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, a brave soldier and a distinguished benefactor to All Souls college, Oxford, was born at Barbadoes in 1668, and had part of his education in that island. He afterwards came over to England, and was admitted a gentleman-commoner of Christ-church in Oxford, 1685; where having taken a degree in arts, he was elected a probationer fellow of All Souls college in 1639. He became perfect, it is said, not only in logic, history, and the ancient and modern languages, but likewise in poetry, physic, and divinity. Thus qualified, he went into the army, but without quitting his fellowship; and being a well-bred and accomplished gentleman, as well as a scholar, he soon recommended himself to the favour of king William. He was made captain in the first regiment of foot guards, and seems to have'been instrumental in driving the French out of the island of St. Christopher’s, which they had seized at the breaking out of the war between France and England: but it is more certain that he was at the siege of Namur in 1695. Upon the conclusion of the peace of Ryswick, he was made captaingeneral and governor in chief of the Leeward Caribhee Islands, in which office he met with some trouble: for in 1701 several articles were exhibited against him to the house of commons in England, but he was honourably acquitted from all imputations. In 1703 he was at the attack upon Guadaloupe, belonging to the French, in which he shewed great bravery, though that enterprise happened to be unsuccessful. Some time after, he resigned his government of the Leeward islands, and led a studious and retired life. For a few years before his death, he chiefly applied himself to church history and metaphysics; and his eulogist tells us, that “if he excelled in any thing, it was in metaphysical learning, of which he was perhaps the greatest master in the world.” He died in Barbadoes, April 7, 1701, and was buried there the day following; but his body was afterwards brought over to England, and interred, June 19, 1716, in All Souls chapel, Oxford. Two Latin orations to his memory were spoken there by two fellows of that college; one by Digby Cotes, M. A. the university orator, at his interment; the other the next day by Edward Young, LL. B. at the laying the foundation stone of his library. Over his grave a black marble stone was soon after laid, with no other inscription on it but Codrington.

By his last will he bequeathed his two plantations in Barbadoes, and part of the island Barbuda, to the society for propagating the gospel in foreign parts; and left a noble legacy to All Souls college, of which he had been fellow. This legacy consisted of his books, which were valued at 6000l. and 10,000l. to be laid out; 6000l. in building a library, and 4000l. in furnishing it with books. He was the author of some poems in the Musse Anglicanoe, printed at London in 1741; and of a copy of verses inscribed to sir Samuel Garth upon his “Dispensary,” of which two lines have at least been uncommonly fortunate in having been adopted as the common-place compliment of all lovers.

, a miscellaneous writer and translator of the seventeenth century, and probably an ancestor of the preceding, was born of an ancient family in Gloucestershire, in 1602, and educated at Oxford, where he was elected demy of Magdalen college, in July 1619, and completed his degree of M. A. in 1626. He then travelled, and on his return settled as a private gentleman in Norfolk, where he married. Wood says he was always accounted a puritan. He died of the plague in London, in 1665. His publications are: 1. “The Life and Death of Robert earl of Essex,” Loud. 1646, 4to, in which, according to Wood, he shewed himself a “rank parliamentarian.” 2. “A Collection of Proverbs.” 3. “The Life of Æsop,” prefixed to Barlow’s edition of the Fables, 1666, fol. 3. A translation of Du Moulin “On the Knowledge of God,” Lond. 1634. 4. “Heptameron, or the History of the Fortunate Lovers,” ibid. 1654, 8vo. The original of this was written by Margaret de Valois, queen of Navarre. He published also translations of Justin, Quiutus Curtius, the comedy of Ignoramus, and the prophecies of the German Prophets, &c.

, called likewise P. Van Aelst, from the place of his nativity, a town in Flanders, was, if we may judge from the writers who have spoken of him, or from the admirable prints remaining from his designs, one of the greatest painters which either Germany or Flanders produced in his age. After he had been some time instructed in the school of Bernard of Brussels, he went to Rome to complete his studies, and soon proved himself an excellent designer, and a bold and spirited painter, as well in fresco as in oil. At his return to his own country he married, but his wife soon dying, he once more travelled, and at the solicitations of a merchant, a friend of his, accompanied him to Constantinople in 1531. Having stayed some time with the Turks, and drawn some most animated representations of their customs and ceremonies, which he afterwards cut in wood, he once more arrived in the place of his nativity, and took a second wife. Towards the latter part of his life he wrote some excellent treatises upon geometry, architecture, and perspective. His pictures of history, as well as his portraits, were much esteemed. He was made painter to the emperor Charles V. and died at Antwerp in 1550. After his death, the prints which he had made of Turkish costume were published by his widow. This admirable work consists of seven large pieces, which, when joined together, form a frieze, divided into compartments by Cariatides on a tablet in the first block is written in old French “Les moeurs et fachom de faire de Turcz, avecq les regions y appertenantes, ont est au vif contrefaicetze par Pierre Cceck d‘Alost, luy estant en Turque, Tan de Jesu Christ MDXXXIII. lequel aussy de sa main propre a pourtraict ces figures duysantes a Pimpression dy’celles;” and on the last is this inscription: “Marie ver hulst, vefue du diet Pierre d'Alost, tres passe en Tan MDL. a faict imprimer les diet figures, soubz grace et privilege dTimperialle majeste en Tan MCCCCCLIII.” These prints are very rare.

, a learned Dominican, and bishop of Dardania in partibus, was born at St. Calais on the Maine, in 1574. He rose by his merits to the first charges of his order, and died in 1623, after having been named to the bishopric of Marseilles, by Lewis XIII. He was eloquent in his sermons, and wrote ^Hh purity, considering the age. His principal pieces are a Roman history from Augustus to Constantine, folio, which was read with pleasure in the seventeenth century. It was published in 1647, fol. He translated Florus, and was chosen by Henry IV. of Francej at the recommendation of cardinal du Perron, to answer the book which James I. of England had published; and at the instance of Gregory XV. he wrote against Duplessis Mornay, and Marc. Anton, de Dominis, archbishop of Spalatro his answer to the latter was entitled “Pro sacra monarchia ecclesiae catholic^, &c. libri quatuor Apologetici, adversus Rempublicam M. A. de Dominis, &c.” Paris, 1623, 2 vols. fol.

, an eminent French merchant, was the richest subject in Europe in the fifteenth century. He enjoyed an office of trust in the court of Charles VII. of France, and his industry was of more service to that country, than the boasted bravery of a Dunois or a Maid of Orleans. He had established the greatest trade that had ever been carried on by any private subject in Europe; and since his time Cosmo de Medicis is the only person that equalled him. He had 300 factors in Italy and the Levant. He lent 200,000 crowns of gold to his master, Charles VII. without which he never could have recovered Normandy; and therefore nothing can be a greater stain to the annals of this reign, than the persecution of so useful a man. After he had represented his prince in foreign states, he was accused of having poisoned the beautiful Agnes Sorel, Charles’s mistress; but this was without foundation, and the real motive of his persecution is not known. He was by the king’s order sent to prison, and the parliament tried him: all that they could prove against him was, that he had caused a Christian slave to be restored to his Turkish master, whom this slave had robbed and betrayed; and that he had sold arms to the sultan of Egypt. For these two facts, one of which was lawful, and the other meritorious, his estate was confiscated, and he was condemned to the amende honorable, and to pay a fine of 100,000 crowns. He found more virtue in his clerks than in the courtiers who ruined him: the former contributed to relieve him under his misfortunes, and one of them particularly, who had married his niece, facilitated his escape out of his confinement and out of France. He went to Rome, where Calixtus III. filled the papal chair, who gave him the command of part of a fleet which he had equipped against the Turks. He died on his arrival at the Isle of Chio, in 1456; therefore Mr. de Voltaire is mistaken in saying, in his “Essay on Universal History,” that “he removed to Cyprus, where he continued to carry on his trade; but never had the courage to return to his ungrateful country, though strongly invited.” Charles VII. afterwards restored some part of Coeur’s property to his children.

, a learned English monk and Jiistorian, lived Jn the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. He was of the Cistercian order, and was esteemed a man of uncommon knowledge for his time. The surname under which we here place this article, was given him from the abbey over which he presided. The principal work of his which is come down to us, is a chronicle of the Holy Land; and it is so much the more valuable, as he was an eye-witness of the facts he relates. He was at Jerusalem, and was even wounded there, during the siege of that city by Saladin. It is thought that he died in 1228. This chronicle was published in 1729, by the fathers Martenne and Durand, in the fifth volume of the “Amplissima collectio veterum scriptorum et monumentorum,” &c. In this volume are likewise two other works of the same author; the first entitled “Chronicon Anglicanum ab anno 1066 ad annum 1200;” and the second, “Libellus de motibus Anglicanis sub Johanne rege.” Some of his Mss. are in our public libraries.

, a learned and ingenious physician, was born at Hildesheim, in Lower Saxony, towards the end of the seventeenth century. Being educated to the practice of medicine, after taking the degree of doctor, he went to M.unster, where he soon distinguished himself by his superior skill and abilities. His works, which are numerous, bear ample testimony to the vigour of his intellects, and of his application to letters. His last work, “If ermippus Redivivus,” in which he professes to shew the practicability of prolonging the lives of elderly persons to 115 years, by receiving the breath and transpirations of healthy young females, was written, or first published, when he was in his seventy-seventh year. This was translated into English, and published, with additions and improvements, by the late Dr. John Campbell, under the title of “Hermippus liedivivus, or the Sage’s triumph over old Age and the Grave.” A vein of humour runs through this, and indeed through most of the productions of this writer, which gave them great popularity when first published, though they are now little noticed, excepting, perhaps, the work ju$t mentioned, in which the irony is extremely delicate; in his rhapsody against the prevailing passion of taking snuff, he affects to consider a passion for taking snuff as a disease of the nostrils, similar to that affecting the stomach of girls in chlorosis, and therefore calls it the pica nasi. The title of this production is, “Dissertatio satyrica, physico-medico-moralis, de Pica Nasi sive Tabaci sternutatorii moderno abusu, et noxa,” Amstelodami, 1716, 12mo.

Ruysch, in the latter part of his life, imagined he had discovered a muscle at the ftindus uteri, to which he delegated the office of expelling the placenta, and to which he thought the performance of that duty might be left. This our author has ridiculed in a little volume, to which he gave the title of “Lucina Ruyschiana, sive musculus uteri orbicularis a clarissimo D. D. Ruyschio delectus,” published at Amsterdam, 1731. He published, the preceding year, “Archaeus faber febrium et medicus,” and in 1716, “Neothea,” written to shew the folly of sending to China for tea, when we have so many herbs at hand, as pleasant, and more healthy; but his wit was not powerful enough to make either the use of tea or tobacco unfashionable. For the titles of others of his works, see Boerhaave’s Methodus Studii Medici. Cohausen died at Munster, July 18, 1750, in the eighty-fifth year of his age.

, the Vauban of the Dutch, was born in 1632, or, according to Saxius, in 1641. His genius for the art of war, and for constructing fortifications, displayed itself early in life. Being engineer and lieutenant-general in the service of the States-general, he fortified and defended the greater part of their places. It was a curious spectacle, says the president Heinault, to see in 1692, at the siege of Namur, the fort Cohorn besieged by Vauban, and defended by Cohorn himself. He did not surrender till after he had received a wound judged to be mortal, but which, however, did not prove to be so. In 1703 the elector of Cologne, Joseph Clement, having espoused the part of France, and received a French garrison into Bonn, Cohorn kept up such a strong and terrible fire upon the place, that the commandant surrendered it three days afterwards. This great man died at the Hague in 1704, leaving the Hollanders several places fortified by his industry and skill, Bergen-op-zoom, which he called his master-piece, but which, it ought to be mentioned, he left unfinished, was taken in 1747 by the marshal de Loewendahl, notwithstanding its fine fortifications, which caused it to be regarded as impregnable. We have a treatise by Cohorn, in Dutch, on the new method of fortifying places.

Our countryman, Benjamin Robins, F. R. S. in his “New Principles of Gunnery,” acknowledges the superior merit of Cohorn, who was undoubtedly, he says, the ablest fortifier that the world had ever seen, and yet had much trouble in introducing his system, and was vexatiously opposed by the old engineers, who affected to consider him as a self-conceited pretender.

, a French historian, was born at Troyes, the 4th of November, 1611, and entered very early into the congregation of the oratory, where he was received by the cardinal de Berulle. Father Bourgoin, one of the cardinal’s successors in the generalship, considered him for a long time as a useless being, because he applied himself to the study of history. The prejudice of Bourgoin was so strong in that respect, that when he wanted, according to Richard Simon, to denote a blockhead, he said, he is an historian. Notwithstanding this, when Servien, plenipotentiary at Munster, asked him for a father of the oratory as chaplain to the embassy, he gave him Le Cointe, who attended him, assisted him in making preliminaries of peace, and furnished the memorials necessary to the treaty. Colbert obtained for him the grant of a pension of 1000 livres in 1659; and three years after, another of 500. It was then that he began to publish at Paris his grand work, entitled “Annales ecclesiastici Francorum,” in 8 volumes, folio, from the year 235 to 835. It is a compilation without the graces of style, but of immense labour, and full of curious particulars. His chronology frequently differs from that of other historians; but whenever he departs from them, he usually gives his reasons for it. The first volume appeared in 1665, and the last in 1679. Father Le Cointe died at Paris, the 18th of January, 1681, at the age of seventy.

, an English poet, the son of Thomas Cokayne, esq. of Ashbourne-hall, in Derbyshire, and of Pooley, in Warwickshire, was born in 1608, at Elvaston, in Derbyshire, the seat of the family of his mother, Anne, daughter of sir John Stanhope, of Elvaston, knt, He was educated at Trinity- college, Cambridge, and in 1632 set out on his travels through France and Italy, of which he has given an account in a poem to his sou Mr. Thomas Cokayne. On his return he married Anne, daughter of sir Gilbert Kniveton, of Mercaston, in Derbyshire, knt. and retiring to his lordship of Fooley, gave himself up to his books and boon companions. Fie boasts, among his poetical friends, of Donne, Suckling/ Randolph, Drayton, Massinger, Habington, Sandys, and May; and appears also to have cultivated the acquaintance of sir William Dugdale, and other antiquaries. During the civil war, he suffered greatly for his religion, the Romari Catholic, and for what was then as obnoxious, his loyalty to Charles I. under whom he claimed the title ofa baronet. His losses also were increased by his want of ceconomy, and he was obliged to part with his estates during his life, which terminated in Feb. 1684, when he was privately buried in the chancel of Polesworth church. His poems and plays, with altered title-pages, were printed and reprinted in 1658, and are now purchased at high prices, chiefly as curiosities. His mind appears to have been much cultivated with learning, and it is clear that he possessed considerable talents, but he scarcely exhibits any marks of genius. He is never pathetic, sublime, or even elegant; but is generally characterized by a kind of familiarity which amounts to doggrel, and frequently to flatness and insipidity. Still, as our valuable authority adds, it is im possible to read notices of so many of his contemporaries, whose habits of life are recalled to our fancies, without feeling a subordinate kind of pleasure that gives these domestic rhymes a lively attraction.

, lord chief-justice of England, and one of the most eminent lawyers this kingdom has produced, was descended from an ancient family in Norfolk, and born at Mileham, in that county, 1549. His father was Robert Coke, esq. of Mileham; his mother, Winifred, daughter and coheiress of William Knightley, of Margrave Knightley, in Norfolk. At ten years of age he was sent to a free -school at Norwich; and from thence removed to Trinity-college, in Cambridge. He remained in the university about four years, and went from thence to Clifford Vinn, in London and the year after was entered a student of the Inner Temple. We are told that the first proof he gave of the quickness of his penetration, and the solidity of his judgment, was his stating the cook’s case of the Temple, which it seems had puzzled the whole house, so clearly and exactly, that it was taken notice of and admired by the bench. It is not at all improbable that this might promote his being called early to the bar, at the end of six years, which in those strict times was held very extraordinary. He himself has informed us that the first cause he moved in the King? s-bench, was in Trinity-term, 1578, when he was counsel for Mr. Edward Denny, vicar of Northingham, in Norfolk, in an action of scandalum magnatum, brought against him by Henry lord Cromwell. About this time he was appointed reader of Lyon’s-inn, when his learned lectures were much attended, for three years. His reputation increased so fast, and with it his practice, that when he had been at the bar but a few years, he thought himself in a condition to pretend to a lady of one of the best families, and at the same time of the best fortune in Norfolk, Bridget, daughter and coheiress of John Preston, esq. whom he soon married, and with whom he had in all about 30,000l.

After this marriage, by which he became allied to some of the noblest houses in the kingdom, preferments flowed in upon him apace. The cities of Coventry and Norwich chose him their recorder; the county of Norfolk, one of their knights in parliament; and the house of commons, their speaker, in the thirty-fifth year of queen Elizabeth. The queen likewise appointed him solicitor-general, in 1592, and attorney-general the year following. Some time after, he lost his wife, by whom he had ten children; and in 1598 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Jord.Burleigh, afterwards earl of Exeter, and relipt of sir William Hatto.n. As this marriage was the source of many troubles to both parties, so the very celebration of it occasioned no small noise and disquiet, by an unfortunate circumstance that attended it. There had been the same year so much notice taken of irregular marriages, that archbishop Whitgift had signified to the bishops of his province to prosecute strictly all that should either offend in point of time, place, or form. Whether Coke looked upon his own or the lady’s quality, and their being married with the consent of the family, as placing them above such restrictions, or whether he did not advert to them, it is certain that they were married in a private house, without either banns or license; upon which he and his new married lady, the minister who officiated, Thomas lord Burleigh, and several other persons, were prosecuted in the archbishop’s court; but upon their submission by their proxies, were absolved from excommunication, and the penalties consequent upon it, because, says the record, they had offended, not out of contumacy, but through ignorance of the law in that point. The affair of greatest moment, in which, as attorney-general, he had a share in this reign, was the prosecution of the earls of Essex and Southampton, who were brought to the bar in Westminster-hall, before the lords commissioned for their trial, Feb. 19, 1600. After he had laid open the nature of the treason, and the many obligations the earl of Essex was under to the queen, he is said to have closed with these words, that, “by the just judgment of God, he of his earldom should be Robert the last, that of a kingdom thought to be Robert the first.”

In May 1603, he was knighted by king James; and the same year managed the trial of sir W. Raleigh, at Winchester, whither the term was adjourned, on account of the plague being at London; but he lessened himself greatly in the opinion of the world, by his treatment of that unfortunate gentleman; as he employed a coarse and scurrilous language against him hardly to be paralleled. The resentment of the public was so great upon this occasion, that as has been generally believed, Shakspeare, in his comedy of the “Twelfth Night,' 7 hints at this strange behaviour of sir Edward Coke at Raleigh’s trial. He was likewise reproached with this indecent behaviour in a letter which sir Francis Bacon wrote to him after his own fall; wherein we have the following passage:” As your pleadings were wont to insult our misery, and inveigh literally against the person, so are you still careless in this point to praise and disgrace upon slight grounds, and that suddenly; so that your reproofs or commendations are for the most part neglected and contemned, when the censure of a judge, coming slow, but sure, should be a brand to the guilty, and a crown to the virtuous. You will jest at any man in public, without any respect to the person’s dignity, or your own. This disgraces your gravity more than it can advance the opinion of your wit; and so do all your actions, which we see you do directly with a touch of vainglory. You make the laws too much lean to your opinion; whereby you shew yourself to be a legal tyrant, &c.“January 27, 1606, at the trial of the gun-powder conspirators, and March 28 following, at the trial of the Jesuit Garnet, he made two very elaborate speeches, which were soon after published in a book entitled” A true and perfect relation of the whole Proceedings against the late most barbarous traitors, Garnet, a Jesuit, and his confederates, &c.“1606, 4to. Cecil earl of Salisbury, observed in his speech upon the latter trial,” that the evidence had been so well distributed and opened by the attorney-general, that he had never heard such a mass of matter better contracted, nor made more intelligible to the jury.“This appears to have been really true; so true, that many to this day esteem this last speech, especially, his masterpiece. It was probably in reward for this service, that he was appointee! lord chief justice of the common-pleas the same year. The motto he gave upon his rings, when he was called to the degree of serjeant, in order to qualify him for this promotion, was,” Lex est tutissima cassis;“that is,” The law is the safest helmet.“Oct. 25, 1613, he was made lord chief justice of the kingVbench; and in Nov. was sworn of his majesty’s privy-council. In 1615 the king deliberating upon the choice of a lord- chancellor, when that r-ost should become vacant, by the death or resignation of Egerton lord Ellesmere, sir Francis Bacon wrote to his majesty a letter upon that subject, wherein he lias the following passage, relating to the lord chiefjustice:”If you take my lord Coke, this will follow: First, your majesty shall put an over-ruling nature into an overruling place, which may breed an extreme. Next, you shall blunt his industries in matter of finances, which seemeth to aim at another place. And lastly, popular men are no sure mounters for your majesty’s saddle." The disputes and animosities between these two great men are well known. They seem to have been personal; and they lasted to the end of their lives. Coke was jealous of Bacon’s reputation in many parts of knowledge; by whom, again, he was envied for the high reputation he had acquired in one; each aiming to be admired particularly in that in which the other excelled. Coke was the greatest lawyer of his time, but could be nothing more. If Bacon was not so, we can ascribe, it only to his aiming at a more exalted character; not being able, or at least not willing, to confine the universality of his genius within one inferior province of learning.

Sir Thomas Overbury’s murder in the Tower now broke out, at the distance of two years after; for Overbury died Sept. 16, 1613, and the judicial proceedings against his murderers did not commence till Sept. 1615. In this affair sir Edward acted with great vigour, and, as some think, in a manner highly to be commended; yet his enemies, who were numerous, and had formed a design to humble his pride and insolence, took occasion, from certain circumstances, to misrepresent him both to the king and people. Many circumstances concurred at this time to hasten his fall. He was led to oppose the king in a dispute relating to his power of granting commendams, and James did not choose to have his prerogative disputed, even in cases where it might well be questioned. He had a contest with the lord chancellor Egerton, in which it is universally allowed that he was much to be blamed. Sir Edward, as a certain historian informs us, had heard and determined a case at common law; after which it was reported that there had been juggling. The defendant, it seems, had prevailed with the plaintiff’s principal witness not to attend, or to give any evidence in the cause, provided he could he excused. One of the defendant’s agents undertakes to excuse him; and carrying the maa to a tavern, called for a gallon of sack in a vessel, and bid him drink. As soon as he had laid his lips to the flaggon, the defendant’s agent quitted the room. When this witness was called, the court was informed that he was unable to come; to prove which, this agent was produced, who deposed, “that he left him in such a condition, that if he continued in it but a quarter of an hour, he was a dead man.” For want of this person’s testimony the cause was lost, and a verdict given for the defendant. The plaintiffs, finding themselves injured, carried the business into chancery for relief; but the defendants, having had judgment at common law, refused to obey the orders of that court. Upon this, the lord chancellor commits them to prison for contempt of the court: they petition against him in the star-chamber; the lord chief justice Coke joins with them, foments the difference, and threatens the lord chancellor with a pnemunire. The chancellor makes the king acquainted with the business, who, after consulting sir Francis Bacon, then his attorney, and some other lawyers upon the affair, justified the lord chancellor, and gave a proper rebuke to Coke.

Roger Coke gives us a different account of the occasion of the chief justice’s being in disgrace; and informs us, that he was one of the first who felt the effects of the power of the rising favourite, Villiers, afterwards duke of Buckingham. The author of the notes on Wilson’s “Life of James,” published in the second volume of Kennet’s “Complete History of England,” tells us “that sir Edward lost the king’s favour, and some time after his place, for letting fall some words upon one of the trials, importing his suspicion that Overbury had been poisoned to prevent the discovery of another crime of -the same nature, committed upon one of the highest rank, whom he termed a sweet prince; which was taken to be meant of prince Henry.” Whatever were the causes of his disgrace, Which it is probable were many, he was brought upon his knees before the council at Whitehall, June J 6 16; and offences were charged upon him by Ylverton, the solicitor-general, implying, amongst other things, speeches of high contempt tittered in the seat of justice, and uncomely and undutiful carriage in the presence of his majesty, “the privy council, and judges.” Soon after, he presented himself again at the council-table upon his knees, when secretary Winwood informed him, that report had been made to his majesty of what had passed there before, together with the answer that he had given, and that too in the most favourable manner; that his majesty was no ways satisfied with respect to any of the heads; but that notwithstanding, as well out of his own clemency, as in regard to the former services of his lordship, the king was pleased not to deal heavily with him: and therefore had decreed, 1. That he be sequestered from the council-table, until his majesty’s pleasure be further known. 2. That he forbear to ride his summer circuit as justice of assize. 3. That during this vacation, while he had time to live privately and dispose himself at home, he take into his consideration and reviewhis books of Reports; wherein, as his majesty is informed, be many extravagant and exorbitant opinions set down and published for positive and good law: and if, in reviewing and reading thereof, he find any thing fit to be altered or amended, the correction is left to his discretion. Among other things, the king was not well pleased with the title of those books, wherein he styled himself “lord chief justice of England,” whereas he could challenge no more but lord chief justice of the King’s-bench. And having corrected what in his discretion he found meet in these Reports, his majesty’s pleasure was, he should bring the same privately to himself, that he might consider thereof, as in his princely judgment should be found expedient. Hereunto Mr. secretary advised him to conform himself in all duty and obedience, as he ought; whereby he might hope that his majesty in time would receive him again to his gracious and princely favour. To this the lord chief justice made answer, that he did in all humility prostrate himself to his majesty’s good pleasure; that he acknowledged that decree to be just, and proceeded rather from his majesty’s exceeding mercy than his justice; gave humble thanks to their lordships for their goodness towards him; and hoped that his behaviour for the future would be such as would deserve their lordships’ favours. From which answer of sir Edward’s we may learn that he was, as such men always are, as dejected and fawning in adversity, as he was insolent and overbearing in prosperity; the same meanness and poorness of spirit influencing his behaviour in both conditions.

In October he was called before the chancellor, and forbid Westminster-hall; and also ordered to answer several exceptions against his Reports. In November the king removed him from the office of lord chief justice. Upon his disgrace, sir Francis Bacon wrote him an admonitory letter, in which he remonstrates to him several errors yi his former behaviour and conduct. We have made a citation from this letter already; we will here give the remainder of it: for though perhaps it was not very generous in Bacon to write such a letter at such a season, even to a, professed adversary, yet it will serve to illustrate the character and manners of Coke. In this letter Bacon advised sir Edward to be humbled for this visitation and observes, “that affliction only levels the molehills of pride in us, ploughs up the heart, and makes it fit for wisdom to sow her seed, and grace to bring forth her increase.” He afterwards points out to him some errors in his conduct. “In discourse,” says he, “you delight to speak too much, not to hear other men. This, some say, becomes a pleader, not a judge. For by this sometimes your affections are entangled with a love of your own arguments, though they be the weaker; and with rejecting of those which, when your affections were settled, your own judgment would allow for strongest. Thus, while you speak in your element, the law, no man ordinarily equals you; but when you wander, as you often delight to do, you then wander indeed, and never give such satisfaction as the curious time requires. This is not caused by any natural defect, but first for want of election; when you, having a large and fruitful mind, should not so much labour what to speak, as to find what to leave unspoken. Rich soils are often to be weeded, Secondly, you cloy your auditory. When you would be observed, speech must be either sweet or short. Thirdly, you converse with books, not men, and books specially humane; and have no excellent choice with men, who are the best books. For a man of action and employment you seldom converse with, and then but with underlings; not freely, but as a schoolmaster, ever to teach, never to learn. But if sometimes you would in your familiar discourse hear others, and make election of such as knew what they speak, you should know many of those tales, which you tell, to be but ordinary; and many other things, which you delight to repeat and serve in for novelties, to be but stale. As in your pleadings you were wont to insult even misery, and inveigh bitterly against the person so are you still careless in this point,” &c. “Your too much love of the world is too much seen, when having the living of 10,000l. you relieve few or none. The hand that hath taken so much, can it give so little? Herein you shew no bowels of compassion, as if you thought all too little for yourself, or that God had given you all that you have, only to that end you should still gather more, and never be satisfied, but try how much you could gather, to account for all at the great and general audit day. We desire you to amend this, and let your poor tenants in Norfolk find some comfort, where nothing of your estate is spent towards their relief, but all brought up hither to the impoverishing your country.” He then tells him, “that in the case of Overbury he used too many delays, till the delinquent’s hands were loose, and his own bound; and that he was too open in his proceedings, and so taught them how to defend themselves. But that,” continues he, “which we commend you for, are those excellent parts of nature and knowledge in the law, which you are endued withal. But these are only good in their good use. Wherefore we thank you heartily for standing stoutly in the commonwealth’s behalf; hoping, it proceedeth not from a disposition to oppose greatness, as your enemies say, but to do justice, and deliver truth indifferently without respect of persons.”

Low as sir Edward was fallen, he was afterwards restored to credit and favour; the first step to which was, his proposing a match between the earl of Buckingham’s elder brother, sir John Villiers, and his younger daughter by the lady Hatton: for he knew no other way of gaining that favourite. This, however, occasioned a violent dispute and quarrel between sir Edward and his wife; who, resenting her husband’s attempt to dispose of her daughter without asking her leave, carried away the young lady, and lodged her at sir Edmund Withipole’s house near Oatlands. Upon this, sir Edward wrote immediately to the earl of Buckingham, to procure a warrant from the privy-council to restore his daughter to him; but before he received an answer, discovering where she was, he went with his sons and took her, by force, which occasioned lady Hatton to complain in her turn to the privy council. Much confusion followed; and this private match became at length an affair of state. The differences were at length made up, in appearance at least, Sept. 1617; sir Edward was restored to favour, and reinstated in his place as privy-councillor; and sir John Villiers was married to Mrs. Frances Coke at Hampton-court, with all the splendour imaginable. This wedding, however, cost sir Edward dear. For besides 10,000l. paid in money at two payments, he and his son sir Robert did, pursuant to articles and directions of the lords of the council, assure to sir John Villiers a rent-charge of 2000 marks per annum during sir Edward’s life, and of 900l. a year during the lady Hatton’s life, if she survived her husband; and after both their deaths, the manor of Stoke in Buckinghamshire, of the value of 900l. per annum, to sir John Villiers and his lady, and to the heirs of her body. The same were settled by good conveyances carefully drawn the January following, and certified to his majesty under the hands of two Serjeants and the attorneygeneral. All this time the quarrel subsisted between him and his wife: and many letters are still extant, which shew a great deal of heat and resentment in both parties. At the time of the marriage lady Hatton was confined at the complaint of her husband: for, since her marriage, she had purchased the island and castle of Purbeck, and several other estates in different counties; which made her greatly independent of her husband. However, their reconciliation was afterwards effected, but not till July 1621, and then by no less a mediator than the king.

A parliament was summoned, and met January 1621; and in February there was a great debate in the house of commons upon several points of importance, such as liberty of speech, the increase of popery, and other grievances. Sir Edward Coke was a member, and his age, experience, and dignity gave him great weight there: but it very soon appeared that he resolved to act a different part from what the court, and more especially the great favourite Buckingham, expected. He spoke very warmly; and also took occasion to shew, that proclamations against the tenor of acts of parliament were V9id: for which he is highly commended by Camden. The houses, being adjourned by the king’s command in June, met again in November; and fell into great heats about the commitment of sir Edwin Sands, soon after their adjournment, which had such unfortunate consequences, that the commons protested, Dec. 18, against the invasion of their privileges. The king prorogued the parliament upon the 21st; and on the 27th, sir Edward Coke was committed to the Tower, his chambers in the Temple broke open, and his papers delivered to sir Robert Cotton and Mr. Wilson to examine. January 6, 1622, the parliament was dissolved: and the same day sir Edward was charged before the council with having concealed some true examinations in the great cause of the earl of Somerset, and obtruding false ones: nevertheless, he was soon after released, but not without receiving high marks of the king’s resentment: for he was a second time turned out of the king’s privy-council, the king giving him this character, that “he was the fittest instrument for a tyrant that ever was in England.” And yet, says Wilson, in the house he called the king’s prerogative an overgrown monster. Towards the close of 1623 he was nominated, with several others, to whom large powers were given, to go gver to Ireland; which nomination, though accompanied with high expressions of kindness and confidence, was made with no other view but to get him out of the way for fear he should be troublesome, but he remained firm in his opinions, nor does it appear that he ever sought to be reconciled to the court; so that he was absolutely out of favour at the death of king James. In the beginning of the next reign, when it was found necessary to call a second parliament, he was pricked for sheriff of Bucks in 1625, to prevent his being chosen. He laboured all he could to avoid it, but in vain; so that he was obliged to serve the office, and to attend the judges at the. assizes, where he had often presided as lord chief justice. This did not hinder his being elected knight of the shire for Bucks in the parliament of 1628, in which he distinguished himself more than any man in the house of commons, spoke warmly for the redress of grievances, argued boldly in defence of the liberty of the subject, and strenuously supported the privilege of the house. It was he that proposed and framed the petition of rights; and, June 1628, he made a speech, in which he named the duke of Buckingham as the cause of all our miseries, though, lord Clarendon tells us, he had before blasphemously styled him the saviour of the nation; but although there is no great reason to conclude that all this opposition to the arbitrary measures of the court flowed from any principles of patriotism, he became for a time the idol of the party in opposition to the court, and his conduct at this time is still mentioned with veneration by their historians and advocates. Our own opinion is, that although lord Coke was occasionally under the influence of temper or interest, he was, upon the whole, a more independent character than his enemies will admit. After the dissolution of this parliament, which happened the March following, he retired to his house at Stoke Fogeys in Buckinghamshire^ where he spent the remainder of his days; and there, Sept. 3, 1634, breathed his last in his eighty-sixth year, expiring with these words in his mouth, as his monument informs us, “Thy kingdom come! thy will be done!” While he lay upon his death-bed, sir Francis Windebank, by an order of council, came to search for seditious and dangerous papers by virtue whereof he took his “Commentary upon Littleton,” and the “History of his Life” before it, written with his own hand, his “Commentary upon Magna Charta, &c.” the “Pleas of the Crown,” and the “Jurisdiction of Courts,” his eleventh and* twelfth “Reports” in ms. and 51 other Mss. with the last will of sir Edward, wherein he had been making provision for his younger grand-children. The books and papers were kept till seven years after, when one of his sons in 1641 moved the house of commons, that the books and papers taken by sir Francis Windebank might be delivered to sir Robert Coke, heir of sir Edward; which the king was pleased to grant. Such of them as could be found were accordingly delivered up, but the will was never heard of more.

Sir Edward Coke was in his person well-proportioned, and his features regular. He was neat, but not nice, in his dress: and is reported to have said, “that the cleanness of a man’s clothes ought to put him in mind of keeping all clean within.” He had great quickness of parts, deep penetration, a faithful memory, and a solid judgment. He was wont to say, that “matter lay in a little room;” and in his pleadings he was concise, though in set speeches and in his writings too diffuse. He was certainly a great master of his profession, as even his enemies allow; had studied it regularly, and was perfectly acquainted with every thing relating to it. Hence he gained so high an esteem in Westminster-hall, and came to enjoy so large a share in the favour of the great lord Burleigh. He valued himself, and indeed not without reason, upon this, that he obtained all his preferments without employing either prayers or pence; and that he became the queen’s solicitor, speaker of the house of commons, attorney-general, chief justice of both benches, high-steward of Cambridge, and a member of the privy-council, without either begging or bribing. As he derived his fortune, his credit, and his greatness, from the law, so he loved it to a degree of intemperance. He committed every thing to writing with an industry beyond example, and, as we shall relate just now, published a great deal. He met with many changes of fortune; was sometimes in power, and sometimes in disgrace. He was, however, so excellent at making the best of a disgrace, that king James used to compare him to a cat, who always fell upon her legs. He was upon occasion a friend to the church and clergy: and thus, when he had lost his public employments, and a great peer was inclined to question the rights of the church of Norwich, he hindered it, by telling him plainly, that “if he proceeded, he would put on his cap and gown again, and follow the cause through Westminster-hall.” He had many benefices in his own patronage, which he is said to have given freely to men of merit; declaring in his law language, that he would have law livings pass by livery and seisin, and not by bargain and sale.

“His learned and laborious works on the laws,” says a certain author, “will be admired by judicious posterity, while Fame has a trumpetleft her, or any breath to blow therein.” This is indisputably a just character of his writings in general: the particulars of which are as follow. About 1600 were published, in folio, the first part of the “Reports of sir Edward Coke, knt. her majesty’s attorneygeneral, of divers resolutions and judgments given with great deliberation by the reverend judges and sages of the law, of cases and matters in law, which were never resolved or adjudged before: and the reasons and causes of the said resolutions and judgments during the most happy reign of the most illustrious and renowned queen Elizabeth, the fountain of all justice, and the life of the law.” The second, third, and so on to the eleventh part of the “Reports” were all published by himself in the reign of James I. The twelfth part of his Reports has a certificate printed before it, dated Feb. 2, 1655, and subscribed E. Bulstrod; signifying, that he conceives it to be the genuine work of sir Edward Goke. The title of the thirteenth part is, “Select cases in law, reported by sir Edward Coke;” and these are asserted to be his in a preface-signed with the initials J. G.

All these Reports have been uniformly received by our courts with the utmost deference; and as a mark of distinguished eminence, they are frequently cited as, 1, 2, 3, &c. Rep. without mentioning the author’s name, and in his own writings they are usually described as Lib. 1,2, 3, &c. There have been many editions of these Reports, the last in 1776, in 7 vols. 8vo, by Wilson. They have also been abstractedly versified in an 8vo volume, 1742, in a very curious manner, for the help of the memory, and the method seems to have been recommended by the practice of lord Coke himself.

