till his friend lord Somers sent a messenger to acquaint him with the business of the partition treaty, February 1701. On this he immediately went post to London; and though, when lord Somers’s letter was brought to him, he was beyond Briclgwater in Somersetshire, and his constitution was ill calculated for any extraordinary fatigue, he travelled with such speed, that he was in the house of peers on the following day, exhibiting an instance of dispatch, which at that time was less easy to be performed than it is at present. During the remainder of the session, he attended his parliamentary duty as much as his health would permit, being earnest to support the measures of king William, who was then engaged in forming the grand alliance. Nothing, in the earl of Shaftesbury’s judgment, could more effectually assist that glorious undertaking, than the choice of a good parliament. He used, therefore, his utmost efforts to facilitate the design; and such was his success, upon the election of a new house of commons (parties at that crisis being nearly on an equality), that his majesty told him he had turned the scale. So high was the opinion which the king had formed of the earl’s abilities and character, that an offer was made him of being appointed secretary of state. This, however, his declining constitution would not permit him to accept; but, although he was disabled from engaging in the course of official business, he was capable of giving advice to his majesty, who frequently consulted him on affairs of the highest importance. Nay, it is understood that he had a great share in composing that celebrated last speech of king William, which was delivered on the 31st of December, 1701.

In the beginning of the year after, viz. 1703, he made a second journey to Holland, and returned to England in the end of the year following. The French prophets soon after having by their enthusiastic extravagances created much disturbance throughout the nation, among the different opinions as to the methods of suppressing them, some advised a prosecution. But lord Shaftesbury, who abhorred any step which looked like persecution, apprehended that such measures tended rather to inflame than to cure the disease: and this occasioned his “Letter concerning Enthusiasm,” which he published in 1708, and sent it to lord Somers, to whom he addressed it, though without the mention either of his own or lord Somers’s name. Jan. 1709, he published his “Moralists, a philosophical rhapsody:” and, in May following, his “Sensus communis, or an essay upon the freedom of wit and humour.” The same year he married Mrs. Jane Ewer, youngest daughter of Thomas Ewer, esq. of Lee in Hertfordshire; to whom he was related, and by whom he had an only son, Anthony the fourth earl of Shaftesbury. From his correspondence, it does not appear that he had any very extraordinary attachment to this lady, or that the match added much to his happiness, which some have attributed to a disappointment in a previous attachment. In 1710, his “Soliloquy, or advice to an author,” was printed. In 1711, finding his health still declining, he was advised to leave England, and seek assistance from a warmer climate. He set out therefore for Italy in July 1711, and lived above a year after his arrival; dying at Naples, Feb. 4, 1713.

The only pieces which he finished, after he came to Naples, were, “The Judgement of Hercules,” and the “Letter concerning Design;” which last was first published in the edition of the Characteristics, 1732. The rest of his time he employed in arranging his writings for a more elegant edition. The several prints, then first interspersed through the work, were all invented by himself, and designed under his immediate inspection: and he was at the pains of drawing up a most accurate set of instructions for this purpose, which are still extant in manuscript. In the three volumes of the Characteristics, he completed the whole of his writings which he intended should be made public. The first edition was published in 1711; but the more complete and elegant edition, which has been the standard of all editions since, was not published till 1713, immediately after his death. But though lord Shaftesbury intended nothing more for the public, yet, in 1716, some of his letters were printed under the title of “Several Letters written by a noble lord to a young man at the university:” and, in 1721, Toland published “Letters from the late earl of Shaftesbury to Robert Molesworth, esq.” Lord Shaftesbury is said to have had an esteem for such of our divines (though he treated the order very severely in general) as explained Christianity most conformably to his own principles; and it was under his particular inspection, and with a preface of his own writing, that a volume of Whichcot’s sermons was published in 1698, from copies taken in short hand, as they were delivered from the pulpit. This curious fact was some years ago ascertained on the authority of Dr. Huntingford, the present bishop of Gloucester, who had his information from James Harris, esq. of Salisbury, son to a sister of the earl of Shaftesbury. Her brother dictated the preface to this lady, and it is certainly a proof that he had at least a general belief in Christianity, and a high respect for many of the divines of his time, and particularly for Whichcot. Dr. Huntingford’s account was communicated to the last edition of the Biographia Britannica; and in a copy of this volume of sermons now before us, the same is written on the fly leaf, as communicated by Dr. Huntingford to the then owner of the volume, the late Dr. Chelsum.

It remains now to notice more particularly the writings of lord Shaftesbury, which by one class of critics, have received the most extravagant applause, and, by another, have been the subjects of indiscriminate condemnation. They have been examined with a critical eye, and in rather an elaborate manner, by Dr. Kippis, to whose article, in the Biographia Britannica, we refer the reader, contenting ourselves with a brief outline. Lord Shaftesbury’s “Letter on Enthusiasm” was written from excellent motives it contains many admirable remarks, delivered in a neat and lively strain but it wants precision conveys but little information and contains some exceptionable passages. The same character may be given, with truth and justice, of “The Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Huphour,” designed to defend the application of ridicule to subjects of speculative inquiry, and among others to religious opinions. His “Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author,” met with more general approbation. It contains a variety of excellent matter; and what the noble lord has advanced in recommendation of self-examination, and in defence of critics and criticism, is particularly valuable: it is evidently the result of the author’s knowledge and refined taste in books, in life, and manners. Lord Shaftesbury’s “Enquiry concerning Virtue” obtained more general applause, although in some points it is liable to objection. It is ably and finely written, and maintains with great force the important truth, that virtue -is the greatest happiness, and vice the greatest misery of men. In this “Enquiry,” the noble author appeared in the close, the logical, and the didactic form. But in the “Moralists,” he is the emulator of Plato, in the boldest poetic manner of that eminent philosopher. Bishop Hurd ranks it among the best compositions of the kind in our language. Its matter is highly valuable and important, and presents us with a truly argumentative and eloquent defence of the doctrines of a Deity and a Providence. The “Miscellaneous Reflections on the preceding treatises, and other critical subjects,” are intended as a sort of defence and explanation of his former works; but, although they contain a variety of just and ingenious remarks, they abound with many exceptionable passages concerning revelation. With respect to the style of lord Shaftesbury, we may quote the opinion of Dr. Blair, which is at once accurate and judicious. “His language has many beauties; it is firm and supported in an uncommon degree; it is rich and musical. No English author has attended so much to the regular construction of his sentences, both with respect to propriety and with respect to cadence. All this gives so much elegance and pomp to his language, that there is no wonder it should sometimes be highly admired. It is greatly hurt, however, by perpetual stiffness and affectation. This is its capital fault. His lordship can express nothing with simplicity. He seems to have considered it as vulgar, and beneath the dignity of a man of quality, to speak like other men. Hence he is ever in buskins, full of circumlocutions and artificial elegance. In every sentence we see the marks of labour and art; nothing of that ease which expresses a sentiment coming natural and warm from the heart. Of figures and ornaments o/ every kind he is exceedingly fond; sometimes happy in them; but his fondness for them is too visible, and having once laid hold of some metaphor or allusion that pleased, he knows not how to part with it. What is most wonderful, he was a professed admirer of simplicity; is always extolling it in the ancients, and censuring the moderns for want of it, though he departs from it himself as far as any one modern whatever. Lord Shaftesbury possessed delicacy and refinement of taste to a degree that we may call excessive and sickly; but he had little warmth of passion; few strong or vigorous feelings; and the coldness of his character led him to that artificial and stately manner which appears in his writings. He is fonder of nothing than of wit and raillery; but he is far from being happy in it. He attempts it often, but always awkwardly: he is stiff even in his pleasantry, and laughs in form like an author, and not like a man.” Lord Shaftesbury sometimes professed himself a Christian; but his writings, in many parts, render his faith in the divine mission of Christ very questionable. The noble lord left one son, Anthony Ashley Cooper, the fourth earl, of whom the learned Bp. Huntingford says, “there never existed a man of more benevolence, moral worth, and true piety.” He was the author of the life of his father, in the great General Dictionary, including Bayle. It may not be improper to add in this place, that the translator of Xenophon’s Cyropedia was the honourable Maurice Ashley Cooper, brother to the third earl.

, a distinguished military officer in the 17th century, was the eldest son of Sir Charles Coote, who was created baronet in April 1621. He was a gentleman of great consideration in Ireland. Upon the breaking out of the rebellion, in 1641, he had a commission for a regiment of foot, and was made governor of Dublin. From this period to the year 1652, he was engaged in a great number of important services for his country. In almost all the contests of which he took a part, he was successful. After Ireland was reduced to the obedience of the parliament, sir Charles was one of the court of justice in the province of Connaught, of which he was made president by act of parliament. Being in England at the time of the deposing of Richard Cromwell, he went post to Ireland, to carry the news to his brother Henry Cromwell, that they might secure themselves; but when he perceived that king Charles the Second’s interest was likely to prevail, he sent to the king sir Arthur Forbes, “to assure his Majesty of sir Charles’s affection and duty, and that if his Majesty would vouchsafe to come to Ireland, he was confident the whole kingdom would declare for him; that though the present power in England had removed all the sober men from the government of the state in Ireland, under the character of presbyterians, and had put Ludlow, Corbet, and others of the king’s judges in their places, yet they were generally so odious to the army as well as to the people, that they could seize on their persons and the castle of Dublin when they should judge it convenient.” The king did not think it prudent to accept the invitation. In a short time after, sir Charles Coote, and some others, so influenced the whole council of officers, that they prevailed upon them to vote not to receive colonel Ludlow as commander in chief, and made themselves masters of Athlone, Drogheda, Limerick, Dublin, and other important places, for the service of the king. He immediately caused colonel Monk to be made acquainted with the progress of the king’s interest in Ireland, who urged them by every means not to restore the suspended commissioners to the exercise of their authority. Soon after, sir Charles Coote and others sent to the parliament a charge of high treason against colonel Ludlow, Corbet, Jones, and Thomlinson. He likewise made himself master of Dublin castle; and apprehended John Coke, chief justice of Ireland, who had been solicitor-general at the trial of king Charles I. Notwithstanding this, parliament thought themselves so sure of him in their interest, that he received their vote of thanks on the 5th of Jan. 1659-60. On the 19th of the same month he was appointed one of the commissioners for the management of the affairs of Ireland. Before those commissioners declared for king Charles, they insisted upon certain things relating to their interest as members of that nation. On the 6th of September 1660, sir Charles Coote, on account of his many and very valuable services for the royal cause, was created baron and viscount Coote, and earl of Montrath in the Queen’s county. He was also appointed one of the lords justices of Ireland, but he did not long enjoy these marks of his sovereign’s favour, for he died in December 1661, and was succeeded in his estate and titles by his son Charles, the second earl. Dr. Leland asserts that Coote and his father had engaged in the parliamentary service not from principle, but interest. Dr. Kippis, however, doubts the assertion, upon the ground that the Cootes were zealous presbyterians; and therefore he thinks it highly probable that they were influenced, at least in part, by their real sentiments, civil and religious, and especially by their aversion from popery.

, the eldest son of Charles fifth lord and first earl Cornwailis, by Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Charles, second viscount Townsend, was born Dec. 31, 1738, and educated at Eton, and at St. John’s college, Cambridge. Preferring a military life, he was, in August 1765, appointed aid-de-camp to the king, with the rank of colonel of foot. In Sept. 1775 y he became major-general; in August, 1777, lieutenantgeneral; and in October, 1793, general. He represented, in, two parliaments, the borough of Eye, in Suffolk, until he succeeded his father in the peerage, June 23, 1762. In parliament, he was not a frequent or distinguished speaker. In the house of peers he appears to have been rather favourable to the claims of the American colonies, which, however, when they came to an open rupture with the mother country, did not prevent him from accepting a command in America, where he distinguished himself at the battle of Brandywine, in 1777, and afterwards at the siege of Charlestown, and was left in the command of South Carolina, where his administration was commended for its wisdom. He was soon obliged to take the field, and obtained the decisive victory of Camden, and was next victorious at Guildford, but not without a considerable loss of men. His plan of invading Virginia, in 1781, was of more doubtful prudence, and ended in his capture, with his whole army of four thousand men. Thus defeated, he laid the blame on the failure of expected succour from sir Henry Clinton, who in return equally blamed both the scheme and its conduct, and several pamphlets were published by both these commanders, into the merits of which we cannot pretend to enter. It is sufficient for our purpose to be able to add, that lord Cornwailis lost no reputation by this misfortune, either for skill or courage.

This important war being now ended, so highly to the honour of the British arms, lord Cornwallis returned to England, to receive the rewards justly due to his merit. He had before been invested with the insignia of the garter; and he was, in August 1792, advanced to the dignity of marquis Cornwailis, admitted a member of the privy-council, and, in addition to his other appointments, was nominated to the office of master-general of the ordnance. In 1798, the rebellion in Ireland appearing both to the viceroy, lord Camden, and to his majesty, to require a lordlieutenant who could act in a military as well as a civil capacity, the king appointed lord Cornwallis to that important service, which he executed with skill, promptitude, and humanity; and after quelling the open insurrection, he adopted a plan of mingled firmness and conciliation, which, executed with discriminating judgment, tended to quiet that distracted country, and prepare matters for a permanent plan, that should both prevent the recurrence of such an evil, and promote industry and prosperity. He retained this high appointment till May 1801, when he was succeeded by the earl of Hardwicke. The same year he was appointed plenipotentiary to France, and signed the peace of Amiens.

, the son of Ant. Corranus, LL.D. was born at Seville, in Spain, in 1527, and educated for the Roman Catholic church; but being afterwards desirous of embracing the reformed religion, became to England in 1570, and being admitted into the English church, became a frequent preacher. In 1571 he was made reader of divinity in the Temple, by the interest of Dr. Edwin Sandys, bishop of London, and continued in that office about three years. In the beginning of March 1575, he was recommended to the university of Oxford for a doctor’s degree, by their chancellor, the earl of Leicester; but doubts being raised as to the soundness of his principles on certain contested points, his degree was refused until he should give full satisfaction, which he probably did, although the matter is not upon record. At Oxford he became reader of divinity to the students in Gloucester, St. Mary’s, and Hart-hail, and resided as a student of Christchurch, holding at the same time the prebend of Harleston in St. Paul’s. He died at London in March 1591, and was buried either at St. Andrew’s, Hoiborn, or St. Andrew Wardrobe. His works are, 1. “An Epistle to the pastors of the Flemish church at Antwerp,” originally written in Latin, Lond. 1570, 8vo. 2. “Tabulae Divinorum operum, de humani generis creatione,” 1574, 8vo; and afterwards published in English. 3. “Dialogus Theologicus,” an explanation of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, collected from his lectures, 1574, 8vo; also translated, 1579. 4. “Supplication to the king of Spain,” respecting the protestants in the Low Countries, 1577, 8vo, published in Latin, French, and English. 5. “Notsc in concionem Solomonis” i. e. Ecclesiastes, 1579 and 1581, 8vo and again, by Scultetus, in 1618. 6. “Sermons on Ecclesiastes,” abridged by Thomas Pitt, Oxon. 1585, 8vo, probably an abridgement of the preceding. 7. “A Spanish grammar, with certain rules for teaching both the Spanish and French tongues,” translated into English by Thorius. Lond. 1590, 4to.

Dr. Cosin wrote a great number of books, from all which he has sufficiently confuted the calumny of his being a papist, or popishly affected. Besides his “Collection of Private Devotions,” mentioned above, he published “A Scholastical History of the Canon of the Holy Scripture; or, the certain and indubitable books thereof, as they are received in the Church of England,” Condon, 1657, 4to, reprinted in 1672. This history, which is still in esteem, is deduced from the time of the Jewish church, to the year 1546, that is, the time when the council of Trent corrupted, and made unwarrantable additions to, the ancient Canon of the Holy Scriptures, and was written by the author during his exile at Paris. He dedicated it to Dr. M. Wren, bishop of Ely, then a prisoner in the Tower. Dr. P. Gunning had the care of the edition. Since the bishop’s decease the following books and tracts of his have been published: 1. “A Letter to Dr. Collins, concerning the Sabbath,” dated from Peterhouse, Jan. 24, 1635, printed in the “Bibliotheca Literaria,” 1723, 4to; in which he proves, that the keeping of our Sunday is immutable, as being grounded upon divine institution and apostolical tradition, which he confirms by several instances. 2. “A Letter from our author to Mr. Cordel, dated Paris, Feb. 7, 165O,” printed at the end of a pamphlet entitled “The Judgment of the Church of England, in the case of Laybaptism, and of Dissenters baptism,' 1 a second edition of which was published in 1712, 8vo. 3.” Regni Anglise Religio Catholica, prisca, casta, defoecata: omnibus Christianis monarchis, principibus, ordinibus, ostensa, anno MDCLII.“i. e. A short scheme of the ancient and pure doctrine and discipline of the Church of England. Written at the request of sir Edward Hyde, afterwards earl of Clarendon, and printed at the end of Smith’s Life of bishop Cosin. 4.” The History of Popish Transubstantiation,“&c. written in Latin by the author at Paris, for the use of some of his countrymen, who were frequently attacked upon that point by the papists. It was published by Dr. Durrell, at London, 1675, 8vo, and translated into English in 1676, by Luke de Beaulieu, 8vo. There is a second part still in manuscript. 5.” The differences in the chief points of religion between the Roman Catholics and us of the Church of England; together with the agreements which we, for our parts, profess, and are ready to embrace, if they, for theirs, were as ready to accord with us in the same. Written to the countess of Peterborough, “printed at the end of bishop Bull’s” Corruptions of the Church of Rome.“6.” Notes on the Book of CommonPrayer.“Published by Dr. William Nicholls, at the end of his Comment on the Book of Common-Prayer, Lond. 171O, fol. 7.” Account of a Conference in Paris, between Cyril, archbishop of Trapezond, and Dr. John Cosin;“printed in the same book. 8.” A Letter from Dr. Cosin to bishop Moreton his predecessor, giving an account of his studies and employment when an exile abroad;“and,” A Memorial of his, against what the Romanists call the Great General Council of Lateran under Innocent III. in 1215,“both published by Des Maizeaux in vol. VI. of” The Present State of the Republic of Letters,“1730. 9.” An Apology of Dr. John Cosin,“in answer to Fuller’s misrepresentations of him in that author’s Church History, printed at the end of the first part of Heylin’s” Examen Historicum.“The following pieces were also written by bishop Cosin, but never primed: I.” An Answer to a Popish pamphlet pretending that St. Cyprian was a Papist.“2.” An Answer to four queries of a Roman Catholic, about the Protestant Religion.“3. ti An Answer to a paper delivered by a Popish BifUop to the lord Inchiquin. ' 4.” Annales Ecclesiastic!,“imperfect. 5.” An Answer to Father Robinson’s Papers concerning the validity of the Ordinations of the Church of England.“6.” Historia Conciliorum,“imperfect. 7.” Against the foraakers of the Church of England, and their seducers in this time of her tryal.“8.” Chronologia Sacra,“imperfect. 9.” A Treatise concerning the abuse of auricular confession in the Church of Rome." Some few of Dr. Cosin’s letters are extant among Dr. Birch’s collections in the British Museum.

In 1752, he published, in 8vo, at Oxford, “Dissertationes II. Critico^Sacrae, qnarum prima explicatur Ezek. xiii. 18. Altera vero, 2 Reg. x. 22.” The same year a translation was published of the latter of these dissertations, under the following title “A Dissertation on 2 Kings x. 22, translated from the Latin of Rabbi C———d (i. e. Costard), with a dedication, preface, and postscript, critical and explanatory, by the translator.” In the preface and dedication to this publication, the satirical author has placed Mr. Costard in a very ludicrous light. On the 25th of January, in the year following, a letter written by Mr. Costard to Dr. JBevis, concerning the year of the eclipse foretold by Thales, was read at the Royal Society, and was afterwards published in the Philosophical Transactions, as was also another letter written by him to the-same gentleman, concerning an eclipse mentioned by Xenophon. At the close of the same year, another letter written by Mr. Costard, and addressed to the earl of Macclesfield, concerning the age of Homer and Hesiod, was likewise read at the Royal Society, and afterwards published in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1754, in which he fixes the ages of Homer and Hesiod much lower than the ordinary computations. He endeavours to make it appear, from astronomical arguments, that Homer and Hesiod both probably lived about the year before Christ 589; which is three centuries later than the computation of sir Isaac Newton, and more than four later than that of Petavius. In 1755, he wrote a letter to Dr. Birch, which is preserved in the British Museum, respecting the meaning of the phrase Sphacra Barbarica. Some time after this, he undertook to publish a second edition of Dr. Hyde’s “Historia religionis veterutn Persarum eorumque Magorum;” and which was accordingly printed, under his inspection, and with his corrections, at the Clarendon press at Oxford, in 4to, in 1760. Mr. Costard’s extensive learning having now recommended him to the notice of lord Chancellor Northington, he obtained, by the favour of that nobleman, in June 1764, the vicarage of Twickenham, in Middlesex, in which situation he continued till his death. The same year he published, in 4to, “The use of Astronomy in history and chronology, exemplified in an inquiry into the fall of the stone into the Ægospotamos, said to be foretold by Anaxagoras in which is attempted to be shewn, that Anaxagoras did not foretell the fall of that stone, but the solar eclipse in the first year of the Peloponnesian war. That what he saw was a comet, at the time of the battle of Salamis: and that this battle was probably fought the year before Christ 478; or two years later than it is commonly fixed by chronologers.”

, a celebrated mathematician, philosopher, and astronomer, was born July 10, 1682, at Burbach in Leicestershire, where his father Robert was rector. He was first placed at Leicester school; where, at only twelve years of age, he discovered a strong inclination to the mathematics. This being observed by his uncle, the rev. Mr. John Smith, he gave him all imaginable encouragement; and prevailed with his father to send him for some time to his house in Lincolnshire, that he might assist him in those studies. Here he laid the foundation of that deep and extensive knowledge, for which he was afterwards so deservedly famous. He removed from thence to London, and was sent to St. Paul’s school; where also he made a great progress in classical learning; yet found so much leisure as to keep a constant correspondence with his uncle, not only in mathematics, but also in metaphysics, philosophy, and divinity. This fact is said to have been often mentioned by professor Saunderson. His next remove was to Cambridge; where, April 6, 1699, he was admitted of Trinity college; and at Michaelmas 1705, after taking his first degree in arts, chosen fellow of it. He was at the same time tutor to Anthony earl of Harold, and the lord Henry de Grey, sons of the then marquis (afterwards duke of) Kent, to which noble family Mr. Cotes was related.

At what time his first wife died, is not recorded. His second was Mary, countess dowager of Ardglass, widow of Wingfield lord Cromwell, second earl of Ardglass, who died in 1649. She must therefore have been considerably older than our poet, but she had a jointure of 1500l. a year, which, although it probably afforded him many comforts, was secured from his imprudent management. He died in the parish of St. James’s, Westminster, in 1687, and, it would appear, in a state of insolvency, as Elizabeth Bludworth, his principal creditor, administered to his effects, his widow and children having previously renounced the administration. These children were by the first wife, One of them, Mr. Beresford Cotton, published in 1694- the “Memoirs of the Sieur de Pontis,” translated by his father; and perhaps assisted in the collection of his poems which appeared in 1689. This gentleman had a company given him in a regiment of foot raised by the earl of Derby, for the service of king William; and one of his sisters was married to the celebrated Dr. George Stanhope, dean of Canterbury,

“Amongst other books,” says he, “which Mr. Richard James lent out, one Mr. St. John, of Lincoln’s-inn, a young studious gentleman, borrowed of him, for money, a dangerous pamphlet that was in a written hand, by which a course was laid down, how the kings of England might oppress the liberties of their subjects, and for ever enslave them and their posterities. Mr. St. John shewed the book to the earl of Bedford, o.r a copy of it; and so it passed from hand to hand, in the year 1629, till at last it was lent to sir Robert Cotton himself, who set a young fellow he then kept in his house to transcribe it; which plainly proves, that sir Robert knew not himself that the written tract itself had originally come out of his own library. This untrusty fellow, imitating, it seems, the said James, took one copy secretly for himself, when he wrote another for sir Robert; and out of his own transcript sold away several copies, till at last one of them came into Wentworth’s hands, of the North, now lord deputy, of Ireland. He acquainted the lords and others of the privy-council with it. They sent for the said young fellow, and examining him where he had the written book, he confessed sir Robert Cotton delivered it to him. Whereupon in the beginning of November, in the same year 1629, sir Robert was examined, and so were divers others, one after the other as it had been delivered from hand to hand, till at last Mr. St. John himself was apprehended, and, being conceived to be the author of the book, was committed close prisoner to the Tower. Being in danger to have been questioned for his life about it, upon examination upon oath, he made a clear, full, and punctual declaration that he had received the same manuscript pamphlet of that wretched mercenary fellow James*, who by this means proveed the wretched instrument of shortening the life of sir Robert Cotton; for he was presently thereupon sued in the star-chamber, his library locked up from his use, and two or more of the guards set to watch his house continually. When I went several times to visit and comfort him in the year 1630, he would tell me, ‘ they had broken his heart, that had locked up his library from him.’ I easily guessed the reason, because his honour and esteem were much impaired by this fatal accident; and his house, that was formerly frequented by great and honourable personages, as by learned men of all sorts, remained now upon the matter desolate and empty. I understood from himself and others, that Dr. Neile and Dr. Laud, two prelates that had been stigmatized in the first session of parliament in 1628, were his sore enemies. He was so outworn, within a few months, with anguish and grief, as his face, which had been formerly ruddy and well coloured, (such as the picture I have of him shews), was wholly changed into a grim blackish paleness, near to the resemblance and hue of a dead visage. I, at one time, advised him to look into himself, and seriously consider, why God had sent this chastisement upon him; which, it is possible, he did; for I heard from Mr. Richard Holdesworth, a great and learned divine, that was with him in his last sickness, a little before he died, that he was exceedingly penitent, and was much confirmed in the faithful expectation of a better life.”

It has been objected that he ought to have published his report on his return, when public curiosity was eager for information; but he delayed it, for whatever reason, until the decline of life, and when public curiosity had much abated. It is thought also that he put many things into it, transcribed from his memoranda on the spot, which he would have suppressed had he undertaken to write his work sooner. Of his general accuracy, however, there can be no doubt; and as he had made use of several curious, and before unknown, Mss. he took care, for the reader’s satisfaction, to deposit them in the late earl of Oxford’s library at Wimple, near Cambridge; and some are now in the Harleian collection, in the British Museum, particularly five Mss. of different parts of the New Testament, which were collated by Mill. The 1st contains the four Gospels; the second is a manuscript of the Acts, Epistles, and Revelation, written in i-he year 1087: from several of its very extraordinary readings, it appears to be of no great value: the 3d has the Acts of the Apostles, beginning with chap. i. 11. with all the Epistles, and was supposed by Mill to be 500 years old the 4th contains the Acts and Epistles, written in a modern hand the 5th, called likewise Sinaiticus, because Covel brought it from mount Sinai, contains the Acts, Epistles, and Revelation; but it has been injured, and rendered illegible in many places, by the damp, which has had access to it. It begins with Acts i. 20. and the last lines of the book of Revelation are wanting. The first, second, and fourth, have been examined by Griesbach.

, the eldest son of Thomas Coventry, esq. by Anna Maria Brown, was born in Cambridgeshire, and educated at Magdalen college, Cambridge, where he took his bachelor’s degree in 1748, and his master’s in 1752. He was a young man of very considerable talents, and would probably have been more distinguished for polite literature, had he not been cut off in the prime of life by the small pox, in 1759, soon after he bad been presented by his relation, the earl of Coventry, to the donative or perpetual curacy of Edgware. He published “Penshurst,” an elegant poem, 1750, reprinted in Dodsley’s collection, with a poetical epistle to “The hon. Wilmot Vaughari in Wales.” He was also the author of a paper in the “World,” on the absurdities of modern gardening and of the well-known satirical romance of “Pompey the Little,” 1751. Mr. Gray told Mr. Waipole, in a letter of that date, “Pompey is the hasty production of Mr. Coventry (cousin to him you know), a young clergyman. I found it out by three characters, which made part of a comedy that he shewed me, of his own writing.” This cousin was Henry Coventry, author of the “Letters of Philemon to Hydaspes,” and who was one of the writers of the “Athenian Letters.” He was a fellow of Magdalen college; once, we are told, a religious enthusiast, and afterwards an infidel. He died Dec. 29, 1752.

He died at Durham-house in the Strand on the 14th of January, 1639-40, and was interred in the church of Croome d'Abitot on the 1st of March following, after he had continued in his post of lord-keeper with an universal reputation for his exact administration of justice, for the space of about sixteen years; which was another important circumstance of his felicity, that great office being of a tenure so precarious, that no man had died in it before for near the space of forty years; nor had his successors for some time after him much better fortune. And he himself had made use of all his strength to preserve him-­self from falling by two attacks; the one hy the earl Portland, lord high treasurer of England; the other by the marquis of Hamilton, who had the greatest power over the affections of the king of any man of that time. Whitelocke indeed tells us, that he was of “no transcendant parts or fame;” and sir Anthony Weldon, an author, whose very manner of writing weakens the authority of whatever he advances, asserts, that if his actions had been scanned by a parliament, he had been found as foul a man as ever lived. But our other historians represent him in a much more advantageous light. Mr. Lloyd observes, that he had a venerable aspect, but was neither haughty nor ostentatious; that in the administration of justice, he escaped even the least reproach or suspicion; that he served the king most faithfully; and the more faithfully, because he was a zealous opposer of all counsels which were prejudicial to his majesty, and highly disliked those persons who laboured to stretch the prerogative. But lord Clarendon’s character of him seems entitled to higher respect, not only as a faithful portrait, but a useful lesson. “He was,” says that noble writer, " a man of wonderful gravity and wisdom and not only understood the whole science and mystery of the law, at least equally with any man who had ever sat in his post, but had likewise a clear conception of the whole policy of the government both of church and state; which, by the unskilfulness of some well-meaning men, jostled each other too much. He knew the temper, disposition, and genius of the kingdom most exactly; saw their spirits grow every day more sturdy, inquisitive, and impatient; and therefore naturally abhorred all innovations, which he foresaw would produce ruinous effects. Yet many, who stood at a distance, thought he was not active and stout enough in opposing those innovations. For though by his place he presided in all public councils, and was most sharp-sighted in the consequence of things, yet he was seldom known to speak in matters of state, which he well knew were, for the most part, concluded before they were brought to that public agitation; never in foreign affairs, which the vigour of his judgment could well have comprehended; rior indeed freely in any thing, but what immediately and plainly concerned the justice of the kingdom; and in that, as much as he could, he procured references to the judges. Though in his nature he had not only a firm gravity, but a severity, and even some moroseness; yet it was so happily tempered, and his courtesy and affability towards all men so transcendent, and so much without affectation, that it marvellously recommended him to men of all degrees; and he was looked upon as an excellent courtier, without receding from the natural simplicity of his own manners. He had in the plain way of speaking and delivery, without much ornament of elocution, a strange power of making himself believed (the only justifiable design of eloquence) so that though he used very frankly to deny, and would never suffer any man to depart from him with an opinion that he was inclined to gratify, when in truth he was not; holding that dissimulation to be the worst of lying: yet the manner of it was so gentle and obliging, and his condescension such, to inform the persons whom he could not satisfy, that few departed from him with illwill and ill-wishes.

Sir William Courten, after the death of his Dutch lady, married a second wife of the name of Tryon, by whom he had one son, named William, and three daughters. Sir William seems to have been possessed of a comprehensive mind, an enterprising spirit, abundance of wealth, and credit sufficient to enable him to launch out into any promising branch of trade and merchandize whatsoever. It is stated, with apparent fairness, that he actually lent to king James I. and his son Charles I. at different times, of his own money, or from the company trade, 27,000l. and in another partnership wherein he was likewise concerned with sir Paul Pyndar, their joint claims on the crown amounted, it seerns, to 200,000l. Sir William employed, one way or other, for many years, between four and five thousand seamen; he built above twenty ships of burthen; was a great insurer, and besides that, a very considerable goldsmith, or banker, for so a banker was then called. It appears likewise, that he was very deeply engaged in a herring fishery, which was carried on at one time with great spirit and at great expence: but shortly after, much to his cost, it came to nothing, in consequence of the supervening dissensions, confusion, and misery, that accompanied the rebellion. Previous to this, however, about the year 1624, two of sir William Courten’s ships, in their return from Fernambuc, happened to discover an uninhabited island, now of considerable importance to Great Britain, to which sir William first gave the name of Barbadoes. On the 25th of February 1627, he obtained the king’s letters patent for the colonization of this island, sheltering himself, for whatever reasons, under the earl of Pembroke. On the faith of this grant, afterwards superseded by the influence of James then earl of Carlisle, though its validity was acknowledged by the first, and indeed by all the lawjers, sir William sent two ships with men, arms, ammunition, &c. which soon stored the island with inhabitants, English, Indians, &c. to the number of one thousand eight hundred and fifty; and one captain Powel received from sir William a commission to remain in the island as governor, in behalf of him and the earl of Pembroke. After sir William had expended 44,000l. on this business, and been in peaceable possession of the island about three years, James earl of Carlisle claiming on grants said to be prior, though dated July 2, 1627, and April 7, 1628; affirming too that he was lord of all the Caribbee islands lying between 10 and 20 degrees of latitude, under the name of Carliola, gave his commission to colonel Royden, Henry Hawley, and others, to act in his behalf. The commissioners of lord Carlisle arrived at Barbadoes with two ships in 1629, and having invited the governor captain Powel on board, they kept him prisoner, and proceeded to invade and plunder the island. They carried off the factors and servants of sir William Courten and the earl of Pembroke, and established the earl of Carlisle’s authority in Barbadoes; which continued there under several governors, till 1646, when the government of it was vested by lease and contract in lord Willoughby of Parham. Sir William Courten, it is said, had likewise sustained a considerable loss several years before this blow in the West Indies, by the seizure of his merchandize, after the cruel massacre of his factors at Amboyna in the East Indies. But after all the losses above mentioned, he was still possessed, in the year 1633, of lands in various parts of this kingdom to the value of 6 500l. per annum, besides personal estates rated at 128,Ogo/. and very extensive credit. Such were his circumstances when he opened a trade to China, and, as if he had grown* young again, embarked still more deeply in mercantile expeditions to the East Indies, where he established sundry new forts and factories. In the course of this new trade he lost unfortunately two of his ships richly laden, the Dragon and the Katharine, which were never heard of more: and he himself did not long survive this loss, which involved him in great debt; for he died in the end of May or beginning of June 1636, in the 64th year of his age, and was buried in the church or church-yard of St. Andrew Hubbard, the ground of both which was after the fire of 1666 disposed of by the city for public uses, and partly laid into the street, the parish being annexed to St. Mary Hill. There is an abstract of sir William Courten’s will in the British Museum.

1643, became insolvent, and quitted this kingdom, to which it does not appear that he ever returned. When he died at Florence, in 1655, the subject of this article was about thirteen years of age; and it is most likely that his mother did not survive her husband above four or five years: for as no mention is made of lady Katharine in 1660, when Mr. Carew obtained letters of administration to the estates of the Courten family, it is probable she was then dead. In a petition to parliament, a rough draught of which is in the British Museum, there is a like ground for the same supposition, no mention being made of his mother; for it is only said there, that he the petitioner, and his only sister, had been left for many years destitute of a livelihood. It is not said at what time this gentleman’s father sold the great bulk of sir William Courten’s lands. Even the wrecks of a fortune, once so ample, must have been very considerable, and more than sufficient for the proper education and decent maintenance of William Courten and his sister. She could very well live in those days on no more income, as appears, than 30l. per annum. That this moderate annual sum was her principal support, we are led to believe from a slight attention to two papers still in being. If he and his sister had even been more reduced in point of income than we can well suppose, they still had infallible resources in the number, rank, and riches of their relations. Their grandfather the earl of Bridgewater, two uncles, with eleven aunts on the side of their mother, and three aunts on their father’s side, were people of fortune and distinction; many of them married into honourable and wealthy families, and all of them apparently in affluent or easy circumstances. It may therefore be reasonably concluded that William Courten was well educated, though the fact were not ascertained by other testimony. Having previously received a good education in this country, forwarded probably with peculiar care, and earlier certainly than is now usual, William Courten began his travels; or was sent, while yet a minor, to prosecute his studies abroad. The genius of a naturalist, which he discovered, it seems, from his infancy, led him to cultivate it at Montpellier, distinguished then, as Upsal since, for its botanical garden, its peculiar attention to natural history, and the abilities and celebrity of masters in various branches of this science. Here he met, as might be probably expected, with students of a congenial taste, and persons then and afterwards eminent in various walks of literature, with several of whom he appears to have lived in great familiarity, and to have cultivated long correspondence. Tournefort, the celebrated French botanist, was of this number. William Courten, who was the senior by several years, had no doubt made a very considerable proficiency in botany before his acquaintance with this illustrious foreigner commenced; but it must have been much improved by the intimacy that appears to have subsisted between them. It was at Montpellier probably, but many years after his primary settlement there, that William Courten contracted his first acquaintance with sir Hans Sloane, a zealous naturalist, who spared no pains or expence in the acquisition and promotion of knowledge in natural history, and who was yet more honourably distinguished by his skill in his own profession, his general patronage of scholars, his public spirit, and extensive phiJanthropy. Sir Hans Sloane unquestionably spent a considerable time at Montpellier, probably to improve his knowledge and to establish his health; and here too it is said he got his degree of M. D. But at what place and at what time soever their acquaintance began, being forwarded'by a similarity of studies, in which William Courten had undoubtedly the pre-eminence, it ripened into a friendship that continued without interruption to the end of his life.

, archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of king Richard II. was the fourth son of Hugh Courtney, earl of Devonshire, by Margaret, daughter of Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford and Essex, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of king Edward I. and was born in the year 1341. He had his education at Oxford, where he applied himself to the study of the civil and canon law. Afterwards, entering into holy orders, he obtained three prebends in three cathedral churches, viz. those of Bath, Exeter, and York. The nobility of his birth, and his eminent learning, recommending him to public notice, in the reign of Edward III. he was promoted in 1369 to the see of Hereford, and thence translated to the see of London, September 12, 1375, being then in the 34th year of his age. In a synod, held at London in 1376, bishop Courtney distinguished himself by his opposition to the king’s demand of a subsidy; and presently after he fell under the displeasure of the high court of chancery, for publishing a bull of pope Gregory II. without the king’s consent, which he was compelled to recall. The next year, in obedience to the pope’s mandate, he cited Wickliff to appear befofe his tribunal in St. Paul’s church: but that reformer being accompanied by John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, and other nobles, who favoured his opinions, and appeared openly in the bishop’s court for him, and treated the bishop with very little ceremony, the populace took his part, went to the duke of Lancaster’s house in the Savoy, plundered it, and would have burnt it to the ground, had not the bishop hastened to the place, and drawn them off by his persuasions. The consequences of this difference with so powerful a nobleman as John of Gaunt, were probably dreaded even by Courtney; for, with respect to Wickliff, he at this time proceeded no farther than to enjoin him and his followers silence. In 1378, it is said by Godwin, but without proper authority, that Courtney was made a cardinal. In 1381, he was appointed lord high chancellor of England. The same year, he was translated to the see of Canterbury, in the room of Simon Sudbury; and on the 6th of May, 1382, he received the pall from the hands of the bishop of London in the archiepiscopal palace at Croydon. This year also he performed the ceremony of crowning queen Anne, consort of king Richard II. at Westminster. Soon after his inauguration, he restrained, by ecclesiastical censures, the bailiffs, and other officers, of the see of Canterbury, from taking cognizance of adultery and the like crimes, which then belonged to the ecclesiastical court. About the same time, he held a synod at London, in which several of Wickliff’s tenets were condemned as heretical and erroneous. In 1383, he held a synod at Oxford, in which a subsidy was granted to the king, some of WicklifT's followers obliged to recant, and the students of the university to swear renunciation of his tenets. The same year, in pursuance of the pope’s bull directed to him for that purpose, he issued his mandate to the bishop of London for celebrating the festival of St. Anne, mother of the blessed virgin. In 1386, the king, by the advice of his parliament, put the administration of the government into the hands of eleven commissioners, of whom archbishop Courtney was the first; but this lasted only one year. In 1387, he held a synod at London, in which a tenth was granted to the king. The same year, it being moved in a parliament held at London on occasion of the dissension between the king and his nobles, to inflict capital punishment on some of the ringleaders, and it being prohibited by the canons for bishops to be present and vote in cases of blood, the archbishop and his suffragans withdrew from the house of lords, having first entered a protest in relation to their peerage and privilege to sit upon all other matters. In 1399, he held a synod in St. Mary’s church in Cambridge, in which a tenth was granted to the king, on condition that he should pass over into France with an army before the 1st of October following. This year, archbishop Courtney set out upon his metropolitical visitation, in which he was at first strongly opposed by the bishops of Exeter and Salisbury; but those prelates being at last reduced to terms of submission, he proceeded in his visitation without farther opposition: only, at the intercession of the abbot of St. Alban’s, he refrained from visiting certain monasteries at Oxford. The same year, the king directed his royal mandate to the archbishop, not to countenance or contribute any thing towards a subsidy for the pope. In a parliament held at Winchester in 1392, archbishop Courtney, being probably suspected of abetting the papal encroachments upon the church and state, delivered in an answer to certain articles exhibited by the commons in relation to those encroachments, which is thought to have led the way to the statute of pr&munire. The same year, he visited the diocese of Lincoln, in which he endeavoured to check the growth of Wickliff’s doctrines. In 1395, he obtained from the pope a grant of four-pence in the pound on all ecclesiastical benefices; in which he was opposed by the bishop of Lincoln, who would not suffer it to be collected in his diocese, and appealed to the pope. But before the matter could be decided, archbishop Courtney died, July 31, 1396, at Maidstone in Kent, where he was buried, but has a monument in the cathedral church of Canterbury, on the south side, near the tomb of Thomas Becket, and at the feet of the Black Prince. His remains at Maidstone, only a few bones, were seen some years ago. This prelate founded a college of secular priests at Maidstone. He left a thousand marks for the repair of the cathedral church of Canterbury also to the same church a silver- gilt image of the Trinity, with six apostles standing round it weighing 160 pounds some books, and some ecclesiastical vestments. He obtained from king Richard a grant of four fairs to be kept at Canterbury yearly within the site of the priory. The character of archbishop Courtney, weighed in the balance of modern opinions, is that of a persecuting adherent to the church of Rome, to which, however, he was not so much attached as to forget what was due to his king and country. He appears to have exhibited in critical emergencies, a bold and resolute spirit, and occasionally a happy presence of mind. One circumstance, which displays the strength and firmness of Courtney’s mind in the exercise of his religious bigotry, deserves to be noticed. When the archbishop, on a certain day, with a number of bishops and divines, had assembled to condemn the tenets of Wickliff, just as they were going to enter upon business, a violent earthquake shook the monastery. Upon this, the terrified bishops threw down their papers, and crying out, that the business was displeasing to God, came to a hasty resolution to proceed no farther. “The archbishop alone,” says Mr. Gil pin in his Life of Wickliff, “remained unmoved. With equal spirit and address he chid their superstitious fears, and told them, that if the earthquake portended any thing, it portended the downfall of heresy; that as noxious vapours are lodged in the bowels of the earth, and are expelled by these violent concussions, so by their strenuous endeavours, the kingdom should be purified from the pestilential taint of heresy, which had infected it in every part. This speech, together with the news that the earthquake was general through the city, &s it was afterwards indeed found to have been through the island, dispelled their fears Wickliff would often merrily speak of this accident; and would call this assembly the council of the herydene; herydene being the old English word for earthquake.”

, a medical and metaphysical writer, was the son of Mr. William Coward of Winchester, where he was born in the year 1656 or 1657. It is not certain where young Coward received his grammatical education; but it was probably at Winchester-school. In his eighteenth year he was removed to Oxford, and in May 1674 became a commoner of Hart-hall; the inducement to which might probably be, that his uncle was at the head of that seminary. However, he did not long continue there; for in the year following he was admitted a scholar of Wadham college. On the 27th of June, 1677, betook the degree of B. A. and in January 1680 he was chosen probationer fellow of Merton college. In the year 1681, was published Mr. Dvyden’s Absalom and Achitophel, a production on the celebrity of which we need not expatiate. At Oxford it could not fail to be greatly admired for its poetical merit; besjde which, it might be the better received on account of its containing a severe satire on the duke of Monmouth and the earl of Sbftftesboryj two men who were certainly no favourites with tnat loyal university. Accordingly, the admiration of the poem produced two Latin versions of it, both of which were written and printed at Oxford; one by Mr. Francis Atterbury (afterwards the celebrated bishop of Rochester), who was assisted in it by Mr. Francis Hickman, a student of Christchurch; and the other by Mr. Coward. These translations were published in quarto, in 1682. Whatever proof Mr. Coward’s version of the Absalom and Achitophel might afford oi“his progress in classical literature, he was not very fortunate in this first publication. It was compared with Mr. Atterbury’s production, not a little to its disadvantage. According to Anthony Wood, he was schooled for it in the college; it was not well received in the university; and Atterbury’s poem was extolled as greatly superior. To conceal, in some degree, Mr. Coward’s mortification, a friend of his, in a public paper, advertised the translation, as written by a Walter Curie, of Hertford, gentleman; yet Coward’s version was generally mistaken for Atterbury’s, and a specimen given of it in Stackhouse’s life of that prelate. On the 13th of December, 1683, Mr. Coward was admitted to the degree of M.A. Having determined to apply himself to the practice of medicine, he prosecuted his studies in that science, and took the degree of bachelor of physic on the 23d of June 1685, and of doctor on the 2,d of July 1687. After his quitting Oxford he exercised his profession at Northampton, from which place he removed to London in 1693 or 1694, and settled in Lombard-street. In 1695 he published a tract in 8vo, entitled” De fermento volatili nutritio conjectura rationis, qua ostenditur spiritum volatilemoleosum, e sanguine suffusurn, esse verum ac genuinum concoctionis ac nutritionis instrumentum.“For this work he^iad an honourable approbation from the president and censors of the college of physicians. But it was not to medical studies only that Dr. Coward confined his attention. Besides being fond of polite learning, he entered deeply into metaphysical speculations, especially with regard to the nature of the soul, and the natural immortality of man. The result of his inquiries was his publication, in 1702, under the fictitious name of Estibius Psycalethes, entitled” Second Thoughts concerning Human Soul, demonstrating the notion of human soul, as believed to be a spiritual immortal substance united to a human body, to be a plain heathenish invention, and not consonant to the principles of philosophy, reason, or religion; but the ground only of many absurd and superstitious opinions, abominable to the reformed church, and derogatory in general to true Christianity.“This work was dedicated by the doctor to the clergy of the church of England; and he professes at his setting out,” that the main stress of arguments, either to confound or support his opinion, must be drawn from those only credentials of true and orthodox divinity, the lively oracles of God, the Holy Scriptures.“In another part, in answer to the question, Does man die like a brute beast? he says,” Yes, in respect to their end in this life; both their deaths consist in a privation of life.“” But then,“he adds,” man has this prerogative or pre-eminence above a brute, that he will be raised to life again, and be made partaker of eternal happiness in the world to come.“Notwithstanding these professions to the authority of the Christian Scriptures, Dr. Coward has commonly been ranked with those who have been reputed to be the most rancorous and determined adversaries of Christianity. Swift has ranked him with Toland, Tindal, and Gildon; and passages to the like purpose are not unfrequent among controversial writers, especially during the former part of the last century. His denial of the immateriality and natural immortality of the soul, and of a separate state of existence between the time of death and the general resurrection, was so contrary to universal opinion, that it is not very surprising that he should be considered as an enemy to revelation. It might be expected that he would immediately meet with opponents; and accordingly he was attacked by various writers of different complexions and abilities; among whom were Dr. Nichols, Mr. John Broughton, and. Mr. John Turner. Dr. Nichols took up the argument in his” Conference with a Theist.“Mr. Broughton wrote a treatise entitled” Psychologia, or, an Account of the nature of the rational Soul, in two parts;“and Mr. Turner published a” Vindication of the separate existence of the Soul from a late author’s Second Thoughts.“Both these pieces appeared in 1703. Mr. Turner’s publication was answered by Dr. Coward, in a pamphlet called” Farther Thoughts upon Second Thoughts,“in which he acknowledges, that in Mr. Turner he had a rational and candid adversary. He had not the same opinion of Mr. Broughton who therefore was treated by him with severity, in” An Epistolary Reply to Mr. Broughton’s Psychologia;“which reply was not separately printed, but annexed to a work of the doctor’s, published in the beginning of the year 1704, and entitled,” The Grand Essay or, a Vindication of Reason and Religion against the impostures of Philosophy." In this last production, the idea of the human soul’s being an immaterial substance was again vigorously attacked.

