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His stay at Athens seems to have been of long continuance; and, whilst he taught there, he had, amongst others, the famous Porphyry for his pupil. The system of philosophy, which he adopted, was the academic; for whose founder (Plato) he had so great a veneration, that he celebrated the anniversary of his birth with the highest solemnity. But it was his lot to be drawn from the contemplative shades of Athens, to mix in more active scenes: to train up young princes to virtue and glory; to guide the busy and ambitious passions of the great to noble ends; to struggle for, and, at last, to die in, the cause of liberty. Zenobia, queen of the East, prevailed upon him to undertake the education of her sons. He quickly gained an uncommon share in her esteem; and in his conversation she spent the vacant hours of her life, modelling her sentiments by his instructions, and steering herself by his counsels in the whole series of her conduct. Zenobia was at war with the emperor Aurelian, was defeated by him near Antioch, and was compelled to retire to her fortified capital, Palmyra. The emperor sent her a written summons to surrender; to which she returned an answer drawn up by Longinus, which raised his highest indignation. The emperor exerted every effort, and the Palmyrians were at length obliged to open their gates, and receive the conqueror. The queen and Longinus endeavoured to fly into Persia, but were overtaken and made prisoners as they were crossing the Euphrates. When the captive qoeen was brought before the emperor, her spirits sunk; she laid the blame of her conduct on her counsellors, and fixed the odium of the affronting letter on its true author. This was no sooner heard, than Aurelian, who was hero enough to conquer, but not to forgive, poured all his vengeance on the head of Longinus. He was carried away to immediate execution, amidst the generous condolence of those who knew his merit. He pitied Zenobia, and comforted his friends. He looked upon death as a blessing, since it rescued his body from slavery, and gave his soul the most desirable freedom. “This world,” said he, with his expiring breath, “is nothing but a prison; happy therefore he, who gets soonest out of it, and gains his liberty.” His death took place in the year 273.

An ardent ju<Jg, Who, zealous in his trust,

After becoming a fellow of his college, he was in 1505 chosen principal of Magdalen-hall, which he resigned in 1507. In 1510 he was admitted to the reading of the sentences, and took his degree of B. D. and that of D. D. in the following year. In 1514 he was promoted to be dean of Salisbury, and in 1519 had the additional preferment of a canonry of Windsor. At this time he was in such favour with Henry VIII. as to be appointed his confessor, and upon the death of Atwater, bishop of Lincoln, he was by papal provision advanced to this see in 1520, and was consecrated May 3, 1521. In the same year (1520) we find him at Oxford assisting in drawing up the privileges for the new statutes of the university. In 1523 he was at the same place as one of those whom. Wolsey consulted in the establishment of his new college; and when the foundation was laid on July 15, 1525, Longland preached a sermon, which, with two others on the same occasion, he dedicated to archbishop Warham. He was afterwards employed at Oxford by the king, to gain over the learned men of the university fo sanction his memorable divorce. It is said, indeed, that when Henry’s scruples, or, as we agree with the catholic historian, his pretended scruples, began to be started, bishop Longland was the first that suggested the measure of a divorce. The excuse made for him is, that he was himself over-persuaded to what was not consistent with his usual character by Wolsey, who thought that Longland’s authority would add great weight to the cause; and it is said that he expressed to his chancellor, Dr. Draycot, his sorrow for being concerned in that affair. In 1533 he was chosen chancellor of the university of Oxford, to which he proved in many respects a liberal benefactor, and to poor students a generous patron. The libraries of Brazenose, Magdalen, and Oriel colleges, he enriched with many valuable books; and in 1540 he recovered the salary of the lady Margaret professorship, which had almost been lost, owing to the abbey from which it issued being dissolved. It must not be disguised, however, that he was inflexible in his pursuit and persecution of what he termed heresy. In 1531, we find him giving a commission to the infamous Dr. London, warden of New college, and others, to search for certain heretical books commonly sold at St. Frideswyde’s fair near Oxford. He died May 7, 1547, at Wooburn in Bedfordshire, where his bowels were interred; while his heart was carried to Lincoln cathedral, and his body deposited in Eton-college chapel, where it is thought he once had some preferment. He built a curious chapel in Lincoln cathedral in the east part, in imitation of bishop Russel’s chapel, with a tomb, &c. He also gave the second bell at Wooburn church, and built almshouses at Henley, his birth-place.

, the reputed author of “The Visions of Pierce Plowman,” is considered as one of our most ancient English poets, and one of the first disciples of Wickliff. He was a secular priest, born at Mortimer’s Cleobury, in Shropshire, and was a fellow of Oriel college, Oxford. According to Bale, he completed his work in 1369, when John Chichester was mayor of London. It is divided into twenty parts (passus, as he styles them), and consists of many distinct visions, which have no mutual dependance upon each other, but form a satire on almost every occupation of lite, particularly on the Romish clergy, in censuring whom his master Wickliff had led the way. The piece abounds with humour, spirit, and imagination; all which are drest to great disadvantage in a very uncouth versification and obsolete language. It is written without rhyme, an ornament which the poet has endeavoured to supply, by making every verse to consist of words beginning with the same letter. This practice has contributed not a little to render his poem obscure and perplexed, exclusive of its obsolete style; for, to introduce his alliteration, he must have been often necessarily compelled to depart from the natural and obvious way of expressing himself. Dr. Hickes observes, that this alliterative versification was drawn by Langelande from the practice of the Saxon poets, and that these visions abound with many Saxonisms. As he did not follow the example of Gower and Chaucer, who sought to reform the roughness of their native tongue, by naturalizing many new words from the Latin, French, and Italian, and who introduced the seven-lined stanza from Petrarch and Dante into our poetry, the inquirer into the original of our language will find in him a greater fund of materials to elucidate the progress of the Saxon tongue.

, an eminent astronomer, was born at Longomontum, a town in Denmark, whence he took his name, in 1562. Vossius, by mistake, calls him Christopher. He was the son of Severinus, a poor labourer, and was obliged to divide his time between following the plow and attending to the lessons which the minister of the parish gave him, by which he profited so much as to acquire considerable knowledge, especially in the mathematics. At length, when he was fifteen, he stole from his family, and went to Wiburg, where there was a college, in which he spent eleven years, supporting himself by his talents: and on his removing thence to Copenhagen, the professors of this university soon conceived a high esteem for him, and recommended him to Tycho Brahe, who received him very kindly. He lived eight years with this eminent astronomer, and assisted him so much in his observations and calculations, that Tycho conceived a very particular affection for him, and having left his native country to settle in Germany, he was desirous of having the company of Longomontanus, who accordingly attended him. Afterwards being, in 1600, desirous of a professor’s chair in Denmark, Tycho generously consented to give up his assistant and friend, with the highest testimonies of his merit, and supplied him plentifully with money for his journey. On his return to Denmark, he deviated from his road, in order to view the places whence Copernicus had made his astronomical observations; and passed so much time in this journey, that it was not till 1605 that he was nominated to the professorship of mathematics in the university of Copenhagen. In this situation he continued till his death, in 1647, when he was eighty-five years old. He married, and had children; but the whole of his family died before him. He was the author of several works, in mathematics and astronomy. His “Astronomia Danica,” first printed in 1611, 4to, and afterwards at Amsterdam, 1640, in folio, is the most distinguished. He amused himself with endeavouring to square the circle, and pretended that he had made the discovery of it; but our countryman Dr. John Pell attacked him warmly on the subject, and proved that he was mistaken. It is remarkable, that, obscure as his village and father might be, he dignified and perpetuated both; for he took his name from his village, and, in the title-page of his works, wrote himself “Christianus Longomontanus Severini films.”

, or Longolius, a very elegant scholar, was born in 1490, at Mechlin, although some have called him a Parisian, and Erasmus makes him a native of Schoohhoven in Holland. He was the natural son of Antony de Longueil, bishop of Leon, who being on some occasion in the Netherlands, had an intrigue with a female of Mechlin, of which this son was the issue. He remained with his mother until eight or aine years old; when he was brought to Paris for education, in the course of which he fur exceeded his fellowscholars, and was able at a very early age to read and understand the most difficult authors. He had also an extraordinary memory, although he did not trust entirely to it, but made extracts from whatever he read, and showed great discrimination in the selection of these. His taste led him chiefly to the study of the belles lettres, but his friends wished to direct his attention to the bar, and accordingly he went to Valence in Dauphiny, where he studied civil law under professor Philip Decius, for six years, and returning then to Paris, made so distinguished a figure at the bar, that in less than two years, he was appointed counsellor of the parliament of Paris, according to his biographer, cardinal Pole, but this has been questioned on account of its never having been customary to appoint persons so young to that office; Pole has likewise made another mistake, about which there can be less doubt, in asserting that the king of Spain, Philip, appointed Longueil his secretary of state, for Philip died in 1506, when our author was only sixteen years of age.

In the mean time, it is certain that his attachment to other studies soon diverted him from his law practice. He appears in particular to have considered Pliny as an author meriting his most assiduous application, and whose works would furnish him with employment for many years. With this view he not only studied Pliny’s “Natural History,” with the greatest care, as well as every author who had treated on the same subject, but determined also to travel in pursuit of farther information, as well as to inspect the productions of nature, wherever found. But before this it became necessary for him to learn Greek, with which he had hitherto been unacquainted, and he is said to have made such progress, as to be able, within a year, to read the best Greek authors, on whom he found employment for about five years. Besides selecting from these works whatever might serve to illustrate his favourite Pliny, he now determined to commence his travels, and accordingly went to England, Germany, and Italy, and would have travelled to the East had not the war with the Turks prevented him. In England, in which he appears to have been in 1518, he became very intimate with Pace and Linacre. He encountered many dangers, however, in his continental tour. As he was travelling, with two friends, through Switzerland, the natives of that country, who, after the battle of Marignan, regarded the French with horror, conceived that Longueil and his party were spies, and pursued them as far as the banks of the Rhone. One was killed, the other made his escape by swimming; but Longueil, being wounded in the arm, was taken prisoner, and treated with great severity for about a month, at the end of which he was released by the interposition of the bishop of Sion, who furnished him with money and a horse, to convey him to France. At Rome he was afterwards honoured with the rank of citizen, and received with kindness by Leo X. who had a great opinion of his talents and eloquence, made him his secretary, and employed him to write against Luther. He visited France once more after this, but the rec<*ption he met with in Italy determined him to settle there, at Padua, where he resided, first with Stephen Sauli, a noble Genoese, and on his departure, with Reginald Pole, afterwards the celebrated cardinal, to whom we are indebted for a life of Longueil. Here he died Sept. 11, 1522, in the thirty-third year of his age, and was interred in the church of the Franciscans, in the habit of that order, as he had desired. He was honoured with a Latin epitaph by Bembo, who was one of his principal friends, and recommended to him the writings of Cicero, as a model of style. Longueil became so captivated with Cicero, as to be justly censured by Erasmus on this account. Longueil, however, was not to be diverted by this, but declared himself so dissatisfied with what he ha4 written before he knew the beauties of Cicero’s style, *s to order all his Mss. written previous to that period, to be destroyed. We have, therefore, but little of Longueil left. Among the Mss. destroyed was probably his commentary on Pliny, which some think was published, but this is very doubtful. We can with more certainty attribute to him, 1. “Oratio de laudibus D. Ludovici Francorum regis, &c.” Paris, 1510, 4to. Some remarks on the court of Rome in this harangue occasioned its being omitted in the collection of his works, but Du Chesne printed it in the fifth volume of his collection of French historians. 2. “Christ. Longolii, civis Roman ae perduellionis rei defensiones duae,” Venice, 8vo. This is a vindication of himself against a charge preferred against him, when at Rome, that he had advanced sentiments dishonourable to the character of the Romans in the preceding oration. 3. “Ad Lutheranos jam damnatos Oratio,” Cologn, 1529, 8vo. It appears from his letters that he had been, requested both to write for and against Luther, that he was long in great perplexity on the subject, but that at length Leo X. prevailed with him to write the above. These last two pieces with his letters, &c. have been often reprinted, under the title of “Christ. Longolii Orationes, Epistolcc, et Vita, necnon Bembi et Sadoleti epistolse,” the first edition, at Paris, 1533, 8vo. There are many curious particulars of literary history and character scattered through this correspondence. The life prefixed is now known to have been written by Pole, who was his most intimate friend and admirer, and to whom he bequeathed his library.

, son of Peter Dufour, seigneur de Longuerue, a Norman gentleman, king’s lieutenant of Charleville, in which city he was born, 1652, discovered such uncommon genius for learning t four years old, that Louis XIV. passing through Charleville, and hearing him mentioned, desired to see him. His tutor was the celebrated Richelet; and Peter d'Ablancourt, who was related to him, superintended his education and studies. He was taught both the oriental and European languages, and acquired an extensive knowledge of history, antiquities, the sacred writings, the holy fathers, &c. To an uncommon memory he joined very considerable critical talents. He held two abbeys, that of Sept- Fontaines in the diocese of Rheims, and of Jard in the diocese of Sens. He died November 22, 1733, at Paris, aged eighty-two. Hi works are, 1. A Dissertation in Latin, on Tatian, in the edition of that author, published at Oxford, 1700, 8vo 2. “La Description Historique de la France,” Paris, 1719, folio. This work his countrymen think unworthy of the abbe“de Longuerue, from the changes which have been made in it, and the hurry in which it was printed. The original maps, which have been altered, may be found in some copies. 3.” Annales Arsacidarum,“Strasburg, 1732. 4.” Dissertation on Transubstantiation," which passed under the name of his friend the minister Allix, because unfavourable to the catholic faith. He wrote also Remarks on the Life of Cardinal Wolsey, and left numerous works in Mss. on different subjects in several volumes, folio. There is a collection of his bon mots among the Ana.

was an ancient Greek author, probably of the fifth century, who seems to have written after Heliodorus, and, in some places, to have imitated him. He is called a sophist; but we have no remains of his except four books of “Pastorals upon the Loves of Daphnis and Cloe.” Huet speaks advantageously of this work, and had proposed, when he was young, to have made a translation of it; but he also takes notice of several defects in it, and, doubtless, its obscenities made him lay aside his purpose of translating it. None of the ancient writers mention Longus. There is a good edition of the original by Petrus Moll, a professor of the Greek language at Franeker, 1660, in 4to, but Villoison’s, Gr. and Lat. Paris, 1778, '2 vols. 8va, is the best. It was translated into English by George Thorney, and printed at London in 1657. The last edition of the English version, of which there have been four, is inscribed to James Craggs, esq. secretary of state. The French, with whom this work has always been a favourite, have many translations of it. That by Amyot has passed through many editions; the most elegant of which is that of 1718, 12mo, with 29 plates, drawn by the regent, Philip duke of Orleans, and engraved by Benoft Audran; the 29th is not his engraving, and is seldom found in the edition of 1718, the reason of which, some say, was, that only 250 copies were taken, which the prince disposed of as presents; but Brunei thinks it is too common for so small an impression. Next to this edition, that of 1745, 8vo, is preferred, with the same plates retouched.

, master of the works to the French kin;', was born at Lyons about the beginning of the sixteenth century. At fourteen, he went into Italy, to study the beauties of antiquity. There he became acquainted with Cervius, afterwards pope Marceilus II. who had a good taste for the polite arts, and, conceiving a great esteem for Lorme, communicated to him every thing that he knew. Enriched with the spoils of antiquity, he returned to Lyons in 1536, and banished thence the Gothic taste. At length, going to Paris, to work for the cardinal de Bellay, he was soon employed in the court of Henry II. He made the Horse-shoe, a fortification at Fontainbleau, built the stately chateau of Anet and Meudon; the palace of the Thuilleries, and repaired and ornamented several of the royal houses, as Villiers, Colerets, St. Germain then called the castle of the Muette, the Louvre, &c. These services were recompensed above his expectations. He was made almoner and counsellor to the king, and had the abbies of St. Eloy and St. Serge of Angers conferred upon him.

Ronsard, the poet, out of envy, published a satire, or satirical sonnet, against him, under the title of “LaTruelle crosse'e,” the Trowel crosier'd. De Lorme revenged himself, by causing the garden-door of the Thuilleries, of which he was governor, to be shut against the poet; and Ronsard, with a pencil, wrote upon the gate these three words: “Fort, reverent, habe.” De Lorme, who understood little Latin, complained of this inscription, as levelled at him, to queen Catharine de Medicis, who, inquiring into the matter, was told by Ronsard, that, by a harmless irony, he had made that inscription for the architect when read in French; but that it suited him still better in Latin, these being the first words abbreviated of a Latin epigram of Ausonius, which begins thus: “Fortunam reverenter habe.” Ronsard added that he only meant that De Lorme should reflect on his primitive grovelling fortune, and not to shut the gate against the Muses. De Lorme died in 1557; leaving several books of architecture, greatly esteemed. These are, 1. “Nouvelles Inventions pour bien bastir & a petit frais,” Paris, 1561, folio, fifty-seven leaves. 2. “Ten Books of Architecture,” 1568, folio.

, a French poet, who flourished about the middle of the thirteenth century, was the author of the “Roman de la Rose,” a poem much in request in the middle ages, and known in this country by Chaucer’s translation. It was left unfinished by Lorris, and was completed in the next century by John de Meuu. The part by Lorris, though the shortest, is by much the most poetical, abounding in rich and elegant description, and in lively portraiture of allegorical personages. The early French editions of this poem are of great rarity and value, and are enumerated by Brunei, and other bibliographers. Of the author nothing is known.