In 1614 there was published, “A speech and charge at Norwich assizes,” intended to pass for sir Edward Coke’s; but he clearly disclaims it, in the preface to the seventh part of his Reports. He did indeed make a speech at that time, and in some measure to this purpose; but these notes of it were gathered and published without his knowledge in a very incorrect and miserable manner, and published with a design to prejudice and expose him. In 1614 was published in folio, “A book of entries, containing perfect and approved precedents of courts, declarations, informations, plaints, indictments, bars, duplications, rejoinders, pleadings, processes, continuances, essoigns, issues, defaults, departure in despight of the court, demurrers, trials, judgments, executions, and all other matters and proceedings, in effect, concerningthe practic part of the laws of England, in actions real, personal, mixed, and in appeals: being very necessary to be known, and of excellent use for the modern practice of the law, many of them containing matters in law, and points of great learning; collected and published for the common good and beneh't of all the studious and learned professors of the laws of England, 1” His “Institutes” are divided into four parts. The first is the translation and comment upon the “Tenures of Sir Thomas Littleton,” one of the judges of the common-pleas in the reign of Edward IV. It was published in his lifetime, in 1628 but that edition was very incorrect. There was a second published in 1629, said to be revised by the author, and in which this work is much amended; yet several mistakes remained even in that. The second part of the “Institutes” gives us magna charta, and other select statutes, in the languages in which they were first enacted, and much more correct than they were to be had any where else. He adds to these a commentary full of excellent learning, wherein he shews how the common law stood before those statutes were made, how far they are introductory of new laws, and how far declaratory of the old; what were the causes of making them, to what ends they were made, and in what degree, at the time of his writing, they were either altered or repealed. The third part of the “Institutes” contains the criminal law or pleas of the crown: where, among other things, he shews, in regard to pardons and restitutions, how far the king may proceed by his prerogative, and where the assistance of parliament is necessary. The fourth part of the “Institutes” comprehends the jurisdiction of all the courts in this kingdom, from the high court of parliament down to the court-baron. This part not being published till after his decease, there are many inaccuracies and some greater faults in it, which were animadverted upon and amended in a book written by William Pry nne, esq. and published in 1669. The thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth editions of the “Institutes,” 1788, 1789, and 1794, by Hargrave and Butler, are esteemed the best.

We have besides of his, 1. A treatise of Bail and Mainprize, 1637, 4to. 2. Reading on the state of Fines, 27 Edw. I. French, 1662, 4to. 3. Complete Copyholder, 1640, 4to. There was added in another edition of this book in 1650, 4to, Calthorpe’s reading between a lord of a manor and a copyholder his tenant, &c. And in the editions in 12mo, 1668 and 1673, there is a supplement; but a more complete specification of the various editions may be found in Bridgman’s “Legal Bibliography.”

, a French poet, was born at Janville in the Orleanois in 1735, and was a votary of the muses from his very infancy. He made his first appearance in the literary world in 1758, by a poetical translation of Pope’s Eloisa to Ahelard; in which he was said to have retained the warmth of the original, with the richness of its images. His tragedies of Astarbe and Calisto, the one performed in 1758, and the other in 1760, were not so successful. The complexion of them is indeed sorrowful, and even gloomy, but never tragical. The “Temple of Guides,” and two of the “Nights” of Young, in French verse, the epistle to M. Duhamel, and the poem of Prometheus, which appeared afterwards, are in general versified in a soft and harmonious manner. The epistle to M. Duhamel, which is replete with rural descriptions and sentiments of beneficence, has been ranked by many of its enthusiastic admirers with the best epistles of Boileau. These several performances excited the attention of the French academy towards the author, who elected him a meaaber at the beginning of 1776; but before he had pronounced his inaugural discourse, he was snatched away by death, in the flower of his age, the 7th of April in the same year, after he had risen from his bed in a state of extreme Weakness, and burnt what he had written of a translation of Tasso. This poet, who has so well described the charms of nature in his poems, and who even understood the art of drawing, yet in all the variety of colours saw only white and black, and only the different combinations of light and shade. This singular organization, however, did not weaken the charms of his imagination. His works were collected in two vols. 8vo, Paris, 1779, and have been since reprinted in 12mo. Among these is a comedy entitled “Les perfidies a la mode,” in which are some agreeable verses, two or three characters well enough drawn, but not a single spark of the vis comica.

, marquis of Segnelai, one of the greatest statesmen that France ever had, was born at Paris in 1619, and descended from a family that lived at Rheirns in Champaigne, originally from Scotland (the Cuthberts), but at that time no way considerable for its splendour. His grandfather is said to have been a winejuerchant, and his father at first followed the same occupation but afterwards traded in cloth, and at last in silk. Our Colbert was instructed in the arts of merchandize, and afterwards became clerk to a notary. In 1648 his relation John Baptist Colbert, lord of S. Pouange, preferred him to the service of Michael le Tellier, secretary of state, whose sister he had married; and here he discovered such diligence and exactness in executing all the commissions that were entrusted to his care, that he quickly grew distinguished. One day his master sent him to cardinal Mazarine, who was then at Sedan, with a letter written by the queen mother; and ordered him to bring it back after that minister had seen it. Colbert carried the letter, and would not return without it, though the cardinal treated him roughly, used several arts to deceive him, and obliged him to wait for it several days. Some time after, the cardinal returning to court, and wanting one to write his agencte or memoranda, desired le Tellier to furnish him with a fit person for that employment; and Colbert being presented to him, the cardinal had some remembrance of him, and desired to know where he had seen him. Colbert was afraid of putting him in mind of Sedan, lest the remembrance of his behaviour in demanding the queen’s letter should renew his anger. But the cardinal was so far from disliking him for his faithfulness to his late master, that he received him on condition that he should serve him with the like zeal and fidelity.

Colbert applied himself wholly to the advancement of his master’s interests, and gave him so many marks of his diligence and skill that afterwards he made him his intendant. He accommodated himself so dexterously to the inclinations of that minister, by retrenching his superfluous expences, that he was entrusted with the sale of benefices and governments, and it was by Colbert’s counsel that the cardinal obliged the governors of frontier places to maintain their garrisons with the contributions they exacted. He was sent to Rome, to negociate the reconciliation of cardinal de Retz, for which the pope had shewed some concern; and to persuade his holiness to fulfill the treaty concluded with his predecessor Urban VIII. From all these services Mazarine conceived so high an opinion of Colbert’s abilities, that at his death in 1661, he earnestly recommended him to Louis XIV. as the most proper person to regulate the finances, which at that time were in great confusion. Louis accepted the recommendation, and Colbert being appointed intendant of the finances, applied himself to their regulation, and succeeded: though it procured him many enemies. France is also obliged to this minister for establishing at that time her trade with the East and West Indies, from which she once reaped innumerable advantages.

In 1664 he became superintendant of the buildings; and from that time applied himself earnestly to the enlarging and adorning of the royal edifices, particularly those splendid works, the palace of the Tuilleries, the Louvre, St. Germain, Fontainbleau, and Chombord. Versailles, which he found a dog-kenuel, where Louis XIII. kept his hunting equipage, he rendered a palace fit for the greatest monarch. Colbert also formed several designs for increasing the beauty and convenience of the capital city, and had the principal hand in the establishment of the academy for painting and sculpture in 1664, which originated in the following circumstance: the king’s painters and sculptors, with other skilful professors of those arts, being prosecuted at law by the master-painters at Paris, joined together in a society, under the name of the Royal Academy for sculpture and painting, with a view to hold public exercises, for the sake of improving the arts, and advancing them to the highest degree of perfection. They put themselves under the protection of Mazarine, and chose chancellor Seguier their vice-protector; and after Mazarine’s death chose Seguier their protector, and Colbert their vice-protector; and it was at his solicitation that they were finally established by a patent, containing new privileges, in 1664. Colbert, being made protector after the death of Seguier, thought fit that an historiographer should be appointed, whose business it should be to collect all curious and useful observations made at their conferences. His majesty acquiesced in the appointment of this new officer, and settled on him a salary of 300 livres. To Colbert also the lovers of naval knowledge are obliged, for the erection of the academy of sciences; and in 1667, for the royal observatory at Paris, which was first inhabited by Cassini. France also owes to him all the advantages she receives by the union of the two seas; a prodigious work, begun in 1666, and finished in 1680. Colbert was besides very attentive to matters which regarded the order, decency, and well-being of society. He undertook to reform the courts of justice, and to put a stop to the usurpation of noble titles; which was then very common in France. In the former of those attempts he failed, in the latter he succeeded.

In 1669 he was made secretary of state, and entrusted with the management of affairs relating to the sea: and his performances in this province were answerable to the confidence his majesty reposed in him. He suppressed several offices, which were chargeable and useless: and in the mean time, perceiving the king’s zeal for the extirpation of heresy, he shut up the chamber instituted by the edicts of Paris and Roan. He proposed several new regulations concerning criminal courts; and was extremely severe with the parliament of Tholouse, for obstructing the measures he took to carry the same into execution. His main design in reforming the tedious methods of proceeding at law, was to give the people more leisure to apply themselves to trading: for the advancement of which he procured an edict, to erect a general insurance-office at Paris, for merchants, &c. In 1672 he was made minister of state, and amidst these multiplied employments, it has been observed that he never neglected his own or his family’s interest and grandeur, or missed any opportunity of advancing either. He had been married many years, had sons and daughters grown up; all of whom, as occasion served, he took care to marry to great persons, and thus strengthened his interest by powerful alliances. Business, however, was certainly Colbert’s natural turn; and he not only loved it, but was very impatient of interruption in it. A lady of great quality was one day urging him, when he was in the height of his power, to do her some piece of service; and perceiving him inattentive and inflexible, threw herself at his feet,- in the presence of above an hundred persons, crying, “I beg your greatness, in the name of God, to grant me this favour 1” Upon which, Colbert, kneeling down over against her, replied, in the same mournful tone, “I conjure you, madam, in the name of God, not to disturb me'!”

This great minister died of the stone, Sept. 6, 1683, in his 65th year, leaving behind him six sons and three daughters. He was of a middle stature, his mien low and dejected, his air gloomy, and his aspect stern. He slept little, and was extremely temperate. Though naturally sour and morose, tie knew how to act the lover, and had mistresses. He was of a slow conception, but spoke judiciously of every thing after he had once comprehended it. He understood business perfectly well, and he pursued it with unwearied application. This enabled him to fill the most important places with high reputation and credit^ while his influence diffused itself' through every part of the government. He restored the finances, the navy, the commerce of France; and he erected those various works of art, which have ever since been monuments of his taste and magnificence. He was a lover of learning, though not a man of learning himself, and liberally conferred do r nations and pensions upon scholars in other countries, while he established and protected academies in his own. He invited into France painters, statuaries, mathematicians, and eminent artists of all kinds, thus giving new life to the sciences. Upon the whole, he was a wise, active, generous-spirited minister; ever attentive to the interests of his master, the happiness of the people, the progress of arts and manufactures, and to every thing that could advance the credit and interest of his- country, while his failings were such as could not injure him in the opinion of his age and country.

, an English lawyer, and legal antiquary, was born in the Isle of Ely in 1722, and educated at St. John’s college, Cambridge, which he left after taking his bachelor’s degree in 1743; and having studied law in the Inner Temple, was admitted to the bar. He became afterwards Registrar to the corporation of Bedford Level, and published “A Collection of Laws which form the constitution of the Bedford Level Corporation, with an introductory history thereof,” 1761, 8vo. In 1772 he was editor of a new edition of Sir William Dugdale’s “History of embanking and drayning of divers terms and marshes, &c.” originally printed 1662, to I. This new edition was first undertaken by the corporation of Bedford Level; but upon application to Richard Geast, esq. of Blythe~Hall, in the county of Warwick, a lineal maternal descendant of the author, he desired that it might be entirely conducted at his own e.vpence. Mr. Cole added three very useful indexes. Mr. Cole’s next appearance in the literary world was as editor to Mr. Soame Jenyns’s works, with whom he had lived in habits of friendship for near half a century. Mr. Jenyns, who died in 1787, bequeathed to him the copy-right of all his published works, and consigned to his care all his literary papers, with a desire that he would collect together and superintend the publication of his works. In executing this, Mr. Cole made such a selection as shewed his regard for the reputation of his friend, and prefixed a life written with candour. Mr. Cole, who had long lived a private and retired life, died Dec. 18, 1804, at his house in Edwardstreet, Cavendish-square, after a tedious and severe illness, in the eighty-second year of his age.

, a person of considerable learning in the sixteenth century, was born at Godshill in the Isle of Wight, and educated in Wykeham’s school near Winchester. From thence he was chosen to New college, Oxford, of which he became perpetual fellow in 1523, and studying the civil law, took the degree of bachelor in that faculty, March 3, 1529-30. He then travelled into Italy, and improved himself in his studies at Padua, being a zealous Roman catholic, but upon his return to England, he acknowledged king Henry VIII. to be the supreme head of the church of England. In 1540, he took the degree of doctor of the civil law; and the same year resigned his fellowship, being then settled in London, an advocate in the court of arches, prebendary of Yatminster Secunda in the church of Sarum, and about the same time was made archdeacon of Ely. In September, 1540, he was admitted to the rectory of Chelmsford in Essex; and in October following, collated to the prebend of Holbora, which he resigned April 19, 1541; and was the same day collated to that of Sneating, which he voiding by cession in March ensuing, was collated to the prebend of Wenlakesbarne. In 1542 he was elected warden of New College; and in 1545 made rector of Newton Longville in Buckinghamshire. Soon after, when king Edward VI. came to the crown, Dr. Cole outwardly embraced, and preached up the reformation, but altering his mind, he resigned his rectory of Chelmsford in 1547; and in 1551 his wardenship of New College; and the year following, his rectory of Newton Longville. After queen Mary’s accession to the crown, he became again a zealous Roman catholic and in 1554 was made provost of Eton college, of which he had been fellow. The same year, June 20, he had the degree of D. D. conferred on him, and was one of the divines that disputed publicly at Oxford with archbishop Cranmer, and bishop Ridley. He also preached the funeral sermon before archbishop Cranmer' s execution. He was appointed one of the commissioners to visit the university of Cambridge; was elected dean of St. Paul’s the llth of December, 1556; made (August 8, 1557) vicar-general of the spiritualities under cardinal Pole, archbishop of Canterbury; and the first of October following, official of the arches, and dean of the peculiars; and in November ensuing, judge of the court of audience. In 1558 he was appointed one of the overseers of that cardinal’s will. In the first year of queen Elizabeth’s reign he was one of the eight catholic divines who disputed publicly at Westminster with the same number of protestants, and distinguished himself then and afterwards, by his writings in favour of popery, for which he was deprived of his deanery, fined five hundred marks, and imprisoned. He died in or near Wood -street compter, in London, in December, 1579. Leland has noticed him among other learned men of our nation. He is called by Strype “a person more earnest than wise,” but Ascham highly commends him for his learning and humanity. It is evident, however, that he accommodated his changes of opinions to the times, although in his heart he was among the most bigotted and implacable opponents of the reformed religion. His writings were, 1. “Disputation with archbishop Cranmer and bishop Ridley at Oxford,” in 1554. 2. “Funeral Sermon at the Burning of Dr. Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury.” Both these are in Fox’s Acts and Monuments. 3. “Letters to John Jewell, bishop of Salisbury, upon occasion of a Sermon that the said bishop preached before the queen’s majesty and her honourable council, anno 1560,” Lond.1560, 8vo, printed afterwards among Bishop Jewell’s works. 4. “Letters to bishop Jewell, upon occasion of a Sermon of his preached at Paul’s Cross on the second Sunday before Easter, in 1560.” 5. “An Answer to the first proposition of the Protestants, at the Disputation before the lords at Westminster.” These last are in Burnet’s History of the Reformation.

, an eminent antiquary and benefactor to the history and antiquities of England, was the son of William Cole, a gentleman of landed property, at Baberham in Cambridgeshire, by his third wife, Catharine, daughter of Theophilus Tuer, of Cambridge, merchant, but at the time she married Mr. Cole, the widow of Charles Apthorp. He was born at Little Abington, a village near Baberham, Aug. 3, 1714, and received the early part of “his education under the Rev. Mr. Butts at Saffron-Walden, and at other small schools. From these he was removed to Eton, where he was placed under Dr. Cooke, afterwards provost, but to whom he seems to have contracted an implacable aversion. After remaining five years on the foundation at this seminary, he was admitted a pensioner of Cla/e hall, Cambridge, Jan. 25, 1733; and irt April 1734, was admitted to one of Freeman’s scholarships, although not exactly qualified according to that benefactor’s intention: but in 1735, on the death of his father, from whom he inherited a handsome estate, he entered himself a fellow-commoner of Clare Hall, and next year removed to King’s college, where he had a younger brother, then a fellow, and was accommodated with better apartments. This last circumstance, and the society of his old companions of Eton, appear to have been his principal motives for changing his college. In April 1736, he travelled for a short time in French Flanders with his halfbrother, the late Dr. Stephen Apthorp, and in October of the same year he took the degree of B. A. In 1737, in consequence of bad health, he went to Lisbon, where he remained six months, and returned to college May 1738. The following year he was put into the commission of the peace for the county of Cambridge, in which capacity he acted for many years. In 1740 his friend lord Montfort, then lord lieutenant of the county, appointed him one of his deputy lieutenants and in the same year he proceeded M. A. In 1743, his health beting again impaired, he took another trip through Flanders for five or six weeks, visiting St. Omer’s, Lisle, Tournay, &c. and other principal places, of which he has given an account in his ms collections. In Dec. 1744 he was ordained deacon in the collegiate church of Westminster, by Dr. Wilcocks, bishop of Rochester, and was in consequence for some time curate to Dr. Abraham Oakes, rector of Wethersfield in Suffolk. In 1745, after being admitted to priest’s orders, he was made chaplain to Thomas earl of Kinnoul, in which office he was continued by the succeeding earl, George. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1747; and appears to have resided at Haddenham in the Isle of Ely in 1749, when he was collated by bishop Sherlock to the rectory of Hornsey in Middlesex, which he retained only a very short time. Speaking of that prelate, he says,” He gave me the rectory of Hornsey, yet his manner was such that I soon resigned it again to him. I have not been educated in episcopal trammels, and liked a more liberal behaviour; yet he was a great man, and I believe an honest man." The fact, however, was, as Mr. Cole elsewhere informs us, that he was inducted Nov. 25; but finding the house in so ruinous a condition as to require rebuilding, and in a situation so near the metropolis, which was always his aversion, and understanding that the bishop insisted on his residing, he resigned within a month. This the bishop refused t accept, because Mr. Cole had made himself liable to dilapidations and other expences by accepting of it. Cole continued therefore as rector until Jan. 9, 1751, when he resigned it into the hands of the bishop in favour of Mr. Territ. During this time he had never resided, but employed a curate, the rev. Matthew Mapletoft. In 1753 he quitted the university on being presented by his early friend and patron, Browne Willis, esq. to the rectory of Bletchley, in Buckinghamshire, which he resigned March 20, 1767, in favour of his patron’s grandson, the rev. Thomas Willis, and this very honourably, and merely because he knew it was his patron’s intention to have bestowed it on his grandson had he lived to effect an exchange.

Having been an early and intimate acquaintance of Mr. Horace Walpole, the late earl of Orford, they went to France together in 1765, Mr. Walpole to enjoy the gaieties of that country, but Mr. Cole to seek a cheap residence, to which he might retire altogether. From the whole tenour of Mr. Cole’s sentiments, and a partiality, which in his Mss. he takes little pains to disguise, in favour of the Roman catholic religion and ceremonies, we suspect that cheapness was not the only motive for thi* intended removal. He had at this time his personal estate, which he tells us was a “handsome one,” and he held the living of Bletchley, both together surely adequate to the wants of a retired scholar, a man of little personal expence, and who had determined never to marry. He was, however, diverted from residing in France by the laws of that country, particularly the Droit d'Aubaine, by which the property of a stranger dying in France becomes the king’s, and which had not at that time been revoked. Mr. Cole at first supposed this could be no obstacle to his settling in Normandy; but his friend Mr. Walpole represented to him that his Mss. on which he set a high value, would infallibly become the property of the king of France, and probably be destroyed. This had a persuasive effect; and in addition to it, we have his own authority that this visit impressed his mind so strongly with the certainty of an impending revolution, that upon that account he preferred remaining in England. His expressions on this subject are remarkable, but not uncharacteristic “I did not like the plan of settling in France at that time, when the Jesuits were expelled, and the philosophic deists were so powerful as to threaten the destruction, not only of all the religious orders, but of Christianity itself.” There is a journal of this tour in vol. XXXIV. of his collections.

In 1767, after resigning Bletchley, he went into a hired house at Waterbeche, and continued there two years, while a house was fitting for him at Milton, a small village on the Ely road, near Cambridge, where he passed the remainder of his days, and from which he became familiarly distinguished as “Cole of Milton.” In May 1771, by lord Montfort’s favour, he was put into the commission o-f the peace for the town of Cambridge. In 1772, bishop Keene, without any solicitation, sent Mr. Cole an offer oif the vicarage of Maddingley, about seven miles from Milton, which, for reasons of convenience, he civilly declined, but has not spoken so civilly of that prelate in his ts Atbenae/' He was, however, instituted by Dr. Green, bishop ef Lincoln, to the vicarage of Burnham, in Buckinghamshire, on the presentation of Eton college, June 10, 1774, void by the cession of his uterine brother, Dr. Apthorp. He still, however, resided at Milton, where he died Dec. 16, 1782, in his sixty-eighth year, his constitution having been shattered and worn down by repeated attacks of the gout. Mr. Cole was an antiquary almost from the cradle, and had in his boyish days made himself acquainted with those necessary sciences, heraldry and architecture. He says, the first “essay of his antiquarianism” was taking a copy both of the inscription and tomb of Ray, the naturalist, in 1734; but it appears that, when he was at Eton school, he used during the vacations to copy, in trick, arms from the painted windows of churches, particularly Baberham iii Cambridgeshire, and Moulton in Lincolnshire* Yet, although he devoted his whole life to topography and biography, he did not aspire to any higher honour than that of a collector of information for the use of others, and certainly was liberal and communicative to his contemporaries, and so partial to every attempt to illustrate our English antiquities, that he frequently offered his services, where delicacy and want of personal knowledge would have perhaps prevented his being consulted.

What he contributed was in general, in itself, original and accurate, and would have done credit to a separate publication, if he had thought proper. Among the works which he assisted, either by entire dissertations, or by minute communications and corrections, we may enumerate Grose’s “Antiquities” Bentham’s “Ely” Dr. Ducarel’s publications; Philips’s “Life of Cardinal Pole” Gough’s “British Topography” the “Memoirs of the Gentlemen’s Society at Spalding” Mr. Nichols’s “Collection of Poems,” “Anecdotes of Hogarth,” “History of Hinckley,” and “Life of Bowyer.” With Granger he corresponded very frequently, and most of his corrections were adopted by that writer. Mr. Cole himself was a collector of portraits at a time when this trade was in few hands, and had a very valuable series, in the disposal of which he was somewhat unfortunate, and somewhat capricious, putting a different value on them at different times. When in the hope that lord Montstuart would purchase them, he valued them at a shilling each, one with another, which he says would have amounted to 160l. His collection must therefore have amounted to 3200 prints, but among these were many topographical articles: 130l. was offered on this occasion, which Mr. Cole declined accepting. This was in 1774; but previous to this, in 1772, he met with a curious accident, which had thinned his collection of portraits. This was a visit from an eminent collector. “He had,” says Mr. Cole, “heard of my collection of prints, and a proposal to see them was the consequence; accordingly, he breakfasted here next morning; and on a slight offer of accommodating him with such heads as he had not, he absolutely has taken one hundred and eighty-seven of my most valuable and favourite heads, such as he had not, and most of which had never seen; and all this with as much ease and familiarity as if we had known each other ever so long. However, I must do him the justice to say, that I really did offer him at Mr. Pemberton’s, that he might take such in exchange as he had not; but this I thought would not have exceeded above a dozen, or thereabouts, &c.” In answer to this account of the devastation of his collection, his correspondent Horace Walpole writes to him in the following style, which is not an unfair specimen of the manner in which, these correspondents treated their contemporaries: “I have had a relapse (of the gout), and have not been able to use my hand, or I should have lamented with you on the plunder of your prints by that Algerine hog. I pity you, dear sir, and feel for your awkwardness, that was struck dumb at his rapaciousness. The beast has no sort of taste neither, and in a twelvemonth will sell them again. This Muley Moloch used to buy books, and now sells them. He has hurt his fortune, and ruined himself to have a collection, without any choice of what it should be composed. It is the most under-bred ywine I ever saw, but I did not know it was so ravenous. I wish you may get paid any how.” Mr. Cole, however, after all this epistolary scurrility, acknowledges that he was“honourably paid” at the rate of two shillings and sixpence each head, and one, on which he and Walpole set an uncommon value, and demanded back, was accordingly returned.

Mr. Cole’s ms Collections had two principal objects, first, the compilation of a work in imitation of Anthony Wood’s Athense, containing the lives of the Cambridge scholars; and secondly, a county history of Cambridge; and he appears to have done something to each as early as 1742. They now amount to an hundred volumes, small folio, into which he appears to have transcribed some document or other almost every day of his life, with very little intermission. He began with fifteen of these volumes, while at college, which he used to keep in a lock-up case in the university library, until he had examined every book in that collection from which he could derive any informstion suitable to his purpose, and transcribed many ms lists, records, &c. The grand interval from this labour was from 1752 to 1767, while he resided at Bletchley; but even there, from his own collection of books, and such as he could borrow, he went on with his undertaking, and daring frequent jour nies, was adding to his topographical drawings and descriptions. He had some turn for drawing, as his works every where demonstrate, just enough to give an accurate, but coarse outline. But it was at Cambridge and Milton where his biographical researches were pursued with most effect, and where he carefully registered every anecdote he could pick up in conversation; and, in characterising his contemporaries, may literally be said to have spared neither friend nor foe. He continued to fill his volumes in this way, almost to the end of his life, the last letter he transcribed being dated Nov. 25, 1782. Besides his topography and biography, he has transcribed the whole of his literary correspondence. Among his correspondents, Horace Walpole must be distinguished as apparently enjoying his utmost confidence; but their letters add very little to the character of either, as men of sincerity or candour. Botli were capable of writing polite, and even flattering letters to gentlemen, whom in their mutual correspondence, perhaps by the. same post, they treated with the utmost contempt and derision.

Throughout the whole of Mr. Cole’s Mss. his attachment to the Roman catholic religion is clearly to be deduced, and is often almost avowed. He never can conceal his hatred to the eminent prelates and martyrs who were the promoters of the Reformation. In this respect at least he resembled Anthony Wood, whose friends had some difficulty in proving that he died in communion with the church of England, and Cole yet more closely resembled him in his hatred of the puritans and dissenters. When in 1767 an order was issued from the bishops for a return of all papists or reputed papists in their dioceses, Cole laments that in some places none were returned, and in other places few, and assigns as a reason for this regret, that “their principles fare much more conducive to a peaceful and quiet subordination in government, and they might be a proper balance, in time of need, not only to the tottering state of Christianity in general, but to this church of England in particular, pecked against by every fanatic sect, whose good allies the infidels are well known to be but hardly safe from its own lukewarm members; and whose safety depends solely on a political balance.” The “lukewarm members,” he elsewhere characterizes as latitudinarians, including Clarke, Hoadly, and their successors, who held preferments in a church whose doctrines they opposed.

As late as 1778 we find Mr. Cole perplexed as to the disposal of his manuscripts; to give them to one college which he mentions, would, he says, “be to throw them into a horse-pond,” for “in that college they are so conceited of their Greek and Latin, that with them all other studies are mere barbarism.” He once thought of Eton college; but, the Mss. relating principally to Cambridge university and county, he inclined to deposit them in one of the libraries there; not in the public library, because too public, but in Emanuel, with the then master of which, Dr. Farmer, he was very intimate. Dr. Farmer, however, happening to suggest that he might find a better place for them, Mr. Cole, who was become peevish, and wanted to be courted, thought proper to consider this “coolness and indifference” as a refusal. In this dilemma he at length resolved to bequeath them to the British Museum, with this condition, that they should not be opened for twenty years after his death. For such a condition, some have assigned as a reason that the characters of many living persons being drawn in them, and that in no very favourable colours, it might be his wish to spare their delicacy; but, perhaps with equal reason, it has been objected that such persons would thereby be deprived of all opportunity of refuting his assertions, or defending themselves. Upon a careful inspection, however, of the whole of these volumes, we are not of opinion that the quantum of injury inflicted is very great, most of Cole’s unfavourable anecdotes being of that gossiping kind, on which a judicious biographer will not rely, unless corroborated by other au. thority. Knowing that he wore his pen at his ear, there were probably many who amused themselves with his prejudices. His collections however, upon the whole, are truly valuable; and his biographical references, in particular, while they display extensive reading and industry, cannot fail to assist the future labours of writers interested in the history of the Cambridge scholars.

, an English botanist, was the son of a clergyman, and born at Adderbury, in Oxfordshire, about 1626. After he had been well-instructed in grammar-learning and the classics, he was entered in 1642 of Me rton- college, in Oxford. In 1650 he took a degree in arts; after which he left the university, and retired to Putney, near London; where he lived several years, and became the most famous simpler or botanist or his time. In 1656 he published “The art of simpling, or an introduction to the knowledge of gathering plants, wherein the definitions, divisions, places, descriptions, and the like, are compendiously discoursed of;” with which was also printed “Perspicillum microcosmologicum, or, a prospective for the discovery of the lesser world, wherein man is a compendium, c.” And in 1657 he published “Adam in Eden, or Nature’s paradise: wherein is contained the history of plants, herbs, flowers, with their several original names.” Upon the restoration of Charles II. in 1660, he was made secretary to Duppa, bishop of Winchester, in whose service he died in 1662.

, author of a Dictionary once in much reputation, was born in Northamptonshire about 1640. Towards the end of 1658, he was entered of Magdalencollege, in Oxford, but left it without taking a degree; and retiring to London, taught Latin there to youths, and English to foreigners, about 1663, with good success in Russel-street, near Covent-garden, and at length became one of the ushers in merchant-taylors’ school. But being there guilty of some offence, he was forced to withdraw into Ireland, from whence he never returned. He was, says Wood, a curious and critical person in the English and Latin tongues, did much good in his profession, and wrote several useful and necessary books for the instruction of beginners. The titles of them are as follows: 1. “The Complete English Schoolmaster or, the most natural and easy method of spelling and reading English, according to the present proper pronunciation of the language in Oxford and London, &c.” Lond. 1674, 8vo. 3. “The newest, plainest, and shortest Short-hand; containing, first, a brief account of the short-hand already extant, with their alphabets and fundamental rules. Secondly, a plain and easy method for beginners, less burdensome to the memory than any other. Thirdly, a v new invention for contracting words, with special rules for contracting sentences, and other ingenious fancies, &c.” Lond. 1674, 8vo. 3. “Nolens Volens or, you shall make Latin, whether you will or no; containing the plainest directions that have been yet given upon that subject,” Lond. 1675, 8vo. With it is printed: 4. “The Youth’s visible Bible, being an alphabetical collection (from the whole Bible) of such general heads as were judged most capable of Hieroglyphics; illustrated with twenty-four copper-plates, &c.” 5. “An English Dictionary, explaining the difficult terms that are used in divinity, husbandry, physic, philosophy, law, navigation, mathematics, and other arts and sciences,” Lond. 1676, 8vo, reprinted several times since. 6. “A Dictionary, English-Latin, and Latin-English; containing all things necessary for the translating of either language into the other,” Lond. 1677, 4to, reprinted several times in 8vo; the 12th edition was in 1730. 7. “The most natural and easy Method of learning Latin, by comparing it with English: Together with the Holy History of Scripture-War, or the sacred art military, c.” Lond. 1677, 8vo. 8. “The Harmony of the Four Evangelists, in a metrical paraphrase on the history of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,” Lond. 1679, 8vo, reprinted afterwards. 9. “The Young Scholar’s best Companion: or an exact guide or directory for children and youth, from the A B C, to the Latin Grammar, comprehending the whole body of the English learning, &c.” Lond. 12mo. Cole’s Dictionary continued to be a schoolbook in very general use, for some time after the publication of Ainswdrth’s Thesaurus. But it has fallen almost into total neglect, since other abridgments of Ainsworth have appeared, by Young, Thomas, and other persons. The men, however, who have been benefactors to the cause of learning, ought to be remembered with graiitude, though their writings may happen to be superseded by more perfeet productions. It is no small point of honour to be the means of paving the way for superior works.

, uncle to the preceding, was also a native of Northamptonshire, but became a trader in London, and probably an unsuccessful one, as during the time that Oxford was in possession of the parliamentary forces, we find him promoted to the office of steward to Magdalen college, by Dr. Thomas Goodwin, the famous independent president of that college. On the restoration, he was obliged to quit this situation, but acquired the preferable appointment of clerk to the East India company, which he probably held to his death, at London, in October 1688, upwards of eighty years old. He is known to this day by his “Practical Discourse of God’s Sovereignty,” London, 1673, 4to, and often reprinted in 8vo. The object of it is to refute the Arminians in those points concerning which they differ most from the Calvinists.

, a learned English divine, and the. founder of St. Paul’s school, was born in the parish of St. Antholin, London, in 1466, and was the eldest son of sir Henry Colet, knt. twice lord-mayor, who had besides him twenty-one children. In 1483 he was sent to Magdalen college in Oxford, where he spent seven years in the study of logic and philosophy, and took the degrees in arts. He was perfectly acquainted with Cicero’s works, and no stranger to Plato and Plotinus, whom he read together, that they might illustrate each other. He could, hcfwever, read them only in the Latin translations; for neither at school nor university had he any opportunity of learning the Greek, that language being then thought unnecessary, and even discouraged. Hence the proverb, “Cave a Graecis, ne lias haereticus,” that is, “Beware of Greek, lest you become an heretic;” and it is well known, that when Linacer, Grocyn, and others, afterwards professed to teach it at Oxford, they were opposed by a set of men who called themselves Trojans. Colet, however, was well skilled in mathematics; and having thus laid a good foundation of learning at home, he travelled abroad for farther improvement first to France, and then to Italy; and seems to have continued in those two countries from 1493 to 1497. But before his departure, and indeed when he was of but two years standing in the university, he was instituted to the rectory of Denington in Suffolk, to which he was presented by a relation of his mother, and which he held to the day of his death. This practice of taking livings, while thus under age, generally prevailed in the church of Rome; and Colet, being then an acolythe, which is one of their seven orders, was qualitied for it. He was also presented by his own father, Sept. 30, 1485, to the rectory of Thyrning in Huntingdonshire, but he resigned it about the latter end of 1493, probably before he set out on his travels. Being arrived at Paris, he soon became^ acquainted with the learned there, with the celebrated Budaeus in particular; and was afterwards introduced to Erasmus. In Italy he contracted a friendship with several eminent persons, especially with his own countrymen, Grocyn, Linacer, Lilly, and Latimer; who were learning the Greek tongue, then but little known in England, under those great masters Demetrius, Angel us Politianus, Hermolaus Barbarus, and Pomponius Sabinus. He took this opportunity of improving himself in this language; and having devoted himself to divinity, he read, while abroad, the best of the antient fathers, particularly Origen, Cyprian, Ambrose, and Jerome, but, it is said, very much undervalued St. Augustine. He looked sometimes also into Sco^ tus and Aquinas, studied the civil and canon law, made himself acquainted with the history and constitution of church and state; and with a view to refinement, not very common at that time, did not neglect to read such English poets, and other authors of the belles lettres, as were then extant. During his absence from England he was made a prebendary of York, and installed by proxy upon March 5, 1494, and was also made canon of St. Martin’s Le Grand, London, and prebendary of Good Easter, in the same church. Upon his return in 1497 he was ordained deacon in December, and priest in July following. He had, indeed, before he entered into orders, great temptations from his natural disposition to lay aside study, and give himself up to the gaiety of the court, for he was rather luxuriously inclined; but he curbed his passions by great temperance and circumspection, and after staying a few months with his father and mother at London, retired to Oxford.

Here he read public lectures on St. Paul’s epistles, without stipend or reward; which, being a new thing, drew a vast crowd of hearers, who admired him greatly. And here he strengthened his memorable friendship with Erasmus, who came to Oxford in 1497, which remained unshaken and inviolable to the day of their deaths. He continued these lectures three years; and in 1501 was admitted to proceed in divinity, or to the reading of the sentences. In 1502 he became prebendary of Durnesford, in the churcfa of Sarum, and in Jan. 1504, resigned his prebend of Good Easter. In the same year he commenced D. D. and in May 1505, was instituted to the prebend of Mora in St. Paul’s, London. The same year and month he was made dean of that church, without the least application of his own; and being raised to this high station, he began to reform the decayed discipline of his cathedral. He introduced a new practice of preaching himself upon Sundays and great festivals, and called to his assistance other learned persons, such as Grocyn, and Sowle, whom he appointed to read divinity-lectures. These lectures raised in the nation a spirit of inquiry after the holy scriptures, which had long been laid aside for the school divinity; and eventually prepared for the reformation, which soon after ensued. Colet was unquestionably in some measure instrumental towards it, though he did not live to see it effected; for he expressed a great contempt of religious houses, exposed the abuses that prevailed in them, and set forth the danger of imposing celibacy on the clergy. This way of thinking, together with his free and public manner of communicating his thoughts, which were then looked upon as impious and heretical, made him obnoxious to the clergy, and exposed him to persecution from the bishop of London, Dr. Fitzjames; who, being a rigid bigot, could not bear to have the corruptions in his church spoken against, and therefore accused him to archbishop Warham as a dangerous man, preferring at the same time some articles against him. But Warham, well knowing the worth and integrity of Colet, dismissed him, without giving him the trouble of putting in any formal answer. The bishop, however, not satisfied with that fruitless attempt, endeavoured afterwards to stir up the king and the court against him; nay, we are told in bishop Latimer’s sermons, that he was not only in trouble, but would have been burnt, if God had not turned the king’s heart to the contrary.