The first occasion of his entering into business, was an elegy he wrote on the death of Mr. William Hervey. This brought him into the acquaintance of John Hervey, the brother of his deceased friend, from whom he received many offices of kindness, and principally this, that by his means he came into the service of the lord St. Alban’s. la 1643, being then M. A. he was, among many others, ejected his college and the university, by the prevalence f parliament; upon which, he retired to Oxford, settled in St. John’s college there, and that same year, under the name of an Oxford Scholar, published a satire entitled “The Puritan and the Papist.” His affection to the royal cause engaged him in the service of the king and he attended in several of his majesty’s journies and expeditions. Here he became intimately acquainted with lord Falkland, and other great men, whom the fortune of the war had drawn together. During the heat of the civil war, he was settled in the family of the earl of St. Alban’s, and attended the queen mother when she was forced to retire into France. He was absent from England about ten years, says Wood; about twelve, says Sprat; which, be they more or less, were wholly spent, either in bearing a share in the distresses of the royal family, or in labouring in their affairs. To this purpose he performed several dangerous journies into Jersey, Scotland, Flanders, Holland, and elsewhere; and was the principal instrument in maintaining a correspondence between the king and his royal consort, whose letters he cyphered and decyphered with his own hand, an employment of the highest confidence and honour.

, an ingenious and popular dramatic writer, the daughter of Mr. Philip Parkhouse, of Tiverton, in Devonshire, was born at that place in 1743. Her father was educated for holy orders, but a family loss depriving him of a certainty of provision in the church, he desisted from his first intention, and became a bookseller, as the nearest approach he could then prudently make to a life of some degree of literary enjoyment. He afterwards rose to be a member of the corporation of Tiverton, and was very highly respected as a man of talents and probity, and a good scholar. He was not very distantly related to the poet Gay, who recordshis visit to his relations in Devonshire in his “Journey to Exeter,” inscribed to the earl of Burlington. It was Mr. Parkhouse’s favourite aim to cultivate the promising talents of his daughter, and he lived to witness the reputation she acquired almost to the last period of her literary career. In her twenty -fifth year she was married to Mr. Cowley, a man of very considerable talents, who died in 1797, a captain in the East India company’s service. It was when he was with his regiment in India that she dedicated her comedy of “More Ways than One” to him, in the affectionate lines prefixed to it; and it was to this gentleman’s brother, an eminent merchant of London, now living, that “The Fate of Sparta” is dedicated with so much feeling.

, earl Cowper, lord high chancellor of Great Britain, was descended from an ancient family, and son to sir William Cowper, baronet, and member of parliament for the town of Hertford in the reigns of Charles II. and William III. He is supposed to have been born in the castle of Hertford, of which his family had been a considerable time in possession; but of the place or time of his birth, or where he was educated, we have not been able to obtain any certain information. It appears, however, that he made so great a proficiency in the study of the law, that, soon after he was called to the bar, he was chosen recorder of Colchester, and in the reign of king William he was appointed one of his majesty’s council. In 1695 he was chosen one of the representatives in parliament for the town of Hertford, and on the day he took his seat had occasion to speak three times, with great applause. The following year he appeared as counsel for the crown on the trials of sir William Perkins, and others, who were convicted of high treason, for being concerned in the plot to assassinate king William. He was also counsel for the crown on the trial of captain Thomas Vaughan, for high treason on the high seas; and he likewise supported in parliament the bill of attainder against sir John Fenwick. In 1704, in a speech in the house of commons, in the famous case of Ashby and White, he maintained that an action did lie at common law, for an elector who had been denied his vote for members of parliament. His reputation continuing greatly to increase, on the accession of queen Anne he was again appointed one of the counsel to the crown; and on October 11, 1705, he was constituted lord keeper of the great seal of England. A few days after, queen Anne addressed both houses of parliament in a speech, which was well received, and which was said to be written by the new lord keeper.

1619, 4to. Fuller’s Abel Redivivus. Clarke’s Ecclesiastical History, p. 445. Hayley’s life of Cowper, To!. I. p. '2. 8vo edit. Mr. Hayley thinks it not improbable that he may have been an ancestor of the poet. waited upon the queen at St. James’s with the articles agreed upon between the commissioners, as the terms upon which the union was to take place, and made a speech to her majesty on the occasion. The articles of union, agreed upon by the commissioners, with some few alterations, were afterwards ratified by the parliaments both of England and Scotland. The lord-keeper had a very considera^le hand in this measure, and in consideration of that, and his general merit and services, he was advanced, Nov^ 9, 1706, to the dignity of a peer, by the style and title of lord Cowper, baron Cowper of Wingham in Kent; and on May 4, 1707, her majesty in council declared him lord high chancellor of Great Britain. In 1709, in consequence of the intrigues of Harley and Mrs. Masham, the earl of Sunderland, son-in-law to the duke of Marlborough, was removed from the office of secretary of state; and it being apprehended that this event would give disgust to that great general, and perhaps induce him to quit the command of the army, a joint letter was sent to his grace by lord Cowper, the dukes of Newcastle and Devonshire, and other noblemen, in which they conjured him in the strongest terms, not to quit his command. But soon after, on the 8th of August, 1710, the earl of Godolphin being removed from the post of lord-treasurer, the other whig ministers resigned with spirit and dignity. Lord Cowper, in particular, behaved with unexampled firmness and honour, rejecting with scorn the overtures which Harley, the new favourite, made to induce him to continue. When he waited on the queen to resign, she strongly opposed his resolution, and returned the seals three times after he had laid them down. At last, when she could not prevail, she commanded him to take them ' adding, “I beg it as a favour of you, if I may use that expression.” Cowper could not refuse to obey her commands: but, after a short pause, and taking up the seals, he said that he would not carry them out of the palace except on the promise, that the surrender of them would be accepted on the morrow: and on the following day his resignation was accepted. This singular contest between her majesty and him lasted three quarters of an hour.

Soon after the new ministry came into office, Mr. Harley being at the head of the treasury, some inquiries were set on foot in order to criminate the late administration; and a vote of censure was passed relative to the management of the war in Spain. Lord Cowper took an active part in the debates occasioned by these inquiries, joining in several protests against the determinations of the house of peers concerning the conduct of that war. When prince Eugene was in England, he is said to have been consulted about some dangerous schemes formed by that prince and the duke of I\iarlborough. It may reasonably be questioned, whether any such schemes were ever really formed by those great men; but it is allowed on all hands, that they received no countenance or approbation from lord Cowper. The general opposition, however, which he gave to the administration of the earl of Oxford, occasioned him to be attacked by dean Swift with much virulence in the Examiner; and some reflections were thrown out against him relative to his private character, which is said to have been somewhat licentious with respect to women. In reply to Swift, his lordship wrote “A Letter to Isaac Bickerstaff, occasioned by a Letter to the Examiner,” 1710, which was printed in lord, Somers’s Tracts, vol. IV.

On the demise of queen Anne, lord Cowper was nominated one of the lords justices of the kingdom, till the arrival of king George I. from Hanover. On the 29th of August, 1714, he was appointed lord chancellor of Great Britain; and shortly after lord lieutenant and custos rotulorum of the county of Hertford. When a new parliament was assembled, on the 27th of March, 1715, George I. declared from the throne, “That he had ordered the lord chancellor to declare the causes of calling this parliament in his majesty’s name and words.” He then delivered his speech into lord Cowper’s hands, who read it to both houses. On the 6th of February, 1716, his lordship was appointed lord high-steward for the trial of the rebel lords; as he was also, the following year, at the trial of the earl of Oxford, to whom he behaved on that occasion with great politeness. A change taking place in the ministry in the beginning of March 1718, lord Cowper resolved to resign the great seal; but, before his resignation, the king, on account of his great merit and services, on the 18th of that month, raised him to the dignity of a viscount and earl, by the title of viscount Fordwich, in the county of Kent, and earl Cowper. The preamble to his patent was drawn up by Mr. Hughes the poet, whom he had patronized. He resigned the great seal in the month of April, and was succeeded by lord Parker.

On the 15th of May this year, earl Cowper made a long speech in the house of peers, in opposition to the bill for inflicting pains and penalties on bishop Atterbury. He urged a variety of arguments to shew, that the evidence against the bishop was extremely insufficient; and he pointed out the danger of such a precedent, as that of inflicting pains and penalties on a man without law, and without proper evidence against him. His lordship strongly objected to the distinction that had been made in the debate, between real evidence, anci legcl evidence; and maintained, that the law required only such real and certain proof, as ought in natural justice and equity, to be received. The last public transaction, in which we find earl Cowper engaged, was opposing the bill for taxing the papists; which he represented as an impolitic and indefensible measure; and when it passed, earl Cowper, and several other lords, signed a protest against it. His lordship lived but a few months after; for he died at his seat at Colne-green, in Hertfordshire, on the 10th of October, 1723; and on the 19th of that month, he was interred in Hertingfordbury church, in the same county.

The eloquence and abilities of earl Cowper were highly celebrated ii> his own time he made a very conspicuous figure at the bar he was a distinguished member of both houses of parliament; his general character as a public man appears to have been entitled to high praise, from which, perhaps, in our days, it will be thought no deduction that he did not always act with the independence which rejects party connections and views. But in his conduct in the court of chancery he displayed great disinterestedness. He opposed the frequency and facility with which private bills passed in parliament; and refused the new year’s gifts, which it had been customary to present to those who held the great seal. Mr. Tindal, who had an opportunity of knowing him, says that he “was eminent for his integrity in the discharge of the office of lord chancellor, which he had twice filled. There may have been chancellors of more extensive learning, but none of more knowledge in the laws of England. His judgment was quick, and yet solid. His eloquence manly, but flowing. His manner graceful and noble.” Lord Chesterfield, in his Letters to his Son, represents earl Cowper as more distinguished, as a speaker, by the elegance of his language, and the gracefulness of his manner, than by the force of his arguments; that his strength as an orator lay by no means in his reasoning, for he often hazarded very weak ones. “But such was the purity and elegancy of his style, such the propriety and charms of his elocution, and such the gracefulness of his action, that he never spoke without universal applause. The ears and the eyes gave him up the hearts and the understanding of the audience.”

Earl Cowper was one of the governors of the Charterhouse, and a fellow of the royal society. He was twice married. By his first wife, Judith, who was daughter and heiress of sir Robert Booth, of London, knight, he had one son, who died young. Mary, his second wife, who did not long survive him, was daughter of John Clavering, esq. of Chopwell, in the bishopric of Durham. By this lady he had issue two sons and two daughters. His eldest son, William, succeeded him in his titles and estate; and his second son, Spencer, became dean of Durham. His eldest daughter, lady Sarah Cowper, who is said to have been “distinguished for her sense and accomplishments,” died unmarried in 1758. His. youngest, lady Anne, was married in 1731 to James Edward Colleton, esq. of Hayneshill in Berkshire, and died in 1750.

William, the second earl Cowper, was twice married; in 1732, to lady Henrietta, youngest daughter and coheir of Henry D'Auverquerque earl of Grantham; and in 1750, to lady Georgina, daughter to earl Granville, and widow of the hon. John Spencer, esq. by whom she was mother of John earl Spencer. By lady Georgina, lord Cowper had no issue; but by his first countess, who died in 1747, he was father of George Nassau, third earl Cowper, who died at Florence in 1789, and was succeeded by his son George Augustus, who also dying in 1799, was* succeeded by Leopold Louis Francis, his brother, the present and fifth earl Cowper.

The translation of Homer, after innumerable interruptions, was sent to press about November 1790, and published on the first of July 1791, in two quarto volumes, the Iliad being inscribed to earl Gowper, his young kinsman, and the Odyssey to the dowager lady Spencer. Such was its success with the subscribers and non-subscribers that the edition was nearly out of print in less than six months. Yet after all the labour he had employed, and all the anxiety he felt for this work, it fell so short of the expectation formed by the public, and of the perfection which he hoped he had attained, that instead of a second edition, he began, at no long distance of time, what may be termed a new translation. To himself, however, his first attempt had been of great advantage, nor were any number of his years spent in more general tranquillity, than the five which he had dedicated to Homer. One of the greatest benefits he derived from his attention to this translation, was the renewed conviction that labour of this kind, although with intermissions, sometimes of relaxation, and sometimes of anxiety, was necessary to his health and happiness. And this conviction led him very soon to accede to a proposal made by his bookseller, to undertake a magnificent edition of Milton’s poetical works, the beauties of which had engaged his wonder at a very early period of life. These he was now to illustrate by notes, original and selected, and to translate the Latin and Italian poems, while Mr. Fuseli was to paint a series of pictures to be engraven by the first artists. To this scheme, when yet in its infancy, the public is indebted for the friendship which Mr. Hayley contracted with Cowper, and one of its happiest consequences, such a specimen of biography, minute, elegant, and highly instructive, as can seldom be expected.

At this time, in consequence of a humane and judicious letter from the rev. Mr. Greathead, of Newport-Pagnel, Mr. Hayley paid a visit to this house of mourning, but found his poor friend “too much overwhelmed by his oppressive malady to show even the least glimmering of satisfaction at the appearance of a guest, whom he used to receive with the most lively expressions of affectionate delight.” In this deplorable state he continued during Mr. Hayley’s visit of some weeks, and the only circumstance which contributed in any degree to cheer the hearts of the friends who were now watching over him, was the intelligence that his majesty had been pleased to confer upon him such a pension as would insure an honourable competence for his life. Earl Spencer was the immediate agent in procuring this favour, and it would no doubt have added to its value, had the object of it known that he was indebted to one, who of all his noble friends, stood the highest in his esteem. But he was now, and for the remainder of his unhappy life, beyond the power of knowing or acknowledging the benevolence in which his heart delighted. Mr. Hayley left him for the last time in the spring of 1794, and from that period till the latter end of July 1795, Cowper remained in a state of the deepest melancholy.

, a brave officer, was of a respectable Scottish family, the Craigs of Dalnairand Costarton; and born in 1748 at Gibraltar, where his father held the appointments of civil and military judge* He entered the army at the early age of fifteen; and in a season of peace he imbibed the elementary knowledge of his profession in the best military schools of the continent. In 1770, he was appointed aid-de-camp to general sir Robert Boyd, then governor of Gibraltar, and obtained a company in the 47th regiment, with which he went to America in 1774, and was present at the battles of Lexington and Bunker’s-hill, in which latter engagement he was severely wounded. In 1776, he accompanied his regiment to Canada, commanding his company in the action of Trois Rivieres, and he afterwards commanded the advanced guard of the army in the expulsion of the rebels from that province. In 1777 he was engaged in the actions at Ticonderago and Hnbertown, in the latter of which engagements he was again severely wounded. Ever in a position of honourable danger, he received a third wound in the action at Freeman’s Farm. He was engaged in the disastrous affair at Saratoga, and was then distinguished by general Burgoyne, and the brave Fraser, who fell in that action, as a young officer who promised to attain to the very height of the military career. On that occasion he was selected by general Burgoyne to carry home the dispatches, and was immediately thereafter promoted to a majority in the new 82d regimen^ which he accompanied to Nova Scotia in 1778, to Penobscot in 1779, and to North Carolina in 1781; being engaged in a continued scene of active service during the whole of those campaigns, and generally commanding the light troops, with orders to act from his own discretion, on which his superiors in command relied with implicit confidence. In a service of this kind, the accuracy of his intelligence, the fertility of his resources, and the clearness of his military judgment, were alike conspicuous, and drew on him the attention of his sovereign, who noted him as an officer of the highest promise. In 1781, he obtained the lieutenant-colonelcy of the 82d regiment, and in 1783 that of the 16th, which he commanded in Ireland till 1791, having been promoted to the rank of colonel in 1790. In 1782, he went to the continent for the purpose of instructing himself in the discipline of the Prussian army, at that time esteemed the most perfect in Europe; and in a correspondence with general sir D. Dundas, communicated the result of his knowledge to that most able tactician, from whose professional science his country has derived so much advantage in the first improvement of the disciplinary system; and it is believed that the first experiments of the new exercise were, by his majesty’s orders, reduced to the test of practice, under the eye of colonel Craig, in the 16th regiment. In 1793 he was appointed to the command of Jersey, and soon thereafter of Guernsey, as lieutenant-governor. In 1794 he was appointed adjutant-general to the army under his royal highness the duke of York, by whose side he served during the whole of that campaign on the continent, and whose favour and confidence he enjoyed to the latest moment of his life. In 1794 he obtained the rank of major-­general, and in the beginning of the following year, he was sent on the expedition to the Cape of Good Hope, where, in the reduction and conquest of that most important settlement, with the co-operation of admiral sir G. K. Elphinstone, and major-gen. Clark, he attained to the highest pitch of his military reputation, and performed that signal service to his king and country, of which the memory will be as lasting as the national annals. Nor were his merits less conspicuous in the admirable plans of civil regulation, introduced by him in that hostile quarter, when invested with the chief authority, civil and military, as governor of the Cape, till succeeded in that situation by the earl of Macartney, in 1797, who, by a deputation from his majesty, invested general Craig with the red ribbon, as an honourable mark of his sovereign’s just sense of his distinguished services. Sir James Craig had scarcely returned to England, when it was his majesty’s pleasure to require his services on the staff in India. On his arrival at Madras, he was appointed to the command of an expedition against Manilla, which not taking place, he proceeded to Bengal, and took the field service. During a five years command in India, his attention and talents were unremittingly exerted to the improvement of the discipline of the Indian army, and to the promotion of that harmonious co-operation between its different constituent parts, on which not only the military strength, but the civil arrangement of that portion of the British empire so essentially depend. January 1801, sir James Craig was promoted to the rank of lieutenantgeneral, and returned to England in 1S02. He was appointed to the command of the eastern district, and remained in England till 1805, when, notwithstanding his constitution was much impaired by a long train of most active and fatiguing service, he was appointed by his sovereign to take the command of the British troops in the Mediterranean. He proceeded to Lisbon, Gibraltar, Malta, and from thence to Naples, to act in co-operation with the Russian army. But these plans being frustrated by the event of the battle of Austerlitz, sir James withdrew the troops from Naples to Messina, in Sicily. During the whole period of his command in the Mediterranean, he had suffered severely from that malady which terminated his life, a dropsy, proceeding from an organic affection of the liver; and feeling his disease sensibly gaining ground, he returned, with his sovereign’s permission, to England in 1805. A temporary abatement of his disorder flattering him with a prospect of recovery, and being unable to reconcile his mind to a situation of inactivity, he once more accepted of an active command from the choice of his sovereign; and in 1808, on the threatening appearance of hostilities with the United American States, was sent out to Quebec, as governor in chief of British America. The singular union of vigour and prudence, which distinguished his government in that most important official situation, are so recently impressed on the public mind, as to need no detail in this place. His merits were avowed and felt on both sides of the Atlantic: and as they proved the termination, so they will "ever be felt as throwing the highest lustre on the whole train of his public services. His constitution being now utterly enfeebled by a disease which precluded all hope of recovery, he returned to England in July 1811. Within three weeks of his death he was promoted to the rank of general. He looked forward with manly fortitude to his approaching dissolution, and in January 1812, ended a most honourable and useful career by an easy death, at the age of sixty-two.

It is not to be supposed that a preacher of such eminence, especially at a time when this mode of preaching was rare, should remain unknown or unnoticed. He soon received a presentation from Mr. Lockhart of Cambusnethan, to be minister of that parish and settled there in the year 1737. About this time great opposition was made by the people of Scotland, and particularly by those of Clydesdale, to the manner of appointing ministers by presentations from lay-patrons, and Mr. Craig encountered considerable opposition. Zealous, however, in the discharge of his duty, and hoping, in the conscious ardour of his endeavours, to reconcile his parishioners to that system of instruction which he thought best suited to their condition, and most consistent with Christianity, he refused a presentation to a church in Airshire, offered him by Mr. Montgomery of Coilsfield; and another offered him by the amiable but unfortunate earl of Kilmarnock. At length he accepted of a presentation to a church in Glasgow, the place of his nativity, where most of his relations resided, where he could have opportunities of conversing with his literary friends, and where the field for doing good was more extensive. He was first appointed minister of the Wyndchurch in that city: and, after the building of St. Andrew’s churrh, one of the most elegant places of public worship in Scotland, he was removed thither. His audience was at no time so numerous, but especially during the last fiveand-twenty years of his life, as those who valued good composition and liberality of sentiment apprehended that he deserved.

, the first Protestant archbishop of Canterbury, was the son of Thomas Cranmer, esq. and of Agnes, daughter of Laurence Hatfield, of Willoughby, in Nottinghamshire. He was born at Aslacton, in that county, July 2, 1489, and educated in grammar learning, under a rude and severe parish-clerk, of whom he learned little, and endured much. In 1503, at the age of fourteen, he was admitted into Jesus college, in Cambridge; of which he became fellow, and where he studied such learning as the times afforded, till the age of twenty-two, For the next four or five years he applied himself to polite literature; and for three years more, to the study of the Scriptures. After he was M. A. he married a gentleman’s daughter named Joan, living at the Dolphin, opposite Jesus-lane, and having by this match lost his fellowship, he took up his residence at the Dolphin, and became reader of the common lecture in Buckingham, now Magdalen college; but his wife dying in child-bed within a year, he was again admitted fellow of Jesus college. Upon cardinal Wolsey’s foundation of his new college at Oxford, Cranmer was nominated to be one of the fellows; but he refused the offer, or, as some say, was on the road to Oxford, when he was persuaded to return to Cambridge. In 1523, he was made D. D. reader of the theological lecture in his own college; and one of the examiners of those that took the degrees in divinity. The most immediate cause of his advancement to the greatest favour with king Henry VIII. and, in consequence of that, to the highest dignity in the church of England, was the opinion he gave in the matter of that king’s divorce. Having, on account of the plague at Cambridge, retired to Waltham-abbey, in Essex, to the house of one Mr. Cressy, to whose wife he was related, and whose sons were his pupils at the university; Edward Fox, the king’s almoner, and Stephen Gardiner, the secretary, happened accidentally to come to that house, and the conversation turning upon what then was a popular topic, the king’s divorce, Cranmer, whose opinion was asked, said, that “it would be much better to have this question, e whether a man may marry his brother’s wife, or no?' decided and discussed by the divines, and by the authority of the word of God, than thus from year to year prolong the time by having recourse to the pope; and that this might be done as well in England in the universities here, as at Rome, or elsewhere.” This opinion being communicate-d by Dr. Fox to the king, his majesty approved of it much; saying, in his coarse language, that Cranmer “had the sow by the right ear.” On this, Cranmer was sent for to court, made the king’s chaplain, ordered to write upon the subject of the divorce, furnished with books for that purpose, and placed in the family of Thomas Boleyn, earl of Wiltshire and Ormond. When he had finished his book, he went to Cambridge to dispute upon that point, and brought several over to his opinion, which was, that, according to the Scriptures, general councils, and ancient writers, the pope had no authority to dispense with the word of God. About this time he was presented to a living, and made archdeacon of Tauntpn. In 1530 he was sent, with some others, into France, Italy, and Germany, to discuss the affair of the king’s marriage. At Rome he got his book presented to the pope, and offered to dispute openly against the validity of king Henry’s marriage; but no one chose to engage him. While he was at Rome, the pope constituted him his pcenitentiary throughout England, Ireland, and Wales. In Germany he was sole embassador on the same affair; and in 1532 concluded a treaty of commerce between England and the Low Countries. He was also employed on an embassy to the duke of Saxony, and other Protestant princes. During his residence in Germany, he married at Nuremberg a second wife, named Anne, niece of Osiander’s wife. Upon the death of archbishop Warham, in August 1532, Cranmer was nominated for his successor; but, holding still to his opinion on the supremacy, he refused to accept of that dignity, unless he was to receive it immediately from the king, without the pope’s intervention Before his consecration, the king so far engaged him in the business of his divorce, that he made him a party and an actor almost in every step he took in that affair. He not only pronounced the sentence of divorce between king Henry and queen Catherine, at Dunstable, May the 23d, 1533, but, according to Parker, married him to Anne Boleyn; although lord Herbert says they were privately married by Rowland Lee, afterwards bishop of Litchfield and Coventry, in the presence of lady Anne’s father, mother, and brother, Dr. Cranmer, and the duke of Norfolk. However this may be, on March 30th, 1533, he was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, by the bishops of Lincoln, Exeter, and St. Asaph, when he made an unusual protestation. His design was by this expedient to save his liberty, to renounce every clause in his oath which barred him doing his duty to God, the king, and his country. Collier, who often argues as if he were fee'd by the church of Rome, thinks there was something of human infirmity in this management, because it was not made at Koine to the pope, nor by Cranmer’s proxies there, before the obtaining of the bulls, not perceiving that Cranmer’s opposition to the power of the pope was as uniform as it had been early, and the effect of conviction. The temporalities of the archbishopric were restored to Cranmer the 29th of April following. Soon after, he forbad all preaching throughout his diocese, and visited it this year in December. The pope threatening him with excommunication, on account of his sentence against queen Catherine, he appealed from his holiness to a general council, and in the ensuing parliaments, strenuously disputed against the pope’s supremacy. All along he showed himself a zealous promoter of the reformation; and, as the first step towards it, procured the convocation to petition the king that the Bible might be translated into English. When that was obtained, he diligently encouraged the printing and publication of it, and caused it to be recommended by royal authority, and to be dispersed as much as he possibly could. Next, he forwarded the dissolution of the monasteries, which were one of the greatest obstacles to a reformation *. He endeavoured also to restore the church of England to its original purity. In 1535 he performed a provincial visitation, in order to recommend the king’s supremacy, and preached upon that subject in several parts of his diocese, urging that the bishop of Rome was not God’s vicar upon earth, as supposed, and that that see so much boasted of, and by which name popes affected to be styled, was but a holiness in name, and that there was no such holiness at Rome, as he easily proved from the vices of the court of Rome. In

, a very amiable and ingenious lady, nearly related to the poet Dryden, was the only daughter of sir Gilbert Pickering, bart. by Elizabeth, the only daughter of sir Sidney Montagu, knt. and sister of Edward Montagu, first earl of Sandwich. She was born in 1642, and was married to John Creed of Oundle, esq. a wise, learned, and pious man (as his inscription, written by her, intimates), “who served his majesty Charles II. in diverse honourable employments at home and abroad; lived with honour, and died lamented, 1701.” By this gentleman she had a numerous family, one of whom, the brave major Richard Creed, is commemorated by a monument in Westminster-abbey, as well as by one erected by his mother in the church of Tichmarsh. During her widowhood, Mrs. Creed resided many years in a mansionhouse at Barnwell, near Oundle in Northamptonshire, belonging to the Montagu family, where she amused and employed herself in painting, and gratuitously instructed many young women in drawing, fine needle-work, and other elegant arts. Many of the churches in the neighbourhood of Oundle are decorated with altar-pieces, monuments, and ornaments of different kinds, the works of her hand; and her descendants are possessed of many portraits, and some good pictures painted by her. Two days in every week she constantly allotted to the public; on one, she was visited by all the nobility and gentry who resided near her; on the other, she received and relieved all the afflicted and diseased of every rank, giving them food, raiment, or medicine, according to their wants. Her reputation in the administration of medicine was considerable; and as she afforded it gratis, her practice was of course extensive. Her piety was great and unaffected. That it was truly sincere, was evinced by the magnanimity with which she endured many trials more heavily afflictive than what usually fall to the lot even of those whose life is prolonged to so great an extent. In 1722, when in her eightieth year, she erected a monument in the church of Ticbmarsh to the memory of Dryden and his ancestors, with a:; inscription by herself. She died at Ountlle in May 1728, and her remains were removed to Tichmarsh, where she was buried with her ancestors. Her funeral sermon, which Mr. Malone doesnot appear to have seen, was preached hy Henry Lee, D. D. rector of Tichmarsh in May 1728, and therefore probably the date of her death, in Malone’s Life of Dryden, viz. “the beginning of 1724-5,” must be incorrect. This sermon, printed at London the same year, 8vo, is dedicated to Mrs. Stuart, executrix and sole surviving daughter of Mrs. Creed. An extract from it, confirming the excellence of her character, may be seen in a compilation less respected than it deserves, Wilford’s “Memorials.”

, a celebrated popish writer, descended from an ancient and honourable family, seated formerly in Nottinghamshire, but before his time it had removed into Yorkshire, in which county he was born, at Wakefield, in 1605. His father was Hugh Cressey, esq. barrister of Lincoln’s-inn; his mother’s name was Margery, the daughter of Dr. Thomas Doylie, an eminent physician in London. He was educated at a grammar-school at Wakefield, and about the age of fourteen, in Lent term 1619, he was removed to Oxford, where he studied with great vigour and diligence, and in the year 1626 was admitted fellow of Merton college, in that university. After taking the degrees of B. A. and M. A. he entered into holy orders, and became chaplain to Thomas lord Wentworth, then lord president of the north, with whom he lived some years. About 1638, he went over to Ireland with Lucius Carey, lord viscount Falkland, to whom he was likewise chaplain; and by him, when he was secretary of state, Cressey was, in 1642, promoted to a canonry in the collegiate church of Windsor, and to the dignity of dean of Laughlin, in the kingdom of Ireland, but through the disturbances of the times, he never attained the possession of either of these preferments. After the unfortunate death of his patron, who was killed in the battle of Newbury, he found himself destitute of subsistence, and therefore readily accepted a proposal that was made him, of travelling with Charles Bertie, esq. afterwards created earl of Falmouth, a great favourite of king Charles II. who was unhappily killed in a battle at sea in the first Dutch war after the restoration. Cressey quitted England in 1644, and making the tour of Italy with his pupil, moved by the declining state of the church of England, he began to listen to the persuasion of the Romish divines, and in 1646 made a public profession at Rome of his being reconciled to that church. He went from thence to Paris, where he thought fit to publish what he was pleased to style the motives of his conversion, which work of his, as might reasonably be expected, was highly applauded by the Romanists, and was long considered by them as a very extraordinary performance. It is entitled, “Exomologesis, or a faithfal narration of the occasions and motives of his conversion to Catholic Unity,” Paris, 1647, and 1653, 8vo. To the last edition is an appendix, “In which are cleared certain misconstructions of his Exomologesis, published by J. P. author of the preface to the lord Falkland’s discourse of Infallibility.” As soon as this was finished, he sent it over to his friend Dr. Henry Hammond, as to one whose sincerity he had experienced, and for whose judgment he had a high esteem. That learned person wrote him a kind letter of thanks for his book, but at the same time told him there was a vein of fallacy ran through the whole contexture of it; adding, “we are friends, and I do not propose to be your antagonist.” At the close of this epistle, he invited him into England, assuring him that he should be provided with a convenient place to dwell in, and a sufficient subsistence to live comfortably, without being molested by any about his religion and conscience. This offer, though our author did not accept, yet he returned, as became him, an answer full of respect and gratitude to the kind friend who had made it.

After the restoration, and the marriage of king Charles II. queen Catharine appointed our author, who was then become one of the mission in England, her chaplain, and from that time he resided in Somerset-house, in the Strand. The great regularity of his life, his sincere and unaffected piety, his modest and mild behaviour, his respectful deportment to persons of distinction, with whom he was formerly acquainted when a protestant, and the care he took to avoid all concern in political affairs or intrigues of state, preserved him in quiet and safety, even in the most troublesome times- He was, however, a very zealous champion in the cause of the church of Rome, and was continually writing in defence of her doctrines, or in answer to the books of controversy written by protestants of distinguished learning or figure; and as this engaged him in a variety of disputes, he had the good fortune to acquire great reputation with both parties, the papists looking upon him to be one of their ablest advocates, and the protestants allowing that he was a grave, a sensible, and a candid writer. Among the works he published after his return to England, were: 1. “A non est inventus returned to Mr. Edward Bagshaw’s enquiry and vainly boasted discovery of weakness in the Grounds of the Church’s Infallibility,” 1662, 8vo. 2. “A Letter to an English gentleman, dated July 6th, 1662, wherein bishop Morley is concerned, printed amongst some of the treatises of that reverend prelate,” 3. “Roman Catholic Doctrines no Novelties; or, an answer to Dr. Pierce’s court-sermon, miscalled The primitive rule of Reformation,” 1663, 8vo; answered by Dr. Daniel Whitby. But that which contributed to make him most known, was his large and copious ecclesiastical history, entitled “The Church History of Britanny,” Roan, 1668, fol. which was indeed a work of great pains and labour, and executed with much accuracy and diligence. He had observed that nothing made a greater impression upon the people in general of his communion, than the reputation of the great antiquity of their church, and the fame of the old saints of both sexes, that had flourished in this island; and therefore he judged that nothing could be more serviceable in promoting what he styled the catholic interest, than to write such a history as might set these points in the fairest and fullest light possible. He had before him the example of a famous Jesuit, Michael Alford, alias Griffith, who had adjusted the same history under the years in which the principal events happened, in four large volumes, collected from our ancient historians; but, as this was written in Latin, he judged that it was less suited to the wants of common readers, and therefore he translated what suited his purpose into English, with such helps and improvements as he thought necessary. His history was very much approved by the most learned of his countrymen of the same religion, as appears by the testimonies prefixed to it. Much indeed may be said in favour of the order, regularity, and coherence of the facts, and the care and punctuality shewn in citing his authorities. On the other hand, he has too frequently adopted the superstitious notions of many of our old writers; transcribing from them such fabulous passages as have been long ago exploded by the inquisitive and impartial critics of his own faith. The book, however, long maintained its credit among the Romanists, as a most authentic ecclesiastical chronicle, and is frequently cited by their most considerable authors. He proposed to have published another volume of this history, which was to have carried it as low as the dissolution of monasteries by king Henry VIII. but he died before he had proceeded full three hundred years lower than the Norman conquest. Dodd, however, informs us that a considerable part of the second volume was preserved in ms. in the Benedictine monastery at Douay, and that it was never published “upon account of some nice controversies between the see of Rome, and some of our English kings, which might give offence.” While engaged on this work, he found leisure to interfere in all the controversies of the times, as will presently be noticed. His last dispute was in reference to a book written by the learned Dr. Stillingfleet, afterwards bishop of Worcester, to which, though several answers were given by the ablest of the popish writers, there was none that seemed to merit reply, excepting that penned by father Cressey, and this procured him the honour of a very illustrious antagonist, his old friend and acquaintance at Oxford, Edward earl of Clarendon. Being now grown far in years, and having no very promising scene before his eyes, from the warm spirit that appeared against popery amongst all ranks of people, and the many excellent books written to confute it by the most learned of the clergy, he was the more willing to seek for peace in the silence of a country retirement; and accordingly withdrew for some time to the house of Richard Caryll, esq. a gentleman of an ancient family and affluent fortune, at East Grinstead, co. Sussex, and dying upon the 10th of August 1674, being then near the seventieth year of his age, was buried in the parish church there. His loss was much regretted by those of his communion, as being one of their ablest champions, ready to draw his pen in their defence on every occasion, and sure of having his pieces read with singular favour and attention. His memory also was revered by the protestants, as well on account of the purity of his manners, and his mild and humble deportment, as for the plainness, candour, and decency with which he had managed all the controversies that he had been engaged in, and which had procured him, in return, much more of kindness and respect, than almost any other of his party had met with, or indeed deserved. It is very remarkable, however, that he thought it necessary to apologize to his popish readers for the respectful mention he made of the prelates of our church. Why this should require an apology, we shall not Inquire, but that his candour and politeness deserve the highest commendation will appear from what he says of archbishop Usher: “As for B. Usher, his admirable abilities in ‘chronological and historical erudition,’ as also his faithfulness and ingenuous sincerity in delivering without any provoking reflection*, what with great labour he has observed, ought certainly at least to exempt him from being treated by any one rudely and contemptuously, especially by me, who am moreover always obliged to preserve a just remembrance of very many kind effects of friendship, which I received from, him.” We have already taken notice of his inclination to the mystic divinity, which led him to take so much pains about the works of father Baker, and from the same disposition he also published “Sixteen revelations of divine love, shewed to a devout servant of our Lord, called mother Juliana, an anchorete of Norwich, who lived in the days of king Edward Hi.” He left also in ms. “An Abridgment of the book called The cloud of unknowing, and of the counsel referring to the same.” His next performance, was in answer to a famous treatise, written by Dr. Stillingfleet, against the church of Rome, which made a very great noise in those days, and put for some time a stop to the encroachments their missionaries were daily making, which highly provoked those of the Roman communion. This was entitled “Answer to part of Dr. Stillingfleet’s book, entitled Idolatry practised in the church of Rome,” 1672, 8vo, and was followed by “Fanaticism fanatically imputed to the Catholic Church by Dr. Stillingfleet, and the imputation refuted and retorted,” &c. 1672, 8vo, and “Question, Why are you a Catholic? Question, Why are you a Protestant?” 1673, 8vo. In support of Dr. Stillingfleet, the earl of Clarendon wrote “Animadversions” upon our author’s answer; in which he very plainly tells him and the world, that it was not devotion, but necessity and want of a subsistence, which drove him first out of the church of England, and then into a monastery. As this noble peer knew him well at Oxford, it may be very easily imagined that what he said made a very strong impression, and it was to efface this, that our author thought tit to send abroad an answer under the title of “Epistle apologetical to a person of honour, touching his vindication of Dr. Stillingfleet,' 1 1674, 8vo. In this work he gives a large relation of the state and condition of his affairs, at the time of what he styles his conversion, in order to remove the imputation of quitting his faith to obtain bread. The last work that he published was entitled” Remarks upon the Oath of Supremacy."

, bishop of Durham, the fifth sen of John lord Crewe, of Stean, co. Northampton, by Jemima, daughter and coheir of Edward Walgrave, of Lawford, in Essex, esq. was born at Stean, the 3 1st of January, 1633; and in 1652 admitted commoner of Lincoln college, in Oxford, where he took the degree of B. A. Feb. 1, 1655-6; soon after which he was chosen fellow of that college. On June 29th, 1658, he took the degree of M. A. At the restoration he declared heartily in favour of the crown and hierarchy; and in 1663 was one of the proctors of the university. The year following, on the 2d of July, he took the degree of LL. D.; and soon after went into holy orders. August the 12th, 1668, he was elected rector of Lincoln -college, upon the decease of Dr. Paul Hood. On the 29th of April, 1669, he was installed dean of Chichester, and held with that dignity, the praecentorship, in which he had been installed the day before. He was also appointed clerk of the closet to king Charles II. In 1671, upon the translation of Dr. Blandford to the see of Worcester, he was elected hishop of Oxford in his room, on the 16th of June, confirmed June the ISth, consecrated July the 2d, and enthroned the 5th of the same month; being allowed to hold with it, in commendam, the living of Whitney, and the rectorship of Lincoln college, which last he resigned in October 1672. In 1673 he performed the ceremony of the marriage of James duke of York with Maria of Este; and through that prince’s interest, to whom he appears to have been subservient, he was translated, the 22d of October, 1674, to the bishopric of Durham. In the beginning of J6.75, he baptized Katharina- Laura, the new-born daughter of James duke of York. The 26th of April, 1676, he was sworn of the privy council to king Charles II. and upon the accession of king James II. to the crown, he was in great favour with that prince; he was made dean of his majesty’s royal chapel in 1685, in the room of Compton, bishop of London, who had been removed; and within a few days after, was admitted into the privy council. In 1686 he was appointed one of the commissioners in the new ecclesiastical commission erected by king James, an honoqr which he is said to have valued beyond its worth. By virtue of that commission, he appeared on the 9th of August, at the proceedings against Henry bishop of London, and was for suspending him during the king’s pleasure; though the earl and bishop of Rochester, and chief justice Herbert, were against it. Immediately after that bishop’s suspension, commissioners were appointed to exercise all manner of ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the diocese of London, of which bishop Crewe was one. The 20th of November following, he was present at, and consenting to, the degradation of Mr. Samuel Johnson, previously to the most severe punishment that was inflicted on that eminent divine; and countenanced with his presence a prosecution carried on, in May 1687, against Dr. Peachy, vice-chancellor of Cambridge, for refusing to admit one Alban Francis, a Benedictine monk, to the degree of master of arts in that university, without taking the oaths. In July the same year, he offered to attend the pope’s nuncio at his public entry into London; but we are told his coachman refused to "drive lijm that way. His name was put again in a new ecclesiastical commission issued out this year, in October; in which he acted, during the severe proceedings against Magdalen college in Oxford, for refusing to elect one Anthony Farmer their president, pursuant to the king’s mandate. The bishop continued acting as an ecclesiastical commissioner till October 1688; when that commission was abolished. Towards the end of the year 1687, he was employed, with the bishops of Rochester and Peterborough, to draw up a form of thanksgiving for the queen’s being with child. But finding that the prince of Orange’s party was likely to' prevail, he absented himself from the council-board, and told the archbishop of Canterbury, that he was sorry for having so long concurred with the courtand desired now to be reconciled to his grace, and the other bishops. Even in the convention that met January 22, 1688-9, to consider of filling the throne, he was one of those who voted, on the 6th of February, that king James II. had abdicated the kingdom. Yet his past conduct was too recent to be forgotten, and therefore he was excepted by name out of the pardon granted by king William and queen Mary, May 23, 1690, which so terrified him, that he went over to Holland, and returned just in time to take the oaths to the new government, and preserved his bishopric. But, in order to secure to himself the possession of that dignity, he was forced to permit the crown to dispose of, or at least to nominate to, his prebends of Durham, as they should become vacant. By the death of his two elder brothers, he became in 1691, baron Crewe of Stean; and, about the 21st of December the same year, he married, but left no issue. During the rest of king William’s reign, he remained quiet and unmolested; and in the year 1710, he was one of the lords that opposed the prosecution then carried on against Dr. Sacheverell, and declared him not guilty; and likewise protested against several steps taken in that affair. He applied himself chiefly, in the latter part of his life, to works of munificence and charity. Particularly, he was a very great benefactor to Lincoln college, of which he had been fellow and rector; and laid out large sums in beautifying the bishop’s palace at Durham; besides many other instances of generosity and munificence of a more private nature. At length, his lordship departed this life on Monday September 18, 1721, aged eighty-eight; and was buried in his chapel at Stean, the 30th of the same month, with an inscription on his monument. He held the see of Durham forty-seven years. Dying without issue, the title of Baron Crewe of Stean became extinct with him.

, earl of Essex, an eminent statesman in the sixteenth century, was the son of Walter Cromwell, a blacksmith, at Putney, near London, and in his latter days a brewer; after whose decease, his mother was married to a sheerman in London. What education he had, was In a private school: and all the learning he attained to, was (according to the standard of those times), only reading and writing, and a little Latin. When he grew up, having a very great inclination for travelling, he went into foreign countries, though at whose expence is not known; and by that means he had an opportunity of seeing the world, of gaining experience, and of learning several languages, which proved of great service to him afterwards. Coming to Antwerp, where was then a very considerable English factory, he was by them retained to be their clerk, or secretary. But that office being too great a confinement, he embraced an opportunity that offered in 1510, of taking a journey to Rome. Whilst he remained in Italy he served for some time as a soldier under the duke of Bourbon, and was at the sacking of Rome: and at Bologna he assisted John Russel, esq. afterwards earl of Bedford, in making his escape, when he had like to be betrayed into the hands of the French, being secretly in those parts about our king’s affairs. It is also much to his credit, as an early convert to the reformation, that, in his journey to and from Rome, he learned by heart Erasmus’s translation of the New Testament. After his return from his travels he was taken into the family and service of cardinal Wolsey, who is said to have first discovered him in France, and who made him his solicitor, and often employed him in business of great importance. Among other things, he had the chief hand in the foundation of the two colleges begun at Oxford and Ipswich by that magnificent prelate; and upon the cardinal’s disgrace in 1529, he used his utmost endeavours and interest to have him restored to the king’s favour: even when articles of high-treason against him were sent down to the house of commons, of which Cromwell was then a member, he defended his master with so much wit and eloquence, that no treason cauld be laid to his charge: which honest beginning procured Cromwell great reputation, and made his parts and abilities to be much taken notice of. After the cardinal’s household was dissolved, Cromwell was taken into the king’s service (upon the recommendation of sir Christopher Hales, afterwards master of the rolls, and sir John Russel, knt. above-mentioned) as the fittest person to manage the disputes the king then had with the pope; though some endeavoured to hinder his promotion, and to prejudice his majesty against him, on account of his defacing the small monasteries that were dissolved for endowing Wolsey’s colleges. But he discovering to the king some particulars that were very acceptable to him respecting the submission of the clergy to the pope, in derogation of his majesty’s authority, he took him into the highest degree of favour, and soon after he was sent to the convocation, then sitting, to acquaint the clergy, that they were all fallen into a praemunire on the above account, and the provinces of Canterbury and York were glad to compromise by a present to the king of above 100,000l. In 1531 he was knighted; made master of the king’s jewel-house, with a salary of 50l. per annum; and constituted a privy-counsellor. The next year he was made clerk of the Hanaper, an office of profit and repute in chancery; and, before the end of the same year, chancellor of the exchequer, and in 1534, principal secretary of state, and master of the rolls. About the same time he was chosen chancellor of the university of Cambridge; soon after which followed a general visitation of that university, when the several colleges delivered up their charters, and other instruments, to sir Thomas Cromwell. The year before, he assessed the fines laid upon those who having 40l. per annum estate, refused to take the order of knighthood. In 1535 he was appointed visitor-general of the monasteries throughout England, in order for their suppression; and in that office is accused of having acted with much violence, although in other cases promises and pensions were employed to obtain the compliance of the monks and nuns. But the mode, whatever it might be, gave satisfaction to the king and his courtiers, and Cromwell was, on July 2, 1536, constituted lord keeper of the privy seal, when he resigned his mastership of the rolls . On the 9th of the same month he was advanced to the dignity of a baron of this realm, by the title of lord Cromwell of Okeham in Rutlandshire; and, six days after, took his place in the house of lords. The pope’s supremacy being now abolished in England, lord Cromwell was made, on the 18th of July, vicar-general, and vicegerent, over all the spirituality, under the king, who was declared supreme head of the church. In that quality his lordship satin the convocation holden this year, above the archbishops, as the king’s representative. Being-invested with such extensive power, he employed it in discouraging popery, and promoting the reformation. For that purpose he caused certain articles to be enjoined by the king’s authority, differing in many essential points from the established system of the Roman-catholic religion; and in September, this same year, he published some injunctions to the clergy, in which they were ordered to preach up the king’s supremacy; not to lay out their rhetoric in extolling images, relics, miracle*, or pilgrimages, but rather to exhort their people to serve God, and make provision for their families: to put parents and other directors of youth in mind to teach their children the Lord’s-prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments in their mother-tongue, and to provide a Bible in Latin and English, to be laid in the churches for every one to read at their pleasure. He likewise encouraged the translation of the Bible into English; and, when finished, enjoined that one of the largest volume should be provided for every parish church, at the joint charge of the parson and parishioners. These alterations, with the dissolution of the monasteries, and (notwithstanding the immense riches gotten from thence) his demanding at the same time for the king subsidies both from the clergy and laity, occasioned very great murmurs against him, and indeed with some reason. All this, however, rather served to establish him in the king’s esteem, who was as prodigal of money as he was rapacious and in 1537 his majesty constituted him chief justice itinerant of all the forests beyond Trent and on the 26th of August, the same year, he was elected knight of the garter, and dean of the cathedral church of Weils. The year following he obtained a grant of the castle and lordship of Okeham in the county of Rutland; and was also made constable of Carisbrook-castle in the Isle of Wight. In September he published new injunctions, directed to all bishops and curates, in which he ordered that a Bible, in English, should be set up in some convenient place in every church, where the parishioners might most commodiously resort to read the same: that the clergy should, every Sunday and holiday, openly and plainly recite to their parishioners, twice or thrice together, one article of the Lord’s Prayer, or Creed, in English, that they might learn the same by heart: that they should make, or cause to be made, in their churches, one sermon every quarter of a year at least, in which they should purely and sincerely declare the very gospel of Christ, and exhort their hearers to the works of charity, mercy, and faith not to pilgrimages, images, &c. that they should forthwith take clown all images to which pilgrimages or offerings were wont to be made: that in all such benefices upon which they were not themselves resident, they should appoint able curates: that they, and every parson, vicar, or curate, should for every church keep one book of register, wherein they should write the day and year of every wedding, christening, and burying, within their parish; and therein set every person’s name that shall be so wedded, christened, or buried, &c. Having been thus highly instrumental in promoting the reformation, and in dissolving the monasteries, he was amply rewarded by the king in 1539, with many noble manors and large estates that had belonged to those dissolved houses. On the 17th of April, the same year, he was advanced to the dignity of earl of Essex; and soon after constituted lord high chamberlain of England. The same day he was created earl of Essex he procured Gregory his son to be made baron Cromwell of Okeham. On the 12th of March 1540, he was put in commission, with others, to sell the abbey-lands, at twenty years’ purchase: which was a thing he had advised the king to do, in order to stop the clamours of the people, to attach them to his interest, and to reconcile them to the dissolution of the monasteries. But as, like his old master Wolsey, he had risen rapidly, he was now doomed, like him, to exhibit as striking an example of the instability of human grandeur; and au unhappy precaution to secure (as he imagined) his greatness, proved his ruin. Observing that some of his most inveterate enemies, particularly Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, began to be more in favour at court than himself, he used his utmost endeavours to procure a marriage between king Henry and Anne of Cleves, expecting great support from a queen of his own making; and as her friends were Lutherans, he imagined it would bring down the popish party at court, and again recover the ground he and Cranmer had now lost. But this led immodiaieiy to his destruction; for the king, not liking the queen, began to hate Cromwell, the great promoter of the marriage, and soon found an opportunity to sacrifice him; nor was this difficult. Cromwell was odious to all the nobility by reason of his low binh: hated particularly by Gardiner, and the Roman catholics, for having been so busy in the dissolution of the abbies: the reformers themselves found he could not protect them from persecution; and the nation in general was highly incensed against him for his having lately obtained a subsidy of four shillings in the pound from the clergy, and one tenth and one fifteenth from the laity; notwithstanding the immense sums that had flowed into the treasury out of the monasteries. Henry, with his usual caprice, and without ever considering that Cromwell’s faults were his own, and committed, if we may use the expression, for his own gratification, caused him to be arrested at the council table, by the duke of Norfolk, on the 10th of June, when he least suspected it. Being committed to the Tower, he wrote a letter to the king, to vindicate himself from the guilt of treason; and another concerning his majesty’s marriage with Anne of Cleves; but we do not find that any notice was taken of these: yet, as his enemies knew if he were brought to the bar he would justify himself by producing the king’s orders and warrants for what he had done, they resolved to prosecute him by attainder; and the bill being brought into the house of lords the 17th of June, and read the first time, on the 19th was read the second and third times, and sent down to the commons. Here, however, it stuck ten days, and at last a new bill of attainder was sent up to the lords, framed in the house of commons: and they sent back at the same time the bill the lords had sent to them. The grounds of his condemnation were chieHy treason and heresy; the former very confusedly expressed. Like other falling favourites, he was deserted by most of his friends, except archbishop Cranmer, who wrote to the king in his behalf with great boldness and spirit. But the duke of Norfolk, and the rest of the popish party, prevailed; and, accordingly, in pursuance of his attainder, the lord Cromwell was brought to a scaffold erected on Tower-hill, where, after having made a speech, and prayed, he was beheaded, July 28, 1540. His death is solely to be attributed to the ingratitude and caprice of Henry, whom he had served with great faithfulness, courage, and resolution, in the most hazardous, difficult, and important undertakings. As for the lord Cromwell’s character, he is represented by popish historians as a crafty, cruel, ambitious, and covetous man, and a heretic; but their opponents, on better grounds, assert that he was a person of great wit, and excellent parts, joined to extraordinary diligence and industry; that his apprehension was quick and clear; his judgment methodical and solid; his memory strong and rational; his tongue fluent and pertinent; his presence stately and obliging; his heart large and noble; his temper patient and cautious; his correspondence well laid and constant; his conversation insinuating and close: none more dextrous in finding out the designs of men and courts; and none more reserved in keeping a secret. Though he was raised from the meanest condition to a high pitch of honour, he carried his greatness with wonderful temper; being noted in the exercise of his places of judicature, to have used much moderation, and in his greatest pomp to have taken notice of, and been thankful to mean persons of his old acquaintance. In his whole behaviour he was courteous and affable to all; a favourer in particular of the poor in their suits; and ready to relieve such as were in danger of being oppressed by powerful adversaries; and so very hospitable and bountiful, that about two hundred persons were served at the gate of his house in Throgmorton-strcet, London, twice every day, with bread, meat, and drink sufficient. He must be regarded as one of the chief instruments in the reformation; and though he could not prevent the promulgation, he stopped the execution, as far as he could, of the bloody act of the six articles. But when the king’s command pressed him close, he was not firm enough to refuse his concurrence to the condemnation and burning of John Lambert. In his domestic concerns he was very regular; calling upon his servants yearly, to give him an account of what they had got under him, and what they desired of him; warning them to improve their opportunities, because, he said, he was too great to stand long; providing for them as carefully, as for his own son, by his purse and credit, that they might live as handsomely when he was dead, as they did when he was alive. In a word, we are assured, that for piety towards God, fidelity to his king, prudence in the management of affairs, gratitude to his benefactors, dutifulness, charity, and benevolence, there was not any one then superior to him in England.