, a learned and amiable clergyman, and some time Greek professor of the university of Cambridge, was descended from an ancient family in Pembrokeshire, and was the son of major Lort, of the Welsh fusileers, who was killed at the battle of Fontenoy, in 1745. He was born in 1725, and was admitted of Trinity-college, Cambridge, in 1743, from whence he removed into the family of Dr. Mead, to whom he was librarian until the death of that celebrated physician, in 1754; and while in that situation probably acquired the taste for literary history and curiosities which enabled him to accumulate a very valuable library, as well as to assist many of his contemporaries in their researches into biography and antiquities. In the mean time he kept his terms at college; and proceeded A. B. in 1746; was elected fellow of his college in 1749; and took his degree of M. A. in 1750. In 1755 he was elected a fellow of the society of antiquaries, and was many years a vice-president, until his resignation in 1788. During this time he made some communications to the “Archxologia,” vols. IV. and V. In 1759, on the resignation of Dr. Francklin, he was appointed Greek professor at Cambridge, and in 1761 he took the degree of B. D. and was appointed chaplain to Dr. Terrick, then bishop of Peterborough. In January 1771 he was collated by Dr. Cornwallis, archbishop of Canterbury, to the rectory of St. Matthew, Friday-street, on which he resigned his Greek professorship; and in August 1779 he was appointed chaplain to the archbishop, and in the same year commenced D.D. In April 1780, the archbishop gave him a prebend of St. Pau Ps (his grace’s option) and he continued at Lambeth till 1783, when he married Susanna Norfolk, one of the two daughters of alderman Norfolk, of Cambridge. On the death of Dr. Ducarel, in 1785, he was appointed by archbishop Moore, librarian to the archiepiscopal library at Lambeth. He was also for some years librarian to the duke of Devonshire. In April 1789, he was presented by Dr. Porteus, bishop of London, to the sinecure rectory Jqf Fulham, in Middlesex; and in the same year was instituted to the rectory of Mile-end, near Colchester. He died Nov. 5, 1790, at his house in Savile-row; his death was occasioned by a fall from a chaise while riding near Colchester, which injured his kidnies, and was followed by a paralytic stroke. He was buried at his church in Friday-street, of which he had been rector nineteen years. A monumental tablet was put up to his memory, which also records the death of his widow, about fifteen months afterwards. They had no issue.

Dr. Lort was well known to the learned of this and other countries, as a man of extensive literary information, and a collector of curious and valuable books, at a time when such articles were less known and in less request than at present. He was very generally and deservedly esteemed by his numerous acquaintance. An artless simplicity formed the basis of his character, united to much kindness and liberality. With talents and learning that might have appeared to great advantage from the press, Dr. Lort was rather anxious to assist the labours of others than ambitious of appearing as the author of separate publications. Except a few occasional sermons, a poem on the peace of Aix-laChapelle among the Cambridge congratulations, and some anonymous contributions to the Gentleman’s Magazine, and other literary journals and newspapers, we can only mention, as an original work, “A Short Commentary on the Lord’s Prayer; in which an allusion to the principal circumstances of our Lord’s temptation is attempted to be shewn;” printed in 8vo, 1790. In this ingenious tract, he adopts the translation taken by Dr. Doddridge from the fathers, and given in his “Family Expositor.” Mr. Nichols has printed, from the pen of Dr. Lort, a curious “Inquiry into the author, or rather who was not the author, of The Whole Duty of Man.” The same gentleman acknowledges his obligations to Dr. Lort for assistance in some of his valuable labours. To Grander also Dr. Lort communicated much information. Biography had been always his study, and most of his books were filled with notes, corrections, and references of the biographical kind. He had likewise compiled many ms lives, which were dispersed at his death. Of some of these the editor of this Dictionary has been enabled to avail himself. His library was not remarkable for external splendour, but it contained a great number of rare and valuable articles, and formed a sale of twenty-five days, at Messrs. Leigh and Sotheby’s, in 1791. The produce was 1269/1; and his prints sold for 40 1l.

, surnamed Secundus, a distinguished modern Latin poet, was nephew to a celebrated abbot of the monastery of Solitaire, in the county of Hanau, in Germany, who in 1543 established the protestant religion in his society, and died in 1567. He was born Nov. 2, 1528, at Solitaire, received the early part of his education at a convent in his native place, and pursued his tnaturer studies at Francfort, Marpurg, and Wittemburg, at which last place he contracted an intimacy with Melancthon and Camerarius. During the war in Saxony in 1546, when Melancthon and his colleagues were obliged to leave Wittemburg, Lotich being in great perplexity what to do, at length entered, among the troops of John Frederic, elector of Saxony, with some of his fellow-students; but in 1548 we find him again at Erfurth, and afterwards at Wittemburg, pursuing his studies. In 1550 he visited France with some young persons to whom he was governor, and he continued there nearly four years. He afterwards went to Italy, where he had nearly been destroyed by poison prepared for another purpose: he recovered from the effects of it, but was subject to frequent relapses, one of which carried him off in the year 1560. He had taken his degree of doctor of physic at Padua, and in 1557 was chosen professor in that science at Heidelberg. In this situation he was honoured with the friendship of the elector-palatine, and by the excellence of his disposition, and the singular frankness and sincerity of his character, rendered himself universally beloved. A collection of his Latin poems was published in 1561, the year after his decease, with a dedicatory epistle by Joachim Camerarius, who praises him as the best poet of his age. This has been often reprinted, but a complete and correct edition of all his works was published at Amsterdam in 1754, 2 vols. 4to, by Peter Burman, nephew of the celebrated writer of those names. Lotich had a younger brother Christian, likewise a poet, and educated by his uncle, the abbot. A collection of his poems was published in 1620, along with those of his relation John- Peter Lotich, a physician of eminence, and grandson of the above- mentioned Christian, who exercised his profession at Minden and at Hesse, and became professor of medicine at Rintlen in Westphalia. He died very much regretted in 1652. His principal works are, “Conciliorum et Observationum Medicinalium;” “Latin Poems;” “A Commentary on Petronius,” and “A History of the Emperors Ferdinand II. and III.” in four volumes, is attributed to him.

, an able advocate in the seventeenth century, and master of requests to queen Margaret, was born at Reinville, a village two leagues from Beauvais. He died in 1646. His works are, I. “L'Histoire et les Antiqnités de Beauvuis,” vol. I. 1609, and 1631, 8vo vol. II. Rouen, 1614, 8vo. The first treats of the ecclesiastical affairs of Beauvais the second, of the civil affairs. 2. “Nomenclatura et Chronologia rerum Ecclesiasticarum Dioecesis Bellovacensis,” Paris, 1618, 8vo. 3. “Hist, des Antiquity’s du Diocese de Beauvais,” Beauvais, lh.3.5, 8vo. 4. “Anciennes Remarques sur la Noblesse Beaiuoisme, et de plusieurs Families de France,” 1631, and 1640, 8vo. This work is very scarce it is in alphabetical order, but has only been printed from A to M inclusively, with one leaf of N. Father Triboulet, prior of the Dominicans at Beauvais, and afterwards procurator- general of' his order, being authorised to establish a college in the Dominican convent of Beauvais, and to enforce the observance of the rules and statutes of reformation respecting studies there, was imprisoned by his brethren. On this occasion Louvet published, “Abrég6 d: s Constitutions et Reglemens pour les Etu;les et Reformes du Convent des Jacobins de Beauvais,” and addressed it to tht- king, in 1618, by an epistle dedicatory, in which he petitioned that Triboulet might be set at liberty. There was another French historian of the same names, who was born at Beauvais. His father was a native of Amiens, and not related to the preceding. He studied physic at Montpellier also the belles lettres and geography; taught rhetoric with reputation in Provence during a considerable time; and geography at Montpellier; and published several works from 1657 to 1680, respecting the history of Languedoc, Provence, &c. under the following titles: 1. “Remarques sur l'Histoire de Langnedoc,” 4to 2.“Abrégé de l‘Histoire d’Aquitaine, Guienne, et Gascogne, jusqu'à present,” foourdeaux, 1659, 4to. 3 “La France dans sa Splendeur,” 2 vols. 12mo. 4. “Ahrege* de I'Histoire de Provence,” 2 vols. 12mo, with additions to the same history in 2 vols. folio. 5. “Projet de I'Histoire du Pays de beanjolots,” 8vo. 6. “Hist, des Troubles de Provence deputs 1481 jusqu'en 159S,” 2 vols. 12mo. 7. “Le Mercure Hollandois. ou Ifs Conquetes du Roi, lepuisn7J, jusqira la fin de 1679,” 10 vols 12mo. This last may be useful, and is the best of Peter Louvet’s works; but Hoik of the rest are much esteemed.

, a presbyterian divine of considerable tame in the time of Cromw< II, was born at Cardiff in Glamorganshire, in 1618. In his earlier days he was of a dissipated turn; and his religious education, at least, must have been neglected by his parents, if what his biographer says be true, that he was fifteen years of age before he ever heard a sermon. The effect of this sermon, however, preached by Mr. Erbery, was such that he became not only reformed, but so strict and precise in his religious duties, as to give offence to his father, who at length placed him as an apprentice in London. His son, who was averse to this measure, earnestly intreated that he might be sent to the university; to which having obtained a very reluctant consent, he became a servitor of New Inn, Oxford, in 1635. Here, however, as his father denied him a proper support, he subsisted by the help of the above-mentioned Mr. Erbery, and such supplies as his mother could afford. After taking a bachelor’s degree in arts, he went into holy orders, and preached frequently at St. Peter in the Bayley, but his principles were so unacceptable, that after he had taken his master’s degree, and had refused to subscribe the canons enjoined by archbishop Laud, relative to the prelates and the Book of Common Prayer, he was expelled the congregation of masters.

On leaving Oxford, he went to London, where his fixed aversion to the hierarchy prevented his promotion to any living, and procured his being silenced, on which he went to Scotland to obtain presbyterian ordination; but, according to the laws of that church, he could not be ordained without settling there. On his return to England, he preached occasionally at various places, always introducing sentiments of the bitterest hostility to the church of England. At length, when his wishes were accomplished, by the establishment of the presbyterian government in England, he was ordained, according to their method, in Aldermanbury church, London, in January 1644. Next year he gave proof that he had as little prudence as moderation, by going to Uxbridge, when the commissioners for the treaty of peace were there, and preaching a sermon, in which he inveighed with great violence against his majesty’s commissioners, who complained of the insult to those of the parliament. He was, in consequence, sent for to London, and although acquitted by order of the House of Commons, yet, according to Neal, was confined to his house during the treaty, and then discharged. That language must have been very gross which induced the parliament to act thus towards one of their greatest favourites.

He was next appointed one of the Assembly of Divines, and minister of St. Lawrence Jury, and is said also to have been chosen minister of St. Anne’s, Aldersgate-street. He was one of the London ministers who signed a declaration against the king’s death. He was afterwards engaged in a plot, which cost him his life, and was known at the time by the name of Love’s plot, either because he was a principal agent, or a principal sufferer. Mr. Love, we have already noticed, was a presbyterian, and when he found that the independents were gaining the ascendancy, he united with various gentlemen and ministers of his own way of thinking to assist the Scotch (before whom Charles II. had taken the covenant, and by whom he had been crowned,) in their endeavours to advance that sovereign to the crown of England. Cromwell, howev&r, was too watchful for the success of such a design in London; and the chief conspirators being apprehended, Mr. Love and a Mr. Gibbons were tried and executed, the rest escaping by interest, or servile submission. Mr. Love appears on his trial to have used every means to defeat its purpose, and was certainly more tenacious of life, than might have been expected from the boldness of his former professions. Great intercessions were made to the parliament for a pardon: his wife presented one petition, and himself four; several parishes also, and a great number of his brethren interceded with great fervour; but all that could be obtained was the respite of a month. It is said that the affairs of the commonwealth being now at a crisis, and Charles II. having entered England with 16,000 Scots, it was thought necessary to strike terror in the presbyterian party, by making an example of one of their favourite ministers. Some historians say that Cromwell, then in the north, sent a letter of reprieve and pardon for Mr. Love, but that the post-boy was stopped on the road by some persons belonging to the late king’s army, who opened the mail, and finding this letter, tore it in pieces, exclaiming that “he who had been so great a firebrand at Uxbridge, was not fit to live.” Whatever truth may be in this, he was executed, by beheading, on Tower-hill, Aug. 22, 1651. He was accompanied at his death by the three eminent nonconformists, Simeon Ashe, Edmund Calamy, and Dr. Manton. The latter preached a funeral sermon for him, in which, while he avoids any particular notice of the cause of his death, he considers him, as the whole of his party did, in the light of a saint and martyr. The piety of his life, indeed, ereated a sympathy in his favour which did no little harm to the power of Cromwell. Thousands began to see that the tyranny of the republic would equal all they had been taught to hate in the mo larchv. The government, we are told, expressed some displeasure at Dr. Manton’s intention of preaching a funeral sermon, and their creatures among the soldiers threatened violence, but he persisted in his resolution, and not only preached, but printed the sermon. The loyalists, on the other hand, considered Love’s death as an instance of retributive justice. Clarendon says that he “was guilty of as much treason as the pulpit could contain;” and his biographers have so weakly defended the violence of his conduct during the early period of the rebellion, as to leave this fact almost indisputable. His works consist of sermons and pious tracts, on various subjects, mostly printed after his death, and included in three volumes, 8vo. They were all accompanied by prefaces from his brethren, of high commendation.

, a modern poet whose personal history has been neglected, was, according to the preface to his poems, “a gentleman of fortune, who passed the greater part of his years in the neighbourhood of Hampton, in Middlesex, where he lived greatly beloved by those who best knew him. He was an admirable scholar, of very amiable manners, and of universal benevolence, of which all his writings bear strong testimony. The little pieces which compose (his works) were chiefly written on such incidents as occasionally arose in those societies of intimate acquaintance which he most frequented. After his death, which happened in 1775, his poems being dispersed in the hands of different friends, to whom they had been given by himself, many people expressed to his only brother, Anthony, Lovibond Collins, esq. a wish to have them collected together, and preserved. This gentleman, equally zealous for the reputation of a brother he affectionately loved, hath put into the editor’s hands those pieces he hath selected for that purpose.”

When the “World” was conducted by Edward Moore, and his many noble and learned contributors, Mr. Lovibond furnished five papers; of which Nos. 93 and 94 contain some just remarks on the danger of extremes, and the impediments to conversation. In Nos. 132 and 134 he opposes the common erroneous notions on the subject of Providence with considerable force of argument, and concludes with some ironical remarks, not ill applied. In No. 82 he first published “The Tears of Old May Day,” the most favourite of all his poems. The thoughts are peculiarly ingenious and happy, yet it may be questioned whether it is not exceeded by his “Mulberry Tree,” in which the distinguishing features of Johnson’s and Garrick’s characters are admirably hit off the frivolous enthusiasm of the one, and the solid and sturdy veneration of the other for our immortal bard, are depicted with exquisite humour. Julia’s printed letter appears to haVe been a favourite with the author. There are some bursts of genuine passion, and some tenderness displayed occasionally, but it wants simplicity. It was probably suggested by Pope’s Eloisa, and must suffer in proportion as it reminds us of that inimitable effort. His “Lines on Rural Sports” are both poetical and moral, and contain some interesting pictures sweetly persuasive to a humane treatment of the brute creation. His love verses, some of which are demi-platonic, are tender and sprightly. The Miss K P < was Miss Kitty Phillips, a relation of the family, now ennobled by the title of MilforJ. The “Tale of the Hitchin Convent;” the “Lines to a young Lady,” a very good actress; the “Verses to Mr. Woodeson,” and those on converting that gentleman’s house into a poor-house, are all distinguished by original turns of thought. His pieces were generally circulated in private, as he had not the ambition of an author, and was contented to please those whom he intended to please; yet he never attempted, any subject which he did not illustrate by novelty of manner, and upon the whole may be considered as among the most successful of that class who are rather amateurs, than professional poets.

, a surgeon of the sixteenth century, was born in Scotland. In a work entitled “A Discourse on the whole Art of Chirurgery,” published at Glasgow in 1612, he acquaints his readers, that he had practised twenty- two years in France and Flanders; that he had been two years surgeon- major to the Spanish regiment at Paris and had then followed his master, the king of France (Henry IV.) six years in his wars. In the titlepage of his book, he calls himself doctor in the faculty of surgery at Paris, and ordinary surgeon to the king of France and Navarre. It does not appear how long he had resided at Glasgow; but he mentions that, fourteen years before the publication of his book, he had complained of the ignorant persons who intruded into the practice of surgery, and that in consequence the king (of Scotland) granted him a privilege, under his privy seal, of examining all practitioners in surgery in the western parts of Scotland. He refers to a former work of his own, entitled “The Poor Man’s Guide,” and speaks of an intended publication concerning the diseases of women. He died in 1612. The “Discourse on Chirurgery” appears to have been in esteem, as it reached a fourth edition in 1654, but it is founded more on authority than observation. Ames mentions another work of his with the title “An easy, certain, and perfect method to cure and prevent the Spanish Sickness; by Peter Lowe, doctor in the Facultie of Chirurgerie at Paris, chirurgeon to Henry IV” London, 1596, 4to.

, an eminent physician and anatomist, was born at Tremere, in Cornwall, about 1631. He was descended from a good family, and received a liberal education, being admitted as king’s scholar at Westminster school, and thence elected to Christ-church college, Oxford, in 1649, where he took the degree of M. A. in 1655, and then studied medicine. The celebrated Dr. Willis, who employed him as coadjutor in his dissections, found him so able an assistant, that he afterwards became his steady friend and patron, and introduced him into practice. In 1665, Lower took the degree of M. D.; and in the same year published a defence of Dr. Willis’s work on fevers, entitled “Diatribae Thomae Willisii M. D. et Prof. Oxon. de Febribus Vindicatio adversus Edm. de Meara Ormondiensem Hibern. M. D.” 8vo, a work of considerable learning and force of argument, but not without some fallacies, as he afterwards himself admitted. But his most important work was, his “Tractatus de Corde, item de motu et calore Sanguinis, et Chyli in eum transitu,” which was first printed in London in 1669. In this work the structure of the heart, the origin and course of its fibres, and the nature of its action, were pointed out with much accuracy and ingenuity. He likewise demonstrated the dependance of its motions upon the nervous influence, referred the red colour of the arterial blood to the action of the air upon it in the lungs, and calculated the force of the circulation, and the quantity and velocity of the blood passing through it. The work excited particular notice, in consequence of the chapter on the transfusion of blood from the vessels of one living animal to those of another, which the author had first performed experimentally at Oxford, in February 1665, and subsequently practised upon an insane person before the royal society. Lower claims the merit of originality in this matter; but the experiment had certainly been suggested long before by Ia­bavius (see Libavius), and experience having soon decided, that the operation was attended with pernicious consequences, it was justly exploded. Lower had removed to London soon after the commencement of these experiments, and in 1667 had been a fellow of the royal society, and of the college of physicians. The reputation acquired by his publications brought him into extensive practice and after the death of Dr.- Willis,. he was considered as one of the ablest physicians in London. But his attachment to the Whig party, at the time of the Popish plot, brought bun iufao discredit at court, so that his practice dedlned considerably before his death, Jan 17, 1690-91. He was buried at St. Tudy, near his native place, in Cornwall, where he had purchased an estate. In addition to the writings above-mentioned, he communicated some papers containing accounts of anatomical experiments to the royal society; a small tract on catarrh, which was added, as a new chapter, to the edition of the treatise de Corde of 1680; and a letter on the state of medicine in England. He is said to have been the first discoverer of Astrop Wells.