These troubles and persecutions made him weary of the world, so that he began to think of disposing of his effects, and of retiring. Having therefore a very plentiful estate without any near relations (for, numerous as his brethren were, he had outlived them all), he resolved, in the midst of life and health, to consecrate the whole property of it to some standing and perpetual benefaction. And this he performed by founding St. Paul’s school, in London, of which he appointed William Lilly first master in 1512. He ordained, that there should be in this school an high master, a surmaster, and a chaplain, who should teach gratis 153 children, divided into eight classes and he endowed it with lands and houses, amounting then to 122l. 4s. 7½d per annum, of which endowment he made the company of mercers trustees. To further his scheme of retiring, he built a convenient and handsome house near Richmond palace in Surrey, in which he intended to reside, but having been seized by the sweating sickness twice, and relapsing into it a third time, a consumption ensued, which proved fatal September 16, 1519, in his fifty-third year. He was buried in St. Paul’s choir, with an humble monument prepared for him several years before, and only inscribed with his bare name. Afterwards a nobler was erected to his honour by the company of mercers, which was destroyed with the cathedral in 1666; but the representation of it is preserved in sir William Dugdale’s “History of St. Paul’s,” and in Knight’s life of the dean. On the two sides of the bust was this inscription: “John Colet, doctor of divinity, dean of Paul’s, and the only founder of Paul’sschocrf, departed this life, anno 1519, the son of sir Henry Colet, knt. twise mayor of the cyty of London, and free of the company and mistery of mercers.” Lower, there were other inscriptions in Latin. About 1680, when the church was taking down in order to be rebuilt, his leaden coffin was found inclosed in the wall, about two feet and a half above the floor. At the top of it was a leaden plate fastened, whereon was engraved the dean’s name, his dignity, his benefactions, &c. Besides his dignities and preferments already mentioned, he was rector of the fraternity or gild of Jesus in St. Paul’s church, for which he procured new statutes; and was chaplain and preacher in ordinary-to Henry VIII; and, if Erasmus is not mistaken, one of the privy-council.

Of his writings, those which he published himself, or which have been published since his death, are as follow: 1. “Oratio habita a doctore Johanne Colet, decano sancti Pauli, ad clerum in convocatione, anno 1511.” This being hardly to be met with, except in the Bodleian library at Oxford, among archbishop Laud’s Mss. was reprinted by Knight in his appendix to the life of Colet; where also is reprinted an old English translation of it, supposed to have been done by the author himself. 2. “Rudimenta grammatices a Joanne Coleto, decano ecclesioe sancti Pauli Londin. in usum scholae ab ipso institutae:” commonly called “Paul’s Accidence, 1539,” 8vo. 3. “The construction of the eight parts of speech, entitled Absolutissimus de octo orationis partium constructione libellus:” which, with some alterations, and great additions, makes up the syntax in Lilly’s grammar, Antwerp, 1530, 8vo. 4. “Daily Devotions or, the Christian’s morning and evening sacrifice.” This is said not to be all of his composition. 5. “Monition to a godly Life,” 1534, 1563, &c. 6. “Epistolae ad Erasmum.” Many of them are printed among Erasmus’s epistles, and some at the end of Knight’s Life of Colet. There are still remaining in ms. others of his pieces, enumerated in the account of his Life by Knight. It is probable that he had no intention of publishing any thing himself; for he had an inaccuracy and incorrectness in his way of writing, which was likely to expose him to the censures of critics; and besides, was no perfect master of the Greek tongue, without which he thought a man was nothing. The pieces above mentioned were found after his death in a very obscure corner of his study, as if he had designed they should lie buried in oblivion; and were written in such a manner as if intended to be understood by nobody but himself. With regard to sermons, he wrote but few; for he generally preached without notes.

The descriptions which are given of his person and character are much to his advantage. He was a tall, comely, graceful, well-bred man; and of uncommon learning and piety. In his writings his style was plain and unaffected; and for rhetoric he had rather a contempt, than a want of it. He could not bear that the standard of good writing should be taken from the exact rules of grammar; which, he often said, was apt to obstruct a purity of language, not to be obtained but by reading the best authors. This contempt of grammar, though making him sometimes inaccurate, and, as we have observed, laying him open to the critics, did not hinder him from attaining a very masterly style; so that his preaching, though popular, and adapted to mean capacities, was agreeable to men of wit and learning, and in particular was much admired by sir Thomas More. With regard to some of his notions, he was an eminent forerunner of the reformation; and he and Erasmus jointly promoted it, not only by pulling down those strong holds of ignorance and corruption, the scholastic divinity, and entirely routing both the Scotists and Thomists, who had divided the Christian world between them, but also by discovering the shameful abuses of monasteries, and the folly and danger of imposing celibacy upon the clergy; to which places he gave little or nothing while he lived, and left nothing when he died. Colet thought immorality in a priest more excusable than pride and avarice; and was with no sort of men more angry than with those bishops who, instead of shepherds, acted the part of wolves, and who, under the pretence of devotions, ceremonies, benedictions, and indulgences, recommended themselves to the veneration of the people, while in their hearts they were slaves to filthy lucre. He condemned auricular confession; and was content to say mass only upon Sundays and great festivals, or at least upon very few days besides. He had gathered up several authorities from the ancient fathers against the current tenets and customs of the church; and though he did not openly oppose the established religion, yet he shewed a particular kindness and favour to those who disliked the worshiping of images. As to his moral qualities, he was a man of exemplary temperance, and all other virtues: and is so represented by his intimate friend Erasmus, in an epistle to Jodocus Jonas, where the life, manners, and qualifications of Colet are professedly described.

, the second of the name, of an ancient family, admiral of France, was born the 16th of February 1516, at Chatillon-sur-Loing. He bore arms from his very infancy. He signalized himself under Francis I. at the battle of Cerisoles, and under Henry II. who made him colonel-general of the French infantry, and afterwards admiral of France, in 1552; favours which he obtained by the brilliant actions he performed at the battle of Renti, by his zeal for military discipline, by his victories over the Spaniards, and especially by the defence of St. Quintin. The admiral threw himself into that place, and exhibited prodigies of valour; but the town being forced, he was made prisoner of war. After the death of Henry II. he put himself at the head of the protestants against the Guises, and formed so powerful a party as to threaten ruin to the Romish religion in France. We are told by a contemporary historian, that the court had not a more formidable enemy, next to Conde, who had joined with him. The latter was more ambitious, more enterprising, more active. Coligni was of a sedater temper, more cautious, and fitter to be the leader of a party; as unfortunate, indeed, in war as Conde, but often repairing by his ability what had seemed irreparable; more dangerous after a defeat, than his enemies after a victory; and moreover adorned with as many virtues as such tempestuous times and the spirit of party would allow. He seemed to set no value on his life. Being wounded, and his friends lamenting around him, he said to them with incredible constancy, “The business we follow should make us as familiar with death as with life.” The first pitcht battle that happened between the protestants and the catholics, was that of Dreux, in 1562. The admiral fought bravely, lost it, but saved the army. The duke of Guise having been murdered by treachery, a short time afterwards, at the siege of Orleans, he was accused of having connived at this base assassination; but he cleared himself of the charge by oath. The civil wars ceased for some time, but only to recommence with greater fury in 1567. Coligni and Conde fought the battle of St. Denys against the constable of Montmorenci. This indecisive day was followed by that of Jarnac, in 1569, fatal to the protestants. Concle having been killed in a shocking manner, Coligni had to sustain the whole weight of the party, and alone supported that unhappy cause, and was again defeated at the affair of Men Icon tour, in Poitou, without suffering his courage to be shaken for a moment. An advantageous peace seemed shortly after to terminate these bloody conflicts, in 1571. Coligni appeared at court, where he was loaded with caresses, in common with all the rest of his party. Charles IX. ordered him to be paid a hundred thousand francs as a reparation of the losses he had sustained, and restored to him his place in the council. On all hands, however, he was exhorted to distrust these perfidious caresses. A captain of the protestants, who was retiring into the country, came to take leave of him: Coligni asked him the reason of so sudden a retreat: “It is,” said the soldier, “because they shew us too many kindnesses here: I had rather escape with the fools, than perish with such as are over-wise.” A horrid conspiracy soon broke out. One Friday the admiral coming to the Louvre, was fired at by a musquet from a window, and dangerously wounded in the right hand and in the left arm, by Maurevert, who had been employed by the duke de Guise, who had proposed the scheme to Charles IX. The king of Navarre and the prince of Cond6 complained of this villainous act. Charles IX. trained to the arts of dissimulation by his mother, pretended to be extremely afflicted at the event, ordered strict inquiry to be made after the author of it, and called Coligni by the tender name of father. This was at the very time when he was meditating the approaching massacre of the protestants. The carnage began, as is well known, the 24th of August, St. Bartholomew’s day, 1572. The duke de Guise, under a strong escort, marched to the house of the admiral. A crew of assassins, headed by one Besme, a domestic of the house of Guise, entered sword in hand, and found him sitting in an elbow-chair. “Young man,” said he to their leader in a calm and tranquil manner, “thou shouldst have respected my gray hairs but, do what thou wilt thou canst only shorten my life by a few days.” This miscreant, after having stabbed him in several places, threw him out at the window into the court-yard of the house, where the duke of Guise stood waiting. Coligni fell at the feet of his base and implacable enemy, and said, according to some writers, as he was just expiring “If at least I had died by the hand of a gentleman, and not by that of a turnspit!” Besme, having trampled on the corpse, said to his companions: “A good beginning! let us go and continue our work!” His body was exposed for three days to the fury of the populace, and then hung up by the feet on the gallows of Montfaucon. Montmorenci, his cousin, had it taken down, in order to bury it secretly in the chapel of the chateau de Chantilli. An Italian, having cut off the head of the admiral, carried it to Catherine de Medicis; and this princess caused it to be embalmed, and sent it to Rome. Coligni was in the habit of keeping a journal, which, after his death, was put into the hands of Charles IX. In this was remarked a piece of advice which he gave that prince, to take care of what he did in assigning the appanage, lest by so doing he left them too great an authority. Catherine caused this article to be read before the duke of Alei^on, whpm she knew to be afflicted at the death of the admiral: “There is your good friend!” said she, “observe the advice he gives the king!” “I cannot say,” returned the duke, “whether he was very fond of me; but 1 know that such advice could have been given only by a man of strict fidelity to his majesty, and zealous for the good of his country.” Charles IX. thought this journal worth being printed; but the marshal de Retz prevailed on him to throw it into the fire. We shall conclude this article with the parallel drawn by the abbe“de Mably of the admiral de Coligni, and of Francois de Lorraine, due de Guise.” Coligni was the greatest general of his time; as courageous as the duke of Guise, but less impetuous, because he had always been less successful. He was fitter for forming grand projects, and more prudent in the particulars of their executioj. Guise, by a more brilliant courage, which astonished his enemies, reduced conjunctures to the province of his genius, and thus rendered himself in some sort master of them. Coligni obeyed them, but like a commander superior to them. In the same circumstances ordinary men would have observed only courage in the conduct of the one, and only prudence in that of the other, though both of them had these two qualities, but variously subordinated. Guise, more successful, had fewer opportunities for displaying the resources of his genius: his dexterous ambition, and, like that of Pompey, apparently founded on the very interests of the princes it was endeavouring to ruin, while it pretended to serve them, was supported on the authority of his name till it had acquired strength enough to stand by itself. Coligni, less criminal, though he appeared to be more so, openly, like Caesar, declared war upon his prince and the whole kingdom of France. Guise had the art of conquering, and of profiting by the victory. Coligni lost four battles, and was always the terror of his victors, whom he seemed to have vanquished. It is not easy to say what the former would have been in the disasters that befell Coligni; but we may boldly conjecture that the latter would have appeared still greater, if fortune had favoured him as much. He was seen carried in a litter, and we may add in the very jaws of death, to order and conduct the longest and most difficult marches, traversing France in the midst of his enemies, rendering by his counsels the youthful courage of the prince of Navarre more formidable, and training him to those great qualities which were to make him a good king, generous, popular, and capable of managing the affairs of Europe, after having made him a hero, sagacious, terrible, and clement in the conduct of war. The good understanding he kept up between the French and the Germans of his army, whom the interests of religion alone were ineffectual to unite; the prudence with which he contrived to draw succours from England, where all was not quiet; his art in giving a spur to the tardiness of the princes of Germany, who, not having so much genius as himself, were more apt to despair of saving the protestantsof France, and deferred to send auxiliaries, who were no longer hastened in their march by the expectation of plunder in a country already ravaged; are master-pieces of his policy. Coligni was an honest man. Guise wore the mask of a greater number of virtues; but all were infected by his ambition. He had all the qualities that win the heart of the multitude. Coligni, more collected in himself, was more esteemed by his enemies, and respected by his own people. He was a lover of order and of his country. Ambition might bear him up, but it never first set him in motion. Hearty alike in the cause of protestantism and of his country, he was never able, by too great austerity, to make his doctrine tally with the duties of a subject. With the qualities of a hero, he was endowed with a gentle soul. Had he been less of the great man, he would have been a fanatic; he was an apostle and a zealot. His life was first published in 1575, 8vo, and translated and published in English in 1576, by Arthur Golding. There is also a life by Courtilz, 1686, 12mo, and one in the “Hommes Illustres de France.”

, countess de la Suze, a French poetess, whose works have been printed with those of Pellison and others in 1695, and 1725 in 2 volumes 12mo, was the daughter of Gaspar de Coligni, the third of that name, marshal of France, and colonel-general of infantry. She was very early married, in 1643, when she could not be more than seventeen, to Thomas Hamilton, earl of Haddington, according to Moreri, but we find no mention of this in the Scotch peerage. After his death she espoused the count de la Suze, of an illustrious house in Champaigne. But this second match proved unfortunate, owing to the furious jealousy of the count her husband, whose severities towards her made her abjure protestantism, and profess the catholic faith, which occasioned queen Christina of Sweden to say, “that she had changed her religion, that she might not see her husband, neither in this world nor the next.” Their antipathy became so great that the countess at last disannulled the marriage; and to induce the count to accede to it, she offered 25,000 crowns, which he accepted. She then gave herself up to the study of poetry, and became much admired by the geniuses of her time, who made her the subject of their eulogiums. Her fort lay in the elegiac strain, and those works of hers which have come down to us have at least a delicate turn of sentiment. Her other poems are songs, madrigals, and odes. The wits of her time gave her the majesty of Juno with Minerva’s wit and Venus’s beauty in some verses, attributed to Bouhours: but her character in other respects appears not to have been of the most correct kind. She died at Paris, March 10, 1673.

, a Spanish Dominican of the sixteenth century, went as a missionary to Japan in 1621, but his endeavours being obstructed, he made a second attempt in 1635, which was also unsuccessful, and he was recalled by the king to Spain: in his voyage home he was shipwrecked, and lost his life at Manilla in 1638, leaving behind him many works of these the principal are, a “Japonese Grammar and Dictionary in Latin” “A continuation of Hyacinth Orfanels Hist. Ecclesiastica Japon.” “Dictionarium Linguae Sinensis, cum explicatione Latina et Hispanica, charactere Sinensi et Latino.”

, an engraver and print-seller of Antwerp, of the sixteenth century, is said to have received the first instructions in his art, in the place of his nativity; after which he repaired to Italy to complete his studies. He contributed not a little, by his assiduity, and the facility of his graver, to the numberless sets of prints of sacred stones, huntings, landscapes, flowers, fish, &c. with which the states of Germany and Flanders were at that time inundated. Many of these are apparently from his own designs, and others from Martin de Vos, Theodore Bernard, P. Breughel, John Stradanus, Hans Bol, and other masters. His style of engraving is at the same time masterly and neat, and his knowledge of drawing appears to have been considerable; but his prints partake of the defects of his contemporaries, his masses of light and shade being too much scattered, and too equally powerful. The following are amongst his numerous performances. The “Life of Christ in 36 small prints.” “The twelve months, small circles from H. Bol.” “The women of Israel chanting the psalm of praise, after the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea.” This artist flourished according to Strutt and Heinecken about 1530 1550. His son, Hans or John, was an excellent draughtsman and engraver. He studied some time in Rome, and afterwards settled in his native place, Antwerp, where he assisted his father in most of his great works; and afterwards published a prodigious number of prints of his own, nowise inferior to those of Adrian. The works attributed by some to one Herman Coblent, are, by Heinecken, supposed to be by this master. His prints, according to Strutt, are dated from 1555 to 1622, so that he must have lived to a great age. We shall only notice the following amongst his numerous performances “The Life of St. Francis in 16 prints lengthways, surrounded by grotesque borders.” “Time and Truth,” a small upright print beautifully engraved, from J. Stradanus “The Last Judgment,” a large print, encompassed with small stories of the life of Christ. M. Heinecken mentions a print by an artist, who signs himself William Collaert, and supposes him the son of John Collaert.

, born at Tours in Auvergne, in 1524, was valet-de-chambre to Charles IX. Though a true catholic, he was taken for a protestant, and assassinated as such in the massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572. He translated and augmented the polygraphy and the cabalistic writing of Trithemius, Paris, 1561, in 4to, which a Prison, named Dominique de Hottinga," published under his own name, without making any mention either of Trithemius or of Collange, at Embden, 1620, 4to. Collange had also some skill in the mathematics and in cosmography, and left a great many learned manuscripts described in our authorities.

, secretary and reader to the duke of Orleans, was born at Paris in 1709, and died in the same city Nov. 2, 1783, at the age of 75. In his character were united a singular disposition to gaiety, and an uncommon degree of sensibility; the death of a beloved wife accelerated his own. Without affecting the qualities of beneficence and humanity, he was humane and beneficent. Having a propensity to the drama from his infancy, he cultivated it with success. His “Partie-de-Chasse de Henri IV.” (from which our “Miller of Mansfield” is taken) exhibits a very faithful picture of that good king. His comedy of “Dupuis and Desronais,” in the manner of Terence, may perhaps be destitute of the vis cornica; but the sentiments are just, the characters well supported, and the situations pathetic. Another comedy, entitled “Truth in wine, or the Disasters of Gallantry,” has more of satire and broad humour. There are several more pieces of his, in which he paints, with no less liveliness than truth, the manners of his time; but his pencil is frequently as licentious as those manners. His talent at song-writing procured him the appellation of the Anacreon of the age, but here too he was deficient in delicacy. His song on the capture of Portmahon was the means of procuring him a pension from the court of 600 livres, perhaps the first favour of the kind ever bestowed. He was one of the last survivers of a society of wits who met under the name of the Caveau, and is in as much honourable remembrance as the Kit- K at club in London. This assembly, says a journalist, was of as much consequence to literature as an academy. Colle frequently used to regret those good old times, when this constellation of wits were wont to meet together, as men of letters, free and independent. The works of this writer are collected in 3 volumes, 12mo, under the title of " Theatre de SocieteY' Colle* was a cousin of the poet Regnard, whom he likewise resembled in his originality of genius.

, a voluminous French divine, was a native of Ternay in Vendomois, doctor of divinity, and priest of the mission of St. Lazare. He was born Sept. 6, 1693, and died at Paris Oct. 6, 1770, at the seminary des Bons Enfans, where he resided. M. Collet published “A System of Moral Theology,” Is torn, which make 17 vols. 8vo, in Latin, because torn. 1, and torn. 13, are divided each into two, 1744 et seqq. An abridgment of this work, 5 vols. 12mo a scholastic work in 2 vols. “Tr. des Dispenses,” 3 vols. “Tr. des Saints Mysteres,” 3 vols.; “Tr. des Indulgences, et du Jubile,” 2 vols. 12moj and some books of devotion, which are very superficial; “Sermons,” 2 vols. 12mo, an abridgment of Pontas, 2 vols. 4to, &c.

, a learned advocate of parliament of Dombes, was born February 15, 1643, at Chatilon-­les-Dombes, where he died March 31, 1718, aged seventy-­six. He left “Traité des Excommunications,” 1689, 12mo; “Tr. de l'Usure,” 1690, 8vo; Notes on the custom of Bresse, 1698, fol. and several other works containing singular sentiments, more free than his church permitted.

, one of the members of the French academy, was born at Paris in 1598, and died in the same city February 10, 1659, aged sixty-one, leaving scarcely enough to bury him. Cardinal Richelieu appointed him one of the five authors whom he selected to write for the theatre. Colletet alone composed “Cyminde,” and had a part in the two comedies, the “Blindman of Smyrna,” and the “Tuilleries.” Reading the monologue in this latter piece to the cardinal, he was so struck with six bad lines in it, that he made him a present of 6uO livres; saying at the same time, that this was only for the six verses, which he found so beautiful, that the king was not rich enough to recompense him for the rest. However, to shew his right as a patron, and at the same time his judgment as a connoisseur, he insisted on the alteration of one word for another. Colletet refused to comply with his criticism; and, not content with defending his verse to the cardinal’s face, on returning home he wrote to him on the subject. The cardinal had just read his letter, when some courtiers came to compliment him on the success of the king’s arms, adding, that nothing could withstand his eminence!—“You are much mistaken,” answered he smiling; “for even at Paris I meet with persons who withstand me.” They asked who these insolent persons could be? “It is Colletet,” replied he; “for, after having contended with me yesterday about a word, he will not yet submit, as you may see here by this long letter he has been writing to me.” This obstinacy, however, did not so far irritate the minister as to deprive the poet of his patronage. Colletet had also other benefactors. Harlay, archbishop of Paris, gave him a handsome reward for his hymn on the immaculate conception; by sending him an Apollo of solid silver. Colletet took for his second wife, Claudine his maid servant; and, in order to justify his choice, published occasionally pieces of poetry in her name; but, this little artifice being presently discovered, both the supposititious Sappho, and the inspirer of her lays, became the objects of continual satire. This marriage, in addition to two subsequent ones, to the losses he suffered in the civil wars, and to his turn for dissipation, reduced him to the extreme of poverty. His works appeared in 1653, in 12mo.

, an eminent English divine, was born at Stow Qui in Cambridgeshire, Sept. 23, 1650. His father Jeremy Collier was a divine and a considerable linguist; and some time master of the free-school at Ipswich, in Suffolk. He was educated under his father at Ipswich, whence he was sent to Cambridge, and admitted a poor scholar of Caius college under the tuition of John Ellys, in April 1669. He took the degree of B. A. in 1673, and that of M. A. in 1676; being ordained deacon the same year by Gunning, bishop of Ely, and priest the year after by Compton bishop of London. He officiated for some time at the countess dowager of Dorset’s at Knowle in Kent, whence he removed to a small rectory at Ampton near St. Edmund’s Bury in Suffolk, to which he was presented by James Calthorpe, esq. in 1679. After he had held this benefice six years, he resigned it, came to London in 1685, and was some little time after made lecturer of Gray’s Inn. But the revolution coming on, the public exercise of his function became impracticable.

Collier, however, was of too active a spirit to remain supine, and therefore began the attack upon the revolution: for his pamphlet is said to have been the first written on that side the question after the prince of Orange’s arrival, with a piece entitled “The Desertion discussed in a letter to a country gentleman, 1688,” 4to. This was written in, answer to a pamphlet of Dr. Gilbert Burnet, afterwards bishop of Salisbury, called “An Enquiry into the present State of Affairs, &c.” wherein king James is treated as a deserter from his crown; and it gave such offence, that, after the government was settled, Collier was sent to Newgate, where he continued a close prisoner for some months, but was at length discharged without being brought to a trial. He afterwards published the following pieces: 1. A translation of the 9th, 10th, llth, and 12th books of Sleidan’s Commentaries, 1689, 4to. 2. “Vindiciae juris regii, or remarks upon a paper entitled An Enquiry into the measures of submission to the Supreme Authority,” 1689, 4to. The author of this inquiry was also Dr. Burnet. 3. “Animadversions upon the modern explanation of 2 Hen. VII. chap. i. or a king de facto,” 1689, 4to. 4. “A Caution against Inconsistency, or the connection between praying and swearing, in relation to the Civil Powers,” 1690, 4to. This discourse is a dissuasive from joining in public assemblies. 5. “A Dialogue concerning the Times, between Philobelgus and Sempronius, 1690, 4to: to the right honourable the lords, and to the gentlemen convened at Westminster, Oct. 1690.” This is a petition for an inquiry into the birth of the prince of Wales, and printed upon a half sheet. 6. “Dr. Sherlock’s Case of Allegiance considered, with some remarks upon his Vindication,” 1691, 4to. 7. “A brief essay concerning the independency of Church Power,” 1692, 4to. The design of this essay is to prove the public assemblies guilty of schism, upon account of their being held under such bishops as had assumed, or owned such as had assumed, the sees of those who were deprived for not taking the oaths of the new government.

Thus did Collier, by such ways and means as were in his power, continue to oppose with great vigour and spirit the revolution and all its abettors: and thus he became obnoxious to the men in power, who only waited for an occasion to seize him. That occasion at length came; for information being given to the earl of Nottingham, then secretary of state, that Collier, with one Newton, another nonjuring clergyman, was gone to Romney marsh, with a view of sending to, or receiving intelligence from the other side of the water, messengers were sent to apprehend them. They were brought to London, and, after a short examination by the earl, committed to the Gate-house. This was in the latter end of 1692, but as no evidence of their being concerned in any such design could be found, they were admitted to bail, and released. Newton, as far as appears, availed himself of this but Collier refused to remain upon bail, because he conceived that an acknowledgment of the jurisdiction of the court in which the bail was taken, and consequently of the power from whence the authority of the court was derived, and therefore surrendered in discharge of his bail before chief justice Holt, and was committed to “the king’s-bench prison. He v/as released again at the intercession of friends, in a very few days; but still attempted to support his principles and justify his conduct by the following pieces, of which, it is said, there were only five copies printed: 8.” The case of giving Bail to a pretended authority examined, dated from the King’s-bench, Nov. 23, 1692,“with a preface, dated Dec. 1692; and, 9,” A Letter to sir John Holt,“dated Nov. 30, 1692; and also, 10.” A Reply to some Remarks upon the case of giving bail, &c. dated April, 1693.“He wrote soon after this, 11.” A Persuasive to consideration, tendered to the Royalists, particularly those of the Church of England,“1693, 4to. It was afterwards reprinted in 8vo, together with his vindication of it, against a piece entitled” The Layman’s Apology.“He wrote also, 12.” Remarks upon the London Gazette, relating to the Streights’ Fleet, and the Battle of Landen in Flanders," 1693, 4to.

We hear no more of Collier till 1696; and then we find him acting a very extraordinary part, in regard to sir John Friend and sir William Perkins, who were convicted of being concerned in the assassination plot. Collier, with Cook and Snatt, two clergymen of his own way of thinking, attended those unhappy persons at the place of their execution, upon April 3; where Collier solemnly absolved the former, as Cook did the latter, and all three joined in the imposition of hands upon them both. This, as might well be expected, was looked upon as an high insult on the civil and ecclesiastical government; for which reason there was a declaration, signed by the two archbishops and the bishops of London, Durham, Winchester, Coven<­try and Litchfield, Rochester, Hereford, Norwich, Peterborough, Gloucester, Chichester, and, St. Asaph, in which they signified their abhorrence of this scandalous, irregular, schismatic, and seditious proceeding. This “Declaration,” which may be seen in the Appendix to the third vol. of the State Tracts in the time of king William, did not only bring upon them ecclesiastical censure; they were prosecuted also in the secular courts, as enemies to the government. In consequence of this Cook and Snatt were committed to Newgate, but afterwards released without being brought to a trial; but Collier having still his old scruple about putting in bail, and absconding, was outlawed, and so continued to the time of his death. He did not fail, however, to have recourse to his pen as usual, in order to justify his conduct upon this occasion; and therefore pubJished, 13. “A Defence of the Absolution given to sir William Perkins at the place of execution; with a farther vindication thereof, occasioned by a paper entitled, A Declaration of the sense of the archbishops and bishops, &c. the first dated April 9, 1696, the other April 21, 1696;” to which is added, “A Postscript in relation to a paper called An Answer to his Defence, &c. dated April 25.” Also, “A Reply to the Absolution of a Penitent according to the directions of the church of England, &c.” dated May 20, 1696: and “An Answer to the Animadversions on two pamphlets lately published by Mr. Collier, &c.” dated July 1, 1696, 4to.

When this affair was over, Collier employed himself in reviewing and finishing several miscellaneous pieces, which he published under the title of “Essays upon several Moral Subjects.” They consist of 3 vols. 8vo; the first of which was printed in 1697, and its success encouraged the author to publish a second in 1705, and a third in 1709. These were written with such a mixture of learning and wit, and in a style so easy and flowing, that notwithstanding the prejudice of party, which ran strong against him, they were in general well received, and have passed through many editions since. In 1698 he entered on his celebrated attempt to reform the stage, by publishing his “Short View of the immorality and profaneness of the English Stage, together with the sense of antiquity upon this argument,” 8vo. This engaged him in a controversy with the wits; and Congreve and Vanbrugh, whom, with many others, he had taken to task very severely, appeared openly against him. The pieces he wrote in this conflict, besides the first already mentioned, were, 2. “A Defence of the Short View, being a reply to Mr. Congreve’s amendments, &c. and to the vindication of the author of the Relapse,” 1699, 8vo. 3. “A Second Defence of the Short View, being a reply to a book entitled The ancient and modern Stages surveyed, &c.” 1700, 8vo the book here replied to was written by Mr. Drake. 4. “Mr. Collier’s dissuasive from the Play-house: in a letter to a person of quality, occasioned by the late calamity of the tempest,” 1703, 8vo. S. “A farther Vindication of the Short View, &c. in whjch the objections of a late book, entitled A Defence of Plays, are considered,” 1708, 8vo. “The Defence of Piays” has Dr. Filmer for its author. In this controversy with the stage, Collier exerted himself to the utmost advantage; and shewed that a clergyman might have wit as well as learning and reason on his side. It is remarkable, that his labours here were attended with success, and actually produced repentance and amendment; for it is allowed on all hands, that the decorum which has been for the most part observed by the later writers of dramatic poetry, is entirely owing to the animadversions of Collier. What Dryden said upon this occasion in the preface to his Fables does much credit to his candour and good sense. “I shall say the less of Mr. Collier, because in many things he has taxed me justly; and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts and expressions of mine which can be truly arraigned of obscenity, profaneness, or immorality, and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, as 1 have given him no personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes me not to draw my pen in the defence of a bad cause, when I have so often drawn it for a good one.” If Congreve andVanbrugh had taken the same method with Dryden, and made an ingenuous confession of their faults, they would have retired with a better grace than they did: for it is certain that, with all the wit which they have shewn in their respective vindications, they make but a very indifferent figure. “Congreve and Vanbrugh, says Dr. Johnson, attempted answers. Congreve, a very young man, elated with success, and impatient of censure, assumed an air of confidence and security. His chief artifice of controversy is to retort upon his adversary his own words: he is very angry, and hoping to conquer Collier with his own weapons, allows himself in the use of every term of contumely and contempt: but he has the sword without the arm of Scanderbeg; he has his antagonist’s coarseness, but not his strength. Collier replied; for contest was his delight: he was not to be frighted from his purpose, or his prey. The cause of Congreve was not tenable: whatever glosses he might use for the defence or palliation of single passages, the general tenour and tendency of his plays must always be condemned. It is acknowledged, with universal conviction, that the perusal of his works will make no man better; and that their Vol. X, ultimate effect is to represent pleasure in alliance with vice, and to relax those obligations by which life ought to be regulated. The stage found other advocates, and the dispute was protracted through ten years: but at last comedy grew more modest, and Collier lived to see the reward of his labour in the' reformation of the theatre.”

The next thing Collier undertook was a work of considerable industry, that of translating Moreri’s great “Historical, geographical, genealogical, and poetical Dictionary.” The two first volumes were printed in 1701, the third, under the title of a “Supplement,” in 1705, and the fourth, which is called “An Appendix,” in 1721. This was a work of great utility at the time it was published. It was the first of its kind in the English language, and many articles of biography in the Appendices may yet be consulted with advantage, as containing particulars which are not to be found elsewhere. About 1701, he published also, “An English translation of Antoninus’s Meditations, &c. to which is added, the Mythological Picture of Cebes, &c.” In the reign of queen Anne, some overtures were made to engage him to a compliance, and he was promised preferment, if he would acknowledge and submit to the government; but as he became a nonjuror upon a principle of conscience, he could not be prevailed upon to listen to any terms. Afterwards he published, in 2 vols. folio, “An Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, chiefly of England, from the first planting of Christianity, to the end of the reign of Charles II. with a brief account of the affairs of religion in Ireland, collected from the best ancient historians, councils, and records.” The first volume, which comes down to Henry Vie was published in 1708, the second in 1714. This history, which contains, besides a relation of facts, many curious discourses upon ecclesiastical and religious subjects, was censured by bishop Burnet, bishop Nicolson, and doctor Kennet, afterwards bishop of Peterborough; but was defended by Collier in two pieces. The first was entitled “An Answer to some exceptions in bishop Burnet’s third part of the History of the Reformation, &c. against Mr. Collier’s Ecclesiastical History; together with a reply to some remarks in bishop Nicolson’s English Historical Library, &c. upon the same subject, 1715;” the second, “Some Remarks on Dr. Kennet’s second and third Letters; wherein his misrepresenta-. tions of Mr. Collier’s Ecclesiastical History are laid open, and his calumnies disproved, 1717.” Collier’s prejudices, however, in favour of the popish establishment, aud against the reformers, render it necessary to read this work with much caution: on the other hand, we cannot but observe, to Collier’s credit, an instance of his great impartiality in the second volume of his history; which is, that in disculpating the presbyterians from the imputation of their being consenting to the murder of Charles I. he has shewn, that as they only had it in their power to protest, so they did protest against that bloody act, both before and after it was committed.

In 17 13, Collier, as is confidently related, was consecrated a bishop by Dr. George Hickes, who had himself been consecrated suffragan of Thetford by the deprived bishops of Norwich, Ely, and Peterborough, Feb. 23, 1694. As he grew in years, his health became impaired by frequent attacks of the stone, to which his sedentary life probably contributed: so that he published nothing more but a volume of “Practical Discourses” in 1725, and an additional sermon “upon God not the origin of Evil,” in 1726. Besides what has been mentioned, he wrote some prefaces to other men’s works; and published also an advertisement against bishop Burnet’s “History of his own Times:”' this was printed on a slip of paper, and dispersed in all the coffee-houses in 1724, and is to be seen in the “Evening-post, No. 2254.” He died of the stone, April 26, 1726, aged seventy-six; an.d was interred three days after in the church-yard of St. Pancras near London. Hs was a very ingenious, learned, moral, and religious man* and though stiff in his opinions, is aid to have had nothing stiff or pedantic in his behaviour, but a great deal of life, spirit, and innocent freedom. It ought never to be forgot, that Collier was a man of strict principle, and great sincerity, for to that he sacrificed all the most flattering prospects that could have been presented to him, and died at an advanced age in the profession and belief in which he had lived. He will long be remembered as the reformer of the stage, an attempt which he made, and in which he was successful, single-handed, against a confederacy of dramatic talents the most brilliant that ever appeared on the British stage. His reputation as a man of letters was not confined to his own country: for the learned father Courbeville, who translated into French “The Hero of Balthazar Gratian,” in his preface to that work, speaks in high terms of his “Miscellaneous Essays;” which, he says, set him upon a level with Montaigne, St. Evremond, La Bruyere, &c. The same person translated into French his “Short View of the English Stage;” where he speaks of him again in strong expressions of admiration and esteem.

, an eminent nonconformist divine, and a voluminous writer, was born at Boxstead, in Essex, in 1623, and educated at Emanuel college, Cambridge, where he took his degrees, probably during the usurpation, as we find him D. D. at the restoration. He had the living of St. Stephen’s Norwich, from which he was ejected for non-conformity in 1662. His epitaph says he discharged the work of the ministry in that city for forty- four years, which is impossible, unless he continued to preach as a dissenter after his ejection. He was one of the commissioners at the Savoy conference in the reign of Charles II. He particularly excelled as a textuary and critic. He was a man of various learning, and much esteemed for his great industry, humanity, and exemplary life. He wrote many books of controversy and practical divinity, the most singular of which is his “Weaver’s Pocket-book, or Weaving spiritualized,” 8vo. This book was particularly adapted to the place of his residence, which had been long famous for the manufacture of silks. Granger remarks that Mr. Boyle, in his “Occasional Reflections on several subjects,” published in 1663, seems to have led the way to spiritualizing the common objects, business, and occurrences of life. This was much practised by Mr. Flavel, and by Mr. Herrey; it is generally a “very popular method of conveying religious sentiments, although it is apt to degenerate into vulgar familiarity; but we know not if the practice may not be traced to bishop Hall, who published his” Occasional Meditations“in 1633. Calamy has given a very long list of Dr. Collings’s publications, to which we refer. In Poole’s” Annotations on the Bible" he wrote those on the last six chapters of Isaiah, the whole of Jeremiah, Lamentations, the four Evangelists, the epistles to the Corinthians, Galatians, Timothy and Philemon, and the Revelations. He died at Norwich Jan. 17, 1690.