, protector of the commonwealth of England, and one of the most remarkable characters in English history, was descended, both by his father and mother, from families of great antiquity. He was the son of Mr. Robert Cromwell, who was the second son of sir Henry Cromwell of Hinchinbrooke, in the county of Huntingdon, knt. whose great grandfather is conjectured to have been Walter Cromwell, the blacksmith at Putney, spoken of in the preceding article; and his grandmother sister to Thomas Cromwell, earl of Essex. Yet we are told that when Goodman, bishop of Gloucester, who turned papist, and was very desirous of making his court to the protector, dedicated a book to him, and presented a printed paper to him, by which he pretended to claim kindred with him, as being himself someway allied to Thomas earl of Essex, the protector with some warmth told him, “that lord was not related to his family in any degree.” For this story, however, told by Fuller, there seems little foundation . Robert Cromwell, father of the protector, was settled at Huntingdon, and had four sons (including the protector) and seven daughters. Though by the interest of his brother sir Oliver, he was put into the commission of the peace for Huntingdonshire, he had but a slender fortune; most of his support arising from a brewhouse in Huntingdon, chiefly managed by his wife. She was Elizabeth, daughter of a Stewart, of Rothseyth in Fifeshire, and sister of sir Robert Stewart, of the isle of Ely, knt. who has been reported, and not without some foundation of truth, to have been descended from the royal house of Stuart; as appears from a pedigree of her family still in being. Out of the profits of this trade, and her own jointure of 60l. per annum, Mrs. Cromwell provided fortunes for her daughters, sufficient to marry them into good families. The eldest, or second surviving, was the wife of Mr. John Desborough, afterwards one of the protector’s major-generals; another married, first, Roger Whetstone, esq. and afterwards colonel John Jones, who was executed for being one of the king’s judges; the third espoused colonel Valentine Walton, who died in exile; the fourth, Robina, married first Dr. Peter French, and then Dr. John Wilkins, a man eminent in the republic of letters, and after the restoration bishop of Chester. It may be also added, that an aunt of the protector’s married Francis Barrington, esq. from whom descended the Barringtons of Essex; another aunt, John Hampden, esq. of Buckinghamshire, by whom she was mother of the famous John Hampden, who lost his life in Chalgrave field; a third was the wife of Mr. Whaley, and the mother of colonel Whaley, in whose custody the king was while he remained at Hampton-court; the fourth aunt married Mr. Dunch.

Soon after, he returned to Huntingdon, where he led a very grave and sober life. Some have imputed this very sudden renunciation of his vices and follies, to his falling in with the puritans; but it is certain, that he remained then, and for some time after, a zealous member of the church of England, and entered into a close friendship with several eminent divines. He continued at Huntingdon till an estate of above 400l. a year, devolving to him by the death of his uncle sir Thomas Stewart, induced him to remove into the isle of Ely. It was about this time that he began to fall off from the church, and to converse with the puritans, whose notions he soon after embraced with his usual warmth, and with as much sincerity as could be expected from one who was so soon to convert these notions into the instruments of ambition. He was elected a member of the third parliament of Charles I. which met Jan. 20, 1628; and was of the committee for religion, where he distinguished himself by his zeal against popery, and by complaining of Neile bishop of Winchester’s licensing books which had a dangerous tendency. After the dissolution of that parliament, he returned into the country, where he continued to express much concern for religion, and to frequent silenced ministers, and to invite them often to lectures and sermons at his house. By this he brought his affairs again into a very indifferent situation, so that, by way of repairing his fortune, he took a farm at St. Ives, which he kept about five years, but which he mismanaged, and would have been ruined if he had not thrown it up. These disappointments revived in him a scheme, which his bad circumstances first suggested while at Lincoln’s-inn, of going over into New England. This was in 1637; and his design, it is thought, had certainly been executed, if he had not been hindered by the issuing out a proclamation for restraining such embarkations. The next year he had less time upon his hands; for the earl of Bedford, and some other persons of high rank, who had large estates in the fen country, were very desirous of seeing it better drained; and though one project of this sort had failed, they set on foot another, and got it countenanced by royal authority, and settled a share of the profits upon the crown. This, though really intended for a public benefit, was opposed as injurious to private property; and at the head of the opposition was Cromuell, who had a considerable interest in those parts. The activity and vigilance which he shewed upon this occasion, first rendered him conspicuous, and gave occasion to his friend and relation Hampden, to recommend him afterwards in parliament, as a person capable of contriving and conducting great things. Notwithstanding this, he was not very successful in his opposition, and, as his private affairs were still declining, he was in a very necessitous condition at the approach of the long parliament.

1642, Cromwell shewed his activity, by going immediately to Cambridge; where he soon raised a troop of horse, of which himself was appointed commander. He fixed his head quarters there, where he acted with great severity; towards the university especially, after he missed seizing the plate which was contributed by the loyal colleges for the king’s service, and sent down to the king when he set up his standard at Nottingham. It was probably about the same time that Cromwell had a very remarkable interview with his uncle, of which sir Philip Warwick had an account from the old gentleman himself. “Visiting old sir Oliver Cromwell, his uncle and godfather, at his house at Ramsey, he told me this story of his successful nephew and godson, that he visited him with a good strong party of horse, and that he asked him his blessing; and that the few hours he was there, he would not keep on his hat in his presence; but at the same time that he not only disarmed, but plundered him, for he took away all his plate.” He was more successful in his next enterprise; for being informed that the king had appointed sir Thomas Coningsby sheriff of Hertfordshire, and had sent him a writ, requiring him to proclaim the earl of Essex and his adherents traitors, Cromwell marched with his troop directly to St. Alban’s, where he seized sir Thomas Coningsby for that action, and carried him prisoner to London. He received the thanks of the parliament for this; and we find him soon after at the head of 1000 horse, with the title of colonel. Strange as it may be seem, it is confirmed by historians on all sides, that, though he assumed the military character in his 43d year, in the space of a few months he not only gained the reputation of an officer, but really became a good one; and still stranger, that by mere dint of discipline he made his new-raised men excellent soldiers, and laid the foundation of that invincible strength, which he afterwards exerted in behalf of the parliament.

1643, having settled matters in the six associated counties of Essex, Hertford, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge, Huntingdon, he advanced into Lincolnshire, where he did great service by restraining the king’s garrison at Newark, giving a check to the earl of Newcastle’s troops at Horncastle, and performing many other services, which increased his credit with the parliament. The Scots having been invited to England by the parliament, it was judged highly requisite that the army under the earl of Manchester anil Cromwell, who was now declared lieutenant-general of the horse, should join them, the better to enabie them to reduce York, which they had closely besieged. This service was performed with great vigour and diligence, especially by Cromwell; for though the earl had the title, the power was chiefly in Cromwell; and things were so clextrously managed between him and his friends at Westminster, that, as they knew they might depend upon him, they took care to put as much in his hands as they could. Ih the battle of Marston-moor, fought July 3, 1644, it is unanimously agreed, that Cromwell’s cavalry, who were commonly styled Ironsides, changed the fortune of the day, as that battle did of the war; for the king’s affairs declined, and the parliament’s flourished ever after. Some, however, though they allow this readily to Cromwell’s forces, have yet represented him as acting in a pitiful cowardly manner, and so terrified, as even to run away: but allowance must be made for the relators. It is certain, that on the 19th of the same month he stormed the earl of 'Exeter’s fine house at Burleigh; and no man’s courage, conduct, and services, were more valued at London. He was also in the second battle at Newbury, Sept. 17, in the same year, and is said to have made so bold a charge with his horse upon the guards, that his majesty’s person had been in the utmost danger, if the old earl of Cleveland had not come in to his relief, and preserved his master’s liberty at the expence of his own. And in the winter, when the disputes in parliament ran higher than, ever, nothing but Cromwell’s merit and good fortune were taiked of by his party; some of whom even styled him the saviour of the nation.

The wisest men and the best patriots saw very clearly whither these excessive praises tended. That the nation might be made as fully convinced of it, the earl of Manchester exhibited a charge against him in the house of lords; and Cromwell, in return, brought another against the noble peer in the house of commons. It is true, that neither of these charges was prosecuted; but it is equally true, that Cromwell and his friends absolutely carried their point, by bringing in what was called the self-denying ordinance, which excluded the members of either house from having any commands in the army; from which, however, on account of his extraordinary merit, which set him above all ordinances, Cromwell was at first occasionally, and at length altogether exempted. From being lieutenant-general of the horse, he became lieutenant-general of the army; and he procured an address from his regiment, declaring their satisfaction with the change. He continued to distinguish himself by his military successes, and to receive the thanks of both houses for the services he did. He shone particularly at the battle of Naseby, June 14, 1646, and had also his share in reducing the west; till, upon the surrender of Exeter, April 13, 1645, he found leisure to return to London. Upon taking his seat in the house, thanks were returned him, in terms as strong as words could express; and the prevailing party there received from him such encouragement, as induced them to believe he was wholly at their devotion. But in this they were mistaken; for while they thought the lieutenant-general employed in their business, he was in reality only attentive to his own. Thus, when the parliament inclined to disband a part of their forces, after the king had delivered himself to the Scots and the Scots had agreed to deliver him to the parliament, Cromwell opposed it vigorously, if not openly. For, in the first place, he insinuated by his emissaries to the soldiers, that this was not only the highest piece of ingratitude towards those who had fought the parliament into a power of disbanding them, but also a crying act of injustice, as it was done with no other view than to cheat them of their arrears. Secondly, he procured an exemption for sir Thomas Fairfax’s army, or, in other words, for his own, the general only having that title and appointments, while Cromwell had the power; and the weight of the reduction fell upon Massey’s brigade in the west, together with the troops which colonel Poyntz commanded in Yorkshire; men of whom he had good reason to doubt, but upon whom the parliament might have depended. Thus he dextrously turned to his own advantage the means which, in truth, were contrived for his destruction. Nov. 12, 1646, the army marched triumphantly through London; and in February following, the Scots having received the money agreed on, delivered up the king, who was carried prisoner to Holmby. At this time Cromwell had a most difficult part to play. What wore the legal appearance of power was evidently in the hands of the parliament, in which the presbyterian party was still prevalent; and as the general sir Thomas Fairfax was likewise in that interest, the real power seemed also to be on their side. At bottom, however, the army, now taught to know their own strength, were in reality the masters; and they were entirely directed by Cromwell, though they knew it not themselves. He saw the necessity of having a strong place, and getting the king’s person into their power and he contrived to do both, without seeming to have a hand in either. Oxford was at that time in a good condition, and well supplied with artillery, upon which the army seized it, with the magazines, and every thing else; and Cromwell, then at London, prevailed upon cornet Joyce to seize the king’s person with a strong detachment of horse, not only without the general’s orders, but without any orders at all, except those verbal instructions from Cromwell. This was executed June 4, 1G47, notwithstanding the parliament’s commissioners were then with the king; who was conducted from Holmby to Childersly, in Cambridgeshire, then the army’s head quarters. Here, through the management chiefly of Cromwell and his son-in-law commissary Ireton, the king was treated, not only with reverence, but with kindness; and when sir Thomas Fairfax, who knew nothing of the taking of the king away, and disliked it, would have sent him back asrain with the commissioners, under the guard of two regiments of horse, the king absolutely refused to move. Nay, to such a degree was that monarch convinced of the sincerity of his new friends, that he had the indiscretion to tell sir Thomas Fairfax, when he made him a tender of his duty and respect, with promises of fair treatment, that “he thought he had as good an interest in the army as himself.”

Very little of Cromwell’s private life is known; he being near forty years of age when he first distinguished himself in opposing the project for draining of the fens. Yet there were some who knew and understood him thoroughly, before his extraordinary talents were made known to the world; and in particular his cousin Hampden, of which the following was a remarkable instance. When the debates ran high in the house of commons, and Hampden and lord Digby were going down the parliament stairs, with Cromwell just before them, who was known to the latter only by sight: “Pray,” said his lordship to Hampden, “who is that man, for I see that he is on our side, by his speaking so warmly to-day?” “That sloven,” replied Hampden, “whom you see before us, who has no ornament in his speech; that sloven, I say, if we should ever come to a breach with the king, which God forbid! in such a case, I say, that sloven will be the greatest man in England.” This prophecy, which was so fully accomplished, rose chiefly from the sense Hampden had of Cromwell’s indefatigable diligence in pursuing whatever he undertook. He had another quality, which was equally useful to him; that of discerning the temper of those with whom he had to deal, and dealing with them accordingly. Before he became commander in chief, he kept up a very high intimacy with the private men: taking great pains to learn their names, by which he was sure to call them; shaking them by the hand, clapping them on the shoulder; or, which was peculiar to him, giving them a slight box on the ear; which condescending familiarities, with the warm concern he expressed for their interests, gave him a power easier conceived than described. He tried to inveigle the earl of Manchester; but finding that impracticable, he fell upon him in the house of commons, and procured his removal. He carried himself with so much respect to Fairfax, that he knew not how to break with him, though he knew that he had betrayed him. He not only deceived Harrison, Bradshaw, and Ludlow, but outwitted Oliver St. John, who had more parts than them all; and he foiled sir Henry Vane with his own weapons. In short, he knew men perfectly, worked them to his purposes as if they had been cattle, and, which is still more wonderful, did that often while they conceived that they were making a tool of him. He had a reach of head, which enabled him to impose even upon the greatest bodies of men. He fed the resentment of the house of commons agai.ibi the army, till the latter were in a flame, and very angry with him; yet, when he came tothe army, it was upon a flea-bitten nag, all in a foam, as if he had made his escape from that house; in which trim he signed the engagement of Triploe heath, throwing himself from his horse upon the grass, and writing his name as he lay upon his belly. He had yet another faculty beyond these; and that was, the art of concealing his arts. He dictated a paper once to Ireton, which was imposed upon the agitators as if founded upon their instructions; who sent it express by two of their number to Cromwell, then lieutenant-general, at his quarters at Colchester. He was in bed when they came; but they demanded and obtained admittance. When they told him their commission, he asked them, with the greatest rage and resentment in his look, how they durst bring him papers from the army? They said, that paper contained the sense of the army, and they were directed to do it. “Are you sure of that?” said he, with the same stern countenance, “Let me see it.” He spent a long time in reading it; and, as it seemed to them, in reflecting upon it: then, with a mild and devout look, he told them it was a most just thing, and he hoped that God would prosper it; adding, “I will stand by the army in these desires with and fortune.”

Oliver’s second son, Henry, born Jan. 20, 1627, he sent over into Ireland, where he raised him gradually to the post of lord lieutenant. Though in this he seemed to give him the preference to Richard, yet in reality he used him more harshly; for though his abilities were good, his manners irreproachable, and his submission exemplary, yet he paid no great deference to his recommendations, and allowed him as little power as could well be imagined. This son died March 25, 1674, having married a daughter of sir Francis Russel, of Chippenham, in Cambridgeshire. He was buried in the church of Wicken, in the same county, in which Spinney-abbey, his mansion-house, stood, and has this simple epitaph in the chancel: “Henricus Cromwell de Spinney obiit 23 die Martii, anno Christi 1673, unnoque ætatis 47.” His lady died April 7, 1687, aged 52, and was buried by him. Cromwell married all his daughters well, and was kind to their husbands; but it is said that he gave them no fortunes. Bridget, his eldest, first married commissary-general Ireton, and after his decease, lieutenantgeneral Fleetwood. Cromwell is said never to have had but one confidant, and that was Ireton, whom he placed at the head of affairs in Ireland, where he died of the plague in 1651. This daughter was a republican, as were her two husbands, and consequently not quite agreeable to her father; otherwise a woman of very good sense, and regular in her behaviour. By Ireton she had one daughter of her own name, married to Mr. Benclish. Elizabeth, his second and favourite daughter, was born in 1630, and married John Claypole, esq. a Northamptonshire gentleman, whom the protector made master of the horse, created a baronet in 1657, and appointed him one of his lords. Mary, his third daughter, born in 1636, was married with great solemnity to lord Fauconberg, Nov. 18, 1657; but the same day more privately by Dr. Hewett, according to the office in the common prayer-book. She was a lady of great beauty, and of a very high spirit; and, after her brother Richard was deposed, is thought to have promoted very successfully the restoration of king Charles; for it is remarkable, that all Cromwell’s daughters, except the eldest, had a secret kindness for the royal family, of which, however, he was not ignorant. Lord Fauconberg was sent to the Tower by the committee of safety, and was in very high favour with Charles II. He was raised to the dignity of an earl by king William, and died Dec. 31, 1700. His lady survived him to March, 1712, and distinguished herself to her death, by the quickness of her wit and the solidity of her judgment. Frances, the protector’s youngest daughter, was married first to Mr. Robert Rich, grandson to the earl of Warwick, in 1657, who died Feb. 16th following; and, secondly, to sir John Russel, of Chippenham, in Cambridgeshire, by whom she had several children, and lived to a great age.

, an American, was the son of an independent minister in Nova Scotia. Being a man of some genius, and impatient of the strict education he received in that country, he resolved upon coming to England to try if he could not make his fortune by his wits. When he first arrived here, his necessities were extremely urgent; and he was obliged to become gentleman usher to an old independent lady; but he soon grew as weary of that office as he was of the discipline of Nova Scotia. He set himself therefore to writing; and presently made himself so known to the court and the town, that he was nominated by Charles II. to write “The Masque of Calisto.” This nomination was procured him by the earl of Rochester, who designed by that preference to mortify Dryden. Upon the breaking out of the two parties, after the pretended discovery of the popish plot, the favour Crowne was in at court induced him to embrace the tory party; about which time he wrote a comedy called the “City Politics,” in order to expose the whigs. The lord chamberlain, Bennet earl of Arlington, though secretly a papist, was unaccountably a friend to the whigs, from his hatred to the treasurer lord Darnley. Upon various pretences the play was withheld from the stage; at last Crowne had recourse to the king himself, and by his majesty’s absolute command the play was acted. Though Crowne ever retained a most sincere affection to his royal master, he was honest enough to despise the servilities of a court. He solicited the payment of money promised him, which as soon as he obtained he became remiss in his attendance at St. James’s. The duchess of Portsmouth observed this conduct, and acquainted the king with it. The gay monarch only laughed at the accusation, and perhaps in his mind justified Crowne’s sincerity.

Croxall had not long quitted the university before he was instituted to the vicarage of Hampton, in Middlesex; and afterwards^ Feb. 1731, to the united parishes of St. Mars-­Somerset and St. Mary Mounthaw, in London, both which he held till his death. He was also chancellor, prebendary, canon residentiary, and portionist of the church of Hereford; in 1732 was made archdeacon of Salop and chaplain to the king; and in Feb. 1734 obtained the vicarage of Selleck in Herefordshire. He died at an advanced age, Feb. 13, 1752. Dr. Croxall, who principally governed the church of Hereford during the old age of bishop Egerton, pulled down the old stone chapel adjoining to the palace, of which a fine plate was published by the society of antiquaries in 1737, and with the materials built a house for his brother, Mr. Rodney Croxall. Having early imbibed a strong attachment to the whig-interest, he employed his pen in favour of that party during the latter end of queen Anne’s reign; and published “Two original cantos, in imitation of Spenser’s Fairy Queen,” as a satire on the earl of Oxford’s administration. In 17 15 he addressed a poem to the duke of Argyle, upon his obtaining a victory over the rebels; and the same year published “The Vision,” a poem, addressed to the earl of Halifax. In 1720 he published “The Fair Circassian,” in 4to in 1722, a collection of “Fables of jÆsop and others, translated into English,” a work which continues to be popular, probably from its homely and almost vulgar style. He wrote all the dedications prefixed to the “Select Novels,” printed for Watts, 1729; and was the author of “Scripture Politics,” 1735, 8vo. This is an account intended for common readers of the historical part of the Old Testament. His latest publication was “The Royal Manual;” in the preface of which he endeavours to shew that it was composed by the famous Andrew Marvel, found among his Mss. but it was generally believed to be written by himself.

At what time he left Oxford, or upon what occasion, does not appear; but there is some reason to believe, it was for the sake of travelling in order to improve himself. For he was always inclined rather to a busy, than to a retired life; and held, that learning was of little service to any man, if it did not qualify him for active pursuits. This disposition recommended him much to the favour of the celebrated Robert earl of Essex, who was himself equally fond of knowledge and business. Cuff became his secretary in 1596, when the earl was made lord lieutenant of Ireland; but it had been happier for him, if he could have contented himself with the easy and honourable situation, which his own learning, and the assistance of his friends in the university, had procured him. Even his outset was unfortunate; he accompanied the earl in his expedition against Cadiz, and after its successful conclusion, was dispatched with his lordship’s letters to England, and, when he had landed, endeavoured with the utmost speed, to arrive with them at the court. Beinsr, however, unfortunately taken ill on the road, he was obliged to send up the letters, inclosed in one of his own, to Mr. Reynoldes, another of the earl’s secretaries. Mr. Cuff, agreeably to Jarge instructions which he had received from his lordship, had drawn up a discourse concerning the great action at Cadiz, which the earl purposed to be published as soon as possible, both to stop all vagrant rumours, and to inform those that were well affected, of the truth of the whole. It was at the same time to be so contrived, that neither his lordship’s name, nor Cuff’s, nor any other person’s, connected with the earl, should either be openly mentioned, used, or in such a manner insinuated, as that the most slender guess could be made, who was the penman. The publication was to have the appearance of a letter that came from Cadiz, and the title of it was to be, “A true relation of the action at Cadiz, the 21st of June, under the earl of Essex and the lord admiral, sent to a gentleman in court from one that served there in good place.” Sir Anthony Ashley, who was entrusted with the design, acted a treacherous part on this occasion. He betrayed the secret to the queen, and the lords of her council; the consequence of which was, that Mr. Fulke Grevill was charged by her majesty to command Mr. Cuff, upon pain of death, not to set forth any discourse concerning the expedition without her consent.

He was afterwards involved in all the misfortunes of that unhappy earl, and did not escape partaking of his fate. Upon the sudden reverse of the earl’s fortunes, Cuff was not only involved, but looked upon as the chief if not the sole cause and author of his misfortunes. Thus, when the earl was tried and condemned, February ly, 1601, and solicited by the divines who attended him while under sentence, he not only confessed matters prejudicial to Cuff, but likewise charged him to his face with being the author of all his misfortunes, and the person who principally persuaded him to pursue violent measures. Sir Henry Neville, also, being involved in this unhappy business, mentioned Cuff as the person who invited him to the meeting at JDrury-house; where the plot for forcing the earl’s way to the queen by violence was concerted. Cuff was brought to his trial March 5th following, and although he defended himself with great steadiness and spirit, was convicted, and executed at Tyburn, March 30, 1601; dying, it is said, with great constancy and courage. He declared, at the place of execution, that “he was not in the least concerned in that wild commotion which was raised by a particular great but unadvised earl, but shut up that whole day within the house, where he spent his time in very melancholy reflections: that he never persuaded any man to take up arms against the queen, but was most heartily concerned for being -an instrument of bringing that worthy gentleman sir Henry Neville into danger, and did most earnestly intreat his pardon, &c.” His character has been harshly treated by lord* Bacon, sir Henry Wotton, and other writers. Camden also, who knew him intimately, and had lived many years in great friendship with him, says that he was a man of most exquisite learning and penetrating wit, but of a seditious and perverse disposition. Others are milder in their censures 5 and all allow him to have been a very able and learned man. He wrote a book in English, a very little before his death, which was printed about six years after, under this title: “The differences of the ages of man’s life, together with the original causes, progress, and end thereof,” 1607, 8vo. It has been printed more than once since, and commended as a curious and philosophical piece. Wood says, that he left behind him other things ready for the press, which were never published. Bishop Tanner has given us the title of one; viz. “De rebus gestis in sancto concilio Nicaeno;” or, The transactions in the holy council of Nice, translated out of Greek into Latin, and believed to have been the work of Gelasius Cyricenus, which was transcribed from the original in the Vatican library by Cuff. And in the “Epistolae Francisci et Johannis Hotomanorum, Patris et Filii, et clarorum Virorum ad eos,” are several letters by Cuff, to John Hotman. These are said to exhibit distinguished marks of genius and learning; to be written in elegant Latin; and to contain some curious particulars. Mr. Warton informs us that, notwithstanding the severe check he received at Trinity college, he presented several volumes to the library. The manner of his death deprived him, as may easily be imagined, of a monument an old friend, however, ventured to embalm his memory in the following epitaph:

, a late dramatic and miscellaneous writer, was the great grandson of the preceding. His father, Denison, so named from his mother, was educated at Westminster school, and from that admitted fellow-commoner of Trinity college, Cambridge. He married, at the age of twenty-two, Joanna, the younger daughter of Dr. Richard Bentley (the Phoebe of Byron’s Pastoral); by whom he had a daughter, Joanna, and Richard, the subject of this article. Though in possession of an independent fortune, he was readily prevailed upon by his father-in-law to take the rectory of Stanwick, in. Northamptonshire, given to him by lord chancellor King, as soon as he was of age to hold it. From this period he fixed his constant residence in that retired spot, and sedulously devoted himself to the duties of his function, never holding any other preferment for thirty years, except a small prebend in the church of Lincoln, given him by his uncle bishop Reynolds, He was in the commission of the peace, and a very active magistrate in the reconcilement of parties rather than in the conviction of persons. When the rebels were on the march, and had advanced to Derby, he raised among the neighbouring parishes two companies of 100 men each for the regiment then enrolling under the command of the earl of Halifax, and marched them in person to Northampton. The earl, as a mark of his consideration, insisted upon bestowing one of the companies upon his son, who being too young to take the command, an officer was named to act in his place. Some time after, on the approach of the general election for the county of Northampton, a contest took place with the rival parties of Knightly and Hanbury, or, in other words, between the tories and the whigs. His politics accorded with the latter, and he gave a very active and effectual support to his party. His exertions, though unsuccessful, were not overlooked by the earl of Halifax, who was then high in office, and lord lieutenant of the county. Offers were pressed upon him; yet, though he was resolute in declining all personal favours, he was persuaded to lend an ear to flattering situations pointed out for his son, who was shortly afterwards employed by lord Halifax as his confidential secretary. In 1757 he exchanged the living of Stanwick for Fulham, in order to be nearer his son, whose attendance on the earl of Halifax required his residence in town. On the earl being appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland, he was made one of his chaplains; and in 1763, at the close of his lordship’s administration, was promoted to the bishopric of Clonfert. In this situation he much ingratiated himself with all classes of people by his benevolence and generosity. He introduced many improvements and comforts among the Irish peasantry. He encouraged the English mode of agriculture by judicious rewards; and, as one of the members of the linen trade, introduced a number of spinning-wheels, and much good linen was made in consequence. This improving manufacture formed an interesting occupation also to his lady, and flourished under her care. The city of Dublin presented him with his freedom in a gold box, an honour never before (except in the remarkable instance of dean Swift) conferred on any person below the rank of a chief governor; and the deed which accompanied it assigned as the motive, the great respectability of his character, and his disinterested protection of the Irish clergy. In 1772 he was translated to the see of Kilmore. Some alarming symptoms soon after indicated the breaking up of his constitution, which was increased by the anxiety he experienced, through the debility and loss of health of his, amiable lady. When his son took leave of him at the end of his summer visit, the bishop expressed an intention of attempting a journey to England; but died in the winter of the same year; and this sad event was speedily succeeded by the death of his lady, whose weak and exhausted frame sunk under the blow, May 27, 1775.

Having obtained, through the patronage of lord Halifax, a small establishment as crown agent for Nova Scotia, Mr. Cumberland tendered his addresses to Elizabeth, the only daughter of George Ridge, esq. of Kilmiston, Hants, to whom he was married, Feb. 19, 1759. On the king’s accession to the throne, Mr. Cumberland composed and published without his name, a poem in blank verse addressed to the young sovereign; and on the appointment of lord Halifax to be lord lieutenant of Ireland, he accompanied that nobleman as Ulster secretary, and his father was made one of the chaplains. William Gerard Hamilton was at this time chief secretary, but not by the choice of lord Halifax, to whom he was little known, and in the first instance not altogether acceptable, and Cumberland’s situation appears to have been unpleasant. However, towards the close of the session his lordship expressed his satisfaction in Cumberland’s services, and offered him a baronetcy, an honour which after due consideration he declined, though he says he had afterwards reason to think that it contributed to weaken his interest with lord Halifax. Why such an honour should have been offered to a youngman totally unprovided for, we know not. Even when his patron was made secretary of state, he applied, in vain, for the situation of under-secretary, and afterwards obtained only the clerkship of reports in the office of trade and plantations under the earl of Hillsborough.

, an historian, was born in Scotland, in the time of Cromwell’s usurpation, in 1654; his father was minister at Ettrick, in the shire and presbytery of Selkirk. He was educated, according to the custom of the Scotch gentlemen of those times who. were of the presbyterian sect, in Holland, where we may suppose he imbibed his principles of government, and was much with the Scotch and English refugees at the Hague before the revolution, particularly with the earls of Argyle and Sunderland. He came over to England with the prince of Orange; and was honoured with the confidence and intimacy of many leading men among the friends of king William and the revolution. We find him employed, at different times, in the character of a travelling companion or tutor; first to the earl of Hyndford and his brother Mr. William Carmichael, solicitor-general in the reign of queen Anne for Scotland; secondly, with the lord Lome, afterwards so well known under the name of John duke of Argyle; and thirdly, with the lord viscount Lonsdale. In 1703 we find him at Hanover with the celebrated Atldison, and graciously received by the elector and princess Sophia.

Lord Lome, at the time he was under the tuition of Mr. Cunningham, was colonel of a regiment, which the father of the earl of Argyle had raised for his majesty’s service in Flanders. Mr. Cunningham’s connection with the duke of Argyle, with whom he had the honour of maintaining an intimacy as long as he lived, together with the opportunities he enjoyed of learning in his travels what may be called military geography, naturally tended to qualify him for writing intelligibly on military affairs. On this subject Achilles, it is probable, communicated information to his preceptor Chiron. When we reflect on these circumstances, we shall the less wonder that his accounts of battles and sieges, and in general of all the operations of war, should be so copious, and at the same time so conceivable and satisfactory. It is not unnatural on this occasion to call to mind, that the historian Poly bins, so justly renowned for his knowledge of both civil and military affairs, was tutor to Scipio Africanus.

His History of Great Britain, from the revolution in 1688 to the accession of George I. was published in two vols. 4to, in 1787. It was written by Mr. Cunningham in Latin, but was translated into English by the rev. Dr. William Thomson. The original manuscript came into the possession of the rev, Dr. Hollingberry, archdeacon of Chichester, some of whose relations had been connected with the author. He communicated it to the late earl of Hardwicke, and to Dr. Douglas, the late bishop of Salisbury, both of whom recommended the publication. In a short preface to the work, the archdeacon says: “My first design was to have produced it in the original; but, knowing how few are sufficiently learned to understand, and how many are indisposed to read two quarto volumes in Latin, however interesting and entertaining the subject may be, I altered my purpose, and intended to have sent it into the world in a translation. A nervous fever depriving me of the power, defeated the scheme.” Accordingly, he afterwards transferred the undertaking to Dr. Thomson; and, we are told by Dr. Hollingberry that this gentleman “has expressed the sense of the author with fidelity.” The work was undoubtedly well deserving of publication. It contains the history of a very interesting period, written by a man who had a considerable degree of authentic information, and his book contains many curious particulars not to be found in other histories. His characters are often drawn with judgment and impartiality: at other times they are somewhat tinctured with prejudice. This is particularly the case with respect to general Stanhope and bishop Burnet, against whom he appears to have conceived a strong personal dislike. He sometimes also indulges himself in severe sarcasms on the clergy, and on the female sex. But he was manifestly a very attentive observer of the transactions of his own time; his works abound in just political remarks; and the facts which he relates are exhibited with great perspicuity, and often with much animation. Throughout his book he frequently intersperses some account of the literature and of the most eminent persons of the age concerning which he writes; and he has also adorned his work with many allusions to the classics and to ancient history.

, as Fuller informs us, was born at Geddington, in the county of Northampton, and bred a bible-clerk in Corpus Christi college, Cambridge: but Wood has made him a Greek scholar in Pembroke-hall. As a confirmation, however, of the former, he published “A Book of Epitaphs, made upon the death of the right worshipful sir William Buttes, knt.” in 1583, which were chiefly composed by himself and the members of Corpus. It appears that he was afterwards placed in a school in Norfolk, where, Fuller says, he gained so much money as enabled him to travel over France and Italy. Concerning Italy, we have a specimen of his accurate observations in his “Survey of the Great Duke’s State of Tuscany in the year 1596,” which was inscribed to him by the publisher, Edward Blount, in 1605, 4to; and in the same year appeared his “Method of Travel, shewed bjjj taking a view of France as it stood in 1598,” 4to. In the preface he says that he was at the last jubilee at Rome, and that “this discourse was written long since, when the now lord secretary was then lord ambassador, and intended for the private use of an hon. gent.” The second edition, published in 162y, contains the clause of Guicciardini defaced by the inquisition, consisting of sixty-one pages. After his return he became secretary to Francis earl of Rutland, then one of the privy chamber to prince Charles, and master of the Charter-house, where he introduced i:ito the school the custom of versifying on passages of the holy scripture; about which time he had also the honour of knighthood conferred upon him. He was incorporated A.M. at Oxford in 1601, and published “Aphorismes, Civil and Military; amplified with authorities, and exemplified with history out of the first quaterne of Fr. Guicciardini/' Lond. 1615, fol. in which he is said to have” shown both wit and judgment." He died in the latter end of the year 1637, upwards of seventy-six years old, and was buried in the Charter-house chapel.

, an eminent hydrographer, F. R. S. and F. S. A. was born July 24, 1737, at New Hailes, near Edinburgh, the seat of his fattier sir James Dalrymple, bait, of Hailes. His mother, lady Christian, daughter of the earl of Haddington, a very amiable and accomplished woman, bore sixteen children, all of whom Alexander, who was the seventh son, survived. He was educated at the school of Haddington, under Mr. David Young; but as he left school before he was fourteen years of age, and never was at the university, his scholastic endowments were very limited. At school he had the credit of being a good scholar; and, after he left school, his eldest hrother was wont to make him translate, off hand, some of the odes of Horace; so that he was, for his years, a tolerable proficient in Latin: but going abroad, entirely his own master, before he was sixteen years of age, he neglected his Latin; and, as he says, never found so much use for it as to induce him to take any pains to recover it.

In 1784, when the India bill was brought into parliament, there was a clause precluding the company from sending persons back to India, who had been a certain time in England; Mr. Dalrymple represented the injustice this was to him, who had accepted his employment, on condition that it should not injure his pretensions at Madras; a clause was thereupon inserted, precluding that measure, unless with the concurrence of three-fourths of the directors, and three-fourths of the proprietors; he was still not satisfied, and carried on a sort of controversial correspondence with the directors, the merits of which would now be but imperfectly. understood. It having been long in contemplation to have an hydrographical office at the Admiralty, this was at length established during the administration of earl Spencer. In 1795 Mr. Dalrymple was appointed to the office of hydrographer, and received the assent of the court of directors, xinder whom he held a similar office, and who had lately given him a pension for life.

In 1771 he composed a very learned and ingenious paper, or law-case, on the disputed peerage of Sutherland. He was one of the trustees of the lady Elizabeth, the daughter of the last earl, and being then a judge, the names of two eminent lawyers were annexed to it. In that case, he displayed the greatest accuracy of research, and the most profound knowledge of the antiquities and rules of descent, in that country; which he managed with such dexterity of argument, as clearly established the right of his pupil, and formed a precedent, at the same time, for the decision of all such questions in future. In 1773 he published a small volume, entitled “Remarks on the History of Scotland.” Tnese appeared to be the gleanings of the historical research which he was making at that time, and discovered his lordship’s turn for minute and accurate inquiry into doubtful points of history, and at the same time displayed the candour and liberality of his judgment. This publication prepared the public for the favourable reception of the Annals of Scotland, in 2 vols. 4to, the first of which appeared in 1776, and the second in 1779, and fully answered the expectations which he had raised. The difficulties attending the subject, the want of candour, and the spirit of party, had hitherto prevented the Scotch from having a genuine history of their country, in times previous to those of queen Mary. Lord Hailes carried his attention to this history, as far back as to the accession of Malcolm Canmore, in 1057, and his work contains the annals of 14 princes, from Malcolm III. to the death of David II. Aiul happy it was that the affairs of Scotland attracted the talents of so able a writer, who to the learning and skill of a lawyer, joined the industry and curiosity of an antiquary; to whom no object appears frivolous or unimportant that serves to elucidate his subject.

The works of lord Hailes, arranged in the order of their publication, are as follow: 1. “Sacred poems, by various authors,” Edinb. 1751, 12mo. 2. “The wisdom of Solomon, wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus.” Edinb. 1755, 12mo. 3. “Select discourses, nine in number, by John Smith, late fellow of Queen’s college, Cambridge,” Ediub. 17 06, 12mo. 4. “World,” No. 140, Sept. 4, 1755; a meditation among books. 5. World, No. 147, Thursday, Oct. 23, 1755. 6. World, No. 204, Thursday, Nov. 25, 1756. 7. “A discourse of the unnatural and vile Conspiracy attempted by John earl of Go wry, and his brother, against his majesty’s person, at St. Johnstoun, upon the 5th of Aug. 1600,” 1757, 12mo. 8. “A sermon which might have been preached in East Lothian, upon the 25th day of Oct. 1761, from Acts xxvii. 1, 2.” The barbarous people sbewed us no little kindness,“Edinb. 1761, 12mo; occasioned by the country people pillaging the wreck of two vessels, viz. the Betsy, Cunningham, and the Leith packet, Pitcairn, from London to Leith, cast away on the shore between D unbar and North Berwick. All the passengers on board the former, in number seventeen, perished; five on-board the latter, Oct. 16, 1761. An affecting discourse, which is said to have produced the restitution of some part of the pillage. 9.” Memorials and Letters relating to the history of Britain in the reign of James I. published from the originals,“Glasgow, 1762. 10.” The works of the ever-memorable Mr. John Hailes of Eton, now first collected together,“Glasgow, 1765, 3 vols. The fine-paper copies of this work are truly elegant. 11. A specimen of a book entitled: Ane compendious booke of godlie and spiritual sangs, collectit out of sundrie parts of the Scripture, with sundrie other ballates, changed out of prophaine sangs, for avoyding of sin and harlotrie, with augmentation of sundrie gucle and godlie ballates, not contained in the first edition. Printed by Andro Hart,” Edinb. 1765, 12mo. 12. “Memorials and Letters relating to the history of Britain in the reign of Charles’ I. published from the originals,” Glasgow, 1766. 13. “An Account of the Preservation of Charles II. after the battle of Worcester, drawn up by himself; to which are added, his letters to several persons,” Glasgow, 1766. 14. “The secret correspondence between sir Robert Cecil and James VI.” 1766, 12mo. 15. “A catalogue of the lords of session, from the institution of the college of justice, in 1532, with historical notes,” Edinb. 1767, 4to. 16. “The private correspondence of doctor Francis Atterbury, bishop of Rochester, and his friends, in 1725, never before published,” 1768, 4to. 17. “An examination of some of the arguments for the high antiquity of regiam majestatem; and an inquiry into the authenticity of the leges Malcolrni,” Edinb. 1769, 4to. 18. “Historical Memoirs concerning the Provincial Councils of the Scottish Clergy, from the earliest accounts of the,; aera of the reformation,” Edinb. 1769, 4to. 19. “Canons of the church of Scotland, drawn up in the provincial councils held at Perth, anno 1242 and 1269,” Edinb. 1769, 4to. 20. “Ancient Scottish poems, published from the manuscript of George Bannatyne, 1568,” Edinb. 1770, 12mo. 21 .“The additional case of Elizabeth, claiming the title and dignity of countess of Sutherland,” 4to. 22. “Remarks on the History of Scotland,” Edinb. 1773, 12mo. 23. “Hubert! Langueti Epistolae ad Philippum Syclm-ium eqtritem Anglum, ace ura rite D. Dalrymple de Hailes eq.” Edinb. 1776, 8vo. 24. “Annals of Scotland, from the accession of Malcolm III. suriiamed Canmore, to the accession of Robert!.” Edinb. 1776. 25. “Tables of the succession of the kings of Scotland, from Malcolm 111. to Robert 1.” 26. Chronological abridgment of the volume.“The appendix contains eight dissertations. 27.” Annah of Scotland, from the accession of Robert I. surnamed Bruce, to the accession of the house of Stewart,“177:, 4to, with an appendix containing nine dissertations. 28.” Account of the Martyrs of Smyrna and Lyons, in the 2d century, with explanatory notes,“Edinb. 1776. 29,” Remains of Christian Antiquity,“Edinb. 1778, 3 vols. 30.” Octavius, a dialogue by Marcus Minucius Felix,“Edinb. 1781. 31.” Of the manner in which the persecutors died, by Lactantius,“Edinb. 17S2. 32.” Luciani Coelii Firmiani Lactantii divinarum institutionum liber quintus, sen de justitia,“1777. 33.” Disquisitions concerning the Antiquities of the Christian Church,“Glasgow, 1783. 34.” Sketch of the life of John Barclay,“1786, 4to. 35.” Sketch of the life of John Hamilton, a secular priest, who lived about 1600,“4to. 36.” Sketch of the life of sir James Ramsay, a general officer in the armies of Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden.“37.” Life of George Leslie,“4 to. 38.” Sketch of the life of Mark Alex. Boyd,“4to. 39.” The opinions of Sarah duchess dowager of Marlborough, published from her originalMSS.“1788, 12mo. 40.” The address of Q. Septini. Tertullian to Scapula Tertullus, proconsul of Africa," Edinb. 1790, 12mo. This address contains many particulars relating to the church after the 3d century. The translator has rejected all words and phrases of French origin, and writes entirely in the Anglo-Saxon dialect. In the course of the notes, many obscurities of the original, not adverted to by other commentators, are explained. Some strange inaccuracies of Mr. Gibbon are also detected, not included in the misrepresentations of his two famous chapters. He was long engaged in pursuits to examine the authenticity of the books of the New Testament. The result is said to have been, that he discovered every verse contained in it, with the exception of two or three, in the writings of the three first centuries. Indeed this seems to have been an object in all his works; for, at the end of each of his translations and editions of the primitive Christian writers, a table is given of passages quoted or mentioned by them.