, a learned dissenting clergyman, was born in 1680. He was originally destined for the law, and in 1697 entered as a student in the Middle-Temple, but in about two years he changed his purpose and determined to study divinity. With this view he went over to Holland in 1699, where he studied partly at Utrecht and partly at Leyden. In 1710, after being admitted to the ministry among the dissenters, he settled with the congregation at Claphana, as assistant to Mr. Grace, whom he succeeded as their pastor, and was ordained in 1714. In this situation he continued to his death, preaching twice each Sunday until within a few weeks of that event. He distinguished himself, from the period of his academical studies, in metaphysics and divinity: and, to the close of his life, he was an indefatigable reader, and acquired an extraordinary stock of useful knowledge, particularly in Jewish learning and antiquities, to which last he was much devoted. The result of this application appeared in the learned works he published, and which constituted his chief fame; for as a pulpit orator, it does not appear that he was much admired. Dr. Chandler, who preached his funeral sermon, gives him a very high personal character. He died May 3, 1752, in the seventy-third year of his age.

, a distinguished divine, was the son of William Lowth, apothecary and citizen of London, and was born in the parish of St. Martin’s Ludgate, Sept.H, 1661. His grandfather Mr. Simon Lowth, rector of Tylehurst in Berks, took great care of his education, ad initiated him early in letters. He was afterwards sent to Merchant-Taylors’ school, where he made so great a progress that he was elected thence into St. John’s-college in Oxford in 1675, before he was fourteen. Here he regularly took the degrees of master of arts, and bachelor in divinity. His eminent worth and learning recommended him to Dr. Mew, bishop of Winchester, who made him his chaplain, and in 1696 conferred upon him a prebend in the cathedral-church of Winchester, and in 1699 presented him to the rectory of Buriton, with the chapel of Petersfield, Hants. His studies were strictly confined within his own province, and solely applied to the duties of his function; yet, that he might acquit himself the better, he acquired an uncommon share of critical learning. There is scarcely any ancient author, Greek or Latin, profane or ecclesiastical, especially the latter, whose works he had not read with accuracy, constantly accompanying his reading with critical and philological remarks. Of his collections in this way, he was, upon all occasions, very communicative. His valuable notes on “Clemens Alexandrinus” are to be met with in Potter’s edition of that father; and his remarks on “Josephus,” communicated to Hudson for his edition, are acknowledged in his preface; as also those larger and more numerous annotations on the “Ecclesiastical Historians,” inserted in Reading’s edition of them at Cambridge. The author also of the “BibJiotheca Biblica” was indebted to him for the same kind of assistance. Chandler, late bishop of Durham, while engaged in his defence of Christianity from the prophecies o the Old Testament, against Collins’s discourse of the “Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion,” and in his vindication of the “Defence,” in answer to “The Scheme of Literal Prophecy considered,” held a constant correspondence with him, and consulted him upon many difficulties that occurred in the course of that work. But the most valuable part of his character was that which least appeared in the eyes of the world, the private and retired part, that of the good Christian, and the useful parishpriest. His piety, his diligence, his hospitality, and beneficence, rendered his life highly exemplary, and greatly enforced his public exhortations. He married Margaret daughter of Robert Pitt, esq. of Blandford, by whom he had three daughters and two sons, one of whom was the learned subject of our next article. He died May 17, 1732, and was buried, by his own orders, in the church-yard at Buriton, near the South side of the chancel; and on the inside wall is a plain monument with an inscription.

In 1746, Mr. Lowth published “An Ode to the people of Great Britain, in imitation of the sixth ode of the third book of Horace;” a spirited performance, severely reproving the vices of the times. This was afterwards inserted in Dodsley Collection, vol. III. and was followed by his “Judgment of Hercules,” in his friend Mr. Spence’s “Poly metis .” His first preferment in the church was to the rectory of Ovington, in Hampshire, which he received from bishop Hoadly. In 1748, he accompanied Mr: Legge, afterwards chancellor of the Exchequer, to Berlin, who went to that court in a public character; and with whom, from his earliest years, Mr. Lowth lived on terms of the mosc intimate and uninterrupted friendship. In tha following year he became acquainted with the duke of Devonshire, in consequence of his attending his brothers lord George and lord Frederic Cavendish, on their travels, and especially at Turin, which place was their principal residence during th*. ir absence from this country. The duke was so amply satisfied with the conduct of Mr. Lowth, as the travelling tutor of his brothers, that he afterwards proved his steady friend and patron. In 1750, bishop Hoadly conferred on him the archdeaconry of Winchester, and in 1753, the rectory of East Wooclhay, in Hampshire.

ID this last mentioned year he published his Poetrylectures, under the title of “De Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum Praelectiones academicc,” 4to, of which he gave the public an enlarged edition in 1763, 2 vols. 8vo. The second volume consists of additions made by the celebrated Michaelis. To this work, as we have already noticed, the duties of his professoiship gave occasion; and the choice of his subject, which lay out of the beaten paths ol criticism, and which was highly interesting, not only in a literary, but a religious view, afforded ample scope for the poetical, critical, and theological talents of the author. In these prelections, the true spirit and distinguishing character of the poetry of the Old Testament are more thoroughly entered into, and developed more perfectly, than ever had been done before Select parts of this poetry are expressed in Latin composition with the greatest elegance and force; the general criticism which pervades the whole work is such as might be expected from a writer of acknowledged poetical genius and literary judgment; and the particular criticism applied to those passages of the original Hebrew, which he has occasion to introduce, in order either to express the sense, or correct the words of k, is a pattern for that kind of sacred literature: nor are the theological subjects which occur in the course of the work, and are necessarily connected with it, treated with less ability. To the “Prelections” is subjoined a “Short Confutation of bishop Hare’s system of Hebrew Metre,” in which he shows it to be founded on laUe reasoning, on apetitio princigiiy that would equally prove a different and contrary system true This produced the fir>t and most creditable controversy in which Mr Lowth was engaged. The Harian metre was defended by Dr. Thomas Edwards, of Cambridge, (see his life,) who published a Latin letter to Mr. Lowth, to which the latter replied in a “Larger Confutation,” addressed to Dr. Edwards in 1766. This “Larger Confutation,” which from the subject may be supposed dry and uninteresting to the majority of readers, is yet, as a piece of reasoning, extremely curious; for" there never was a fallacy more accurately investigated, or a system more complete!) refuted, than that of bisnop Hare.

In July 1754-, probably as a reward for the distinguished ability displayed in his “Praelectiones,” he received the degree of D. D. conferred by the university in the most honourable manner in their power, by diploma; and in 1755 he went t > Irela d as first chaplain to Uie marquis of Harrington (afterwards duke of Devonshire, and then) lord lieutenant. In consequence of this appointment he had the offer of the bishopric of Limeric, but this * he exchanged with Dr Lesl.e, prebendary of Durham, and rector of Sedgefiild, near that place, for these preferments, which were accordingly given to him by Dr. Trevor, bishop of Durham, who was not a little pleased to rank among his clergy a gentleman of such rare accomplishments.

In 1765 Dr. Lowih was elected a fellow of the royal societies of London and Gottingen; and in the same year was involved in a controversy with bishop Warburton. On this subject we shall be brief, but we cannot altogether agree with former biographers of Lowth and Warburton, in considering them as equally blameable, and that the contest reflected equal disgrace on both. In all contests the provoking party has more to answer for than the provoked. We lament that it was possible for Warburton to discover in the amiable mind of Lowth that irritability which has in some measure tainted the controversy on the part of the latter and we lament that Lowth was not superior to the coarse attack of his antagonist; but all must allow that the attack was coarse, insolently contemptuous, and almost intolerable to any man who valued his own character. Lowth bad advanced in his Prelections an opinion respecting the Book of Job, which Warburton considered as aimed at his own peculiar opinions. This produced a private correspondence between them in 1756, and after some explanations the parties seem to have retired well satisfied with each other. This, however, was not the case with Warburton, who at the end of the last volume of a new edition of his “Divine Legation,” added “An appendix concerning the Book of Job,” in which he treated Dr. Lowth with every expression of sneer and contempt, and in language most grossly illiberal and insolent. This provocation must account for the memorable letter Dr. Lowth published entitled “A Letter to the right rev. author of the Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated, in answer to the Appendix to the fifth volume of that work; with an appendix, containing a former literary correspondence. By a laic professor in the university of Oxford,” 8vo. Few pamphlets of the controversial kind were ever written with more ability, or more deeply interested the public than this. What we regret is the strong tendency to personal satire; but the public at the time found an apology even for that in the overbearing character of Warburton, and the contemptuous manner in which he, and his under-writers, as Hard and others were called, chose to treat a man in all respects their equal at least. It was, therefore, we think, with great justice, that one of the monthly critics introduced an account of this memorable letter, by observing, that “when a person of gentle and amiable manners, of unblemished character, and eminent abilities, is calumniated and treated in the most injurious manner by a haughty and over-bearing colossus, it must give pleasure to every generous mind to see a person vindicating himself with manly freedom, resenting the insult with proper spirit, attacking the imperious aggressor in his turn, and taking ample vengeance for the injury done him. Such is the pleasure which every impartial reader, every true republican in literature, will receive from the publication of the letter now before us.” 1

This was followed by “Remarks on Dr. Lowth’s Letter to the bishop of Gloucester,” anonymous, but now known to have been written by Mr. Towne, archdeacon of Stow in Lincolnshire; to which is annexed “The second epistolary Correspondence” between Warburton and Lowth, in which Warburton accuses Lowth of a breach of confidence in publishing the former correspondence. A more petty controversy arose from Dr. Lowth’s letter, between him and Dr. Brown, author of “Essays on the Characteristics,” who fancied that Lowth had glanced at him as one of the servile admirers of Warburton. He therefore addressed “A Letter to the Rev. Dr. Lowth,” which was answered in “A Letter to the Rev. Dr. Brown,” written in a polite and dispassionate manner. It was followed by two anonymous addresses to Dr. Brown, censuring him for having introduced himself and his writings into a dispute which had nothing to do with either f.

mercy or moderation; and his servile the merits of an insignificant controflatterers exalted the master-critic far versy, his victory was clearly estaabove Aristotle and Longinus, as- blished by the silent confession of Warsaulted every modern dissenter who burton and his slaves." Gibbon’s Merefused to consult the oracle, and to enoirs, 4to, p. 136.

opposition, and the zeal of opposition Lowth; ampng these was Richard CumIn June 17 66 Dr. Lowth was promote* to the see of St. David’s, and about four mouths after was translated to that of Oxford. In this high office he remained till 1777, when he succeeded Dr. Terrick in the see of London. In 1778 he published the last of his literary labours, entitled “Isaiah: a new Translation, with a preliminary dissertation, and notes, critical, philological, and explanatory,” His design in this work was not only to give an exact and faithful representation of the words and sense of the prophet, by adhering closely to the letter of the text, and treading as nearly as may be in his footsteps; but to imitate the air and manner of the author, to express the form and fashion of the composition, and to give the English reader some notion of the peculiar turn and cast of the original. For this he was eminently qualified, by his critical knowledge of the original language, by his understanding more perfectly than any other writer of his time the character and spirit of its poetry, and by his general erudition, both literary and theological. In the preliminary dissertation the form and construction of the poetical compositions of the Old Testament are examined more particularly, and at large, than even in the “Prelections” themselves; and such principles of criticism are established as must be the foundation of all improved translations of the different, and especially of the poetical books of the Old Testament. In this instance the translation of the evangelical prophet, who is almost always sublime or elegant, yet often obscure notwithstanding all the aids of criticism, was executed in a manner adequate to the superior qualifications of the learned prelate who undertook it; and marked out the way for other attempts of a like kind, at a time when the hopes of an improved version was cherished by many, and when sacred criticism was cultivated with ardour. In our account of Michael Dodson we have mentioned an attempt to censure some part of this admired translation, which was ably repelled by the bishop’s relative, Dr. Sturges.

b*rlnd, who wrote a pamphlet after- ours could go beyond it. For other

Several occasional discourses, which the bishop was by his station at different times called upon to deliver, were of course published, and are all worthy of his pen. That “On the Kingdom of God,” preached at a visitation at Durham, was most admired for liberality of sentiment, and went through several editions. Some of his poetical effusions have been already mentioned, and others appear in podsley’s and Nichols’s Collections, the Gentleman’s Magazine, &c. With such various abilities, equally applicable either to elegant literature or professional studies, bishop Lowth possessed a mind that felt its own strength, and decided on whatever came before it with promptitude and firmness a mind fitted fur the high station in which he was placed. He had a temper, which, in private and domestic life, endeared him in the greatest degree to those who were most nearly connected with him, and towards others produced an habitual complacency and agreeableness of manners; but which, as we have seen, was susceptible of considerable warmth, when it was roused by unjust provocation or improper conduct.

, an English clergyman, was born iir Northamptonshire about 1630, and is supposed to have been the son of Simon Lowth, a native of Thurcaston in Leicestershire, who was rector of Dingley in that county in 1631, and was afterwards ejected by the usurping powers. This, his son, was educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge, where be took his master’s degree in 1660. He was afterwards rector of St. Michael Harbledown in 1670, and vicar of St. Co.Miius and Damian on the Blean in 1679, both in, Kent. On Nov. 12, 1688, king James nominated him, and he was instituted by bishop Sprat, to the deanery of Rochester, on the death of Dr. Castillon, but never obtained possession, owing to the following circumstances. The mandate of installation bad issued in course, the bishop not having allowed himself time to examine whether the king’s presentee was legally qualified; which happened not to be the case, Mr. Lowth being only a master of arts, and the statute requiring that the dean should be at least a bachelor of divinity. The bishop in a day or two discovering that he had been too precipitate, dispatched letters to the chapter clerk, and one of the prebendaries, earnestly soliciting that Mr. Lowth might not be installed; and afterwards in form revoked the institution till he should have taken the proper degree. On Nov. 27 Mr. Lowth attended the chapter, and produced his instruments, but the prebendaries present refused to obey them. He was admitted to the degree of D.D.Jan. 18 following, and on March 19 again claimed instalment, but did not obtain possession, for which, in August of this year, another reason appeared, viz. his refusing to take the oaths of allegiance; in consequence of which he was first suspended from his function, and afterwards deprived of both his livings in Kent. He lived very long after this, probably in London, as his death is recorded to have happened there on July 3, 1720, when he was buried in the new cemetery belonging to the parish of St. George the Martyr, Queen Square. He published, 1. “Letters between Dr. Gilbert Burnet and Mr. Simon. Lowth,” 1684, 4to, respecting some opinions of the former in his “History of the Reformation.” 2. “The subject of Church Power, in whom it resides,” &c. 1685, 8vo. 3. “A Letter to Edward Stillingfleet, D. D. in answer to the Dedicatory Epistle before, his ordination-sermon, preached at St. Peter’s Cornhill, March 15, 1684, with reflections. on some of Dr. Burnet’s letters on the same subject,” 1687, 4to, and 8vo. This was answered by Dr. Stillingfleet in a short letter to the bishop of London, “an honour,” bishop Nicolson says, “which he (Lowth) had no right to expect;” Lowth had submitted this letter both to Stillingfleet and Tillotson, who was then dean of Canterbury, but, according to Birch, “the latter did not think proper to take the least public notice of so confused and unintelligible a writer.” Dr. Hickes, however, a suffering nonjuror like himself, calls Lowfeh “a very orthodox and learned divine,” and his book an excellent one. His only other publication, was “Historical Collections concerning Deposing of Bishops,” 1696, 4to. From the sameness of name we should suppose him related to the subjects of the two preceding articles, but have not discovered any authority for more, than a conjecture on the subject.

, the founder of the order of Jesuits, was born in 1491, of a considerable family, at the castle of Loyola, in the province of Guipuscoa in Spain. He was educated in the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, and entered very early into the military profession. He was addicted to all the excesses too common in that line of life, but was at the same time a good officer, and one who sought occasions to distinguish himself. His valour was conspicuous at Pampeluna in 1521, when it was besiege,d by the French, and there he had his leg broken by a cannon-shot. During the confinement occasioned by this wound, he formed a resolution of renouncing the world, of travelling to JtTUS;de and dedicating his life to the service ol Go.,. He is said to have imbibed his ardour of zeal by reading the legends of the saints, as Don Quixote began his errantry l<\ reading the old romances; though some have denied that Loyola knew the use of letters. But whether he read, or had these things read to him, he certainly conceived an ardour of religious activity, which has not otten bem equalled.

Loyola was thought in two years to have made a progress sufficient for being admitted to the lectures of philosophy; upon which he went to Alcala de Henares, in 1526. His mendicant life, his apparatus, and that of four companions, who had already espoused his fortune, together with 'the instructions he gave to those who flocked about him, brought him at length under the cognizance of the inquisition. Inquiries were made concerning his life and doctrines; and it being observed, that a widow with her daughter had undertaken a pilgrimage on foot, as beggars, under his direction, he was thrown into prison. He obtained his release upon promising not to vent feis opinions for four years but, this restraint not suiting at all with his design, he determined not to comply with it and, therefore, going to Salamanca, he continued to discourse on religious matters, as before. He was thrown again into prison, and was not discharged till he had made some promises, as at Alcala de He-nates. He then resolved to go to Paris, where he arrived in Feb. 1528, with a firm resolution to pursue his studies vigorously; but the wretched circumstances to which he was reduced, being forced to beg about the streets, and to retire to St. James’s hospital, were great obstacles to his design; not to mention, that he was then impeached before the inquisition. Notwithstanding these difficulties, he went through a course of philosophy and divinity, and prevailed over a certain number of companions, who bound themselves by a vow to enter upon his new way of life. They did this in the church of iMontmartre, on the 15th of August, 1534; and renewed thc'ir vow twice in the same place, and on the same day, with the same ceremonies. At first they were but seven in number, including Loyola; but were at last increased to ten. They agreed, that Loyola should return to Spain to settle some affairs, that afterwards he-should proceed to Venice,>nd that they should all set out from Paris, Jan. 25, 1537, to meet him. Ribadeneira says that Loyola came a-begging to England in 1531, and found his account in it.