, a brave and excellent English admiral, the son of Cuthbert Collingwood, of Newcastle upon Tyne, merchant (who died in 1775) and of Milcha, daughter and coheir of Reginald Dobson, of Barwess, in Westmoreland, esq. (who died in 1788) was born at Newcastle, Sept. 26, 1748. After being educated under the care of the rev. Mr. Moises, along with the present lord chancellor Eldon, he entered into the naval service in 1761, under the protection and patronage of his maternal uncle, capt. (afterwards admiral) Braithwaite, and with him he served for some years. In 1766 we find him a midshipman in the Gibraltar, and from 1767 to 1772, master’s mate in the Liverpool, when he was taken into the Lenox, under capt. (now admiral) Roddam, by whom he was recommended to vice-admiral Graves, and afterwards to vice-admiral sir Peter Parker. In Feb. 1774, he went in the Preston, under the command of viceadmiral Graves, to America, and the following year was promoted to the rank of fourth lieutenant in the Somerset, on the day of the battle at Bunker’s Hill, where he was sent with a party of seamen to supply the army with what was necessary in that line of service. The vice-admiral being recalled, and succeeded upon that station by vice-admiral Shuldham, sailed for England on the 1st of February, 1776. In the same year lieutenant Collingwood was sent to Jamaica in the Hornet sloop, and soon after the Lowestoffe came to the same station, of which lord Nelson was at that time second lieutenant, and with whom he had been before in habits of great friendship. His friend Nelson had entered the service some years later than himself, but was made lieutenant in the LowestorTe, captain Locker, in 1777. Here their friendship was renewed; and upon the arrival of vice-admiral sir Peter Parker to take the command upon that station, they found in him a common patron, who, while his country was receiving the benefit of his own services, was laying the foundation for those future benefits which were to be derived from such promising objects of patronage and protection: and here began that succession of fortune which seems to have continued to the last; when he, whom the subject of our present memoir had so often succeeded in the early stages of his promotion, resigned the command of his victorious fleet into the hands of a well-tried friend, whom he knew to be a fit successor in this last and triumphant stage of his glory, as he had been before in the earlier stages of his fortune. For it is deserving of remark, that whenever the one got a step in rank, the other succeeded to the station which his friend had left; first in the Lowestoffe, in which, npori the promotion of lieutenant Nelson into the admiral’s own ship, the Bristol, lieutenant Collingwood succeeded to the LowestofTe; and when the former was advanced in 1778, from the Badger to the rank of post captain in the Hinchinbrooke, the latter was made master and commander in the Badger; and again upon his promotion to a larger ship, capt. Collingwood was made post in the Hinchinbrooke.

In this ship capt. Collingwood was employed in the spring of 1780, upon an expedition to the Spanish main, which, from the unwholesomeness of the climate, proved fatal to most of his ship’s company. In August 1780 he quitted this station, and in the following December was appointed to the command of the Pelican of 21- gnns but on the 1st of August 1781, in the hurricane so fatal to the West India islands, she was wrecked upon the Morant Quay; but the captain and crew happily got on shore. He was next appointed to the command of the Sampson, of 64 guns, in which ship he served to the peace of 1783, when she was paid off, and he was appointed to the Mediator, and sent to the West Indies, upon which station he remained until the latter end of 1786. Upon his return to England, when the ship was paid off, he visited his native country, and remained there until 1790, when on the expected rupture with Spain, on account of the seizure of our ships at Nootka Sound, he was appointed to the Mermaid of 32 guns, under the command of admiral Cornish, in the West Indies; but the dispute with Spain being adjusted without hostilities, he once more returned to his native country, where in June 1791 he married Sarah, the eldest of the two daughters of John Erasmus Blackett, esq. of Newcastle, by whom he left issue two daughters.

On the breaking out of the war with France in 1793, he was called to the command of the Prince, rear-admiral Bowyer’s flag-ship, with whom he served in this ship, and afterwards in the Barfleur, until the engagement of June 1, 1794. In this action he distinguished himself with great bravery, and the ship which he commanded is known to have had its full share in the glory of the day; though it has been the subject of conversation with the public, and was probably the source of some painful feelings at the moment in the captain’s own mind, that no notice was taken of his services upon this occasion, nor his name once mentioned in the official dispatches of lord Howe to the admiralty.

Rear-admiral Bowyer’s flag, in consequence of his honourable wound in this day’s action, no longer flying on board the Barfleur, captain Collingwood was appointed to the command of the Hector, on the 7th of August, 1794, and afterwards to the Excellent, in which he was employed in the Blockade of Toulon, and in this ship he had the honour to acquire fresh laurels in the brilliant victory off the Cape of St. Vincent’s, on the 14th of February, 1797. In this day’s most memorable engagement, the Excellent took a distinguished part, and so well did Nelson know his value, that when the ship which captain Collingwood commanded was sent to reinforce this squadron, he exclaimed with great joy and confidence in the talents and bravery of her captain, “See here comes the Excellent, which is as good as two added to our number.” And the support which he in particular this day received from this ship, he gratefully acknowledged in the following laconic note of thanks:

It did not fall to his lot to have any share in the subse-r quent battle of the Nile, nor had he the good fortune to be placed in a station where any further opportunity was afforded to display his talents during the remainder of the war. He continued in the command of the Excellent, under the flag of lord St. Vincent, till January 1799, when his ship was paid off: and on the 14th of February, in the same year, on the promotion of flag officers, he was raised to the rank of rear-admiral of the white; and on the 12th of May following, hoisted his flag on board the Triumph, one of the ships under the command of lord Bridport on the Channel station. In the month of June 1800 he shifted his flag to the Barfleur, on the same station; and in 1801 was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral of the red, in which ship, and upon the same service, he continued to the end of the war, without any opportunity of doing more than effectually blockading the enemy’s fleet in their own ports, while they were proudly vaunting of their preparations for invading us: a service not less important to the honour, the interest, and the security of the nation, than those more brilliant achievements which dazzle the public eye. On the re-commencement of hostilities, however, admiral Collingwood was again called into service, and on the promotion of admirals on the 23d of April, 1804, was made vice-admiral of the blue, and resumed his former station off Brest. The close blockade which admiral Cornwallis kept up requiring a constant succession of ships, the vice-admiral shifted his flag from ship to ship as occasion required, by which he was always upon his station in a ship fit for service, without the necessity of quitting his station, and returning to port for victualling or repairs. But from this station he was called in May 1805, to a more active service, having been detached with a reinforcement of ships to the blockading fleet at Ferrol And Cadiz. Perhaps it would be difficult to fix upon a period, or a part of the character of lord Collingwood, which called for powers of a more peculiar kind, o-r displayed his talents to more advantage, than the period and the service in which he was now employed. Left with only four ships of the line, to keep in nearly four tjmes the number, it seems almost impossible so to have divided his little force as to deceive the enemy, and effect the object of his service; but this he certainly accomplished. With two of his ships close in as usual to watch the motions of the enemy, and make signals to the other two, which were so disposed, and at a distance from one another, as to repeat those signals from one to the other, and again to other ships that were supposed to receive and answer them, he continued to delude the enemy, and led them to conclude that these were only part of a larger force that was not in sight, and thus he not only secured his own ships, but effected an important service to his country, by preventing the execution of any plan that the enemy might have had in contemplation.

On the return of lord Nelson in the month of September he resumed the command, and vice-admiral Collingwood was his second. Arrangements were now made, and such a disposition of the force under his command as might draw the combined fleets out, and bring them to action. In a letter to a friend, dated the 3d of October, lord Nelson tvrote that the enemy were still in port, and that something rnust be done to bring them to battle. “In less than a fortnight,” he adds, “expect to hear from me, or of me, for who can foresee the fate of battle?”

At length the opportunity offered. The plan that was laid to Jure them out succeeded. Admiral Louis having been detached with four sail of the line to attend a convoy to a certain distance up the Mediterranean, and the rest of the fleet so disposed as to lead the enemy to believe it to be not so strong as it was, admiral Villeneuve was tempted to venture out -with 33 ships under his command (18 French and 15 Spanish), in the hope of doing something to retrieve the honour of rheir flag. On the 19th of October lord Nelson received the joyful intelligence from the ships that were left to watch their motions, that the combined fleet had put to sea, and as they sailed with light westerly winds, his lordship concluding their destination to be the Mediterranean, made all sail for the Straits with the fleet under his command, consisting of 27 ships, three of which were sixty-fours. Here he learnt from capt. Blackwood that they had not yet passed the Straits, and on the 21st, at day-light, had the satisfaction to discover them six or seven miles to the eastward, and immediately made the signal for the fleet to bear up in two columns. It fell to the lot of vice-admiral Collingwoocl, in the Royal Sovereign, to lead his column into action, and first to break through the enemy’s line, which he did in a manner that commanded the admiration of both fleets, and drew from lord Nelson the enthusiastic expression, “Look at that noble fellow! Observe the style in which he carries his ship into action!” while the vice-admiral, with equal justice to the spirit and valour of his friend, was enjoying the proud honour of his situation, and saying to those about him, “What would Nelson give to be in our situation!”

Of this memorable engagement, which will occur again in our life of Nelson, we shall only notice in this place, that it began at twelve o'clock: at a quarter past one, lord Nelson received the fatal wound; and at three, P. M. many of the ships, having struck their colours, gave way. The British fleet was left with nineteen ships of the enemy, ass the trophies of their victory; two of them first rates, with three flag officers, of which the commander in chief (Villeneuve) was one. On the death of lord Nelson, the command of his conquering fleet, and the completion of the victory, devolved upon vice-admiral Collingwood, who, as he had so often done in the early part of his life, now for the last time succeeded him, in an arduous moment, and most difficult service. Succeeding high gales of wind endangered the fleet, and particularly threatened the destruction of the captured ships; but by the extraordinary exertions that were made for their preservation, four 74 gunships (three of them Spanish and one French) were saved and sent into Gibraltar. Of the remainder, nine were wrecked, three burnt, and three sunk. Two others were taken, but got into Cadiz in the gale. Four others which had got off to the southward were afterwards taken by the squadron under sir Richard Strachan. So that out of the thirty-three ships, of which the combined fleet consisted, there were only ten left, and many of these in such a shattered state, as to be little likely to be further serviceable.

Were we disposed, in our esteem of this distinguished character, to pay a compliment to the vice-admiral’s merits that might be considered as more exclusive, it would be the pious gratitude of his feelings, and his confidence in God, that we should hold up as a discriminating feature. We have seldom found the man who can lay aside the pride of the conqueror, and ascribe his successes to God. This in a most eminent degree lord Collingwood did. Scarce was the battle over, when the arrangement was made for a day of thanksgiving throughout the fleet, to that Providence to whom he felt himself indebted for the brilliant success with which the day had terminated. So much to the honour of this illustrious and virtuous character is the general order that he issued on this occasion, that it ought to be recorded as one of the traits which must ever redound to his praise.

"The Almighty God, whose arm is strength, having of his great mercy been pleased to crown the exertions of his majesty’s fleet with success, in giving them a complete victory over their enemies on the 21st of this month; and that all praise and thanksgiving may be offered up to the throne of grace, for the great benefit to our country and to mankind, 1 have thought proper that a day should be appointed of general humiliation before God, and thanksgiving for his merciful goodness, imploring forgiveness of sins, a continuation of his divine mercy, and his constant aid to us in the defence of our country’s liberties and laws, and without which the utmost efforts of man are nought; and direct therefore that           be appointed for this holy purpose.

On the 9th of November, 1805, when the rank of rearadmiral of the red was restored in the navy, he was advanced from the blue to the rank of vice-admiral of the red. On the same day his majesty was graciously pleased to confer upon him and his heirs male, the title of baron Collinwood, of Caklburne and Hethpoole, in the county of Northumberland: and the two houses of parliament, in addition to their vote of thanks, concurred in a grant of two thousand pounds a year for his own life, and the lives of his two succeeding male heirs, which upon finding that he had only two daughters, was afterwards changed into pensions upon them.

Lord Collingwood was also confirmed in the command of the Mediterranean fleet, to which he succeeded by seniority, and in the opinion of lord Hood wanted only an opportunity to prove himself another Nelson. The bad state of his health had required his return home, but he remained on his station in hopes that the French fleet would come out from Toulon. His last active service was the direction of the preparations which ended in the destruction of two French ships of the line on their own coast He had not seen any of his relatives for a considerable period before his death, yet he appears to have been sensible that his illness would prove fatal. He even ordered a quantity of lead on board at Minorca, for the purpose of making a coffin for his conveyance to England. He died off Minorca, March 7, 1810, onboard the Ville de Paris. His death is supposed to have been occasioned by a large stone in the passage to the bladder; and for some time before his death he was incapable of taking any sustenance. His body having been brought to England was interred. May 11, in St. Paul’s cathedral, with great funeral solemnity. Lord Collingwood was a man of amiable temper and manners, dignified as an officer and commander, yet without any pride; and social among his friends even to a degree of playfulness. His mind was impressed by a strong sense of religion, which he reverenced and enjoined to those under him. He had no enemies but those of his country, and while he cherished all the Old English prejudices against those, he displayed, in the most trying moments, a spirit of humanity which gained their affections. Of this an instance occurred after the great battle of Trafalgar which must not be passed over superficially. In clearing the captured ships of the prisoners, he found so many wounded men, that, as he says in his dispatches, “to alleviate. human misery as much as was in his power,” he seat to the marquis de Solano, governor-general of Andalusia, to offer him the wounded to the care of their country, on receipts being given; a proposal which was received with the greatest thankfulness, not only by the governor, but by the whole country, which resounded with expressions of gratitude. Two French frigates were sent out to receive them, with a proper officer to give receipts, bringing with them all the English who bad been wrecked in several of the ships, and an offer from the marquis de Solano of the use of their hospitals for our wounded, pledging the honour of Spain for their being carefully attended.

, an eminent writer on the side of infidelity, was the son of Henry Collins, esq. a gentleman of considerable fortune; and born at Heston near Hounslow, in Middlesex, June 21, 1676. He was educated in classical learning at Eton school, and removed thence to King’s college in Cambridge, where he had for his tutor Francis Hare, afterwards bishop of Chichester. Upon leaving college he went to London, and was entered a student in the Temple; but not relishing the study of the law, he abandoned it, and applied himself to letters in general. In 1700 he published a tract entitled “Several of the London Cases considered.” He cultivated an acquaintance and maintained a Correspondence with Locke in 1703 and 1704; and that Locke had a great esteem for him, appears from some letters to him published by Des Maizeaux in his collection of “Several pieces of John Locke, never before printed, or not extant in his works.” Locke, who died Oct. 28, 1704, left also a letter dated the 23d, to be delivered to Collins after his decease, full of confidence and the warmest affection; which letter is to be found in the collection above mentioned. It is plain from these memorials, that Collins at that time appeared to Locke to be an impartial and disinterested inquirer after truth, and not, as he afterwards proved, disingenuous, artfuJ, and impious.

In 1707 he published “An essay concerning the use of reason in propositions, the evidence whereof depends upon human testimony:” reprinted in 1709, and, as is the case in all his other writings, without his name. The same year, 1707, he engaged in the controversy between Dodwell and Clarke, concerning the natural immortality of the soul, and wrote, respecting it, 1. “A letter to the learned Mr. Henry Dodwell, containing some remarks on a pretended demonstration of the immateriality and natural immortality of the soul, in Mr. Clarke’s answer to his late epistolary discourse,” &c. 1707: reprinted in 1709. 2. “A reply to Mr. Clarke’s defence of his letter to Mr. Dodwell with a postscript to Mr. Milles’s answer to Mr. Dod well’s epistolary discourse,” 1707 reprinted in 1709. 3. “Reflections on Mr. Clarke’s second defence of his letter to Mr. Dodwell,” 1707: reprinted in 1711. 4. “An answer to Mr. Clarke’s third defence of his letter to Mr. Dodwell,” 1708: reprinted in 1711.

Dec. 1709, came out a pamphlet, entitled, “Priestcraft in perfection; or, a detection of the fraud of inserting and continuing that clause, ‘ The church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith,’ in the twentieth article of the Articles of the Church of England.” And, Feb. the year following, another called “Reflections on a late pamphlet,entitled, Priestcraft in perfection, &c.” both written by our author. The second and third editions of his “Priestcraft in perfection” were printed, with corrections, in 1710, 8vo. This book occasioned great and diligent inquiries into the subject, and was reflected on in various pamphlets, sermons, and treatises. These were answered by Collins, but not till 1724, in a work entitled, “An historical and critical essay on the 39 Articles of the Church of England: wherein it is demonstrated, that this clause, ‘The Church, &c.’ inserted in the 20th article, is not a part of the article, as they were established by act of parliament in the 13th of Elizabeth, or agreed on by the convocations of 1562 and 1571.” This essay, however, was principally designed as an answer to “The vindication of the Church of England from the aspersions of a late libel, entitled, Priestcraft in perfection, wherein the controverted clause of the church’s power in the 20th article is shewn to be of equal authority with all the rest of the articles, in 1710,” and to “An essay on the 39 Articles by Dr. Thomas Bennet,” published in 1715: “two chief works,” says Collins, “which seem written by those champions who have been supplied with materials from all quarters, and have taken great pains themselves to put their materials into the most artful light.” In the preface he tells us, that he undertook this work at the solicitations of a worthy minister of the gospel, who knew that he had made some inquiries into the “Modern Ecclesiastical History of England;” and, particularly, that he was preparing “An history of the variations of the church of England and its clergy from the reformation down to this time, with an answer to the cavils of the papists, made on occasion of the said variations:” but this work never appeared. The reader may see the whole state of this controversy in Collier’s “Ecclesiastical History,” where particular notice is taken of our author.

In 1710 he published “A vindication of the Divine Attributes, in some remarks on the archbishop of Dublin’s (Dr. King) sermon, entitled, Divine predestination and foreknowledge consisting with the freedom of man’s will.” March 1711, he went over to Holland, where he became acquainted with Le Clerc, and other learned men; and returned to London the November following, to take care of his private affairs, with a promise to his friends in Holland, that he would pay them a second visit in a short time. In 1713 he published his “Discourse of Freethinking, occasioned by the rise and growth of a sect called Free-thinkers;” which was attacked by several writers, particularly by Hoadly, afterwards bishop of Winchester, in some “Queries recommended to the authors of the late discourse of Free-thinking,” printed in his collection of tracts in 1715, 8vo and by Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, in “Remarks upon a late Discourse of Free-thinking, in a letter to F. H. D. D.” This Phileleutherus Lipsiensis was the learned Bentley; and the person to whom this performance is addressed, Hare, afterwards bishop of Chichester. The first part of these remarks gave birth to a pamphlet said to be written by Hare, entitled, “The clergyman’s thanks to Phileleutherus for his remarks on the late Discourse of Freethinking: in a letter to Dr. Bentley, 1713.” The late Mr. Cumberland, in his “Life of himself,” informs us, that when Collins had fallen into decay of circumstances, which, however, we find no where else mentioned, Dr. Bentley, suspecting he had written him out of credit by his “Phileleutherus Lipsiensis,” secretly contrived to administer to the necessities of his baffled opponent in a manner that did no less credit to his delicacy than his liberality. Of all this Dr. Bentley we believe was capable, but it is certain that Collins lived and died in opulence. Soon after the publication of this work, Collins made a second trip to Holland; which was ascribed to the general alarm caused by the “Discourse of Free-thinking,” and himself being discovered by his printer. This is taken notice of by Hare: who, having observed that the least appearance of danger is able to damp in a moment all the zeal of the free-thinkers, tells us, that “a bare inquiry after the printer of their wicked book has frightened them, and obliged the reputed author to take a second trip into Holland; so great is his courage to defend upon the first appearance of an opposition. And are not these rare champions for free-thinking? Is not their book a demonstration that we are in possession of the liberty they pretend to plead for, which otherwise they durst ne'er have writ? And that they would have been as mute as fishes, had they not thought they could have opened with impunity? M Hare afterwards tells us, that” the reputed author of free-thinking is, for all he ever heard, a sober man, thanks to his natural aversion to intemperance; and that,“he observed,” is more than can be said of some others of the club:“that is, the club of free-thinkers, which were supposed to meet and plan schemes in concert, for undermining the foundations of revealed religion. The” Discourse of Free-thinking“was reprinted at the Hague, with some considerable additions, in 1713, 12mo, though in the title-page it is said to be printed at London. In this edition the translations in several places are corrected from Bentley’s remarks; and some references are made to those remarks, and to Hare’s” Clergyman’s thanks."

While this book was circulating in England, and all parties were exerting their zeal, either by writing or preaching against it, the author is said to have received great civilities abroad. From Holland he went to Flanders, and intended to have visited Paris; but the death of a near relation obliged him to return to London, where he arrived Oct. 18, 1713, greatly disappointed in not having seen France, Italy, &c. In 1715 he retired into the county of Essex, and acted as a justice of the peace and deputy-lieutenant for the same county, as he had done before in the county of Middlesex and liberty of Westminster. The same year he published “A philosophical inquiry concerning Human Liberty: r ' which was reprinted with some corrections in 1717. Dr. Samuel Clarke wrote remarks upon this inquiry, which are subjoined to the colJection of papers between him and Leibnitz; but Collins did not publish any reply on this subject, because, as we are told, though he did not think the doctor had the advantage orer him in the dispute, yet, as he had represented his opinions as dangerous in their consequences, and improper to be insisted on, Collins affected to say that, after such an insinuation, he could not proceed in the dispute upon equal terms: The inquiry was translated into French by the rev. Mr. D. and printed in the first volume of Des Maizeaux’s” Recueilde diverses pieces sur la philosophic, la religion naturelle, &c. par M. Leibnitz, Clarke, Newton, &c." published at Amsterdam 1720, 2 vols. 12mo. In 1718 he was chosen treasurer for the county of Essex, to the great joy, it is said, of several tradesmen and others, who had large sums of money due to them from the said county; but could not get it paid them, it having been embezzled or spent by their former treasurer. We are told that he supported the poorest of them with his own private cash, and promised interest to others till it could be raised to pay them: and that in 1722 all the debts were by his integrity, care, and management discharged.

It has already been observed, that he published, in 1724, his “Historical and critical essay upon the 39 Articles, &c.” The same year he published his famous book, called “A discourse of the grounds and reasons of the Christian religion,” in two parts the first, containing some considerations on the quotations made from the Old in the New Testament, and particularly on the prophecies cited from the former, and said to be fulfilled in the latter. The second, containing an examination of the scheme advanced by Whiston in his essay towards restoring the true text of the Old Testament, and for vindicating the citations thence made in the New Testament. To which is prefixed, “An apology for free debate and liberty of writing.” This discourse was immediately attacked by a great number of books; of which Collins has given a complete list, at the end of the preface to his “Scheme of literal Prophecy.” The most considerable were: 1. “A list of suppositions or assertions in the late Discourse of the grounds, &c. which are not therein supported by any real or authentic evidence; for which some such evidence is expected to he produced. By William Whiston, M. A.” 1724, tfvo. In this piece Whiston treats Collins, together with Toland, in very severe terms, as guilty of impious frauds and laycraft. 2. “The literal accomplishment of scripture -prophecies, being a full answer to a late Discourse of the grounds, &c. By William Whiston.” 3. “A defence of Christianity from the prophecies of the Old Testament, wherein are considered all the objections against this kind of proof, advanced in a late Discourse of the grounds, &c.” By Edward Chandler, then bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, afterwards of Durham. 4. “A discourse of the Connection of the Prophecies in the Old Testament, and application of them to Christ.” By Samuel Clarke, D. D. rector of St. James’s, Westminster. This however was not intended for a direct answer to Collins’s book, but as a supplement, occasioned by it, to a proposition in Clarke’s “Demonstration of the principles of natural and revealed religion” with which it has since been constantly printed. 5. “An essay upon the Truth of the Christian religion, wherein its real foundation upon the Old Testament is shewn, occasioned by the Discourse of the grounds,” &c. By Arthur Ashley Sykes. Collins gives it as his opinion, that of all the writers against the “Grounds,” &c. Sykes alone has advanced a consistent scheme of things, which he has proposed with great clearness, politeness, and moderation. 6. “The use and intent of Prophecy in the several ages of the church. In six discourses delivered at the Temple church in 1724.” By Thomas Sherlock, D. D. This was not designed as an answer to the “Grounds,” &c. but only to throw light upon the argument from prophecy attacked by our author. The reader will find the rest of the pieces written against the “Grounds,” &c. enumerated by Collins in the place referred to above; among which are Sermons, London Journals, Woolston’s Moderator between an infidel and an apostate, &c. amounting in number to no less than thirty-five, including those already mentioned. Perhaps there seldom has been a. book to which so many answers have been made in so short a time, that is, within the small compass of two years.

In 1726 appeared his “Scheme of Literal Prophecy considered; in a view of the controversy occasioned by a late book, entitled, A Discourse of the Grounds, &c.” It was printed at the Hague in 2 vols. 12mo, and reprinted at London with corrections in 1727, 8vo. In this work he mentions a dissertation he had written, but never published, against Whiston’s “Vindication of the Sibylline oracles” in which he endeavours to shew, that those oracles were forged by the primitive Christians, who were thence called Sibyllidts by the pagans. He also mentions a ms discourse of his upon the miracles recorded in the Old and New Testament. The “Scheme of Literal Prophecy 1 * had several answers made to it: the most considerable of which are, 1.” A vindication of the defence of Christianity, from the prophecies of the Old Testament.“By Edward Chandler, D. D.; with a letter from the rev. Mr. Masson, concerning the religion of Macrobius, and his testjfnony touching the slaughter of the infants at Bethlehem, with a postscript upon Virgil’s fourth eclogue, 1728, in 2 vols. 8vo. 2.” The necessity of Divine Revelation, and the truth of the Christian Revelation asserted, in eight sermons. To which is prefixed a preface, with some remarks on a late book entitled The Scheme of Literal Prophecy considered, &c. By John Rogers, D. D.“1727, 8vo. 3.” A letter to the author of the London Journal, April 1, 1727,“written by Dr. Arthur Ashley Sykes. Collins replied to the two last pieces, in” A Letter to Rogers, on occasion of his Eight Sermons, &c. to which is added, a Letter printed in the London Journal, April 1, 1727; with an answer to the same, 1727.“In his” Letter to Rogers“he observes, that the doctor had invited him to martyrdom in these words:” A confessor or two would be a mighty ornament to his cause. If he expects to convince us that he is in earnest, and believes himself, he should not decline giving us this proof of his sincerity. What will not abide this trial, we shall suspect to have but a poor foundation.“These sentiments, Collins tells us, are in his opinion false, wicked, inhuman, irreligious, inconsistent with the peace pf society, and personally injurious to the author of the” Scheme, &c.“He remarks, that it is a degree of virtue to speak what a man thinks, though he may do it in such a way as to avoid destruction of life and fortune, &c.” He declares, that the cause of liberty, which he defends, is “the cause of virtue, learning, truth, God, religion, and Christianity; that it is the political interest of all countries; that the degree of it we enjoy in England is the strength, ornament, and glory of our own; that, if he can contribute to the defence of so excellent a cause, he shall think he has acted a good part in life: in short, it is a cause,” says he to Dr. Rogers, “in which, if your influence and interest were equal to your inclination to procure martyrdom for me, I would rather suffer, than in any cause whatsoever; though I should be sorry that Christians should Le so weak and inconsistent with themselves, as to be your instruments in taking my life from me.”

His health began to decline several years before his death: and he was extremely afflicted with the stone, which at last put an end to his life, Dec. 13, 1729; he was interred in Oxford chapel. It is remarkable that notwithstanding the accusation of being an enemy to religion, he declared, just before his last minutes, “That as he had always endeavoured, to the best of his abilities, to serve God, his king, and his country, so he was persuaded he was going to that place which God had designed for them that love him.” Presently after, he said, that “the catholic religion is to love God, and to love man;” and he advised such as were about him to have a constant regard to those principles. His library, which was very large and curious, was sold by T. Ballard in 1730-1. The catalogue was drawn up by Dr. Sykes. We are told, that “the corruption among Christians, and the persecuting spirit of the clergy, had given him a prejudice against the Christian religion; and at last induced him to think, that, upon the foot on which it is at present, it is pernicious to mankind.” He has indeed given us himself an unequivocal intimation, that he had actually renounced Christianity, Thus, in answer to Rogers, who had supposed that it was men’s lusts and passions, and not their reason, which made them depart from the gospel, he acknowledges, that <c it may be, and is undoubtedly, the case of many, who reject the gospel, to be influenced therein by their vices and immoralities. It would be very strange,“says he,” if Christianity, which teaches so much good morality, and so justly condemns divers vices, to which men are prone, was not rejected by some libertines on that account; as the several pretended revelations, which are established throughout the world, are by libertines on that very account also. But this cannot be the case of all who reject the gospel. Some of them who reject the gospel lead as good lives as those who receive it. And I suppose there is no difference to the advantage of Christians, in point of morality, between them and the Jews, Mahometans, heathens, or others, who reject Christianity.“But we ought not to conclude this article without remarking, that whatever Mr. Collins’s character in private life, he was, at the same time, a most unfair writer. He seemed, with all his morality, to have very little conscience in his quotations, adapting them, without scruple, to his own purposes, however contrary they might be to the genuine meaning of the authors cited, or to the connection in which the passages referred to stood. So many facts of this kind were undeniably proved against him by his adversaries, that he must ever be recorded as a flagrant instance of literary disingenuity. Let these facts, which are clearly proved by Leland, be compared with his dying declarations. In addition to the answerers of Collins, we may mention dean Swift, in an excellent piece of irony, entitled” Mr. Collins’s Discourse of Freethinking, put into plain English, by way of abstract, for the use of the poor,“1713, reprinted in Mr. Nichols’s edition of his Works, vol. X. The twelfth chapter also of the” Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus," in Pope’s Works, is an inimitable ridicule on Collins’s arguments against Clarke, to prove the soul to be only a quality.

In July 1698, when he was just entered into his 23d year, he married Martha, the daughter of sir Francis Child, who was the year following lord mayor of London and by her he had two sons and two daughters. The elder of his sons died in his infancy. Anthony, the younger, was born Oct. 1701, and was a gentleman of great sweetness of temper, a fine understanding, and of good learning. He was educated at Bene't college in Cambridge, and died universally lamented by all that knew him, Dec. 20, 1723. The year after, Collins married a second wife, namely Elizabeth, the daughter of sir Walter Wrottesley, bart. but had no children by her. His daughters survived him, and were unmarried at his death.

, a laborious antiquary, whose name is familiar as the compiler of peerages and baronetages, was born in 1682. He was the son of William Collins, esq. gentleman to queen Catherine in 1669, but, as he himself informs us, the son of misfortune, his father having run through more than 30,000l. He received, however, a liberal education, and from a very early age culti­% T ated that branch of antiquities, to which he dedicated the remainder of a laborious life. The first edition of his Peerage was published as early as 1708, and we have seen another edition of 1715, 4 vols. 8vo. It afterwards by various additions, and under other editors, was extended to seven volumes, and with a supplement to nine. The last and most improved of all was published in 1812, under the care of sir Egerton Brydges, whose attention to the errors of the preceding editions cannot be too highly praised, and the additional articles more immediately from his pen are marked by elegance of style and sentiment and a just discrimination of character. Mr. Collins’s “Baronetage” was first published in 1720 in two volumes, extended in 1741 to five volumes, since when there has been no continuation under his name, but the loss is amply supplied by Mr. Betham’s very enlarged work. Mr. Collins’s other publications are, 1. “The Life of Cecil, Lord Burleigh,” 1732, 8vo. 2. “Life of Edward the Black Prince,” 1740, 8vo. 3. “Letters and Memorials of State, collected by Sir Henry Sidney and others,” 1746, 2 vols. folio. 4. “Historical Collections of the Noble Families of Cavendish, Holies, Vere, Harley, and Ogle,” 1752, folio. We know little of Mr. Collins’s private life, unless what is painful to re.cord, that he seldom received any substantial encouragement from the noble families on whose history he employed his time, that he frequently laboured under pecuniary embarrassments, and as frequently experienced the nullity of promises from his patrons among the great, until at length his majesty George II. granted him a pension of 400l. a year, which, however, he enjoyed but a few years. He died March 16, 1760, at Battersea, where he was buried on the 24th, He was father of major-general Arthur Tooker Collins, who died Jan. 4, 1793, leaving issue David Collins, esq. the subject of the next article.

, judge advocate and historian of the new settlement in South Wales, the son of gen. A. T. Collins, and of Harriet Frazer, of Pack, in the king’s county, Ireland, was born March 3, 1756, and received a liberal education at the grammar-school of Exeter, where his father then resided. In 1770 he was appointed lieutenant in the marines; and, in 1772, was with the late admiral M'Bride, in the Southampton frigate, when the unfortunate Matilda, queen of Denmark, was rescued from the dangers that awaited her by the energy of the British government, and conveyed to a place of safety in the king her brother’s Hanoverian dominions. On that occasion he commanded the guard that received her majesty, and had the honour of kissing her hand. In 1775, he was at the battle of Bunker’s-hill; in which the first battalion of marines, to which he belonged, so signally distinguished itself, having its commanding officer, the gallant major Pitcairne, and a great many officers and men, killed in storming the redoubt, besides a very large proportion of wounded. In 1777, he was adjutant of the Chatham division; and, in 1782, captain of marines on-board the Courageux, of 74 guns, commanded by the late lord Mulgrave, and participated in the partial action that took place with the enemy’s fleet, when lord Howe relieved Gibraltar. Reduced to half-pay at the peace of 1782, he resided at Rochester in Kent (having previously married an American lady, who survives him, but without issue); and on its being determined to found a colony, by sending convicts to Botany Bay, he was appointed judge advocate to the intended settlement, and in that capacity sailed with governor Philip in May 1787 (who also appointed him his secretary), which situation he filled with the greatest credit to himself and advantage to the colony, until his return to England in 1797. The History of the Settlement, which he soon after published, followed by a second volume, is a work abounding with information, highly interesting, and written with the utmost simplicity. The appointment of judge advocate, however, proved eventually injurious to his real interests. While absent, he had been passed over when it came to his turn to be put on full pay; nor was he permitted to return to England to reclaim his rank in the corps; nor could he ever obtain any effectual redress; but was afterwards compelled to come in as junior captain of the corps, though with his proper rank in the army, and died a captain instead of a colonel-commandant, his rank in the army being merely brevet. He had then the mortification of finding that, after ten years’ distinguished service in the infancy of a colony, and the sacrifice of every real comfort, his only reward had been the loss of many years’ rank, a vital injury to an officer. A remark which his wounded feelings wrung from him at the close of the second volume of his History of the Settlement, appears to have awakened the sympathy of those in power; and he was, almost immediately after its publication, offered the government of the projected settlement on Van Diemen’s land, which he accepted, and sailed once more for that quarter of the globe, where he founded his new colony; struggled with great difficulties, which he overcame; and, after remaining there eight years, was enjoying the flourishing state his exertions had produced, when he died suddenly, after a few days’ confinement from a slight cold, on, the 24rth of March, 1810.

, an eminent accomptant and mathematician, was the son of a nonconformist divine, and born at Wood Eaton near Oxford in March 1624. At sixteen years of age he was put apprentice to a bookseller in Oxford; but soon left that trade, and was employed as clerk under Mr. John Mar, one of the clerks of the kitchen to prince Charles, afterwards Charles II. This Mar was eminent for his mathematical knowledge, and constructed those excellent dials with which the gardens of Charles I. were adorned: and under him Collins made no small progress in the mathematics. The intestine troubles increasing, he left that employment and went to sea, where he spent the greatest part of seven years in an English merchantman, which became a man of war in the Venetian service against the Turks. Here having leisure, he applied himself to merchants accompts, and some parts of the mathematics, for which he had a natural turn; and on coming home, he took to the profession of an accomptant, and composed several useful treatises upon practical subjects. In 1652 he published a work in folio, entitled “An Introduction to Merchants’ Accompts,” which was reprinted in 1665, “with an additional part, entitled” Supplements to accomptantship and arithmetic.“A part of this work, relating to interest, was reprinted in 1685, in a small 8vo volume In 1658 he published in 4to, a treatise called” The Sector on a Quadrant; containing the description and use of four several quadrants, each accommodated for the making of sun-dials, &c. with an appendix concerning reflected dialling, from a glass placed at any inclination.“In 1659, 4to, he published his” Geometrical dialling;“and also the same year, his” Mariner’s plain Scale new plained.“In the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, of which he was now become a member, he fully explained and demonstrated the- rule given by the Jesuit De Billy, for” finding the number of the Julian period for any year assigned, the cycles of the sun and moon, with the Roman indiction for the years being given.“To this he has added some very neatly-contrived rules for the ready finding on what day of the week any day of the month falls for ever; and other useful and necessary kalendar rules. In the same Transactions he has a curious dissertation concerning the resolution of equations in numbers. In No. 69 for March 1671, he has given a most elegant construction of that chorographical problem, namely:” The distances of three objects in the same plane, and the angles made at a fourth place in that plane, by observing each object, being given; to find the distances of those objects from the place of observation?“In 1680 he published a small treatise in 4to, entitled” A Plea for the bringing in of Irish cattle, and keeping out the fish caught by foreigners; together with an address to the members of parliament of the counties of Cornwall and Devon, about the advancement of tin, fishery, and divers manufactures.“In 1682 he published in 4to,” A discourse of Salt and Fishery;“and in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 159, for May 1684, is published a letter of his to Dr. JohnWallis, oh some defects in algebra. Besides these productions of his own, he was the chief promoter of many other valuable publications in his time. It is to him that the world is indebted for the publication of Barrow’s” Optical and geometrical lectures;“his abridgment of” Archimedes’s works,“and of” Apollonius’s Conies“Branker’s translation of” Rhonius’s Algebra, with Pell’s additions“” Kersey’s Algebra“Wallis’s History of Algebra” “Strode of Combinations” and many other excellent works, which were procured by his unwearied solicitations.

While Anthony earl of Shaftesbury was lord chancellor, he nominated Collins, in divers references concerning suits depending in chancery about intricate accounts, to assist in the stating thereof. From this time his talents were in request in other places, and by other persons; by which he acquired, says Wood, some wealth and much fame, and became accounted, in matters of that nature, the most useful and necessary person of his time; and in the latter part of his life, he was made accomptant to the royal fishery company. In 1682, after the act at Oxford was finished, he rode from thence to Malmesbury in Wiltshire, in order to view the ground to be cut for a river between the Isis and the Avon; but drinking too freely of cyder, when over-heated, he fell into a consumption, of which he died Nov. 10, 1683. About twenty-five years after his death, all his papers and most of his books came into the hands of the learned and ingenious William Jones, esq. fellow of the Royal Society, and father to the more celebrated sir Wm. Jones; among which were found manuscripts upon mathematical subjects of Briggs, Oughtred, Pell, Scarborough, Barrow, and Newton, with a multitude of letters received from, and copies of letters sent to, many learned persons, particularly Pell, Wallis, Barrow, Newton, James Gregory, Flamstead, Towniey, Baker, Barker, Branker, Bernard, Slusius, Leibnitz, Ischirphaus, father Bertet, and others. From these papers it is evident, that Collins held a constant correspondence for many years with all the eminent mathematicians of his time, and spared neither pains nor cost to procure what was requisite to promote real science. Many of the late discoveries in physical knowledge, if not actually made, were yet brought about by his endeavours. Thus, in 1666, he had under consideration the manner of dividing the meridian line on the true nautical chart; a problem of the utmost consequence in navigation: and some time after he engaged Mercator, Gregory, Barrow, Newton, and Wallis, severally, to explain and find an easy practical method of doing it; which excited Leibnitz, Halley, Bernoulli, and all who had capacity to think upon, such a subject, to give their solutions of it: and by this means the practice of that most useful proposition is reduced to the greatest simplicity imaginable. He employed some of the same persons upon the shortening and facilitating the method of computations by logarithms, till at last that whole affair was completed by Halley. It was Collins who engaged all that were able to make any advances in the sciences, in a strict inquiry into the several parts of learning, for which each had a peculiar talent; and assisted them by shewing where the defect was in any useful branch of knowledge; by pointing out the difficulties attending such an inquiry; by setting forth the advantages of completing that subject; and lastly, by keeping up the spirit of research and improvement.