, the seventh baron and first viscount Stair, was born in 1609, studied at the college of Glasgow, and passed all the regular degrees of learning in that university. On the commencement of the rebellion in the reign of Charles I. he accepted a captain’s commission from the parliament, in the earl of Glencain.'s regiment, but was soon called off to a more suitable province, that of filling a philosophy chair in the university of Glasgow. Having applied himself particularly to the study of the laws, he entered as an advocate in 1648, and became eminent for his judgment and skill, if not for his integrity. When the estates of the nation sent commissioners to Breda to invite Charles II. to Scotland, he was appointed secretary to the embassy, and acquitted himself entirely to his majesty’s satisfaction. He then resumed his practice at the bar, but could not be prevailed upon to take any oaths to the government during the usurpation. When Charles II. was restored to the throne, he conferred on Mr. Dalryrnple the honour of knighthood, appointed him a senator of the college of justice, and in 1671, lord president of the session, in which office his conduct was very unpopular; and in 1682, being dismissed from all his offices, he retired to Holland, where he became such a favourite with William prince of Orange, that when advanced to the throne of these kingdoms, his majesty restored him to his place of lord president, and raised him to the dignity of viscount Stair, lord Glenluce and Stranrawer. His lordship continued to enjoy his high legal office, and the favour of his prince, till his death, Nov. 25, 1695 4 His character as a politician has not been favourably drawn by some historians, particularly Mr. Laing, in. his lately -published “History of Scotland.” His personal character seems liable to less objection, and of his learning no doubt can be justly entertained. He wrote: 1. “The Institutions of the Law of Scotland,” second edit. fol. 1693. 2. “Decisions of the Court of Session from 1661 to 1681,'” 2 vols. fol. 3. “Philosophia nova experimentalis,” published in Holland during his exile, and much commended by Bayle in his Journal. 4. “A Vindication of the Divine Perfections, &c. by a Person of Honour,” 1695, 8vo. 5. “An Apology for his own Conduct,” 4to, the only copy of which extant is said to be in the advocates’ library at Edinburgh. Had lord Orford read much of his history, he needed not have added that “it is not known on what occasion-he published it.”

was born in 1709, at Deane, in Cumberland, where his father was then rector. He had his school education at Lowther, in Westmoreland, and thence was removed, at the age of sixteen, to Queen’seollege, in Oxford. When he had taken his first degrees, he was employed as tutor or governor to lord Beauchamp, only son of Algernon Seymour, earl of Hertford, late duke of Somerset. During his attendance on that noble youth, he employed some of his leisure hours in adapting Milton’s “Masque at Ludlow Castle” to the stage, by a judicious insertion of several songs and passages selected from other of Milton’s works, as well as of several songs and other elegant additions of his own, suited to the characters and to the manner of the original author. This was received as a very acceptable present to the public; and it still continues one of the most favourite dramatic entertainments, under the title of “Comus, a masque,” being set to music by Dr. Arne. We cannot omit mentioning to Dalton’s honour, that, during the run of this piece, he industriously sought out a grand-daughter of Milton’s, oppressed both by age and penury; and procured her a benefit from this play, the profits of which to her amounted, it is said, to upwards of 120l. Dr. Johnson wrote the Prologue spoken on this occasion. A bad state of health prevented Dr. Dalton from attending his pupil abroad, and saved him the mortification of being an eye-witness of his death, which was occasioned by the small-pox, at Bologna, in Italy. Soon after, succeeding to a fellowship in his college, he entered into orders, according to the rules of that society.

, brother to the preceding, keeper of the pictures, medals, &c. and antiquary to his majesty, was originally apprenticed to a coach-painter in Clerkenwell, and after quitting his master, went to Rome to pursue the study of painting, where, about the year 1749, an invitation was given him by Roger Kynaston, esq. of Shrewsbury, in company with Mr. (afterwards sir John) Frederick, to accompany them to Naples. From that city they proceeded in a felucca, along the coast of Calabria, crossed over to Messina, and thence to Catania, where they met with lord Charlemont, Mr. Burton, afterwards lord Cunningham, Mr. Scott, and Mr. Murphy. They then sailed together in a ship, hired by lord Charlemont and his party, from Leghorn, with the intention of making that voyage; the felucca followed first to Syracuse, then to the isle of Malta, and afterwards separated; but Mr. Dalton, accompanying the party in the ship, made the voyage to Constantinople, several parts of Greece, and Egypt. This voyage led to his publication, which appeared in 1781, called, “Explanation of the set of prints relative to the manners, customs, &c. of the present inhabitants of Egypt, from discoveries made on the spot, 1749, etched and engraved by Richard Daiton, esq.” On his return to England, he was, by the interest of his noble patron lord Charlemont, introduced to the notice of his present majesty, then prince of Wales, who, after his accession to the throne, appointed him his librarian, an office for which it would appear he was but indifferently qualified, if Dr. Morell’s report be true. Soon after, it being determined to form a noble collection of drawings, medals, &c. Mr. Daltou was sent to Italy in 1763, to collect the various articles suited to the intention. The accomplishment of that object, however, was unfortunately attended with circumstances which gave rise to sir Robert Strange’s memorable letter of complaint to the earl of Bute, in which he says, indignantly, although not altogether unjustly, that “persecution haunted him, even beyond the Alps, in the form of Mr. Dalton.” On this subject it may here be necessary only to refer to sir Robert’s letter, and to the authorities in the note.

, M. A. F. R. S. Edin. Greek professor in the university of Edinburgh, keeper of the university library, &c. was born in 1750, in the parish of Rathos near Edinburgh, and was educated partly at the parish school, but principally at Edinburgh, where his learning and moral conduct induced the late earl of Lautierdale to appoint him tutor to his eldest son, lord Maitland, the present earl. With this young nobleman, he attended a course of the lectures of the celebrated professor Millar at Glasgow, and afterwards accompanied his lordship to Paris. On his return from the continent, Mr. Dalzcll, at the recommendation of the late earl of Landerdale, was appointed to the professorship of Greek at Edinburgh, an office which he rilled for many years with the highest reputation and advantage to the university. He has thfe credit indeed of reviving a taste for that language, which from various causes, had been disused at Edinburgh, or studied very superficially. To enable his pupils to prosecute this accomplishment with the more effect, and imbibe a taste for what was elegant in the language, he compiled and printed, at a great expence, a series of collections out of the Greek authors, including all those passages which he wished to explain in the course of his teaching. These were printed in several 8vo volumes, under the titles of “Collectanea Minora,” and “Collectanea Majora.” He added to each volume short notes in Latin, explanatory of the difficult places, and the text was printed with great accuracy. The notes, which are in elegant Latin, are admirable for brevity, perspicuity, and judgment. He at the same time composed and read to the students a series of lectures on the language and antiquities, the philosophy and history, the literature, eloquence, poetry, and fine arts of the Greeks. By these means he became eminently successful in disseminating a taste for classical literature in the university, nor was he less happy in the art of engaging the affections and fixing the attention of his pupils on the objects which he considered as the fundamentals of all genuine scholarship.

, an English poet and historian, the son of a music-master, was born near Taunton, in Somersetshire, in 1562. In 1579 he was admitted a commoner of Magdalen-hall, Oxford, where he continued about three years, and by the help of an excellent tutor, made considerable improvement in academical studies. He left the university, however, without taking a degree, and pursued the study of history and poetry under the patronage of the earl of Pembroke’s family. This he thankfully acknowledges in his “Defence of Rhime,” which is printed in the late edition of his works, as a necessary document to illustrate the ideas of poetry entertained in his time. To the same family he was probably indebted for an university education, as no notice occurs of his father, who, if a music-master, could not well have escaped the researches of Dr. Burney. The first of his product ions, at the age of twenty-three, was a translation of Paulns Jovius’s ' Discourse of Rare Inventions, both military and amorous, called Imprese,“London, 1585, 8vo, to which he prefixed an ingenious preface. He afterwards became tutor to the lady Anne Clifford, sole daughter and heiress to George, earl of Cumberland, a lady of very high accomplishments, spirit, and intrepidity. To her, when at the age of thirteen, he addressed a delicate admonitory epistle. She was married, first to Richard, earl of Dorset, and afterwards to the earl of Pembroke,” that memorable simpleton,“says lord Orford,” with whom Butler has so much diverted himself." The pillar which she erected in the county of Westmoreland, on the road-side between Penrith and Appleby, the spot where she took her last leave of her mother,

His works consist of: 1. “The Complaint of Rosamond,” Lond. 1594, 1598, 1611, and 1623, 4to. 2. Various “Sonnets” to Delia. 3. “Tragedy of Cleopatra,” Lond. 1594, 1598, 4to. 4. “Of the” Civil Wars between the houses of Lancaster and York,“Lond. 1604, 1609, 8vo, and 1623, 4to. 5.” The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, presented in a Mask,“&c. London, 1604, 8vo, and 1623, 4to. 6.” Panegyric congratulatory,“delivered to king James at Burleigh Harrington, in Rutlandshire, Lond. 1604 and 1623, 4to. 7.” Epistles“to various great personages, in verse, Lond. 1601 and 1623, 4to. 8.” Musophilus, containing a general Defence of Learning,“printed with the former. 9.” Tragedy of “Philotas,” Lond. 1611, &c. 8vo. 10. “Hymen’s Triumph; a pastoral tragi-comedy,” at the nuptials of lord Roxborough, Lond. 1623, 4to, 2d edit. 11.“Musa,” or a Defence of Rhyme, Lond. 1611, 8vo. 12. The “Epistle of Octavia to M. Antoiiius,” Lond. 1611, 8vo. 13. The first part of the “History of England,” in three books, Lond. 1613, 4to, reaching to the end of king Stephen, in prose; to which he afterwards added a second part, reaching to the end of king Edward III. Lond. 1618, 1621, 1623, and 1634, folio, continued to the end of king Richard III. by John Trussel, some time a Winchester scholar, afterwards a trader and alderman of that city. 14. “The Queen’s Arcadia,” a pastoral tragicomedy, 1605, 1623, Lond. 4to. 15. “Funeral poem on the Death of the earl of Devon,” Lond. 1623, 4to. In the same year his poetical works were published in 4to, by his brother John Daniel.

, a brave warrior in the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century, and created earl of Dariby by king Charles I. was the second son of sir John Danvers, knight, by Elizabeth his wife, daughter and coheir to John Nevil the last lord Latimer. He was born at Dantesey in Wiltshire, on the 28th of June, 1573. After an education suitable to his birth, he went and served in the Low Country wars, under Maurice count of Nassau, afterwards prince of Orange; and was engaged in many military actions of those times, both by sea and land. He was made a captain in the wars of France, occasioned in that kingdom by the League; and there knighted for his good service under Henry IV. king of France. He was next employed in Ireland, as lieutenantgeneral of the horse, and serjeant-major of the whole army, under Robert earl of Essex, and Charles Baron of Montjoy, in the reign of queen Elizabeth. Upon the accession of king James I. he was, on account of his family’s deserts and sufferings, advanced, July 21, 1603, to the dignity of a peer of this realm, by the title of Baron of Dantesey: and in J 605, by a special act of parliament, restored in blood as heir to his father, notwithstanding the attainder of his elder brother, sir Charles Danvers, knight. He was also appointed lord president of Munster in Ireland; and in 1620 made governor of the Isle of Guernsey for life. By king Charles I. he was created earl of Danby, February 5, 1625-6; and made of his privy council; and knight of the order of the garter. Being himself a man of learning, as well as a great encourager of it, and observing that opportunities were wanting in the university of Oxford for the useful study of botany, he purchased for the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds, five acres of ground, opposite Magdalen college, which had formerly served for a burying-place to the Jews (residing in great numbers at Oxford, till they were expelled England by king Edward I. in 1290), and conveyed his right and title to that piece of land to the university, on the 27th of March, 1622. The ground being first considerably raised, to prevent its being overflowed by the river Cherwell, the heads of the university laid the first stones of the walls, on the 25th of July following. They were finished in 1633, being fourteen feet high: and cost the noble benefactor about five thousand pounds. The entrance into the garden is on the north side under a stately gate, the charge of building which amounted to between rive and fix hundred pounds. Upon the front of that gateway, is this Latin inscription: Gloriie Dji Opt. Max. Honori Caroli Regis, in usum Acad. et Keipub. Henricus Comes Danby, D.D. MDCXXXII. For the maintenance of it, and of a gardener, the noble founder left, by will, the impropriate rectory of Kirkdale in Yorkshire: which was afterwards settled for the same purpose, by his brother and heir sir John Danvers, knt. The earl of Danby’s will bore date the 14th of December, 1640.

This play had success enough to procure him the recommendation, if nothing more substantial, of many persons of distinction, and of the wits of the times; and with such encouragement he renewed his attendance at court, adding to its pleasures by his dramatic efforts, and not sparingly to the mirth of his brethren the satirists, by the unfortunate issue of some of his licentious gallantries. For several years his plays and masks were acted with the greatest applause, and his character as a poet was raised very high by all who pretended to be judges. On the death of Ben Jonson, in 1638, the queen procured for him. the vacant laurel, which is said to have given such offence to Thomas May, his rival, as to induce him to join the disaffected party, and to become the advocate and historian of the republican parliament. In 1639, Davenaut was appointed “Governor of the king and queen’s company acting at the Cockpit in Drurv-lane, during the lease which Mrs. Elizabeth Beeston, alias Hutcheson, hath or doth hold in the said house.” When the civil commotions had for some time subsisted, the peculiar nature of them required that public; amusements should be the decided objects of popular resentment, and Davenant, who had administered so copiously to the pleasures of the court, was very soon brought under suspicions of a more serious kind. In May 16M, he was accused before the parliament, of being a partner with many of the king’s friends, in the design of bringing the army to London for his majesty’s protection. His accomplices effected their escape, but Davenant was apprehended at Feversham, and sent up to London. In July following he was bailed, but on a second attempt to withdraw to France, was taken in Kent. At last, however, he contrived to make his escape without farther impediment, and remained abroad for some time. The motive of his flight appears not to have been cowardice, but an unwillingness to sacrifice his life to popular fury, while there was any prospect of his being able to devote it to the service of his royal master. Accordingly, when the queen sent over a considerable quantity of military stores for the use of the earl of Newcastle’s army, Davenant resolutely ventured to return to England, and volunteered his services under that nobleman, who had been one of his patrons. The earl ma.le him lieutenant-general of his ordnance, a post for which, if he was not previously prepared, he qualified himself with so much skill and success, that in September 1643, he was rewarded with the honour of knighthood for the service he rendered to the royal cause at the siege of Gloucester. Of his military prowess, however, we have no farther account, nor at what time he found it necessary, on the decline of the king’s affairs, to retire again into France. Here he was received into the confidence of the queen, who in 1646 employed him in one of her importunate and ill-advised negociations with the king, who was then at Newcastle. About the same time Davenant had embraced the popish religion, a step which probably recommended him to the queen, but which, when known, could only tend to increase the animosity of the republicans against the court, which was already too closely suspected of an attachment to that persuasion. The object of his negociation was to persuade the king to save his crown by sacrificing the church; a proposition which his majesty rejected with becoming dignity; and this, as lord Clarendon observes, “evinced an honest and conscientious principle in his majesty’s mind, which elevated him above all his advisers.” The queen’s advisers in the measure were, his majesty knew, men of no religious principle, and he seems to have resented their sending an ambassador of no more consequence than the manager of a play-house.

, the eldest son of sir William Davenant, was born in 1656, and was initiated in grammar-learning at Cheame in Surrey. Though he had the misfortune to lose his father when scarce twelve years of age, yet care was taken to send him to Oxford to finish his education, where he became a commoner of Baliol college in 1671. He took no degree, but went to London, where, at the age of nineteen, he distinguished himself by a dramatic performance, the only one he published, entitled, “Circe, a tragedy, acted at his royal highness the duke of York’s theatre with great applause.” This play was not printed till two years after it was acted; upon which occasion Dryden wrote a prologue, and the earl of Rochester an epilogue. In the former, there was an apology for the author’s youth and inexperience. He had a considerable share in the theatre in right of his father, which probably induced him to turn his thoughts so early to the stage; however, he was not long detained there either by that, or the success of his play, but applied himself to the civil law, in which, it is said, he had the degree of doctor conferred upon him by the university of Cambridge. He was elected to represent the borough of St. Ives in Cornwall, in the first parliament of James II. which was summoned to meet in May 1685; and, about the same time, jointly empowered, with the master of the revels, to inspect all plays, and to preserve the decorum of the stage. He was also appointed a commissioner of the excise, and continued in that employment for near six years, that is, from 1683 to 1689: however, he does not seem to have been advanced to this rank before he had gone through some lesser employments. In 1698 he was elected for the borough of Great Bedwin, as he was again in 1700. He was afterwards appointed inspector-general of the exports and imports; and this employment he held to the time of his death, which happened Nov. 6, 1714. Dr. Davenant’s thorough acquaintance with the laws and constitution of the kingdom, joined to his great skill in figures, and his happiness in applying that skill according to the principles advanced by sir William Petty in his Political Arithmetic, enabled him to enter deeply into the management of affairs, and procured him great success as a writer in politics; and it is remarkable, that though he was advanced and preferred under the reigns of Charles II. and James II. yet in all his pieces he reasons entirely upon revolution principles, and compliments in the highest manner the virtues and abilities of the prince then upon the throne.

In 1603 he was sent as solicitor-general to Ireland, and immediately rose to be attorney-general. Being afterwards appointed one of the judges of assize, he conducted himself with so much prudence and humanity on the circuits as greatly to contribute to allay the ferments which existed in that country, and received the praises of his superiors, “as a painful and well-deserving servant of his majesty.” In Trinity term 1606 he was called to the degree of serjeant-at-law, and received the honour of knighthood on the llth of February 1607. His biographer attributes these promotions to the patronage of lord Ellesmere and the earl of Salisbury, with whom he corresponded, and to whom he sent a very interesting account of a circuit he performed with the lord-deputy in July 1607. Such was Ireland then, that a guard of “six or seven score foot and fifty or three score horse” was thought a necessary protection against a peasantry recovering from their wildness.

He married, while in Ireland, Eleanor, the third daughter of lord Audley, by whom he had one son, who was an idiot and died young, and a daughter, Lucy, who was married to Ferdinando lord Hastings, afterwards earl of Huntingdon. Sir John’s lady appears to have been an enthusiast; a volume of her prophecies was published in 1649, 4to. Anthony Wood informs us that she foretold the death of her husband, who turned the matter off with a jest. She was harshly treated during the republic for her officious prophecies, and is said to have been confined several years in Bethlem hospital, and in the Tower of London, where she suffered all the rigour that could be inflicted by those who would tolerate no impostures but their own. She died in 1652, and was interred near her husband in St. Martin’s church. The late earl of Huntingdon informed lord Mountmorres the historian of the Irish parliament, that sir John Davies did not appear to have acquired any landed property in Ireland from his great employments. The character of sir John Davies as a lawyer, is that of great ability and learning. As a politician he stands unimpeached of corruption or servility, and his “Tracts” are valued as the result of profound knowledge and investigation. They were republished with some originals in 1786 by Mr. George Chalmers, who prefixed a Life of the Author, to which the present sketch is greatly indebted.

, a Welsh clergyman, was born in Tre'r-Abbot, in Whiteford parish, Flintshire. Of his personal history little is known, except that he was a good scholar, very conversant in the literary history of his country, and very unfortunate in attempting to turn his knowlege to advantage. He was a vehement foe to Popery, Arianism, and Socinianism, and of the most fervent loyalty. to George I. and the Hanoverian succession. Owing to some disgust, he quitted his native place, and probably his profession when he came to London, as he subscribes himself “counsellor-at-law;” and in one of his volumes has a long digression on law and law-writers. Here he commenced author in the humblest form, not content with dedicating to the great, but hawking his books in person from door to door, where he was often repulsed with rudeness, and seldom appears to have been treated with kindness or liberality. How long he carried on this unprosperous business, or when he died, we have not been able to discover. Mr. D'Israeli, who has taken much pains to rescue his name from oblivion, suspects that his mind became disordered from poverty and disappointment. He appears to have courted the Muses, who certainly were not very favourable to his addresses. The most curious of his works consist of some volumes under the general title of “Athenæ Britannicæ,” 8vo, 1715, &c. a kind of bibliographical, biographical, and critical work, “the greatest part (says Baker, the antiquary) borrowed from modern historians, but containing some things more uncommon, and not easily to be met with.” The first of these volumes, printed in 1715, is entitled Ειχων Μιχρο-βιβλιχε, sive Icon Libellorum, or a Critical History of Pamphlets.“In this he styles himself” a gentleman of the inns of, court.“The others are entitled” Athenæ Britannicæ, or a Critical History of the Oxford and Cambridge Writers and Writings, &c. by M. D.“London, 1716, 8vo. They are all of so great rarity, that Dr. Farmer never saw but one volume, the first, nor Baker but three, which were sent to him as a great curiosity by the earl of Oxford, and are now deposited in St. John’s college, Cambridge. In the British Museum there are seven. From the” Icon Libellorum," the only volume we have had an opportunity of perusing attentively, the author appears to have been well acquainted with English authors, their works and editions, and to have occasionally looked into the works of foreign bibliographers.

, an eminent navigator, of the sixteenth century, was born at Sandridge, in the parish of StokeGabriel, near Dartmouth in Devonshire. His birth near that eminent sea-port, having given him a fair opportunity, to which probably was added a strong natural disposition, he put himself early to sea; where, by the help of a good master, and his subsequent industry, knowledge, and experience, he became the most expert pilot, and one of the ablest navigators of his time. The first public employment he had was in 1585, when he undertook to discover a new passage, by the north-west parts of America, to the East-Indies. For that purpose, he sailed from Dartmouth, on the seventh of June, with two barks, one of fifty and the other of thirty-five tons, which were fitted out at the charge of some noblemen and gentlemen; and met, July 19, many islands of ice floating, in 60 degrees northern latitude. They were soon encompassed with them; and going upon some, perceived, that the roaring noise they heard, at which they were greatly astonished, was caused only by the rolling of the ice together. The next day, they discovered the southern coast of Greenland, five hundred leagues distant from the Durseys, or Missenhead, in Ireland; and observed it to be extremely rocky and mountainous, and covered with snow, without any signs of wood, grass, or earth to be seen. The shore, likewise, was so full of ice, that no ship could come near it by two leagues: and so shocking was the appearance of it, and the cracking of the ice so hideous, that they imagined it to be a quite desolate country, without a living creature, or even any vegetable substance; for which reason captain Davis named it, “The Land of Desolation.” Perceiving that they were run into a very deep bay, wherein they were almost surrounded with ice, they kept coasting along the edge of it, south-south-west, till the 25th of July; when, after having gone fifty or sixty leagues, they found that the shore lay directly north. This made them alter their course to the north-west, in hopes of finding their desired passage: but on the 29th they discovered land to the north-east, in 64 degr. 15 min. latitude. Making towards it, they perceived that they were passed the ice, and were among many green, temperate, and pleasant islands, bordering upon the shore; though the hills of the continent were still covered with great quantities of snow. Among these islands were many fine bays, and good roads for shipping: they landed in some, and the people of the country came down and conversed with them by signs, making Mr. Davis understand, that there was a great sea towards the north west. He staid in this place till the first of August, and then proceeded in his discovery. The sixth of that month, they found land in 66 degr. 40 min. latitude, quite free from ice; and anchored in a safe road, under a great mountain, the cliffs whereof glistered like gold. This mountain he named, Mount Raleigh: the road where their ships lay at anchor, Totness Road: the bay which encompassed the mountain, Exeter Sound: the foreland towards the north, Dier’s Cape: and the foreland towards the south, Cape Walsingham. He departed from hence the eighth of August, coasting along the shore, which lay south-south-west, and east-north-east; and on the eleventh came to the most southerly cape of that land, which he named, “The Cape of God’s Mercy,” as being the place of their first entrance for the discovery. Going forward, they came into a very fine straight, or passage, in some places twenty leagues broad, in others thirty, quite free from ice, the weather in it very tolerable, and the water of the same colour and nature as the main ocean. This passage still retains the name of its first discoverer, being called to this day Fretum Davis, or Davis’s Straights. Having sailed, north-west, sixty leagues in this passage, they discovered several islands in the midst of it; on some of which they landed. The coast was very barren, without wood or grass; and the rocks were like fine marble, full of veins of divers colours. Some days after they continued searching for the north-west passage, but found only a great number of islands. And, on the 2oth, the wind coming contrary, they altered their course and design, and returning for England, arrived at Dartmouth the 29th of September. The next year Mr. Davis undertook a second voyage, for the farther discovery of the north-west passage, being supported and encouraged again by secretary Walsingham, and other adventurers. With' a view therefore of searching the bottom of the Straights he had been in the year before, he sailed from Dartmouth, May the 7th, 1586, with four ships, and the 15th of June discovered land in 60 degrees latitude, and 47 degrees longitude west from London. The ice along the coast reached in some places ten, in some twenty, and in others fifty leagues into the sea; so that, to avoid it, they were forced to bear into 57 degrees latitude. After many tempestuous storms, they made the land again, June the 29th, in 64 degrees of latitude, and 58 of longitude; and ran among the temperate islands they had been at the year before. But the water was so deep, they could not easily come to an anchor; yet they found means to go ashore, on some of the islands, where they were much caressed and welcomed by the natives, who knew them again. Having finished a pinnace, which was to serve them for a front in their discoveries, they landed, not only in that, but also in their boats, in several places: and, upon the strictest search, found the land not to be a continent, as they imagined, but a collection of huge, waste, and desert isles, with great sounds and inlets passing between sea and sea. They pursued their voyage the 11th of July, and on the 17th, in 63 degrees 8 minutes latitude, met with a prodigious mass of ice, which they coasted till the 30th. This was a great obstacle and discouragement to them, not having the like there the year before; and, besides, the men beginning to grow sickly, the crew of one of the ships, on which he chiefly depended, forsook him, and resolved to proceed no farther. However, not to disappoint Mr. W. Sanderson, who was the chief adventurer in this voyage, and for fear of losing the favour of secretary Walsingham, who had this discovery much at heart, Mr. Davis undertook to proceed alone in his small bark of thirty tons. Having therefore fitted, and well-victualled it, in a harbour lying in 66 degrees 33 minutes latitude, and 70 degrees longitude, which he found to be a very hot place, and full of muscatoes, he set sail the 12th of August, and coming into a straight followed the course of it for eighty leagues, till he came among many islands, where the water ebbed and flowed six fathom deep. He had hopes of finding a passage there, but upon searching farther in his boat, he perceived there was none. He then returned again into the open sea, and kept coasting southward as far as 54 degrees and a half of latitude: in which time he found another great inlet near forty leagues broad, between two lands, west, where the water ran in with great violence. This, he imagined, was the passage so long sought for; but the wind being then contrary, and two furious storms happening soon after, he neither thought it safe nor wise to proceed farther, especially in one small bark, and when the season was so far advanced. He, therefore, sailed for England the 11th of September; and arrived there in the beginning of October. By the observations which he made, he concluded, that the north parts of America are all islands. He made a third voyage to these parts again the year following, 1587. All the western merchants, and most of those of London, refused to be engaged farther in the undertaking; but it was encouraged by the lord treasurer Burleigh and secretary Walsinghain. Mr. Davis having, in his last voyage, discovered prodigious quantities of excellent cud-tish, in 56 degrees of latitude, two ships were sent along with him for fishing, and one only for the discovery of the North west passage. They sailed from Dartmouth the 19tii of May, and discovered land the 14th of June, at sixteen leagues distance, but very mountainous, and covered with snow. On the 21st of June the two barks left him, and went upon the fishing, after having promised him, not to depart till his return to them about the end of August, yet having finished their voyage in about sixteen days after, they set sail for England without any regard to their promise. Captain Davis, in the mean time, pursued his intended discovery, in the sea between America and Greenland, from 64 to 73 degrees of latitude. Having entered the Straights which bear his name, he went on northward, from the 21st to the 30th of June; naming one part Merchants Coast; another, the London Coast; another, Hope Sanderson in 73 degrees latitude, being the farthest he went that day. The wind coming northerly, he altered his course, and ran forty leagues west, without seeing any laud. On the 2d of July, he fell in with a great bank of ice, which he coasted southward till the 1 9th of July, when he came within sight of Mount Raleigh on the American coast, in about 67 degrees of latitude. Having sailed sixty leagues north-west into the gulf that lies beyond it, he anchored, July 23, at the bottom of that gulf, among many islands, which he named “The Earl of Cumberland’s Isles” He quitted that place again the same day, and sailed back south-east, in order to recover the sea; which he did the 29th in 62 degrees of latitude. The 30th he passed by a great bank, or inlet, to which he gave the name of Lumley’s Inlet; and the next day by a head land, which he called “The Earl of Warwick’s Foreland.” On the first of August he fell in with the southermost cape, named by him Chudley’s Cape: and, the 12th, passed by an island which he named Darcy’s Island. When he came in 52 degrees of latitude, not finding the two ships that had promised to stay for him, he was in great distress, having but little wood, and only half a hogshead of water left; yet, taking courage, he made the best of his way home, and arrived at Dartmouth September the 15th, very sanguine, that the north-west passage was most probable, and the execution easy; but secretary Walsinghaw dying not long after, all farther search was laid aside. Mr. Davis, notwithstanding, did not remain idle. For, August 26, 1591, he was captain of the Desire, rear admiral to Mr. Thomas Cavendish, in his second unfortunate expedition to the South -Sea; and is highly blamed by Mr. Cavendish, for having deserted him, and thereby being the cause of his overthrow. After many disasters, Mr. Davis arrived again at Bear-haven in Ireland, June 11, 1593. He performed afterwards no less than five voyages to the East-Indies, in the station of a pilot. One was in a Dutch ship, in which he set out, March 15, 1597-8, from Flushing, and returned to Middleburgh, July 23, 1600. Of the rest we have no account, except of that which he performed with sir Edward Michelbourne, in which were spent nineteen months, from December 5, 1604, to July 9, 1606. During this voyage Mr. Davis was killed, on the 27th of December, 1605, in a desperate fight with some Japonese near the coast of Malacca. He married Faith, daughter of sir John Fulford, of Fulford in Devonshire, knight, by Dorothy his wife, daughter of John lord Bouchier, earl of Bath, by whom probably he had issue: for some of his posterity are said to have been living about the middle of the last century, at or near Deptford.

, a very eminent statesman, and secretary of state in the reign of queen Elizabeth, was, if not a native of Scotland, at least descended from those who were, as himself professed to sir James Mel vile. At what time he came into the court of queen Elizabeth, or in what state, is uncertain. It is most probable, that his parts and learning, together with that extraordinary diligence and wonderful address for which he was always distinguished, recommended him to Mr. Killigrew, afterwards sir Henry Kiiligrew, with whom he went in quality of secretary, at the time he was sent into Scotland, to compliment queen Mary upon the birth of her son. This was in 1566, and there is a good reason to believe that he remained from that time about the court, and was employed in several affairs of great consequence. In 1575, when the states of Brabant and Flanders assumed to themselves the administration of all affairs till his catholic majesty should appoint a new governor of the Low Countries, Mr. Davison was sent over with a public character from the queen to those states, under the plausible pretence of exhorting them to continue in their obedience to his catholic majesty; but, in reality, to see how things actually stood in that part of the world, that her majesty might be the better able to know how to proceed in respect to the several applications made to her from the prince of Orange, and the people of Holland. He executed this commission very successfully, and therefore the queen sent him over as her minister, to pacify the troubles that had arisen at Ghent; and when his presence was no longer necessary there, he was commissioned on her behalf to the States of Holland, in 1579. His conduct there gave equal satisfaction to the queen his mistress, and to those with whom he negotiated. He gave them great hopes of the queen’s assistance and support, and when a sum of money was desired, as absolutely necessary towards providing for their defence, he very readily undertook to procure it upon reasonable security; in consequence of which, a very considerable sum was sent from England, for which all the valuable jewels and fine plate that had been pledged by Matthias of Austria to the States of Holland, and which were the remains of the magnificence of the house of Burgundy, were transported to England. These journies, and the success attending them, gave Mr. Davison great reputation at court, insomuch, that in all matters of a nice and difficult nature, Davison was some way or other continually employed. Thus in 1583, when matters wore a serious aspect in Scotland, he was sent thither as the queen’s ambassador, in order to counteract the French ministers, and to engage the king of Scots and the people, both to slight the offers made them from that country, and to depend wholly upon assistance from England. Affairs in the Low Countries coming at last to a crisis, and the states resolving to depend upon queen Elizabeth, in the bold design they had formed of defending their freedom by force of arms, and rendering themselves independent, Mr. Davison, at this time clerk of the privy council, was chosen to manage this delicate business, and to conclude with them that alliance which was to be the basis of their future undertakings. In this, which, without question, was one of the most perplexed transactions in that whole reign, he conducted things with such a happy dexterity, as to merit the strongest acknowledgments on the part of the States, at the same time that he rendered the highest service to the queen his mistress, and obtained ample security for those expences which that princess thought necessary in order to keep danger at a distance, and to encourage the flames of war in the dominions of her enemy, whom at that juncture she knew to be meditating how he might transfer them into her own. Upon the return of Mr. Davison into England, after the conclusion of this treaty, he was declared of the privy-council, and appointed one of her majesty’s principal secretaries of state, in conjunction with sir Francis Walsingham; so that, at this time, these offices may be affirmed to have been as well filled as in any period that can be assigned in our history, and yet by persons of very different, or rather opposite dispositions; for Walsingham was a man of great art and intrigue, one who was not displeased that he was thought such a person, and whose capacity was still deeper than 'those who understood it best apprehended it to be. Davison, on the other hand, had a just reputation for wisdom and probity; and, though he had been concerned in many intricate affairs, yet he preserved a character so unspotted, that, to the time he came into this office, he had done nothing that could draw upon him the least imputation. It is an opinion countenanced by Camden, and which has met with general acceptance, that he was raised in order to be ruined, and that, when he was made secretary of state, there was a view of obliging him to go out of his depth in that matter, which brought upon him all his misfortunes. This conjecture is very plausible, and yet there is good reason to doubt whether it is well founded. Mr. Davison had attached himself, during the progress of his fortunes, to the potent earl of Leicester; and it was chiefly to his favour and interest that he stood indebted for this high employment, in which, if he was deceived by another great statesman, it could not be said that he was raised and ruined by the same hands. But there is nothing more probable than that the bringing about such an event by an instrument which his rival had raised, and then removing him, and rendering his parts useless to those who had raised him, gave a double satisfaction to him who managed this design. It is an object of great curiosity to trace the principal steps of this transaction, which was, without doubt, one of the finest strokes of political management in that whole reign. When the resolution was taken, in the beginning of October 1586, to bring the queen of Scots? to a trial, and a commission was issued for that purpose, secretary Davison’s name was inserted in that commission; but it does not appear that he was present when that commission was opened at Fotheringay castle, on the llth of October, or that he ever assisted there at all. Indeed, the management of that transaction was very wisely left in the hands of those who with so much address had conducted the antecedent business for the conviction of Anthony Babington, and his accomplices, upon the truth and justice of which, the proceedings against the queen of Scots entirely depended. On the 25th of October the sentence was declared in the star-chamber, things proceeding still in the same channel, and nothing particularly done by secretary Davison. On the 29th of the same month the parliament met, in which Serjeant Puckering was speaker of the house of commons; and, upon an application from both houses, queen Elizabeth caused the sentence to be published, which, soon after, was notified to the queen of Scots; yet hitherto all was transacted by the other secretary, who was considered by the nation in general as the person who had led this prosecution from beginning to end. The true meaning of this long and solemn proceeding was certainly to remove, as far as possible, any reflection upon queen Elizabeth; and, that it might appear in the most conspicuous manner to the world, that she was urged, and even constrained to take the life of the queen of Scots, instead of seeking or desiring it. This assertion is not founded upon conjecture, but is a direct matter of fact; for, in her first answer to the parliament, given at Richmond the 12th of November, she complained that the late act had brought her into a great strait, by obliging her to give directions for that queen’s death; and upon the second application, on the 24th of the same month, the queen enters largely into the consequences that must naturally follow upon her taking that step, and on the consideration of them, grounds her returning no definitive resolution, even to this second application. The delay which followed after the publication of the sentence, gave an opportunity for the French king, and several other princes, to interpose, but more especially to king James, whose ambassadors, and particularly sir Robert Melvile, pressed the queen very hard. Camden says, that his ambassadors unseasonably mixing threatenings with intreaties, they were not very welcome; so that after a few days the ambassadors were dismissed, with small hopes of succeeding. But we are elsewhere told, that, when Melvile requested a respite of execution for eight days, she answered, “Not an hour.” This seemed to be a plain declaration of her majesty’s final determination, and such in all probability it was, so that her death being resolved, the only point that remained under debate was, how she should die, that is, whether by the hand of an executioner, or otherwise. In respect to this, the two secretaries seem to have been of different sentiments. Mr. Davison thought the forms of justice should go on, and the end of this melancholy transaction correspond with the rest of the proceedings. Upon this, sir Francis Walsingham pretended sickness, and did not come to court, and by this means the whole business of drawing and bringing the warrant to the queen to sign, fell upon Davison, who, pursuant to the queen’s directions, went through it in the manner that Camden has related. But it is very remarkable, that, while these judicial steps were taking, the other method, to which the queen herself seemed to incline, proceeded also, and secretary Walsingham, notwithstanding his sickness, wrote the very day the warrant was signed, which was Wednesday, February 1st, 1586-7, to sir Amiss Pawlet and sir Drew Drury, to put them in mind of the association, as a thing that might countenance, at least, if not justify, this other way of removing the queen of Scots. It is true, that Mr. Davison subscribed this letter, and wrote another to the same persons two days after; but it appears plainly from the anssver, that the keepers of the queen of Scots considered the motion as coming from Walsingharn. The warrant being delivered to the lords of the council, they sent it down by Mr. Beale, their clerk, a man of sour and stubborn temper, and who had always shewn a great bitterness against the queen of Scots. The day of his departure does not appear; but queen Mary had notice given her on the Monday, to prepare for death on the Wednesday, which she accordingly suffered. As soon as queen Elizabeth was informed of it, she expressed great resentment against her council, forbad them her presence and the court; and caused some of them to be examined, as if she intended to call them to an account for the share they had in this transaction. We are not told particularly who these counsellors were, excepting the lord treasurer Burleigh, who fell into a temporary disgrace about it, and was actually a witness against Mr. Davison. As for the earl of Leicester and secretary Walsingharn, they had prudently withdrawn themselves at the last act of the tragedy, and took care to publish so much, by their letters into Scotland; but secretary Davison, upon whom it was resolved the whole weight of this business should fall, v.-deprived of his office, and sent prisoner to the Tower, at which nobody seerus to have been so much alarmed as the lord treasurer, who, though himself at that time in disgrace, wrote to the queen in strong terms, and once intended to have written in much stronger. This application bad no effect, for the queen having sent her kinsman Mr. Cary, son to the lord Hunsdon, into Scotland, to excuse the matter to king James, charged with a letter to him under her own hand, in which she in the strongest terms possible asserted her own innocence, there was a necessity of doing something that Davison[?] carry an air of evidence, in support of the turn she had now given to the death of that princess. On the 28th of March following, Davison, after having undergone various examinations, was brought to his trial in the star chamber, for the contempt of which he had been guilty, in revealing the queen’s counsels to her privy counsellors, and performing what he understood to be the duty of his office in quality of her secretary. We have several accounts of this trial, which, in a variety of circumstances, differ from each other. In this, however, they all agree, that the judges, who fined him ten thousand marks, and imprisonment during the queen’s pleasure, gave him a very high character, and declared him to be, in their opinions, both an able ana an honest man. One thing is very remarkable, that, in the conclusion of this business, sir Christopher Wray, chief justice of the queen’s bench, told the court, that though the queen had been offended with her council, and had left them to examination, yet now she forgave them, being satisfied that they were misled b? this man’s suggestions. Sir James Melvile, who wrote at that time, and who seems to have had some prejudice against Davison, said very candidly and fairly upon this occasion, that he was deceived by the council. As soon as the proceeding was over, the queen, to put it out of doubt with the king of Scots, that his mother was put to death without her privity or intention, sent him the judgment given against Davison, subscribed by those who had given it, and exemplified under the great seal, together with another instrument, under the hands of all the judges of England, that the sentence against his mother could not in the least prejudice his title to the succession. As for Mr. Davison, now left to a strange reward for his past services, a long imprisonment, which reduced him to indigence, he comforted himself with the thoughts of his innocence; and, to secure his memory from being blasted by that judgment which had withered his fortune, he had long before written an apology for his own conduct, which he addressed to secretary Walsingham, as the man most interested in it, and who could best testify whether what he affirmed was truth or not. In this he gave a very clear and natural detail of the transaction which cost him all his sufferings. It is allowed by all who have written on this subject, and especially by Camden, that he was a very unhappy, though at the same time a very capable and honest man. As such we have seen him recommended to queen Elizabeth by the treasurer Burleigh, and as such he was strongly recommended by the earl of Essex to king James I. It seems, that noble person stuck fast by him under his misfortunes, which plainly shews the party to which he had always adhered. That lord lost no opportunity of soliciting the queen in his favour, and never let slip any occasion of testifying for him the warmest and thesincerest affection. At length, it seems he was not altogether unsuccessful; for though, upon the death of secretary Walsingham, the queen absolutely rejected his motion, that Mr. Davison should come into his place, yet, afterwards, it seems that she yielded in some degree, as plainly appears by the earl’s letter to king James. That we are under an incapacity of tracing him farther, is owing to the profound silence of the writers of those times.

Upon the accession of queen Elizabeth, at the desire of lord Robert Dudley, afterwards earl of Leicester, he delivered somewhat upon the principles of the ancient astrologers, about the choice of a fit day for the coronation of the queen, from whom he received many promises; nevertheless, his credit at court was not sufficient to overcome the public odium against him, on the score of magical incantations, which was the true cause of his missing several preferments. He was by this time become an author; but, as we are told, a little unluckily; for his books were such as scarce any pretended to understand, written upon mysterious subjects in a very mysterious manner. In the spring of 1564 he went abroad again, to present the book which he dedicated to the then emperor Maximilian, and returned to England the same summer. In 1563, he engaged the earl of Pembroke to present the queen with his “Propaedurnata Aphoristica” and two years after, sir Henry Billingsley’s translation of Euclid appeared, with Dee’s preface and notes; which did him more honour than, all his performances, as furnishing incontestable proofs of a more than ordinary skill in the mathematics. In 1571, we find him in Lorrain; where falling dangerously sick, the queen was pleased to send him two physicians. After his return to England, he settled himself in his house at Mortlake; where he prosecuted his studies with great diligence, and collected a noble library, consisting of 4000 volumes, of which above a fourth part were Mss. a great number of mechanical and mathematical instruments, a collection of seals, and many other curiosities. His books only were valued at 2000l. It was upon his leaving the kingdom in 1583, that the populace, who always believed him to be one who dealt with the devil, broke into his house at Mortlake; where they tore and destroyed many things, and dispersed the rest in such a manner, that the greatest part of them were irrecoverable.

We come now to that period of his life, by which he has been most known, though for reasons which have justly rendered him least regarded. He was certainly a man of uncommon parts, learning, and application; and might have distinguished himself in the scientific world if he had been possessed of solid judgment; but he was very credulous, superstitious, extremely vain, and, we suspect, a little roguish; but we are told that it was his ambition to surpass all men in knowledge, which carried him at length to a desire of knowing beyond the bounds of human faculties. In short, he suffered himself to be deluded into an opinion, that by certain invocations an intercourse or communication with spirits might be obtained; from whence he promised himself an insight into the occult sciences. He found a young man, one Edward Kelly, a native of Worcestershire, who was already either rogue or fool enough for his purpose, and readily undertook to assist him, for which he was to pay him 50l. per annum. Dec. 2, 1581, they began their incantations; in consequence of which, Kelly was, by the inspection of a certain table, consecrated for that purpose with many superstitious ceremonies, enabled to acquaint Dee with what the spirits thought fit to shew and discover. These conferences were continued for about two years, and the subjects of them were committed to writing, but never published, though still preserved in Ashmole’s museum. In the mean time, there came over hither a Polish lord, one Albert Laski, palatine of Siradia, a man of great parts and learning; and, as a late writer observes, of large fortune too, or he would not have answered their purpose. This nobleman was introduced by the earl of Leicester to Dee, and became his constant visitant. Having: himself a bias to those superstitious arts, he was, after much intreaty, received by Dee into their company, and into a participation of their secrets. Within a short time, the palatine of Siradia, returning to his own country, prevailed with Dee and Kelly to accompany him, upon the assurance of an ample provision there; and accordingly they went all privately from Mortlake, in order to embark for Holland; from whence they travelled by land through Germany into Poland, where, Feb. 3, 1584, they arrived at the principal castle belonging to Albert Laski. When Laski had been sufficiently amused with their fanatical pretences to a conversation with spirits, and was probably satisfied that they were impostors, he contrived to send them to the emperor Rodolph II. who, being quickly disgusted with their impertinence, declined all farther interviews. Upon this Dee applied himself to Laski, to introduce him to Stephen king of Poland; which accordingly he did at Cracow, April 1585. But that prince soon detecting his delusions, and treating him with contempt, he returned to the emperor’s court at Prague; from whose dominions he was soon banished at the instigation of the pope’s nuncio, who gave the emperor to understand, how scandalous it appeared to the Christian world, that he should entertain two such magicians as Dee and Kelly. At this time, and while these confederates were reduced to the greatest distress, a young nobleman of great power and fortune in Bohemia, and one of their pupils, gave them shelter in the castle of Trebona; where they not only remained in safety, but lived in splendour, Kelly having in his possession, as is reported, that philosophical powder of projection, by which they were furnished with money very profusely. Some jealousies and heart-burnings afterwards happened between Dee and Kelly, that brought on at length an absolute rupture. Kelly, however, who was a younger man than Dee, seems to have acted a much wiser part; since it appears, from an entry in Dee’s diary, that he was so far intimidated as to deliver up to Kelly, Jan. 1589, the powder, about which it is said he had learned from the German chemists many secrets which he had not communicated to Dee.

As he had endeavoured to promote the revolution by his pen and his sword, he had the satisfaction of participating in the pleasures and advantages of that great event. During the hilarity of the moment, the lord-mayor of London asked king William to partake of the city feast on the 29th of October, 1689. Every honour was paid to the sovereign of the people’s choice. A regiment of volunteers, composed of the chief citizens, and commanded by the celebrated earl of Peterborough, attended the king and queen from Whitehall to the Mansion-house. Among these troopers, gallantly mounted, and richly accoutred, was Daniel De Foe.

While he lay friendless in Newgate, his family ruined, and he himself without hopes of deliverance, a verbal message was brought him from sir Robert Harley, speaker of the house of commons, afterwards earl of Oxford, desiring to know what he could do for him. Harley approved, probably, of the principles and conduct of De Foe, and might foresee, that, during a factious age, such a genius could be converted to many uses. Our author was content to intimate a wish only for his release; and when Harley became secretary of state, in April 1704, and had frequent opportunities of representing the unmerited sufferings of De Foe to the queen and to the treasurer, lord Godolphin; yet our author continued four months longer in prison. The queen, however, inquired into his circumstances; and lord Godolphin sent a considerable sum to his wife, and to him money to pay his fine and the expence of his discharge. Here is the foundation, he says, on which be built his first sense of duty to the queen, and the indelible bond of gratitude to his first benefactor, as he calls Harley. “Let any one say, then,” he asks, “what I could have done, less or more than I have done for such a queen and such a benefactor?” All this he manfully avowed to the world, when queen Anne lay lifeless as king William, his first patron; pnd when the earl of Oxford, in the vicissitude of party, had been persecuted by faction, and overpowered, though not conquered, by violence. Being released from Newgate, in August 1704, De Foe, in order to avoid the town-talk, retired to St. Edmund’s Bury; but his retreat did not prevent persecution. Dyer, the newswriter, propagated that De Foe had Hed from justice; Fox, the bookseller, published, that he had deserted his security; andStephen, a state -messenger, every where said, that he had a warrant to apprehend him all which arose from petty malice, for when De Foe informed the secretary of state where he was, and when he would appear, he was told not to fear, as he had not transgressed.