He went to Spain in 1535, preached repentance there, and drew together a prodigious crowd of auditors. He exclaimed, among other things, against the licentious livcsT of the priests. After transacting the affairs which his associates had recommended to his care, he went by sea to Genoa; am! travelled from thence to Venice, where they met him, Jan. 8, 1537. This was somewhat sooner than the time agreed on; yet he was there before them, and had employed his time in making converts; and what was of much greater consequence to the forwarding his grand scheme, he had got acquainted with John Peter Caraffa, who was afterwards pope, by the name of Paul III. As they had bound themselves by a vow to travel to Jerusalem, they prepared for that expedition; but were first determined to pay their respects to the pope, and obtain his benediction and leave.- Accordingly they went to Rome, and were gratified in their desires. Having returned to Venice, in order to embark, they found no opportunity thewar with thp- grand seignior having put an entire stop to the peregrination of pilgrims by sfca. They resolved, however, not to be idle, and therefore dispersed theiriselvei among the towns in the Venetian territories. It was resolved at length, that Loyola and two others, Faber and Laynez, should go to Rome, and represent to the pope the intentions of the whole company; and that the rest, in the mean time, should be distributed into the most famous universities of Italy, to insinuate piety among the young stqdents, and to increase their own number with such as God should call in to them. But, before they separated, they established a way of life, to which they were all to conform; and bound themselves to observe these following rules: “First, that they should lodge in hospitals, and live only upon alms. Secondly, that they should be superiors by turns, each in his week, lest their fervour should carry them too far, if they did not prescribe limits to one another for their penances and labour. Thirdly, that they should preach in all public places, and every other place where they could be permitted to do it; should set forth in their sermons the beauty and rewards of virtue, with the deformity and punishments of sin, and this in a plain, evangelical manner, without the vain ornaments of eloquence. Fourthly, that they should teach children the Christian doctrine, and the principles of good manners: and, Fifthly, that they should take no money for executing their functions; but do all for the glory of God, and nothing else.” They all consented to these articles; but, as they were often asked, who they were, and what was their institute, Ignatius declared to them in precise terms what they were to answer: he told them that being united to fight against heresies and vices, under the standard of Jesus Christ, the only name which answered their design was, “The Society of Jesus.”

Ignatius, Faber, and Laynez, came to Rome about the end of 1537, and at their first arrival had an audience of his holiness Paul III. They offered him their service; and Loyola undertook, under his apostolical authority, the reformation of manners, by means of his spiritual exercises, and of Christian instructions. Being dismissed for the present, with* some degree of encouragement, Loyola proposed soon after to his companions the founding of a new order; and, after conferring with Faber and Laynez about it, sent for the rest of his companions, who were dispersed through Italy, The general scheme being agreed on, he next conferred with his companions about his institute; and at several assemblies it was resolved, that to the vows of poverty and chastity, which they had already taken, they should add that of obedience; that they should elect a superior general, whom they must obey as God himself; that this superior should be perpetual, and his authority absolute; that wheresoever they should he sent, they should instantly and cheerfully go, even without any viaticum, and living upon alms, if it should be so required; that the professed of their society should possess nothing, either in particular or in common; but that in the universities they might have colleges with revenues and rents, for the subsistence of the students. A persecution in the mean time was raised against Loyola at Rome, who, however, went on with his great work, in spite of all opposition. Some of his companions were employed upon great occasions by the pope; and two of them, Simon Kodriguez and Francis Xavier, were sent to the Indies, with no less than the title of “Apostles of the new world.”

Loyola had already presented the pope with the plan of his new society; and he now continued his application with more waruuh than ever, that it might be approved by the holy see. Accordingly Paul III. confirmed it in 1540, on condition that their number should never exceed threescore; and again in 1543, without any restrictions. Loyola was created general of this new order in 1541, and made Rome his head- quarters, while his companions- dispersed themselves over the whole earth. He employed himself in several occupations, as the conversion of the Jews, the reforming of lewd women, and the assisting of orphans. Rome was at that time full of Jews, who were, many of them, ready to embrace Christianity, if they had not feared poverty; upon which, Paul III. at Loyola’s request, enacted, that they should preserve all their possessions; and that if any of them, who might be well born, should turn Christians, contrary to their parents’ consent, the whole substance of the family should devolve to them. Julius Hi. and Paul IV. added a new ordinance, namely, that all the synagogues in Italy should be taxed every year at a certain. sum, to be applied to the maintenance of the proselytes. There was at that time a convent of Magdalenes, into which such dissolute women as were desirous of leaving their infamous course of life, were admitted, provided they would oblige themselves to lead a conventual life for the rest of their days, and take all the vows of their order. But Loyola, thinking this condition, and some others, too severe, founded a new community of this kind of penitents, into which maids and married women might be indifferently admitted. It was called “The community of the grace of the blessed Virgin.” He caused apartments to be built in St. Mary’s church; and he frequently conducted them thither himself. He was sometimes told, that he lost his time, for that such women were never heartily converted; to which he replied, “If I should hinder them but one night from offending God, I should think' my time and labour well employed.”

But whatever honours might be paid to Loyola, nothing can be more surprising in his history, than the prodigious power which his order acquired, in so few years, in the old world, as well as in America, and the rapidity with whic, it multiplied after it was once established. In 1545, t suits were but eighty in all; in 1545, they had ten houses; in 1549, they had two provinces, one in Spain, another in Portugal, and twenty-two houses. In 1556, when Loyola died, they had twelve great provinces; in 1608, Ribacleneira reckons twenty-nine provinces, two vice-provinces, twenty-one professed houses, 293 colleges, thirty-three houses of probation, ninety-three other residences, and 1Q>5 81 Jesuits. But in the last catalogue, which was printed at Rome in 1679, they reckoned thirty-five provinces, two vice-provinces, thirty-three professed houses, *78 colleges, forty-eight houses of probation, eighty-eight seminaries, 160 residences, 106 missions, and in all 17,655 Jesuits, of whom 7870 were priests. What contributed chiefly to the prodigious increase of this order, in so short a time, wafr the great encouragement they received from the popes, as well as from the kings of Spain and Portugal, on account of the service it was supposed they might render to these several powers. Various sects of religion were at that time combining against popery; in Germany especially, where Lutheranism was prevailing. The Jesuits were thought a proper order to oppose these incursions; and so far might be useful to the pope. The Spaniard found his account in sending them to the Indies, where, by planting Christianity, and inculcating good manners, they might reduce barbarous nations into a more nvili/ed form, and by such means make them better subjects; and the Jesuits were not unlikely to succeed in these employments, whether we consider their manners, discipline, or policy. They carried a great appearance of holiness, and observed a regularity of conduct in their lives and conversations, which gave them great influence over the people; who, on this account, and especially as they took upon them the education of youth without pay or reward, conceived the highest opinion of, and reverence for them. Their policy, too, within themselves, was wisely contrived, and firmly established. They admitted none into their society thai were not perfectly qualified in every respect. Their discipline was rigid, their government absolute, their obedience most submissive and implicit.

They experienced, however, from time to time, the strorigest opposition in several countries; in Spain, and particularly in France. No society ever had so many enemies as the Jesuits have had; the very books which have been written against them, would form a considerable library. Nor has this opposition been without the justest foundation. However serviceable they were to the see of Rome, to which they were always most devoutly attached, they were very pernicious in other countries, by propagating doctrines which have exposed sovereign princes to slaughter, and states to revolutions; and by corrupting religion and morality by mental reserves and logical distinctions to such a degree, that, according to them, the vilest and most profligate wretches in the world might do what they pleased, yet not offend against their rules; and for this they have often been thoroughly exposed, especially in the “Provincial Letters” of M. Pascal. They also became merchants, thinking by their riches to make dependents in every court, and, by that means to have absolute sway; while the individuals who, without gaining any particular advantage, laboured to aggrandize the body, were the victims of the infatuation of their superiors. The king of Portugal, persuaded that they instigated the assassins who attempted his life in 1758, drove them from his dominions in 1759. The king of France, considering this institution, which had been only tolerated in that kingdom, as being incompatible with its laws, suppressed it in 1763; and the king of Spain, for reasons which he concealed, for fear of raising troubles in his dominions, drove them out in 1767. The king of Naples, the duke of Parma, and the grand master of Malta followed his example in 1768; and pope Clement XIV. obliged to yield to the united power of the house of Bourbon, issued a bull for their final suppression, dated July 21, 1773.

, a learned protestant divine, was born at Langoworde, in Friesland, about 1556, and studied at Bremen, Wittemberg, and Geneva, where he diligently attended the lectures of Beza, Casaubon, and Francis Portus. At Newstadt also he heard the lectures of the learned Zachary Ursinus, who had so high an opinion of him as to recommend him as his own successor in the chair of logic; but this honour he declined. Soon after he became pastor of a congregation at Embden, the duties of which office he discharged with singular fidelity and zeal. In 1584 he was appointed preacher to the governor and deputies of the states of Friesland, and professor of divinity in the new liniversity of Franeker, which offices he filled with reputation nearly forty years, and was in that time often employed in very important affairs. He died at Franeker, Jan. 21, 1625, at the age of sixty-nine. He was author of many learned pieces against Bellannin, Socinus, Arminius, Vorstius, Grotius, and the other defenders of the cause of the remonstrants. One of his best works is that “De Papa Romano,” 1594, 8vo.

In 1652 he married the daughter of a zealous Socinian, and was appointed ro:idjntor to John Ciachovuis, minister of Siedlieski; and the synod of Czarcow having admitted him into the ministry, he was appointed pastor of that tliurch; but, on the Swedish invasion in 1655, he retired to Cracow with his family, where he employed himself in offices of devotion with the Hungarian Unitarians, who were come thither with prince Ragotski. At the same time he insinuated himself much into the king of Sweden’s favour; and the city reverting again to the dominion of Poland in 1657, he followed the Swedish garrison, with a view to obtain of that prinpe, that the Unitarians, who had put themselves under his protection, might be comprehended in the general amnesty, by the treaty of peace with Poland. On his arrival at Wolgast in October this year, he was well received by the Swedish monarch, and conversed intimately upon his religion with some Swedish lords; but when the peace was concluded at Oliva, he was disappointed in his object, and the Unitarians were excepted out of the general amnesty granted to all other dissenters from popery.

On this, instead of returning into Poland, he embarked for Copenhagen, in order to seek a settlement there for his exiled brethren, and arrived in that city in Nov. 1-660, where he made himself very acceptable to the Danish nobility. He had an extensive epistolary correspondence, which furnished him with many particulars from foreign countries. With this news he entertained the nobility; and, when it was read to the king (Frederic III.) he was so delighted with it, that he created a new place for him, that of secretary for transcribing these news-letters for his majesty’s use, and he was promised an annual pension for it. The king, who never received him at court, but often heard him discourse on religious subjects, engaged his confessor in a controversy with Lubienietski in the royal presence. But this giving umbrage to the Lutheran divines, Frederick found it necessary to tell him privately that all he could grant him was to connive at his followers settling at Altena. On this he returned, in 1661, to Stetin, in Pomerania, but his principles being equally obnoxious there, he was obliged to go to Hamburgh, whither he sent his family the next year, 1662. He had now three, several conferences with queen Christina, upon points of Socinianism, in the presence of some princes; and the king endeavoured to persuade the magistrates to suffer him to live quietly, but his intercession did not prove sufficient; and being several times commanded to retire, he went to the king at Copenhagen, in 1667.

His next remove was to Fredericksburg, where he obtained leave to settle with his banished brethren, aad a promise not to be disturbed in the private exercises of their religion. He acquainted the brethren with this news, and spared no pains nor cost, even to the impairing of his own estate, that he might settle them there; he also supported them at his own expence. But neither did they enjoy this happiness long. The duke of Holstein-Gottorp, without whose knowledge the above permission had been granted, at the persuasion of John Reinboht, one of his chaplains, and the Lutheran superintendant, banished them both from that city, and from all his dominions. In this exigence he returned to Hamburgh, by the advice of his friends, who had also procured him the title of secretary to the king of Poland, in hopes to oblige the magistrates to let him live quietly in that city; the king of Denmark likewise interceded again for him, all which prevailed for a considerable time, but at last the magistrates sent him positive orders to remove. Before, however, he could obey this order, he had poison given him in his meat, of which he died May 18, 1675, having lamented in verse the fate of his two daughters, who fell a sacrifice to the same poison two days before . His body was buried at Altena, against all the opposition that the Lutheran ministers could make. He had obtained a retreat for his banished brethren at Manheim, in the Palatinate, that elector being a prince of latitudinarian principles in matters of religion.

Lubienietski was composing his History of the Reformation of Poland at the time of his death, and nil that was found among his manuscripts Whs printed in Holland, in 1685, 8vo, with an account of his life prefixed, whence the materials of this memoir are taken. He wrote several books, the greater part of which, however, have not been printed: the titles of them may be seen in “Bibliotheca Antitrinitariorum,” p. 165. The most considerable of those which have been published is his “Theatrum Cometicum,” printed at Amsterdam, 1667, folio. This contains, among other things, the “History of Comets from the flood to 1665,” an elaborate work, containing a minute historical account of every single comet that had been seen or recorded. On the subject of comets, it appears he had corresponded with the most celebrated astronomers in Europe. They who had the care of the impression committed so many rogueries, that he was obliged to take a journey to Holland on the occasion.

The Socinians, who look upon him as a saint, if not a martyr, pretend that he was favoured with a very remarkable revelation during the siege of Stetin; and the following story is told in his life: “Two powerful reasons ei aged Lubienietski to pray that God would be pleased to cause this siege to be raised: his wife and children were in the town; and there was a Swedish count, who promised that be would turn Socinian, in case Lubienietski could by his prayers prevent the taking of it. This minister, animated by the private interest of his family, and by the hopes of gaining an illustrious proselyte to his religion, continued three weeks fasting and praying; after which he went to meet the count, and assured him that the town would not be taken. The count, and the persons about him, treated this as the effect of a delirium; and were the more confirmed in that opinion, as Lubienietski fell sick the moment he left them. But they were all extremely surprised, when, at the end of six days, there came news that the siege was raised; since it was impossible that any person should have acquainted Lubienietski with that good news, when he first told it. However, when the count was called upon to perform his promise, he answered, That he had applied to God in order to know whether he should do well to embrace that minister’s religion, and that God had confirmed him in the Augsburg confession.'”

, one of the most learned protestants of his time, was born at Westersted, in the county of Oldenburg, March 24, 1556, of which place his father was minister, who sent him first to Leipsic, where he prosecuted his studies with great success, and for further improvement went thence to Cologne. After this he visited the several universities of Helmstadt, Strasburg, Jena, Marpurg, and, last of all, Rostock, where he was made professor of poetry in 1595. Having there read lectures with great applause for ten years, he was advanced to the divinity chair in the same university, in 1605. In 1620 he was seized with a tertian ague, under which he laboured for ten months before it put a period to his life in June 162 1. He has the character of having been a good Greek scholar, and was well skilled in the Latin language, in which he made good verses, and he had much reputation as an orator, a mathematician, and a divine. He published several books, namely, 1. “Antiquarius, sive priscorum et minus usitatorum vocabulorum brevis et dilucida interpretatio.” 2. “Clavis Graecae linguae.” 3. “Anacreon, Juvenal, and Persius, with notes.” 4. “Horace and Juvenal, with a paraphrase.” 5. “The Anthologia, with a Latin version,” 1604, 4to. 6. “Epistolae veterum Grsecorum, Greece et Latine, cum methodo conscribendarum epistolarum.” 7. “Commentaiies upon some of the Epistles of St. Paul.” 8. “Monotessaion,sive historia evangelica,” &c. &c. i. e. a harmony of the four Evangelists. 9. “Nonni Dionysiaca,” in Greek and Latin, at Francfort, 1605, 8vo. 10. “Latin Poems,” inserted in the third volume of “Deliciae ^oetarum Germanorum.”

, a celebrated Roman poet, was a native of Cordova, in Spain, where he was born Nov. lh> in the year 37. His father Annseus Mela, a Roman knight, a man of distinguished merit and interest in his country, was the youngest brother of Seneca the philosopher; and his mother, Acilia, was daughter of Acilius Lucanus, an eminent orator, from which our author took his name. When only eight months old he was carried to Rome and carefully educated under the ablest masters in grammar and rhetoric, a circumstance which renders it singular that critics have endeavoured to impute the defects in his style to his being a Spaniard; but it is certain that his whole education was Roman. His first masters were Palaemon, the grammarian, and Flavius Virginius, the rhetorician. He then studied under Cornutus, from whom he imbibed the sentiments of the stoic school, and probably derived the lofty and free strain by which he is so much distinguished. It is said he completed his education at Athens. Seneca, then tutor to the emperor Nero, obtained for him the office of quaestor: he was soon after admitted to the college of augurs, and considered to be in the full career of honour and opulence. He gave proofs of poetical talents at a very early age, and acquired reputation by several compositions; a circumstance peculiarly unfortunate for him, as it clashed with the vanity of the emperor, who valued himself on his powers as a poet and musician. On one occasion Lucan was so imprudent as to recite one of his own pieces, in competition with Nero; and as the judges honestly decided in favour of Lucan, Nero forbad him to repeat any more of his verses in public, and treated him with so much indignity that Lucan no more looked up to him with the respect due to a patron and a sovereign, but took a part in the conspiracy of Piso and others against the tyrant; which being discovered, he was apprehended among the other conspirators. Tacitus and other authors have accused him of endeavouring to free himself from punishment by accusing his own mother, and involving her in the crime of which he was guilty. Mr. Hayley has endeavoured to rescue his name from so terrible a charge; and it is more likely that it was a calumny raised by Nero’s party to ruin his reputation. Be this as it may, his confessions were ofno avail, and no favour was granted him but the choice of the death he would die; and he chose the same which had terminated the life of his uncle Seneca. His veins were accordingly opened; and when he found himself growing cold and faint through loss of blood, he repeated some of his own lines, describing a wounded soldier sinking in a similar manner. He died in the year 65, and in the twentyseventh year of his age. Of the various poems of Lucan, none but his Pharsalia remain, which is an account of the civil wars between Caesar and Pompey, but is come down to us in an unfinished state. Its title to the name of an epic poem has been disputed by those critics, who, from the examples of Homer and Virgil, have maintained that machinery, or the intervention of supernatural agency, is essential to that species of composition. Others, however, have thought it rather too fastidious to refuse the epic name to a poem because not exactly conformable to those celebrated examples. Blair objects, tliat although Lucan’s subject is abundantly heroic, he cannot be reckoned happy in the choice of it, because it has two defects, the one its being too near the times in which he lived, which deprived him of the assistance of fiction and machinery; the other that civil wars, especially when as fierce and cruel as those of the Romans, present too many shocking objects to be fit for epic poetry, gallant and honourable achievements being a more proper theme for the epic muse. But Lucan’s genius seems to delight in savage scenes, and he even goes out of his way to introduce a long episode of Marius and Sylla’s proscriptions, which abounds with all the forms of atrocious cruelty. On the merits of the poetry itself there are various opinions. Considered as a school book, Dr. Warton has classed it with Statins, Claudian, and Seneca the tragedian, authors into whose works no youth of genius should ever be suffered to look, because, by their forced conceits, by their violent metaphors, by their swelling epithets, by their want of a just decorum, they have a strong tendency to dazzle and to mislead inexperienced minds, and tastes unformed, from the true relish of possibility, propriety, simplicity and nature. On the other hand it has been said, that although Lucan certainly possesses neither the fire of Homer, nor the melodious numbers of Virgil, yet if he had lived to a maturer age, his judgment as well as his genius would have been improved, and he might have claimed a more exalted rank among the poets of the Augustan age. His expressions are bold and animated; his poetry entertaining; and it has been asserted that he was never perused without the warmest emotions, by any whose minds were in unison with his own.