Collins was likewise the register of all the new improvements made in the mathematical science; the magazine, to which all the curious had recourse; and the common repository, where every part of useful knowledge was to be found. It was upon this account that the learned styled him “the English Mersenus.” If some of his correspondents had not obliged him to conceal their communications, there could have been no dispute about the priority of the invention of a method of analysis, the honour of which evidently belongs to the great Newton. This appears undeniably from the papers printed in the “Commercium epistolicuni D. Joannis Collins & aliorum de analysi promota jussu societatis regiae in lucem editum, 17 12,” in 4to.

, an unfortunate but excellent English poet, was born at Chichester, Dec. 25, about 1720, the son of a reputable hatter in that city. In 1733 he was admitted scholar of Winchester college under Dr. Burton, and at nineteen was elected upon the foundation to Newcollege in Oxford. He was first upon the list; and, in order to wait for a vacancy in that society, was admitted a commoner of Queen’s college in the same university; but no such vacancy occurring, his tutor, very sensible of his desert, recommended him to the society of Magdalen; and this recommendation, backed by an uncommon display of genius and learning in the exercises performed on the occasion, procured him to be elected a demy of that college in July 1741. During his residence in this place, which was till he had taken a bachelor’s degree, he applied himself to poetry, and published an epistle to sir Thomas Hanmer on his edition of Shakspeare, and the “Persian,” or, as they have been since entitled, “Oriental Eclogues,” which, notwithstanding their merit, were not attended with any great success; and it was objected to them, that though the scenery and subjects are oriental, the style and colouring are purely European. Of the force of this objection, Mr. Collins himself became sensible in the latter part of his life. Yet their poetical merit is very great and Dr. Langhorne has not scrupled to assert, “that in simplicity of description and expression, in delicacy and softness of numbers, and in natural and unaffected tenderness, they are not to be equalled by any thing of the pastoral kind in the English language.”

About 1744 he suddenly left the university, and came to London, a literary adventurer, with many projects in his head, and very little money in his pocket. He designed many works, but either had not perseverance in himself, or the frequent calls of immediate necessity broke his schemes, and suffered him to pursue no settled purpose. Among other designs he published proposals for a “History of the Revival of Learning;” and Dr. Johnson has heard him speak with great kindness of Leo X. and with keen resentment of his tasteless successor. But probably not a page of the history was ever written. He also planned several tragedies, but he only planned them. Yet there were times when his poetical genius triumphed over his indolence; and produced in 1746, his “Odes descriptive and allegorical.” The success of this publication was inferior to that of the Oriental Eclogues. Mr. Millar, the bookseller, gave the author a handsome price, as poems were then estimated, for the copy, but the sale of them was not sufficient to pay the expence of printing. Mr. Collins, justly offended at the bad taste of the public, as soon as it was in his power, returned Mr Millar the copymoney, indemnified him for the loss he had sustained, and consigned the unsold part of the impression to the flames. Highly as Mr. Collins’s Odes deserved a superior fate, it is not surprising that they were not popular at their first appearance. Allegorical and abstracted poetry is not suited to the bulk of readers.

About this time Dr. Johnson fell into his company, who tells us, that “the appearance of Collins was decent and manly; his knowledge considerable, his views extensive, his conversation elegant, and his disposition cheerful. By degrees,” adds the doctor, “I gained his confidence; and one day was admitted to him when he was immured by a bailiff, that was prowling in the street. On this occasion recourse was had to the booksellers, who, on the credit of a translation of ‘ Aristotle’s Poetics,’ which” he engaged to write with a large commentary, advanced as much money as enabled him to escape into the country. He shewed me the guineas safe in his hand. Soon afterwards his uncle, Mr. Martin, a lieutenant-colonel, left him about 2000l. a sum which Collins could scarcely think exhaustible, and which he did not live to exhaust. The guineas were then repaid; and the translation neglected. But man is not born for happiness: Collins, who, while he studied to live, felt no evil but poverty, no sooner lived to study, than his life was assailed by more dreadful calamities, disease and insanity.“Dr. Johnson’s character of him, while it was distinctly impressed upon that excellent writer’s memory, is here at large inserted:” Mr. Collins was a man of extensive literature, and of vigorous faculties. He was acquainted, not only with the learned tongues, but with the Italian, French, and Spanish languages. He had employed his mind chiefly upon works of fiction, and subjects of fancy; and by indulging some peculiar habits of thought, was eminently delighted with those flights of imagination which pass the bounds of nature, and to which the mind is reconciled only by a passive acquiescence in popular traditions. He loved fairies, genii, giants, and monsters; he delighted to rove through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the water-falls of Elysian gardens. This was, however, the character rather of his inclination than his genius; the grandeur of wildness, and the novelty of extravagance, were always desired by him, but were not always attained. Yet as diligence is never wholly lost; if his efforts sometimes caused harshness and obscurity, they likewise produced in happier moments sublimity and splendour. This idea which he had formed of excellence, led him to Oriental fictions and allegorical imagery; and, perhaps, while he was intent upon description, he did not sufficiently cultivate sentiment. His poems are the productions of a mind not deficient in fire, nor unfurnished with knowledge either of books or life, but somewhat obstructed in its progress by deviation in quest of mistaken beauties. His morals were pure, and his opinions pious: in a long continuance of poverty, and long habits of dissipation, it cannot be expected that any character should be exactly uniform. There is a degree of want by which the freedom of agency is almost destroyed; and long association with fortuitous companions will at last relax the strictness of truth, and abate the fervour of sincerity. That this man, wise and virtuous as he was, passed always linen tangled through the snares of life, it would be prejudice and temerity to affirm; but it may be said that at least he preserved the source of action unpolluted, that his principles were never shaken, that his distinctions of right and wrong were never confounded, and that his faults had nothing of malignity or design, but proceeded from some unexpected pressure, or casual temptation. The latter part of his life cannot be remembered but with pity and sadness. He languished some years under that depression of mind which enchains the faculties without destroying them, and leaves reason the knowledge of right without the power of pursuing it. These clouds which he perceived gathering on his intellects, he endeavoured to disperse by travel, and passed into France; but found himself constrained to yield to his malady, and returned. He was for some time confined in a house of lunatics, and afterwards retired to the care of his sister in Chichester, where death, in 1756, came to his relief. After his return from France, the writer of this character paid him a visit at Islington, where he was waiting for his- sister, whom he had directed to meet him there was then nothing of disorder discernible in his mind by any but himself; but he had withdrawn from study, and travelled with no other book than an English Testament, such as children carry to the school: when his friend took it into his hand out of curiosity, to see what companion a man of letters had chosen: ‘ I have but one book,’ says Collins, ‘ but that is the best.’ Such was the fate of Collins, with whom I once delighted to converse, and whom I yet remember with tenderness. He was visited at Chichester in his last illness by his learned friends Dr. Warton and his brother; to whom he spoke with disapprobation of his t Oriental Eclogues,‘ as not sufficiently expressive of Asiatic manners, and called them his ’ Irish Eclogues.‘ He shewed them, at the same time, an ode inscribed to Mr. John Hume, ’ On the Superstitions of the Highlands;' which they thought superior to his other works, but which no search has yet found. His disorder was not alienation of mind, but general laxity and feebleness, a deficiency rather of his vital than intellectual powers. What he spoke wanted neither judgment nor spirit; but a few minutes exhausted him, so that he was forced to rest upon the couch, till a short cessation restored his powers, and he was again able to talk with his former vigour. The approaches of this dreadful malady he began to feel soon after his uncle’s death; and with the usual weakness of men so diseased, eagerly snatched that temporary relief with which the table and the bottle flatter and seduce. But his health continually declined, and he grew more and more burthensome to himself. “To what I have formerly said of his writings may bft added, that his diction was often harsh, unskilfully laboured, and injudiciously selected. He alVected the obsolete when it was not worthy of revival; and he puts his words out of the common order, seeming to think, with some later candidates for fame, that not to write prose is certainly to write poetry. His lines commonly are of slow motion, clogged and impeded with clusters of consonants. As men are often esteemed who cannot be loved, so the poetry of Collins may sometimes extort praise when it gives little pleasure.”

From this opinion of Collins’s genius many critics have diftered, whose more favourable sentiments appear to have revived his reputation of late years and Mrs. Barbauld’s prefatory Essay to an elegant- edition of his works, published in 1797, has contributed not a little to the same effect. It is necessary, however to add, that the Ode on the “Superstitions of the Highlands,” mentioned in Dr. Johnson’s account as having been lost, has been recovered, The manuscript, in Mr. Collins’s hand- writing, fell into the hands of Dr. Alexander Carlyle, among the papers of a friend of his and Mr. John Home’s, who died in 1754. Soon after Dr. Carlyle found the poem,Jie shewed it to Mr. Home, who told him that it had been addressed to him by Mr. Collins, on his leaving London in the year 1749, and that it was hastily composed and incorrect. This is apparent from the ode itself. It is evidently the prima euro, of the poem, as will easily be perceived from the alterations made in the manuscript, by the blotting out of many lines and words, and the substitution of others. In particular, the greatest part of the twelfth stanza is modelled in that manner. The poem, which is entitled “An Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland, considered as the subject of Poetry,” was first published in the first volume of the “Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,” with the fifth stanza and part of the sixth, which were lost, supplied by Mr. Mackenzie. Though there are evident proofs that it was hastily composed, it evinces, at the same time, the vigour of the author’s imagination, and the ready command he possessed of harmonious numbers. The construction of the stanza is different from what Mr. Collins has used on any former occasion, not perfectly pleasing, and too operose and formal. That the poem is highly beautiful, every man of taste must, strongly feel; but still there will probably be found per-, sons who will give the preference to the “Ode upon the Passions.”

, was an ingenious botanist, whose family is of ancient standing in the north. Peter and James were the great grandsons of Peter Collinson, who lived on his paternal estate called Hugal-Hall, or Height of Hugal, near Windermere Lake, in the parish of Stavely, about ten miles from Kendal in Westmoreland. Peter, who vvus born Jan. 14, 1693-4, whilst a youth, discovered his attachment to natural history. He began early to make a collection of dried specimens of plants; had access to the best gardens at that time in the neighbourhood of London; and became early acquainted with the most eminent naturalists of his time; the doctors Derham, Woodward, Dale, Lloyd, and Sloane, were amongst his friends. Among the great variety of articles which form, that superb collection, now (by the wise disposition of sir Hans Sloane and the munificence of parliament) the British Museum, small was the number of those with whose history Collinson was not well acquainted, he being one of those few who visited sir Hans at all times familiarly; their inclinations and pursuits in respect to natural history being the same, a firm friendship had early been established between, them. Peter Collinson was elected F. R. S. Dec. 12, 1728 and perhaps was one of the most diligent and useful members, not only in supplying them with many curious observations, but in promoting and preserving a most extensive correspondence with learned and ingenious foreigners, in all countries, and on every useful subject. Besides his attention to natural history, he minuted every striking hint that occurred either in reading or conversation; and from this source he derived much information, as there were very few men of learning and ingenuity, who were not of his acquaintance at home; and most foreigners of eminence in natural history, or in arts and sciences, were recommended to his notice and friendship. His diligence and economy of time was such, that though he never appeared to be in a hurry, he maintained an extensive correspondence with great punctuality; acquainting the learned and ingenious in distant parts of the globe, with the discoveries and improvements in natural history in this country, and receiving the like information from the most eminent persons in almost every other. His correspondence with the ingenious Cadwallader Golden, esq, of NewYork, and the celebrated Dr. Franklin of Philadelphia, furnish instances of the benefit resulting from his attention to all improvements. The latter of these gentlemen communicated his first essays on electricity to Collinson, in a series of letters, which were then published, and have been reprinted in a late edition of the doctor’s works. Perhaps, at the present period, the account procured of the management of sheep in Spain, published in the Gentleman’s Magazine for May and June 1764, may not be considered among the least of the benefits accruing from his extensive and inquisitive correspondence. His conversation, cheerful and usefully entertaining, rendered his acquaintance much desired by those who had a relish for natural history, or were studious in cultivating rural improvements; and secured him the intimate friendship of some of the most eminent personages in this kingdom, as distinguished by their taste in planting and horticulture, as by their rank and dignity. He was the first who introduced the great variety of trees and shrubs, which are now the principal ornaments of every garden; and it was owing to his indefatigable industry, that so many persons of the first distinction are now enabled to behold groves transplanted from the Western continent flourishing so luxuriantly in their several domains, as if they were already become indigenous to Britain. He had some correspondents in almost every nation in Europe; some in Asia, and even at Pekin, who all transmitted to him the most valuable seeds they could collect, in return for the treasures of America. Linnæus, during his residence in England, contraded an intimate friendship with Mr. Collinson, which was reciprocally increased by a multitude of good offices, and continued to the last. Besides his attachment to natural history, he was very conversant in the antiquities of our own country, having been elected F. S. A. April 7, 1737; and he supplied the society with many curious articles of intelligence, and observations respecting both our own and other countries. In the midst of all these engagements, he was a mercer by trade, and lived at the Red Lion, in Gracechurch-street. His person was rather short than tall; he had a pleasing and social aspect; of a temper open and communicative, capable of feeling for distress, and ready to relieve and sympathize. Excepting some attacks of the gout, he enjoyed, in general, perfect health and great equality of spirits, and had arrived at his 75th year; when, being on a visit to lord Petre, for whom he had a singular regard, he was seized with a total suppression of urine, which, baffling every attempt to relieve it, proved fatal Aug. 11, 1768. Mr. Collinson left behind him many materials for the improvement of natural history; and the present refined taste of horticulture may in some respects be attributed to his industry and abilities. He married, in 1724, Mary, the daughter of Michael Russell, esq. of Mill Hill, with whom he lived very happily till her death, in 1753. He left issue a son, named Michael, who resided at Mill Hill, and died Aug. 11, 1795, whose son is still living; and a daughter, Mary, married to the late John Cator, esq. of Beckenham, in Kent. Both his children inherited much of the taste and amiable disposition of their father.

, a doctor of the Ambrosian college at Milan, and grand penitentiary of that diocese, who died in 1640, at a very advanced age, made himself famous by a treatise “De Animabus Paganorum,” published in two volumes 4to at Milan, in 1622 and 1623. He here examines into the final state in the world to come of several illustrious pagans, and hazards bold and ingenious conjectures on matters far beyond the reach of his intellect. He saves the Egyptian midwives, the queen of Sheba, Nebuchadnezzar, &c. and does not despair of the salvation of the seven sages of Greece, nor of that of Socrates; but condemns Pythagoras, Aristotle, and several others though he acknowledges that they knew the true God. This work, properly speaking, seems to be nothing more than a vehicle for the display of the author’s erudition, of which it doubtless contains a great deal. It is now ranked among the curious and rare. He also wrote “Conclusiones theologies,” 1609, 4to, and a treatise “De sanguine Christi,” full of profound disquisition and citations innumerable, Milan, 1617, 4to, but in less estimation than his treatise “de Animabus.”

, an eminent dramatic author and manager, the son of Thomas Colman, esq. British resident at the court of the grand duke of Tuscany at Pisa, whose wife was a sister of the countess of Bath, was born at Florence about the year 1733, and placed at a very early age in Westminster-school, where he soon distinguished himself by the rapidity of his attainments, and the dawning splendour of his talents. He was elected to Christ Church college, Oxford, in 1751, and took the degree of M. A. in 1758. During his progress at Westminster, and while at college, he formed those literary connections with whom he remained in friendship till they severally dropped off the stage of life. Lloyd, Churchill, Bonnel Thornton, Cowper, and other celebrated wits of that period, were among the intimate associates of Mr. Colman, and gave a lustre to his name, by noticing him in some of their compositions. Even so early as the publication of the “Rosciad,” Churchill proposed Mr. Colman as a proper judge to decide on the pretensions of the several candidates for the chair of Roscius; and only complains that he may be thought too juvenile for so important an award.

It was during his residence at Oxford that he engaged with his friend Bonnel Thornton, in publishing the “Connoisseur,” a periodical paper, which appeared once a week, and was continued from January 31, 1754, to September 30, 1756. When the age of the writers of this entertaining miscellany is considered, the wit and humour, the spirit, the good sense, and shrewd observations on life and manners, with which it abounds, will excite some degree of wonder, but will, at the same time, evidently point out the extraordinary talents which were afterwards to be more fully displayed in the “Jealous Wife” and tfee “Clandestine Marriage.” When he came to London, the recommendation of his friends, or his choice, but probably the former, induced him to fix upon the law for his profession, and he was received with great kindness by lord Bath, who seemed to mark him for the object of his patronage: a circumstance that gave rise to the suspicion that his lordship had a natural bias in favour of young Colman. He was entered of the society of Lincoln’s-inn, and in due season called to the bar. He attended there a very short time, though, from the frequency of his attendance on the courts, we must conclude that it was not for want of encouragement that he abandoned the profession. It is reasonable to suppose that he felt more pleasure in attending to the muse than to briefs and reports; and it will therefore excite no surprise, that he took the earliest opportunity of relinquishing pursuits not congenial to his taste. “Apollo and Littleton,” says Wycherley, “seldom meet in the same brain.” At this period Lloyd addressed to him a very pleasant poem on the importance of his profession, and the seducements to which he was liable, on account of his attachment to the sisters of Helicon. His first poetical performance is a copy of verses addressed to his cousin lord Pulteney, written in the year 1747, while he was yet at Westminster, and published in the St. James’s Magazine, a work conducted by his unfortunate friend Robert Lloyd; in conjunction with whom he wrote the best parodies of modern times, the “Odes to Oblivion and Obscurity.” In 1760, his first dramatic piece, “Polly Honeycomb,” was acted at Drury-lane with great success; and next year he was one of three different candidates for public favour in the higher branch of the drama; viz. Mr. Murphy, who exhibited the “Way to keep him;” Mr. Macklin, the “Married Libertine” and Mr. Colman, “The Jealous Wife.” The former and latter of these were successful, and Colman in a very high degree. About the same time the newspaper entitled “The St. James’s Chronicle” was established; of which he became a proprietor, and exerted the full force of his prosaic talents to promote its interest, in a series of essays and humourous sketches on occasional subjects. Among these he opened a paper called “The Genius,” which he published at irregular intervals as far as the fifteenth number. These papers appear, upon the whole, to be superior to the general merit of the Connoisseurs they haye rather more solidity, and the humour is more chaste and classical, His occasional contributions to the St. James’s Chronicle were very numerous, and upon every topic of the day, politics, manners, the drama, &c. A selection from them appears in his prose works, published by himself in 1787.

In the establishment of the St. James’s Chronicle, he had likewise Mr. Thornton for a colleague, who was one of the original proprietors: and by their joint industry they drew the productions of many of the wits of the times to this paper, which, as a depository of literary intelligence, literary contests and anecdotes, and articles of wit and humour, soon eclipsed all its rivals. It appears that the principal departments were for some time filled by the following persons the papers entitled “The Genius,” by Mr. Colman “Smith’s Letters,” by Peregrine Phillips, esq. short essays of wit, by Bonnei Thornton, esq. longer essays of wit, by ——— Waller, esq.; rebusses and letters, signed “Nick Testy” and “Alexander Grumble,” ——— Forest; letters signed “Oakly,” Mr. Garrick.

In July 1764, lord Bath died, and left Mr. Colman a very comfortable annuity, and he now found himself in circumstances fully sufficient to enable him to follow the bent of his genius. The first publication which he produced, after this event, was a translation of the comedies of Terence, in the execution of which he rescued that author from the hands of his former tasteless and ignorant translators.

The successor of lord Bath, general Pulteney, died in 1767; and Mr. Colman found himself also remembered in his will by a second annuity, which confirmed the independency of his fortune. He seems, however, to have taken the first opportunity to engage in active life; as, about the year 1768, Mr. Beard, being incapable of bearing any longer the fatigues of a theatrical life, and wishing to retire from the management of Covent-garden theatre, disposed of his property in that house to Messrs. Colman, Harris, Powell, and Rutherford. These gentlemen carried on the management conjointly; but, in a short time, Mr. Colman appearing to aspire to a greater authority than the other patentees, excepting Mr. Powell, were disposed to grant, Mr. Colman, after a severe literary contest, which was published, sold his share, and retired. Soon after, Mr. Foote, then proprietor of the Haymarket theatre, having beeu induced to withdraw from the stage, disposed of his theatre to Mr. Colman for a handsome annuity, which he did not long enjoy. On his death, Mr. Colman obtained th*e license; and, from that period, conducted the theatre with great judgment and assiduity, occasionally supplying many dramas from his own fancy, as well as many pleasant translations from the French.

While Mr. Colman was thus shewing his attention to the theatre, he did not entirely neglect his classical studies. He gave the public, in 1783, a new translation of “Horace’s Art of Poetry,” accompanied with a commentary, in which he produced a new system to explain that very difficult poem. In opposition to Dr. Hurd, he supposes, “that one of the sons of Piso, undoubtedly the elder, had either written or meditated a poetical work, most probably a tragedy; and that he had, with the knowledge of the family, communicated his piece or intention to Horace; but Horace, either disapproving of the work, or doubting of the poetical faculties of the elder Piso, or both, wished to dissuade him from all thoughts of publication. With this view he formed the design of writing this epistle, addressing it with a courtliness and delicacy perfectly agreeable to his acknowledged character, indifferently to the whole family, the father and his two sons: Epistola ad Pisones de arte poetica.” This hypothesis is supported with much learning, ingenuity, and modesty; and the bishop of Worcester, on its publication, said to Dr. Douglas, the late bishop of Salisbury: “Give my compliments to Colman, and thank him for the handsome manner in which he has treated me, and tell him, that 1 think he is right” It may be added, that the late Dr. Warton and Dr. Beattie were of the same opinion.

Some time about the year 1790 Mr. Colman had a stroke of the palsy, which nearly deprived him of the use of one side of his body; and in a short time afterwards he gave evident signs of mental derangement; in consequence of which, he was placed under proper management at Paddington, and the conduct of the theatre was vested in his son. He died the 14th of August 1794. Mr. Colman, as a scholar, holds a very respectable rank, as may be seen by his translations of Horace’s Art of Poetry, and of the comedies of Terence; and his manners were as pleasing as his talents were respectable. His various dramatic pieces have been published in 4 vols. 8vo. The year after his death appeared a pamphlet, entitled “Some Particulars of the Life of the late George Colman, esq. written by himself, and delivered by him to Richard Jackson, esq. one of his executors, for publication after his decease.” The object of this pamphlet was to contradict two reports which had long been current. The one, that by his literary pursuits and dramatic compositions, he lost the favour and affection of the earl of Bath; the other, that by his purchase of a fourth of the patent of Coventgarden theatre, he knowingly and voluntarily forfeited the intended bequest of a certain estate under the will of general Pulteney. In opposition to these reports, he proves very clearly that he did not lose the favour of the earl of Bath, and that general Pulteney, while he did not openly resist his becoming a manager of the theatre, but rather consented to it, changed his intentions towards him, and left him, in lieu of the estate, an annuity of four hundred pounds. The general appears, however, to have considered the family as disgraced by Mr. Colman’s becoming a manager, for the latter is obliged to remind him of gentlemen who had been managers, of sir William Davenant, sir Richard Steele, sir John Vanburgh, and Mr. Congreve.

, in Latin Angelus Colotius, an elegant Italian scholar, descended of an ancient and noble family, was born at Jesi, in 1467. He obtained in his youth the honour of knighthood, which was conferred upon him by the hands of Andreas Palaeologus Despota, when, then a refugee at Rome, he was recognized as the legitimate heir to the imperial diadem of Constantinople. Colocci was a disciple of Georgius Valla, under whom he made great progress in philosophy, but particularly in polite literature. For political reasons, which are detailed J>y Ubaldinus, in his life of this illustrious scholar, the family of Colocci were obliged, in the pontificate of Innocent VIII. to abandon the city of Rome where they had taken up their residence. Angelo, in consequence, repaired to Naples, where he became a member of the Pontana academy, under the assumed name of Angelus Colotius Bassus, and acquired an intimacy with the most eminent poets and wits of his time. Six years afterwards, Raving been permitted to return to his country, he divided his time betwixt his literary pursuits and the official duties entrusted to him by his countrymen, who sent him as ambassador to Alexander VI. in 1498. He then took up his residence at Rome, where his hause became an elegant and liberal resort for men of learning and genius, and where the academy of Rome, which after the death of Pomponius Laetus had fallen into decay, was again revived under his care. Here also his extensive gardens, which, in addition to the most captivating scenery resulting from a happy combination of nature and art, were adorned with a profusion of statues, inscriptions, and other elegant remains of classic antiquity, revived Uie magnificence and amenity of the celebrated gardens of Saliust, of which they were supposed to occupy the actual site. On such objects, and on the patronage of learning and learned men, he employed his riches. The senate of Rome, struck with his liberality, bestowed on him the title of patrician, which extended to his family; and he was held in the highest estimation by the popes Leo X. Clement VII. and Paul III. Leo, independently of 4000 crowns with which he rewarded him for some verses in his praise, made him his secretary, and gave him the reversion of the bishopric of Nocera in 1521, Colocci having at that time survived two wives. This gift was afterwards confirmed to him by Clement VII. who also appointed him governor of Ascoli. These favours, however, were insufficient to secure him when Rome was sacked in 1527. On that occasion, his house was burnt, his gardens pillaged, and he was obliged to pay a large sum for his life and liberty. He then went for some time to his country, and on coming back to Rome, his first care was to invite together the members of the academy who had been dispersed. In 1537 he took possession of the bishopric of Nocera, and died at Rome in 1549. His Latin and Italian poems were published in 1772, but our authority does not mention where or in what shape. Most of them had, however, previously appeared in his life by Ubaldinus, Rome, 1673, 8vo.

, a famous Jesuit, born at St. Symphorien, two leagues from Lyons, in 1641, acquired great reputation among his order by his extraordinary talents in the pulpit. He was preacher for two years at the court of James II. of England, who listened to his sermons with great pleasure, and, as it is said by the Romanists, with edification; hut, falling under the suspicion, though not convicted, of being concerned in a conspiracy, he was banished England, and betook himself to Parai, in the Charolois, where he died, Feb. 15, 1682. In conjunction with Marie Alacoque, he recommended the celebration of the solemnity of the heart of Jesus, and composed an office for the occasion. The first inventor of this rite, however, was Thomas Goodwin, president of Magdalen college, Oxford, an Arminian, who excited great notice in England, in the middle of the seventeenth century, by his ascetical and theological writings. His book entitled “Cor Christi in ccelis erga peccatores in terris,” printed in 1649, comprises the whole system of this devotion and was intended to promote the spread of it in England. La Colombiere, who was sent to London as confessor and preacher to the duchess of York, afterwards queen, found there a numerous sect, who, after Goodwin’s example, paid adoration to the fleshly heart of Jesus, as the symbolical image of divine love. He was astonished at the novelty of so ravishing a devotion, which had so long escaped the fertile invention of his fraternity; and carried it in triumph back with him to France, where, under the influence of heavenly visions and miracles, it struck deep root, and was extensively propagated. Among other agents a nun of the name of Marie Alacoque, who, in her heavenly visions, pretended to have conversed familiarly with Christ, was employed by the Jesuits to aid the deception, and in one of her visions, asserted that she had received orders from heaven to acquaint father la Colombiere, that he should institute a yearly festival to the heart of Jesus, propagate this devotion with all his might, and announce to such as should dedicate themselves to it, the assurance of their predestination to eternal life. The Jesuits immediately and zealously complied with the celestial mandate. There appeared at once in all quarters of the world, and in all languages, an innumerable swarm of publications, manuals, copper-plates, and medals, with hearts decorated with crowns of thorns, with lambent flames, transpiercing swords, or other symbolical impresses. They distributed scapularies to be worn day and night upon the breast, and tickets to be swallowed for driving out fevers. In all Spain there was not a nun who had not a present from the Jesuits of a heart cut out of red cloth, to be worn next the skin. In every catholic city and town, in all parts of the world, fraternities were erected, passionmasses and nine-day devotions were instituted, to the honour of the heart of Jesus; and panegyrical sermons delivered, exhorting the faithful to augment their zeal. The proselytes must vow, before the holy sacrament of the altar, an eternal fidelity to the heart of Jesus; and every soul was made responsible for the increase and growth of this new devotion; nay, the display of a burning zeal for making proselytes was regarded as the peculiar characteristic of the true worshipper of the heart. This devotion was represented in their sermons and writings, as a necessary means to the enjoyment of a blissful hereafter: it was no wonder, then, that the partisans of this devotion were in a short time as numerous in all catholic Christendom as the sands of the sea. The bishops approved and confirmed the brotherhoods, and consecrated churches, altars, and chapels, erected to the promotion of this enthusiasm. Kings and queens preferred petitions to the papal throne, that a proper office might be appointed in the breviary and choir, and a peculiar mass for the solemnization of the anniversary; and even at Rome fraternities arose and flourished that devoted themselves to the worship of the heart of Jesus. In recommendation of it the Jesuits were not wanting either in prophecies or miracles; among the foremost of whom was la Colombiere, who had an excellent taste in his compositions, and a noble delivery in the pulpit. His masterly eloquence displays itself amidst the extreme simplicity ofhis style, as we are told by the abbe Trublet, speaking of his sermons, published at Lyons 1757, in 6 volumes 12mo. He had an impetuous and lively imagination, and the warmth of his heart appears through all his discourses: it is the unction of pere Che'minaisr, only more ardent and glowing. All his sermons breathe the most gentle, and at the same time the most fervent piety: he has been equalled by few in the art of affecting his hearers, and no enthusiast ever fell less into the familiar. The celebrated Patru, his friend, speaks of him as the best skilled of his time in the refinements and niceties of the French language. There are likewise by him, “Moral Reflections,” and “Spiritual Letters.”

, or Colomesius, a learned French protestant, was born at Rochelle in 1638, where his father was a physician, and where he was probably educated. His application to various reading must evidently have been very extensive, and although he has no decided claims to originality, his works ranked in his own day, and some of them may still, as ably illustrating the history of learning and learned men. He faithfully treasured what he found in old, scarce, and almost unknown authors, and knew how to render the reproduction of learned curiosities both agreeable and useful. His great intimacy and high regard for Vossius, induced him to visit England, where Vossius was then canon of Windsor, and by his interest or recommendation he was appointed librarian at Lambeth, with a competent salary. This, however, he lost at the revolution, when his patron, archbishop Bancroft, was deprived for not taking the oaths to the new government. After this it is said that he fell into poverty, and died in Jan. 1692; and was buried in St. Martin’s church-yard. His principal works are, 1. “Gallia Orientalis,” reprinted at Hamburgh, 1709, in 4to, under the care of the learned Jabricius; and containing an account of such French as were learned in the Oriental languages. 2. “Hispania & Italia Orientalis,” giving an account of the Spanish and Italian Oriental scholars. 3. “Bibliotheque Choisie;” reprinted at Paris, 1731, with notes of M. de la Monnoye, 12mo. This was published at Hamburgh, 4to, by Christ. Wolf, an useful work, and of great erudition. 4. “Theologorum Presbyterianorum Icon,” in which he shews his attachment to episcopacy; and for which he was attacked by Jurieu (who had not half his candour and impartiality) in a book entitled “De P esprit d'Arnauld.” 5. “Des opuscules critiques & historiques,” collected and published in 1709, by Fabricius. 6. “Melanges Historiques,” &c. 7. “La vie du pere Sirmond,” &c. His “Colomesiana,” make a volume of the collection of Anas.

, an eminent botanist, was born at Naples in 1567, the son of Jerome, who was the natural son of the cardinal Pompeio Colonna. He devoted himself from his youth to the pursuit of natural history, and particularly to that of plants, which he studied in the writings of the ancients; and, by indefatigable application, was enabled to correct the errata with which the manuscripts of those authors abounded. The languages, music, mathematics, drawing, painting, optics, the civil and canon law, filled up the moments which he did not bestow on botany, and the works he published in this last science were considered as master-pieces previous to the appearance of the labours of the latter botanists. He wrote, 1. “Plantarum aliquot ac piscium historia,” 1592, 4to, with plates, as some say, by the author himself, executed with much exactness. The edition of Milan, 1744, 4to, is not so valuable as the former. 2. “Minus cognitarum rariorumque stirpium descriptio; itemque de aquatilibus, aliisque nonnullis animalibus libellus,” Rome, 1616, two parts in 4to. This work, which may be considered as a sequel to the foregoing, was received with equal approbation. The author, in describing several singular plants, compares them with the descriptions of them both by the ancients and moderns, which affords him frequently an opportunity of opposing the opinions of Matthiolo, Dioscorides, Theophrastus, Pliny, &c. He published a second part, at the solicitation of the duke of Aqua-Sparta, who had been much pleased with the former. The impression, was entrusted to the printer of the academy of the Lyncasi, a society of literati, formed by that duke, and principally employed in the study of natural history. This society, which subsisted only till 1630, that is, till the death of its illustrious patron, was the model on which all the others in Europe were formed. Galileo, Porta, Achillini, and Colonna, were some of its ornaments. 3. “A Dissertation on the Glossopetrae,” in Latin, to be found with a work of Augustine Sciila, on marine substances, Rome, 1647, 4to. 4. He was concerned in the American plants of Hernandez, Rome, 1651, fol. fig. 5. A Dissertation on the Porpura, in Latin; a piece much esteemed, but become scarce, was reprinted at Kiel, 1675, 4to, with notes by Daniel Major, a German physician. The first edition is of 1616, 4to.

, a Venetian dominican, who died May 17, 1520, in his eightieth year, is chiefly known by a scarce book, entitled “Poliphili Hypnerotomachia,” Venice, 1499, fol. There is an edition of 1545, but none of 1467; the copies which pass for that edition, are of one or the other above mentioned editions; and the mistake has arisen from the last leaf, which contained the elate of the impressions, heing taken out, and the last but one left; on which is the date of the time when the work was written. It is a romance filled with mythological learning, of very little value but for its scarcity and whimsical composition, and has been translated into French by John Martin, Paris, 1561, fol

, a person ever memorable for his benefactions and charities, was the eldest son of William Colston, esq. an eminent Spanish merchant in Bristol, and born in that city Nov. 2, 1636. He was brought up to trade, and resided some time in Spain with his brothers, two of whom were inhumanly murdered there by assassins*. He inherited a handsome fortune from his parents, which received continual additions from the fortunes of his brethren; all of whom, though numerous, he survived. This family substance he increased immensely by trade; and having no near relations, he disposed qf a great part of it in acts of charity and beneficence. In 1691 he built upon his own ground, at the charge of about 2500l. St. Michael’shilL alms-houses in Bristol; and endowed them with lands, of the yearly rent of 282 J. 3s. 4</. The same year he gave houses and lands, without Temple-gate in that city, to the society of merchants for ever, towards the maintenance of six poor old decayed sailors, to the yearly value of 24l. In 1696 he purchased a piece of ground in Temple-street in the same city, and built at his own charge a school and dwelling-house for a master, to instruct forty boys, who are also to be clothed, instructed in writing, arithmetic, and the church-catechism. The estate given for this cbarity amounted to 80l. yearly, clear of all charges. In 1702 he gave 500l. towards rebuilding queen Elizabeth’s hospital on the College-green in Bristol; and for the clothing and educating of six boys there, appropriated an

Colston and his two brothers were in that aspersion. Upon which, two of

amples of great and charitable bene- tradition but it is more certain, that

reply, that if it pleased God to bring by bandittis or bravoes. estate of 60l. a year, clear of charges, besides lOl. for placing out the boys apprentices. In 1708 he settled his great benefaction of the hospital of St. Augustine in Bristol, consisting of a master, two ushers, and one hundred boys; for the maintenance of which boys, he gave an estate of 138l. 155. 6fd. a year. The charge of first setting up this hospital, and making it convenient for the purpose, amounted, it is said, to about 11,000l. He gave also 6l. yearly to the minister of All- Saints in Bristol, for reading prayers every Monday and Tuesday morning throughout the year, and I/, a year to the clerk and sexton: also 6l. a year for ever, for a monthly sermon and prayers to the prisoners in Newgate there; and 20l. yearly for ever to the clergy beneficed in that city, for preaching fourteen sermons in the time of Lent, on subjects appointed by himself. The subjects are these the Lent fast against atheism and infidelity the catholic church the excellence of the church of England the powers of the church baptism confirmation confession and absolution the errors of the church of Rome; enthusiasm and superstition restitution frequenting the divine service frequent communion the passion of our blessed Saviour. He bestowed, lastly, upwards of 2000l. in occasional charities and benefactions to churches and charity-schools, all within the city of Bristol. Beyond that city his benefactions were equally liberal. He gave 6000l. for the augmentation of sixty small livings, on the following terms: Any living that was entitled to queen Anne’s bounty might have this too, on condition that every parish, which did receive this, should be obliged to raise 100l. to be added to the lOOl. raised by Colston: and many livings have had the grant of this bounty. He gave to St. Bartholomew’s hospital in London 2000l. with which was purchased an estate of 100l. a year, which is settled on that hospital and he left to the same, by will, 500l. To Christ’s hospital, at several times, 1000l. and 1000l. more by will. To the hospitals of St. Thomas and Bethlehem 500l. each. To the workhouse without Bishopsgate, 2001. To the society for propagating the gospel in foreign parts, 300l. He built an almshouse for six poor people at Shene in Surry, and left very handsome legacies to Mortlake in the same county, where he died: viz. 45l. yearly, to be continued for twelve years after his death, for clothing and educating twelve boys and twelve girls in that place; and also 85l. he being so many years old, to eighty- five poor men and women there, to each 1l. to be distributed at the time of his decease. He gave lOO/. per annum, to be continued for twelve years after his death, and to be distributed by the direction of his executors: either to place out every year ten boys apprentices, or to be given towards the setting up ten young tradesmen, to each 10l. He gave likewise to eighteen charity-schools in several parts of England, and to be continued to them for twelve years after his death, to each school yearly 5l. Finally, he gave towards building a church at Manchester in Lancashire 20l. and towards the building of a church at Tiverton in Devonshire 50l.