De Foe now lived at Newington, in comfortable circumstances, and was principally employed in writing the “Review,” which at last he relinquished after nine years continuance, and began to write “A General History of Trade,” which he proposed to publish in monthly numbers; but this history, which exhibits the ingenuity and strength of De Foe, extended only to two numbers. He appears, at last, to have been silenced by noise, obloquy, and insult, and finding himself treated in this manner, he declined writing at all, and secreted himself, for a time, at Halifax, or on the borders of Lancashire, where, observing the insolence of the Jacobite party, he wrote the following tracts, “A Seasonable Caution;” “What, if the Pretender should come?” “Reasons against the Succession of the House of Hanover;” and “What if the Queen should die:” those pamphlets, whose titles were ironical, were so much approved by the zealous friends of the protestant succcbbiun, that they were diligent to disperse them through the most distant counties; ana 1 yet the reader will learn, with indignation, that for these De Foe wen arrested, obliged to give Soo/. bail, contrary to the bill of rights, and prosecuted by information, in Trinity term, 1713. This prosecution was instituted by the absurd zeal of Mr. auditor Benson. Our author attributes it to the malice of his enemies, who were numerous and powerful. No inconsiderable people were heard to say, that they knew the books were against the pretender, but that De Foe had disobliged them in other things, and they resolved to take this advantage to punish him. He was prompted by consciousness of innocence to defend himself in the “Review” during the prosecution, which offended the judges, who, being infected with the violent spirit of the times, committed him to Newgate in Easter term 1713. He was, however, soon released, on making a proper submission, and the earl of Oxford being still in power, that nobleman procured him the queen’s pardon, in November 1713.

“No sooner was the queen dead,” says De Foe, “but the rage of men increased upon me to that degree, that their threats were such as I am unable to express. Though I have written nothing since the queen’s death; yet a great many things are called by my name, and I bear the answei'ers insults. 1 have not seen or spoken with the earl of Oxford, since the king’s landing, but once; yet he bears the reproach of my writing for him, and I the rage of men for doing it.” — De Foe appears, indeed, to have been stunned by factious clamour, and overborne, though not silenced, by unmerited obloquy. He probably lost his original appointment when the earl of Oxford was finally expelled. Instead of meeting with reward for his zealous services in support of the protestant succession, he was, on the accession of George I, discountenanced even by those who had derived a benefit from his active exertions. Thus cruelly circumstanced, he published in 1715, his “Appeal to Honour and Justice, being a true account of his conduct in public affairs.” As a motive for this intrepid measure, he affectingly says, “By the hints of mortality, and the infirmities of a life of sorrow and fatigue, I have reason to think, that I am very near to the great ocean of eternity; and the time may not be long ere I embark on the last voyage: wherefore, I think I should make even accounts with this world before I go, that no slanders may lie against my heirs, to disturb them in the peaceable possession of their father’s inheritance, his character.” Before he could finish his appeal, he was struck with an apoplexy. After languishing more than six weeks, neither able to go on, nor likely to recover, his friends would delay the publication no longer. “It is the opinion of most who know him,” says Baker, the publisher, “that the treatment which he here complains of, and others of which he would have spoken, have been the cause of this disaster.” When the ardent mind of De Foe reflected on what he had done, and what he had suffered, his heart melted in despair, and the year 1715 may be regarded as the period of our author’s political life. The death of Anne, and the accession of George the first, seem to have convinced him of the vanity of party-writing. And from this eventful epoch, he appears to have studied how to meliorate the heart, and how to regulate the practice of life.

The success of Crusoe induced De Foe to publish, in 1720, “The Life and Piracies of captain Singleton,” though not with similar success. In 1725 he gave “A New Voyage round the World, by a course never sailed before.” In the life of Crusoe we are gratified by continually imagining that the fiction is a fact; in the “Voyage round the World” we are pleased, by constantly perceiving that the fact is a fiction, which, by uncommon skill, is made more interesting than a genuine voyage. In 1720 he published the “History of Duncan Campbell,” who was born deaf and dumb, but who himself taught the deaf and dumb to understand. The author has here contrived that the merriest passages shall end with some edifying moral. The “Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders” followed in 1721, the morality of which we cannot commend. The same year he published a work of a similar tendency, the “Life of colonel Jaque,” who was born a gentleman, but bred a pick-pocket. In 1724, appeared the “Fortunate Mistress, or the Adventures of Roxana.” The world, however, has not been made much wiser or better by the perusal of these lives, which may have diverted the lower orders, but are too gross for improvement, and exhibit few scenes which are welcome to cultivated minds. Of a very different quality are the “Memoirs of a Cavalier during the Civil Wars in England.” This is a romance the most like to truth that ever was written; a narrative of great events, drawn with such simplicity, and enlivened with such reflections, as to inform the ignorant, and entertain the wise. It was a favourite book of the great earl of Chatham, who, before he discovered it to be a fiction, used to speak of it as the best account of the Civil Wars extant.

Dr. Delany, on the 9tti of June 1743, married a second time. The lady with whom he formed this connexion was Mrs. Pendarves, the relict of Alexander Pen Janes, esq a very ingenious and excellent woman; of whom some account will be given in the next article. The doctor had lost his first wife December 6, 1741. March 13, 1744, our author preached a sermon before the society for promoting protestant working schools in Ireland. In May 1744, he was raised to the highest preferment which he ever attained, the deanry of Down, in the room of Dr. Thomas Fletcher, appointed to be bishop of Dro no re. In the same year, previously to this promotion, our author published a volume of sermons upon social duties, fifteen in number, to which in a second edition, 1747, were added five more, on the opposite vices. This is the most useful of Dr. Delany’s performances; the objects to which rt relates being of very important and general concern. Dr. Delany’s next publication was not till 174-8, and that was only a sixpenny pamphlet. It was entitled “An Essay towards evidencing the divine original of Tythes,” and had at first been drawn up, and probably preached as a sermon. The text, rather a singular one, was the tenth commandment, which forbids us to covet any thing that is our neighbour’s; and it required some ingenuity to deduce the divine original of tithes from that particular prohibition. After an interval of six years, Dr. Delany again appeared in the world as an author, in answer to the earl of Orrery’s “Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Swift.” Many of Su ill’s zealous admirers were not a little displeased with the representations which the noble lord had given of him in various respects. Of this number was Dr. Delany, who determined therefore to do justice to the memory of his old friend; for which few were better qualified, having been in the habits of intimacy with the dean of St. Patrick’s, from his first coming over to Ireland, and long before lord Orrery could have known any thing concerning him. On the whole, it was thought that this production of the doctor’s enabled the public to form a far more clear estimation of the real character of the dean of St. Patrick’s, than any account of him which had hitherto been given to the world; yet perhaps the fairest estimate must be made by a comparison of both. However zealous Dr. Delany might be for the honour of his friend, he did not satisfy Deane Swift, esq. who, in his Essay upon the life, writings, and character of his relation, treated our author with extreme ill manners and gross abuse; to which he thought proper to give an answer, in a letter to Mr. Swift, published in 1755. In this letter the doctor justified himself; and he did it with so much temper and ingenuity, so much candour, and yet with so much spirit, that the polite gentleman, and the worthy divine, were apparent in every page of his little pamphlet. The year 1754 also produced another volume of sermons; the larger part of them are practical, and these are entitled to great commendation, particularly two discourses on the folly, iniquity, ad absurdity of duelling. During this part of Dr. Delany’s life, he was involved in a law-suit of great consequence, and which, from its commencement to its final termination, lasted more than nine years. It related to the personal estate of his first lady; and although a shade was cast on his character by the decision of the Irish court of chancery, his conduct was completely vindicated by that decree being reversed in the house of lords in England. But he was not so deeply engaged in the prosecution of his law-suit as entirely to forget his disposition to be often appearing in. the world as an author. In 1757 he began a periodical paper called “The Humanist,” whicli was carried on through 15 numbers, and then dropped. In 1761 Dr. Delany published a tract, entitled “An humble apology for Christian Orthodoxy,” and several sermons. It was in 1763, after an interval of nearly thirty years from the publication of his former volumes, that he gave to the world the third and last volume of his “Revelation examined with candour.” In the preface the doctor has indulged himself in some peevish remarks upon Reviewers of works of literature; but from complaints of this kind few writers have ever derived any material advantage. With regard to the volume itself, it has been thought to exhibit more numerous instances of the prevalence of imagination, over judgment than had occurred in the former part of the undertaking. In 1766 Dr. Delany published a sermon against transubstantiation; which was succeeded in the same year by his last publication, which was a volume containing 18 discourses. Dr. Delany departed this life at Bath, in May 1763, in the 83d year of his age. Though in general he was an inhabitant of Ireland, it appears from several circumstances, and especially from his writings, almost all of which were published in London, that he frequently came over to England, and occasionally resided there for a considerable time. Of his literary character an estimate may be formed from what has been already said. With regard to two of his principal works, the “Revelation examined with candour,” and the “Life of David,” they contain so many fanciful ^ul doubtful positions, that all the ability and learning i.,i., played in them will scarcely suffice to hand them down, with any eminent degree of reputation, to future ages. It is on his sermons, and particularly on those which relate to social duties, that will principally depend the perpetuity of his fame. With respect to his personal character, he appears to have been a gentleman of unquestionable piety and goodness, and of an uncommon warmth of heart. This warmth of heart was, however, accompanied with some inequality, impetuosity, and irritability of temper. Few excelled him in charity, generosity, and hospitality. His income, which for the last twenty years of his life was 3006J. per annum, sunk under the exercise of these virtues, and he left little behind him besides books, plate, and furniture. Of a literary diligence, protracted to above fourscore years, Dr. Delany has afforded a striking example; though it may possibly be thought, that if, wben his body and mind grew enfeebled, he had remembered the solve senescentem equum, it would hate been of no disadvantage to his reputation.

, the second wife of the preceding, and a lady of distinguished ingenuity and merit, was born at a small country house of her father’s at Coulton in Wiltshire, May, 14, 1700. She was the daughter of Bernard Granville, esq. afterward lord Lansdowne, a nobleraan whose abilities and virtues, whose character as a poet, whose friendship with Pope, Swift, and other eminent writers of the time, and whose general patronage of men eyf genius and literature, have often been recorded in biographical productions. As the child of such a family, sh^ could not fail of receiving the best education. It was at Long-Leat, the seat of the Weymouth family, which was occupied by lord Lansdowne during the minority of the heir of that family, that Miss Granville first saw Alexander Pendarves, esq. a gentleman of large property at Roscrow in Cornwall, and who immediately paid his addresses to her; which were so strenuously supported by her uncle, whom she had not the courage to deny, that she gave a reluctant consent to the match; and accordingly it took place in the compass of two or three weeks, she being then in the seventeenth year of her age. From a great disparity of years, and other causes, she was very unhappy during the time which this connexion lasted, but endeavoured to make the best of her situation. The retirement to which she was confined was wisely employed in the farther cultivation of a naturally vigorous understanding: and the good use she made of her leisure hours, was eminently evinced in the charms of her conversation, and in her letters to her friends. That quick feeling of the elegant and beautiful which constitutes taste, she possessed in an eminent degree, and was therefore peculiarly fitted for succeeding in the fine arts. At the period we are speaking of, she made a great proficiency in music, but painting, which afterwards she most loved, and in which she principally excelled, had not yet engaged her practical attention. in 1724 Mrs. Pendarves became a widow; upon which occasion she quitted Cornwall, and fixed her principal residence in London. For several years, between 1730 and 1736, she maintained a correspondence with Dr. Swift. In 1743, as we have seen in the former article, Mrs. Pendarves was married to Dr. Delany, with whom it appears that she had long been acquainted; and for whom he had many years entertained a very high esteem. She had been a widow nineteen years when this connexion, which was a very happy one, took place, and her husband is said to fcave regarded her almost to adoration. Upon his decease in ftiay 1768, she intended to fix herself at Bath, and was in quest of a house for that purpose. But the duchess dowager of Portland, hearing of her design, went down to the place; and, having in her earl v years formed an intimacy with Mrs. Delany, wished to have near her a lady from whom she had necessarily, for several years, been much separated, and whose heart and talents she knew would in the highest degree add to thejiappiness of her own life. Her <*race succeeded in her solicitalions, and Mrs. Delany now passed her time between London and Bulstrode. On the death of the duchess-dowager of Portland, his present majesty, who had frequently seen and honoured Mrs Delany with his notice at Bulstrode, assigned her for her summer residence the use of a house completely furnished, in St. Alhan’s-street, Windsor, adjoining to the entrance of the castle: and, that the having two houses on her hands might not produce any inconvenience with regard to the expence of her living, his majesty, as a farther mark of his royal favour, conferred on her a pension of three hundred pounds a year. On the 15th of April, 1788, after a short indisposition, she departed this life, at her house in St. James’s-place, having nearly completed the 88th year of her age. The circumstance that has principally entitled Mrs. Delany to a place in this work is her skill in painting, and in other ingenious arts, one of which was entirely her own. With respect to painting, she was late in her application to it. She did not learn to draw till she was more than thirty years of age, when she put herself under the instruction of Goupy, a fashionable master of that time, and much employed by Frederic prince of Wales. To oil-painting she did not take till she was past forty. So strong was her passion for this art, that she has frequently been known to employ herself in it, day after day, from six o'clock in the morning till dinner time, allowing only a short interval for breakfast. She was principally a copyist; but a very fine one. The only considerable original work of hers in oil was the Kaising of Lazarus, in the possession of her friend lady JBute. The number of pictures painted by her, considering how late it was in life before she applied to the art, was very great. Her own house was full of them; and others are among the chief ornaments of Calswich, Welsborn, and Ham, the respective residences of her nephews, Mr. Granville and Mr. Dewes, and of her niece Mrs. Port. Mrs. Delany, among her other accomplishments, excelled in embroidery and shell-work; and, in the course of her life, produced many elegant specimens of her skill in these respects. But, what is more remarkable, at the age of 74 she invented a new and beautiful mode of exercising her ingenuity. This was by the construction of a Flora, of a most singular kind, formed by applying coloured papers together, and which might, not improperly, be called a species of mosaic work. Being perfectly mistress of her scissars, the plant or flower which she purposed to imitate she cut out; that is, she cut out its various leaves and parts in such coloured Chinese paper as suited her subject; and, when she could not meet with a colour to correspond with the one she wanted, she dyed her own paper to answer her wishes. She used a black ground, as best calculated to throw out her flower; and not the least astonishing part of her art was, that though she never employed her pencil to trace out the form or shape of her plant, yet when she had applied all the p eces which composed it, it hung so loosely and gracefully, that every one was persuaded that it must previously have been drawn out, and repeatedly corrected by a most judicious hand, before it could have attained the ease and air of truth which, without any impeachment of the honour of this accomplished lady, might justly be called a forgery of nature’s works. The effect was superior to what painting could have produced; and so imposing was her art, that she would sometimes put a real leaf of a plant by the side of one of her own creation, which the eye could not detect, even when she herself pointed it out. Mrs. Delany continued in the prosecution of her design till the 83d year of her age, when the dimness of her sight obliged her to lay it aside. However, by her unwearied perseverance, she became authoress of far the completest Flora that ever was executed by the same hand. The number of plants finished bv her amounted to nine hundred and eighty. This invaluable Flora was bequeathed by her to her nephew Court Dewes, esq. and is now in the possession of Barnard Dewes, esq. of Welsborn in Warwickshire. The liberality of Mrs. Delany’s mind rendered her at all times ready to communicate her art. She frequently pursued her work in company; was desirous of shewing to her friends how easy it was to execute; and was often heard to lament that so few would attempt it. It required, however, great patience and great knowledge in botanical drawing. She began to write poetry at 80 years of age, and her verses shew at least a pious disposition. Her private character is thus given by her friend, Mr. Keate. “She had every virtue that could adorn the human heart, with a mind so pure, and so uncontaminated by the world, that it was matter of astonishment how she could have lived in its more splendid scenes without being tainted with one single atom of its folly or indiscretion. The strength of her understanding received, in the fullest degree, its polish, but its weakness never reached her. Her life was conducted by the sentiments of true piety; her way of thinking, on every occasion, was upright and just; her conversation was lively, pleasant, and instructive. She was warm, delicate, and sincere in her friendships; full of philanthropy and benevolence, and loved and respected by every person who had the happiness to know her. That sun-shine and serenity of mind which the good can only enjoy, and which had thrown so much attraction on her life, remained without a shadow to the last; not less bright in its setting, than in its meridian lustre. That form which in youth had claimed admiration, in age challenged respect. It presented a noble ruin, become venerable by the decay of time. Her faculties remained unimpaired to the last; and she quitted this mortal state to receive in a better world the crown of a well-spent life.”

He also published in his own life-time the following pieces: “Strena Kal. Januar. 1616. ad iilustriss. virum Jacobum Hayum, Dominum ac Baronem de Saley,” &c. Lond. 1616, 4to. “Menologium Scotorum, in quo nullus nisi Scotus gente aut conversatione, quod ex omnium gentium monimentis, pio studio Dei gloriae. Sanctorum honori. Patrias ornamento,” &c. Bonon. 1622, 4to. “Scotia illustrior, seu, Mendicabula repressa,” Lugd. 1620, 8vo. He is likewise said to have been the author of four books of epistles, of some tragedies and tragi-comedies, of fourteen books of different kinds of poetry, and of various pieces. Notwithstanding his attachment to the Romish religion, some of his books were condemned by the inquisition. A very elaborate and learned work of Dempster was elegantly printed at Florence, with many copperplates, in two volumes, folio, in 1723 and 1724, under the care of Thomas Coke, esq. (afterwards earl of Leicester,) at the expence of Cosmo III. and John Gasto, dukes of Tuscany, to which the following title was prefixed: “ Thomae Dempster! a Muresk Scoti Pandectarum in Pisano Lyceo professoris ordinarii de Etruria regali libri Septem, opus postumum, in duas partes divisum.” We are told in the preface, that when Dempster, in 1619, was about to remove to Bologna, he left this work in the hands of the grand duke, by whose order it had been composed, although he had not quite finished it. It is divided into seven books, treating of the ancient inhabitants of Etruria, their kings, their inventions, geography, ancient and modern, &c. with a short history of the house of Medici. The ancient monuments which are given on ninety-three engravings, are illustrated by some explanations and conjectures by M. Bonarota. Upon the whole, this splendid publication appears to be the best of Dempster’s productions, and affords a very high idea of his abilities as a classical antiquary. One of his dissertations on the Roman Kalendar is inserted in Groevius’s Roman Antiquities, vol. VIII. Passeri published a Supplement to his History of Etruria, in 1767, fol. and an edition of his Roman Antitiquities, much enlarged.

Not satisfied with obtaining the best education his own country could afford, Mr. Dennis determined to improve his understanding, and increase the extent of his knowledge abroad, and made the tour of France and Italy; in the course of which it is said that his observations on the evil effects arising from, despotic government, greatly contributed to strengthen in him those principles of whiggism, and that zeal for liberty which he had early imbibed, and which he invariably maintained to the close of his life. On fris return to England, such was the opinion entertained of his accomplishments, that he found an easy admission int the company of several of the most distinguished men of the age for genius, wit, and learning, particularly the earls of Pembroke and Mulgrave, Charles Montague, esq. afterwards earl of Halifax, Walter Moyle, esq. Mr. Wycherley, and the celebrated poets Dryden, Congreve, Southern, and Garth. All these thought highly of his talents; but certainly had not the same reason to think well of his discretion; his pride and passion hurrying him into actions which were injurious to his reputation. It is related, that on his first introduction to Charles Montague, esq. he got intoxicated with some very fine wines, to which he had not been accustomed, and becoming impatient of contradiction, suddenly rose, rushed out of the room, and overturned the sideboard of plate and glasses as he went. Next morning, seeing Mr. Moyle, he told him, that he had forgotten every thing which had happened, and desired to know in what manner he went away. “Why,” said Moyle, “You went away like the devil, and took one corner of the house with you.”

Mr. Dennis’s next dramatic attempt was in a comedy, entitled “Gibraltar, or the Spanish Adventure;” and which was performed in 1705, at the theatre royal in Drury-lane; but without success. “Orpheus and Eurydice,” a masque, which was produced by our author in 1707, does not appear to have been acted. It is printed in the “Muse’s Mercury,” for the month of February in that year. In 1709, Mr. Dennis brought upon the stage, at Drury-lane, “Appius and Virginia,” a tragedy, which was not very successful; but is remarkable for a circumstance little connected with its literary merit. Dennis, expressly for the use of this play, had invented a new species of thunder, which was approved of by the actors, and is the sort at present used in the theatre. Some nights after his tragedy had been laid aside, Dennis being in the pit at the representation of Macbeth, heard his own thunder made use of; upon which he rose in a violent passion, and exclaimed, with an oath, that it was, his thunder. “See,” said he, “how these rascals use me They will not let my play run and yet they steal my thunder” Our author’s last dramatic production was “Coriolanus, the Invader of his country; or, The Fatal Resentment;” a tragedy, altered from Shakspeare’s Coriolanus. After it had been represented three nights, the managers Wilks, Cibber, and Booth, who were not satisfied with the profits derived from it, to the astonishment and indignation of Mr. Dennis, gave out another play for the next evening. Upon this he published his tragedy, with a dedication to the duke of Newcastle, at that time lord chamberlain of his majesty’s household, in which he has given full scope to his resentment against the patentees, and especially against Mr. Cibber. The last gentleman, instead of the author’s epilogue, had substituted one of his own, which was spoken by Mrs. Oldfield, an additional cause of offence to our poet, who, in an advertisement, has represented it as a wretched medley of impudence and nonsense; and, indeed, it does not appear to be entitled to commendation. Dennis, as already noticed, derived some fortune from an uncle; but that was probably spent in a little time. As he wrote for government when the whigs were in power, and was patronised by lord Halifax, there can be no doubt but that he occasionally received pecuniary gratifications, either from the bounty or through the interest of that nobleman. For his poem on the battle of Blenheim the duke of Marlborough rewarded him with a present of a hundred guineas. But, previously to the writing of that poem, he had experienced his grace’s patronage in a much more important instance; for the duke had procured for him the place of a waiter at the Custom-house, worth a hundred and twenty pounds a year. This office he held for six years; during which he managed his affairs with so little discretion, that, in order to discharge some pressing demands, he was obliged to dispose of his waitership. The earl of Halifax, having heard of his design, sent for him, and, in the most friendly manner, expostulated with him wpon the folly and rashness of disposing of his place, by which his lordship told him that he would soon become i beggar. In reply, our author represented the exigencies? to which he was reduced, and the importunate nature of the demands that were made upon him. The ear), however, insisted, that, if he must sell his place, he should reserve to himst-If an annuity out of it for a considerable term of years; such a term as his lordship thought Mr. Dennis was not likely to survive; yet this he did survive, and was exposed in his old age to great poverty. With such a disposition as Mr. Dennis possessed, it is not surprizing that he was often liable to arrests from his creditors. An instance of sir Richard Steele’s friendship to him in this respect he is said to have ill-repaid. Sir Richard, if the story be true, once became bail for him, and afterwards was arrested on his account; but, when he heard of it, he only exclaimed, “'Sdeath! why did he not keep out of the way, as I did?” In the latter part of our poet’s life, he resided within the verge of the court, for the security of his person, but one Saturday night, he happened to saunter to a public-house, which, in a short time, he discovered to be out of the verge. As he was sitting in an open drinking-room, a man of a suspicious appearance entered, about whom Mr. Dennis imagined there was something that denoted him to be a bailiff. Being seized with a panic, he was afraid that his liberty was now at an end, and sat in the utmost solicitude, but durst not offer to stir, lest he should be seized upon. After an hour or two had passed in this painful anxiety, at last the clock struck twelve; when Mr. Dennis, addressing himself to the suspected person, cried out in an extacy, “Now, sir, bailiff or no bailiff, I don't care a farthing for you you have no power now.” The man was astonished at his behaviour; and, when it was explained to him, was so much affronted with the suspicion, that, had not our author been protected by his age, he would probably have taken personal revenge.

The character of Mr. Dennis must in general be sufficiently apparent from what has already been said. Illnature has been ascribed to him with too much shew of reason; though perhaps it belonged to him more as a writer than as a man. In a letter to a friend he has endeavoured to vindicate himself from the charge; but not, we think, with entire success. This at least is certain, from several transactions, that he was very irritable in his temper. Till he was five and forty, he was intimately conversant with the first men of the age, both with respect to rank and abilities; and when he retired from the world, he continued to preserve some honourable connections. Such was the estimation in which he was held, that he experienced the patronage of gentlemen whose political principles were extremely different from his own. George Granville, esq. in particular, afterwards lord Lansdowne, behaved to him with distinguished generosity, as did the earl of Pembroke, bishop Atterbury, and sir Robert Walpole.

, knt. one of the gentlemen of the privy chamber to king Henry VIII., was the second son of Thomas Denny, of Cheshunt, in the county of Hertford, esq. by Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Mannock. He had his education in St. Paul’s school, London, under the celebrated grammarian Lilly; and afterwards in St. John’s college, Cambridge; in both which places he so improved himself, that he became an excellent scholar, as well as a person of great worth. His merit having made him known at court, he was constituted by Henry VIII. one of the gentlemen of the bed-chamber, groom of the stole, and a privy counsellor; and likewise received the honour of knighthood from that prince; with whom being in great favour, he raised a considerable estate on the ruins of the dissolved monasteries. In 1537, Henry gave him the priory of Hertford, together with divers other lands and manors; and in 1539, Dec. 15, the office of steward of the manor of Bedwell and Little Berkhamstead, in Herts; besides which sir Anthony also obtained the manor of Buttenvick, in the parish of St. Peter in St. Alban’s, the manors of the rectory and of the nunnery, in the parish of Cheshunt; and of Great Amwell, all in the county of Hertford. In 1541, there was a large grant made to him by act of parliament, of several lands that had belonged to the abbey of St. Alban’s, lately dissolved; and not content with all this, he found means to procure a thirty-one years’ lease of the many large and rich demesnes that had been possessed by Waltham-abbey, in Essex; of which his lady purchased aftenvards the reversion. In 1544 the king gave him the advantageous wardship of Margaret, the only daughter and heir of Thomas lord Audley, deceased. On the 31st of August, 1546, he was commissioned, with John Gate and William Clerk, esquires, to sign all warrants in the king’s name. Though somewhat rapacious, he was liberal; in this reign he did eminent service to the great school of Sedberg in Yorkshire, belonging to the college wherein he had received his education; the building being fallen to decay, and the lands appropriated thereto sold and embezzled, he caused the school to be repaired, and not only recovered, but also settled the estate so firmly, as to prevent all future alienations. He was also a more faithful servant than his brother courtiers, for when Henry VIII. was on his death-bed, he had the courage to put him in mind of his approaching end, and desired him to raise his thoughts to heaven, to think of his past life, and to call on God for mercy through Jesus Christ. So great an opinion had that capricious monarch of him, that he appointed him one of the executors of his will, and one of the counsellors to his son and successor Edward VI. and hequeathed him a legacy of 300l. He did not live long after this; for he died in 1.550. By his wife Joan, daughter of sir Philip Champeruon, of Modbury, in Devonshire, a lady of great beauty and parts, he had six children; of whom, Henry, the eldest, was father of Edward Denny, knighted in 1589, summoned to parliament in 1605, and advanced Oct. 24, 1626, to the dignity of earl of Norwich. Of sir Anthony Denny’s personal character, one of his contemporaries informs us, that his whole time and cares were employed about religion, learning, and the care of the public, and has highly commended him for his prudence and humanity. He was the early friend and patron of Matthew Parker, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. The learned Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, wrote an excellent epitaph for him some years before his decease; tfnd sir John Cheke, who had a great esteem for him, honoured his memory with an elegant heroic poem.

In 1755 he was employed under the chevalier Douglas, in transacting a negociation of the most delicate and important nature at the court of Petersburg!), by which, after many years suspension of all intercourse, a reconciliation was effected between the courts of France and Russia. After some years residence at Petersburg!], D‘Eon joined his regiment, then serving under marshal Broglio on the Rhine, and during the campaign of 1762, acted as aid-ducamp to that celebrated olKcer. When the duke de Nivernois came over to England, as ambassador, to negociate the peace of 1763, D’Eon appeared as his secretary; and so far procured the sanction of the government of England, that he was requested to carry over the ratiticat.on of the treaty between the British court and that of Versailles, in consequence of which the French king invested him with the order of St. Louis. He had also behaved, in the character of secretary, so much to the satisfaction of the duke, that that nobleman, upon his departure for France, in May 1763, procured D‘Eon to be appointed minister-pleriiputeutiary in his room. In October following, however, the count de Guerchy having arrived here as ambassador from the court of Versailles, the chevalier received orders, or rather was requested, to act as secretary or assistant to the new ambassador. This, we are told, mortified him to such a degree, that, asserting that the letter of recall, which accompanied it, was a forgery, he refused to deliver it; and by this step drew on himself the censure of his court. On this, either with a view of exculpating himself, or from a motive of revenge, he published a succinct account of all the negociations in which he had been engaged, exposed some secrets of the French court, and rather than spare. his enemies, revealed some things greatly to the prejudice of his best friends. Among other persons very freely treated in this publication was the count de Guerchy, for which D’Eon was prosecuted and convicted in the court of King’s Bench, in July 1764. It was but natural that this conduct should draw down the resentment of the court of France, and the chevalier either feared or affected to fear the greatest danger to his person. Reports were spread, very probahly by himself, that persons were sent over here to apprehend him secretly, and carry him to France. On this occasion he wrote four letters, complaining of these designs, as known to him by undoubted authority. The one he sent to lord chief justice Mansfield, the second to the earl of Bute, the third to earl Temple, and the fourth to Mr Pitt. Of these personages he requested to know, whether, as he had contracted no debt, and behaved himself in all things as a dutiful subject, he might not kill the first man who should attempt to arrest him, &c. In March 1764 he took a wiser step to provide for his safety, if there had been any cause for his fears, by indicting the count de Guerchy for a conspiracy against his life, but this came to nothing; and the chevalier, not having surrendered himself to the court of King’s-bench to receive judgment for the libel on the count de Guerchy, was, in June 1765, declared outlawed. The chevalier, however, still continued in England until the death of Louis XV.

, a young man who acquired a short-lived reputation as a poet, was born in the south of Ireland, January 1775. His father, who was a schoolmaster at Ennis for some years, is said to have employed his son, when only in his ninth year, in the situation of Greek and Latin assistant at his own school, and to increase the wonder, we are told time he had written as much genuine poetry at ten, as either Cowley, Milton, or Pope had produced at nearly double that age. At ten, too, he. ran away to Dublin, where he acquired the patronage of a Dr. Houlton, in whose house he resided about ten weeks, giving astonishing proofs of his acquaintance with the Greek and Roman classics, and producing poetical translations ad aperturam libri. This gentleman, when obliged himself to leave Dublin, gave him some money, which he soon spent, and wandered through the streets without a settled home, until he found an asylum with a scene-­painter belonging to the theatre. The scene-painter introduced him to the players, and some attempts were laudably made by them to place him in a situation where he might prosecute his studies; but the depravity of his disposition appears to have been as early wonderful as his poetical talents. The latter, however, procured him one patron after another, all of whom he disgusted by his ingratitude and licentious conduct. At length, abandoned by every person of character, he entered as a private in the 108th regiment, commanded by the earl of Granard, and behaving with some decency under the check of military discipline, he was progressively advanced to the ranks of corporal and serjeant; and in September 1794, in the nineteenth year of his age, embarked with the regiment for England. He accompanied it afterwards abroad in the expedition under the earl of Moira, and appears to have behaved so well, that his lordship promoted him to a second-lieutenancy in the waggon corps, but on the reduction of this army, Dermody was put on the half-pay list.

The merit of our experimental philosopher had now attracted the notice of the duke of Chandos, who. had before taken Dr. Keill under his patronage, and who became also a patron to Mr. Desaguliers, making him his chaplain, and presenting him, about 1714, to the living of Stanmore parva, or Whitchurch. In 1717 he went through a course of his lectures on experimental philosophy, before king George I. at Hampton Court; with which his majesty was so well pleased, that he intended to have conferred upon him the valuable living of MuchMunden, in Hertfordshire; but that benefice was obtained for another person by the earl of Sunderlancl, who prevailed with a friend to present him with a living in Norfolk, the revenue of which, however, amounted only to 70l. per annum. On the 16th of March 1718, he accumulated the degrees of bachelor and doctor of laws at Oxford. On the 30th of June 1720, he made an experiment before the royal society, to prove that bodies of the same bulk do not contain equal quantities of matter; and, therefore, that there is an interspersed vacuum. He likewise made some experiments before the society on the 30th of March 1721, relating to the resistance of fluids, an account of which was published in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 367. In 1728 he shewed before the royal society a machine for measuring any depth in the sea, with great expedition and certainty, which was invented by the rev. Mr. Stephen Hales (afterwards Dr. Hales) and himself; and of which an account was published in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 405. He continued, from time to time, to exhibit various philosophical experiments before the royal society, and for which he received a salary.

Having employed a short time in these studies, Des Cartes spent about two years in Italy, conversing with eminent mathematicians and philosophers, and attending to various objects of inquiry in natural history. He then, returned into France; but his mind remaining in an un settled and sceptical state, he found it impossible to pursue any regular plan of life, till in 1629 he determined to withdraw from his numerous connexions and engagements in Paris, and retire into some foreign country, where he might remain unknown, and have full leisure to complete his great design of framing a new system of philosophy. The country he chose for this purpose was Holland; and he went thither with so much secrecy, that the place of his retirement was for some time known only to his intimate friend, Marsenne, at Paris. He at first resided near Amsterdam, but afterwards went into the more northern provinces, and visited Deventer and Lewarden; he at lasc fixed upon Egmond, in the province of Friesland, as the place of his more stated residence. In this retirement, Des Cartes employed himself in investigating a proof from reason, independent of revelation, of those fundamental points in religion, the existence of God, and the immortality of the soul. This he brought forward in his “Meditationes philosophies de pnma philosophia.” At the same time he pursued the study of optics, cultivated medicine, anatomy, and chemistry, and wrote an astronomical treatise on the system of the world; but hearing of the fate of Galileo, he did not publish it. His philosophical tenets were first introduced into the schools at Deventer in 1633, by Henry Rener, professor of philosophy, and an intimate friend of Gassendi. Not long afterwards, when he published a specimen of his philosophy in four treatises, the number of his admirers soon increased at Leyden, Utrecht, and Amsterdam: but some divines opposed his doctrines, from the dread of innovation, and even attempted to excite the civil magistrate against Des Cartes. In England, however, he was more successful, and sir Charles Cavendish, brother to the earl of Newcastle, gave him an invitation to settle in England. Charles I. also gave him reason to expect a liberal appointment; but the rebellion frustrated this design, and Des Cartes remained in Holland. In his native country, his doctrine was at first well received, but a strong party soon rose against it among the Jesuits. Bourden, one of the fraternity, attacked his dioptrics in the public schools, and a violent contest was long kept up between the Jesuits and Cartesians. In the course of the disputes which the Cartesian philosophy occasioned, Des Cartes himself appeared earnestly desirous to become the father of a sect, and discovered more jealousy and ambition than became a philosopher.

, the first earl of Essex of this name and family, a general equally distinguished for his courage and conduct, and a nobleman not more illustrious by his titles than by his birth, was descended from a most ancient and noble farrr!“, being the son of sir Richard Devereux, knight, by Do 'thy, daughter of George earl of Huntingdon, and gra.idson of Walter viscount of Hereford, so created by king Edward the Sixth. He was born about 1540, at his grandfather’s castle in Carmarthenshire, and during his education applied himself to his studies with great diligence and success. He succeeded to the titles of viscount Hereford and lord Ferrers of Chartley, in the nineteenth year of his age, and being early distinguished for his modesty, learning, and loyalty, stood in higii favour with his sovereign, queen Elizabeth. In 1569, upon the breaking out of the rebellion in the north, under the earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, he raised a considerable body of forces, which joining those belonging to the lord admiral and the earl of Lincoln, he was declared marshal of the army, and obliged the rebels to disperse. This so highly recommended him to the queen, that in 1572 she honoured him with the garter, and on the 4th of May, the same year, created him earl of Essex, as being descended by his great grandmother from the noble family of Bourchier, long before honoured with the same title. In the month of January following, he was one of the peers that sat in judgment upon the duke of Norfolk. At this time he was such a favourite with the queen, that some, who were for confining her good graces to themselves, endeavoured to remove him by encouraging an inclination he shewed to adventure both his person and fortune for her majesty’s service in Ireland. Accordingly, on the 16th of August, 1573, he embarked at Liverpool, accompanied by lord Darcy, lord Rich, and many other persons of distinction, together with a multitude of volunteers, who were incited by the hopes of preferment, and his lordship’s known reputation. His reception in Ireland was not very auspicious landing at Knockfergus on the 16th of September, he found the chiefs of the rebels inclined apparently to submit; but having gained time, they broke out again into open rebellion. Lord Rich was called away by his own affairs, and by degrees, most of those who went abroad with the earl, came home again upon a variety of pretences. In this situation Essex desired the queen to carry on the service in her own name, and by her own command, though he should be at one half of the expence. Afterwards he applied to the earls of Sussex and Leicester, and the lord Burleigh, to induce the queen to pay one hundred horse and six hundred foot; which, however, did not take effect; but the queen, perceiving the slight put upon him, and that the lord deputy had delayed sending him his commission, was inclined to recal him out of Ulster, if Leicester and others, who had promoted his removal, had not dissuaded her. The lord deputy, at last, in 1574, sent him his patent, but with positive orders to pursue the earl of Desmond one way, while himself pressed him another. The earl of Essex reluctantly obeyed, and either forced or persuaded the earl of Desmond to submission; and it is highly probable, would have performed more essential service, if he had not been thwarted. The same misfortune attended his subsequent attempts; and, excepting the zeal of his attendants, the affection of the English soldiers, and the esteem of the native Irish, he gained nothing by all his pains. Worn out at length with these fruitless fatigues, he, the next year, desired leave to conclude upon honourable terms an accommodation with Turlough Oneile, which was refused him. He then surrendered the government of Ulster into the lord deputy’s hands, believing the forces allowed him altogether insufficient for its defence; but the lord deputy obliged him to resume it, and to majrch against Turlough, Oneile, which he accordingly did; and his enterprize” being in a fair way of succeeding, he was surprized to receive instructions, which peremptorily required him to make peace. This likewise he concluded, without loss of honour, and then turned his arms against the Scots from the western islands, who had invaded and taken possession, of his country. These he quickly drove out, and, by the help of Norris, followed them into one of their islands; and was preparing to dispossess them of other posts, when he was required to give up his command, and afterwards to serve at the head of a small body of three hundred men, with no other title than their captain. All this he owed to Leicester; but, notwithstanding his chagrin, he continued to perform his duty, without any shew of resentment, out of respect to the queen’s service. In the spring of the succeeding year he came over to England, and did not hesitate to express his indignation against the all-powerful favourite, for the usage he had met xvith. But as it was the custom of that great man to debase his enemies by exalting them, so he procured an order for the earl of Essex’s return into Ireland, with the sounding title of earl -marshal of that kingdom, and with promises that he should be left more at liberty than in times past; but, upon his arrival at Ireland, he found his situation so little altered for the better, that he pined away with grief and sorrow, which at length proved fatal to him, and brought him to his end. There is nothing more certain, either from the public histories, or private memoirs and letters of that age, than the excellent character of this noble earl, as a brave soldier, a loyal subject, and a disinterested patriot; and in private life he was of a chearful temper, kind, affectionate, and beneficent to all who were about him. He was taken ill of a flux on the 21st of August, and in great pain and misery languished to the 22d of September, 1576, when he departed this life at Dublin, being scarcely thirty-five years old. There was a very strong report at the time, of his being poisoned; but for this there seems little foundation, yet it must have been suspected, as an inquiry was immediately made by authority, and sir Henry Sidney, then lord deputy of Ireland, wrote very fully upon this subject to the privy-council in England, and to one of the members of that council in particular. The corpse of the earl was speedily brought over to England, carried to the place of his nativity, Carmarthen, and buried there with great solemnity, and with most extraordinary i< monies of the unfeigned sorrow of all the country round about. A funeral sermon was preached on this occasion, Nov. 26, 1576, and printed at London 1577, 4to. He married Lettice, daughter to sir Frances Knolles, knight of the garter, who survived him many years, and whose speedy marriage after his death to the earl of Leicester, upon whom common fame threw the charge of hastening his death, perhaps might encourage that report. By this lady he had two sons, Robert and Walter, and two daughters, Penelope, first married to Robert lord Rich, and then to Charles Blount, earl of Devonshire; and Dorothy, who becoming the widow of sir Thomas Perrot, knight, espoused for her second husband Henry Percy earl of Northumberland.

One important objection only has been brought forward against the character of the first earl of Essex, which is mentioned by Dr. Leland, in his History of Ireland. The story, as literally translated by Mr. O'Connor, from the Irish manuscript annals of queen Elizabeth’s reign, is as follows: “Anno 1574. A solemn peace and concord was made between the earl of Essex and Felim O‘Nial. However, at a feast wherein the earl entertained that chieftain, and at the end of their good cheer, O’Nial with his wife were seized, their friends who attended were put to the sword before their faces. Felim, together with his wife and brother, were conveyed to Dublin, where they were cut up in quarters. This execution gave universal discontent and horrour.” Considering the general character of the earl of Essex, we cannot avoid greatly doubting of the authenticity of this fact; and indeed, if it was founded on truth, it must appear very extraordinary that it should not have occurred in any other narrative of the times.

Mr. Park has allotted this nobleman a place in his additions to the “Royal and Noble Authors,” as having written “The Complaint of a Sinner, made and sung by the earle of Essex upon his beath-bed in Ireland,” printed in the “Paradise of dainty Devises,” 1576. There is a copy of this in the Harleian Mss. 293, with an account of the earl’s sickness and death, which latter is ascribed to a dysentery, without any hint of poison. Besides this, the earl wrote a letter to the council, another to the queen, and a third to lord Burleigh, all which afford favourable proofs of his talents and excellent character. The former is inserted in the Biographia Britannica, and the two latter in Murden’s State Papers.

, earl of Essex, memorable for having been a great favourite, and an unhappy victim to the arts of his enemies and his own ambition, m the reign of queen Elizabeth, was son of the preceding, and born Nov. 10, 1567, at Netherwood, his father’s seat in Herefordshire. His father dying when he was only in his 10th year, recommended him to the protection of William Cecil lord Burleigh, whom he appointed his guardian. Two years after, he was sent to the university of Cambridge by this lord, who placed him in Trinity college, under the care of Dr. Whitgift, then master of it, and afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. But Mr. Cole, for many reasons, is inclined to think that he was placed at Queen’s, under Dr. Chaderton. He was, however, educated with much strictness, and applied himself to learning with great diligence; though it is said that, in his tender years, there did not appear aoy pregnant signs of that extraordinary genius which shone forth in him afterwards. In 1583, he took the decree of M. A. and kept his public act, and soon after left Cambridge, and retired to his own house at Lampsie in South Wales, where he spent some time, and became so enamoured of his rural retreut, that he was with difficulty prevailed on to quit it. His first appearance at court, at least as a candidate for royal favour, was in his seventeenth year; and he brought thither a fine person, an agreeable behaviour, and an affability which procured him many friends. By degrees he so far overcame the reluctance he first shewed against the earl of Leicester, his father’s enemy, and now very strangely his father-in-law, that in 1585 he accompanied him to Holland, where we find him next year in the field, with the title of general of the horse. In this quality he gave the highest proofs of personal courage in the battle of Zutphen, fought in 1586; and, on his return to England, was made, the year after, master of the horse in the room of lord Leicester promoted. In 1588, he continued to rise, and indeed almost reached the summit of his fortune; for, when her majesty thought fit to assemble an army at Tilbury, for the defence of the kingdom against the Spanish invasion, she gave the command of it, under herself, to the earl of Leicester, and created the earl of Essex general of the horse. From this time he was considered as the favourite declared; and if there was any mark yet wanting to rix the people’s opinion in that respect, it was shewn by the queen’s conferring on him the honour of the garter.

So quick an elevation, and to so great an height, unfortunately excited an impetuosity of spirit that was natural to the earl of Essex, who, among other instances of uncontrouled temper, often behaved petulantly to the queen herself t who did not admit, while she sometimes provoked, freedoms of that kind from her subjects. His eagerness about this time to dispute her favour with sir Charles Blunt, afterwards lord Montjoy and earl of Devonshire, ended in a duel, in which sir Charles wounded him in the knee. The queen, so far from being displeased with it, is said to have sworn a good round oath, that it was fit somebody should take him down, otherwise there would be no ruling him, yet she assisted in reconciling the rivals; who, to their honour, continued good friends as long as they lived. la 1589, sir John Norris and sir Francis Drake having undertaken an expedition for restoring don Antonio to the crown of Portugal, the earl of Essex, willing to share the glory, followed the fleet and army to Spain; which displeasing the queen very bighty, as it was done without her consent or knowledge, she sent him the following letter: “Essex, your sudden and undutifnl departure from our presence and your place of attendance, you may easily conceive how offensive it is and ought to be unto us. Our great favours, bestowed upon you without deserts, have drawn you. thus to neglect and forget your duty; for other construction we cannot make of these your strange actions. Not meaning, therefore, to tolerate this your disordered part, we gave directions to some of our privy-council, to let you know our express pleasure for your immediate repair hither, which you have not performed as your duty doth bind you, increasing thereby greatly your former offence and undutiful behaviour in departing in such sort without our privity, having so special office of attendance and charge near our person. We do therefore charge and command you forthwith, upon the receipt of these our letters, all excuses and delays set apart, to make your present and immediate repair nnto us, to understand our farther pleasure. Whereof see you fail not, as you will be loth to incur our indignation, and will answer for the contrary at your uttermost peril. The 15th of April, 1589.”

At his return, however, he soon recovered her majesty’s good graces, but again irritated her by a private match \ttth Frances, only daughter of sir Francis Walsingham, and widow of sir Philip Sidney. This her majesty apprehended to be derogatory to the honour of the house of Essex; and, though for the present, little notice was taken of it, yet it is thought that it was not soon forgot. In 1591, he went abroad, at the head of some forces, to assist Henry IV. of France: which expedition was afterwards repeated, but with little or no success. In 1592-3, we find him present in the parliament at Westminster, about which time the queen made him one of her privy-council. He met, however, in this and the succeeding years, with various causes of chagrin, partly from the loftiness of his own temper, but chiefly from the artifices of those who envied his great credit with the queen, and were desirous to reduce his power within bounds. Thus a dangerous and treasonable book, written abroad by Parsons, a Jesuit, and published under the name of Doleman, with a view of creating dissension in England about the succession to the crown, was dedicated to him, on purpose to make him odious; and it had its effect. But what chiefly soured his spirit, was his perceiving plainly, that though he could in most suits prevail for himself, yet he was able to do little or nothing for his friends. This appeared remarkably in the case of sir Francis Bacon, which the earl bore with much impatience; and, resolving that his friend should not be neglected, gave him of his own a small estate in land. There are indeed few circumstances in the life of this noble person, that do greater honour to his memory, than his patronage of men of parts and learning. It was this regard for genius which induced him to bury the immortal Spenser at his own expence; and in the latter part of his life, engaged him to take the learned sir Henry Wotton, and the ingenious Mr. Cuffe, into his service: as in his earlier days he had admitted the incomparable brothers, Anthony and Francis Bacon, to share his fortunes and his cares.

But whatever disadvantages the earl might labour under from* intrigues at court, the queen had commonly recourse to his assistance in all dangers and difficulties, and placed him at the head of her fleets and armies, preferably to any other person. His enemies, on the other hand, were contriving and exerting all they could against him, by insinuating to the queen, that, considering his popularity, it would not be at all expedient for her service to receive such as he recommended to civil employments; and they carried this so far, as even to make his approbation a sufficient objection to men whom they had encouraged and recommended themselves. In 1598, a warm dispute arose in the council, between the old and wise lord-treasurer Burleigh and the earl of Essex, about continuing the war with Spain. The earl was for it, the treasurer against it; who at length grew into a great heat, and told the earl that he seemed intent upon nothing but blood and slaughter. The earl explained himself, and said, that the blood and slaughter of the queen’s enemies might be very lawfully his intention; that he was not against a solid, but a specious and precarious peace; that the Spaniards were a subtle and ambitious people, who had contrived to do England more mischief in the time of peace, than of war, &c. The treasurer at last drew out a Prayer-book, in which he shewed Essex this expression: “Men of blood shall not live out half their days.” As the earl knew that methods would be used to prejudice him with the people of England, especially the trading part, who would easily be persuaded to think themselves oppressed by taxes levied for the support of the war, he resolved to vindicate his proceedings, and for that purpose drew up in writing his own arguments, which he addressed to his dear friend Anthony Bacon. This apology stole into the world not long after it was written; and the queen, it is said, was exceedingly offended at it. The title of it runs thus: “To Mr. Anthony Bacon, an Apologie of the Earle of Essexe, against those which falselie and maliciouslie take him to be the only hindrance of the peace and quiet of his countrie.” This was reprinted in 1729, under the title of “The Earl of Essex’s vindication of the war with Spain,” in 8vo.