, a French traveller, was the son of a merchant at Rouen, and born there in 1664. From his youth he felt a strong inclination for travelling, which he gratified by several voyages to the Levant, Egypt, Turkey, and other countries. He brought home a great number of medals and other curiosities for the king’s cabinet, who made him his antiquary in 1714, and ordered him to write the history of his travels. Louis XV. sent him again to the Levant in 1723, whence he brought abundance of curiosities for the king’s library; particularly medals and manuscripts. His passion for travelling reviving again in 1736, he went to Madrid; and died there in 1737, after an illness of eight months. His travels, which were edited by Baudelot de Dairval, Fourmont, and Banier, are not ill written, and sufficiently amusing; yet not of the first authority, being supposed to contain some exaggerated, and some false representations. They consist of 7 vols. 12mo, published in 1699 1714.

, a learned English divine, of Welch extraction, was son of Mr. Richard Lucas of Presteign in Radnorshire, and born in that county in 1648. After a proper foundation of school learning, he was sent to Oxford, and entered of Jesus college, in 1664. Having taken both his degrees in arts, he entered into holy orders about 1672, and was for some time master of the free-school at Abergavenny; but being much esteemed for his talents in the pulpit, he was chosen vicar of St. Stephen’s, Coiemanstreet, London, and lecturer of St. Olave, Southwark, in, 1683. He took the degree of doctor in divinity afterwards, and was installed prebendary of Westminster in 1696. His sight began to tail him in his youth, but he lost it totally about this time. He died in June 1715, and was interred in Westminster-abbey; but no stone or monument marks his grave. He was greatly esteemed for his piety and learning, and his writings will preserve his fame. He wrote “Practical Christianity;” “An Enquiry after Happiness;” “The Morality of the Gospel;” “Christian Thoughts for. every Day of the Week;” “A Guide to Heaven;” “The Duty of Servants;” and several other “Sermons,” in five volumes. He also wrote a Latin translation of the “Whole Duty of Man,” which was published in 1680. He left a son of his own name, who was bred at Sydney-college, Cambridge, where he took his master of arts degree, and published some of his father’s sermons.

, a Greek author, was born at Samosata, the capital of Comagene; the time of his birth is uncertain, though generally fixed in the reign of the emperor Trajan; but Mr. Moyle, who has taken some pains to adjust the age of Lucian, fixes the fortieth year of his age to the 164th year of Christ, and the fourth of Marcus Antoninus; and consequently, his birth to the 124th year of Christ, and the eighth of Adrian. His birth was mean; and his father, not being able to give him any learning, resolved to breed him a sculptor, and in that view put him apprentice to his brother-in-law; but, taking a dislike to the business, he applied himself to the study of polite learning and philosophy; being encouraged by a dream, which he relates in the beginning of his works, and which evidently was the product of his inclination to letters. He tells us also himself, that he studied the law, and practised some time as an advocate; but disliking the wrangling oratory of the bar, he threw off his gown, and took up that of a rhetorician. In this character he settled first at Antioch; and passing thence into Ionia in Greece, he travelled into Gaul and Italy, and returned at length into his own country by the way of Macedonia. He lived four and twenty years after the death of Trajan, and even to the time of Marcus Aurelius, who made him register of Alexandria in Egypt. He tells us himself, that when he entered upon this office, he was in extreme old age, and had one leg in Charon’s boat. Suidas asserts that he was torn to pieces by dogs. He died, however, in the year 214, aged 90.

As Lucian made a figure in various employments, his works exhibit him sometimes as a rhetorician and panegyrist; in others he is distinguished chiefly as a pleader; in a few he assumes a more serious tone, and reasons on the subject before him in a vein of manly sense, united to deep observation and knowledge of mankind. Of far the greater part of his " Dialogues/' however, the leading and prominent feature is ridicule, in dispensing which he is so often guilty of obscenity and impiety, that moralists in all ages have united in condemning him. In this country he has, notwithstanding, found many translators, Spence, Mayne, Hickes, Carr, and Francklin, who have doubtless bespoke attention to his wit by omitting the objectionable passages. The best editions of the original, which was first printed in 1496, at Florence, are those of Bourdelot, Paris, 1615, folio; of Grevius, Amst 1687, 2 vols. 8vo; of Hemsterhusius, ibid. 1743, 4 vols. 4 to, edit. opt. which has been followed by all subsequent editors.

, bishop of Cagliari, the metropolis of Sardinia, is known in ecclesiastical history as the author of a schism, the occasion of which was, that Lucifer would not allow the decree made in the council of Alexandria, A. D. 362, for receiving the apostate Arian bishops. This he opposed so resolutely, that, rather than yield, he chose to separate himself from the communion of the rest, and to form a new schism, which bore his name, and -soon gained a considerable footing, especially in the West; several persons no less distinguished for piety than learning, and among the rest Gregory, the famous bishop of Elvira, having adopted his rigid sentiments. As Lucifer is honoured by the church of Rome as a saint, where his festival is kept on the 20th of May, Baronius pretends that he abandoned his schism, and returned to the communion of the church, before his death. But his contemporary, Ruffinus, who probably knew him, assures us, that he died in the schism which he had formed, A D. 370. His works are written in a harsh and barbarous style. According to Lardner, they consist very much of passages of the Old and New Testament, cited one after another, which he quotes with marks of the greatest respect. He farther adds, that the works of this prelate have not yet been published with all the advantage that might be wished. The titles of these works are, “Ad Constantinum Imperatorem, lib. ii.” “De Regibus Apostaticis” “De non conveniendo cum Hereticis” “De non parcendo Delinquentibus in Deum” “Quod moriendurn sit pro Filio Dei” and “Epistola brevis ad Florentium.” They were collected together, and published at Paris by John Till, bishop of Meaux, in 1568, and at Venice about 1780, in fol. with additions.

, one of the chiefs of the republican party during the civil wars, was descended of an ancient and good family, originally of Shropshire, and thence removed into Wiltshire, in which county he wag born, at Maiden- Bradley, about 1620. After a proper foundation in grammar, he was sent to Trinity-college in Oxford, where he took the degree of batchelor of arts in 1636, but removed to the Temple, to study the law, as a qualification for serving his country in parliament, his ancestors having frequently represented the county of Wiltshire. His father, sir Henry Ludlow, who was a member of the long parliament and an enemy to the measures of the court, encouraged his son to engage as a volunteer in the earl of Essex’s life-guard. In this station he appeared against the king, at the battle of Edge-hill, in '1642; and, having raised a troop of horse the next summer, 1643, he joined sir Edward Hungerford in besieging Wardour-castle. This being taken, he was made governor of it; but being retaken the following year, 1644, by the king’s forces, he was carried prisoner to Oxford. After remaining here some time, he was released by exchange, went to London, and was appointed high-sheriff of Wiltshire by the parliament. He then appears to have declined a command under the earl of Essex, but accepted the post of major in sir Arthur Haslerig’s regiment of horse, in the army of sir William Waller, and marched to form the blockade of Oxford. From Oxford, however, he was immediately sent, with a commission from sir William, to raise and command a regiment of horse, and was so successful as to be able to join Waller with about five hundred horse, and was engaged in the second battle fought at Newbury. Upon new modelling the army, he was dismissed with Waller, and was not employed again in any post, civil or military, till 1645, when he was chosen in parliament for Wiltshire in the room of his father, who died in 1643.

Soon after the death of the earl of Essex, Sept. 1646, Ludlow had reason to suspect, from, a conversation with Cromwell, who expressed a dislike to the parliament and extolled the army, that his ambition would lead him to destroy the civil authority, and establish his own; and therefore he gave a flat negative to the vote for returning Cromwell thanks, on his shooting ' Arnell, the agitator, and thereby quelling that faction in the army. In the same spirit of what has been called pure rep ublicanism, he joined in the vote for not addressing the king, and in the declaration for bringing him to a trial: and soon alter, in a conference with Cromwell and the leaders of the army, he harangued upon the necessity and justice of the king’s execution, and, after that, the establishment of an equal commonwealth, in which he differed from another pure republican, Lilburne, who was for new-modelling the parliament first, and then, as a natural consequence, putting the king to death. Ludlow induced the Wiltshire people to agree to the raising of two regiments of foot, and one of horse, against the Scots, when they were preparing to release the king from Carisbrook- castle. After which, he went to Fairfax, at the siege of Colchester, and prevailed with him to oppose entering into any treaty with the king; and when the House of Commons, on his majesty’s answer from Newport, voted that his concessions were ground for a future settlement, Ludlow not only expressed his dissatisfaction, but had a principal share both in forming and executing the scheme of forcibly excluding all that party from the house by colonel Pride, in 1648. Agreeably to all these proceedings, he sat upon the bench at the trial and condemnation of the king, concurred in the vote that the House of Peers was useless and dangerous, and became a member of the council of state.

When Cromwell succeeded Fairfax, as captain-general of the army, and lord-lieutenant of Ireland, he, as an artful stroke of policy, nominated Ludlow lieutenant-general of horse in that kingdom, which being confirmed by the parliament, Ludlow went thither, and discharged the office with diligence and success, till the death of Ireton, lorddeputy, Nov. 1651, whom, in his “Memoirs,” he laments as a staunch republican. He now acted as general, by an appointment from the parliament commissioners, but without that title, which Cromwell, of whose ambitious views be constantly expressed a jealousy, as constantly found one pretext or other to keep from being conferred on him; and in the following year, 1652, Fleetwood went thither with the chief command. Soon after this, the rebellion being suppressed, a considerable part of the army was disbanded, the pay of the general and other officers reduced, and necessary steps taken for satisfying the arrears due to them, which Ludlow says fell heavier upon him than others, as in supporting the dignity of the station he had spent upwards of 4500l. in the four years of his service here, out of his own estate, over and above his pay. At home, in the mean time, Cromwell was become sovereign, under the title of protector. This being esteemed by Ludlow an usurpation, he endeavoured by every means in his power to hinder the proclamation from being read in Ireland; and being defeated in that attempt, he dispersed a paper against Cromwell, called “The Memento:” for which he was dismissed from his post in the army, and ordered not to go to London by Fleetwood, now deputy of Ireland. Soon after, being less narrowly watched by Henry Cromwell, who succeeded in that office, he found means to escape and cross the water to Beaumaris; but was there seized and detained till he subscribed an engagement, never to act against the government then established. But this subscription being made with some reserve, he was pressed, on his arrival in London, Dec. 1655, to make it absolute; which he refused to do, and endeavoured to draw major-general Harrison, and Hugh Peters, into the same opinion. Cromwell, therefore, after trying in vain, in a private conference, to prevail upon him to subscribe, sent him an order from the council of state, to give security in the sum of 5000l. not to act against the new government, within three days, on pain of being taken into custody. Not obeying the order, he was apprehended by the president’s warrant; but the security being given by his brother Thomas Ludlow, though, as he says, without his consent, he went into Essex, where he continued till Oliver died. He was then returned in the new parliament called upon Richard’s accession to the protectorate; and, either from connivance or cowardice on the part of the government, was suffered to sit in the house without taking the oath required of every member, not to act or contrive any thing against the protector. He was afterwards very active in procuring the restoration of the Rump parliament; in which, with the rest, he took possession of his seat again, and the same day was appointed one of the committee of safety. Soon after this, he obtained a regiment, by the interest of sir Arthur Haslerig; and in a little time was nominated one of the council of state, every member of which took an oath to be true and faithful to the commonwealth, in opposition to Charles Stuart, or any single person. He was likewise appointed by parliament one of the commissioners for naming and approving officers in the army.

But the Wallingford-house party, to remove him out of the way, recommended him to the parliament, for the post of commander in chief of the forces in Ireland, in the room of Henry Cromwell, and he accordingly arrived, with that command, at Dublin, in August 1659; but in September, receiving Lambert’s petition to parliament, for settling the government under a representative and select senate, he procured a counter petition to be signed by the officers of the army near Dublin, declaring their resolution of- adhering closely to the parliament and soon after, with the Consent of Fieetwood, set out for England. On his arrival at Beaumaris, hearing that the army had turned the parliament oat of the house, and resumed the supreme power, he hesitated for some time about proceeding on his journey, but at length resolved upon it; and on his arrival at Chester, finding an addition made to the army’s scheme of government, by which all the officers were to receive new commissions from Fleetwood, and that a committee of safety was appointed, consisting of twenty-one members, of which he was one, and that he was also continued one of the committee for nomination of officers, he set out for London the next day, and arrived there Oct. 29, 1659. The Wallingford-house p;irty prevailing to have a new parliament called, Ludlow opposed it with great fervour, in defence of the Hump, and proposed to qualify the power of the army by a council of twenty-one under the denomination of the Conservators of liberty; but being defeated in this, by the influence of the Wallingford-house party, he resolved to return to his post in Ireland, and had the satisfaction to know, before he left London, that it was at last carried to restore the old parliament, which was done two or three- days after. In Ireland, however, he was far from being well received. Dublin was barred against him, and landing at Duncannon, he was blockaded there by a party of horse, pursuant to an order of the council of officers, who likewise charged him with several crimes and misdemeanors against the army. He wrote an answer to this charge; but, before he sent it away, received an account, that the parliament had confirmed the proceedings of the council of officers at Dublin against him; and, about a week after, he received a letter from them, signed William Lenthall, recalling him home.

Upon this, he embarked for England; and in the way, at Mi.lford-Comb, found by the public news, that sir Charles Coote had exhibited a charge of high treason against him. On his arrival at London, he took his place in the house; and, obtaining a copy of his charge, moved to be heard in his defence, but the approach of general Monk gave a new turn to public affairs. Ludlow, who waited upon him, was so far deceived as to believe that Monk was inclined to a republic. On learning Monlc’s real design, however, he first applied to sir Arthur Haslerig, to draw their scattered forces together to oppose Monk; and that proposal not being listened to, he endeavoured, with the other republicans, to prevent the dissolution of the Rump, by ordering writs to be issued to fill up the vacant seats; but the speaker refused to sign the warrants. He also pressed very earnestly to be heard concerning the charge of high treason, lodged against him from Ireland, to no purpose; so that when the members secluded in 16448 returned to the house, with Monk’s approbation, he withdrew himself from it, until being elected for the borough of Hindon, (part of his own estate) in the convention parliament, which met the 24th of April, 1660, he took his seat in the House of Commons in pursuance of an order he had received, tQ attend his duty there. He now also sent orders to collect his rents, and dispose of his effects in Ireland; but was prevented by sir Charles Coote, who seized both, the stock alone amounting to 1500l.; and on the vote in parliament, to apprehend all who had signed the warrant for the king’s execution, he escaped by shifting his abode very frequently. During his recess, the House was busy in preparing the bill of indemnity, in which he was, more than once, very near being inserted as one of the seven excepted persons; and a proclamation being issued soon after the king’s return, for all the late king’s judges to surrender themselves in fourteen days time, on pain of being left out of the said act of indemnity, he consulted with his friends, whether he should not surrender himself according to the proclamation. Several of these, and even sir Harbottle Grimston, the speaker, advised him to surrender, and engaged for his safety; but he chose to follow the more solid and friendly opinion of lord Ossory, son to the marquis of Ormond, and determined to quit England. He instantly took leave of his friends, and went over London bridge in a coach, to St. George’s church, in the borough of Southwark; where he took horse, and travelling all night, arrived at Lewes, in Sussex, by break of day the next morning. Soon after, he went on board a small open vessel prepared for him; but the weather being very bad, he quitted that, and took shelter in a larger, which had been got ready for him, but struck upon the sands in going down the river, and lay then a-ground. He was hardly got a-board this, when some persons came to search that which he had quitted, without suspecting any body to be in the boat which lay a-shore, so that they did not examine it, by which means he escaped; and waiting a day and a night for the storm to abate (during which the master of the vessel asked him, whether he had heard that lieutenant-general Ludlow was confined among the rest of the king’s judges), the next morning he put to sea, and landed at Dieppe that evening, before the gates were shut.