Besides these known and public benefactions, he gave away every year large sums in private charities, for many years together; and the preacher of his funeral sermon informs us, that these did not fall much short of his public. In all his charities, Colston seems to have possessed no small share of judgment; for, among other instances of it, he never gave any thing to common beggars, but he always ordered, that poor house-keepers, sick and decayed persons, should be sought out as the fittest objects of his charity. We must not forget to observe, that though charity was this gentleman’s shining virtue, yet he possessed other virtues in an eminent degree. He was a person of great temperance, meekness, evenness of temper, patience, and mortification. He always looked cheerful and pleasant, was of a peaceable and quiet disposition, and remarkably circumspect in all his actions. Some years before his decease, he retired from business, and came and Jived at London, and at Mortlake in Surry, where he had a country seat. Here he died Oct. 11, 1721, almost 85; and was buried in the church of All-saints, Bristol, where a monument is erected to his memory, on which are enumerated his public charities, mentioned in this article. His funeral sermon was preached by Dr. Harcourt, and printed at London the same year.

, an ancient Italian poet and philosopher, was born at Stignano in Pescia, in 1330, His father, who was in the army, being involved in the troubles of his country, was obliged to retire to Bologna, where Coluccio was educated, or rather where he taught himself for some time without % master. It appears indeed from a letter which he wrote to Bernardo cli Moglo, that he did not apply himself to the cultivation of polite literature till he was arrived at man’s estate, and that it was then he went to Bologna? and attended the public lectures of the father of the above Bernardo. By his own father’s request, he afterwards studied law, but on his death quitted that profession for eloquence and poetry. It is not stated when he left Bologna, nor when he was permitted to return to Florence; but in 1363, in his thirty-eighth year, we find him the colleague of Francis Bruin, as apostolical secretary to pope Urban V, and it is probable that he quitted this employment when Urban went to France. He quitted at the same time the ecclesiastical habit, and married a lady by whom he had ten children. His reputation for knowledge and eloquence procured him the greatest offers from popes, emperors, and kings; but his love for his native country made him prefer, to the most brilliant prospects, the office of chancellor of the republic of Florence, which was conferred on him in 1375, and which he filled very honourably for thirty years. The letters he wrote appeared so striking to John Galeas Visconti, then at war with the republic, that he declared one letter of Coluccio’s to be more mischievous to his cause than the efforts of a thousand Florentine knights.

In the midst of his more serious functions, he found leisure to cultivate poetry, and particularly to make a collection of ancient manuscripts, in which he was so successful, that at his death his library consisted of eight hundred volumes, a princely collection before the invention of printing. His contemporaries speak of him in terms of the highest admiration, as a second Cicero and Virgil; but although modern critics cannot acquiesce in this character, his Letters, the only part of his works which are printed, evidently prove him a man of learning and research, and no inconsiderable contributor to the revival of letters. He died May 4, 1406; and his remains, after being decorated with a crown of laurel, were interred with extraordinary pomp in the church of St. Maria de Fiore.

Coluccio was the author of the following works, ms copies of most of which are preserved in the Laurentian library 1 “De Fato et Fortuna.” 2. “De saeculo et religione.” 3. “De nobilitate legum et medicinae.” 4. “Tractatus de Tyranno.” 5. “Tractatus quod medici eloquentiue studeant, et de verecundia an sit virtus aut vitium.” 6. De laboribus Herculis.“7.” Historia de casu hominis.“8.” De arte dictandi.“9.” Certamen Fortunae.“10.” Declamationes.“11.” Invectiva in Antonium Luscum.“12.” Phyllidis querimonise.“13.” Eclogae octo.“14.” Carmina ad Jacobum Allegrettum.“14.” Sonetti.“And, lastly, various” Epistles.“Of these, except the Epistles, the only article published is his treatise” De nobilitate legurn,“&c. Venice, 1542. His” Epistles" have appeared in two editions, the one by Mehus, Florence, 1741, with a learned preface and notes the other by Lami, in the same year but Mazzuchelli remarks, that it is necessary to have both collections, as they do not contain the same epistles. Some of Coluccio’s poems have appeared in various collections of Italian poetry.

, renowned in Scotch history as the founder of a monastery at Icolmkill, and the chief agent in converting the northern Picts, was a native of Ireland, where he was a priest and abbot, and is supposed to have been born at Gartan, in the county of Tyrconnel, in 521. From thence, about the year 565, he arrived in Scotland, and received from Bridius, the son of Meilochon, the then reigning king of the Picts, and his people, the island of Hij, or Hy, one of the Western Isles, which was afterwards called from him Icolmkill, and became the famous burial-place of the kings of Scotland. There he built a monastery, of which he was the abbot, and which for several ages continued to be the chief seminary of North Britain. Columba acquired here such influence, that neither king or people did any thing without his consent. Here he died June 9, 597, and his body was buried on the island; but, according to some Irish writers, was afterwards removed to Down in Ulster, and laid in the same vault with the remains of St. Patrick and St. Bridgit. From this monastery at iona, of which some remains may yet be traced, and another, which he had before founded in Ireland, sprang many other monasteries, and a great many eminent men; but such are the ravages of time and the revolutions of society, that this island, which was once “the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge, and the blessings of religion,” had, when Dr, Johnson visited it in 1773, “no school for education, nor temple for worship, only two inhabitants that could speak English, and not one that could write or read.”

, another eminent missionary for the propagation of the Christian religion in the sixth century, was a native of Ireland according to Jonas, who wrote his life, sir James Ware, and others; but Mackenzie maintains that he was a North Briton. From either Scotland or. Ireland, however, he went into England, where he continued some time, and in 589 proceeded to France, and founded the monastery of Luxevil, near Besanon, which he governed during twenty years. In 598 we find him engaged in a controversy with pope Gregory concerning the proper time of keeping Easter, which was then a frequent object of dispute; but Columbanus at last submitted to the court of Rome. After so long residence in France, he was banished for censuring the immoralities of Theodoric and his queen. He then went to Switzerland, where he was kindly received by Theodebert, king of that country, and was successful in converting the pagans; but the Swiss army being defeated by the French, he was obliged to remove to Italy, where, under the protection of the king of the Lombards, he founded, in 613, the abbey of Bobio, near Naples. Over this monastery he presided but a short time, dying Nov. 21, 61S. Authors are not agreed as to the order of monks to which Columbanus belonged, but it is certain that his disciples conformed to the rules of the Benedictines. His works are printed in the Bibl. Patrum, and consist of monastic rules, sermons, poems, letters, &c.

, a Genoese, and frequently mentioned in history as the discoverer of America, was born in 1442. Ferdinand his son, who wrote his life, would suggest to us, that he was descended from an ancient and considerable family; but it is generally believed that his father was a woolcomber, and that he himself was of the same trade, till, by having been at sea, he had acquired a taste for navigation. In his early years he applied himself much to the study of geometry and astronomy at Pavia, in order to understand cosmography: and learnt to draw, in order to describe lands, and set down cosmographical bodies, plains, or rounds. He went to sea at the age of fourteen: his first voyages were to those ports in the Mediterranean frequented by the Genoese; after which he took a voyage to Iceland; and proceeding still further north, advanced several degrees within the polar circle. After this, Columbus entered into the service of a famous sea-captain of his own name and family, who commanded a small squadron fitted out at his own expence; and by cruising against the Mahometans and Venetians, the rivals of his country in trade, had acquired both wealth and reputation. With him Columbus continued for several years, no less distinguished for his courage than his experience as a sailor. At length, in an obstinate engagement, off the coast of Portugal, with some Venetian caravals returning richly laden from the Low Countries, his ship took fire, together with one of the enemy’s ships to which it was first grappled. Columbus threw himself into the sea, laid hold of a floating oar, and by the support of it, and his dexterity in swimming, reached the shore, though above two leagues distant.

After this disaster he went to Lisbon, where he married a daughter of Bartholomew Perestrello, one of the captains employed by Prince Henry in his early navigations, and who had discovered and planted the islands of Porto Santo and Madeira, and by getting possession of his journals and charts, Columbus was seized with an irresistible desire of visiting unknown countries. He first made a voyage to Madeira; and continued during several years to trade with that island, the Canaries, Azores, the settlements in Guinea, and all the other places which the Portuguese had discovered on the continent of Africa. By these means he soon became one of the most skilful navigators in Europe. At this time the great object of discovery was a passage by sea to the East Indies, which was at last accomplished by the Portuguese, by doubling the Cape of Good Hope. The danger and tediousness of the passage, however, induced Columbus to consider whether a shorter and more direct passage to these regions might not be found out; and at length he became convinced that, by sailing across the Atlantic Ocean, directly towards the West, new countries, which probably formed a part of the vast continent of India, must infallibly be discovered. In 1474, he communicated his ideas on this subject to one Paul, a physician in Florence, a man eminent for his knowledge in cosmography, who suggested several facts in confirmation of the plan, and warmly encouraged Columbus to persevere in an undertaking so laudable, and which must redound so much to the honour of his country and the benefit of Europe. Columbus, fully satisfied of the truth of his system, was impatient to set out on a voyage of discovery, and to secure the patronage of some of the considerable powers of Europe, capable of undertaking such an enterprize. He applied first to the republic of Genoa; afterwards to the courts of Portugal, Spain, and England, successively, but met with a variety of mortifying interruptions. At last his project was so far countenanced by Ferdinand of Spain and queen Isabella, that our adventurer set sail with three small ships, the whole expence of which did not exceed 4000l. During his voyage he met with many difficulties from the mutinous and timid disposition of his men. He was the first who observed the variation of the compass, which threw the sailors into the utmost terror. For this phenomenon Columbus was obliged to invent a reason, which, though it did not satisfy himself, yet served to dispel their fears, or silence their murmurs. At last, however, the sailors lost all patience; and the admiral was obliged to promise so r lemnly, that in case land was not discovered in three days, he should return to Europe. That very night, however, the island of San Salvador was discovered, and the sailors were then as extravagant in the praise of Columbus as they had before been insolent in reviling and threatening him. They threw themselves at his feet, implored his pardon, and pronounced him to be a person inspired by heaven with more than human sagacity and fortitude, in order to accomplish a design so far beyond the ideas and conception of all former ages. Having visited several of the West India islands, and settled a colony in Hispaniola, he again set sail for Spain; and after escaping great dangers from violent tempests, arrived at the port of Palos on the 15th of March 1493.

As soon as Columbus’ s ship was discovered approaching, all the inhabitants of Palos ran eagerly to the shore, where they received the admiral with royal honours. The court was then at Barcelona, and Columbus took care immediately to announce his arrival to the king and queen, who were no less delighted than astonished with this unexpected event, and gave orders for conducting him into the city with all imaginable pomp receiving him clad in their royal robes, and seated on a throne under a magnificent canopy. Notwithstanding all this respect, however, Columbus was no longer regarded than he was successful. The colonists he afterwards carried over were to the last degree unreasonable and unmanageable; so that he was obliged to use some severities with them; and complaints, were made to the court of Spain against him for cruelty. On this, Francis de Bovadilla, a knight of Calatrava, was appointed to inquire into the conduct of Columbus; with orders, in case he found the charge of mal-administration, proved, to supersede him, and assume the office of governor of Hispaniola. The consequence of this was, that Columbus was sent to Spain in chains. From these, however, he was freed immediately on his arrival, and had an opportunity granted him of vindicating his innocence. He was, however, deprived of all power; and notwithstanding his great services, and the solemnity of the agreement between him and Ferdinand, Columbus never could obtain the fulfilment of any part of that treaty. At last, disgusted with the ingratitude of a monarch whom he had served with such fidelity and success, and exhausted with fatigues, he died May 29th, 1506.

Ferdinand, who had slighted his well-founded claims when living, bestowed upon him funeral honours, and confirmed to his children their hereditary rights. Columbus was buried in the cathedral at Seville, and on his tomb was engraven an epitaph, in memory of his renowned actions and discovery of a New World, which, in justice, ought to have been denominated Columbia, in order that the name might for ever excite the remembrance of the hero who, in spite of every obstacle, succeeded in realizing a. project, esteemed by his contemporaries as the chimera of a disturbed imagination.

Justinianus, in his curious edition of the Polyglot Psalter, 1516, of which a beautiful copy is preserved in the Cracherode collection, in the British Museum, has introduced, by way of commentary on Ps. xix. 4, “their words are gone forth to the ends of the earth,” a very curious sketch of the life of Columbus, an account of his discovery of America, and also a description of the inhabitants, particularly of the female native Americans. But before the Header can completely allow the praise of original discovery to Columbus, it will be necessary to peruse with atour article of Martin Behem, where his claims are powerfully controverted. Don Ferdinand Columbus, the son of Christopher, and writer of his life, entered into the ecclesiastical state; and founded a library, which he bequeathed to the church of Seville, to this day called the Columbine Library. He died in 1560.

, brother of Christopher, acquired a reputation by the sea-charts and the spheres, which he made in a superior manner, considering the time in which he lived. He had passed from Italy to Portugal before his brother, whose tutor he had been in cosmography. Don Ferdinand Columbus, his nephew, says, that his uncle having embarked for London, was taken by a corsair, who carried him into an unknown country, where he was reduced to the extremity of distress, from which he delivered himself by making charts for navigation; and, having amassed a considerable sum of money, he went to England, presented to the king a map of the world in his own method, explained to him the plan his brother had formed of striking much farther forward on the ocean than had ever yet been done: the prince intreated him to invite over Christopher, promising to defray the whole expence of the expedition; but the latter had already entered into an engagement with the crown of Castile. Part of this story, and especially the proposal made by the king of England, seems totally without foundation: but it appears that Bartholomew had a share in the bounty bestowed on Christopher by the king of Castile; and in 1493 these two brothers, and Diego Columbus, who was the third, were ennobled. Don Bartholomew underwent with Christopher the fatigues and dangers inseparable from such long voyages as those in which they both engaged, and built the town of St. Domingo. He died in 1514, possessed of riches and honours.

, a native of Spain, was a Latin writer, of whom nothing is known, except that he flourished under the Roman Emperor Claudius, about the year of Christ 42; and has left some books upon agriculture, and a “Treatise upon Trees.” These works are curious and valuable, as well for their matter as style, which latter is thought by some to be not very remote from the Latin of the Augustan age. They have usually been published with the “Scriptores de re rustica.”

, was a native of Messina in Sicily, who followed Edward I. into England, on his return from the Holy Land. About the year 1287 he compiled a chronicle in 36 books, and wrote several historical tracts in relation to England. His most curious work is, “The history of the siege of Troy,” in Latin, Cologne 1477, 4to, and Strasbourg 1486, fol. These editions are very scarce, as are the Italian translations 1481, Venice, in fol. and Florence 1610, 4to but the edition of Naples 1655, 4to, is not so rare.

, a Greek poet, was a native of Lycopolis, a city of Thebais, in Upper Egypt, of whose parentage or education nothing is recorded; but we learn from Suidas that he lived in the reign of Anastasius, who succeeded Zeno in the government of the Eastern empire, about the year 491. He wrote Caledonics, Persies, and Encomia; but none of his works now remain, except the “Rape of Helen,” and that in a mutilated state. It is not, however, destitute of imagery, and is adorned by a variety of striking and expressive epithets, although we may infer from it, that the true poetic spirit had then ceased to flourish. The first edition of this work is that by Aldus, 8vo, without a date, along with Quintus Calaber; and the last, if we mistake not, was by Harles, 1776, 8vo, but the best is said to be that of Lanness, Gr. & Lat. 1747, 8vo. The Italians and French have good translations in their respective languages, and there are three in English; the first by sir Edward Sherborne in 1701, valuable chiefly for his learned notes; the second partly by Fawkes, and partly by a nameless coadjutor, in 1780; and the third, inferior to that of Fawkes, by an anonymous writer, was published in 1786.

, a Scotch divine and poet, was born near St. Andrew’s in Fifeshire, 1620, and educated in the university of Edinburgh, where he took his degree of D. D. and was settled minister at Dysart. In 1662 he complied with the act of uniformity, and was appointed principal of the university of Edinburgh, in the room of Dr. Leighton, promoted to the see of Dumblane. He wrote several controversial tracts, most of which are now forgotten; but that which particularly recommends him to the notice of the public, is a humorous poem entitled “Scotch Hudibras,” written in the manner of Butler. This book gave great offence to the presbyterians but still, although little known in England, is well esteemed in Scotland. He died at Edinburgh 1676, aged 58.

This account, we know not on what authority, appeared in the last edition of this Dictionary, and we suspect is erroneous, unless there were two Colwils, or Colvils, who both wrote in imitation of Butler. In 1681 one Samuel Colvil published, at London, “The mock poem, or the Whig’s supplication,” 12mo.

, a learned Dominican, was born in 1605 at Marmande, and distinguished for his learning and piety. The clergy of France appointed him a pension of 1000 livres in 1650, as a reward for his merit, and an encouragement to complete those editions of the Greek fathers which have procured him a name. He died at Paris March 23, 1679, aged 74. He published the works of St. Amphilochus, St. Methodius, St. Andrew of Crete, and several opuscula of the Greek fathers, and an addition to the library of the fathers, 3 vols. folio, Gr. and Lat. He also contributed to the edition of the Byzantine history, * e Histories Bizant. Script, post Theophanem," 1685, folio; and there is a library of the fathers by him, for the preachers, 1662, 8 vols. folio, and other works. The chief objection to this laborious writer is the inelegance of his Latin style, which renders some of his translations obscure.

, dean of Durham, the son of James Comber, and Mary Burton, who, when she married his father was the widow of Mr. Edward Hampden of Westerham in Kent, was born at Westerham March 19, 1644, and was the last child baptised in that parish church according to the rites of the church of England, before those rites were prohibited by the usurping powers. His father was so persecuted in that tumultuous period, for his loyalty, as to be compelled to take refuge in Flanders, leaving his son entirely under the care of jiis mother. His early education he received at the school of Westerham, under the rev. Thomas Walter, a teacher of piety as well as learning. Here his progress was so rapid that he could read and write Greek before he was ten years old, and in other respects was accounted a pupil of great promise. From this place he removed in 1653 to London, and passed some time under a schoolmaster, a distant relation, but without adding much to his stock of knowledge, and in 1656 returned to his first master at Westerham, and on his death, read Greek and Latin, for a year, assisted by the rev. William Holland.

In 1659 he was admitted of Sidney-Sussex college, Cam-, bridge, April 18, after having completed his fourteenth year. Here he was under the care of the rev. Edmund Matthews, B. D. senior fellow and president of the college. To this gentleman he acknowledges his obligations for the pains he took in teaching him experimental philosophy, geometry, astronomy, and other parts of the mathematics, music, painting, and even the oriental languages, and the elements of philosophy and divinity. His family having been sufferers by the rebellion, he was obliged to husband his little property with the utmost care, and seems to have considered an exhibition of ten pounds annually as a very important acquisition; because with the addition of five pounds from a private benefactor, he informs us, “it enabled him to live very well, and from that time, he put his parents to no other expence, but that of providing him his clothes and books.” In January 1662 he was chosen scholar of the house, with another pension of five pounds per annum % which cheered an ceconomist of such humble expectations with the prospect of absolute plenty. Having been admitted to the degree of A. B. Jan. 21, 1662, he now indulged the natural wish of a young scholar, to continue in the university, and was led to entertain hopes of obtaining a fellowship, either in his own college, or in St. John’s, the master of which, Dr. Gunning, had made him many promises; but these proving abortive, and the ten pound exhibition being withdrawn (which did not come from the college, but from a fund raised by certain Kentish men resident in London) he was obliged to leave the university, and retire to his father’s house. In this situation, however, he was not without friends; a Mr. John Holney of Eden-bridge, a pious old gentleman, and his father’s particular friend, found out his merit, and made him a handsome present, with a request that he would draw upon him at any time for any sum he might want; and so many other friends from other quarters appeared, that Mr. Comber never found it necessary to avail himself of Mr. Holney’s munificence in the future periods of his life.

Early in 1663, he accepted an invitation to the house of his late preceptor Mr. Holland, now rector of All-hallows Staining, London, and being ordained deacon Aug. 18, he read prayers for Mr. Holland, and employed the week in studying at Sjon college. Soon after he was invited to be curate to the rev. Gilbert Bennet, who held the living of Stonegrave in Yorkshire, and who promised, if he liked him, to resign in his favour in a year or two, as he was possessed of other preferment. Having accepted this offer, he was next year ordained priest at York minster by archbishop Sterne, and no objection, was made to his age (twenty years) on account of his uncommon qualifications; and when this circumstance, which had not passed unobserved, was afterwards objected to the archbishop, as an irregularity, he declared he had found no reason to repent. In 1666 he was admitted at Cambridge to his master’s degree by proxy, the plague then raging at the university. At Stonegrave, his character having recommended him to the notice of Mr. Thornton of East-Newton in Yorkshire, he was invited to reside at that gentleman’s house, and he afterwards married one of his daughters. While he lived with this family, he wrote various theological pieces, and also amused himself with poetical compositions. In 1669 Mr. Bennet resigned the living of Stonegrave, and Mr, Comber was inducted in October of that year.

Having long been an admirer of the church-service, ne determined to recommend* it to the public, which at that time was frequently interested in disputes respecting set forms and extempore prayer; and with this view published, about 1672, the first part of his “Companion to the Temple;” in 1674 the second part; and in 1675, the third part, of which a different arrangement was adopted in the subsequent editions. In 1677, he was installed prebend of Holme in the metropolitan church of York, and the same year, so rapid was the sale, a third edition of his “Companion to the Temple” was published, and at the same time a new edition of a very useful tract, to which he did not put his name, entitled “Advice to the Roman Catholics,” and his first book of “The Right of Tithes,” &c. against Elwood the quaker, and also without his name, The same year appeared his “Brief Discourse on the Offices of Baptism, Catechism, and Confirmation,” dedicated to Tillotson. In 1678 the living of Thornton becoming vacant, he was presented to it by sir Hugh Choimeley; and as this place was only ten miles from Stonegrave, he found no difficulty in obtaining a dispensation from the archbishop of Canterbury, who also created him, by patent, D. D. In 1680 we find him combating an adversary, on the subject of tithes, far more considerable than Elwood, namely, John Selden, so justly celebrated for his learning and abilities. In confutation of Selden’s “History of Tithes,” he now published the first part of his “Historical Vindication of the Divine right of Tithes,” and in 1681, the second part. Some time in this year, he published a tract, entitled “Religion and Loyalty,” which he informs us was intended to convince the duke of York, that no person in succession to the throne of England ought to embrace popery; and to persuade the people of England not to alter the succession. As in this pamphlet he seemed to favour the doctrine of non-resistance, he was attacked by the popular party as an enemy to freedom; but his biographer has defended him with success against such charges.

Some inferior preferments, obtained by Dr. Comber, were followed (in 16S3) by a grant of the dignity of precentor of York. He was in this situation when a series of imprudent and arbitrary measures roused that national spirit which drove James II. from his throne. The precentor was not slow in promoting this spirit; and, when the prince and princess of Orange had been called to the throne, he vindicated the legality of the new government against the calumnies of the Tory party. His patriotic exertions were not unrewarded; for he was promoted in 1691 to the valuable deanry of Durham, partly by the interest of archbishop Tillotson, but was not a little affected in owing the vacancy to the deprivation of his friend Dr. Dennis Grenville, a nonjuror. He would probably have been at length advanced to the episcopal dignity, had not a consumption put an end to his life in 1699, before he had completed his fifty-fifth year.

Besides the works already noticed, Dr. Comber wrote, 1. “A Scholastical History of the primitive and general use of Liturgies in the Christian Church; together with an Answer to Mr. David Clarkson’s late Discourse concerning Liturgies,” Lond. 1690, dedicated to king William and queen Mary. 2. “A Companion to the Altar; or, an Help to the worthy Receiving of the Lord’s Supper, by Discourses and Meditations upon the whole Communionoffice.” 3. “A brief Discourse upon the Offices of Baptism, Catechism, and Confirmation,” printed at the end of the Companion to the Altar.“4.” A Discourse on the occasional Offices in the Common Prayer, viz. Matrimony, Visitation of the Sick, Burial of the Dead, Churching of Women, and the Commination.“5.” A Discourse upon the Manner and Form of making Bishops, Priests, and Deacons,“London, 1699, 8vo, dedicated to archbishop Tenison. 6.” Short Discourses upon the whole Common Prayer, designed to inform the judgment, and excite the devotion of such as daily use the same;“chiefly byway of paraphrase, London, 1684, 8vo, dedicated to Anne, princess of Denmark, to whom the author was chaplain. 7. f Roman Forgeries in the Councils during the first four Centuries; together with an Appendix, concerning the forgeries and errors in the annals of Baronius,” ibid. 1689, 4to. It seems doubtful whether the edition of Fox’s “Christus Triumphans,” which appeared in 1672, was published by him. From his correspondence, and from a ms account of his life left in his family, his great grandson, the rev. T. Comber of Jesus college, Cambridge, published in 1799, an interesting volume, entitled “Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Thomas Comber, D. D. some time dean of Durham; in which is introduced a candid view of the scope and execution of the -several works of Dr. Comber, as well printed as ms.; also a fair account of his literary correspondence.” Of this we have availed ourselves as to the preceding facts, and must still refer to it for a more satisfactory detail of Dr. Comber’s public services and private character. He was unquestionably a pious, learned, and indefatigable supporter of the doctrine and discipline of the church of England; and his private character added a very striking lustre to his public professions. His principal works, not of the controversial kind, are those he wrote on the various parts of the liturgy, which, although in less reputation now than formerly, unquestionably were the first of the kind, and rendered the labours of his successors Nichols, Wheatley, &c. more easy. His style is in general perspicuous, although void of ornament, and the phraseology, somewhat peculiar; but these liturgical commentaries are chiefly valuable for the accumulation of learned references and authorities. As to his private character, his biographer assures us, that “his modesty and inambition were singularly remarkable. Content with a moderate fortune, he was desirous of continuing in a private station, though possessed of abilities and integrity capable of adorning the most exalted and splendid rank. Insensible equally to the calls of ambition and the allurements of wealth, we behold him declining situations of honour and emolument, to obtain which thousands have made shipwreck of their honour and conscience. When the importunity of his friends had at last prevailed on him to lay aside his thoughts of continuing in obscurity, and induced him to step forward into a more public life, we see him respected by all the great and good men of his time, and frequently receiving public marks of esteem from the lips of royalty itself. The same modesty which had made him desirous of continuing in a private station, still adhered to him when preferred to an eminent dignity in the church: unassuming and humble in private life, in public he was dignified without pride, and generous without ostentation.”

There was also another Thomas Comber, D. D. who lived in the same century, and was of Trinity college in Cambridge. He was born -in Sussex, Jan. 1, 1575 5 admitted scholar of Trinity college, May 1593; chosen fellow of the same, October 1597; preferred to the deanery of Carlisle, August 1630; and sworn in master of Trinity college, Oct. 1631. In 1642, he was imprisoned, plundered, and deprived of all his preferments; and died February 1653, at Cambridge. He was a man of very extensive learning, particularly in the classical and oriental languages; and Neal, the historian of his persecutors, bears testimony to the excellence of his character in this and other respects. He is here however noticed, chiefly to correct the mistakes of the Biog. Britannica, Wood’s Athenas, &c. in which he is confounded with the dean of Durham, and said to have entered into a controversy with Selden on the subject of tithes. He was, however, related to him, the dean’s grandfather John Comber, esq. being his uncle.

, LL. D. grandson to the preceding Dr. Comber, dean of Durham, was educated at Jesus college, Cambridge, where he took his degrees of B. A. 1744, M. A. 1770, and LL. D. 1777. He was rector of Kirkby Misperton, Yorkshire, and afterwards rector of Morborne and Buckworth in Huntingdonshire. He was a man of considerable parts and learning, and the author of several controversial tracts, among which are: 1. “The Heathen rejection of Christianity in the first ages considered/' 1747, 8vo. 2.” An Examination of a late introductory Discourse concerning Miraculous Power,“by Dr. Middleton, a pamphlet in which Warburton discovered marks of genius and sense, but with some puerilities. 3.” A Vindication of the great Revolution in England in 1688, &c.“1758, 8vo. 4.” A Free and Candid Correspondence on the Farmer’s Letter to the people of England, &c. with the Author,“1770, 8vo. 5.” A Treatise of Laws, from the Greek of Sylburgius’s edition of Theodoret, bishop of Cyprus, &c.“177G, 8vo. 6.” Memoirs of the Life and Death of the right hon. the Lord Deputy Wandesforde,“Cambridge, 1778, 12mo. Dr. Comber was great great grandson to this nobleman. This last is a very curious and a very scarce performance. It is marked on the title-page, vol. II. and was to be considered as the second volume of a work published by our author in 1777, entitled” A Book of Instructions, written by sir Christopher Wandesforde to his son, but they are seldom found together." Dr. Comber died in 1778.

, a celebrated grammarian and protestant divine, was born in Moravia in 1592. Having studied in several places, and particularly at Herborn, he returned to his own country in 1614, and was made rector of a college there. He was ordained minister in 1616, and two years after became pastor of the church of Fulnec: at which time he was appointed master of a school lately erected. He then appears to have projected the introduction of a new method for teaching the languages. He published some essays for this purpose in 1616, and had prepared other pieces on that subject, which were destroyed in 1621, when the Spaniards plundered his library, after having taken the city. The ministers of Bohemia, and Moravia being outlawed by an edict in 1624, and the persecution increasing the year after, Comenius fled to Lesna, a city of Poland, and taught Latin. There he published in 1631, his book entitled “Janua linguarum reserata,” or, “the gate of languages unlocked” of which he gives us an account which is universally allowed to be true “I never could have imagined,” says he, “that this little book, calculated only for children, should have met with universal applause from the learned. This has been justified by the letters I have received from a great number of learned men of different countries, in which they highly congratulate me on this new invention; as well as by the versions which have been emulously made of it into several modern tongues. For it has not only been translated into twelve European languages, namely, Latin, Greek, Bohemian, Polish, German, Swedish, Dutch, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Hungarian; but likewise into the Asiatic languages, as, Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and even the Mogul, which is spoken all over the East Indies.” It was afterwards reprinted under the title of “Orbis sensualium pictus,” and is still, according to baron Born, used in the schools of Bohemia, Comenius being particularly skilled in the language of that country.

This book gained Comenius such reputation, that the governing powers of Sweden wrote to him in 1633, and offered him a commission for new regulating all the schools in that kingdom; which offer, however, he did not think proper to accept, but only promised to assist with his advice those who should be appointed to execute that commission. He then translated into Latin, a piece which he had written in his native tongue, concerning the new method of instructing youth, a specimen of which appeared under the title of “Pansophiae prodromus,” or “The forerunner of universal learning,” printed at London, 1639, 12mo, and translated by Jer. Collier, 1651. This made him considered as one very capable of reforming the method of teaching; and the parliament of England desired his assistance to reform the schools of this kingdom. He arrived at London, Sept. 1641, but the rebellion then commencing, shewed Comenius that this was not a juncture favourable to his designs; he went therefore to Sweden, whither he had been invited by Lewis de Geer, a gentleman of great merit, who had the public welfare very much at heart. He arrived there in August 1642, and discoursed with Oxenstiern about his method: the result of which conference was, that he should go and fix at Elbing in Prussia, and compose it. la the mean time Lewis de Geer settled a considerable stipend upon him, by which means, being delivered from the drudgery of teaching a school, he employed himself wholly in finding out general methods for those who instructed youth; Having spent four years at Elbing in this study, he returned to Sweden to shew his composition, which was examined by three commissioners, and declared worthy of being made public when completed. He spent two more years upon it at Elbing, and then was obliged to return to Lesna. In 1650 he took a journey to the court of Sigismund Ragotski, prince of Transilvania; where a conference was desired with him on the subject of education. He gave this prince some pieces, containing instructions for regulating the college of Patak, pursuant to the maxims laid down in his “Pansophia;” and, during four years, he was allowed to propose whatever he pleased with regard to the government of that college. After this he returned to Lesna, and did not leave it till it was burnt by the Poles; of which calamity, as we shall see below, Comenius was charged with being the cause. He lost there all his manuscripts, except what he had written on Pansophia, and on the Revelations. He fled into Silesia, thence to Brandenburgh, afterwards to Hamburgh, and lastly to Amsterdam; where he met with so much encouragement, that he was tempted to continue there for the remainder of his life. He printed there, in 1657, at the expence of his Maecenas, the different parts of his new method of teaching. The work is in folio, and divided into four parts. “The whole,” says Bayle, “cost the author prodigious pains, other people a great deal of money, yet the learned received no benefit from it; nor is there, in my opinion, any thing practically useful in the hints of that author.”

But Comenius was not only intent upon the reformation of schools; he had become a deep re’searcher into prophecies, revolutions, the ruining of antichrist, the millennium, &c. and had collected with prodigious care the chimeras of Kotterus, those of Christiana Poniatovia, and of Drabicius, and published them at Amsterdam. These writers promised miracles to those who stiould endeavour to extirpate the house of Austria and the pope. Gustavus Adolphus, and Charles Gustavus, kings of Sweden, Cromwell and Ragotski, had been promised as those who should accomplish those splendid prophecies; to which, however, the event did not correspond. We are told that Comenius, not knowing how to extricate himself, at last took it into his head to address Lewis XIV, of France; that he sent him a copy of Drabicius’s prophecies, and insinuated that it was to this monarch God promised the empire of the world, by the downfall of those who persecuted Christ. He wrote some books at Amsterdam; one particularly against des Marets concerning the millennium, and Des Marets answered with contempt and asperity, representing him as an impostor.

Comenius became at last sensible of the vanity of his labours, as we learn from the book he published in 1668 at Amsterdam, entitled “Unius necessarii,” or “Of the one thing needful;” in which he acquaints us also with the resolution he had made, of employing all his future thoughts wholly on his salvation, and this he probably kept. He died at Amsterdam, 1671, in his eightieth year. Had he lived much longer, he would have seen the falsity of his prophecies with regard to the millennium, which he affirmed would begin in 1672, or 1673. Whatever mortification Comenius must have felt on the score of his prophecies, his enemies have brought more serious charges against him. He was first reproached with having done great prejudice to his brethren, who were banished with him from Moravia. Most of them had fled from their country with considerable sums of money; but, instead of being ceconomists, they squandered it away in a short time, because Comenius prophesied they should return to their country immediately, and thus they were very soon reduced to beggary. He was also accused of having been the cause of the plundering and burning of Lesna, where his brethren had found an asylum, by the panegyric he made so unseasonably upon Charles Gustavus of Sweden, when he invaded Poland. Comenius proclaimed him in a prophetic manner to be the immediate destroyer of popery; by which the protestants of Poland became extremely odious to the Roman catholics of that kingdom. He did not seem to be undeceived when the king of Sweden turned his arms against Denmark; for he made him a second panegyric, wherein he congratulated him no less on this new invasion than he had done upon the former. But whatever credit the protestants of Lesna might give to Comenius, that city was surprised and burnt by the Polish army; on which occasion Comenius lost his house, his furniture, and his library; a proof that, if he was an impostor, he had first deceived himself. Part of his apocalyptic treatises, and some other pieces relating to his Pansophia, escaped the flames; he having just time to cover them, in a hole under ground, from which they were taken ten days after the fire but his “Lexicon Bobemicum,” a work which baron Born conceives would have been of the highest utility, was totally destroyed. On this he had spent above forty years of his life.

Besides the works already mentioned, Comenius wrote, 1. “Synopsis -Physicse, ad lumen divinum reformat,” Amst. 1643, and 1645, 12mo, published in English, 1651, 12mo. This book has procured him a place in Brucker’s class of scriptural philosophers. Comenius, according to his analysis of the work, supposes three principles of nature matter, spirit, and light: the first, a dark, inactive, corporeal substance, which receives forms; the second, the subtle, living, invisible substance, which animates material bodies; the third, a middle substance between the two former, lucid, visible, moveable, capable of penetrating matter, which is the instrument by which spirit acts upon matter, and which performs its office by means of motion, agitation, or vibration. Of these three principles he conceived all created beings to be composed. This doctrine he attempts to derive from the Mosaic history of the creation; but the scholastic fictions which men of this cast ascribe to Moses, Moses himself would probably never have owned. 2. “Ecclesiae Slavonic, &c. brevis historiola,” Amst. 1660, afterwards published by Buddeus under the title of “Historia Fratrum Bohcmorum,” 1702, ito. Several other of his publications, now of little interest, are enumerated in our authorities.

, or Noel Conti, an Italian writer, was born at Venice about the commencement of the sixteenth century, and became greatly distinguished for classical learning. He translated from Greek into Latin the “Deipnosophistse of Athenaeus,” the “Rhetoric of Hermogenes,” and he published original poems in both these languages. He wrote a history of his own times from 1545 to 1581, fol. 1612, a very scarce edition. The first was that of 1572, 4to, but his principal work is a system of mythology entitled “Mythologiae, sive explicationis Fabularum, lib. X.” Padua, 1616, 4to, and often reprinted. It was dedicated to Charles IX. of France. He died in 158i., and on account of his love of allegory and mysticism he was denominated by Joseph Scaliger, rather harshly, "Homo futilissimus.