About this time died the treasurer Burleigh, which was a great misfortune to the earl of Essex; for that lord having shewn a tenderness for the earl’s person, and a concern for his fortunes, had many a time stood between him and his enemies. But now, this guardian being gone, they acted without any restraint, crossed whatever he proposed, stopped the rise of every man he loved, and treated all his projects with an air of contempt. He succeeded lord Burleigh as chancellor of the university of Cambridge; and, going down, was there entertained with great magnificence*. This is reckoned one of the last instances of this great man’s felicity, who was now advanced too high to sit at ease; and those who longed for his honours and employments, very closely applied themselves to bring about his fall. The first great shock he received came from the queen herself, and arose from a warm dispute with her majesty about the choice of some fit and able person to superintend the affairs of Ireland. Camden tells us, that there were only present on this remarkable occasion, the lord admiral, sir Robert Cecil, secretary; and “Windebanke, clerk of the seal. The queen considered sir William Knolls, uncle to Essex, as the most proper person for that charge: Essex contended, that sir George Carew was a much fitter man for it. When the queen could not be persuaded to approve his choice, he so far forgot himself and his duty, as to turn his back upon her in a contemptuous manner; which insolence her majesty not being able to bear, gave him a box on the ear, and, somewhat in her father’s language, bid him” go and be hanged.“He immediately clapped his hand on his sword, and the lord admiral stepping in between, he swore a great oath, declaring that he neither could nor would put up an affront of that nature; that he would not have taken it at the hands of Henry VIII. and in a great passion immediately withdrew from court. The lord keeper advised him to apply himself to the queen for pardon. He sent the lord keeper his answer in a long and passionate letter, which his friends afterwards unadvisedly communicated; in which he appealed from the queen to God Almighty, in expressions to this purpose:” That there was no tempest so boisterous as the resentment of an angry prince; that

by the Heath of the earl of Leicester, the death of sir Christopher Hatton.

this university our young earl had electors would have declared in his

parly, as his deceased father-in-law chosen, had been, the interest of the lord chanthe queen was of a flinty temper; that he well enough knew what was due from him as a subject, an earl, and grand marshal of England, but did not understand the office of a drudge or a porter; that to own himself a criminal was to injure truth, and the author of it, God Almighty: that his body suffered in every part of it by that blow given by his prince; and that it would be a crime in him to serve a queen who had given him so great an affront." He was afterwards reconciled and restored in appearance to the queen’s favour, yet there is good reason to doubt whether he ever recovered it in reality: and his friends have generally dated his ruin from this singular dispute *.

The ear) met with nothing in Ireland but disappointments, in the midst of which, an army was suddenly raised in England, under the command of the earl of Nottingham; nobody well knowing why, but in reality from the suggestions of the earl’s enemies to the queen, that he rather meditated an invasion on his native country, than the reduction of the Irish rebels. This and other considerations made him resolve to quit his post, and come over to England; which he accordingly did, and presented himself before the queen. He met with a tolerable reception; but was soon after confined, examined, and dismissed from all his offices, except that of master of the horse. In the summer of“1600, he recovered his liberty; and in the autumn following, he received Mr. Cuffe, who had been his secretary in Ireland (See Cuffe), into his councils. Cuffe, who was a man of his own disposition, laboured to persuade him, that submission would never do him any good; that the queen was in the hands of a faction, who were his enemies; and that the only way to restore his fortune was to obtain an audience, by whatever means he could, in order to represent his case. The earl did not consent at first to this dangerous advice; but afterwards, giving a loose to his passion, began to declare himself openly, and among other fatal expressions let fall this, that” the queen grew old and cankered; and that her mind was become as crooked as her carcase.“His enemies, who had exact intelligence of all that he proposed, and had provided effectually against the execution of his designs, hurried him upon his fate by a message, sent on the evening of Feb. 7, requiring him to attend the council, which he declined. This appears to have unmanned him, and in his distraction of mind, he gave out, that they sought his life kept a watch in Essex-house all night; and summoned his friends for his defence the next morning. Many disputes ensued, and some blood was spilt; but the earl at last surrendered, and was carried that night to the archbishop’s palace at Lambeth, and the next day to the Tower. On the 19th, he was arraigned before his peers, and after a long trial was sentenced to lose his head: upon which melancholy occasion he said nothing more than this, viz.” If her majesty had pleased, this body of mine might have done her better service; however, I shall be glad if it may prove serviceable to her any way.“He was executed upon the 25th, in his thirty-fourth year, leaving behind him one only son and two daughters. As to his person, he is reported to have been tall, but not very well made; his countenance reserved; his air rather martial than courtly; very careless in dress, and a little addicted to trifling diversions, He was learned, and a lover of learned men, whom he always encouraged and rewarded. He was sincere in his friendships, but not so careful as he ought to have been in making a right choice; sound in his morals, except in point of gallantry, and thoroughly well affected to the protestant religion. Historians inform us, that as to his execution, the queen remained irresolute to the very last, and sent sir Edward Carey to countermand it but, as Camden says, considering afterwards his obstinacy in refusing to ask her pardon, she countermanded those orders, and directed that he should die. There is an odd story current in the world about a ring, which the chevalier Louis Aubrey de Mourier, many years the French minister in Holland, and a man of great parts and unsuspected credit, delivers as an undoubted truth; and that upon the authority of an English minister, who might be well presumed to know what he said. As the incident is remarkable, and has made much noise, we will report it in the words of that historian:” It will not, I believe, be thought either impertinent or disagreeable to add here, what prince Maurice had from the mouth of Mr. Carleton, ambassador of England in Holland, who died secretary of state so well known under the name of lord Dorchester, and who was a man of great merit. He said, that queen Elizabeth gave the earl of Essex a ring, in the height of her passion for him, ordering him to keep it; and that whatever he should commit, she would pardon him when he should return that pledge. Since that time the earl’s enemies having prevailed with the queen, who, besides, was exasperated against him for the contempt he had shewed her beauty, now through age upon the decay, she caused him to be impeached. When he was condemned, she expected to receive from him the ring, and would have granted him his pardon according to her promise. The earl, finding himself in the last extremity, applied to admiral Howard’s lady, who was his relation; and desired her, by a person she could trust, to deliver the ring into the queen’s own hands. But her husband, who was one of the earl’s greatest enemies, and to whom she told this imprudently, would not suffer her to acquit herself of the commission; so that the queen consented to the earl’s death, being full of indignation against so proud and haughty a spirit, who chose rather to die than implore her mercy. Some time after, the admiral’s lady fell sick; and, being given over by her physicians, she sent word to the queen that she had something of great consequence to tell her before she died. The queen came to her bedBide i and having ordered all her attendants to withdraw, the admiral’s lady returned her, but too late, that ring from the earl of Essex, desiring to be excused for not having returned it sooner, since her husband had prevented her. The queen retired immediately, overwhelmed with the utmost grief; she sighed continually for a fortnight, without taking any nourishment, lying in bed entirely dressed, and getting up an hundred times a night. At last she died with hunger and with grief, because she had consented to the death of a lover who had applied to her for mercy." Histoire de Hollancle, p. 215, 216.

Lord Orford has entered into a long disquisition on the proofs of queen Elizabeth’s love for the earl of Essex, and certainly proves that she had a more than ordinary attachment to him, although in some of the circumstances it ap pears to savour more of the fondness of a capricious mother, than of a mistress. His lordship has done wiser in having placed the earl of Essex among the noble authors of England. The various pieces enumerated by lord Orford justly entitle him to that distinction; and he has a farther claim to it from the numerous letters of his which occur in the different collections of state papers, and especially in Birch’s “Memoirs of the Reign of queen Elizabeth.” “But of all his compositions,” says Mr. Walpole, “the most excellent, and in many respects equal to the performances of the greatest geniuses, is a long letter to the queen from Ireland, stating the situation of that country in a most masterly manner, both as a general and statesman, and concluding with strains of the tenderest eloquence, on finding himself so unhappily exposed to the artifice of his enemies during his absence. It cannot fail to excite admiration, that a man ravished from all improvement and reflection at the age of seventeen, to be nursed, perverted, fondled, dazzled in a court, should, notwithstanding, have snatched such opportunities of cultivating his mind and understanding:” In another letter from Ireland, he says movingly, “I provided for this service a breast-plate, but not a cuirass; that is, I am armed on the breast, but not On the back.”

It has been surmised that the earl of Essex used the pen, first, of Francis Bacon, and afterwards of Cuffe. Speaking of Bacon, Dr. Birch observes, that it is certain that Essex did not want any such assistance, and could not have had it upon many and most important occasions, which required him to write' some of the most finished of his epistolary performances, the style of which is not only very different from, but likewise much more natural, easy, and perspicuous than that of his friend, who acknowledges it to be “far better than his own.” With regard to Cuffe, Mr. Walpole remarks, that he might have some hand in collecting the materials relative to business, but that there runs through all the earl’s letters a peculiarity of style, so adapted to his situation and feelings, as could not have been felt for him or dictated by any body else.

It was as a prose-writer that the earl of Essex excelled, and not as a poet. He is said to have translated one of Ovid’s Epistles; and a few of his sonnets are preserved in the Ashmolean museum. They display, however, no marks of poetic genius. “But if Essex,” says Mr. Warton, “was no poet, few noblemen of his age were more courted by poets. From Spenser to the lowest rhymer he was the subject of numerous sonnets, or popular ballads. I will not except Sydney. I could produce evidence to prove, that he scarcely ever went out of England, or even left London, on the most frivolous enterprize, without a pastoral in his praise, or a panegyric in metre, which were sold and sung in the streets. Having interested himself in the fashionable poetry of the times, he was placed high in the ideal Arcadia now just established; and, among other instances which might be brought, on his return from Portugal in 1589 he was complimented with a poem called” An Egloge gratulatorie entituled to the right honorable and renowned shepherd of Albion’s Arcadia, Robert earl of Essex, and for his returne lately into England.“This is a light in which lord Essex is seldom viewed. I know not if the queen’s fatal partiality, or his own inherent attractions, his love of literature, his heroism, integrity, and generosity, qualities which abundantly overbalance his presumption, his vanity, and impetuosity, had the greater share in dictating these praises. If adulation were any where justifiable, it must be when paid to the man who endeavoured to save Spenser from starving in the streets of Dublin, and who buried him in Westminster-abbey with becoming solemnity. Spenser was persecuted by Burleigh because he was patronised by Essex.”

No small degree of popularity has always adhered to the character and memory of the earl of Essex. A strong proof of this is his having been the subject of four different tragedies. We refer to the “Unhappy favourite,” by John Banks the “Fall of the Earl of Essex,” by James Ralph the “Earl of Essex,” by Henry Jones and the “Earl of Essex,” by Henry Brooke.

, son to the former, and third earl of Essex, was born in 1592, at Essex-house, in the Strand; and at the time of his father’s unhappy death, was under the care of his grandmother, by whom he was sent to Eton school, where he was first educated. In the month of January 1602, he was entered a gentleman-commoner of Merton- college, Oxford, where he had an apartment in the warden’s lodgings, then Mr. Savile, afterwards the celebrated sir Henry Savile, his father’s dear friend, and who, for his sake, was exceedingly careful in seeing that he was learnedly and religiously educated. The year following, he was restored to his hereditary honours; and in 1605, when king James visited the university of Oxford, our young earl of Essex was created M. A. on the 30th of August, for the first tirne, which very probably he had forgotten, or he would not have received the same honour above thirty years afterwards. He was already in possession of his father’s high spirit, of which he gave a sufficient indication in a quarrel which he had with prince Henry. Some dispute arose between them at a game at tennis; the prince called his companion the son of a traitor; who retaliated by giving him a severe blow with his racket; and the king was obliged to interfere to restore peace. At the age of fourteen, he was betrothed to lady Frances Howard, who was still younger than himself; but he immediately set out on his travels, and during his absence the affections of his young wife were estranged from him, and fixed upon the king’s favourite, Carr, afterwards earl of Somerset. The consequence was a suit instituted against the husband for impotency, in which, to the disgrace of the age, the king interfered, and which ended in a divorce. The earl of Essex, feeling himself disgraced by the sentence, retired to his country seat, and spent some years in rural sports and amusements. In 120, being wearied of a state of inaction, he joined the earl of Oxford in a military expedition to the Palatinate, where they served with companies of their own raising, under sir Horatio Vere, and in the following year they served in Holland, under prince Maurice, In the course of the winter they returned to England, and lord Essex appeared in the ranks of the opposition in parliament. On this account he was not favourably received at court, which was the mean of attaching him the more closely to foreign service. He commanded a regiment raised in England for the United States in 1624, and though nothing very important was atchieved by the English auxiliaries, yet he acquired experience, and distinguished himself among the nobility of the time. On the accession of Charles I. he was employed as vice-admiral in an expedition against Spain, which proved unsuccessful. In 1626, he made another campaign in the Low Countries, and shortly after he formed another unhappy match, by marrying the daughter of sir William Paulet, from whom, owing to her misconduct, he was divorced within two years. He now resolved to give himself up entirely to public life; he courted popularity, and made friends among the officers of the army and the puritan ministers. He was, however, employed by the king in various important services; but when the king and court left the metropolis, lord Essex pleaded in excuse his obligation to attend in his place as a peer of the realm, and was accordingly deprived of all his employments; a step which alone seemed wanting to fix him in opposition to the king; and in July 1642 he accepted the post of general of the parliamentary army. He opposed the king in person at Edge-hill, where the victory was so indecisive, that each party claimed it as his own. After this he was successful in some few instances, but in other important trusts he did little to recommend him to the persons in whose interests he was employed. He was, however, treated with external respect, until the self-denying ordinance threw him entirely out of the command: he resigned his commission, but not without visible marks of discontent. Unwilling to lose him altogether, the parliament voted that he should be raised to a dukedom, and be allowed 10,000l. per annum, to support his new dignity; but these were vented by a sudden death, which, as in the case of his grandfather, was by some attributed to unfair means. He died September 14, 1646. Parliament directed a public funeral for him, which was performed with great solemnity in the following month, at Westminster abbey. In his conduct, the particulars of which may be seen in the history of the times, a want of steadiness is to be discovered, which candour would refer to the extraordinary circumstances in which public men were then placed. Personal affronts at court, whether provoked or not, led him to go a certain length with those who, he did not perceive, wanted to go much farther, and although he appeared in arms against his sovereign, no party was pleased with his efforts to preserve a balance; yet, with all his er/ors, Hume and other historians, not friendly to the republican cause, have considered his death as a public misfortune. Hume says, that fully sensible of the excesses to which affairs had been carried, and of the worse consequences which were still to be apprehended, he had resolved to conciliate a peace, and to remedy as far as possible all those ills to which, from mistake rather than any bad intention, he had himself so much contributed. The presbyterian, or the moderate party among the commons, found themselves considerably weakened by his death; and the small remains of authority which still adhered to the house of peers, were in a manner wholly extinguished.

Another thing which hurt his character with some particular writers, was a very foolish speech he made in the long parliament, Jan. 2, 1640, in support of the antiquity of the university of Cambridge. This was afterwards published under the title of “A Speech delivered in parliament by Symonds D'Ewes, touching the antiquity of Cambridge, 1642,” 4to, and exposed him to very severe usage from Wood, Hearne, &c. as it still must to the contempt of every accurate antiquary. Other writers, however, and such as cannot be at all suspected of partiality to him, have spoken much to his honour. Echard, in his History of England, savs, “We shall next mention sir Symonds D'Ewes, a gentleman educated at the university of Cambridge, celebrated for a most curious antiquary, highly esteemed by the great Selden, and particularly remarkable for his Journals of all the parliaments in queen Elizabeth’s reign, and for his admirable ms library he left behind him, now in the hands of one of the greatest geniuses of the age:” meaning the late earl of Oxford. Some curious extracts from the ms journal of his own life (preserved among the Harieian Mss.) are printed in the “Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica, 1783.” In this he has given a minute account of his courtship and marriage. The only love-letter he had occasion to send, and which was accompanied with a present of a diamond carcanet, was as follows:

Simonds That sir Symonds D'Ewes’s judgment and taste with regard to wit were as contemptible as can well be imagined, will be evident from the following passage, taken from his account of Carr earl of Somerset, and his wife. " This discontent gave many satyrical wits occasion to vent themselves into stingie libels, in which they spared neither the persons, families, nor most secret avowtries of that unfortunate paire. There came alsoe two anagrams to my handes, not unworthie to be owned by the rarest witts of this age, though the first be resolved into somewhat too broad an expression for soe nobly an extracted ladie: Frances Howard, Thomas Overburie,

On the death of Dr. Willis, which happened in 1684, Dickinson removed to London, and took his house in St. Martin’s- lane where, soon after recovering Henry Bennet, earl of Arlington, lord chamberlain to Charles II. when all hopes of recovery were past, that nobleman introcluced him to the king, who made him one of his physicians in ordinary, and physician to his household. As that prince was a lover of chemistry, and a considerable proficient, Dickinson grew into great favour at court; which favour lasted to the end of Charles’s reign, and that of his successor James, who continued him in both his places. In 1636 he published in Latin his epistle to Theodore Mundanus, and also his answer, translated from the French into Latin: for, in 1679, this chemist had paid him a second visit, and renewed his acquaintance. The title of it in English is, “An Epistle of E. D. to T. M. an adept, concerning the quintessence of the philosophers, and the true system of physics, together with certain queries concerning the materials of alchemy. To which are annexed the answers of Mundanus,” 8vo. After the abdication of his unfortunate master, he retired from practice, being old, and much afflicted with the stone, but continued his studies. He had long meditated a system of philosophy, not founded on hypothesis, or even experiment, but, chiefly deduced from principles collected from the Mosaic history. Part of this laborious work, when he had almost finished it, was burnt; but, not discouraged by this accident, he began it a second time, and did not discontinue it, till he had completed the whole. It came out in 1702 under the title of “Physica vetus et vera sive tractatus de naturali veritate hexoemeri Mosaici, &c.” In this he attempts, from the scriptural account of the creation, to explain the manner in which the world was formed. Assuming, as the ground of his theory, the atomic doctrine, and the existence of an immaterial cause of the concourse of indivisible atoms, he supposes the particles of matter agitated by a double motion; one gentle and transverse, of the particles among themselves, whence elementary corpuscles are formed; the other circular, by which the whole mass is revolved, and the regions of heaven and earth are produced. By the motion of the elementary corpuscles of different magnitude and form, he supposes the different bodies of nature to have been produced, and attempts, upon this plan, to describe the process of creation through each of the six days. He explains at large the formation of human nature, shewing in what manner, by means of a plastic seminal virtue, man became an animated being. This theory, though founded upon conjecture, and loaded with unphilosophical fictions, the author not only pretends to derive from the Mosaic narrative, but maintains to have been consonant to the most ancient Hebrew traditions. The use which this theorist makes of the doctrine of atoms, shews him to have been wholly unacquainted with the true notion of the ancients on this subject; and indeed the whole work seems to have ben the offspring of a confused imagination, rather than of a sound judgment. Burnet, who attempted the same design afterwards, discovered far more learning and ability. This work, however, was in such demand as to be printed again at Rotterdam in 1703, in 4to, and at Leoburg, 1705, 12mo.

, another artist, known in this country, was born at the Hague, in 1655; but spent the greatest part of his life in England, to which he came in his seventeenth year, and where he gradually rose into considerable credit, having been well instructed by his father, who was a skilful painter of sea-pieces. His taste of landscape was formed almost entirely (as he often declared) by designing the lovely views in the western parts of England, and along the coasts. Some of his pictures have great clearness and transparence in the colouring, and a peculiar tenderness in the distances; they are truly fine in the skies, have an uncommon freedom in the clouds, and an agreeable harmony through the whole. But, as he was often obliged to paint for low prices, there is a great disproportion in his works. The narrowness of his circumstances depressed his talent, and rendered him inattentive to fame, being solely anxious to provide for his family. Had he been so happy as to receive a proper degree of encouragement, it is not improbable that he might have approached near to those of the first rank in his profession. The figures in his landscapes were frequently inserted by the younger Adrian Coloni, his brother-in-law. He began to engrave a set of prints, after views from his own designs, but the gout put an end to his life in 170-1, in the forty- ninth year of his age. Lord Orford, who has a portrait of him, thinks he was not much encouraged in England, except by Granville earl of Bath, for whom he drew several views and ruins in the West of England.

, earl of Bristol, and father of lord George Digby, was by no means an inconsiderable man, though checked by the circumstances of his times from making so great a figure as his son. He was descended from an ancient family at Coleshill, in Warwickshire, and born in 1580. He was entered a commoner of Magdalen-­college, Oxford, in 1595; and the year following distinguished himself as a poet by a copy of verses made upon the death of sir Henry Union of Wadley, in Berks. Afterwards he travelled into France and Italy, and returned from thence perfectly accomplished; so that soon falling under the notice of king James, he was admitted gentleman of the privy-chamber, and one of his majesty’s carvers, in 1605. February following he received the honour of knighthood; and in April 1611, was sent ambassador into Spain, as he was afterwards again in 1614. April 1616 he was admitted one of the king’s privy-council, and vicechamberlain of his majesty’s household; and in 1618 was advanced to the dignity of a baron, by the title of the lord Digby of Sherbourne, in Dorsetshire. In 1620 he was sent ambassador to the archduke Albert, and the year following to Ferdinand the emperor; as also to the duke of Bavaria. In 1622 he was sent ambassador extraordinary to Spain, concerning the marriage between prince Charles and Maria daughter of Philip III. and the same year was created earl of Bristol. Being censured by the duke of Buckingham, on his return from the Spanish court in 1624, he was for a short time sent to the Tower but after an examination by a committee of lords, we do not find that any thing important resulted from this inquiry. After the accession of Charles I. the tide of resentment ran strong against the earl, who observing that the king was entirely governed by Buckingham, resolved no longer to keep any measures with the court. In consequence of this, the king, by a stretch of prerogative, gave orders that the customary writ for his parliamentary attendance should not; be sent to him, and on May 1, 1626, he was charged with high treason and other offences. Lord Bristol recriminated, by preparing articles of impeachment against the duke; but the king, resolving to protect Buckingham, dissolved the parliament. The earl now sided with the leaders of opposition in the long parliament. But the violences of that assembly soon disgusting him, he left them, and became a zealous adherent to the king and his cause; for which at length he suffered exile, and the loss of his estate. He died at Paris, Jan. 21, 1653.

, an English nobleman of great parts, was son of the preceding, and born at Madrid, in October, 1612. In 1626 he was entered of Magdalencollege, in Oxford, where he lived in great familiarity with the well-known Peter Heylin, and gave manifest proofs of those great endowments for which he was afterwards so distinguished. In 1636 he was created M. A. there, just after Charles 1. had left Oxford; where he had been spendidly entertained by the university, and particularly at St. John’s college, by Dr. Laud, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. In the beginning of the long parliament he was disaffected to the court, and appointed one of the committee to prepare a charge against the earl of Strafford, in 1640 but afterwards would not consent to the bill, “not only,” as he said, “because he was unsatisfied in the matter of law, but for that he was more unsatisfied in the matter of fact.” From that time he became a declared enemy to the parliament, and shewed his dislike of their proceedings in a warm speech against them, which he made at the passing' of the bill of attainder against the said earl, in April 1641. This speech was condemned to be burnt, and himself in June following, expelled the house of commons. In Jan. 1642, he went on a message from his majesty to Kingston-upon-Thames, to certain gentlemen there, with a coach and six horses. This they improved into a warlike appearance; and accordingly he was accused of high treason in parliament, upon pretence of his levying war at Kingston-upon-Thames. Clarendon mentions “this severe prosecution of a young nobleman of admirable parts and eminent hopes, in so implacable a manner, as a most pertinent instance of the tyranny and injustice of those times.” Finding what umbrage he had given to the parliament, and how odious they had made him to the people, he obtained leave, and a licence from his majesty, to transport himself into Holland; whence he wrote several letters to his friends, and one to the queen, which was carried by a perfidious confidant to the parliament, and opened. In a secret expedition afterwards to the king, he was taken by one of the parliament’s ships, and carried to Hull; but being in such a disguise that not his nearest relation could have known him, he brought himself off very dextrously by his artful management of the governor, sir John Hotham. In 1643 he was made one of the secretaries of state to the king, and high steward of the university of Oxford, in the room of William lord Say. In the latter end of 1645 he went into Ireland, and exposed himself to great hazards of his life, for the service of the king; from thence he passed over to Jersey, where the prince of Wales was, and after that into France, in order to transact some important matters with the queen and cardinal Mazarin. Upon the death of the king, he was exempted from pardon by the parliament, and obliged to live in exile till the restoration of Charles II. when he was restored to all he had lost, and made knight of the garter. He became very active in public affairs, spoke frequently in parliament, and distinguished himself by his enmity to Clarendon while chancellor. He died at Chelsea, March 20, 1676, after succeeding his father as earl of Bristol. Many of his speeches and letters are still extant, to he found in our historical collections and he wrote “Elvira,” a comedy, &c. There are also letters of his cousin sir Kenelm Digby, against popery, mentioned in our account of sir Kenelm yet afterwards he became a papist himself; which inconsistencies in his character have been neatly depicted by lord Orford. “He was,” says he, “a singular person, whose life was one contradiction. He wrote against popery, and embraced it; he was a zealous opposer of the court, and a sacrifice for it; was conscientiously converted in the midst of his prosecution of lord Strafford, and was most unconscientiously a prosecutor of lord Clarendon. With great parts he always hurt himself and his friends; with romantic bravery, he was always an unsuccessful commander. He spoke for the test act, though a Roman catholic, and addicted himself to astrology on the birth-day of true philosophy.”

, an English poet, was born in Ireland about 1633, while the government of that kingdom was under the first earl of Strafford, to whom he was nephew; his father, sir James Dillon, third earl of Roscommon, having married Elizabeth the youngest daughter of sir William Wentworth, of Wentworth-Woodhouse, in the county of York, sister to the earl of Stratford. Hence lord Roscommon was christened Wentworth. He was educated in the protestant religion, his father (who died at Limerick in 1619) having been converted by archbishop Usher from the communion of the church of Rome; and passed the years of his infancy in Ireland. He was brought over to England by his uncle, on his return from the government of Ireland*, and placed at that nobleman’s seat in Yorkshire, under the tuition of Dr. Hall, erroneously* said to have been afterwards bishop of Norwich. The celebrated Hall was at this time a bishop, and far advanced in years. By this Dr. Hall, whoever he was, he was instructed in Latin; and, without learning the common rules of grammar, which he could never remember, attained to write that language with classical elegance and propriety. When the cloud began to gather over England, and the earl of Strafford was singled out for an impeachment, he was, by the advice of Usher, sent to finish his education at Caen in Normandy, where the protestants had then an university, and studied under the direction of the learned Bochart; but at this time he could not have been more than nine years old. After some years he travelled to Rome, where he grew familiar with the most valuable remains of antiquity, applying himself particularly to the knowledge of medals, which he gained to perfection; and he spoke Italian with so much grace and fluency, that he was frequently mistaken there for a native.

The pleasures of the English court, and the friendships he had there contracted, were powerful motives for his return to London. Soon after he came, he was made master of the horse to the duchess of York; and married the lady Frances, eldest daughter of the earl of Burlington, and widow of colonel Courtney. He began now to distinguish himself by his poetry; and about this time projected a design, in conjunction with his friend Dryden, for refining and fixing the standard of our language. But this was entirely defeated by the religious commotions that were then increasing daily; at which time the earl took a resolution to pass the remainder of his life at Rome, telling his friends, “it would be best to sit next to the chimney when the chamber smoked,” a sentence of which, Dr. Johnson says, the application seems not very clear. Amidst these reflections, being seized with the gout, he was so impatient either of hindrance or of pain, that he submitted himself to a French empiric, who is said to have repelled the disease into his bowels. At the moment in which he expired he uttered, with an energy of voice that expressed the most fervent devotion, two lines of his own version of “Dies Iræ:”

, a very eminent divine, descended of a noble family of Lucca, was born June 6, 1576; but of his early years we have no information. When, however, he was only nineteen years of age, we find him appointed professor of Hebrew at Geneva. In 1619 the church of Geneva sent him to the synod of Dort, with his colleague Theodore Tronchin. Diodati gained so much reputation in this synod, that he was chosen, with five other divines, to prepare the Belgic confession of faith. He was esteemed an excellent divine, and a good preacher. His death happened at Geneva, Oct. 3, 1649, in his seventy-third year, and was considered as a public loss. He has rendered himself noticed by some works which he published, but particularly by his translation of the whole Bible into Italian, the first edition of which he published, with notes, in 1607, at Geneva, and reprinted in 16 n. The New Testament was printed separately at Geneva in 1608, and at Amsterdam and Haerlem in 1665. M. Simon observes, that his method is rather that of a divine and a preacher, than of a critic, by which he means only, that his work is more of a practical than a critical kind. He translated the Bible also into French, but not being so intimate with that language, he is not thought to have succeeded so well as in the Italian. This translation was printed in folio, at Geneva, in 1664. He was also the first who translated into French father Paul’s “History of the Council of Trent,” and many have esteemed this a more faithful translation than de la Houssaye’s, although less elegant in language. He also is said to have translated sir Edwin Sandys’ book on the “State of Religion in the West.” But the work by which he is best known in this country is his Annotations on the Bible, translated into English, of which the third and best edition was published in 1651, fol. He is said to have begun writing these annotations in 1606, at which time it was expected that Venice would have shaken off the popish yoke, a measure to which he was favourable; and he went on improving them in his editions of the Italian and French translations. This work was at one time time very popular in England, and many of the notes of the Bible, called the “Assembly of Divines’ Annotations,” were taken from Diodati literally. Diodati was at onetime in England, as we learn from the life of bishop Bedell, whom he was desirous to become acquainted with, and introduced him to Dr. Morton, bishop of Durham. From Morrice’s “State Letters of the right hon. the earl of Orrery,” we learn that when invited to preach at Venice, he was obliged to equip himself in a trooper’s habit, a scarlet cloak with a sword, and in that garb he mounted the pulpit; but was obliged to escape again to Geneva, from the wrath of a Venetian nobleman, whose mistress, affected by one of Diqdati'a sermons, had refused to continue her connection with her keeper. The celebrated Milton, also, contracted a friendship for Diodati, when on his travels; and some of his Latin elegies are addressed to Charles Diodati, the nepheiv of the divine. This diaries was one of Milton’s most intimate friends, and was the son of Theodore Diodati, who, although originally of Lucca, as well as his brother, married an English lady, and his son in every respect became an Englishman. He was also an excellent scholar, and being educated to his father’s profession, practised physic in Cheshire. He was at St. Paul’s school, with Milton, and afterwards, in 1621, entered of Trinity-college, Oxford. He died in 1638.

, an English painter, was born in London, in 1610. His father was master of the Alienation office; but “spending his estate upon women, necessity forced his son to be the most excellent painter that England hath yet bred.” He was put out early an apprentice to one Mr. Peake, a stationer and trader in pictures, with whom he served his time. Nature inclined him very powerfully to the practice of painting after the life, in which he had some instructions from Francis Cleyne; and, by his master’s procurement, he had the advantage of copying many excellent pictures, especially some of Titian and Van Dyck. How much he was beholden to the latter, may easily be seen in all his works; no painter having ever so happily imitated that excellent master, who was so much pleased with his performances, that he presented him to Charles I. This monarch took him into his immediate protection, kept him in Oxford all the while his majesty continued in that city, sat several times to him for his picture, and obliged the prince of Wales, prince Rupert, and most of the lords of his court, to do the like. Dobson \\as a fair, middle-sized man, of a ready wit and pleasing conversation; but somewhat loose and irregular in his way of living; and, notwithstanding the opportunities he had of making his fortune, died poor at his house in St. Martin’s-lane, in 1647. Although it was his misfortune to want suitable helps in beginning to apply himself to painting, and he was much disturbed by the commotions of the unhappy times tie nourished in, yet he shone out through all disadvantages; and it is universally agreed, that, had his education and encouragement been answerable to his genius, England might justly have been as proud of her Dobson, as Venice of her Titian, or Flanders of her Van Dyck. He was both a history and portrait painter; and there are in the collections of the dukes of Marlborough, Devonshire, Northumberland, and the earl of Pembroke, several of his pictures of both kinds.

Still, however, he preserved theological appearances; and he now meditated a design of publishing a large commentary on the Bible. In order to give the greater éclat to this undertaking, and draw the public attention upon it, it was, announced, that lord Masham presented him with Mss. of Mr. Locke, found in his lordship’s library at Oates; and that he had helps also from Mss. of lord Clarendon, Dr. Watcrland, Gilbert West, and other celebrated men. He began to publish this commentary, 1765, in weekly and monthly numbers; and continued to publish it regularly till it was completed in 3 vols. folio. It was dedicated to his patron bishop Squire, who died in May the year following, 1766; and was lamented (we believe very sincerely) by our commentator, in a funeral sermon dedicated to his widow. This year he took the degree of LL. D. at Cambridge, having been made a chaplain to the king some time before. His next publication was a volume of his poems, in 8vo. In 1769 he published a translation from the French, of “Sermons preached before Lewis XV. during his minority, by Massillon, bishop of Clermont.” They were called “Sermons on the duties of the great,” and inscribed to the prince of Wales. In 1771 he published “Sermons to Young Men,” 3 vols. 12mo. These he dedicated to his pupils Charles Ernst and Philip Stanhope, now earl of Chesterfield, he having become tutor to the latter, by the recommendation of bishop Squire.

In 1748 our author published a work of yet greater popularity and acknowledged value in the instruction of youth, feis “Preceptor,” to which some of the parties just mentioned contributed. Dr. Johnson furnished the Preface, and “The Vision of Theodore the Hermit.” In the be ginning of the following year, Dodsley purchased Johnson’s “Vanity of Human Wishes,” for the small sum of fifteen guineas, but Johnson reserved the right of printing one edition. It is a better proof of Dodsley’s enterprising Spirit that he was the first who suggested the scheme of the English Dictionary, upon which Dr. Johnson was at this time employed; and is supposed to have procured some hints from Pope, among whose friends a scheme of this kind had been long entertained. Pope, however, did not live to see the excellent Prospectus which Johnson published in 1747. In 1748, Dodsley collected together in one volume his dramatic pieces, under the modest title of “Trifles.” On the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, he wrote the “Triumph of Peace,” a masque, which was set to music by Dr. Arne, and performed at Drury-lane in 1748-9. In 1750 he published a small volume, unlike any of his former attempts, entitled “The Œconomy of Human Life, translated from an Indian manuscript, written by an ancient Bramin; to which is prefixed, an account of the manner in which the said manuscript was discovered. In a letter from an English Gentleman, now residing in China, to the earl of *****.” Whether from modesty, fear, or merely a trick of trade, Dodsley affected to be only the publisher of this work, and persisted in his disguise for some time. Conjecture gave it to the earl of Chesterfield, and not quite so absurdly as Mrs. Teresa Constantia Phillips complimented that nobleman on being author of the “Whole Duty of Man.” Chesterfield had a friendship for Dodsley, and would not contradict a report which rendered the sale of the “Œconomy” both rapid. and extensive. The critics, however, in the Monthly Keview, and Gentleman’s Magazine, were not to be deceived.

, a Saint of the Romish calendar, founder of the order of the Dominicans, and as some say, of that horrible engine of tyranny, the Inquisition, was born in 1170, at Calarogo, in old Castille, in the diocese of Osma. He was of the family of the Guzmans, and educated at first under a priest, his uncle; but at fourteen years, was sent to the public schools of Palentia, where he became a great proficient in rhetoric, philosophy, and divinity, and was also distinguished by austere mortifications and charity to the poor. When he had finished his studies and taken his degrees, he explained the Holy Scriptures in the schools, and preached at Palentia. In 1198 he was made a canon of Osma. After five years he accompanied the bishop of Osma on an embassy to the earl of La Marche, and in his journey was grievously afflicted to behold the spread of what he called heresy among the Albigenses, and conceived the design of converting them, and at first appears to have used only argument, accompanied with the deception of pretended miracles; but finding these unsuccessful, joined the secular power in a bloody crusade against the Albigenses, which he encouraged by prayers and miracles. During these labours, he instituted the devotion of the Rosary, consisting of fifteen Pater Hosiers, and an hundred and fifty Ave Marias, in honour of the fifteen principal mysteries of the life and sufferings of Christ, and of the virgin Mary, which our saint thought the people might be made to honour by this foolish expedient. In 1206 he founded the nunnery of our lady of Prouille, near Faujaux, which he put under* the rule of St. Austin, and afterwards established an institute called his third order, some of the members of which live in monasteries, and are properly nuns; others live in their own houses, adding religious to civil duties, and serving the poor in hospitals and prisons.

This inquiry, which terminated probably to the grief of his surviving parent and his friends of the Romish persuasion, appears to have occupied a considerable space of time, as we hear no more of him, until he began his travels in his twenty-first year. He accompanied the earl of Essex in his expedition in 1596, when Cadiz was taken, and again in 1597, but did not return to England until he had travelled for some time in Italy, from which he meant to have penetrated into the Holy Land, and visited Jerusalem and the holy sepulchre. But the inconveniences and dangers of the road in those parts appeared so insuperable that he gave up this design, although with a reluctance to which he often used to advert. The time, however, which he had dedicated to visit the Holy Land, he passed in Spain, and both there and in Italy, studied the language, manners, and government of the country, allusions to which are scattered throughout his poems and prose works.

In this honourable employment, he passed five years, probably the most agreeable of his life. But a young man of a disposition inclined to gaiety, and in the enjoyment of the most elegant pleasures of society, could not be long a stranger to love. Donne’s favourite object was the daughter of sir George Moor, or More, of Loxley farm in the county of Surrey, and niece to lady Ellesmere. This young lady resided in the house of the chancellor, and the lovers had consequently many opportunities to indulge the tenderness of an attachment which appears to have been mutual. Before the family, they were probably not very cautious, for in one of his elegies he speaks of spies and rivals, and her father either suspected, or from them had some intimation, of a connexion which he chose to consider as degrading, and therefore removed his daughter to his own house at Loxley. But this measure was adopted too late, as the parties, perhaps dreading the event, had been for some time privately married. This unwelcome news, when it could be no longer concealed, was imparted to sir George Moor, by Henry earl of Northumberland, a nobleman, who, notwithstanding this friendly interference, was afterwards guilty of that rigour towards his own youngest daughter, which he now wished to soften in the breast of sir George Moor. Sir George’s rage, however, transported him beyond the bounds of reason. He not only insisted on Donne’s being dismissed from the lord chancellor’s service, but caused him to be imprisoned; and, at the same time, Samuel Brook, afterwards master of Trinity college, and iiis brother Christopher Brook, who were present at the marriage, the one acting as father to the lady, the other as witness.

At this period of our history, it was deemed expedient to select such men for high offices in the church, as promised by their abilities and zeal to vindicate the reformed religion. King James, who was no incompetent judge of such merit, though perhaps too apt to measure the talents of others by his own standard, conceived from a perusal of the “Pseudo-Martyr,” that Donne would prove an ornament and bulwark to the church, and therefore not only endeavoured to persuade him to take orders, but resisted every application to exert the royal favour towards him in any other direction. When the favourite earl of Somerset requested that Mr. Donne might have the place of one of the clerks of the council, then vacant, the king replied, *' I know Mr. Donne is a learned man, has the abilities of a learned divine, and will prove a powerful preacher, and my desire is to prefer him that way, and in that way I will deny you nothing for him." Such an intimation must have made a powerful impression, yet there is no reascn to conclude from any part of Mr. Donne’s character, that he won I'd have been induced to enter the church merely by the persuasion of his sovereign, however flattering. To him, however, at this time, the transition was not difficult. He had relinquished the follies of youth, and had nearly outlived the remembrance of them. His studies had long inclined to theology, and his frame of mind was adapted to support the character expected from him. His oldfriend Dr, Morton probably embraced this opportunity to second the king’s wishes, and remove Mr. Donne’s personal scruples; and Dr. King, bishop of London, who had been chaplain to the chancellor when Donne was his secretary, and consequently knew his character, heard of his intention with much satisfaction. By this prelate he was ordained deacon and afterwards priest; and the king, although not uniformly punctual in his promises of patronage, immediately made him his chaplain in ordinary, and gave him hopes of higher preferment.

To his deanery was now added the vicarage of St. DunStan in the West, and another ecclesiastical endowment not specified by Walton. These according to his letters (p. 318) he owed to the friendship of Richard Sackville, earl of Dorset, and of the earl of Kent. From all this he derived the pleasing prospect of making a decent provision for his children, as well as of indulging to a greater extent his liberal and humane disposition. In 1624, he was chosen prolocutor to the convocation, on which occasion he delivered a Latin oration, which is printed in the London edition of his poems, 1719.

His prose works are numerous, but except the “PseudoMartyr,” and a small volume of devotions, none of them, were published during his life. The others are, 1. “Paradoxes, problems, essays, characters,” &c. 1653, 12mo. Part of this collection was published at different times before. 2. Three volumes of “Sermons,” in folio the first printed in 1640, the second in 1649, the third in 1660. Lord Falkland styles Donne “one of the most witty and most eloquent of our modern divines.” 3. “Essays in divinity,” &c. 1651, 12mo. 4. “Letters to several persons of honour,” 1654, 4to. Both these published by his son. There are several of Donne’s letters, and others to him from the queen of Bohemia, the earl of Carlisle, archbishop Abbot, and Ben Jonson; printed in a book, entitled, “A collection of Letters made by sir Tobie Matthews, knt. 1660,” 8vo. 5. “The ancient History of the Septuagint; translated from the Greek of Aristeas,” 1633, in 12mo. This translation was revised and corrected by another hand, and published in 1635, 8vo. His sermons have not a little of the character of his poems. They are not, indeed, so rugged in style, but they abound with quaint allusions, which now appear ludicrous although they probably produced no such effect in his days. With this exception, they contain much good sense, much acquaintance with human nature, many striking thoughts, and some very just biblical criticism.

, an English divine, was born about 1598 at Martley near Worcester, and educated at Worcester, whence at the age of sixteen he became a student at Oxford. After he had taken his bachelor’s degree, he was one of those excellent scholars who were candidates for a fellowship in Merton college, and after a severe examination by the then warden, sir Henry Savile, Mr. Doughty gained the election. He there completed his degree of M. A. and entering into orders, became a very popular and edifying preacher. In 1631 he served the office of proctor only for four months, the proctors being removed by the king; but about that time he became chaplain to the earl of Northumberland, and his college bestowed on him the rectory of Lapworth in Warwickshire. On the commencement of the rebellion, he left Lapworth, to avoid sequestration and imprisonment, and joined the king at Oxford. Soon after Dr. Duppa, bishop of Salisbury, gave him the lectureship of St. Edmund’s in that city, where he continued about two years; but, on the defeat of the royal army in the West, he went to London, and found an asylum in the house of sir Nathaniel Brent, in Little Britain. After the restoration, his loyalty and public services were rewarded with a prebend in Westminster, and the rectory of Cheam in Surrey, and about the same time he was created doctor of divinity. He died at Westminster, after he had lived, says Wood, “to be twice a child,” December 25, 1672, and was buried in the abbey.

, bishop of Dunkeld, eminent for his poetical talents, was descended from a noble family, being the third son of Archibald, earl of Angus, and was born in Scotland at the close of the year 1474, or the Beginning of 1475. His father was very careful of his education, and caused him to be early instructed in literature and the sciences. He was intended by him for the church; and after having passed through a course of liberal education in Scotland, is supposed to have travelled into foreign countries, for his farther improvement in literature, particularly to Paris, where he finished his education. Alter his return to Scotland, he obtained the office of provost of the collegiate church of St. Giles in Edinburgh, a post of considerable dignity and revenue; and was also made rector of Heriot church. He was likewise appointed abbot of the opulent convent of Aberbrothick; and the queenmother, who was then regent of Scotland, and about this time married his nephew the earl of Angus, nominated him to the archbishopric of St. Andrew’s. But he was prevented from obtaining this dignity by a violent opposition made to him at home, and by the refusal of the pope to confirm his appointment. The queen-mother afterwards promoted him to the bishopric of Dunkeld; and for this preferment obtained a bull in his favour from pope Leo X. by the interest of her brother, Henry VIII. king of England. But so strong an opposition was again made to him, that he could not, for a considerable time, obtain peaceable possession of this new preferment; and was even imprisoned for more than a year, under pretence of having acted illegally, in procuring a bull from the pope. He was afterwards set at liberty, and consecrated bishop of Dunkeld, by James Beaton, chancellor of Scotland, and archbishop of Glasgow. After his consecration he went to St. Andrew’s, and thence to his own church at Dunkeld; where the first day, we are told, “he was most kindly received by his clergy and people, all of them blessing God for so worthy and learned a bishop.” He still, however, met with many obstructions; and, for some time, was forcibly kept out of the palace belonging to his diocese; but he at length obtained peaceable possession. He soon after accompanied the duke of Albany, regent of Scotland, to Paris, when that nobleman was sent to renew the ancient league between Scotland and France. After his return to Scotland, he made a short stay at Edinburgh, and then repaired to his diocese, where he applied himself diligently to the duties of his episcopal office. He was also a promoter of public-spirited works, and particularly finished the stone bridge over the river Tay, opposite to his own palace, which had been begun by his predecessor. We meet with no farther particulars concerning him till some years after, when he was at Edinburgh, during the disputes between the earls of Arran and Angus. On that occasion bishop Douglas reproved archbishop Beaton for wearing armour, as inconsistent with the clerical character, but was afterwards instrumental in saving his life. During all these disorders in Scotland, it is said, that bishop Douglas behaved “with that moderation and peaceableness, which became a wise man and a religious prelate;” but the violence and animosity which then prevailed among the different parties in Scotland, induced him to retire to England. After his departure, a prosecution was commenced against him in Scotland; but he was well received in England, where he was treated with particular respect, on account of the excellency of his character, and his great abilities and learning. King Henry VII I. allowed him a liberal pension; and he became particularly intimate with Polydore Vergil. He died of the plague, at London, in 1521, or 1522, and was interred in the Savoy church, on the left side of the tomb-stone of Thomas Halsay, bishop of Laghlin, in Ireland; on whose tomb-stone a short epitaph for bishop Douglas is inscribed. Hume, of Godscroft, in his “History of the Douglases,” says, “Gawin Douglas, bishop of Dunkeld, left behind him great approbation of his virtues and love of his person in the hearts of all good men; for besides the nobility of his birth, the dignity and comeliness of his personage, he was learned, temperate, and of singular moderation of mind; and in these turbulent times had always carried himself among the factions of the nobility equally, and with a mind to make peace, and not to stir up parties; which qualities were very rare in a clergyman of those days.”

Bishop Douglas is styled by Mr. Warton, one “of the distinguished luminaries that marked the restoration of letters in Scotland, at the commencement of the sixteenth century, not only by a general eminence in elegant erudition, but by a cultivation of the vernacular poetry of his country.” He translated the Æneid of Virgil into Scottish heroics, with the additional thirteenth book by Mapheus Vegius, at the request of Henry, earl of Sinclair, to whom he was related. It was printed at London, in 1553, 4to, under the following title: “The XIII Bukes of Eneados of the fainose poete Virgill, translatet out of Latyne verses into Scottish metir, bi the reverend father in God, Mayster Gawin Douglas, bishop of Dunkel, and unkil to the erle of Angus every Buke having his perticular prologe.” “This translation,” says Mr. Warton, “is executed with equal spirit and fidelity and is a proof that the lowland Scotch and English languages were now nearly the same. I mean the style of composition; more especially in the glaring affectation of anglicising Latin words.” It certainly has great merit, though it was executed in the space of about sixteen months. It appears, that he had projected this translation so early as the year 1501, but did not complete it till about eleven years after. Besides this work, bishop Douglas also wrote an original poem, called *' The Palice of Honour,“which was printed at London, 1553, 4to, and Edinburgh, 1579, 4to. Mr. Warton observes of this poem, that” it is a moral vision written in 1501, planned on the design of the Tablet of Cebes, and imitated in the elegant Latin dialogue * De Tranquillitate Anitni' of his countryman Florence Wilson, or Florentius Volusenus. The object of this allegory is to show the instability and insufficiency of worldly pomp; and to prove, that a constant and undeviating habit of virtue is the only way to true honour and happiness. The allegory is illustrated by a variety of examples of illustrious personages; not only of those who by a regular perseverance in honourable deeds gained admittance into this splendid habitation, but of those who were excluded from it, by debasing the dignity of their eminent stations with a vicious and unmanly behaviour. It is addressed, as an apologue for the conduct of a king, to James the Fourth, is adorned with many pleasing incidents and adventures, and abounds with genius and learning." Both the editions which have been printed of this poem are extremely scarce.