, a learned orientalist, was born at Erfurt in Thuringia, June 15, 1624, of one of the best families in the city, then in reduced circumstances. He began his studies at home, under very insufficient masters, and having acquired some knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, applied himself to the French, Italian, and Spanish, and afterwards to those of the East. He also made some progress in physic and law, but without any view to a profession. In 1645 he went to Leyden, a studied the languages under Erpenius, Golius, and other: eminent teachers, and likewise maintained some disputations in law. After residing here ahove a year, he was appointed travelling tutor to a young man of family, with whom he went to France, and at Caen contracted a friendship with Bochart, and taught t him the elements of the Ethiopic language. He afterwards went with his pupil to England but the rebellion being at its height at this time, he soon returned to Holland. The baron de Rosenhahn, ambassador from Christina queen of Sweden at the court of France, happened to have in his retinue a brother of Ludolf, who recommended our author to that nobleman so effectually, that he sent for him from Holland to Paris, to be preceptor to his two sons. Soon after, in 1619, he sent. him to Rome, to search for papers and memoirs, which John Magnus, archbishop of Upsal, was said to have conveyed formerly to Rome, and which Christina was desirous to recover. Ludolph performed this journey in company with two Polish gentlemen, of whom he learned their language. At Rome he found no manuscripts relating to Sweden; but this journey was not useless to himself, for by his conversation with four Abyssinians, then at Rome, be perfected himself in the knowledge of the Ethiopic language. Immediately after his return to Paris he was obliged to go to Sweden with the ambassador, where he found a great many learned men at queen Christina’s court, and had an opportunity of learning there the Portuguese, Moscovite, an. I Finland languages. In 1652, Ernest duke of Saxe-Gotha sent for him to his court, and made him his Aulic-counsellor, and governor to the princes his sons, and employed him in various political affairs and negociations. In 1678 he desired leave to retire, resolving upon a private life, and went to Fraucfort, where he had a commission from the dukes of Saxony to act in their names in the conferences held there in 1681 and 1682, in order to settle a pacification between the emperor, the empire, and France. The elector palatine likewise gave him the direction of some of his revenues; and the electors of Saxony honoured him with the titles of their counsellor and resident. But Abyssinia was the chief object of the attention of our author, who concerted measures to form an alliance between that remote nation and the powers of Europe. He had addressed himself for that purpose, in 1679, to the court of Vienna, who referred him to the English and Dutch, as more capable of contributing to that great design. He vyent, there- i fore, to England in 168,'i, but did not find any disposition there to execute his scheme for establishing a commerce with the Abyssinians, and although he found rather more encouragement in Holland, the scheme was defeated by the Abyssinians themselves. In 1684, Ludolph returned to Francfort, having passed through France, and began to apply himself vigorously to the writing of his “History of Ethiopia.” In 1690 he was appointed president of an academy of history, which was’ established in that city. He lived several years after, and died April 8, 1704, agfcd almost eighty years.

He understood twenty-five languages: Hebrew, and that of the Rabbins; the Samaritan, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, learned, literal, and vulgar; Greek, learned and vulgar; Ethiopic, learned and vulgar, Called Amharic; Coptic, Persian, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Flemish, English, Polish, Sclavonic, and the ancient language of Sclavonia, and of the Finnes. He was equally esteemed for his manners as for his talents; and was very communicative; hardy and indefatigable in business, and so much inured to study, that he had always a book open before him at his ordinary repasts. He left a son, Christian Ludolph, who was the only child he had, and was counsellor and secretary to the duke of Saxe-Eysenach. ' His works are: 1. “Schola Latinitatis, &c.” Gothae, 1672, 8vo. 2. “Historia Kthiopica, &<.” Franc. 1681, folio. 3. “Epistola Ethiopice scripta,” 1685, in folio. This was the letter he wrote to persuade the Abyssinians to an alliance with the princes of Europe. 4. “De bello Turcico feliciter conficiendo, &c.” Franc. 1686. 4to. 5. “Remarque* sur les pensees enjouez & serieux, &c.”' Leipsic, 1689, 8vo. 6. “Epistolse Samaritans Sichetnitarum ad Jobum Ludolphum, &c.” Leipsic, 1688, 4to. 7, “Specimen commentarii in historian! Ethiopicam,” 1687. 8. “Comaientarins in historiam Ethiopicam, &c.” Franc. 1691, folio. 9. “Appendix ad hist. Ethiopicam illiusque commentarium, &c.” ibid. 1693, folio. 10. “Jugerrtent d‘un anonyme sur une lettre a un ami touchant une systeme d’etymologie Hebraique.” II. “Dissertatio de locustis, &c.” Franc. 1694, folio. 12. “Grammatica Amharicae liiifmse qua; est vernacula Habessinorum,” ibid. 1698, fojio. 13.“Lexicon Amharico-Latinnm, &c.” ibid. 1698, folio. J4. Lexicon Ethiopico-Latinum, ibid, editio secunda,“1699, folio. 15.” Gratnmatica linguae Ethiopian, secunda,“ibid. 1702, folio. 16.” Psalterium Davidis, Ethiopice & Latine, &c.“ibid. 1701, 4to. J7.” Theatre historique de ce que s’est passé en Europe, pendant le xvii siécle,“in German,” avec des figures de Remain de Hoog,“ibid. 2 vols. folio. 18.” Confessio fidei Claudii Regis Ethiopicse," &c. in 4to.

, also a native of Erfurt, and born in 1655, was son to George Henry Ludolpb, a counsellor of that city, and nephew to the preceding Job Ludolpb, who had some share in the care of his education, and* the regulation of his studies. He thus became qualified for the post he afterwards enjoyed, of secretary to Mr. Lenthe, envoy from Christian V. king of Denmark, to the court of Great Britain. This gentleman, for his faithfulness and ability, recommended him afterwards to prince George of Denmark, and in 1680 he became his secretary, which office he enjoyed for some years, until, being incapacitated by illness, he was discharged, with a handsome pension. After his recovery, he took a resolution to visit some foreign countries, particularly Russia, which then was hardly known to travellers; and, as he had some knowledge of the Russian language before be left England, he easily became acquainted with the principal men of that country. He also met with some Jews there, with whom he frequently conversed, and became so great a master of the Hebrew tongue, that he could talk with them in that language; and he gave such uncommon proofs of his knowledge, that the Russian priests took him for a conjuror. He also understood music, and had the honour to play before the czar at Moscow, who expressed the utmost surprise and delight at his performance. Ludolph returned to London in 1694, when he was cut for the stone. As soon as his health would permit, in gratitude for the civilities he had received in Russia, he undertook to write a grammar of their language; by which the natives might be taught their own tongue in a regular form. This book was printed by the university press at Oxford, and published in 1696. This essay, as he says in his preface, he hoped might be of use to traders and travellers; as it was an introduction to the knowledge of a language, which was spoken through a vast tract of country, from Archangel as far as Astracan, and from Ingermania as far as the confines of China.

The deplorable state of Christianity, in the countries through which he travelled, undoubtedly moved him to undertake after his return the impression of the New Testament in vulgar Greek, with the ancient Greek in tbie opposite column, and to make a charitable present of it to the Greek church. He printed it from a copy in two volumes which had been published several years before in Holland. These two volumes were by the industry of Ludolph, and the generous contributions of the bishop of Worcester, and their friends, printed in one volume, 12mo, in London; and afterwards distributed among the Greeks by Ludolph, by means of his friendship and correspondence with some of the best-disposed among them. He often expressed his wishes, that the Protestant powers in Europe would settle a sort of college at Jerusalem; and in some degree imitate the great zeal of the papists, who spare neither cost nor pains to propagate their religion everywhere. He wished also, that such men as were designed for that college, might be acquainted with the vulgar Greek, Arabic, and Turkish languages, and might by universal love and charity be qualified to propagate genuine Christianity: “for many,” says he, “propagate their own particular systems, and take this to be the gospel of Christ.”

In 1742, and again in 1757, our author published his “Institutiones Historico-Physicse Regni Vegetabilis,” in 8vo. In this work, which shews him still in pursuit of novelty rather than of truth, even the disguise of a Linnjean is almost laid aside, a system of arrangement being proposed in which the stamens and styles make an essential, if not a leading, feature. The favourite old system of vinus still takes precedence, though it serves only as additional impediment in the way of natural affinities, which defect is in some measure concealed by the primary characters not being strictly followed. This volume may therefore be considered as a tacit tribute of respect to the illustrious Swede, arising from its author’s progress in judgment and experience. He had no motive to withhold this tribute, as Linnæus never resented nor repelled hi> attacks. Ludwig began, in 1760, to publish impressions, chiefly of medicinal plants, taken from the dried specimen with printer’s ink, or with smoked paper, in folio, under the title of “Ectypa Vegetabilium,” which he continued from time to time. Such impressions give undoubtedly a correct outline, at least if the plant be fully displayed, but the rest is a mass of confusion; especially as the more elevated parts, which should be light, are necessarily the darkest. He wrote also occasionally on medico-botanical subjects, as on the effects of extract of Stramonium, and of the Belladonna, or deadly nightshade, in the epilepsy. His opinion seems not to have been favourable to cither. He died at Leipsic in 1773, aged sixty-four. He left a son named Christian Frederick, born in 1751, who became professor of natural history in the same university, and is the author of various tracts on botany, anatomy, and physiology.

The publication of his works was in consequence of an order which his vow of obedience would not suffer him to refuse: he published accordingly, seven large volumes in folio , the fourth of which he dedicated to Urban VIII. Upon this occasion he went for the first time to pay his respects to the pope, by whom he was very graciously received; and from that time so highly respected, that Urban made him a cardinal, in Dec. 1643, without any previous notice or solicitation. To this promotion, however, he is said to have shown the greatest repugnance, and would not permit the Jesuits’ college to discover any signs of joy, or grant the scholars a holiday. He looked upon the coach, which cardinal Barberifli sent him, as his coffin; and when he was in the pope’s palace, he told the officers who were going to put on his cardinal’s robes, that he was resolved to represent first to his holiness, that the vows he had made as a Jesuit would not permit him to accept of a cardinal’s hat. He was answered, that the pope had dispensed with those vows. “Dispensations,” replied he, “leave a man to his natural liberty and, if I am permitted to enjoy mine, I will never accept of the purple.” Being introduced to the pope, he asked whether his holiness, by virtue of holy obedience, commanded him to accept the dignity ' to which the pontiff answering, that he did; Lugo acquiesced, and bowed his head to receive the hat. Yet he constantly kept a Jesuit near his person, to be a perpetual witness of his actions. He continued to dress and undress himself; he would not suffer any hangings to be put up in his palace; and established so excellent an order in it, that it was considered as an useful seminary. He died Aug. 20, 1660, leaving his whole estate to the Jesuits’ college at Rome; and was interred, by his own directions, at the feet of Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the order.

, a celebrated Lombard historian of the tenth century, was born at Pavia. He was bred in the court of Hugo king of Italy, and was afterwards secretary to Berengarius II. by whom, in the year 948, he was sent ambassador to Cpnstantine Porphyrogenitus. After having long served Berengarius, he was disgraced, merely, as it is said, because he censured some of the proceedings with which the latter years of that prince were dishonoured. His goods were confiscated, and he fled for refuge to Otho emperor of Germany. Otho amply avenged his cause by driving Berengarius from the throne; and in the year 963, advanced Luitprandus to the bishopric of Cremona. In the year 968 he sent him ambassador to the emperor Nicephorus Phocas. That emperor had taken great offence that Otho had assumed the style of Roman emperor, and Luitprandus, who undertook boldly to justify his master, irritated him so much, that he received very harsh treatment, and was even thrown for a time into prison, nor was he suffered to return into Italy till the expiration of the year. The precise time of his death is not known. He wrote the history of his own times in six books; the best edition of which is that of Antwerp, in folio, published in 1640. His style is harsh, but he throws great light on the history of the lower empire. He is among the “Scriptores return Italicarum,” published by Muratori. Luitprandus was one of the bishops who subscribed the condemnation of pope John XII.; and in the last six chapters of his book, he gives a distinct account of all ilie transactions of that synod, which was held at Rome by the bishops of Italy. The lives of the popes, and the chronicle of the Goths, have been falsely ascribed to him.

, superintendant of music to Louis XIV. was born at Florence in 1634, of obscure parents; but an ecclesiastic, discovering his propensity to music, taught him the practice of the guitar. At ten years of age he was sent to Paris, in order to be a page of Mad. de Montpensier, a niece of Louis XIV. but the lady not liking his appearance, which was mean and unpromising, he was removed into the kitchen as her under-scullian. This degradation, however, did not affect his spirit, for he used, at his leisure, to scrape upon a scurvy fiddle; and, being heard by some person who, had discernment, was mentioned to his mistress as a person of both talents and a hand for music. She then employed a master to teach him the violin; and in a few months he became so good a proficient, that he was removed from the kitchen to the chamber, and ranked among the musicians.

Being for some offence dismissed from the princess’s service, he got himself entered among the king’s violins; and in a little time became able to compose. Some of his airs being noticed by the king, he called for the author; and was so struck with his performance of them on the violin, of which Lulli was now become A master, that in 1660 he created a new band, called “Les Petits Violons,” and placed him at the head of it. He was afterwards appointed sur-intendant de la musique de la chambre du Roy; and upon this associated himself with Quinault, who was appointed to write the operas; and being now become composer and joint director of the opera, he not only detached himsek' from the former band, and instituted one of his own, but, what is more extraordinary, neglected the violin so much, that he had not even one in his house, and never played upon it afterwards^ except to very few, and in private. On the other hand, to the guitar, a trifling instrument, he retained throughout life such a propensity, that for his amusement he resorted to it voluntarily; and to perform on it even before strangers, needed no incentive. The reason of this seeming perverseness of temper has been thus assigned: “The guitar is an instrument of small estimation among persons skilled in music, the power of performing on it being attained without much difficulty; and, so far as regards the reputation of the performer, it is of small moment whether he plays very well on it or not: but the performance on the violin is a delicate and an arduous energy; which Lulli knowing, set too high a value on the reputation he had acquired when in constant practice, to risk the losing of it.”

In 1686, the king was seized with an indisposition which threatened his life; but, recovering from it, Lulli was required to compose a “Te Deum” upon the occasion, and produced one not more remarkable for its excellence, than for the unhappy accident which attended the performance of it. He had neglected nothing in the composition of the music and the preparations for the execution of it; and, the better to demonstrate his zeal, he himself beat the time; but with the care he used for this purpose, he gave himself in the heat of action, a blow upon the end of his foot; and this ending in a gangrene, which baffled all the [efforts of] his surgeons, put an end to his life, March 22, 1687. The following story is related of this musician in his last illness. Some years before, he had been closely engaged in composing for the opera; from which his confessor took occasion to insinuate, that unless, as a testimony of sincere repentance, he would throw the last of his compositions into the fire, he must expect no absolution. He consented: but one of the young princes coming to see him, when he was grown better, and supposed to be out of danger, “What, Baptiste,” says the prince, “have you thrown your opera into the fire? You were a fool for giving credit thus to a dreaming Jansenist, and burning good music.” “Hush, my lord,” answered Lulli, “I knew very well what I was about; I have a fair copy of it.” Unhappily this ill-timed pleasantry was followed by a relapse: the gangrene increased, and the prospect of inevitable death threw him into such pangs of remorse, that he submitted to be laid upon an heap of ashes, with a cord about his neck. In this situation he expressed a deep sense of his late transgression; and, being replaced in his bed, he, further to expiate his offence, sung to an air of his own composing, the following words: Il faut mourir, pecheur, il faut mourir. Lulli is considered as the person who brought French music to perfection, and his great operas and other pieces were long held in the highest estimation. He was no less remarkable for his humourous talents, than for his musical genius; and even Moliere, who was fond of his company, would often say, “Now, Lulli, make us laugh.”

Lulli, says Dr. Burney, was a fortunate man to arrive in a country where music had been so little cultivated, that he never had any rival, nor was there throughout the whole kingdom of France an individual who had the courage to doubt of his infallibility in his art. He was fortunate in so magnificent a patron, and still more fortunate in a lyric poet, who could interest an audience by all the powers of poetry, by the contexture of his fables, and variety and force of his characters. Lulli was rough, rude, and coarse in his manners, but without malice. His greatest frailties were the love of wine and money. There was found in his coffer 630,000 livres in gold, an exorbitant sum for the time in which he lived.

, was a native of Majorca, born in 1236. He was considered in his own time as a prodigy of learning and sagacity, and honoured with the title of Doctor illuminatus. His logic, and his art of memory, have been particularly celebrated, but are not found to deserve the commendations they once received. After applying most diligently to almost all sciences, he lost his life in the character of a missionary. Having gone thither to preach the truths of the Gospel, he suffered great hardships in Africa, and died on his passage home, in March 1315, at the age of eighty. His body was carried to Majorca, where he was honoured as a martyr. His works were published collectively, within these few years, at Mentz; and treat of theology, morals, physic, chemistry, natural philosophy, law, &c. in a truly barbarous style, with much erudition and subtlety, but very little of sound judgment. There are few instances of a great fame so completely extinct as that of Raimond Lully. His art of memory, indeed, for which he was most celebrated, is a most ridiculous invention, wholly unworthy of notice, except, says Brucker, as a specimen of the artifice with which men, who have more ingenuity than honesty, frequently impose upon vulgar weakness and credulity.

, an eminent scholar, was the son of William Lupset, goldsmith and citizen of London. He was born in the parish of St. Mildred’s, Bread-street, in 1498, and was educated at St. Paul’s school under the celebrated Lily. After this he is supposed to have studied some time at Pembroke-hall, Cambridge, whence he went to Paris, and took his bachelor’s degree in arts. On his return to England, he settled, about 1519, in Corpus Christi college, Oxford, and succeeded John Clement in the place of lecturer in rhetoric, founded by cardinal Wolsey; and such appears to have been his reputation, that the university publicly thanked the cardinal for his recommendation of so able a man. In 1521 he proceeded M. A. When Richard Pace was sent agent to Italy, Lupset accompanied him as his secretary, and in the course of his travels became acquainted with many of the most learned men of the time, particularly Pole, afterwards cardinal, sir Thomas More, and Erasmus. After returning to England, He was sent to France by cardinal Wolsey, as tutor to his natural son Thomas Winter. In 1529 he was presented to the living of St. Martin’s Ludgate, and in 1530 was made prebend of Salisbury. He died in the flower of his age, Dec. 27, 1532, having scarcely completed his thirty-sixth year. He was reputed a man of very general learning, and of great piety, modesty, and candour, in all which respects Lelaiul and sir Thomas More have celebrated his praises. Wood says that he left a wife named Alice, and thai she died in 1545.; but this Alice appears to have been his mother. Lupset, being in priest’s orders, and a prebendary of Salisbury, could not have been married. Wood likewise doubts his having studied at Cambridge, because Dr. Caius, who mentions this circumstance, does not give his authority; but Caius was his contemporary at that university, and is, therefore sufficient authority for the fact. Of his works, the following have been printed: 1. A Treatise of Charity,“1546, 8vo. a.” An Exhortation to young Men,“1540, 8vu 3. V A. treatise teaching how to die well,” 1534. 4. “Epistolie varive,” dated from Corpus Christi college, and printed in “Epist. aliquot eruditorum vivorum,” Basil, 1520. He also translated into English a homily of St. Chrysostom’s, another of St. Cyprian’s, Picus of Mirandula’s Rules for a godly life, and the Councils of Isidorus, all printed at London in 1560, 8vo. Pts mentions other works by him, but of doubtful authority.