, canon of Ernbrun, his native place, was \ rofessor of mathematics at Paris, and was employed some time on the Journal des Savans, but becoming blind, he entered the Quinze- Vingts of Paris, where he died in. 1693. The chief of his works are, l.“The new science of the nature of Comets.” 2. “A Discourse on Comets.” 3. “Three Discourses on- the art of prolonging Life/' suggested by an article in the Gazette of Holland concerning a Louis Galdo, who was said to have lived 400 years. These discourses are curious from the number of anecdotes they contain. 4.” A Tract on Spectacles for assisting the Sight,“1682. 5. A Treatise on Prophecies, Vaticinations, Predictions and Prognostications,” against M. Jurieu, 12mo. 6. “A Treatise on Speech, on Languages, and Writings, and on the art of secret speaking and writing,” Liege, 1691, 12mo, which, says our authority, although it passed through two editions, is extremely rare.

, or Commines, Lat. Cominæus (Philip de), an excellent French historian, was born of a noble family in Flanders, 1446. He was a man of great abilities, which, added to his illustrious birth, soon recommended him to the notice of Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, with whom he lived in intimacy for about eight years. He was afterwards 'invited to the court of France by Louis XI. and became a man of consequence, not only from the countenance which was given him by the monarch, but from other great connections also, which he formed by marrying into a noble family. Louis made him his chamberlain, and seneschal or chief magistrate of the province of Poictou. He also employed him in several negotiations, which he executed in a satisfactory manner, and enjoyed the high favour of his prince. But after the death of Louis, when his successor Charles VIII. came to the throne, the envy of his adversaries prevailed so far, that he was imprisoned at Loches, in the county of Berry, and treated with great severity; but by the application of his wife, he was removed at length to Paris. After some time he was convened before the parliament, in which he pleaded his own cause with such effect, that, after a speech of two hours, he was discharged. In this harangue he insisted much upon what he had done both for the king and kingdom, and the favour and bounty of his master Louis XI. He remonstrated to them, that he had done nothing either through avarice or ambition; and that if his designs had been only to have enriched himself, he had as fair an opportunity of doing it as any man of his condition in France. He died in a house of his own called Argenton, Oct. 17, 1509; and his body, being carried to Paris, was interred in the church belonging to the Augustines, in a chapel which he had built for himself. In his prosperity he had the following saying frequently in his mouth: “He that will not work, let him not eat:” in his adversity he used to say, “I committed myself to the sea, and am overwhelmed in a storm.”

He was a man of great parts, but not learned. He spoke several modern languages well, the German, French, and Spanish especially; but he knew nothing of the ancient, which he used to lament. His “Memoirs of his own times,” commence from 1464, and include a period of thirty-four years; in which are commemorated the most remarkable actions of the two last dukes of Burgundy, and of Louis XL and Charles VIII. kings of France; as likewise the most important contemporary transactions in EngJand, Flanders, Germany, Italy, and Spain. The great penetration and judgment which Comines has shewn in, these memoirs, the extensive knowlege of men and things, the wonderful skill in unfolding counsels and tracing actions to their first springs, and the variety of excellent precepts, political and philosophical, with which the whole is wrought up, have long preserved the credit of this work. Catherine de Medicis used to say, that Comines had made as many heretics in politics as Luther had in religion. He has one qualification not yet mentioned, which ought particularly to recommend him to our favour; and that is, the great impartiality he shews to the English. Whenever he has occasion to mention our nation, it is with much respect; and though, indeed, he thinks us deficient in political knowledge, when compared with his own countrymen, he gives us the character of being a generous, boldspirited people; highly commends our constitution, and never conceals the grandeur and magnificence of the English nation. Dryden, in his life of Plutarch, has made the historian some return for his civilities in the following elogium: “Next to Thucydides,” says that poet, “in this kind may be accounted Polybius among the Grecians; Livy, though not free from superstition, nor Tacitus from, ill-nature, amongst the Romans; amongst the modern Italians, Guicciardini and d'Avila, if not partial: but above all men, in my opinion, the plain, sincere, unaffected, and most instructive Philip deComines amongst the French, though he only gives his history the humble name of Commentaries. I am sorry I cannot find in our own nation, though it has produced some commendable historians, any proper to be ranked with these.” There are a very great number of editions of these “Memoirs” in French, enumerated by Le Long: the best, in the opinion of his countrymen, is that of the abbe Lenglet du Fresnoy, Paris, 1747, 4 vols. 4to, under the title of London. It was translated into English in 1596, as noticed by Ames and Herbert, who have, however, confounded him with Philip de Mornay. The last English translation was that of Uvedale, 1712, 2 vols. 8vo.

, a celebrated mathematician and linguist, who was born at Urbino in Italy, in 1509, and died in 1575, was famous for his learning and knowledge in- the sciences. To a great depth and just taste in the mathematics, he joined a critical skill in the Greek language; a happy conjunction which made him very well qualified for translating and expounding the writings of the Greek mathematicians. And, accordingly, with a most laudable zeal and industry, he translated and published several of their works for the first time. On which account, Francis Moria, duke of Urbino, who was very conversant in those sciences, proved a very affectionate patron to him. He is greatly applauded by Bianchini, and other writers and he justly deserved their encomiums. Of his own works Commandine published the following: 1. “Commentarius in Planisphserium Ptolomosi,” 1558, 4to. 2. “De Centre Gravitatis Solidorum,” Bonon. 1565, 4to. 3. “Horologiorum Descriptio,” Rom. 1562, 4to. He translated and illustrated with notes the following works, most of them beautifully printed, in 4to, by the celebrated printer Aldus: 1. “Archimedis Circuli Dimensio de Lineis Spiralibus Quadratura Parabolae de Conoidibus et Sphseroidibus de Arenas Numero,” 1558. 2. “Ptolomaei Planisphaerium et Planisphaerium Jordani,” 1558. 3. “Ptolomuei Analemma,” 1562. 4. “Archimedis de iis qua? vehuntur in aqua,” 1565. 5. “Apollonii Perggei Conicorum libri quatuor, una cum Pappi Alexandrini Lemmatibns, et Commentariis Eutocii AscalonitaV' &c. 1566. 6.” Machometes Bagdadinus de Superficierum Divisionibus,“1570. 7.” Elementa Euclidis,“1572. 8.” Aristarchus de magnitudinibus et distantiis Solis et Luna:,“1572. 9.” Heronis Alexandrini Spiritualium liber,“1583. 10.” Pappi Alexandrini Collectiones Mathematics.'," 1588.

, a celebrated French printer, native of Douav, settled first at Geneva, afterwards at Heidelberg, where he died in 1598. He was a very learned scholar, as appears by all the editions of the Greek and Latin fathers which he corrected, and to which he added notes that are much esteemed. He printed since 1560, in Switzerland, S. Chrysostomus in Nov. Testarnentum, 1596, 4 vols. fol. This edition, with that of the Old Testament printed at Paris, makes this work complete, and the best edition. He took up his residence at Heidelberg for the convenience of consulting the Mss. in the Palatine library. He printed many other books; those without his name are known by his mark, which represents Truth sitting in a chair. His edition of Apollodorus is well known in classical libraries, but unfortunately he did not live to finish it, which was accomplished in 1599 by his assistant Bonutius.

, a distinguished botanist, was born at Amsterdam, July 23, 1629. He succeeded his father as one of the magistrates of the city, and while holding this office was very active in forming a new botanical garden; the ground occupied by the old garden having been taken into the city. The second and third volumes of the “Hortus Indicus Malabaricus,” owe much of their value to his judicious notes and observations. He published “Catalogus Plantarum indigenarum Hollandiae,” 1685, 12mo, containing a list of 776 plants and, in 1689, “Catalogus Plantarum Horti Medici Amstelodami, pars prior,” both which have been frequently reprinted. While preparing to complete this work, he died at Amsterdam in 1692. His nephew, Caspar Commelin, after taking his degree of doctor in medicine, was appointed prote>sor in botany, and director of the garden at Amsterdam, oftices which he filled with distinguished ability and attention,. He completed the work begun by his uncle, which he published in 1701. His next production was “Flora Malabarica, seu Horti Malabarici Catalogus,” serving as an index to the Hortus Malabaricus. This was followed by “Praeludia Anatomica,” 1703, 4to and the same year, “Praeludia Botanica,” with figures for the benefit of students in those arts. In 1715 he published “Icones Plan?­tarum, presertim ex Indiis collectarum,” 4to and in 1718, “Botanographia Malabarica, a nominum barbarismis restituta,” Lugduni Bat. folio.

, doctor of physic, king’s botanist, and member of the faculty of Montpelier, was born at Chatilon les Dombes near Bourgin Bresse, in 1727, He discovered an early propensity to botany and other branches of natural history, which he pursued with unremitting ardour, and, as it is said, with very little delicacy, performing the same tricks in a garden, which coin and print collectors have been known to perform in museums and libraries. When at Montpelier, he made no scruple to pluck the rarest and most precious plants in the king’s botanic garden there, to enrich his herbal; and when on this account the directors of the garden refused him admittance, he scaled the walls by night to continue his depredations. The reputation, however, of a better kind, which he gained during a residence of four years at Montpelier, induced Linnæus to recommend him as a proper person to form the queen of Sweden’s collection of the rarest fishes in the Mediterranean, and to compose accurate descriptions of them; which undertaking he executed with great labour and dexterity, producing a complete Ichthyology, 2 vols. 4to, with a Dictionary and Bibliography, containing accounts of all the authors who had treated that branch of natural history. Among his various productions, is a dissertation entitled “The Martyrology of Botany,” containing accounts of all the authors who lost their lives by the fatigues and accidents incident to the zeal for acquiring natural curiosities; a list, in which his own name was destined to be enrolled. Sometimes he has been found in his closet with a candle burning long after sunrise, with his head bent over his herbal, unconscious of its being day-light; and used frequently to return from his botanical excursions torn with briars, bruised with falls from rocks, and emaciated with hunger and fatigue, after many narrow escapes from precipices and torrents. These ardent occupations did not, however, extinguish sentiments of a more tender nature. M. Commerson married in 1760 a wife who died in childbed two years after, and whose memory he preserved by naming a new kind of plant, whose fruit seemed to contain two united hearts, “Pulcheria Commersonia.” He arrived at Paris in 1764, where he became connected with all the learned botanists, particularly the celebrated Jussieu; and was recommended to the duke de Praslin, minister for the marine department, to accompany M. Bougainville in his voyage round the world. The duke conceived the highest idea of his merit from the skdch he drew of the observations that might be made relative to natural history in such a voyage; and he sailed accordingly, in 1766, making the most industrious use of every opportunity to fulfil his engagements! He died at the Isle of France in 1773, and by his will left to the king’s cabinet all his botanical collections, which, before he engaged in this voyage, amounted to above 200 volumes in folio; those made during the voyage, together with his papers and herbal, were sent home in 32 cases, containing an inestimable treasure of hitherto unknown materials for natural history, and Messrs. Jussieu, D'Aubenton, and Thouin, were commissioned to examine and arrange them.

, a Jesuit, was born March 25, 1625, at Amboise, where his father kept a tennis-court. The study of the ancients, joined to his natural abilities, imbued his writings with a considerable share of taste, beauty, purity, and eloquence. He also taught the belles lettres, and divinity, and died at Paris, December 25, 1702. There is extant a volume of his Latin poems, and a collection of his posthumous works, 1754, 2 vols. 12mo. The odes and fables are particularly admired. He appears to have meditated a history of the “Wars of the English,” but it probably was never completed.

, of Gaza, a Christian poet of the third century, is the author of a Latin piece entitled “Institutiones.” It is composed in the form of verse, but without either measure or quantity: only care is taken that each line comprises a complete sense, and that it begins with something like an acrostic. It lay a long time in obscurity, until Rigaltius published it in his edition of Cyprian, and Davies at the end of Minutius Felix. It is more valuable for the strain of piety which prevails throughout the whole than for any poetical merit. Commodianus appears to have been originally a heathen, and as he informs us, was converted by reading the scriptures, and appears to have been also acquainted with secular authors. Lardner has bestowed a chapter on this work, and on the history of its author, in his “Credibility of the Gospel History.”

, a Jesuit of Bourdeaux, was sent to China, as a missionary and mathematician in 1685, and published a book in considerable reputation before that of Du Halde appeared, entitled “Memoires sur la Chine,” 2 vols. 12mo, to which was added a history of the emperor’s edict in favour of Christianity. His “Memoirs” were censured by the faculty of divinity at Paris, because of his uncommon prejudices in favour of the Chinese, whom he equalled to the Jews, and maintained that they had worshipped the true God during two thousand years, and sacrificed to him in the most ample temple of the universe, while the rest of mankind were in a state of corruption. The parliament for the same reason ordered the work to be burnt, by a decree passed in 1762. Le Comte died in 1729.

, a French monk, a native of Paris, is known as the author or editor of different works which met with a favourable reception. Among others he published “The remarkable Travels of Peter della Valle, . Si Roman gentleman, translated from the Italian,” 4 vols. 4to; “A new and interesting History of the kingdoms of Tonquin and Laos,” 4to, translated from the Italian of father Manni, in 1666. In the year preceding this, he published the third volume of father Lewis Coulon’s “History of the Jews.” He died at Paris in 1689.

, 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.

King Charles now caused him to be sworn one of his privy council; and committed to his care the educating of his two nieces, the princesses Mary and Anne, which important trust he. discharged to the nation’s satisfaction. They were both confirmed by him upon January 23> 1676; and it is somewhat remarkable that they were both likewise married by him: the eldest, Mary, with William prince of Orange, November 4, 1677; the youngest, Anne, with George prince of Denmark, July 28, 1683. The attachment of these two princesses to the protestant religion was owing, in a great measure, to their tutor Compton; which afterwards, when popery came to prevail at the court of England, was imputed to him as an unpardonable crime. In the mean time he indulged the hopeless project of bringing dissenters to a sense of the necessity of an union among protestants; to promote which, he held several conferences with his own clergy, the substance of which he published in July 16SO. He further hoped, that dissenters might be the more easily reconciled to the church, if the judgment of foreign divines should be produced against their needless separation: and for that purpose he wrote to M. le Moyne, professor ef divinity at Leyden, to M. de PAngle, one of the preachers of the protestant church at Charenton near Paris, and to M. Claude, another eminent French divine. Their answers are published at the end of bishop Stillingfleet’s “Unreasonableness of Separation,” 1681, 4to; all concurring in the vindication of the church of England from any errors in its doctrine, or unlawful impositions in its discipline, and therefore in condemning a separation from it as needless and uncharitable. But popery was what the bishop most strenuously opposed; and while it was gaining ground at the latter end of Charles the lid’s reign, under the influence of the duke of York, there was no method he left untried to stop its progress. This zeal was remembered and resented on the accession of James II.; when, to his honour, he was marked out as the first sacrifice to popish fury, being immediately dismissed from the council-table; and on December 16, 1685, from being dean of the royal chapel. Means were also devised to entrap him into some measure which might affect his office as bishop of London, nor could this be difficult in the case of a man so firm and conscientious. The following is a striking instance of the intentions of the court to overturn the national church. Dr. John Sharp, rector of St, Giles’s in the Fields, afterwards archbishop of York, having in some of his sermons vindicated the doctrine of the church of England against popery; the king sent a letter, dated June 14, 1686, to bishop Compton, “requiring and commanding him forthwith to suspend Dr. Sharp from further preaching in any parish church or chapel within his diocese, until he had given the king satisfaction.” In order to understand how Sharp had offended the king, it must be remembered, that king James had caused the directions concerning preachers, published in 1662, to be now reprinted; and reinforced them by a letter directed to the archbishops of Canterbury and York, given at Whitehall, March 5, 1686, to prohibit the preaching upon controversial points; that was, in effect, to forbid the preaching against popery, which Sharp had done. The bishop refusing to suspend Dr. Sharp, because, as he truly alleged, he could not do it according to law, was cited to appear, August y, before the new ecclesiastical commission: when he was charged with not having observed his majesty’s command in the case of Sharp, whom he was ordered to suspend. The bishop, after expressing some surprise, humbly begged a copy of the commission, and a copy of his charge; but was answered by chancellor Jefferies, “That he should neither have a copy of, nor see, the commission neither would they give him a copy of the charge.” His lordship then desired time to advise with counsel; and time was given him to the 16th, and afterwards to the 3 1st of August. Then his lordship offered his plea to their jurisdiction: which being overruled, he protested to his right in that or any other plea that might be made for his advantage; and observed, “that as a bishop he had a right, by the most authentic and universal ecclesiastical laws, to be tried before his metropolitan, precedently to any other court whatsoever.” But the ecclesiastical commissioners would not upon any account suffer their jurisdiction to be called in question; and therefore, in spite of all that his lordship or his counsel could allege, he was suspended on Sept. 6 following, for his disobedience, from the function and execution of his episcopal office, and from all episcopal and other ecclesiastical jurisdiction, during his majesty’s pleasure; and the bishops of Durham, Rochester, and Peterborough, were appointed commissioners to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction within, the diocese of London. But the court did not think fit to meddle with his revenues. For the lawyers had settled that benefices were of the nature of freeholds; therefore, if the sentence had gone to the temporalities, the bishop would have had the matter tried over again in the king’s bench, where he was likely to find justice.

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.

* We learn from Mr. Ray and Plu- fore in England. This repository was kenet, that he jwined to his taste for ever open to the inspection of the cugardening, a real and scientific know- rious and scientific and we find Ray, led^e of plants; an attainment not Petiver, and Plukenet, in numerous usual among the great in those days, instances, acknowledging the assistHe collected a greater variety of green- ance they received from the free cornhouse rarities, and planted a greater munication of rare and new plants out variety of hardy exotic trees and shrubs, of the garden at FulUam. Pulteaey'5 than had been seen in any garden be* Sketches. At his return to London, he discovered his zeal for the revolution, and first set his hand to the association begun at Exeter. He waited on the prince of Orange, Dec. 21, at the head of his clergy; and, in their names and his own, thanked his highness fur his very great and hazardous undertaking for their deliverance, and the preservation of the protcstant religion, with the anc; ent laws and liberties of this nation. He gave his royal highness the sacrament, Dec. 30; and upon Jan. 29 following, when the house of lords, in a grand committee, debated the important question, “Whether the throne, being vacant, ou^ht to be filled by a regent or a king?” Compton was one of the two bisiiops, sir Jonathan Trelawny bishop of Bristol being the other, who made the majority for filling up the throne by a king. On February 14, he was again appointed of the privy-council, and made dean of the royal chapel; from both which places king James had removed him: and was afterwards chosen by king William, to perform the ceremony of his and queen Mary’s coronation, upon April 11, 1689. The same year he was constituted one of the commissioners for revising the liturgy, in which he laboured with much zeal to reconcile the dissenters to the church; and also in the convocation, that met Nov. 21, 1689, of which he was president. But the intended comprehension met with insuperable difficulties, the majority of the lower house being resolved not to enter into any terms of accommodation with the dissenters; and his lordship’s not complying so far as the dissenters liked, is supposed to have been the reason of Burnet’s calling him “a weak man, wilful, and strangely wedded to a party.” This however must seem extraordinary to those who consider, that those who are usually called high churchmen have spoken very coolly of him ever since, on that very account: and that even his opposing, as he did, the prosecution against Sacheverell in 1710, declaring him not guilty, and also protesting against several steps taken in that affair, has not been sufficient to reconcile them to his complying so far with the dissenters as he did. The fact appears to have been that the bishop endeavoured to act with moderation, for which no allowance is made in times of violent party- spirit.

King William having soon after named commissioners of trade and plantations, his lordship was made one of them; and the bishop of London, for the time being, is always to be one, in virtue of his being superintendent of all the churches in the plantations. In the beginning of 1690-1, at his own charge, he attended king William to the famous congress at the Hague, where the grand alliance against France was concluded. But notwithstanding the zealous part he acted in the revolution, and his subsequent services, no sooner was the storm over, but jealousies were infused, and calumnies dispersed, to supplant and undermine him; insomuch, that though the metropolitan see of Canterbury was twice vacant in that reign, yet he still continued bishop of London . However, he went on consistently, and like himself, despising all other rewards but the quiet and the applause of his own conscience, and the high esteem and intimacy of queen Mary, which he preserved to her dying day. At the accession of queen Anne to the throne, he seemed to stand fairest for the royal favour; and though many things were said to disparage him at court, yet nothing could discourage him from paying his duty and attendance there. About the beginning of May 1702, he was sworn of her majesty’s privy-council. The same year, he was put in the commission for the union of England and Scotland, but was left out in the new commission issued out in April 1706. Two years before, he very much promoted the “Act for making effectual her majesty’s intention for the augmentation of the maintenance of the poor clergy, by enabling her majesty to grant the revenues of the first fruits and tenths.”

He maintained all along a brotherly correspondence with the foreign protestant churches, and endeavoured to promote in them a good opinion of the church of England, and her moderation towards them; as appears, not only by his application to le Moyne, Claude, and de P Angle before mentioned, but also from letters, afterwards printed at Oxford, which passed between his lordship and the university of Geneva, in 1706. It was this spirit of moderation, which rendered bishop Compton less popular >vith the clergy, and probably, as we have already noticed, hindered his advancement to Canterbury. Towards the close of his life, he was afflicted with the stone and gout; which, turning at length to a complication of distempers, put an end to it at Fulham, July 7, 1713, at the age of 31. His body was interred the 15th of the same month in the churchyard of Fulham, according to his particular direction: for he used to say, that “the church is for the living, and the church-yard for the dead.” On the 26th “A sermon Oh the occasion of his much-lamented death,” was preached at St. Paul’s, before the mayor and aldermen of London, by Dr. Thomas Gooch, lately one of his domestic chaplains, then fellow, and afterwards master, of Caius college in Cambridge, and bishop, first of Norwich, then of Ely. Over his grave was erected an handsome tomb, surrounded with iron rails, having only this short inscription: “H. Lond. El Mh En Th Stayph. MDCCXIII.” That is, “Henry London. Save in the cross. 1713.”

Among the many excellent features of his character given by Dr. Gooch, his munificence stands conspicuous. “He disposed of money to every one who could make out (and it was very easy to make that out to him) that he was a proper object of charity. He answered literally the apostle’s character, poor enough himself, yet making many rich. He had divers ancient people, men and women^ whom he supported by constant annual pensions; and several chiklren at school, at his own cost and charge, besides those educated from children, and brought up to the universities, to the sea, or to trades, &c. The poor of his parish were always attending his gate for their dole, and for the remains of his constant hospitable table, which was always furnished, and free to those whom respect or business drew to him. His hall was frequented in the morning with petitioners of all sorts. More particularly, he spared no cost nor pains to serve the church and clergy. He bought many advowsons out of lay-hands. He gave great sums for the rebuilding of churches, and greater still for the buying in impropriations, and settling them on the poor vicars. There was no poor honest clergyman, or his widow, in want, but had his benevolence when applied for: not any in the reformed churches abroad, to whom he was not a liberal patron, steward, and perpetual solicitor for. The French refugees drank deep of his bounty for many years; so did the Irish in their day of affliction and likewise the Scotch episcopal party,” when ejected from their livings at the revolution. It may truly 'be said, that by his death the church lost an excellent bishop; the kingdom a consistent and able statesman; the protestant religion, at home and abroad, an ornament and refuge; and the whole Christian world, an eminent example of virtue and piety.

His works are: 1. “A translation from the Italian, of the Life of Donna Olympia Maldachini, who governed the church during the time of Innocent X. which was from the year 1644- to 1655,” London, 1667. 2. “A translation i'roni the French, of the Jesuits’ intrigues; with the private instructions of that society to their emissaries,” 1669. 3. “A treatise of the Holy Communion,” 1677. 4. “A Letter to the Clergy of the diocese of London, concerning Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, Catechising, dated April 25, 1679.” 5. “A second letter concerning the Half- communion, Prayers in an unknown tongue, Prayers to Saints, July 6, 1680.” 6. “A third letter, on Confirmation, and Visitation of the Sick, 1682.” 7. “A fourth letter, upon the 54th Canon,” April 6, 1683. 8. “A fifth letter, upon the 118th Canon, March 19, 1684.” 9. “A sixth letter, upon the 13th Canon, April Is, 1685.” They were all reprinted together in 1686, 12mo, under the title of “Episcopalia, or Letters of the right reverend father in God, Henry lord hishop of London, to the Clergy of his Diocese.” There is also, 10. “A Letter of his to a Clergyman in his Diocese, concerning Nonresistance:” written soon after the revolution, and inserted in the Memoirs of the life of Mr. John Kettlewell.

, a learned English divine, was born Oct. 18, 1608, at Yeatenton in Devonshire. He was educated in classical learning at private schools, and, in 3626, sent to Exeter college in Oxford. He soon distinguished himself for uncommon parts and learning*; by means of which he grew highly in favour with Dr. John Prideaux, then rector of Exeter college, and king’s professor in divinity, who, accordingto the fashion of wit in those times, used to say of him, “Conanti nihil est difficile.” He took his degrees regularly; and, July 1633, was chosen fellow of his college, in which he became an eminent tutor. Upon the breaking out of the civil war, he judged it convenient to leave the university in 1642. He retired first to Lymington, a living of his uncle’s in Somersetshire; where, his uncle being fled, and he in orders, he officiated as long as he could continue there with safety. While he was at Lymington, he was constituted by the parliament one of the assembly of divines; bnt it is said that he never sat among them, or at least very seldom, since it is certain that he never took the covenant. He afterwards followed his uncle to London, and for some time assisted him in the church of St. Botolph Aldgate. He then became a domestic chaplain to lord Chandos, in whose family he lived at Harefield. He is said to have sought this situation, for the sake of keeping himself as clear from all engagements and difficulties as the nature and fickle condition of those times would permit. Upon the same motive he resigned his fellowship of Exeter college, Sept. 27, 1647; but, June 7, 1649, was unanimously chosen rector of it by the fellows, without any application of his own; and. Wood allows that under his care it flourished more than any other college.

In a very short time, however, after being thus settled, he was in great danger of being driven out of all public employment again, by the parliament’s enjoining what was called* the engagement, which he did not take within the time prescribed. He had a fortnight given him to consider further of it; at the end of which he submitted, but under a declaration, subscribed at the same time with the engagement, which in fact enervated that instrument entirely. The terms of the engagement were; “You shall promise to be true and faithful to the commonwealth of England, as it is now established without king or house of lords.” Cojiant’s declaration before the commissioners, when he took the engagement, was in this form and manner: “Being required to subscribe, I humbly premise, first, that I be not hereby understood to approve of what hath been done in.- order unto, or under this present government, or the government itself nor will I be thought to condemn it; they being things above my reach, and I not knowing the grounds of the proceedings. Secondly, that I do not bind myself to do any thing contrary to the word of God. Thirdly, that I do not so hereby bind myself, but that, if God shall remarkably call me to submit to any other power, I may be at liberty to obey that call, not withstanding the present engagement. Fourthly, in this sense, and in this sense only, I do promise to be true and faithful to the present government, as it is now established without king or house of lords.”

This difficulty being got over, he went on to discharge his office of rector of P^xeter college with great approbation. In 1652 he received priest’s orders at Salisbury, and, in Dec. 1654, became divinity- professor of the university of Oxford. In 1657 he accepted the impropriate rectory of Abergely near St. Asaph in Denbighshire, as some satisfaction for the benefices formerly annexed to the divinity chair, which he never enjoyed; but knowing it to have belonged to the bishopric of St. Asaph, he immediately quitted it, upon the re-establishment of episcopacy. Oct. 19, 1657, he was admitted vice-chancellor of the university; which high dignity he held till August 5, 1660. During his office he was very instrumental in procuring Mr. Selden’s large and valuable collection of books for the public library; and was the principal means of defeating a design, to which the protector Oliver gave his consent, of erecting a kind of university at Durham. He was yet more serviceable in preventing some persons in the university from sacrificing their rights and privileges, by a petition to the protector Richard’s parliament. Upon the restoration of Charles II. Dr. Conant, as vice-chancellor of Oxford, came up to London, attended by the proctors and many of the principals; and was introduced to the king, to whom he made a Latin speech, and presented a book of verses written by the members of the university. March 25, 1661, the king issued a commission for the review of the book of Common-prayer, in which Conant was one of the commissioners, and assisted at the Savoy conferences: but after this, upon the passing of the act of uniformity, not thinking it right to conform, he suffered himself to be deprived of his preferments; and accordingly his rectory of Exeter college was pronounced vacant, Sept. 1, 1662.

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.

He was a man oif great piety, and of solid and extensive learning; and so very modest, it is said, that though he understood most of the Oriental languages, and was particularly versed in the Syriac, yet few people knew it. There have been published six volumes of his sermons; the first in 1693, and dedicated by himself to the inhabitants of Northampton; the second, after his death, in 1697, by John bishop of Chichester; the third in 1698, the fourth in 1703, the fifth in 1708, by the same editor; the sixth in 1722, by Digby Cotes, M. A. principal of Magdalenhall in Oxford. Many more of his sermons and visitation charges are still in the hands of his descendants, as is a life of him written by his son John Conant, LL. D. also in manuscript, but communicated to the editors of the first edition of the Biog. Britannica. For want of attention to this account, which must undoubtedly be deemed authentic, Mr. Palmer, in his “Nonconformists’ Memorial,” (a new edition, with continuations of Calamy’s work), has introduced him for the purpose of giving some extracts from an unpublished ms. relative to the oppressions he suffered from the bishop of Bath and Wells, all which story evidently belongs to his uncle John Conant, B. D. and rector of Lymington.

, a very popular artist, was born at Gaeta in 1676. He studied under Solimene, and by persevering practice soon became an able machinist. At little less than forty, the desire of seeing Rome prompted him to visit that city, where he became once more a student, and spent five years in drawing after the antique and the masters of design: but his hand, debauched by manner, refused to obey his mind, till wearied by hopeless fatigue, he followed the advice of the sculptor le Gros, and returned to his former practice, though not without considerable improvements, and nearer to Pietro da Cortona than his master. He had fertile brains, a rapid pencil, and a colour which at first sight fascinated every eye by its splendor, contrast, and the delicacy of its flesh tints. His dispatch was equal to his employment, and there is scarcely a collection of any consequence without its Conca. He was courted by sovereigns and princes, and pope Clement XI. made him a cavaliere at a full assembly of the academicians of St. Luke. He died, far advanced in age, in 1764. Sir Robert Strange, in whose possession was a Virgin and Child," by Conca, observes that, with all his defects, he was a great painter, and must be regarded as one of the last efforts which this expiring art made in Italy.

, a miscellaneous writer of some note in his day, was born in Ireland, and bred to the law, in which we do not find that he ever made any great figure. From thence he came over to London, in company with a Mr. Stirling, a dramatic poet of little note, to seek his fortune; and finding nothing so profitable, and so likely to recommend him to public notice, as political writing, he soon commenced an advocate for the government. There goes a story of him, however, but we will hope it is not a true one, that he and his fellow-traveller, who was embarked in the same adventure, for the sake of making their trade more profitable, resolved to divide their interests; the one to oppose, the other to defend the ministry. Upon which they determined the side each was to espouse by lots, or, according to Mr. Reed’s account, by tossing up a halfpenny, when it fell to Concanen’s part to defend the ministry. Stirling afterwards went into orders, and became a clergyman in Maryland. Concanen was for some time concerned in the “British” and “London Journals,” and in a paper called “The Specnlatist,” which last was published in 1730, 8vo. In these he took occasion to abuse not only lord Bolingbroke, who was naturally the object of it, but also Pope; by which he procured a place in the Dvwiciad. In a pamphlet called “A Supplement to the Profound,” he dealt very unfairly by Pope, as Pope’s commentator informs us, in not only frequently imputing to him Broome’s verses (for which, says he, he might seem in some degree accountable, having corrected what that gentleman did), but those of the duke of Buckingham and others. His wit and literary abilities, however, recommended him to the favour of the duke of Newcastle, through whose interest he obtained the post of attorney-general of the island of Jamaica in 1732, which office he filled with the utmost integrity and honour, and to the perfect satisfaction of the inhabitants, for near seventeen years; when, having acquired an ample fortune, he was desirous of passing the close of his life in his native country; with which intention he quitted Jamaica and came to London, proposing to pass some little time there before he went to settle entirely in Ireland. But the difference of climate between that metropolis and the place he had so long been accustomed to, had such an effect on his constitution, that he fell into a consumption, of which he died Jan. 22, 1749, a few weeks after his arrival in London. His original poems, though short, have considerable merit; but much cannot be said of his play, entitled “Wexford Wells.” He was also concerned with Mr. Roome and other gentlemen in altering Richard Broome’s “Jovial Crew” into a ballad opera, in which shape it is now frequently performed. Concanen has several songs in “The Musical Miscellany, 1729,” 6 vols. But a memofable letter addressed to him by Dr. Warburton will perhaps be remembered longer than any writing of his own pen. This letter^ which Mr. Malone first published (in his Supplement to Shakspeare, vol. I. p. 222), shews that, in 1726, Warbtirton, then an attorney at Newark, was intimate with Concanen, and an associate in the attacks made on Pope’s fame and talents. In 1724, Concanen published 3, volume of “Miscellaneous Poems, original and translated,” by himself and others.

, a very celebrated Dominican divine, of the congregation of St. James Salomoni, was born about 1686 in Friuli, on one of the estates of the signiors Savoriani, noble Venetians. He entered the Dominican order 1708, preached, with great applause, in the prin^ pipal towns of Italy, gained the esteem of pope Clernent XII. and Benedict XIV. and wrote incessantly against the opinions of the relaxed casuists. He died February 21, 1756, at Venice, aged 69. His works are numerous, both in Latin and Italian the latter are “The Lent of the litigious ecclesiastical Courts,” Venice, 1739, 4to “The Church discipline respecting the fast of Lent,” &c. Venice, 1742, 4to; “Dissertations theological, moral, and critical, on the history of probability and rigourism,” &c. Venice, 1743, 2 vols. 4to, and two pieces in defence of this work, 4to; an “Explanation of the four paradoxes which are in vogue in our age,” Lucca, 1746, 4to. This work has been translated into French, 12mo. “The dogma of the Roman Church respecting Usury,” Naples, 1746, 4to; an ^ Historical Memoir on the use of chocolate upon fast 'days,“Venice,” 1748; a “Treatise on revealed Religion, against atheists, deists, materialists, and indifte rents,” Venice, 1754, 4tq; ^'Instructions for confessors and penitents,“Venice, 1753, 4to. The following are written in Latin three volumes upon Usury, 4to three others on” Monastic discipline and poverty“” Nine letters on relaxed morality.“But the most valuable of all his works is his” Theologia Christiana dogmatico-moralis," Rome, 1746, 12 vols. 4to.

, chevalier de St. Lazare, member of a great number of academies, and a celebrated traveller, was born at Paris in 1701. He began his journey to the east very young; and after having coasted along the shores of Africa and Asia in the Mediterranean, he was chosen, in 1736, to accompany M. Godin to Peru, for the purpose of determining the figure of the earth at the equator. The difficulties and dangers he surmounted in this expedition are almost incredible; and at one time he had nearly perished by the imprudence of one of his companions, M. Seniergues, whose arrogance had so much irritated the inhabitants of New Cuenca, that they rose tumultuously against the travellers; but, fortunately for the rest, the offender was the only victim. On his return home, la Condamine visited Rome, where pope Benedict XIV. made him a present of his portrait, and granted him a dispensation to marry one of his nieces, which he accordingly did, at the age of fifty-five. By his great equanimity of temper, and his lively and amiable disposition, he was the delight of all that knew him. Such was his gaiety or thoughtlessness, that two days before his death he made a couplet on the surgical operation that carried him to the grave; and, after having recited this couplet to a friend that came to see him, “You must now leave me,” added he, “1 have two letters to write to Spain; probably, by next post it will be too late.” La Condamine had the art of pleasing the learned by the concern he shewed in advancing their interests, and the ignorant by the talent of persuading them that they understood what he said. Even the men of fashion sought his company, as he was full of anecdotes and singular observations, adapted to amuse their frivolous curiosity. He was, however, himself apt to lay too much stress on trifles; and his inquisitiveness, as is often the case with travellers, betrayed him into imprudencies. Eager after fame, he loved to multiply his correspondences and intercourse; and there were few men of any note with whom he had not intimacies or disputes, and scarcely any journal in which he did not write. Replying to every critic, and flattered with every species of praise, he despised no opinion of him, though given by the most contemptible scribbler. Such, at least, is the picture of him, drawn by the marquis de Condorcet in his eloge. Among his most ingenious and valuable pieces are the following 1 “Distance of the tropics,” London, 1744. 2. “Extract of observations made on a voyage to the river of the Amazons,” 1745. 3. “Brief relation of a voyage to the interior of South America,” 8vo. 1745. 4. “Journal of the voyage jnade by order of the king to the equator; with the supplement,” 2 vols. 4to. 1751, 1752. 5. On the Inoculation of the Small-pox,“12mo, 1754. 6.” A letter on Education,“8vo. 7.” A second paper on the Inoculation of the Small pox,“1759. 8.” Travels through Italy,“1762, 12mo. These last three were translated and published here. 9.” Measure of the three first degrees of the meridian in the southern hemisphere,“1751, 4to. The style of the different works of la Condamine is simple and negligent; but it is strewed with agreeable and lively strokes that secure to him readers. Poetry was also one of the talents of our ingenious academician; his productions of this sort were, <e Vers de societe,” of the humorous kind, and pieces of a loftier style, as the Dispute for the armour of Achilles and others, translated from the Latin poets; the Epistle from an old man, &c. He died the 4th of February 1774, in consequence of an operation for the cure of a hernia, with which he had been afflicted.