When a detachment of the army was ordered home to suppress the rebellion in Scotland, he returned to England in Sept. 1745, and having no longer any connexion with the guards, went back to Baliol college, where he was elected one of the exhibitioners on the more lucrative foundation of Mr. Snell. In 1747 he was ordained priest, and became curate of Tilehurst, near Reading; and afterwards of Dunstevv, in Oxfordshire, where he was residing, when, at the recommendation of Dr. Charles Stuart, and lady Allen, a particular friend of his mother, he was selected by lord Bath as a tutor to accompany his son, lord Pulteney, on his travels. Of the tour which he then made, there exists a manuscript in Mr. Douglas’s hand-writing. It relates principally, if not exclusively, to the governments and political relations of the several countries through which he passed. In October 1749, he returned to England, and took possession of the free chapel of Eaton Constantine, and the donative of Uppington, in Shropshire, on the presentation of lord Bath. Here he commenced his literary career, by his able defence of Milton. Early in 1747, William Lander, a Scotch schoolmaster, made a most flagitious attempt to subvert the reputation of Milton, by shewing that he was a mere copier or translator of the works of others, and that he was indebted to some modern Latin poets for the plan, arrangement, &c. of his Paradise Lost. Many persons of considerable literary talents gave credit to the tale of Lander, among whom was the celebrated Dr. Johnson. Mr. Douglas, however, examined the merits of the case, considered most accurately the evidence adduced by Lander, and soon found that the whole was a most gross fabrication. He published in 1750 a defence of Milton against Lander, entitled, “Milton vindicated from the Charge of Plagiarism,” &c. which appeared in the form of a letter addressed to the earl of Bath. Having justified the poet, he proceeded to charge the accuser with the most gross and manifest forgery, which he substantiated to the entire satisfaction of the public. The detection was indeed so clear and manifest, that the criminal acknowledged his guilt, in a letter dictated by Dr. Johnson, who abhorred the imposition he had practised.

In 1763 he superintended the publication of “Henry Earl of Clarendon’s Diary and Letters,” and wrote the preface which is prefixed to these papers. In June of this year, he accompanied lord Bath to Spa, where he became acquainted with the hereditary prince of Brunswick (the late duke), from whom he received marked and particular attention, and with whom he was afterwards in correspondence. It is known that within a few years there existed a series of letters written by him during his stay at Spa, and also a book containing copies of all the letters which he had written to, and received from, the prince of Brunswick, on the state of parties, and the characters of their leaders in this country, and on the policy and effect of its continental connexions; but as these have not been found among his papers, there is reason to apprehend, that they may have been destroyed, in consideration of some of the persons being still alive, whose characters, conduct, and principles, were the topics of that correspondence.

, bishop of Derry in Ireland, the son of William Downham, bishop of Chester, was born there. He was educated at Cambridge, was elected a fellow of Christ college in 1585, and was afterwards professor of logic. Fuller says that no man was better skilled in Aristotle and Ramus, and terms him “the top-twig of that branch.” He was esteemed a man of learning, and was chaplain to James I. by whom he was advanced to the see of Derry, by letters dated Sept. 6, 1616, and was consecrated Oct. 6, of the same year. During the government of the lord chancellor Loftus, and the earl of Cork, he obtained a commission, by an immediate warrant from himself to arrest, apprehend, and attach the bodies of all people within his jurisdiction, who should decline the same, or should refuse to appear upon lawful citation, or appearing should refuse to obey the sentence given against them, and authority to bind them in recognizances, with sureties or without, to appear at the council-table to answer such contempts. The like commission was renewed to him by the lord deputy Wentworth, Oct. 3, 1633. Both were obtained upon his information, that his diocese abounded with all manner of delinquents, who refused obedience to all spiritual processes. He died at Londonderry April 17, 1634, and was buried there in the cathedral. He had a brother named John, who was an eminent divine and a writer. His own works are very numerous, and evince his theological abilities and piety. 1. “A treatise concerning Antichrist, in two books,” Lond. 1603, 4to. 2. “The Christian’s Sanctuary,” ibid. 1604, 4to. 3. “Lectures upon the Fifteenth Psalm,” ibid. 1604, -4to. 4. “Sermon at the consecration of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, upon Apocalypse i. 20,” ibid. 160S, 4to. 5. “Defence of the same Sermon against a nameless author,” ibid. 1611,4to. 6. “Two Sermons, the one commending the ministry in general, the other, the office of bishops in particular,” ibid. 1608. The latter of these, but enlarged, is the consecration sermon above mentioned. 7. “Papa Antichristus, sen Diatriba de Antichristo,” ibid. 1620, a different treatise from the former against Antichrist. 8. “The Covenant of Grace, or an Exposition upon Luke i. 73, 74, 75,” Dublin, 1631, 8vo. 9. “A treatise on Justification,” Lond. 1633, folio. 10. “The Christian’s Freedom, or the doctrine of Christian Liberty,” Oxford, 1635, 8vo. 11. “An Abstract of the Duties commanded, and sins forbidden in the Law of God,” Lond. 1635, 8vo. 12. “A godly and learned Treatise of Prayer,” Lond. 1640, 4to. These three last were posthumous. His brother John, above mentioned, was likewise educated at Cambridge, where he took the degree of B. D. He exercised his ministry in different parts of London, and was the first who preached the Tuesday’s lecture in St. Bartholomew Exchange, which he did with great reputation. His principal work is entitled “The Christian Warfare.” He died in 1644.

, an English divine, the eldest son of Calybute Downing of Shennington, in Gloucestershire, gent, was born in 1606, and in 1623 became a commoner of Oriel college, Oxford, where he took one degree in arts. His master’s degree, according to Wood, he took at Cambridge, or abroad; after which, entering into orders, he held the vicarage of Hackney, near London, with the parsonage of Hickford, in Buckinghamshire. But these not being sufficient for his ambition, he stood in competition with Dr. Gilbert Sheldon for the wardenship of All -soul’s; and losing that, was a suitor to be chaplain to the earl of Strafford, lord lieutenant of Ireland, thinking that road might lead to a bishopric. But failing there also, he joined the parliament party, and became a great promoter of their designs; and in a sermon preached before the artillery-company, Sept. 1, 1640, delivered this doctrine: “That for the defence of religion, and reformation of the church, it was lawful to take up arms against the king” but fearing to be called in question for this assertion, he retired to the house of Robert earl of Warwick, at Little Lees, in Essex. After this he became chaplain to the lord Robert’s regiment, and in 1643 was one of the assembly of divines; but died in the midst of his career, in 1644. He has some political discourses and sermons in print, enumerated by Wood. He was father of sir George Downing, made by king Charles II. secretary to the treasury, and one of the commissioners for the customs.

His success in this expedition, joined to his honourable behaviour towards his owners, gained him high reputation, which was increased by the use he made of his riches. For, fitting out three stout frigates at his own expence, he sailed with them into Ireland, where, under Walter earl of Essex, the father of the famous unfortunate earl, he served as a volunteer, and performed many gallant exploits. After the death of his noble patron, he returned into England; where sir Christopher Hatton, vice-chamberlain to queen Elizabeth, and privy-counsellor, introduced him to her majesty, and procured him countenance and protection at court. By this means he acquired a capacity of undertaking that grand expedition, which will render his name immortal. The first thing he proposed was a voyage into the South-seas, through the Straits of Magellan, which hitherto no Englishman had ever attempted. The project was well received at court; the queen furnished him with means; and his own fame quickly drew together a force sufficient. The fleet with which he sailed on this extraordinary undertaking, consisted only of five small vessels, compared with modern ships, and no more than 164 able men. He sailed from England, Dec. 13, 1577; on the 25th fell in with the coast of Barbary, and on the 29th with Cape Verd. March 13, he passed the equinoctial, made the coast of Brazil April 5, 1578, and entered the river de la Plata, where he lost the company of two of his ships; but meeting them again, and taking out their provisions, he turned them adrift. May 29, he entered the port of St. Julian, where he continued two months, for the sake of laying in provisions; Aug. 20> he entered the Straits of Magellan; and Sept. 25 passed them, having then only his own ship. Nov. 25, he came to Machao, which he had appointed for a place of rendezvous, in case his ships separated: but captain Winter, his vice-admiral, having repassed the Straits, was returned to England. Thence he continued his voyage along the coasts of Chili and Peru, taking all opportunities of seizing Spanish ships, and attacking them on shore, till his crew were sated with plunder; and then coasting North-America to the height of 48 degrees, he endeavoured, but in vain, to find a passage back into our seas on that side. He landed, however, and called the country New Albion, taking possession of it in the name and for the use of queen Elizabeth; and, having careened his ship, set sail from thence Sept. 29, 1579, for the Moluccas. He is supposed to have chosen this passage round, partly to avoid being attacked by the Spaniards at a disadvantage, and partly from the lateness of the season, when dangerous storms and hurricanes were to be apprehended. Oct. 13, he fell in with certain islands, inhabited by the most barbarous people he had met with in all his voyage; and, Nov. 4, he had sight of the Moluccas, and, coming to Ternate, was extremely well received by the king thereof, who appears, from the most authentic relations of this voyage, to have been a wise and polite prince. Dec. 10, he made Celebes, where his ship unfortunately ran upon a rock Jan. 9th following; from which, beyond all expectation, and in a manner miraculously, they got off, and continued their course. March 16, he arrived at Java Major, and from thence intended to have directed his course to Malacca; but founrf himself obliged to alter his purpose, and to think of returning home. March 25, 1580, he put this design in execution; and June 15, doubled the cape of Good Hope, having then on board 57 men, and but three casks of water. July 12, he passed the Line, reached the coast of Guinea the 16th, and there watered. Sept. 11, he made the island of Tercera; and Nov. 3, entered the harbour of Plymouth. This voyage round the globe was performed in two years and about ten months. His success in this voyage, and the immense mass of wealth he brought home, raised much discourse throughout the kingdom; some highly commending-, and some as loudly decrying him. The former alleged, that his exploit >vas not only honourable to himself, but to his country that it would establish our reputation for maritime skill in foreign nations, and raise an useful spirit of emulation at home; and that, as to the money, our merchants having suffered much from the faithless practices of the Spaniards, there was nothing more just, than that the nation should receive the benefit of Drake’s reprisals. The other party alleged, that in fact he was no better than a pirate; that, of all others, it least became a trading nation to encourage such practices; that it was not only a direct breach of all our late treaties with Spain, but likewise of our old leagues with the house of Burgundy; and that the consequences would be much more fatal than the benefits reaped from it could be advantageous. This difference of opinion continued during the remainder of 1580, and the spring of the succeeding year; but at length justice was done to Drake’s services; for, April 4, 1581, her majesty, going to Deptford, went on board his ship; where, after dinner, she conferred on him the honour of knighthood, and declared her absolute approbation of all he had done. She likewise gave directions for the preservation of his ship, that it might remain a monument of his own and his country’s glory. Camden, in his Britannia, has taken notice of an extraordinary circumstance relating to this ship of Drake’s, where, speaking of the shire of Buchan, in Scotland, he says, “It is hardly worth while to mention the clayks, a sort of geese, which are believed by some with great admiration, to grow upon trees on this coast, and in other places, and when they are ripe, they fall down into the sea, because neither their nests nor eggs can any where be found. But they who saw the ship in which sir Francis Drake sailed round the world, when it was laid up in the river Thames, could testify that little birds breed in the old rotten keels of ships, since a great number of such, without life and feathers, stuck close to the outside of the keel of that ship.” This celebrated ship, which had been contemplated many years at Deptford, at length decaying, it was broke p; and a chair made out of the planks was presented to the* university of Oxford. In 1585 he sailed with a fleet to the West Indies, and took the cities of St. Jago, St. Domingo, Carthagena, and St. Augustin. In 1587 he went to Lisbon with a fleet of 30 sail; and, having intelligence of a great fleet assembled in the bay of Cadiz, which was to have made part of the armada, he with great courage entered that port, and burnt there upwards of 10,000 tons of shipping: which he afterwards merrily called, “burning the king of Spain’s beard.” In 1558, when the armada from Spain was approaching our coasts, he was appointed vice-admiral under Charles lord Howard of Efringham, high-admiral of England, where fortune favoured him as remarkably as ever: for he made prize of a very large galleon, commanded by don Pedro de Valdez, who was reputed the projector of this invasion. This affair happened in the following manner July 22, sir Francis, observing a great Spanish ship floating at a distance from both fleets, sent his pinnace to summon the commander to yield. Valdez replied, with much Spanish solemnity, that they were 450 strong, that he himself was don Pedro, and stood much upon his honour, and propounded several conditions, upon which he was willing to yield: but the vice-admiral replied, that he had no leisure to parley, but if he thought fit instantly to yield he might; if not, he should soon find that Drake was no coward. Pedro, hearing the name of Drake, immediately yielded, and with 46 of his attendants came aboard Drake’s ship. This don Pedro remained above two years his prisoner in England; and, when he was released, paid him. for his own and his captain’s liberties, a ransom of 3500l. Drake’s soldiers were well recompensed with the plunder of this ship: for they found in it 55,000 ducats of gold, which was divided among them.

Mr. D'Israeli, who has introduced Dr. Drake in his interesting work, “The Calamities of Authors,” informs us that Drake, in one instance at least, condescended to practise literary imposition. He reprinted father Parsons’s famous libel against the earl of Leicester in queen Elizabeth’s reign, under the title of “Secret Memoirs of Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester,” 1706, 8vo, with a preface pretending it was printed from an old manuscript, instead of being literally taken from “Leycester’s Commonwealth.”

, lieutenant-general and K. B. was educated at Eton, and at King’s college, Cambridge; and, preferring the military profession, went to the EastIndies in the company’s service; where, in 1760, he received the privilege of ranking as a colonel in the army, with Lawrence and Clive, and returned home that year. In 1761 he was promoted to the rank of brigadier in the expedition to Belleisle. In 1763, he, with admiral Cornish, conducted the expedition against Manila. They sailed from Madras Aug. 1, and anchored Sept. 27, in Manila bay, where the inhabitants had no expectation of the enemy. The fort surrendered Oct. 6, and was preserved from plunder by a ransom of four millions of dollars; half to be paid immediately, and the other half in a time agreed on. The Spanish governor drew on his court for the first half, but payment was never made. The arguments of the Spanish court were clearly refuted by colonel Draper in a letter to the earl of Halifax, then premier. Succeeding administrations declined the prosecution of this claim from reasons of state which were never divulged; and the commander in chief lost for his share of the ransom 25,000l. The colours taken at this conquest were presented to King’s college, Cambridge, and hung up in their beautiful chapel, and the conqueror was rewarded with a red ribband. Upon the reduction of the 79th regiment, which had served so gloriously in the East-Indies, his majesty, unsolicited by him, gave him the 16th regiment of foot as an equivalent. This he resigned to colonel Gisborne, for his half pay, 1200l. Irish annuity. In 1769 the colonel appeared, and with much credit, in a literacy character, drawing his pen against that of Junius, in defence of his friend the marquis of Granby, which drew a retort on himself, answered by him in a second letter to Junius, on the refutations of the former charge against him. On a republication of Junius’s first letter, sir William renewed his vindication of himself; and was answered with great keenness by his famous antagonist. Here the controversy dropped for the present, but he is supposed to have entered the lists once more, under the signature of Modestus, with that extraordinary and still concealed writer, in defence of general Gansel, who had been arrested for debt, and was rescued by a party of soldiers. In Oct. 1769 he retired to South Carolina, for the recovery of his health, and took the opportunity to make the tour of North America. That year he married miss de Lancy, daughter of the chief justice of New York, who died in July 1778, and by whom he had a daughter born Aug. 18, 1773. May 29, 1779, sir William, being then in rank a lieutenant-general, was appointed lieutenant-governor of Minorca, on the unfortunate surrender of which important place he exhibited 29 charges against the late governor, general Murray, Nov. 11, 1782. Of these 27 were deemed frivolous and groundless and for the other two the governor was reprimanded. Sir William was then ordered to make an apology to general Murray, for having instituted the trial against him; in which he acquiesced. From this time he appears to have lived in retirement at Bath till his decease, which happened the 8th of January 1787. Many particulars respecting his controversy with Junius, as well as the controversy itself, may be seen in the splendid edition of “Junius’s Letters,” published by Mr. Woodfall in 1812.

, an eminently patriotic and public-spirited magistrate of Edinburgh, was born June 27, 1687, and educated in that city, principally with a view to active life, in which he very soon maue a distinguished figure. On the accession of queen Anne, when he was of course very young, he assisted the committee appointed by the parliament of Scotland to settle the public accounts of the kingdom. Tn 1707 he was appointed accountant-general of the excise, and assisted, with indefatigable diligence, in putting the accounts of that important branch of the revenue into the same form and method with those in England. In 1710, the then total change of the ministry alarmed the friends of the house of Hanover, and these alarms increasing, in 1713, at a meeting of gentlemen who had formed a society for guarding the country against the designs of the pretender, Mr. Drummond proposed a plan, which was unanimously approved and carried into execution, by which a correspondence was established with every county in the kingdom, and arms imported from Holland, and put into the hands of the friends of liberty every where. In 1715, he gave the first notice to the ministry of the arrival of the earl of Mar, was honoured with the command of a company of volunteers that was raised by the friends of government on that occasion, and was attendant on the duke of Argyle, during his residence in Scotland till the rebellion was extinguished. He assisted at the battle of Sheriffmuir, and dispatched to the magistrates of Edinburgh the earliest notice of Argyle’s victory, in a letter which he dated from the field on horseback. In 1717 he was elected a member of the corporation of Edinburgh, and discharged all the intermediate offices of magistracy until 1725, when he was elected lord provost, an office which he filled with the highest reputation and true dignity. To his indefatigable industry and perseverance it was chiefly owing, that the several professorships in the university were filled with men of the first abilities, and several new ones were founded, as that of chemistry, the theory and practice of physic, midwifery, the belles lettres, and rhetoric, by which means Edinburgh arrived at the rank of one of the first schools in the kingdom, particularly for medicine.

, an English prelate, was the second son of George Henry, seventh earl of Kinnoul, and Abigail, youngest daughter of Robert Harley, earl of Oxford and Mortimer, lord high treasurer of Great Britain. He was born in London, Nov. 10, 1711, and after being educated at Westminster school, was admitted student of Christ church, Oxford, where he prosecuted his studies with great diligence and credit. When he had taken his first degree in arts, he accompanied his cousingerman, Thomas duke of Leeds, on a tour to the continent. From that he returned in 1735 to college, to pursue the study of divinity; the same year, June 13, he was admitted M. A. and soon after entered into holy orders, and was presented by the Oxford family to the rectory of Bothall in Northumberland; and in 1737, by the recommendation of queen Caroline, was appointed chaplain in ordinary to his majesty. In 1739 he assumed the name and arms of Drummond, as heir in entail of his great grandfather William, first viscount of Strathallan. In 1743, he attended the king abroad, and on his return was installed prebendary of Westminster, and in 1745 was admitted B. D. and D. D. In 1748 he was promoted to the see of St. Asaph; a diocese where his name will ever be revered, and which he constantly mentioned with peculiar affection and delight, as having enjoyed there for thirteen years, a situation most congenial to his feelings, and an extent of patronage most gratifying to his benevolent heart.

In 1753 when a severe attack was made on the political character of his two intimate friends Mr. Stone and Mr. Murray, afterwards the great earl of Mansfield, the bishop vindicated his old school-fellows before a committee of the privy council, directed to inquire into the charge, with that persuasive energy of truth, which made the king exclaim on reading the examination, “That is indeed a man to make a friend of.” In May 1761 he was translated to the see of Salisbury, and when archbishop of York elect, in which dignity he was enthroned in the November following, he preached the coronation sermon of their present majesties, and soon after became lord high almoner, and a member of the privy council. In the former office he rectified many abuses, and rendered it more extensively beneficial, by preventing the royal bounty from being considered as a fund to which persons of high n;nk and opulence could transfer any just claims on their own private generosity. On one occasion, when applied to by a very rich peer in behalf of two of his cousins, he replied, “that he was sorry to say that the very reason which would induce himself to assist them, prevented his considering them as objects of his majesty’s charity their near relationship to his lordship.” His conduct in the metropolitan see of York is described with great spirit and truth by Mr. llastal, the topographer of Southwell, who styles him “peculiarly virtuous as a statesman, attentive to his duties as a churchman, magnificent as an archbishop, and amiable as a man.” This character appears to be confirmed by all who knew him. As a statesman he acted upon manly and independent principles, retiring from parliament in 1762, when new men and measures were promoted, averse, in his opinion, to that system of government under which the country had so long flourished. When, however, any question was introduced, in which the interference of a churchman was proper, he was sedulous in his attendance, and prompt in delivering his sentiments. His munificence in his see deserves to be recorded. When he was translated to York, he found the archiepiscopal palace, small, mean, and incommodious; and the parish church in a state of absolute decay. To the former he made many splendid additions, particularly in the private chapel. The latter he rebuilt from its foundation, with the assistance of a small contribution from the clergyman of the parish, and two or three neighbouring gentlemen. He died at his palace at Bishopsthorpe, Dec. 10, 1776, in the 66th year of his age, and was buried by his own desire, in a very private manner, under the altar of the church. Although his literary attainments were very considerable, he published only six occasional sermons, which were much admired, and of which his son, rev. George Hay Drummond, M. A. prebendary of York, published a correct edition in 1803: to this edition are prefixed “Memoirs of the Archbishop’s Life,” and it also contains “A Letter on Theological Study,” addressed to the son of an intimate friend, then a candidate for holy orders, which evinces an intimate acquaintance with many of the best writers on theological subjects. His own principles appear to have been rather more remote from those contained in the articles and homilies than could have been wished, because they are thereby not so consistent with some of the writers whom he recommends; and he speaks with unusual freedom of certain doctrines which have been held sacred by some of the wisest and best divines of the established church. Of the “Memoirs” prefixed to this new edition of his Sermons, we have availed ourselves in this brief record of a prelate whose memory certainly deserves to be rescued from oblivion. His Sermons are composed in an elegant and classical style, and contain many admirable passages, and much excellent advice on points of moral and religious practice.

His character has descended to us without blemish. Unambitious of riches or honours, he appears to have projected the life of a retired scholar, from which he was diverted only by the commotions that robbed his country of its tranquillity. He was highly accomplished in ancient and modern languages, and in the amusements which became a man of his rank. Among his intimate friends and learned contemporaries, he seems to have been mostly connected with the earl of Stirling, and the celebrated English poets Drayton and Ben Jonson. The latter paid him a visit at Hawthornden, and communicated to him without reserve, many particulars of his life and opinions, which Drummond committed to writing, with a sketch of Jonson’s character and habits, which has not been thought very liberal. This charge of illiberality, however, is considerably lessened when we reflect that Drummond appears to have had no intention of publishing what he had collected from Jonson, and that the manuscript did not appear until many years after Jonson was beyond all censure or praise. An edition of Drummond’s poems was printed at London, 1656, 8vo, with a preface by Philips. The Edinburgh edition in folio, 1711, includes the whole of his works, both in verse and prose, his political papers, familiar letters, and the history of the James’s; with an account of his life, which, however unsatisfactory, is all that can now be relied on . A recent edition of his poems was printed at London in 1791, but somewhat differently arranged from that of 1656. A more correct arrangement is still wanting, if his numerous admirers shall succeed in procuring that attention of which he has been hitherto deprived.

In 1661 he produced his first play, “The Duke of Guise,” which was followed the next year by the “Wild Gallant.” In the same year, 1662, he addressed a poem to the lord chancellor Hyde, presented on new-year’s-day; and, the same year also, published a satire on the Dutch*. His next production was “Annus Mirabilis,” the year of wonders, 1666; an historical poem: printed in 1667. His reputation as a poet was now so well established, that this, together with his attachment to the court, procured him the place of poet-laureat, and historiographer to Charles II. of which accordingly he took possession, upon the death of sir William Davenant, in 1668, but his patent was not signed till 1670. The pension of the two offices was 200l. a year. In 1667 he published “An Essay on Dramatic Poesy,” dedicated to Charles earl of Dorset and Middlesex. In the preface we are told that the purpose of this discourse was to vindicate the honour of our English writers from the censure of those who unjustly prefer the French. The essay is drawn up in the form of a dialogue. It was animadverted upon by sir Robert Howard, in the preface to his “Great Favourite, or Duke of Lerma,” to which Dryden replied in a piece prefixed to the second edition of his “Indian Emperor.” Although his first plays had not been very successful, he went on, and in the space of twenty-five years produced twenty-seven plays, besides his other numerous poetical writings. Of the stage, says Dr. Johnson, when he had once invaded it, he kept possession; not indeed, without the competition of rivals, who sometimes prevailed, or the censure of critics, which was often poignant, and often just; but with such a degree of reputation, as made him at least secure of being heard, whatever might be the final determination of the public. These plays were collected, and published in 6 vols. 12mo, in 1725; to which is prefixed the essay on dramatic poetry, and a dedication to the duke of Newcastle by Congreve, in which the author is placed in a very equivocal light.

In 1673, his tragi-comedies, entitled the “Conquest of Granada” by the Spaniards, in two parts, were attacked by Richard Leigh, a player belonging to the duke of York’s theatre, in a pamphlet called “A Censure of the Rota,” &c. which occasioned several other pamphlets to be written. Elkanah Settle likewise criticised these plays; and it is remarkable that Settle, though in reality a mean and inconsiderable poet, was the mighty rival of Dryden, and for many years bore his reputation above him. To the first part of the “Conquest of Granada,” Dryden prefixed an essay on Heroic Plays, and subjoined to the second a Defence of the Epilogue; or, an essay on the dramatic poetry of the last age. In 1679 was published an “Essay on Satire,” written jointly by the earl of Mulgrave and Dryden. This piece, which was handed about in ms. contained severe reflections on the duchess of Portsmouth and the earl of Rochester; and they, suspecting Dryden to be the author of it, hired three men to cudgel him; who, as Wood relates, effected their business as he was returning from Will’s coffee-house through Rose-street, Covent-gardeu, to his own house in Gerrard-street, Soho, at eight o'clock at night, on the 16th of December, 1679. In 1680 came out an English translation in verse of Ovid’s epistles by several hands two of which, viz. Canace to Macareus, and Dido to Æneas, were translated by Dryden, who also wrote the general preface and the epistle of Helen to Paris by Dryden and the earl of Mulgrave.

In 16S1 he published his Absalom and Achitophel. This celebrated poem, which was at first printed without the author’s name, is a severe satire on the contrivers and abettors of the rebellion against Charles II. under the duke of Monmouth; and, under the characters of Absalom, Achitophel, David and Zimri, are represented the duke of Monmouth, the earl of Shaftesbury, king Charles, and the duke of Buckingham. There are two translations of this poem into Latin; one by Dr. Coward, a physician of Merton college in Oxford; another by Mr. Atterbury, afterwards bishop of Rochester, both published in 1682, 4to. Dryden left the story unfinished; and the reason he gives for so doing was, because he could not prevail with himself to shew Absalom unfortunate. “Were I the inventor,” says he, “who am only the historian, I should certainly conclude the piece with the reconcilement of Absalom to David. And who knows, but this may come to pass? Things were not brought to extremity, where I left the story: there seems yet to be room left for a composure: hereafter, there may be only for pity. I have not so much as an uncharitable wish against Achitophel; but am content to be accused of a good-natured error, and to hope with Origen, that the devil himself may at last be saved. For which reason, in this poem, he is neither brought to set his house in order, nor to dispose of his person afterwards.” A second part of Absalom and Achitophel was undertaken and written by Tate, at the request and under the direction of Dryden, who wrote near 200 lines of it himself.

The same year, 1681, he published his Medal, a satire against sedition. This poem was occasioned by the striking of a medal, on account of the indictment against the earl of Shaftesbury for high-treason being found ignoramus by the grand jury at the Old Bailey, November 1611, for which the whig-party made great rejoicings by ringing of bells, bonfires, &c. in all parts of London. The whole poem is a severe invective against the earl of Shaftesbury and the whigs to whom the author addresses himself, ina satirical epistle prefixed to it, thus “I have one favour to desire of you at parting, that, when you think of answering this poem, you would employ the same pens against it, who have combated with so much success against Absalom and Achitophel; for then you may assure yourselves of a clear victory without the least reply. Rail at me abundantly; and, not to break a custom, do it without wit. If God has not blessed you with the talent of rhyming, make use of my poor stock and welcome: let your verses run upon my feet; and for the utmost refuge of notorious blockheads, reduced to the last extremity of sense, turn my own lines upon me, and, in utter despair of your own satire, make me satirize myself.” Settle wrote an answer to this poem, entitled “The Medal reversed;” and is erroneously said to have written a poem called “Azariah and Hushal,” against “Absalom and Achitophel.” This last was the production of one Pordage, a dramatic writer. In 1682, Dryden published a poem, called “Religio Laici; or, the Layman’s Faith.” This piece is intended as a defence of revealed religion, and of the excellency and authority of the scriptures, as the only rule of faith and manners, against deists, papists, and presbyterians. The author tells us in the preface, that it was written for an ingenious young gentleman, his friend, upon his translation of father Simon’s “Critical History of the Old Testament.” In October of this year, he also published his Mac Flecnoe, an exquisite satire against the poet Shad well.

His tragedy of the “Duke of Guise,” much altered, with the assistance of Lee, appeared again in 168S, dedicated to Lawrence earl of Rochester, and gave great offence to the whigs. It was attacked in a pamphlet, entitled “A Defence of the charter and municipal rights of the city of London, and the rights of other municipal cities and towns of England. Directed to the citizens of London. By Thomas Hunt.” In this piece, Dryden is charged with condemning the charter of the city of London, and executing its magistrates in effigy, in his “Duke of Guise;” frequently acted and applauded, says Hunt, and intended most certainly to provoke the rahhle into tumults and disorders. Hunt then makes several remarks upon the design of the play, and asserts, that our poet’s purpose was to corrupt the manners of the nation, and lay waste their morals; to extinguish the little remains of virtue among us by bold impieties, to confound virtue and vice, good and evil, and to leave us without consciences. About the same time were printed also “Some Reflections upon the pretended Parallel in the play called The Duke of Guise” the author of which pamphlet tells us, that he was wearied with the dulness of this play, and extremely incensed at the wicked and barbarous design it was intended for; that the fiercest tories were ashamed of it; and, in short, that he never saw any thing that could be called a play, more deficient in wit, good character, and entertainment, than this. In answer to this and Hunt’s pamphlet, Dryden published “The Vindication: or, The Parallel of the French holy league and the English league and covenant, turned into a seditious libel against the king and his royal highness, by Thomas Hunt and the author of the Reflections, &c.” In this Vindication, which is printed at the end of the play, he tells us that in the year of the restoration, the first play he undertook was the “Duke of Guise,” as the fairest way which the act of indemnity had then left of setting forth the rise of the late rebellion; that at first it was thrown aside by the advice of some friends, who thought it not perfect enough to be published; but that, at the earnest request of Mr. Lee, it was afterwards produced between them; and that only the first scene, the whole fourth act, and somewhat more than half the fifth, belonged to him, all the rest being Mr. Lee’s. He acquaints us also occasionally, that Mr. Thomas Shadwell, the poet, made the rough draught of this pamphlet against him, and that Mr. Hunt finished it.

In 1684 he published a translation of “Maimbonrg’s History of the League” in which he was employed by Charles II. on account of the pla'ui parallel between the troubles of France and those of Great Britain. Upon the death of this monarch, he wrote his “Threnodia Augustalis:” a poem sacred to the happy memory of that prince. Soon after the accession of James II. he turned Roman catholic upon which occasion, Mr. Thomas Browne wrote “The reasons of Mr. Bayes’s changing his religion considered, in a dialogue between Crites Eugenius and Mr. Bayes, 1688,” 4to; and also, “The late converts exposed: or, the reasons of Mr. Bayes’s changing his religion considered, in a dialogue; part the second 1690,” 4to. In 1686 he wrote “A defence of the papers written by the late king of blessed memory, and found in his strong box.” This was written in opposition to Stillingfleet’s “Answer to some papers lately printed, concerning the authority of the catholic church in matters of faith, and the reformation of the church of England, 1686,” 4to. He vindicates the authority of the catholic church, in decreeing matters of faith upon this principle, that “The church is more visible than the scripture, because the scripture is seen by the church;” and, to abuse the reformation in England, he affirms, that “it was erected on the foundation of lust, sacrilege, and usurpation, and that no paint is capable of making lively the hideous face of it.” He affirms likewise, that “the pillars of the church established by law, are to be found but broken staffs by their own concessions: for, after all their undertakings to heal a wounded conscience, they leave their proselytes finally to the scripture; as our physicians, when they have emptied the pockets of their patients, without curing them, send them at last to Tunbridge waters, or the air of Montpelier; that we are reformed from the virtues of good living, from the devotions, mortifications, austerities, humility and charity, which are practised in catholic countries, by the example and precept of that lean, mortified, apostle, St. Martin Luther, &c.” Stillingrleet hereupon published “A vindication of the Answer to some late papers,” in 1687, 4to; in which he treats Dryden with some severity; “If I thought,” says he, “there was no such thing as true religion in the world, and that the priests of all religions are alike, I might have been as nimble a convert, and as early a defender of the royal papers, as any one of these champions. For why should not one, who believes no religion, declare for any?” In 1687 he published his “Hind and Panther; a poem.” It is divided into three parts, and is a direct defence of the Romish church, chiefly by way of dialogue between a hind, who represents the church of Rome, and a panther, who sustains the character of the church of England. These two beasts very learnedly discuss the several points controverted between the two churches; as transubstantiation, church-authority, infallibility, &c. In the preface he tells us, that this poem “was neither imposed on him, nor so much as the subject given han by any man. It was written,” says he, “durin;- the last winter and the beginning of this spring, though with long interruptions of ill health and other hindrances. About a fortnight before I had finished it, his majesty’s declaration for liberty of conscience came abroad which it 1 had so soon expected, I might have spared myself the labour of writing many things, which are contained in the third part of it. But 1 was always in some hope the church of England might have been persuaded to have taken off the penal laws and the test, which was one design of the poem when I proposed to myself the writing of it.” This poem was immediately attacked by the wits, particularly by Montague (afterwards earl of Halifax,) and Prior; who joined in writing ' The Hind and Panther transversed to the story of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse.“In 1688 he published” Britannia Rediviva;" a poem on the birth of the prince.

At the revolution in 1688, being disqualified by having turned papist, he was dismissed from the offices of poetlaureat and historiographer, which were given to his antagonist Shadwell. The earl of Dorset, however, though obliged, as lord-chamberlain, to withdraw his pension, was so generous a friend and patron to him, that he allowed him an equivalent out of his own estate. This Prior tells us, in the dedication of his poems to lord Dorset, his descendant. In 1688 also he published the “Life of St. Francis Xavier,” translated from the French of father Dominic Bouhours. In 1690 he produced his play of “Don Sebastian.” In 1693 came out, in folio, a translation of “Juvenal and Persius,” in which the first, third, sixth, tenth, and sixteenth satires of Juvenal, and Persius entire, were done by Dryden, who prefixed a long and beautiful discourse, by way of dedication to the earl of Dorset.

In 1695, while employed on his translation of Virgil, begun in 1694, he published a translation, in prose, of Dr. Fresnoy’s “Art of Painting;” the second edition of which, corrected and enlarged, was afterwards published in 1716. It is dedicated to the earl of Burlington by Richard Graham, esq. who observes in the dedication, that some liberties have been taken with this excellent translation, of which he gives the following account: “The misfortune that attended Mr. Dryden in that undertaking was, that, for want of a competent knowledge in painting, he suffered himself to be misled by an unskilful guide. Monsieur de Piles told him, that his French version was made at the request of the author himself; and altered by him, till it was wholly to his mind. This Mr. Dryden taking upon content, thought there was nothing more incumbent upon him than to put it into the best English he could, and accordingly performed his part here, as in every thing else, with accuracy. But it being manifest that the French translator has frequently mistaken the sense of his author, and very often also not set it in the most advantageous light; to do justice to M. du Fresnoy, Mr. Jervas, a very good critic in the language, as well as in the subject of the poem, has been prevailed upon to correct what he found amiss; and his amendments are every-where distinguished uith proper marks.” Dryden tells us, in the preface to the “Art of Painting,” that, when he undertook this work, he was already engaged in the translation of Virgil, “from whom,” says he, “I only borrowed two months.” This translation was published in 1697, and has passed through numerous editions in various forms. The pastorals are dedicated to lord Clifford; and Dryden tells his lordship, that “what he now offers him, is the wretched remainder of a sickly age, worn out with study, and oppressed with fortune, without other support than the constancy and patience of a Christian;” and he adds, “that he began this work in his great climacteric.” The Life of Virgil, which follows this dedication, the two prefaces to the Pastorals and Georgics, and all the arguments in prose to the whole translation, were given him by friends; the preface to the Georgics, in particular, by Addison. The translation of the Georgics is dedicated to the earl of Chesterfield; and that of the ^neis to the earl of Mulgrave. This latter dedication contains the author’s thoughts on epic poetry, particularly that of Virgil. It is generally allowed that his translation of Virgil is excellent. Pope, speaking of Dryden’s translation of some parts of Homer, says, “Had he translated the whole work, I would no more have attempted Homer after him, than Virgil; his version of whom, notwithstanding some human errors, is the most noble and spirited translation I know in any language.” In the same year he published his celebrated ode of “Alexander’s Feast,” which is commonly said to have been finished in one night; but, according to Mr. Malone, occupied him for some weeks.

He married the lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the earl of Berkshire, who died in June or July 1714, after having been for some years insane. By her he had three sons, Charles, John, and Erasmus—Henry, of all whom we shall take some notice hereafter. There are some circumstances, relating to Dryden’s funeral, recorded in Wilson’s memoirs of the life of Mr. Congreve, which have been generally credited. It is said that the day after his death. Sprat, bishop of Rochester and dean of Westminster, sent word to lady Elizabeth Howard, his widow, that he would make a present of the ground, and all the other abbey fees. Lord Halifax likewise sent to lady Elizabeth, and to Mr. Charles Dryden her son, offering to defray the expences of our poet’s funeral, and afterwards to bestow 500l. on a monument in the abbey; which generous offer from both was accepted. Accordingly, on the Sunday following, the company being assembled, the corpse was put into a velvet hearse, attended by 18 mourning coaches, When they were just ready to move, lord Jefferu-s, son of the chancellor Jefferies, with some of his rakish companions, coining by, asked whose funeral it was; and, being told it was Mr. Dry den’s, he protested, that ho should not be buried in that private manner; that he would himself, with lady Elizabeth’s leave, have the honour of his interment, and would bestow 1000l. on a monument in the abbey for him. This put a stop to the procession; and Jefferies, with several of the gentlemen who had alighted from the coaches, went up stairs to the lady Elizabeth, who was sick in bed. Jefferies repeated the purport of what he had said below; but lady Elizabeth absolutely refusing her consent, he fell on his knees, vowii.g never to rise till his request was granted. The lady, under a sudden surprise, fainted away and lord Jefferies, pretending to have gained her consent, ordered the body to be carried to Mr. RussePs, an undertaker in Cheapside, and to be left there till further orders. In the mean time, the abbey was lighted up, the ground opened, the choir attending, and the bishop waiting some hours to no purpose for the corpse. The next day, Mr. Charles Dryden waited upon lord Halifax and the bishop, and endeavoured to excuse his mother, by relating the truth; but they would not hear of any excuse. Three days after, the undertaker, receiving no orders, waited on lord Jetieries, who turned it off in a jest, pretending, that those who paid any regard to a drunken frolic deserved no better; that he remembered nothing at all of the matter; and that they might do what they pleased with the corpse. Upon this, the undertaker waited on the lady Elizabeth, who desired a day to consider what must be done. Mr. Charles Dryden immediately wrote to lord Jefferies, who returned for answer, that he knew nothing of the matter, and would be troubled no more about it. Mr. Dryden applied again to lord Halifax and the bishop of Rochester, who absolutely refused to do any thing in the affair. In this distress, Dr. Garth sent for the corpse to the college of physicians, and proposed a funeral by subscription which succeeding, about three weeks after Dryden’s decease, Garth pronounced a Latin oration over his body, which was conveyed from the college, attended by a numerous train of coaches, to Westminster-abbey. After the funeral, Mr. Charles Dryden sent lord Jefteries a challenge, which was not accepted; and, Mr. Dryden publicly declaring he would watch every opportunity to fight him, his lordship thought fit to leave the town upon it, and Mr. Dryden never could meet him after. Mr. Malone, however, has very clearly proved that the greater part of all this was a fiction by Mrs. Thomas. The fact is, that, on May 1, a magnificent funeral was projected by several persons of quality, and the body was in consequence conveyed to the College of Physicians, whence, after Dr. Garth had pronounced a Latin oration in his praise, it was, on the 13th of May, conveyed to Westminster-abbey, attended by above one hundred coaches.

Pope had a high opinion of Dryden. His verses upon his Ode on St. Caecilia’s Day are too well known to need transcribing. In a letter to Wycherley, he says, “It was certainly a great satisfaction to me, to see and converse with a man, whom in his writings I had so long known with pleasure; but it was a very high addition to it, to hear you at our very first meeting doing justice to your dead friend Mr. Dryden. I was not so happy as to know him: Frrgtlium tantum vidi. Had I been born early enough, I must have known and loved him; for I have been assured, not only by yourself, but by Mr. Congreve and sir William Trumball, that his personal qualities were as amiable as his poetical, notwithstanding the many libellous misrepresentations of them; against which, the former of these gentlemen has told me he will one day vindicate him.” But what Congreve and Pope have said of Dryden, is rather in the way of panegyric, than an exact character of him. Others have spoken of him more moderately, and yet have probably done him no injustice. Thus Felton observes, th^.t “he at once gave the best rules, and broke them in spite of his own knowledge, and the Rehearsal. His prefaces are many of them admirable upon dramatic writings: he had some peculiar notions, which he maintains with great address; but his judgment in disputed points is of less weight and value, because the inconstancy of his temper did run into his thoughts, and mixed with the conduct of his writings, as well as his life.” Voltaire styles him “a writer whose genius was too exuberant, and not accompanied with judgment enough; and tells us, that if he had writ only a tenth part of the works he left behind him, his character would have been conspicuous in every part; but his groat fault is, his having endeavoured to be universal.” Dryden has made no scruple to disparage himself, where he thought he had not excelled. Thus, in his dedication of his Aurengzebe to the earl of Mulgrave, speaking of his writing for the stage, “I never thought myself,” says he, “very fit for an employment where many of my predecessors have excelled me in all kinds; and some of my contemporaries, even in my own partial judgment, have outdone me in comedy. Some little hopes I have yet remaining (and those too, considering my abilities, may be vain), that I may make the world some part of amends for many ill plays, by an heroic poem,” of which, however, he did not execute any part. Upon the whole, Mr. Malone appears to have examined and delineated his character as a man, with most truth and precision; and as a poet it is impossible to refer to any thing equal to that masterly criticism given by Dr. Johnson in his life of our poet.

, son of the preceding, baron of Maipas, viscount L‘Isle, earl of Warwick, and duke of Northumberland, was born in 1502, and afterwards became one of the most powerful subjects this kingdom ever saw. At the time his father was beheaded, he was about eight years old; and it being known that the severity exercised in that act was rather to satisfy popular clamour than justice, his friends found no great difficulty in obtaining from the parliament, that his father’s attainder might be reversed, and himself restored in blood; for which purpose a special act was passed in 1511. After an education suitable to his quality, he was introduced at court in 15-23, where, having a line person, and great accomplishments, he soon became admired. He attended the king’s favourite, Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, in his expedition to France; and distinguished himself so much by his gallant behaviour, that he obtained the honour of knighthood. He attached himself to cardinal Wolsey, whom he accompanied in his embassy to France; and he was also in great confidence with the next prime minister, lord Cromwell. The fall of these eminent statesmen one after another, did not at all affect the favour or fortune of sir John Dudley, who had great dexterity in preserving their good graces, without embarking too far in their designs; preserving always a proper regard for the sentiments of his sovereign, which kept him in full credit at court, in the midst of many changes, as well of men as measures. In 1542, he was raised to the dignity of viscount L’Isle, and at the next festival of St. George, was elected knight of the garter. This was soon after followed by a much higher instance both of kindness and trust; for the king, considering his uncommon abilities and courage, and the occasion he had then for them, made him lord high admiral of England for life; and in this important post he did many singular services. He owed all his honours and fortune to Henry VII L and received from him, towards the close of his reign, very large grants of church lands, which, however, created him many enemies. He was also named by king Henry in his will, to be one of his sixteen executors; and received from him a legacy of 500l. which was the highest he bestowed on any of them.

After the death of Henry, which happened January 31, 1547, the earl of Hertford, afterwards duke of Somerset, who was the young king’s uncle, without having any regard to Henry’s will, procured himself to be declared protector of the kingdom, and set on foot many projects. Among the first, one was to get his brother, sir Thomas Seymour, made high-admiral, in whose favour the lord viscount L'Isle was obliged to resign; but in lieu thereof, was created earl of Warwick, and made great chamberlain of England; favours which he undoubtedly did not think a recompense for the loss he sustained; and his aversion to the protector probably may be dated from this period. Afterwards troubles came on, and insurrections broke out in several parts of the kingdom. In Devonshire the insurgents were so strong that they besieged the city of Exeter; and before they could be reduced by the lord Russel, a new rebellion broke out in Norfolk, under the command of one Robert Ket, a tanner, who was very soon at the head of ten thousand men. The earl of Warwick, whose reputation was very high in military matters, was ordered to march against the latter. He defeated them, and killed about a thousand of them: but they, collecting their scattered parties, offered him battle a second time. The earl marched directly towards them; but when he was on the point of engaging, he sent them a message, that “he was sorry to see so much courage expressed in so bad a cause; but that, notwithstanding what was past, they might depend on the king-'s pardon, on delivering up their leaders.” To which they answered, that “he was a nobleman of so much worth and generosity, that if they might have this assurance from his own mouth, they were willing to submit.” The earl accordingly went among them; upon which they threw down their arms, delivered up Robert Ket, and his brother William, with the rest of their chiefs, who were hanged, and the other rebels were dispersed.

At the end of 1549, sir Thomas Seymour having been attainted and executed for practices against his brother, and the protector now in the Tower, the earl of Warwick was again made lord high admiral, with very extensive powers. He stood at this time so high in the king’s favour, and had so firm a friendship with the rest of the lords of the council, that nothing was done but by his advice anil consent; to which therefore we most attribute the release of the duke of Somerset out of the Tower, and the restoring of him to some share of power and favour at court. The king was much pleased with this; and, in order to establish a realj and lasting friendship between these two great men, had a marriage proposed between the earl of Warwick’s eldest son, and the duke of Somerset’s daughter; which at length was brought to bear, and the 3d of June, 1550, solemnized in the king’s presence. In April 1551, the earl of Warwick was constituted earl marshal of England; soon after lord warden of the northern marches; and in October, advanced to the dignity of duke of Northumberland. A few days after, the conspiracy of the duke of Somerset breaking out, the duke, his duchess, and-several other persons, were sent prisoners to the Tower; and the king being persuaded that he had really formed a design to murder the duke of Northumberland, resolved to leave him to the law. He was tried, condemned, and, February 22, 1552, executed; the duke of Northumberland succeeding him as chancellor of Cambridge.