, whom Granger, by mistake, calls Dr. Lupton, was one of the earliest publishers of biographical collections in English, but with his own history we are almost totally unacquainted. We can only gather from one of his dedications that he had served in the army several years, and from the contents of his two principal publications, that he was a man of piety, and an admirer of the characters of those eminent fathers and divines who made the greatest figure in the church from the earliest periods to the reformation. The first of these is entitled “The History of the Moderne Protestant Divines, &c. faithfully translated out of Latin,” Lond. 1637, a small 12mo. This is dedicated to sir Paul Pindar, sir John Wolstenholme, sir Abraham Dawes, sir John Jacob, “farmers of the custom-house.” It contains twenty-two foreign lives, and twenty-three English, translated from Holland’s “Heroologia, and Verheiden’s” Effigies,“with each an engraved head dopied, in small, from those in Holland and Verheiden. Mr. Churton has made particular mention of this curious and very scarce volume in the preface to his elaborate life of dean Newell, and an account has since been published in the Bibliographer. The other biographical collection said to be by Lupton is a 4to volume, entitled” The Glory of their Times, or the Lives of the Primitive Fathers,“&c. London, printed by J. Okes, 1640. This contains forty four lives, with heads of the same scale as. the other, but of less value, as being mostly imaginary. We know not on what authority this work is attributed to Lupton, >as there is no mention of his name in any part of the copy now before us, and the preface, or address to the reader, is signed Typographies. From internal evidence, however, we should be inclined to think it was his compilation. Lupton’s other productions werte,” London and the countrey carbonadoed and quartered into several chafacters,“1632, 8vo” ObjectorUm reductio; or daily employment for the soule,“1634, 8vo” Emblems of Rarities; or choice Observations out of worthy Histories, &c.“1636, l&tTio; and” England’s command of the Seas; or the English Seas guarded," 1653, 12mo.

, a female writer, very much admired in France for the romances which she produced, was the daughter of a coachman belonging to cardinal Fleury, and was born about 1682. Some have said that she was the daughter of prince Thomas of Savoy, the prince de Carignano’s elder brother, because prince Eugene shewed her much kindness. She had, however, an education much above her birth, which enabled her to compose the various works which she has left us. M. Huet, to whom she accidentally became known, advised her to write romances, in which she succeeded tolerably well with the help of M. Ignatius Lewis de la Serre, sieur de Langlade (author of nine or ten operas,) who was her intimate friend, after having been her lover. This gentleman inherited an income of 25,000 livres, which he consumed by gaming, and died in 1756. Mademoiselle de Lussan was more admired for her mental than for her personal qualities, for she squinted, and bad a very brown skin, with a masculine voice and gait; but she was gay, lively, extremely humane, constant in her friendships, liable to anger, but never to hatred. She died in 1758, aged seventy-five, in consequence of bathing during an indigestion. Her works are, “La Comtesse de Gondez,” 2 vols. 12mo; “Anecdotes de Philippe Auguste,” 6 vols. 12m<>, attributed to the abb de Boismorand. “Memoires de Charles VII.” 12mo; “Anecdotes” of Francis I. 3 vols. 12mo; of Henry II. 2 vols. 12mo; of Mary of England, 12mo; “La Vie de Crillon,” 2 vols. 12mo. She published also under her name a “History of Charles VI.” 9 vols. 12mo; of Louis XI. 6 vols. and “L'Hist. de la derniere Revolution de Naples,” 4 vols. but these three were written by M. Baudot de Juilly, as we have mentioned in his life. Mademoiselle de Lussan gave this gentleman half of what she gained from these works, and half of her pension of 2000 livres.

In 1512 seven convents of his order having a quarrel with their vicar-general, Luther was chosen to go to Rome to maintain their cause. He was indeed a proper person for such employments; for he was a man of a most firm and steady temper, with a share of natural courage which nothing could subdue. At Rome he saw the pope and the court, and had an opportunity of observing also the manners of the clergy, whose hasty, superficial, and impious way of celebrating mass he has severely noted. “I performed mass,” says he, “at Home; I saw it also performed by others, but in such a manner that I never think of it without the utmost horror.” He often spoke afterwards with great pleasure of his journey to Rome; and to say that he “wonld not bnt have made it for a thousand florins,” As soon as he had adjusted the dispute which was the business of his journey, he returned to Wittemberg, and was created doctor of divinity, at the expence of Frederic, elector of Saxony, who had often heard him preach, was perfectly acquainted with his merit, and reverenced him highly. Luther, it appears, at first declined the honour of this degree on account of his being, in his own opinion, too young, for he was only in his thirtieth year; but it was told him that “he must suffer himself to be dignified, for that God intended to bring about great things in the church by his means;” which, though it was certainly said in jest, proved at length a very serious truth.

He continued in the university of Wittemberg, where, as professor of divinity, he employed himself in the business of his calling. The university, as we have observed, had been lately founded by Frederic, elector of Saxony, who was one of the richest and most powerful princes at that time in Germany, as well as one of the most magnificent and bountiful; and who brought a great many learned men thither, by large pensions and other encouragements, and amongst the rest Luther. Here then he feegan in the most earnest manner to read lectures upon the sacred books: he explained the epistle to the Romans, and the Psalms, which he cleared up and illustrated in a manner so entirely new, and so different from what had been pursued by former commentators, that “there seemed, after a long and dark night, a new day to arise, in the judgment of all pious and prudent men.” He settled the precise difference between the law and gospel, which before had been confounded; refuted many errors, commonly received both in "he church and the schools; and brought many necessary truths to light, which might have bee vainly sought in Scotus and Aquinas. The better to qualify himself for the task he had undertaken, he applied himself attentively to the Greek and Hebrew languages; to which, we are told, he was particularly excited by the writings of Erasmus; who, though he always remained in appearance a papist, or at least had nothing decided in his character, yet contributed much to the impelling of monkish ignorance, and overthrowing the kingdom of darkness. In the mean time, Luther, while he was active in propagating truth and instruction by his lectures and sermons, maintained an exemplary severity in his life and conversation, and was a most rigid observer of that discipline which he enjoined to others. This gained him vast credit and authority, and made all he delivered, however new or unusual, more readily accepted by. those who heard him.

In this manner was he employed when the general indulgences were published in 1517. Leo X. who succeeded Julius II. in March 1513, formed a design of building the magnificent church of St. Peter’s at Rome, which was, indeed, begun by Julius II. but still required very large sums to be finished. The treasure of the apostolic chamber was much exhausted, and the pope himself, though of a rich and powerful family, yet was far from being able to do it at his own proper charge, on account of the excessive debts he had contracted before his advancement to the popedom. There was nothing new in the method of raising money by indulgences. This had been formerly on several occasions practised by the court of Rome; and none had been found more effectual. Leo, therefore, in 1517, published general indulgences throughout all Europe, in favour of those who would contribute any sum to the building of St. Peter’s; and appointed persons in different countries to preach up these indulgences, and to receive money for them. Albert of Brandenburg, archbishop of Mentz and Magdeburg, who was soon after made a cardinal, had a commission for Germany; and Luther assures us that he was to have half the money that was to be raised, which does not seem improbable, for Albert’s court was at that time very luxurious and splendid; and he had borrowed 30,000 florins of that opulent family the Fuggers of Augsburg, to pay the pope for the bulls of his archbishopric, which sum he was bound to repay. Be this however as it will, Albert gave out this commission to John Tetzel, orTecelius, a Dominican friar, and others of his order. These indulgences were immediately exposed to sale; and Tetzel boasted of “having so large a commission from the pope, that though a man should have deflowered the virgin Mary, yet for money he might be pardoned.” He added further, that “he did not only give pardon for sins past, but for sins to come.” A book came out also at the same time, under the sanction of the archbishop, in which orders were given to the commissioners and collectors to enforce and press the power of indulgences. These persons performed their offices with great zeal indeed, but not with sufficient judgment and policy. They over-acted their parts, so that the people, to whom they were become very troublesome, saw through the cheat;' being at length convinced, that under a pretence of indulgences they only meant to plunder the Germans; and that, far from being solicitous about saving the souls of others, their only view was to enrich themselves.

These strange proceedings gave great offence at Wittemberg, and particularly inflamed the pious zeal of Luther, who, being naturally warm and active, and in the. present case unable to repress his indignation, was determined to declare against them, whatever might be the consequence*. Upon the eve of All Saints, therefore, in 1517, he publicly fixed up, at the church next to the castle of that town, a thesis upon indulgences; in the beginning of which he challenged any one to oppose it, either by writing or disputation. This thesis contained ninetyfive propositions; in which, however, he did not directly oppose indulgences in themselves, nor the power of the church to grant them, but only maintained, " That the pope could release no punishments but what he inflicted, and indulgences could be nothing but a relaxation of eccle­* It has been said by F. Paul, in his century before Luther, viz. from 1450

granted to the Franciscans, and the writers, who defended the cause of

guardian of the "Franciscans was joined Rome from 1517 to 1546, and who

aad it is remarkable, that for half a subject Mosheim, and Robertson. siastical penalties; that they affected only the living; that the dead were not subject to canonical penances, and so could receive no benefit by indulgences; and that such as were in purgatory could not by them be delivered from the punishment of their sins; that indeed the pope did root grant indulgences to the souls of the dead, by virtue of the power of the keys[?], but by way of suffrage; that indulgences seldom remit all punishment; that those who believe they shall be saved by indulgences only, shall be damned with their masters; that contrition can procure remission of the fault and punishment without indulgences, but that indulgences can do nothing without contrition; that, however, the pope’s indulgence ia not to be contemned, because it is the declaration of a pardon obtained of God, but only to be preached up with caution, lest the people should think it preferable to good works; that Christians should be instructed, how much better it is to abound in works of mercy and charity to the poor, than to purchase a pardon; and that it is a matter of indifference either to buy, or not to buy, an indulgence; that indulgences are not to be trusted to; that it is hard to say what that treasure of the church is, which is said to be the foundation of indulgences; that it is not the merits of Christ or his saints, because they produce grace in the inner man, and crucify the outward man, without the pope’s interposing; thai this treasure can be nothing but the power of the keys, or the gospel of the glory and grace of God; that indulgences cannot remit the most venial sin in respect of the guilt; that they remit nothing to them who by a sincere contrition have a right to a perfect remission; and that Christians are to be exhorted to seek pardon of their sins by the pains and labour of penance, rather than to get them discharged without reason."

This is the doctrine of Luther’s thesis; in which, if he does not attack indulgences directly, he certainly represents them as useless and ineffectual. He also condemns in it several propositions which he attributes to his adversaries, and inveighs against several abuses of which he affirms them guilty, as for example, “The reserving ecclesiastical penances for purgatory, or commuting them into the pains of purgatory; teaching that indulgences free men from all the guilt and punishment of sin; preaching that the soul, which they please to release out of purgatory, flies immediately to heaven when the money is cast into the chest; maintaining, that these indulgences are an inestimable gift, by which man is reconciled to God; exacting from the poor, contrary to the pope’s intentions; causing the preaching the word of God to cease in other churches that they may have a greater concourse of people in those where indulgences are preached; advancing this scandalous assertion, that the pope’s indulgences hare such a virtue, as to be able to absolve a man though he has ravished the mother of God, which is a thing impossible; publishing, that the cross with the arms of the pope, is equal to the cross of Christ, &c. Such positions as these,” says he, “have made people ask, and justly, why the pope, out of charity, does not deliver all souls tfut of purgatory, since he can deliver so great a number for a little money, given for the building of a church? Whv he suffers prayers and anniversaries for the dead, which are certainly delivered out of purgatory by indulgences? Why the pope, who is richer than several Croesuses, cannot build the church of St. Peter with his own money, but at the expence of the poor r” &c. In thus attacking indulgences, and the commissioners appointed to publish them, Luther seemed to attack Albert, the archbishop of Ment7, under whose name and authority they were published. Of this he was himself aware; and, therefore, the very eve on which he fixed up his thesis, he wrote a letter to him, in which, after humbly representing to him the grievances just recited, he besought him to remedy and correct them; and concluded with imploring pardon for the freedom he had taken, protesting that what he did was out of duty, and with a faithful and submissive temper of mind.

Luther’s propositions concerning indulgences were no sooner published, than Tetzel, the Dominican friar and commissioner for selling them, maintained and published at Franc fort, a thesis containing a set of propositions directly contrary to them. He also stirred up the clergy of his order against Luther; anathematized him from the pulpit as a most damnable heretic; and burnt his thesis publicly at Francfort. Eight hundred copies of Tetzel’s thesis were also burnt in return by some persons at Wittemberg; but Luther himself disowned having had any hand in that procedure, and in a letter to Jodocus, a professor at Isenac, who had formerly been his master, asked him “If he thought Luther ao void of common sense as to do a thing of that kind in a place where he had not any jurisdiction, and against a divine of so great authority as Tetzel?” Luther, indeed, although he perceived that his propositions were very well liked, and entertained as perfectly sound and orthodox, yet behaved himself at first with great calmness and submission. He proposed them to be discussed only in the way of disputation, till the church should determine what was to be thought of indulgences. He wrote to Jerom of Brandenburg, under whose jurisdiction he was, and submitted what he had written to that bishop’s judgment. He entreated him either to scratch out with his pen, or commit to the flames, whatever should teem to him unsound; to which, however, the bishop replied, that he only begged him to defer the publication of his propositions; and added, that be wished no discourse had been started about indulgences. Luther complied with the bishop’s request; and declared that “it gave him more pleasure to be obedient, than it would to work miracles, if he was ever so able.” And so much justice must be done to Luther, even by those who are not of his party, as to acknowledge that he was willing to be silent, and to say nothing more of indulgences, provided the same conditions might be imposed upon his adversaries.

But the spirit of peace deserted the church for a season; and a quarrel begun by two private monks, ended as we shall see, in a mighty revolution. Luther was now attacked by adversaries innumerable from all sides; three of the principal of whom were, John Eckius, divinity -professor and vice-chancellor of the university of IngoUtadt, who wrote notes upon his thesis, which Luther answered by other notes; Sylvester Prierius, or Prierio, a Dominican, and master of the holy palace; and one Jacob Hugostratus, a friar-preacher, who singled out some of his propositions, and advised the pope to condemn and burn him, if he would not immediately retract them. Luther contented himself with publishing a kind of manifesto against Hogostratus, in which he reproaches him with cruelty and ignorance; but as Prierius had drawn up his animadversions in the form of a dialogue, to which was prefixed a dedication to the pope; and built all he had advanced against Luther upon the principles of Thomas Aquinas, Luther, in an epistle to the reader, opposed Holy Scripture to the authority of this saint; and declared, among other things, that “if the pope and the cardinals were, like this Dominican, to set up any authority against that of Scripture, it could no longer be doubted that Rome was itself the very seat of antichrist; and then happy would Bohemia and all other countries be, who should separate themselves from it as soon as possible.”

In 1518, Luther, though dissuaded from it by his friends, yet, to shew his obedience to authority, went to the monastery of St. Augustine at Heidelberg/ while the chapter was held; and here maintained, April 26, a dispute concerning “justification by faith,” which Bucer, who was present, took down in writing, and afterwards communicated to Beatus Rhenanus, not without the highest commendations. Luther has given an account of this dispute, and says, that “the doctors there opposed him with such moderation and good manners, that he could not but think the better of them for it. And although the doctrine he maintained was perfectly new to them, yet they all acquitted themselves very acutely, except one of the juniors, who created much mirth and laughter by observing, that if the country peopl9 were to hear what strange positions were admitted, they would certainly stone the whole assembly.”

In the mean time, the zeal of his adversaries grew every day more active against him; and he was at length accused to Leo X. as an heretic. As soon as he returned therefore from Heidelberg, he wrote a letter to that pope, in the most submissive terms; and sent him at the same time an explication of his propositions about indulgences. He tells his holiness in this letter, that “he was greatly troubled at being represented to him as a person who opposed the authority and power of the keys and pope; that this accusation amazed him, but that he trusted to his own innocency.” Then he sets forth the matter of fact, and says, that the “preachers of the jubilee thought all things lawful for them under the pope’s name, and taught heretical and impious propositions, to the scandal and contempt of the ecclesiastical power, and as if the decretals against the abuses of collectors did not concern them; that they had published books, in which they taught the same impieties and heresies, not to mention their avarice and exactions; that they had found out no other way to quiet the offence their il! conduct had given, than by terrifying men with the name of pope, and by threatening with fire, as heretics, all those who did not approve and submit to their exorbitances; that being animated with a zeal for Jesus Christ, and pushed on by the heat of youth, he had given notice of these abuses to the superior powers; whose not regarding it had induced him to oppose them with lenity, by publishing a position which he invited the most learned to dispute with him. This,” says he, “is the flame which they say has set the whole world on fire. Is it that I have not a right, as a doctor of divinity, to dispute in the public schools upon these matters? These theses were made only for my own country; and I am surprised to see them spread into all parts of the world. They were rather disputable points than decisions; some of them obscure, and in need of being cleared. What shall I do? I cannot, draw them back, and yet I see I am made odious. It is a trouble to me to appear in public, yet I am constrained to do it. It is to appease my adversaries, and give satisfaction to several persons, that I have published explications of the disputes I have engaged in; which I now do under your holiness’s protection, that it may be known how sincerely I honour the power of the keys, and with what injustice my adversaries have represented me. If I were such a one as they give out, the elector of Saxony woirld not have tolerated me in his university thus long.” He concludes in the following words: “I cast myself, holy father, at your feet, with all I am and have. Give me life, or put me to death; confirm or revoke, approve or disapprove, as you please. I own your voice as that of Jesus Christ, who rules and speaks by you; and if I have deserved death I refuse not to die.” This letter is dated on Trinity Sunday, 1518, and was accompanied with a, protestation, in which he declared, that “he did not pretend to advance or defend any thing contrary to the Holy Scripture, or to the doctrine of the fathers, received and observed by the church of Rome, or to the canons and decretals of the popes; nevertheless, he thought he had the liberty, either to approve or disapprove the opinions of St. Thomas, Bonaventure, and other schoolmen and canonists, which are not grounded upon any text.”