, D. D. a dissenting divine, was born at Wimple, in Cambridgeshire, June 3, 1714, and educated in London under Dr. Ridgley, an eminent dissenting minister. He was ordained in 1738, and his first settlement was at Cambridge, where he had a considerable congregation for about sixteen years; but having written an essay on the importance of the ministerial character in the independent line, he was in 1755 placed at the head of the academy for preparing young men for the ministry, then situated at Mile End, but since removed to Hommertou. In 1759 he was chosen one of the preachers of the “Merchants’ lecture” at Pinner’s Hall, and in May 1760 assistant to Mr. Hall in the pastoral office in the meeting on the pavement near Moorfields, whom he succeeded in 1763, and where he continued to officiate till the time of his death, May 30, 1781, aged 67. Besides the essay above mentioned, he printed several sermons on public occasions, particularly funerals and ordinations.

, of the French academy and that of Berlin, abbe of Mureaux, preceptor of the infant don Ferdinand duke of Parma, was born at Grenoble about the year 1715, and died of a putrid fever at his estate of Flux near Baugenci, the 2dof August 1780. Strong sense, sound judgment, a clear and profound knowledge of metaphysics, a well chosen and extensive reading, a sedate character, manners grave without austerity, a style rather sententious, a greater facility in writing than in speaking, more philosophy than sensibility and imagination; form, according to the opinion of his countrymen, the principal features in the portrait of the abbe de Condillac. A collection in 3 vols. 12mo, under the title of his Works, contains his essay on the origin of human sciences, his treatise of sensations, his treatise of systems; all performances replete with striking and novel ideas, advanced with boldness, and in which the modern philosophic style seems perfectly natural to the author. His “Course of Study,” 1776, 16 vols. 12mo, composed for the instruction of his illustrious pupil, is esteemed the best of his works. He also wrote “Commerce and Government considered in their mutual relations,” 12mo, a book which has been decried by anti-qeconomists, and it is allowed by his admirers that it might have been as well if the author had not laid down, certain systems on the commerce of grain; that he had given his principles an air less profound and abstracted, and that on those matters that are of moment to all men, he had written for the perusal of all men. It is observed in some of the abbe Condillac’s works, that he had a high opinion of his own merit, and thought it his duty not to conceal it. He has also been more justly censured for having, in his treatise of “Sensations,” established principles from which the materialists have drawn pernicious conclusions and that in his course of study, he has, like an incompetent judge, condemned several flights of Boileau, by submitting poetry, which in its very nature is free, irregular, and bold, to the rules of geometry. His works we may suppose are still in favour in France, as a complete edition was printed in 1798, in 25 vols. 8vo.

, of Ripa Transona, the most obscure of modern artists, though a biographer of some celebrity, owes that and a place here to his connexion with Michael Angelo, whose life he published in 1553. If we believe Vasari, his imbecility was at least equal to his assiduity in study and desire of excelling, which were extreme. No work of his exists in painting or in sculpture. Hence Gori, the modern editor of his book, is at a loss to decide on his claim to either, though from the qualities of the writer, and the familiarity of M. Angelo, he surmises that Condivi must have had merit as an artist. From the last no conclusion can be formed; the attachment of M. Angelo, seldom founded in congeniality, was the attachment of the strong to the weak, it was protection; it extended to Antonio Mini of Florence, another obscure scholar of his, to Giuliano Bugiardini, to Jacopo L'Indaco: all men unable to penetrate the grand motives of his art, and more astonished at the excrescences of his learning in design, than elevated by his genius. Condivi intended to publish a system of rules and precepts on design, dictated by Michael Angelo, a work, if ever he did compose it, now perhaps irretrievably lost; from that, had destiny granted it to us, we might probably have formed a better notion of his powers as an artist, than we can from a biographic account, of which simplicity and truth constitute the principal merit. Condivi published this life, consisting of fifty pages, under the title “Vita de Michelagnolo Buonarroti, raccolta per Ascanio Condivi da la Ilipa Transone. In Roma appresso Antonio Blado Stampatore Canierale nel M. D. LIII. alii XVI. di Luglio.” According to Beyero, in his “Memoriae Historico-criticae, lib. rariorum,” this is one of the scarcest books in Europe. In 1746, Gori republished it in folio, and as it was originally published ten years before the death of Michael Angelo, continued it to that period. Gori’s work is a small folio, printed at Florence, 1746.

, an eminent French philosopher and mathematician, was born at Ribemont in Pirardy, three leagues from Saint-Quintin and De la Fere, September 17, 1743, of a very ancient family. At the age of fifteen he was sent to study philosophy at the college of Navarre, under Giraud de Keroudon, who has since distinguished himself by several scientific works, and was an able teacher of mathematics. During the first year of his residence there, young Condorcet exhibited but little relish for the metaphysical questions relative to the nature of ideas, of sensations, and of memory, but in the course of the following year, mathematics and natural philosophy decided his future vocation; and although he had more than one hundred and twenty fellow-students, he acquired a greater portion of fame than any of them. At Easter he supported a public thesis, at which Clairaut, D'Alembert, and Fontaine, the first geometricians of France, assisted; and his conduct on this occasion obtained their approbation. After his course of philosophy was finished, he returned to his family, but still continued to cultjrate geometry; and his attachment to it carried him back to Paris in 1762, where he lived with his old professor, in order to have more frequent opportunities of indulging his ruling passion. He at the same time attended the chemical lectures of Macquer and Beaume, and soon distinguished himself among the geometricians.

In 1765 he published his first work “Sur le Calcul Integrel,” in which he proposed to exhibit a general method of determining the finite integral of a given differential equation, either for differences infinitely small, or finite differences. D'Alembert and Bezout, the commissioners of the academy, employed to examine the merits of this performance, bestowed high praises on it as a work of invention, and a presage of talents worthy of encouragement. In 1767 he published a second work, the problem of three bodies, “Probleme des Trois corps,” in which he presented the nine differential equations of the movement of the bodies of a given system, supposing that each of these bodies should be propelled by a certain force, and that a mutual attraction subsisted among them. He also treated of the movement of three bodies of a given figure, the particles of which attracted each other in the inverse ratio of the square of the distance. In addition to this, he explained a new method of integers, by approximation, with the assistance of infinite series; and added to the methods exhibited in his first work, that which M. de la Grange had convinced him was still wanting. Thus Condorcet, says his eulogist La Lande, was already numbered with the foremost mathematicians in Europe. “There was not,” he adds, “above ten of that class; one at Petersburgh, one at Berlin, one at Basle, one at Milan, and five or six at Paris; England, which had set such an illustrious example, no longer produced a single geometer that could rank with the former.” It is mortifying to us to confess that this remark is but too much founded on truth. Yet, says a late writer of the life of Condorcet, we doubt not but there are in Great Britain at present mathematicians equal in profundity and address to any who have existed since tho illustrious Newton but these men are not known to the learned of Europe, because they keep their science to themselves. They have no encouragement from the taste of the nation, to publish any thing in those higher departments of geometry which have so long occupied the attention of the mathematicians on the continent.

In 1768, under the title of the first part of his “Essais d'Analyse,” he published a letter to D'Alembert, in which he resumed the subjects treated of in his two former works, and endeavoured, by means of new exhibitions, to extend his methods of integral calculation, in the three hypotheses of evanescent differences, finite differences, and partial differences. He there also gave the application of infinite or indefinite series to the integration; the methods of approximation, and the use of all the methods for the dynamic problems, especially the problem of three bodies: these modes might have become an useful help, that would have led to important discoveries, but he only pointed out the road necessary to be followed, without pursuing it,

He was received into the French academy on the 8th of March, 1769, and in the course of the same year he published a memoir on the nature of infinite series, on the extent of solutions afforded by this mode, and on a new method of approximation for the differential equations of all the orders. In the volumes of 1770, and the following years, he presented the fruits of his researches on the equations with partial and finite differences; and in 1772 he published “L‘Essai d’une methode pour distinguer les Equations differentielles possibles en termes finis de celies qui ne le sont pas,” an essay on a method to distinguish possible differential equations in finite terms, from those which are not so. The mode of calculation here presented, although an admirable instrument, is still very far distant from that degree of perfection to which it may be brought. In the midst of these studies, he published an anonymous pamphlet, entitled “A Letter to a Theologian,” in which he replied with keen satire to the attacks madfc by the author of “The Three Centuries of Literature,” against the philosophic sect. “But (subjoins the prudent La Lande) he pushed the matter somewhat too far, for, even, supposing his system demonstrated, it would be advantageous to confine those truths within the circle of the iniliated, because they are dangerous, in respect to the greater part of mankind, who are unable to replace, by means of principles, that which they are bereaved of in the shape of fear, consolation, and hope.” Condorcet was now in fact leagued with the atheists; and La Lande, who wished well to the same sect, here censures not his principles, but only regrets his rashness. In 1773 he was appointed secretary to the academy of sciences, when he composed eulogies upon several deceased members who had been neglected by Fontenelle; and in 1782 he was received into the French academy, on which occasion he delivered a discourse concerning the influence of philosophy. In the following year he succeeded D'Alembert as secretary to that academy, and pronounced an able eulogy to the memory of his deceased friend, whose literary and scientific merits are set forth with great ability. The death of Euler afforded Condorcet another opportunity of displaying his own talents by appreciating those of the departed mathematician. The lives of Turgot and Voltaire, and the eulogy pronounced upon the death of the celebrated Franklin, were decided testimonies to the abilities of Condorcet as a biographical writer. Turgot had occupied much of his time and attention with moral and political sciences, and was particularly anxious that the certainty of which different species of knowledge are susceptible, might be demonstrated by the assistance of calculation, hoping that the human species would necessarily make a progress towards happiness and perfection, in the same manner as it had done towards the attainment of truth. To second these views of Turgot, Condorcet undertook a work replete with geometrical knowledge. He examined the probability of an assembly’s rendering a true decision, and he explained the limits to which our knowledge of future events, regulated by the laws of nature, considered as the most certain and uniform, might extend. If we do not possess a real, yet he thought, we ha\ 7 e at least a mean probability, that the law indicated by events, is the same constant law, and that it will be perpetually observed. He considered a forty-five thousandth part as the value of the risk, in the case when the consideration of a new law comes in question and it appears from his calculation, that an assembly consisting of 6 1 votes, in which it is required that there should be a plurality of nine, will fulfil this condition, provided there is a probability of each vote being equal to four-fifths, that is, that each member voting shall be deceived only once in five times. He applied these calculations to the creation of tribunals, to the forms of elections, and to the decisions of numerous assemblies; inconveniences attendant on which were exhibited by him. This work, says his eulogist, furnished a grand, and at the same time, an agreeable proof of the utility of analysis in important matters to which it had never before been applied, and to which we may venture to assert it never will be applied while human reason is allowed any share in human transactions. There are many of these paradoxes in geometry, which, we are told, it is impossible to resolve without being possessed of metaphysical attainments, and a degree of sagacity not always possessed by the greatest geometricians; but where such attainments and sagacity are to be found, even Condorcet himself has not exemplified. In his “Euler’s Letters,” published in 1787-89, he started the idea of a dictionary, in which objects are to be discovered by their qualities or properties, instead of being searched for under their respective names; he also intimated a scheme for constructing tables by which ten milHards of objects might be classed together, by means of only ten different modifications.

In October 1791 he sat as a member of the national assembly, and for the last time in the academy on Nov. 25, 1792, after which it was suppressed by the barbarians who then were in power. Of their conduct, however, Condorcet, who had contributed to place them there, could not complain with a good grace. In the mean time the members of the academy considered it as allowable to assemble, but terror soon dispersed them, and that dispersion continued during nearly two years. At length Daunou delivered in his report relative to the National Institute, which was read to the convention in the name of the commission of eleven, and the committee of public safety. The consequence was, that the restoration of the academies was decreed, under the title of a National Institute, the first class of which contained the whole of the academy of sciences. This assembly was installed soon after, and Condorcet furnished the plan.

The political labours of Condorcet entirely occupied the last years of his existence. Among them were, his work, “Sur les assemblies provinciales,” and his “Reflexions sur le commerce des bk-s,” two of the most harmless. In 1788, Roucher undertook to give a new translation of an excellent English work by Smith, entitled “The Wealth of Nations,” with notes by Condorcet, who, however, had but little concern with it, and on this and other occasions he was not unwilling to sell his name to the booksellers to give a reputation to works with which he had no concern. Chapelier and Peissonel announced a periodical collection, entitled “Bibliotheque de I'liomme Public, &c.” (The statesman’s library, or the analysis of the best political works.) This indeed was one way of enabling the deputies of the assembly to learn what it was important for them, to become acquainted with; it was supposed that the name of Condorcet might be useful on this occasion also, and it was accordingly made use of. The work itself contained one of his compositions which had been transmitted to the academy at Berlin. The subject discussed was, “Est il permis de tromper le peuple r” (Ought the people to be deceived?) This question, we presume, must have always been decided in the affirmative by such politicians as Condorcet, since what amounts to the same effect) almost all his writings tended to pave the way for a revolution in which the people were completely deceived. He was afterwards a member of the popular clubs at Paris, particularly that of the jacobins, celebrated for democratic violence, where he was a frequent but by no means a powerful speaker. He was chosen a representative for the metropolis, when the constituent assembly was dissolved, and joined himself to the Brissotine party, which finally fell the just victims to that revolutionary spirit which they had excited. Condorcet at this period was the person selected to draw up a plan for public instruction, which he comprehended in two memoirs, and which it is acknowledged were too abstract for general use. He was the author of a Manifesto addressed from the French people to the powers of Europe, on the approach of war; and of a letter to Louis XVI. as president of the assembly, which was dictated in terms destitute of that respect and consideration to which the first magistrate of a great people has, as such, a just claim. He even attempted to justify the insults offered to the sovereign by the lowest, the most illiterate, and most brutal part of a delirious populace. On the trial of the king, his conduct was equivocal and unmanly; he had declared that he ought not to be arraigned, yet he had i^t courage to defend h\s opinion, or justify those sentiments which he had deliberately formed in the closet.

After the death of Louis, Condorcet undertook to frame a new constitution, which was approved by the convention, but which did not meet the wishes and expectations of the nation. A new party, calling themselves the Mountain, were now gaining an ascendancy in the convention over Brissot and his friends. At first the contest was severe; the debates, if tumult and discord may be so denominated, ran high, and the utmost acrimony was exercised on all sides. Condorcet, always timid, always anxious to avoid danger, retired as much as possible from the scene. By this act of prudence he at first escaped the destruction which overwhelmed the party; but having written against the bloody acts of the mountain, and of the monster Robespierre, a decree was readily obtained against him. He was arrested in July 1793, but contrived to escape from the vigilance of the officers under whose care he was placed. For nine months he lay concealed at Paris, when, dreading the consequences of a domiciliary visit, he fled to the house of a friend on the plain of Mont-Rouge, who was at the time in Paris. Condorcet was obliged to pass eight-and-forty hours in the fields, exposed to all the wretchedness of cold, hunger, and the dread of his enemies. On the third day he obtained an interview with his friend; he, however, was too much alive to the sense of danger to admit Condorcet into his habitation, who was again obliged to seek the safety which unfrequented fields and pathless woods could afford. Wearied at length with fatigue and want of food, on March 26 he entered a little inn and demanded some eggs. His long beard and disordered clothes, having rendered him suspected by a member of the revolutionary committee of Clamar, who demanded his passport, he was obliged to repair to the committee of the district of Bourg-la-Reine. Arriving too late to be examined that night, he was confined in the prison, by the name of Peter Simon, until he could be conveyed to Paris. He was found dead next day, March 28, 1794. On inspecting the body, the immediate cause of his death could not be discovered, but it was conjectured that he had poisoned himself. Condorcet indeed always carried a dose of poison in his pocket, and he said to the friend who was to have received him into his house, that he had been often tempted to make use of it, but that the idea of a wife and daughter, whom he loved tenderly, restrained him. During the time that he was concealed at Paris, he wrote a history of the “Progress of the Human Mind,” in two volumes, of which it is necessary only to add, that among other wonderful things, the author gravely asserts the possibility, if not the probability, that the nature of man may be improved to absolute perfection in body and mind, and his existence in this world protracted to immortality, a doctrine, if it deserves the name, which, having been afterwards transfused into an English publication, has been treated with merited ridicule and contempt.

Condorcet’s private character is described by La Lande, as easy, quiet, kind, and obliging, but neither his conversation nor his external deportment bespoke the fire of his genius. D'Alembert used to compare him to a volcano covered with snow. His public character may be estimated by what has been related. Nothing was more striking in him than the dislike, approaching to implacable hatred, which he entertained against the Christian religion; his philosophical works, if we do not consider them as the reveries of a sophist, have for their direct tendency a contempt for the order Providence has established in the world. But as a philosopher, it is not very probable that Condorcet will hereafter be known, while his discoveries and improvements in geometrical studies will ever be noticed to his honour. If he was not superior to his contemporaries, he excelled them all in the early display of talent; and it would have been happy for him ancl his country, had he been only a geometrician.

, or Con-Fu-Tsee, the celebrated Chinese philosopher, was born in the kingdom of Lou, which is at present the province of Chan Long, in the 2 1 st year of the reign of Ling van, the 23d emperor of the race of Tcheou, 551 years B. C. He was contemporary with Pythagoras, and a little before Socrates. He was but three years old when he lost his father Tcho leang he, who had enjoyed the highest offices of the kingdom of Long; but left no other inheritance to his son, except the honour of descending from Ti ye, the 27th emperor of the second race of the Chang. His mother, whose name wasChing, and who sprung originally from the illustrious family of the Yen, lived twenty-one years after the death of her husband, Confucius did not grow in knowledge by degrees, as children ordinarily do, but seemed to arrive at reason and the perfect use of his faculties almost from his infancy. Taking no delight in amusements proper for his age, he had a grave and serious deportment, which gained him respect, and was joined with an appearance of unexampled artd exalted piety. He honoured his relations; he endeavoured in all things to imitate his grandfather, who was then alive in China, and a most holy man: and it was observable, that he never ate any thing but he prostrated himself upon the ground, and offered it first to the supreme Lord of heaven. One day, while he was a child, he heard his grandfather fetch, a deep sigh; and going up to him with many bowings and much reverence, “May I presume,” says he, “without losing the respect I owe you, to inquire into the occasion of your grief? perhaps you fear that your posterity should degenerate from your virtue, and dishonour you by their vices.” “What put this thought into your head,” says Coum-tse to him, “and where have you learnt to speak after this manner?” “From yourself,” replied Confucius: “I attend diligently to you every time you speak; and I have often heard you say, that a son r who does not by his virtue support thfe glory of his ancestors, does not deserve to bear their name.” After his grandfather’s death he applied himself to Tcem-se, a celebrated doctor of his time; and, under the direction of so great a master, soon made a surprising progress in antiquity, which he considered as the source from whence all genuine knowledge was to be drawn. This love for the ancients very nearly cost him his life when he was not more than sixteen years of age. Falling into discourse one day about the Chinese books with a person of high quality, who thought them obscure, and not worth the pains of searching into, “The books you despise,” says Confucius, “are full of profound knowledge, which is not to be attained but by the wise and learned: and the people would think cheaply of them, could they comprehend them of themselves. This subordination of spirits, by which the ignorant are dependent upon the knowing, is very useful, and even necessary in society. Were all families equally rich and equally powerful, there could not subsist any form of government; but there would happen a yet stranger disorder, if mankind were all equally knowing, viz. every one would be for governing, and none would think themselves obliged to obey. Some time ago,” added Confucius, “an ordinary fellow made the same observation to me about the books as you have done, and from such a one indeed nothing better could be expected: but I wonder that you, a doctor, should thus be found speaking like one of the lowest of the people.” This rebuke had indeed the good effect of silencing the mandarin, and bringing him to a better opinion of the learning of his country; yet vexed him so at the same time, as it came from almost a boy, that he would have revenged it by violence, if he had not been prevented.

At the age of nineteen he took a wife, who brought him a son, called Pe yu. This son died at fifty, but left behind him a son called Tsou-tse, who, in imitation of his grandfather, applied himself entirely to the study of wisdom, and by his merit arrived to the highest offices of the empire. Confucius was content with his wife only, so long as she lived with him; and never kept any concubines, as the custom of his country would have allowed him to have done, because he thought it contrary to the law of nature. He divorced her, however, after some time, and for no other reason, say the Chinese,' but that he might be free from all incumbrances and connexions, and at liberty to propagate his philosophy throughout the empire. In his twenty-third year, when he had gained a considerable knowledge of antiquity, and acquainted himself with the laws and customs of his country, he began to project a scheme of general reformation. All the petty kingdoms of the empire now depend upon the emperor; but then every province was a distinct kingdom, which had its particular laws, and was governed by a prince of its own. Hence it often happened that the imperial authority was not sufficient to keep them within the bounds of their duty and allegiance, and a taste for luxury, the love of pleasure, and a general dissolution of manners, prevailed in all those little courts.

Confucius, wisely persuaded that the people could never be happy under such circumstances, resolved to preach up a severe morality; and, accordingly, he began to enforce temperance, justice, and other virtues, to inspire a contempt of riches and outward pomp, to excite to magnanimity and a greatness of soul, which should make men ipcapable of dissimulation and insincerity; and used all the means he could think of to redeem his countrymen from a life of pleasure to a life of reason. In this pursuit, his extensive knowledge and great wisdom soon made him known, and his integrity and the splendour of his virtues made him beloved. Kings were governed by his counsels, and the people reverenced him as a saint. He was offered several high offices in the magistracy, which he sometimes accepted, but always with a view of reforming a currupt state, and amending mankind; and never failed to resign those offices, as soon as he perceived that he could be no longer useful. On one occasion he was raised to a considerable place of trust in the kingdom of Lou, his own native country: before he had exercised his charge about three months, the court and provinces, through his counsels and management, became quite altered. He corrected many frauds and abuses in traffic, and reduced the weights and measures to their proper standard. He inculcated fidelity and candour amongst the men, and exhorted the women to chastity and a simplicity of manners. By such methods he wrought a general reformation, and established every where such concord and unanimity, that the whole kingdom seemed as if it were but one great family. This, however, instead of exciting the example, provoked the jealousy of the neighbouring princes, who fancied that a king, under the counsels of such a man as Confucius, would quickly render himself too powerful; since nothing can make a state flourish more than good order among the members, and an exact observance of its laws. Alarmed at this, the king of Tsi assembled his ministers to consider of putting a stop to the career of this new government; and, after some deliberations, the following expedient was resolved upon. They got together a great number of young girls of extraordinary beauty, who had been instructed from their infancy in singing and dancing, and were perfectly mistresses of all those charms and accomplishments which might please and captivate the heart. These, under the pretext of an embassy, they presented to the king of Lou, and to the grandees of his court. The present was joyfully received, and had its desired effect. The arts of good government were immediately neglected, and nothing was thought of but inventing new pleasures for the entertainment of the fair strangers. In short, nothing was regarded for some months but feasting, dancing, shows, &c. and the court was entirely dissolved in luxury and pleasure. Confucius had foreseen all this, and endeavoured to prevent it by advising the refusal of the pressnt; and he now laboured to take off the delusion they were fallen into, and to bring them back to reason and their duty. But all his endeavours proved ineffectual, and the severity of the philosopher was obliged to give way to the overbearing fashion of the court. Upon this he immediately quitted his employment, exiling himself at the same time from his native country, to try if he could find in other kingdoms, minds and dispositions more fit to relish and pursue his maxims.

He passed through the kingdoms of Tsi, Guci, and Tson, but met with insurmountable difficulties every where, as at that time, rebellion, wars, and tumults, raged throughout the empire, and men had no time to listen to his philosophy, and were in themselves ambitious, avaricious, and voluptuous. Hence he often met with ill treatment and reproachful language, and it is said that conspiracies were formed against his life: to which may be added, that his neglect of his own interests had reduced him to the extremest poverty. Some philosophers among his contemporaries were so affected with the state of public affairs, that they had rusticated themselves into the mountains and deserts, as the only places where happiness could be found; and would have persuaded Confucius to have followed them. But, “I am a man,” says Confucius, “and cannot exclude myself from the society of men, and consort with beasts. Bad as the times are, I shall do all I can to recall men to virtue: for in virtue are all things, and if mankind would but once embrace it, and submit themselves to its discipline and laws, they would not want me or any body else to instruct them. It is the duty of a good man, first to perfect himself, and then to perfect others. Human nature,” said he, “came to us from heaven pure and perfect; but in process of time, ignorance, the passions, and evil examples have corrupted it. All consists in restoring it to its primitive beauty; and to be perfect, we must re-ascend to that point from which we have fallen. Obey heaven, and follow the orders of him who governs it. Love your neighbour as yourself. Let your reason, and not your senses, be the rule of your conduct: for reason will teach you to think wisely, to speak prudently, and to behave yourself worthily upon all occasions.” Confucius in the mean time, though he had withdrawn himself from kings and palaces, did not cease to travel about and do what good he could among the people, and among mankind in general. He had often in his mouth the maxims and examples of their ancient heroes, Yao, Chun, Yu, Tischin tang, &c. who were thought to be revived in the person of this great man; and hence he proselyted great numbers, who were inviolably attached to his person. He is said to have had at least 3000 followers, 72 of whom were distinguished above the rest by their superior attainments, and ten above them all by their comprehensive view and perfect knowledge of his whole philosophy and doctrines. He divided his disciples into four classes, who applied themselves to cultivate and propagate his philosophy, each according to his particular distinction. The first class were to improve their minds by meditation, and to purify their hearts by virtue: The second were to cultivate the arts of reasoning justly, and of composing elegant and persuasive discourses: The study of the third class was, to learn the rules of good government, to give an idea of it to the mandarins, and to enable them to fill the public offices with honour t The last class were concerned ip delivering the principles of morality in a concise and polished style to the people; and these chosen disciples were the flower of Confucius’s school.

He sent 600 of his disciples into different parts of the empire, to reform the manners of the people; and, not satisfied with, benefiting his own country only, he made frequent resolutions to pass the seas, and propagate his doctrine to the farthest parts of the world. Hardly any thing can be added to the purity of his morality. He seems rather to speak like a doctor of a revealed law, than a man who had no light but what the law of nature afforded him, and he taught as forcibly by example as by precept. In short, his gravity and sobriety, his rigorous abstinence, his contempt of riches, and what are commonly called the goods of this life, his continual attention and watchfulness pver his actions, and, above all, that modesty and humility which are npt to be found among the Grecian sages; all these would almost tempt one to believe that he wa.s not a mere philosopher formed by reason only, but a man raised up for the reformation of the world, and to check that torrent of idolatry and superstition which was about to overspread that particular part of it. He is said to have lived secretly three years, and to have spent the latter part of his life in sorrow. A few days before his last illness, he told his disciples with tears in his eyes, that he was overcome with grief at the sight of the disorders which prevailed in the empire: “The mountain,” said he, “is fallen, the high machine is demolished, and the sages are all fled/' His meaning was, that the edifice of perfection, which he had endeavoured to raise, was entirely overthrown. He began to languish from that time; and the 7th day before his death,” the kings,“said he,” reject my maxims; and since I am no longer useful on the earth, I may as well leave it.“After these words he fell into a lethargy, and at the end of seven days expired in the arms of his disciples, in his seventy-third year. Upon the first hearing of his death, Ngai cong, who then reigned in the kingdom of Lou, could not refrain from tears:” The Tien is not satisfied with me,“cried he,” since it has taken away Confucius.“Confucius was lamented by the whole empire, which from that moment began to honour him as a saint. Kings have built palaces for him in all the provinces, whither the learned go at certain times to pay him homage. There are to be seen upon several edifices, raised in honour of him, inscriptions in large characters,” To the great master.“” To the head doctor.“” To the saint.“” To the teacher of emperors and kings." They built his sepulchre near the 'city Kio fou, on the banks of the river Su, where he was wont to assemble his disciples; and they have since inclosed it with walls, which look like a small city to this very day.

Confucius did not trust altogether to the memory of his disciples for the preservation of his philosophy; but composed several books: and though these books were greatly admired for the doctrines they contained, and the fine principles of morality they taught, yet such was the unparalleled modesty of this philosopher, that he ingenuously ponfessed, that the doctrine was not his own, but was much more ancient; and that he had done nothing more than collect it from those wise legislators Yao and Chun, who lived 1500 years before him. These books are held in the liighest esteem and veneration, because they contain all that he had collected relating to the ancient laws, which are looked upon as the most perfect rule of government. The number of these classical and canonical books, for so it seems they are called, is four. The first is entitled “Ta Hio, the Grand Science, or the School of the Adults.” It is this that beginners ought to study first, as the porch of the temple of wisdom and virtue. It treats of the care we ought to take in governing ourselves, that we may be able afterwards to govern others: and of perseverance in the chief good, which, according to him, is nothing but a conformity of our actions to right reason. It was chiefly designed for princes and grandees, who ought to govern their people wisely. “The whole science of princes,” says Confucius, “consists in cultivating and perfecting the reasonable nature they have received from Tien, and in restoring that light and primitive clearness of judgment, which has been weakened and obscured by various passions, that it may be afterwards in a capacity to labour the perfections of others. To succeed then,” says he, “we should begin within ourselves; and to this end it is necessary to have an insight into the nature of things, and to gain the knowledge of good and evil; to determine the will toward a love of this good, and an hatred of this evil: to preserve integrity of heart, and to regulate the manners according to reason. When a man has thus renewed himself, there will be less difficulty in renewing others: and by this means concord and union reign in families, kingdoms are governed according to the laws, and the whole empire enjoys peace and tranquillity.”

The second classical or canonical book is called “Tchong Yong, or the Immutable Mean;” and treats of the mean which ought to be observed in all things. Tchong signifies meanS) and by Yong is understood that which is constant, eternal, immutable. He undertakes to prove, that every wise man, and chiefly those who have the care of governing the world, should follow this mean, which is the essence of virtue. He enters upon his subject by defining human nature, and its passions; then he brings several examples of virtue and piety, as fortitude, prudence, and filial duty, which are proposed as so many patterns to be imitated in keeping this mean. In the next place he shews, that this mean, and the practice of it, is the right and true path which a wise man should pursue, in order to attain the highest pitch of virtue. The third book, “Yun Lu, or the Book of Maxims,” is a collection of sententious and moral discourses, and is divided into 20 articles, containing only questions, answers, and sayings of Confucius and his disciples, On virtue, good works, and the art of governing well; the tenth article excepted, in which the disciples of Confucius particularly describe the outward deportment of their master. There are some maxims and moral sentences in this collection, equal to those of the seven wise men of Greece, which have always been so much admired. The fourth book gives an idea of a perfect government it is called “Meng Tsee, or the Book of Mentius;” because, though numbered among the classical and canonical books, it is more properly the work of his disciple Mentius. To these four books they add two others, which have almost an equal reputation; the first is called “Hiao King,” that is, “of Filial Reverence,” and contains the answers which Confucius made to his disciple Tseng, concerning the respect which is due to parents. The second is called “Sias Hio,” that is, “the Science, or the School of Children;” which is a collection of sentences and examples taken from ancient and modern authors. They who would have a perfect knowledge of all these works, will find it in the Latin translation of father Noel, one of the most ancient missionaries of China, which was printed at Prague in 1711.

We must not conclude our account of this celebrated philosopher, without mentioning one most remarkable particular relating to him, which is this; viz. that in spite of all the pains he had taken to establish pure religion and sound morality in the empire, he was nevertheless the innocent occasion of their corruption. There goes a tradition in China, that when Confucius was complimented upon the excellency of his philosophy, and his own conformity thereto, he modestly declined the honour that was done him, and said, that “he greatly fell short of the most perfect degree of virtue, but that in the west the most holy was to be found.” Most of the missionaries who relate this are firmly persuaded that Confucius foresaw the coming of the Messiah, and meant to predict it in this short sentence; but whether he did or not, it is certain that it has always made a very strong impression upon the learned in China: and the emperor Mimti, who reigned 65 years after the birth of Christ, was so touched with this saying of Confucius, together with a dream, in which he saw the image of a holy person coming from the west, that he fitted out a fleet, with orders to sail till they had found him, and to bring back at least his image and his writings. The persons sent upon this expedition, not daring to venture farther, went a-shore upon a little island not far from the Red Sea, where they found the statue of Fohi, who had infected the Indies with his doctrines 500 years before the birth of Confucius. This they carried back to China, together with the metempsychosis, and the other reveries of this Indian philosopher. The disciples of Confucius at first oppossed these newly imported doctrines with all the vigour imaginable; inveighing vehemently against Mimti, who introduced them, and denouncing the judgment of heaven on such emperors as should support them. But all their endeavours were vain; the torrent bore hard against them, and the pure religion and sound morality of Confucius were soon corrupted, and in a manner overwhelmed, by the prevailing idolatries and superstitions which were introduced with the idol Fohi.

By his sage counsels, says Brucker, his moral doctrine, and his exemplary conduct, Confucius obtained an immortal name, as the reformer of his country. After his death, his name was held in the highest veneration; and his doctrine is still regarded, among the Chinese, as the basis of all moral and political wisdom. His family enjoys by inheritance the honourable title and office of Mandarins and religious honours are paid to his memory. It is nevertheless asserted by the missionaries of the Franciscan and Dominican orders, that Confucius was either wholly unacquainted with, or purposely "neglected, the doctrine of a future life, and that in his moral system he paid little regard to religion.

, an English dramatic writer and poet, the son of William Congreve ofBardsey Grange, about eight miles from Leeds, was born in Feb. 1669-70. He was bred at the school of Kilkenny in Ireland, to which country he was carried over when a child by his father, who had a command in the army there. In 1685 he was admitted in the university of Dublin, and after having studied there some years, came to England, probably to his father’s house, who then resided in Staffordshire. On the 17th of March 1690-1, he became a member of the society of the Middle Temple; but the law proving too dry for him, he troubled himself little with it, and continued to pursue his former studies. His first production as an. author, was a novel, which, under the assumed name of Cleophil, he dedicated to Mrs. Catherine Leveson. The title of it was, “Incognita, or Love and Duty reconciled,” which has been said to have considerable merit as the production of a youth of seventeen, but it is certain he was now full twenty-one, and had sense enough to publish it without his name, and whatever reputation he gained by it, must have been confined within the circle of a few acquaintance.

Soon after, he applied himself to dramatic composition, and wrote a comedy called “The Old Bachelor;” of which Dryden, to whom he was recommended by Southerne, said, “That he never saw such a first play in his life; and that it would be a pity to have it miscarry for a few things, which proceeded not from the author’s want of genius or art, but from his not being acquainted with the stage and the town.” Dryden revised and corrected it; and it was acted in 1693. The prologue, intended to be spoken, was written by lord Falkland; the play was admirably performed, and received with such general applause, that Congreve was thenceforward considered as the prop of the declining stage, and as the rising genius in dramatic poesy. It was this play, and the very singular success that attended it upon the stage, and after it came from the press, which recommended its author to the patronage of lord Halifax: who, being desirous to place so eminent a wit in a state of ease and tranquillity, made him immediately one of the commissioners for licensing hacknej'-coaches, which was followed soon after by a place in the Pipe-office; and the office of a commissioner of wine licenses, worth 600l. per annum. After such encouragement as the town, and even the critics, had given him, he quickly made his appearance again on the stage, by bringing on “The Double Dealer;” but this play, though highly approved and commended by the best judges, was not so universally applauded as his last, owing, it is supposed, to the regularity of the performance; for regular comedy was then a new thing.

Queen Mary dying at the close of this year, Congreve wrote a pastoral on that occasion, entitled “The Mourning Muse of Alexis;” which, for simplicity, elegance, and correctness, was long admired, and for which the king gave him a gratuity of 100l. In 1695 he produced his comedy called “Love for Love,” which gained him much applause; and the same year addressed to king William an ode “Upon the taking of Namiir;” which was very successful. After having established his reputation as a comic writer, he attempted a tragedy; and, in 1697, his “Mourning Bride” was acted at the new theatre in Lincoln' s-inn-fields, which completely answered the very high expectations of the public and of his friends. His attention, however, was now called off from the theatre to another species of composition, which was wholly new, and in which he was not so successful. His four plays were attacked with great sharpness by that zealous reformer of the stage, Jeremy Collier; who, having made his general attack on the immorality of the stage, included Congreve among the writers who had largely contributed to that effect. The consequence of the dispute which arose between Collier and the dramatic writers we have related in Collier’s article. It may be sufficient in this place to add, that although this controversy is believed to have created in Congreve some distaste to the stage, yet he afterwards brought on another comedy, entitled “The Way of the World;” of which it gave so just a picture, that the world seemed resolved not to bear it. This completed the disgust of our author to the theatre; upon which the celebrated critic Dennis, though not very famous for either, said with equal wit and taste, “That Mr. Congreve quitted the stage early, and that comedy left it with him.” This play, however, recovered its rank, and is still a favourite with the town. He amused himself afterwards with composing original poems and translations, which he collected in a volume, and published in 1710, when Swift describes him as “never free from the gout,” and “almost blind,” yet amusing himself with writing a “Taller.” He had a taste for music as well as poetry; as appears from his “Hymn to Harmony in honour of St. Cecilia’s day, 1701,” set by Mr. John Eccles, his great friend, to whom he was also obliged for composing several of his songs. His early acquaintance with the great had procured him an easy and independent station in life, and this freed him from all obligations of courting the public favour any longer. He was still under the tie of gratitude to his illustrious patrons; and as he never missed an opportunity of paying his compliments to them, so on the other hand he always shewed great regard to persons of a less exalted station, who had been serviceable to him on his entrance into public life. He wrote an epilogue for his old friend Southerne’s tragedy of Oroonoko; and we learn from Dryden himself, how much he was obliged to his assistance in the translation of Virgil. He contributed also the eleventh satire to the translation of “Juvenal,” published by that great poet, and wrote some excellent verses on the translation of Persius, written by Dryden alone.

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,

known, nor even his country. South- born in Yorkshire. Tt-e patronized him so warmly tVota queathed a legacy of about 10,000l. the accumulation of attentive parsimony, which, though to her superfluous and useless, might have given great assistance to the ancient family from which he descended, at that time, by the imprudence of his relation, reduced to difficulties and distress.