Such was the end of this potent nobleman, who, with the title of a duke, exercised for some time a power little inferior to that of a king; of whom it may be said, that though he had many great and good qualities, yet they were much overbalanced by his vices. He had a numerousissue, eight sons and five daughters; of whom some went before him to the grave; others survived, and lived to see a great change in their fortunes. John earl of Warwick was condemned with his father, but reprieved and released out of the Tower; and, going to his brother’s house at Penshurst, in Kent, died there two days after. Ambrose and Robert were both very remarkable men, of whom we shall give some account; Guiklford, who married lady Jane Grey in May, 1553, lost his life, as well as his unfortunate lady, upon the scaffold, the 12th of Feb. following. (See Grey). The others, Henry and Charles, died unmarried, as did the daughters Margaret, Temperance, and Cathesine but Mary was married to sir Henry Sidney, K. G. and another Catherine to Henry Hastings, earl of Huntingdon. The duke’s widow, after being turned out of doors, and encountering many hardships, obtained some relief from the court, on which she subsisted until her death, at Chelsea, Jan. 22, 1555.

, son of John duke of Northumberland, afterwards baron L‘Isle, and earl of Warwick, was born about 1530, and carefully educated in his father’s family. He attended his father into Norfolk against the rebels in 1549, and, for his distinguished courage, obtained, as is probable, the honour of knighthood. He was always very high in king Edward’s favour: afterwards, being concerned in the cause of lady Jane, he was attainted, received sentence of death, and remained a prisoner till Oct. the 18th, 1554; when he was discharged, and pardoned for life. In 1557, in company with both his brothers, Robert and Henry, he engaged in an expedition to the Low Countries, and joined the Spanish army that lay then before St. Q.uintin’s. He had his share in the famous victory over the French, who came to the relief of that place; but had the misfortune to lose there his youngest brother Henry, who was a person of great hopes, and had been a singular favourite with king Edward. This matter was so represented to queen Mary, that, in consideration oftheir faithful services, she restored the whole family in blood and accordingly an act passed this year for that purpose. On the accession of queen Elizabeth, he became immediately one of the most distinguished persons at her court; and was called, as in the days of her brother, lord Ambrose Dudley. He was afterwards created first baron L’Isle, and then earl of Warwick. He was advanced to several high places, and distinguished by numerous honours; and we find him in all the great and public services during this active and busy reign; but, what is greatly to his credit, never in any of the intrigues with which it was blemished: for he was a man of great sweetness of temper, and of an unexceptionable character; so that he was beloved by all parties, and hated by none. In the last years of his life he endured great pain and misery from a wound received in his leg, when he defended New Haven against the French in 1562; and this bringing him very low, he at last submitted to an amputation, of which he died in Feb. 1589. He was thrice married, but had no issue. He was generally called “The good earl of Warwick.”

, baron of Denbigh, and earl of Leicester, son to John duke of Northumberland, and brother to Ambrose earl of Warwick, before mentioned, was born about 1532, and coming early into the service and favour of king Edward, was knighted in his youth. June 1550 he espoused Amy, daughter of sir John Robsart, at Sheen in Surrey, the king honouring their nuptials with his presence; and was immediately advanced to considerable offices at court. In the first year of Mary he fell into the same misfortunes with the rest of his family; was imprisoned, tried, and condemned; but pardoned for life, and set at liberty in October 1554. He was afterwards restored in blood, as we have observed in the former article. On the accession of Elizabeth, he was immediately entertained at court as a principal favourite: he was made master of the horse, installed knight of the garter, and sworn of the privy-council in a very short time. He obtained moreover prodigious grants, one after another, from the crown: and all things gave way to his ambition, influence, and policy. In his attendance upon the queen to Cambridge, the highest reverence was paid him: he was lodged in Trinity college, consulted in all things, requests made to the queen through him; and, on August 10, 1564, he on his knees entreated the queen to speak to the iruversity in Latin, which she accordingly did, and was probably prepared to grant the request. At court, however, Thomas earl of Sussex shewed himself averse to his counsels, and strongly promoted the overture of a marriage between the queen and the archduke Charles of Austria; as much more worthy of such a princess than any subject of her own, let his qualities be what they would. This was resented by Dudley, who insinuated that foreign alliances were always fatal; that her sister Mary never knew an easy minute after her marriage with Philip; that her majesty ought to consider, she was herself descended of such a marriage as by those lofty notions was decried: so that she could not contemn an alliance with the nobility of England, but must at the same time reflect on her father’s choice, and her mother’s family. This dispute occasioned a violent rupture between the two lords, which the queen took into her hands, and composed; but without the least diminution of Dudley’s ascendancy, who still continued to solicit and obtain new grants and offices for himself and his dependants, who were so numerous, and made so great a figure, that he was styled by the common people “The Heart of the Court.”

To give some colour to these marks of royal indulgence, the queen proposed him as a suitor to Mary queen of Scots; promising to that princess all the advantages she could expect or desire, either for herself or her subjects, in case she consented to the match. The sincerity of this was suspected at the time, when the deepest politicians believed that, if the queen of Scotland had complied, it would have served only to countenance the preferring him to his sovereign’s bed. The queen of Scots rejected the proposal in a manner that, some have thought, proved as fatal to her as it had done to his own lady, who was supposed to be sacrificed to his ambition of marrying a queen. The death of this unfortunate person happened September 8, 1560, at a very unlucky juncture for his reputation; because the world at that time conceived it might be much for his conveniency to be without a wife, this island having then two queens, young, and without husbands. The manner too of this poor lady’s death, which, Camden says, was by a fall from a high place, filled the world with the rumour of a lamentable tragedy . In Sept. 1564, the queen created him baron of Denbigh,­and, the day after, earl of Leicester, with great pomp and ceremony; and, before the close of the year, he was made chancellor of Oxford, as he had been some time before high-steward of Cambridge. His great influence in the court of England was not only known at home, but abroad, which induced the French king, Charles IX. to send him the order of St. Michael, then the most honourable in France; and he was installed with great solemnity in 1565. About 1572 it is supposed that the earl married Douglas, baroness dowager of Sheffield: which, however, was managed with such privacy, that it did not come to the queen’s ears, though a great deal of secret history was published, even in those days, concerning the adventures of this unfortunate lady, whom, though the earl had actually married her, and there were legal proofs of it, yet he never would own as his wife. The earl, in order to stifle this affair, proposed every thing he could think of to lady Douglas Sheffield, to make her desist from her pretensions but, finding her obstinate, and resolved not to comply with his proposals, he attempted to take her off by poison “For it is certain,” says Dugdale, “that she had some ill potions given her, so that, with the loss of her hair and nails, she hardly escaped death.” It is, however, beyond all doubt, that the earl had by her a son (sir Robert Dudley, of whom we shall speak hereafter, and to whom, by the name of his Base Son, he left the bulk of his fortune), and also a daughter.

In July 1575, as the queen was upon her progress, she made the earl a visit at his castle of Kenilworth in Warwickshire. This manor and castle had formerly belonged to the crown; but lord Leicester having obtained it from the queen, spared no expence in enlarging and adorning it: and Dugdale says, that he laid out no less than 60,000l. upon it. Here, due preparation being made, he entertained the queen and her court for seventeen days with a magnificence, of which, being characteristic of the times, the following account from Dugdale may be not unamusing. That historian tells us (Antiquities of Warwickshire, p. 249), that the queen at her entrance was surprised with the sight of a floating island on the large pool there, bright blazing with torches; on which were clad in silks the lady of the lake, and two nymphs waiting on her, who made a speech to the queen in metre, of the antiquity and owners of that castle, which was closed with cornets and other music. Within the base-court was erected a stately bridge, twenty feet wide, and seventy feet long, over which the queen was to pass: and on each side stood columns, with presents upon them to her majesty from the gods. Sylvanus offered a cage of wild fowl, and Pomona divers sorts of fruits Ceres gave corn, and Bacchus wine Neptune presented sea- fish Mars the hahiliments of war; and Phcebus all kinds of musical instruments. During her stay, variety of shows and sports were daily exhibited. In the chace, there was a savage man with satyrs; there were bear-baiting and fire-works, Italian tumblers, and a country bride-ale, running at the quintin, and morrice-dancing. And, that nothing might be wanting which those parts could afford, the Coventry men came and acted the ancient play, called Hock’s Thursday, representing the destruction of the Danes in the reign of king Ethelred; which pleased the queen so much, that she gave them a brace of bucks, and five marks in money, to bear the charges of a feast. There were, besides, on the pool, a triton riding on a mermaid eighteen feet long, as also Anon on a dolphin, with excellent music. The expences and costs of these entertainments may be guessed at by the quantity of beer then drunk, which amounted to 320 hogsheads of the ordinary sort: and, for the greater honour and grace thereof, sir Thomas Cecil, son to the treasurer Burleigh, and three more gentlemen, were then knighted; and, the next ensuing year, the earl obtained a grant of the queen fora weekly market at Kenihvorth, with a fair yearly on Midsummer-day. So far Dugdale. There is also in. Strype’s Annals, p. 341, a long and circumstantial narrative of all that passed at this royal visit, by one who was present; which strongly illustrates the temper of the queen, and the manners of those times.

In 1576 happened the death of Walter, earl of Essex, which drew upon lord Leicester many suspicions, after his marriage with the countess of Essex took place, which, however, was not until two years after. In 1578, when the duke of Anjou pressed the match that had been proposed between himself and the queen, his agent, believing lord Leicester to be the greatest bar to the duke’s pretensions, informed the queen of his marriage with lady Essex; upon which her majesty was so enraged, that, as Camden relates, she commanded him not to stir from the castle of Greenwich, and would have committed him to the Tower, if she had not been dissuaded from it by the earl of Sussex. Lord Leicester being now in the very height of power and influence, many attempts were made upon his character, in order to take him down: and in 1584 came out a most virulent book against him, commonly called “Leicester’s Commonwealth,” the purpose of which was to shew, that the English constitution was subverted, and a new form imperceptibly introduced, to which no name could be so properly given, as that of a “Leicestrian Commonwealth.” In proof of this, the earl was represented as an atheist in point of religion, a secret traitor to the queen, an oppressor of her people 1 an inveterate enemy to the nobility, a complete monster with regard to ambition, cruelty, and Just; and not only so, but as having thrown all offices of trust into the hands of his creatures, and usurped all the power of the kingdom. The queen, however, did not fail to countenance and protect her favourite; and to remove as much as possible the impression this performance made upon the vulgar, caused letters to be issued from the privycouncil, in which all the facts contained therein were declared to he absolutely false, not only to the knowledge of those who signed them, but also of the queen herself. Nevertheless, this book was universally read, and the contents of it generally received for true: and the great secrecy with which it was written, printed, and published, induced a suspicion, that some very able heads were concerned either in drawing it up, or at least in furnishing the materials. It is not well known what the original title of it was, but supposed to be “A Dialogue between a scholar, a gentleman, and a lawyer;” though it was afterwards called “Leicester’s Commonwealth.” It has been several times reprinted, particularly in 1600, 8vo; in 1631, 8vo, the running-title being “A letter of state to a scholar of Cambridge;” in 1641, 4to, and 8vo, with the addition of “Leicester’s Ghost;” and again in 1706, 8vo, under the title of “Secret Memoirs of Robert Dudley earl of Leicester,” with a preface by Dr. Drake, (see Drake) who pretended it to be printed from an old manuscript. The design of reprinting it in 1641, was, to give a bad impression of the government of Charles I.; and the same was supposed to be the design of Dr. Drake in his publication. In Dec. 1585, lord Leicester embarked for the protestant Low Countries, whither he arrived in quality of governor. At this time the affairs of those countries were in a perplexed situation; and the States thought that nothing could contribute so much to their recovery, as prevailing upon queen Elizabeth to send over some person of great distinction, whom they might set at the head of their concerns civil and military: which proposition, says Camden, so much flattered the ambition of this potent earl, that he willingly consented to pass the seas upon this occasion, as being well assured of most ample powers. Before his departure, the queen admonished him to have a special regard to her honour, and to attempt nothing inconsistent with the great employment to which he was advanced: yet, she was so displeased with some proceedings of his and the States, that the year after she sent over very severe letters to them, which drew explanations from the former, and deep submissions from the latter. The purport of the queen’s letter was, to reprimand the States “for having conferred the absolute government of the confederate provinces upon Leicester, her subject, though she had refused it herself;” and Leicester, for having presumed to take it upon him. He returned to England Nov. 1585; and, notwithstanding what was past, was well received by the queen. What contributed to make her majesty forget his offence in the Low Countries, was the pleasure of having him near her, at a time when she very much wanted his counsel: for now the affair of Mary queen of Scots was upon the carpet, and the point was, how to have her taken off with the least discredit to the queen. The earl according to report, which we could wish to be able to contradict, thought it best to have her poisoned; but that scheme was not found practicable, so that they were obliged to have recourse to violence. The earl set out for the Low Countries in June 1587; but, great discontents arising on all sides, he was recalled in November. Camden relates, that on his return, finding an accusation preparing against him for mal-administration there, and that he w^as summoned to appear before the council, he privately implored the queen’s protection, and besought her “not to receive him with disgrace upon his return, whom at his first departure she had sent out with honour; nor bring down alive to the grave, whom her former goodness had raised from the dust.” Which expressions of humility and sorrow wrought so far upon her, that he was admitted into her former grace and favour.

In 1588, when the nation was alarmed with the apprehensions of the Spanish armada, lord Leicester was made lieutenant-general, under the queen, of the army assembled at Tilbury. This army the queen went to review in person, and there made this short and memorable speech “I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already for your forwardness you have deserved rewards and crowns: and we do assure you, on the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the mean time my lieutenant-general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject; not doubting but, by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.” In such high favour did this noble personage stand to the last: for he died this year, Sept. 4, at his house at Cornbury in Oxfordshire, while he was upon the road to Kenilworth. His corpse was removed to Warwick, and buried there in a magnificent manner. He is said to have inherited the parts of his father. His ambition was great, but his abilities seem to have been greater. He was a finished courtier in every respect; and managed his affairs so nicely, that his influence and power became almost incredible. He differed with archbishop Grindal, who, though much in confidence of the queen, was by him brought first into discredit with her, and then into disgrace; nay, to such a degree was this persecution carried, that the poor prelate desired to lay down his archiepiscopal dignity, and actually caused the instrument of his resignation to be drawn: but his enemies, believing he was near his end, did not press the perfecting of it, and so he died, with his mitre on his head, of a broken heart. This shews the power the earl had in the church, and how little able the first subject of the queen was to bear up against his displeasure, though conceived upon none of the justest motives .

was son of Robert earl of Leicester by the lady Douglas Sheffield, and born at Sheen in Surrey, in 1573. His birth, it is said, was carefully concealed, as well to prevent the queen’s knowledge of the earl’s engagements with his mother, as to hide it from the countess of Essex, to whom he was then contracted, if not married; but this latter assertion is surely doubtful, as the countess of Essex was not a widow until 1576 (See Devereux, Walter.) Sir Robert, however, was considered and treated as his lawful son till the earl’s marriage with the lady Essex, which was about 1578: and then he was declared to be only his natural issue by lady Douglas. Out of her hands the earl was very desirous to get him, in order to put him under the care of sir Edward Horsey, governor of the Isle of Wight; which some have imagined to have been, not with any view to the child’s disadvantage, for he always loved him tenderly, but with a thought of bringing him upon the stage at some proper time, as his natural son by another lady. He was not able to get him for some time: but at last effecting it, he sent him to school at Offingham in Sussex, in 1583, and four years after to Christ Church in Oxford. In 1588 his father died, and left him, after the decease of his uncle Ambrose, his castle of Kenilworth, the lordships of Denbigh and Chirk, and the bulk of his estate, which before he was of age he in a great measure enjoyed, notwithstanding the enmity borne him by the countess dowager of Leicester. He was now reckoned one of the finest gentlemen in England, in his person tall, well-­shaped, having a fresh and fine complexion, but red-haired; learned beyond his age, more especially in the mathematics; and of parts equal if not superior to any of his family. Add to all this, that he was very expert in his exercises, and particularly in riding the great horse, in which he was allowed to excel any man of his time.

His genius prompting him to great exploits, and having a particular turn to navigation and discoveries, he projected a voyage into the South-seas, in hopes of acquiring the same fame thereby, as his friend the famous Thomas Cavendish of Trimley, esq. whose sister he had married: but, after much pains taken, and money spent, the government thought it not safe for him to proceed. Afterwards, however, he performed a voyage, setting out Nov. 1594, and returning May 1595; an account of which, written by himseh, is published in Hackluyt’s collection of voyages. At the end of Elizabeth’s reign, having buried his wife, he married Alice, the daughter of sir Thomas Leigh. He then began to entertain hopes of reviving the honours of his family; and in 1605 commenced a suit, with a view of proving the legitimacy of his birth. But no sooner had the countess dowager notice of this, than she procured au information to be filed against him and some others for a conspiracy; which was such a blow to all his hopes, that, obtaining a licence to travel for three years, which was easily granted him, he quitted the kingdom: leaving behind him lady Alice Dudley his wife, and four daughters. He had not been long abroad, before he was commanded back, for assuming in foreign countries the title of earl of Warwick; but refusing to obey that summons, his estate was seized, and vested in the crown, during his natural life, upon the statute of fugitives. The place which sir Robert Dudley chose for his retreat abroad, was Florence; where he was very kindly received by Cosmo II. great duke of Tuscany; and, in process of time, made great chamberlain to his serene highness’s consort, the archduchess Magdalen of Austria, sister to the emperor Ferdinand II. with whom he was a great favourite. He discovered in that court those great abilities for which he had been so much admired in England: he contrived several methods of improving shipping, introduced new manufactures, excited the merchants to extend their foreign commerce; and, by other services of still greater importance, obtained so high a reputation, that, at the desire of the archduchess, the emperor, by letters-patent dated at Vienna March 9, 1620, created him a duke of the holy Roman empire. Upon this, he assumed his grandfather’s title of Northumberland; and, ten years after, got himself enrolled by pope Urban VIII. among the Roman nobility. Under the reign of the grand duke Ferdinand II. he became still more famous, on account of that great project which he formed, of draining a vast tract of morass between Pisa and the sea: for by this he raised Leghorn, from a mean and pitiful place into a large and beautiful town; and having engaged his serene highness to declare it a free port, he, by his influence, drew many English merchants to settle and set up houses there. In consideration of his services, and for the support of his dignity, the grand duke bestowed upon him a handsome pension; which, however, went but a little way in his expences: for he affected magnificence in all things, built a noble palace for himself and his family at Florence, and much adorned the castle of Carbello, three miles from that capital, which the grand duke gave him for a country retreat, and where he died Sept. 1639.

Sir Robert Dudley was not only admired by princes, but also by the learned; among whom he held a very high rank, as well on account of his skill in philosophy, chemistry, and physic, as his perfect acquaintance with all the branches of the mathematics, and the means of applying them for the service and benefit of mankind. He wrote several things. We have mentioned the account of his voyage. His principal work is, “Del arcano del mare,” &c. Fiorenze, 1630, 1646, fol. There is a copy in the British Museum, dated 1661, and called the second edition. This work has been always so scarce, as seldom to have found a place even in the catalogues that have been published of rare books. It is full of schemes, charts, plans, and other marks of its author’s mathematical learning; but is chiefly valuable for the projects contained therein, for the improvement of navigation and the extending of commerce. Wood tells us, that he wrote also a medical treatise, entitled “Catholicon,” which was well esteemed by the faculty. There is still another piece, the title of which, as it stands in Rushworth’s Collections, runs thus: “A proposition for his majesty’s service, to bridle the impertinency of parliaments. Afterwards questioned in the Star-chamber.” After he had lived some time in exile, he still cherished hopes of returning to England: to facilitate which, and to ingratiate himself with king James, he drew up “a proposition, as he calls it, in two parts: the one to secure the state, and to bridle the impertinency of parliaments; the other, to increase his majesty’s revenue much more than it is.” This scheme, falling into the hands of some persons of great distinction, and being some years after by them made public, was considered as of so pernicious a nature, as to occasion their imprisonment: but they were released upon the discovery of the true author. (See Cotton, Sir Robert). It was written about 1613, and sent to king James, to teach him how most effectually to enslave his subjects: for, in that light, it is certainly as singular and as dangerous a paper as ever fell from the pen of man. It was turned to the prejudice of James I. and Charles I.; for though neither they, nor their ministers, made use of it, or intended to make use of it, yet occasion was taken from thence to excite the people to a hatred of statesmen who were capable of contriving such destructive projects. Lastly, he was the author of a famous powder, called “Pulvis comitis Warwicensis,” or the earl of Warwick’s powder, which is thus made: “Take of scammony, prepared with the fumes of sulphur, two ounces; of diaphoretic antimony, an ounce; of the crystals of tartar, half an ounce; mix them all together into a powder.”

When he went abroad, he left his wife and four daughters at home, and prevailed upon a young lady, at that time esteemed one of the finest women in England, to bear him company in the habit of a page. This lady was Mrs. Elizabeth Southwell, the daughter of sir Robert Southwell, of Woodrising in Norfolk whom he afterwards married bv virtue of a dispensation from the pope. In excuse for this gross immorality, we are told that the lady’s conduct was afterwards without exception; that she lived in honour and esteem, and had all the respect paid her that her title of a duchess could demand, and that sir Robert loved her most tenderly to the last, and caused a noble monument to be erected to her memory in the church of St. Pancrace at Florence, where her body lies buried, and he by her. He had by this lady a son Charles, who assumed the title of earl of Warwick, and four daughters, all honourably married in that country. It is very probable, that this marriage might prove a great bar to his return to England; and might be also a motive to the passing so extraordinary a law as that was, by which lady Alice Dudley was enabled to dispose of her jointure during his life.

, an eminent English antiquary and historian, was the only son of John Dngdale, of Shustoke, near Coleshill, in Warwickshire, gent, and born there Sept. 12, 1605. He was placed at the freeschool in Coventry, where he continued till he was fifteen; and then returning home to his father, who had been edueatrd in St. John’s college, Oxford, and had applied himself particularly to civil law and history, was instructed by him in those branches of literature. At the desire of his father, he married, March 1623, a daughter of Mr. Huntbach, of Seawall, in Staffordshire, and boarded with his wife’s father till the death of his own, which happened July 1624 but soon after went and kept house at Fillongley, in Warwickshire, where he had an estate formerly purchased by his father. In 1625 he bought the manor of Blythe, in Shvstoke, above-mentioned; and the year following, selling his estate at Fillongley, he came and resided at Blythehall. His natimil inclination leading him to the study of antiquities, he soon became acquainted with all the noted antiquaries with Burton particularly, whose “Description of Leicestershire” he had read, and who lived but eight miles from him, at Lindley, in that county. In 1638 he went to London, and was introduced to sir Christopher Hatton, and to sir Henry Spelman by whose interest he was created a pursuivant at arms extraordinary, by the name of Blanch Lyon, having obtained the king’s warrant for that purpose. Afterwards he was made RougeCroix-pursuivant in ordinary, by virtue of the king’s letters patent, dated March 18, 1640; by which means having a lodging in the Heralds’ office, and convenient opportunities, he spent that and part of the year following, in augmenting his collections out of the records in the Tower and other places. In 1641, through sir Christopher Hatton’s encouragement, he employed himself in raking exact draughts of all the monuments in Westminster-abbey, St. Paul’s cathedral, and in many other cathedral and parochial churches of England particularly those at Peterborough, Ely, Norwich, Lincoln, Newarkupon-Trent, Beverley, Southwell, York, Chester, Lichfield, Tamworth, Warwick, &c. The draughts were taken by Mr. Sedgwick, a skilful arms-painter, then servant to sir Christopher Hatton; but the inscriptions were probably copied by Dugdale. They were deposited in sir Christopher’s library, to the end that the memory of them might be preserved from the destruction that then appeared imminent, for future and better times. June 1642 he was ordered by the king to repair to York; and in July was commanded to attend the earl of Northampton, who was marching into Worcestershire, and the places adjacent, in order to oppose the forces raised by lord Brook for the service of the parliament He waited upon the king at the battle of Edge-hill, and afterwards at Oxford, where he continued with his majesty till the surrender of that garrison to the parliament June 22, 1646. He was created M. A. October 25, 1642, and April 16, 1644, Chester-heraid. During his long residence at Oxford, he applied himself to the search of such antiquities, in the Bodleian and other libraries, as he thought might conduce towards the furtherance of the “Monp.sticon,” then designed by Roger Dodsworth and himself; as also whatever might relate to the history of the ancient nobility of this realm, of which he made much use in his Baronage.

In 1666, he published in folio, “Origines Juridiciales; or, historical memoirs of the English laws, courts of justice, forms of trial, punishment in cases criminal, law-writers, law-books, grants and settlements of estates, degree of serjeants, inns of court and chancery, &c.” This book is adorned with the heads of sir John Clench, sir Edward Coke, sir Randolph Crew, bir Robert Heath, Edward earl of Clarendon-, to whom it is dedicated, sir Orlando Bridgman, sir John Vaughan, and Mr. Selden. There are also plates of the arms in the windows of the Temple-hall, and other inns of court. A second edition was published in 1671, and a third in 1680. Nicolson recommends this book as a proper introduction to the history of the laws of this kingdom. His next work was, “The Baronage of England,” of which the first volume appeared in 1675, and the second and third in 1676, folio. Though the collecting of materials for this work cost him, as he tells us, a great part of thirty years’ labour, yet there are many faults in it; so many, that the gentlemen at the Heralds’ office said they could not depend entirely upon its authority. Wood informs us, that Dugdale sent to him copies of all the volumes of this work, with an earnest desire that he would peruse, correct, and add to them, what he could obtain from records and other authorities; whereupon, spending a whole long vacation upon it, he drew up at least sixteen sheets of corrections, but more additions; which being sent to the author, he remitted a good part of them into the margin of a copy of his Baronage on large paper (which copy, we believe, still exists). With all its faults, however, the work was so acceptable, that the year following its publication, there were very few copies unsold.

His wife died Dec. 18, 1681, aged seventy-five, after they had been married fifty-nine years. He had several children by her, sons and daughters. One of his daughters was married to Elias Ashmole, esq. All his sons died young, except John, who was created M. A. at Oxford, in 1661, and was at that time chief gentleman of the chamber to Edward earl of Clarendon, lord chancellor of England. In Oct. 1675, he was appointed Windsor-herald, upon the resignation of his brother-in-law, Elias Ashmole, esq and Norroy king of arms in March 1686, about which time he was also knighted by James II. He published “A Catalogue of the Nobility of England, &c.” printed at London, a large broadside, in 1685, and again, with additions, in 1690. This sir John Dugdale died in 1700, leaving two sons, William and John, who both died single, the latter in 1749; and four daughters, the third of whom, Jane, married Richard Geast, esq. by whom she had a son named Richard, who took the name and arms of Dugdale only. This gentleman died in 1806, leaving a son, Dugdale Stratford Dugdale, esq. the present member of parliament for the county of Warwick.

Captain Duncan quitted the Monarch not long after his arrival in England, and did not receive any other commission until the beginning of 1782, when he was appointed to the Blenheim of 90 guns, a ship newly come out of dock, after having undergone a complete repair. He continued in the same command during near the whole of the remainder of the war, constantly employed with the channel fleet, commanded, during the greater part of the time, by the late earl Howe. Having accompanied his lordship in the month of September to Gibraltar, he was stationed to lead the larboard division of the centre, or commander-in-chief 's squadron, and was very distinguish* edly engaged in the encounter with the combined fleets of France and Spain, which took place off" the entrance of the Straits. The fleet of the enemy was more than one fourth superior to that of Britain; and yet, had not the former enjoyed the advantage of the weather-gage, it was >vas very evident from the event of the skirmish which did take place, that if the encounter had been more serious, the victory would, in all probability, have been completely decisive against them. Soon after the fleet arrived in England, capt. Duncan removed into the Foudroyant, of 84 guns, one of the most favourite ships of the British navy at that time, which had, during the whole preceding part of the war, been commanded by sir John Jervis, now earl St. Vincent. On the peace, which took place in the ensuing spring, he removed into the Edgar of 74 guns, one of the guard-ships stationed at Portsmouth, and continued, as is customary in time of peace, in that command during the three succeeding years; and this was the last commission he ever held as a private captain. On Sept. 14, 1789, he was promoted to be rear-admiral of the blue, and to the same rank in the white squadron on Sept. 22, 1790. He was raised to be vice-admiral of the blue, Feb. 1, 1793; of the white, April 12, 1794; to be admiral of the blue, June 1, 1795; and lastly, admiral of the white, Feb. 14, 1799. During all these periods, except the two last, singular as it may appear, the high merit of admiral Duncan continued either unknown, or unregarded. Frequently did he solicit a command, and as often did his request pass uncomplied with. It has even been reported, we know not on what foundation, that this brave man had it once in contemplation to retire altogether from the service, on a very honourable civil appointment connected with the navy.

1753, he commenced an acquaintance, which soon ripened into a friendship, with John earl of Orrery (soon after earl of Corke): this connexion was productive of much pleasure and emolument to them both, and in some degree also to the public, his lordship’s “Letters to Mr. Duncombe from Italy” having since appeared in print. In

As he had many leisure hours, he passed much time in literary employments, though many were very cheeriully given to society. Among his published productions maybe mentioned, the “Feminead,” 1754, which passed through two editions, and has been reprinted both in tlu Poetical Calendar, and in Pearch’s Collection. Four Odes appeared in 1753, viz. “The Prophecy of Neptune;” “On the Death of the Prince of Wales;” “*Ode presented to the Duke of Newcastle” and one “*To the hon. James Yorke,” first bishop of St. David’s, and afterwards bishop of Ely. Between 1753 and 1756 came out separatelv, “*An Evening Contemplation in a College,” being a parody on Gray’s Elegy“reprinted in” The Repository.“Other detached poems of Mr. Duncombe’s are,” *Verses to the Author of Clarissa,“published in that work;” *Verses on the Campaign, 1759,“(addressed to Sylvanus Urban, and originally printed in the volume for that year);” *To Colonel Clive, on his arrival in England;“” *On the Loss of the Ramilies, Captain Taylor, 1760;“” Surrey Triumphant, or the Kentish Men’s Defeat, 1773,“4to; a parody on Chevy ­Chace; which, for its genuine strokes of humour, elegant poetry, and happy imitation, acquired the author much applause. This has been translated into” Nichols’s Select Collection of Poems, 1782,“where may be found, also, a poem of his on Stocks House; a translation of an elegant epitaph, by bishop Lowth; and an elegiac *' Epitaph at the Grave of Mr. Highmore.” Those pieces marked with a starare in the Poetical Calendar, vol. VII. together with a Prologue spoken at the Charter-house, 1752 a Poem on Mr. Garrick and translations from Voltaire. And in vol. X. “The Middlesex Garden” “Kensington Gardens” “Farevvel to Hope” “On a Lady’s sending the Author a Ribbon for his Watch” “On Captain Cornwallis’s Monument” “Prologue to Amalasont” “Epigrams.” He published three Sermons; one “On the Thanksgiving, Nov. 29, 1759,” preached at St. Anne’s, Westminster, and published at the request of the pa- 4 rishioners another, “preached at the Consecration of the parish-church of St. Andrew, Canterbury,” July 4, 1774; and one, “On a General Fast, Feb. 27, 1778,” also preached at St. Andrew’s, Canterbury; and so well approved, that by the particular desire of the parish, it appeared in print under the title of “The Civil War between the Israelites and Benjamites illustrated and applied.” He published with his father, in 1766, a translation of Horace, in 8vo; and in 1767, another edition, with many enlargements and corrections, in 4 vols. 12mo. He trans* lated the “Huetiana,” in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1771. In 1774, he translated Batteley’s “Antiquitates Rutupinte.” He wrote “The Historical Account of Dr. Dodd’s Life,” 1777*, 8vo; and was the translator of“Sherlock’s Letters of an English Traveller,” 1st edition, 4to. The 2d edition, 8vo, was translated by Mr. Sherlock himself. In 1778 he published *' An Elegy written in Canterbury Cathedral;“and in 1784,” Select Works of the Emperor Julian,“2 vols. 8vo. In 1784 he was principally the author of” The History and Antiquities of Keculver and Heme,“which forms the eighteenth number of the Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica to which work he also contributed in 1785, the thirtieth number, containing,” The History and Antiquities of the Three Archiepiscopal Hospitals in and near Canterbury,“which he dedicated to archbishop Moore. He was the editor of several other works; all of which were elucidated by his critical knowledge and explanatory notes; viz. 1.” Letters from several eminent persons, deceased, including the correspondence of John Hughes, esq. and several of his friends; published from the originals, with notes. Of these there have been two editions; the last in 3 vols. 2. “Letters from Italy; by the late right-hon. John earl of Corke and Orrery, with notes,” 1773. These have gone through two editions. 3. “Letters from the late archbishop Herring, to William Buncombe, esq. deceased; from 1728 to 1757, with notes, and an appendix,” 1777. He was also the author of a Letter signed “Rusncus,” in “The World,” vol. I. No. 36 of several Letters in “The Connoisseur,” being the “Gentleman of Cambridge, A. B.” mentioned in the last number. And in the Gentleman’s Magazine, his communications in biography, poetry, and criticism, during the last twenty years of his life, were frequent and valuable. Many of them are without a name; but his miscellaneous contributions were usually distinguished by the signature of Crito.

While a barrister, he shone equally as a powerful pleader and an ingenious reasoner. To the quickest apprehension he joined an uncommon solidity of judgment; and embracing in his mind all the possible arguments which were applicable to his cause, he could even in his unpremeditated pleadings discover at once and instantly attach himself to some strong principle of law on which he built the whole of his reasoning. His eloquence, though as various as the nature of the case required, was constantly subservient to his judgment; and though master of all the powers of expression, he rarely indulged himself in what is properly termed declamation. A fine specimen of his argumentative powers is to be found in his defence of Carnegie of Finhaven. This gentleman was in 1728, tried before the court of justiciary in Scotland, for the murder of Charles earl of Strathmore. At a meeting in the country, where the company had drank to intoxication, Carnegie, having received the most abusive language from Lyon of Bridgeton, drew his sword, and staggering forward to make a pass at this Lyon, killed the earl of Strathmore, a person for whom he had the highest regard and esteem, and who unfortunately came between him and his antagonist, apparently in the view of separating them. In this memorable trial, Mr. Dundas had not only the merit of saving the life of the prisoner, but of establishing a point of the utmost consequence to the security of life and liberty, the power of a jury, which at that time was questioned in Scotland, of returning a general verdict on the guilt or innocence of the person accused.

Mr. Dundas continued in his several offices (with the addition of keeper of the privy seal in Scotland, conferred upon him in 1800,) until 1801, when he resigned along with Mr. Pitt, and in 1802 was elevated to the peerage by the title of Viscount Melville, of Melville in the county of Edinburgh, and Baron Dunira in the county of Perth. On Mr. Pitt’s return to office in May 1804, lord Melville succeeded lord St. Vincent as first lord of the admiralty, and continued so until the memorable occurrence of his impeachment. He had, while treasurer of the navy, rendered jnuch essential advantage to the service, and had been instrumental in promoting the comfort of the seamen by the bills he introduced for enabling them, during their absence, to allot certain portions of their pay to their wives and near relatives; and he also brought forward a bill for regulating the office of treasurer of the navy, and preventing an improper use being made of the money passing through his hands, and directing the same from time to time to be paid into the Bank; but by the tenth report of the commissioners for naval inquiry, instituted under the auspices of the earl ofSt. Vincent, it appeared that large sums of the public money in the hands of the treasurer had been employed directly contrary to the act. The matter was taken up very warmly by the house of commons, and after keen debates, certain resolutions moved by Mr. Whi thread for an impeachment against the noble lord, were carried on the 8th of April, 1805. On casting up the votes on the division, the numbers were found equal, 216 for, and 216 against; but the motion was carried by the casting vote of the right hon. Charles Abbot, the speaker. On the 10th, lord Melville resigned his office of first lord of the admiralty, and on the 6th of May he was struck from the list of privy counsellors by his majesty. On the 26th of June, Mr. Whitbread appeared at the bar of the house of lords, accompanied by several other members, and solemnly impeached lord Melville of high crimes and misdemeanours; and on the 9th of July presented at the bar of the house of lords the articles of impeachment. The trial afterwards proceeded in Westminster-hall, and in the end lord Melville was acquitted of all the articles hy his peers. That lord Melville acted contrary to his own law, in its letter, there can be no doubt; but on the other hand it does not appear that he was actuated by motives of personal corruption, or, in fact, that he enjoyed any peculiar advantage from the misapplication of the monies. Those under him, and whom his prosecutors, the better to get at him, secured by a bill of indemnity, employed the public money to their own use and emolument; nor does it appear that lord Melville ever had the use of any part of it, except one or two comparatively small sums for a short period. The impropriety of his conduct, therefore, was not personally offending against the act, but suffering it to be done by the paymaster and others under him; and, after all, no money was lost to the public by the malversations.

Lord Melville was afterwards restored to his seat in the privy council, but did not return to office. Sometimes he spoke in the house of lords, but passed the greatest part of his time in Scotland, where he died suddenly, at the house of his nephew, the right honourable Robert Dundas, lord chief baron of the exchequer in Scotland, May 27, 1811. His lordship married first, Elizabeth, daughter of David Rennie, esq. of Melville Castle by whom he had a son (the present lord Melville) and three daughters; and secondly, in 1793, he married lady Jane Hope, sister to James earl of Hopetown, by whom he had no issue.

, D. D. a learned Greek scholar, was born in 1606, in Jesus college, Cambridge, of which college his father was master from 1590 to 1617; and, after a classical education at Westminster, was admitted in 1622, of Trinity college in that university, under the tuition of Dr. Robert Hitch, afterwards dean of York, to whom he gratefully addressed a Latin poem in his “Sylvse,” where he calls him “tutorem suurn colendissimum.” He regularly became a fellow of his college; and his knowledge of Greek was so extensive, that he was appointed regius professor of that language at Cambridge in 1632-.' He was collated to the prebend of Langford Ecclesia, in the cathedral of Lincoln, Aug. 14, 1641; and to the archdeaconry of Stow in that diocese, Sept. 13 of that year, being then B. D.; and on the 13th of November in the same year exchanged his prebend for that of Leighton Buzzard in the same cathedral; but in 1656 he was ejected from his professorship at Cambridge, for refusing the engagement. On the 20th of May, 1660, on the eve of the restoration, he preached a sermon at St. Paul’s cathedral; and his loyalty on that occasion was rewarded by an appointment to the office of chaplain in ordinary to Charles II. He was also restored to the professorship; which he resigned the same year in favour of Dr. Barrow; and on the 5th of September following he was, by royal mandate, with many other learned divines, created D. D. He was installed dean of Peterborough July 27, 1664, by Mr. William Towers, prebendary; and elected master of Magdalen college, Cambridge, 1668. When he obtained the rectories of Aston Flamvile and Burbach, we cannot exactly say; but it was probably in 1672, and owing to the patronage of Anthony the eleventh earl of Kent. In 167G, he preached three different sermons upon public occasions, all which were printed, Jan. 30, May 29, and Nov. 5. He died July 17, 1679, and was buried in Peterborough cathedral, to which, and to the school there, he had been a considerable benefactor. Against a pillar on the north side of the choir, behind the pulpit, is a handsome white marble tablet, with his arms and a Latin inscription commemorating his learning and virtues.

, a learned English bishop, was born at Lewisham in Kent, of which place his father was then vicar. He was baptized there March 18, 1588-9, was educated at Westminster school, and thence elected student of Christ church, Oxford, in 1605. In 1612 he was chosen fellow of All Souls’ college; then went into orders, and travelled abroad; particularly into France and Spain. In July 1625 he took the degree of doctor in divinity; and by the interest and recommendation of the earl of Dorset, to whom he afterwards became chaplain, was appointed dean of Christ church, Oxford, in June 1629. In 1634 he was constituted chancellor of the church of Sarum, and soon after made chaplain to Charles I. He was appointed, in 1638, tutor to Charles prince of Wales, and afterwards to his brother the duke of York; and about the same time nominated to the bishopric of Chichester. In 1641 he was translated to the see of Salisbury, but received no benefit from it, on account of the suppression of episcopacy. On this event he repaired to the king at Oxford; and, after that city was surrendered, attended him in other places, particularly during his imprisonment in the Isle of Wight. He was a great favourite with his majesty; and is said by some to have assisted him in composing the “Eikon Basilike.”

D‘Urfey (Thomas), an author, more generally spoken of by the familiar name of Tom, was descended from an ancient family in France. His parents, being protestants, fled from Rochelle before it was besieged by Lewis XIII. in 1628, and settled at Exeter, where this their son was born, but in what year is uncertain. He was originally bred to the law; but soon finding that profession too saturnine for his volatile and lively genius, he quitted it, to become a devotee of the muses; in which he met with no small success. His dramatic pieces, which are very numerous, were in general well received: yet, within thirty years after his death, there was not one of them on the muster-roll of acting plays; that licentiousness of intrigue, looseness of sentiment, and indelicacy of wit, which were their strongest recommendations to the audiences for whom they were written, having very justly banished them from the stage in the periods of purer taste. Yet are they very far from being totally devoid of merit. The plots are in general busy, intricate, and entertaining; the characters are not ill drawn, although rather too farcical, and the language, if not perfectly correct, yet easy and well adapted for the dialogue of comedy. But what obtained Mr. D’Urfey his greatest reputation, was a peculiarly happy knack he possessed in the writing of satires and irregular odes. Many of these were upon temporary occasions, and were of no little service to the party in whose cause he wrote; which, together with his natural vivacity and good humour, obtained him the favour of great numbers of all ranks and conditions, monarchs themselves not excluded. He was strongly attached to the tory interest, and in the latter part of queen Anne’s reign had frequently the honour of diverting that princess with witty catches and songs of humour, suited to the spirit of the times, written by himself, and which he sung in a lively and entertaining manner. And the author of the Guardian, who, in No. 67, has given a very humorous account of Mr. D‘Urfey, with a view to recommend him to the public notice for a benefitplay, tells us, that he remembered king Charles II. leaning on Tom D’Urfey’s shoulder more than once, and humming over a song with him. He used frequently to reside with the earl of Dorset at Knole; where a picture of him, painted by stealth, is still to be seen.

He wrote pastoral odes and madrigals, some of which are in “England’s Helicon,” first published at the close of queen Elizabeth’s reign, and lately republished in the “Bibliographer.” He wrote also a “Description of Friendship,” a poem in the Ashmolean Museum, where also, from Aubrey’s ms. we learn that he almost entirely spent an estate of 4000l. a year. There is a letter of his to sir Christopher Hatton, dated Oct. 9, 1512, in the Harleian Mss. and another to the earl of Leicester, dated May 22, 1586, in the Cottonian collection, and some of his unpublished verses are in a ms collection, formerly belonging to Dr. Uawlinson, now in the Bodleian library. Sir Edward died some years after James came to the throne, and was succeeded in his chancellorship of the garter by sir John Herbert, knt. principal secretary of state.

, successively bishop of Worcester and Salisbury, was born at York in the year 1601, and entered of Merton-college, Oxford, in 1620, where hebecame M. A. in 1624, was senior proctor in 1631, and about that time was created chaplain to Philip earl of Pembroke, who presented him with the living of Bishopston, in Wiltshire. He was afterwards appointed chaplain and tutor to prince Charles, and chancellor of the cathedral of Salisbury. For his steady adherence to the royal cause, he was deprived of every thing he possessed, and at length was compelled to fly into exile with Charles II. who made him his chaplain, and clerk of the closet. He was intimate with Dr. Morley, afterwards bishop of Winchester, and lived with him a year at Antwerp, in sir Charles Cotterel’s house, who was master of the ceremonies; thence he went into France, and attended James, duke of York. On the restoration he was made dean of Westminster, and on Nov. 30, 1662, was consecrated bishop of Worcester, and in Sept of the following year, was removed to the see of Salisbury, on the translation of Dr. Henchman to London. In 1665 he attended the king and queen to Oxford, who had left London on account of the plague. Here he lodged in University-college, and died Nov. 17, of the same year. He was buried in Mertoncollege chapel, near the high altar, where, on a monument of black and white marble, is a Latin inscription to his memory. Walton sums up his character by saying that since the death of the celebrated Hooker, none have lived “whom God hath blest with more innocent wisdom, more sanctified learning, or a more pious, peaceable, primitive temper.” When the nonconformist clergy stepped forward to administer to the relief of the dying in the great plague, what is called the Five-mile Act was passed, forbidding them, unless they took an oath against taking up arms on any pretence whatever, &c. to come within five miles of any city or town. Our prelate before his death declared himself much against this act. Burnet, who informs us of this, adds, that “he was the man of all the clergy for whom the king had the greatest esteem.”

king of England, deserves notice here as a young prince of great promise and high accomplishments, rather than as a sovereign, although in the latter character he afforded every presage of excellence, had his life been spared. He was the only son of Henry VIII. by queen Jane Seymour, and was born in 1538. From his maternal uncle, the duke of Somerset, he imbibed a zeal for the progress of the reformation. The ambitious policy of his courtiers, however, rendered his reign upon the whole turbulent, although his own disposition was peculiarly mild and benevolent, and amidst all these confusions, the reformation of religion made very great progress. He was at last, when in his sixteenth year, seized with the measles, and afterwards. with the small-pox, the effects of which he probably never quite recovered; and as he was making a progress through some parts of the kingdom, he was afflicted with a cough, which proved obstinate, and which gave way neither to regimen nor mexlicines. Several fatal symptoms of a consumption appeared, and though it was hoped, that as the season advanced, his youth and temperance might get the better of the malady, his subjects saw, with great concern, his bloom and vigour sensibly decay. After the settlement of the crown, which had been effected with the greatest difficulty, his health rapidly declined, and scarcely a hope was entertained of his recovery. His physicians were dismissed by the earl of Northumberland’s advice, and the young king was entrusted to the hands of an ignorant woman, who undertook to restore him to health in a very short time but the medicines prescribed were found useless violent symptoms were greatly aggravated and on the 6th of July, 1553, he expired at Greenwich, in the sixteenth year of his age, and the seventh of his reign. The excellent disposition of this young prince, and his piety and zeal in the prolestant cause, have rendered his memory dear to the nation. He possessed mildness of disposition, application to study and business, a capacity to learn and judge, and an attachment to equity and justice. He is to this day commemorated as the founder of some of the most splendid charities in the metropolis.

But with this work it soon appeared that he did not mean to discontinue his labours; his mind was too active, and his love of knowledge too ardent, for him to rest satisfied with what he had already done. Accordingly, in 1758, he published his first volume of “Gleanings of Natural History,” exhibiting seventy different birds, fishes, insects, and plants, most of which were before non-descripts, coloured from nature, on fifty copper-plates. This work much increased his fame as a natural historian, and as an artist. In 1760, a second volume appeared, dedicated to the late earl of Bute, whose studious attachment to natural history, particularly to botany, was then well known. The third part of the “Gleanings,” which constituted the 7th and last volume of Mr. Edwards’s works, was published in 1763, and was dedicated to earl Ferrers, who, when captain Shirley, had taken in a French prize, a great number of birds, intended for madame Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV. These he communicated to our naturalist, who was hence enabled more completely to add to the value of his labours. Thus, after a long series of years, the most studious application, and a very extensive correspondence with every quarter of the world, Mr. Edwards concluded a work, which in 7 vo!s. 4to, contains engravings and descriptions of more than an hundred subjects in natural history, not before described or delineated, and all the productions of his own hand. We have already mentioned his scrupulous exactness, and may now confirm it in his own words. In the third volume of his “Gleanings” he says, “It often happens that my figures on the copper-plates differ from my original drawings for sometimes the originals have not altogetherpleased me as to their attitudes or actions. In such cases I have made three or four, sometimes six sketches, or outlines, and have deliberately considered them all, and then fixed upon that which I judged most free and natural, to be engraven on my plate.” He added to the whole a general index in English and French, which is now perfectly completed, with the Linna-an names, by Li mums himself, who frequently honoured him with his friendship and correspondence. Upon Mr. Edwards’ completing his great work, we find him making the following singular declaration, or rather petition, in which he seems afraid that his passion for his favourite subject of natural history, should get the better of a nobler pursuit, viz. the contemplation of his Maker.