The emperor Maximilian was equally solicitous with the pope, about putting a stop to the propagation of Luther’s opinions in Saxony; since the great number of his followers, and the resolution with which he defended them, made it evident beyond dispute that if he were not immediately checked he would become troublesome both to the church and empire. Maximilian therefore applied to Leo in a letter dated Aug. 5, 1518, and begged him to forbid by his authority, these useless, rash, and dangerous disputes; assuring him also that he would strictly execute in the empire whatever his holiness should enjoin. The pope on his part ordered Jerom de Genutiis, bishop of Ascula, or Ascoli, auditor of the apostolic chamber, to cite Luther to appear at Rome within sijcty days, that he might give an account of his doctrine to the auditor and master of the palace, to whom he had committed the judgment of the cause. He wrote at the same time to Frederick the elector of Saxony, to pray him not to protect Luther and let him know that he had cited him, and had given cardinal Cajetan, his legate in Germany, the necessary instructions upon that occasion. He exhorts the elector to put Luther into the hands of this legate, that he might be carried to Rome; assuring him that, if he were innocent, he would send him back absolved, and if he were guilty, would pardon him upon his repentance. This letter to Frederic was dated Aug. 23, 1518, and it was by no means unnecessary; for though Luther had nothing to trust to at first but his own personal qualities, his parts, his learning, and his courage, yet he was afterwards countenanced and supported by this elector, a prince of great personal worth. At the same time also the pope sent a brief to cardinal Cajetan, in which he ordered him to bring Luther before him as soon as possible; and to hinder the princes from being any impediment to the execution of this order, he denounced the punishments of excommunication, interdiction, and privation of goods against all who should receive Luther, and give him protection; and promised a plenary indulgence to those who should assist in delivering him up.

In the mean time Luther, as soon as he understood what was transacting about him at Rome, used all imaginable means to prevent his being carried thither, and to obtain a hearing of his cause in Germany. The university of Wittemberg interceded for him, and wrote a letter to the pope, to excuse him from going to Rome, because his health would not permit it; and assured his holiness that he had asserted nothing contrary to the doctrine of the church, and that all they could charge him with was his layingdown some propositions in disputation too freely, though without any view of deciding upon them. The elector also was against Luther’s going to Rome, and desired of cardinal Cajetan, that be might be heard before him, as his legate in Germany. Upon these addresses, the pope consented that the cause should be tried before cardinal Cajetan, to whom he had given power to decide it. Luther, therefore, set off immediately for Augsburg, poor, and on foot, as he says in his narrative, and carried with him letters from the elector*. He arrived here in October 1518, and upon an assurance of his safety, was admitted into the cardinal’s presence. The legate told him that he did not intend to enter into any dispute with him, but should only propound three things to him, on the pope’s behalf; and he did admonish him, “First, to become a sound member of the church, and to recant his errors; secondly, to promise that he would not teach such pernicious doctrines for the future; and thirdly, to take care that the peace of the church was not broken by his means.” Luther beseeched the legate to acquaint him what his errors were, who alleged to him a decretal of Clement VI. in which “the merits of Jesus Christ are affirmed to be a treasure of indulgences,” which he the said Luther-denied; and objected to him also his teaching, that “faith was necessary for all who should receive the sacrament, so as to obtain any benefit by it.” Luther replied, that “he had read the decretal of Clement, which the legate alleged; but did humbly conceive that it was not of sufficient authority to retract any opinion which he believed to be conformable to Holy Scripture.” The legate had then recourse to the authority of the pope, who, he said, “could only decide upon the sense of Scripture;” upon which Luther desired time to deliberate upon what the legate had proposed to him, and so the dispute ended for that day.

subject of conversation throughout the means of affording the stupid adversawhole city, and that every one wishes ries of all liberal studies an opportuto see the man who is to be the victim nily of accomplishing their purpose."

Though Luther was a man of invincible courage, jet he was animated in some measure to these firm and vigorous proceedings by an assurance of protection from Frederic of Saxony; being persuaded, as he says in his letter to the legate, that an appeal would be more agreeable to that elector, than a recantation. On this account, the first thing which the legate did, after Luther’s departure, was to send an account to the elector of what had passed at Augsburg. He complained that Luther left him without taking leave, and without his knowledge; and although he had given him hopes that he would retract and submit, yet had retired without affording him the least satisfaction. He acquainted the elector that Luther had advanced and maintained several propositions of a most damnable nature, and contrary to the doctrine of the holy see. He prays him to discharge his conscience, and to keep unspotted the honour of his illustrious house, by either sending him to Rome, or banishing him from his dominions. He assured him that this matter could not continue long as it was at present, but would soon be prosecuted at Rome; and that, to get it out of his own hands, he had written to the pope about it. When this letter, Oct. 25, 1518, was delivered to the elector, he communicated it to Luther, who immediately drew up a defence of himself against it. In this defence he offers to the elector to leave his country, if his highness thought proper, that he might be more at liberty to defend himself against the papal authority, without bringing any inconveniences upon his highness by that means. But his friends advised him very wisely to remain in Saxony; and the university of Whtemberg presented an address to the elector, praying him to afford Luther so much favour and protection, that he might not be obliged to recant his opinions, till it was made appear that they ought to be condemned. But this address was needless; the elector was resolved not to desert Luther, and told the legate in an answer, Dec. the 18th, that he “hoped he would have dealt with Luther in another manner, and not have obliged him to recant before his cause was heard and judged; and that there were several men in his own and in mher universities, who did not think Luther’s doctrine either impious or heretical; that if he had believed it such, there would have been no need of admonishing him not to tolerate it; that Luther not being convicted of heresy, he could not banish him from his states, nor send him to Rome; and that, since Luther offered to submit himself to the judgment of the universities, he thought they ought to hear him, or at least shew him the errors which he taught in his writings.” Luther, seeing himself thus supported, continued to teach the same doctrines at Wittemberg, and sent a challenge to all the inquisitors to come and dispute with him; offering them not only a safe conduct from his prince, but assuring them also of good entertainment, and that their charges should be borne so long as they remained in Wittemberg.

While these things passed in Germany, Leo attempted to put an end to these disputes about indulgences, by a decision of his own; and for that purpose, November the 9th, published a brief, directed to cardinal Cajetan, in which he declared, that “the pope, the successor of St. Peter, and vicar of Jesus Christ upon earth, hath power to pardon, by virtue of the keys, the guilt and punishment of sin, the guilt by the sacrament of penance, and the temporal punishments due for actual sins by indulgences; that these indulgences are taken from the overplus of the merits of Jesus Christ and his saints, a treasure at the pope’s own disposal, as well by way of absolution as suffrage; and that the dead and the living, who properly and truly obtain these indulgences, are immediately freed from the punishment due to their actual sins, according to the divine justice, which allows these indulgences to be granted and obtained.” This brief ordains, that “all the world shall hold and preach this doctrine, under the pain of excommunication reserved to the pope; and enjoins cardinal Cajetan to send it to all the archbishops and bishops of Germany, and c:iuse it to be put into execution by them.” Luther knew very well that after this judgment made by the pope, he could not possibly escape being proceeded against, and condemned at Rome; and therefore, upon the 28th of the same month, published a new appeal from the pope to a general council, in which he asserts the superior authority of the latter over the former. The pope, foreseeing that he should not easily manage Luther so long as the elector of Saxony continued to support and protect him, sent the elector a golden rose, such an one as he used to bless every year, and send to several princes, as marks of his particular favour to them. Miltitius, or Miltitz, his chamberlain, who was a German, was intrusted with this commission; by whom the pope sent also letters in Jan. 1519, to the elector’s counsellor and secretary, in which he prayed those ministers to use all possible interest with their master, that he would stop the progress of Luther’s errors, and imitate therein the piety of his ancestors. It appears by Sectendorf 's account of Miltitz’s negotiation, that Frederick had long solicited for this bauble from the pope; and that three or four years before, when his electoral highness was a bigot to the court of Rome, it had probably been a most welcome present. Bat it was now too late: Luther’s contests with the see of Rome had opened the elector’s eyes, and enlarged his mind; and therefore, when Miltitz delivered his letters, and discharged his commission, he was received but coldly by the elector, who valued not the consecrated rose, nor would receive it publicly and in form, but only privately, and by his proctor; and to the remonstrances of Miltitz respecting Luther, answered that he would not act as a judge, nor oppress a man whom he had hitherto considered as innocent. It is thought that the death of the emperor Maximilian, who expired on the 12th of this month, greatly altered the face of affairs, and made the elector more able to determine Luther’s fate. Miltitz thought it best, therefore, to try what could be done by fair and gentle means, and to that end came to a conference with Luther. He poured forth many commendations upon him, and earnestly intreated him that he would himself appease that tempest which could not but be destructive to the church. He blamed at the same time the behaviour and conduct of Tetzel; whom he called before him, and reproved with so much sharpness, that he died of melancholy a short time after. Luther, amazed at all this civil treatment, which he had never before experienced, commended Miltitz highly, owned that, if they had behaved to him so at lirst, all the troubles occasioned by these disputes, had been avoided; and did not forgt-t to cast the blame upon Albert archbishop of Mentz, who had increased these troubles by his severity. Miltitz also made some concessions; as, that the people had been seduced by false opinions about indulgences, that Tetzel had given the occasion, that the archbishop had employed Tetzel to get money, that Tetzel had exceeded the bounds of his commission, &c. This mildness and seeming candour on the part of Miltitz gained so wonderfully upon Luther, that he wrote a most submissive letter to the pope, on March 13, 1519. Miltitz, however, taking for granted that they would not be contented at Rome with this letter of Luther’s, written, as it was, in general terms only, proposed to refer the matter to some othec judgment; and it was agreed between them that the elector of Triers should be the judge, and Coblentz the place of conference; but this came to nothing; for Luther afterwards gave some reasons for not going to Coblentz, and the pope would not refer the matter to the elector of Triers.

During all these treaties, the doctrine of Luther spread, and prevailed; and he himself received great encouragement at home and abroad. The Bohemians about this time sent him a book of the celebrated John Huss, who had fallen a martyr in the work of reformation; and also letters, in which they exhorted him to constancy and perseverance, owning, that the divinity which he taught was the pure, sound, and orthodox divinity. Many great and learned men had joined themselves to him: among the rest Philip Melancthon, whom Frederic had invited to the university of Wittemberg in August 1518, and Andrew Carolostadius, archdeacon of that town, who was a great linguist. They desired, if possible, to draw over Erasmus to their party; and to that end we find Melancthon thus expressing himself in a letter to that great man, dated Leipsic, Jan. 5, 1519: “Martin Luther, who has a very great esteem for you, wishes of all things that you would thoroughly approve of him;” and Luther himself wrote to Erasmus, in very respectful and even flattering terms. The elector of Saxony was desirous also to know Erasmus’s opinion of Luther, and might probably think, that as Erasmus had most of the monks for his enemies, and some of those who were warmest against Luther, he might easily be prevailed on to come over to their party. It would, indeed, have, been a considerable object, if they could have gained this point; for the reputation of Erasmus was so great, that if he had once declared for Luther, almost all Germany would have declared along with him.

But Erasmus, whatever he might think of Luther’s opinions, had neither his impetuosity,' nor his courage. He contented himself, therefore, with acting and speaking in his usual strain of moderation, and wrote a letter to the elector Frederic, in which he declared “his dislike of the 'arts which were employed to make Luther odious; that he did not know Luther, and so could neither approve nor condemn his writings, because indeed he had not read them; that however he condemned the railing at him with so much violence, because he had submitted himself to the judgment of those whose office it was to determine, and man had endeavoured to convince him of his error that his antagonists seemed rather to seek his death, than his salvation; that they mistook the matter in supposing, that all error is heresy; that there are errors in all the writings of both ancients and moderns; that divines are of different opinions; that it is more prudent to use moderate, than violent means; that the elector ought to protect innocency, and that this was the intent of Leo X.” Erasmus wrote also a friendly letter in answer to Luther’s, and told him, that “his books had raised such an uproar at Louvain, as it was not possible for him to describe; that he could not have believed divines could have been such madmen, if he had not been present, and seen them with his eyes; that, by defending him, he had rendered himself suspected; that many abused him as the leader of this faction, so they call it; that there were many in England, and some at Louvain, no inconsiderable persons, who highly approved his opinions; that, for his own part, he endeavoured to carry himself as evenly as he could with all parties, that he might more effectually serve the interests of learning and religion; that, however, he thought more might be done by civil and modest means than by intemperate heat and passion; that it would be better to inveigh against those who abuse the pope’s authority, than against the popes themselves; that new opinions should rather be promoted in the way of proposing doubts and difficulties, than by affirming and deciding peremptorily; that nothing should be delivered with faction and arrogance; but that the mind, in these cases, should be kept entirely free from anger, hatred, and vainglory. I say not this,” says Erasmus, “as if you wanted any admonitions of this kind, bat only that you may not want them hereafter, any more than you do at present.” When this letter was written, Erasmus and Luther ha<i never seen each other: it is dated from Louvain, May 30, 151 y; and it is hardly possible to read it without suspecting, that Erasmus was entirely in Luther’s sentiments, if he had possessed the courage to declare it. He concludes in these words, which seem to imply as much: “I have dipped into your commentaries upon the Psalms; they please me prodigiously, and I hope will be read with great advantage. There is a prior of the monastery of Antwerp, who says he was formerly your pupil, and loves you most affectionately. He is a truly Christian man, and almost the only one of his society who preaches Christ, the rest being attentive either to the fabulous traditions of men, or to their own profit. I have written to Melarrcthon. The Lord Jesus pour upon you his spirit, that you may abound more and more every day, to his glory in the service of the church. Farewell.”

In 1519 Luther had a famous dispute at Leipsic with John Eckius. Eckius, as we have observed, wrote notes upon Luther’s theses, which Luther first, and afterwards Carolostadius, answered. The dispute thus depending, a conference was proposed at Leipsic, with the consent of George duke of Saxony, who was cousin-german to Frederic the elector; and accordingly Luther went thither at the end of June, accompanied by Carolostadius and Melancthon. Melchior Adam relates that Luther could not obtain leave to dispute for some time, but was only a spectator of what passed between Carolostadius and Eckius, till Eckius got at last a protection for him from the duke. It is certain, however, that they disputed upon the most delicate points upon purgatory, upon indulgences; and especially upon the authority of the pope. Luther objected to this last, as being an invidjous and unnecessary subject; and that he would not have meddled with it, if Eckius had not put it among the propositions which they were to argue. Eckius answered, and it must be owned with some reason, that Luther had first given occasion to that question, by touching upon it himself, and teaching several things contrary to the authority of the holy see. In this dispute, after many texts of scripture, and many passages from the fathers, had been cited and canvassed by both sides, they came to settle the sense of the famous words, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church.” Luther asserted, That by rock is to be understood either power or faith: if power, then our Saviour hath added to no purpose, “and I will give thee the keys, &c.” if faith, as it ought, then it is also common to all other churches, and not peculiar to that of Rome. Eckius replied, That these words settled a supremacy upon St. Peter; that they ought to be understood of his person, according to the explication of the fathers; that the contrary opinion was one of the errors of Wicklitf and John Hass, which were condemned; and that he followed the opinion of the Bohemians. Luther was not to be silenced with this, but said, That although all the fathers had understood that passage of St. Peter in the sense of Eckius, yet he would oppose them with the authority of St. Paul and St. Peter himself; who say, that Jesus Christ is the only foundation and corner-stone of his church; and as to his following the opinion of the Bohemians, in' maintaining a proposition condemned with John Huss, that “the dignity of the pope was established by the emperor,” though he did not, he said, approve of the schism of the Bohemians, yet he should make no scruple to affirm, that, among the articles condemned with John Huss, there were some very sound and orthodox. This dispute ended at length like all others, the parties not the least nearer in opinions, but more at enmity with each other’s persons. It seems, however, granted on all sides, that while Eckius made the best possible defence for his party, Luther did not acquire in this dispute that success and applause which he expected; and it is agreed also, that he made a concession to Eckius, which he afterwards retracted, that the pope was head of the church by human though not by divine right; which made George duke of Saxony say, after the dispute was over, “Sive Jure divino, siye hurnano sit papa, est tamen papa:” " Whether he be pope by divine right or human, he is nevertheless pope/'

This same year 1519, Luther’s books concerning indulgences were formally censured by the divines of Louvain and Cologne. The former having consulted with the cardinal of Tortosa, afterwards Adrian VI. passed their censure on the 7th of November; and the censure of the lakter, which was made at the request of the divines of Louvain, was dated on the 30th of August. Luther wrote immediately against these censures, and declared that be valued them not: that several great and good men, such as Occam, Picus Mirandula, Laurentius Valla, and others, had been condemned in the same unjust manner; nay, he would venture to add to the list, Jerom of Prague and John Huss. He charged those universities with rashness, in being the first that declared against him; and accused them of want of proper respect and deference to the holy see, in condemning a book presented to the pope, on which judgment had not yet been passed. About the end of this year, Luther published a book, in which be contended for the communion being celebrated in both kinds. This was condemned by the bishop of Misnia, Jan. 24, 1520. Lnther, seeing himself so beset with adversaries’, wrote a letter to the new emperor, Charles V. of Spain, who was not yet come into Germany, and another to the elector of Mentz; in both which he humhly implores protection, till he should be able to give an account of himself and his opinions; adding, that he did not desire to be defended, if he were convicted of impiety or heresy, but only that he might not be condemned without a hearing. The former of these letters is dated Jan. 15, 1520; the latter, Feb. 4. The elector Frederic fell about this time into a dangerous illness, which threw the whole party into great consternation, and occasioned some apprehensions at Wittemberg: but of this he happily recovered.

While Luther was labouring to excuse himself to the emperor and the bishops of Germany, Eckius had gone to Rome, to solicit his condemnation: which, it may easily be conceived, was not now very difficult to be obtained, as he and his whole party were had in abhorrence, and the elector Frederic wajs out of favour, on account of the protection which he afforded Luther. The elector excused himself to the pope, in a letter dated April 1; which the pope answered, and sent him at the same time a copy of a bull, in which he was required “either to oblige Luther to retract his errors, or to imprison him for the disposal of the pope.” This peremptory proceeding alarmed at first the court of the elector, and many German nobles who were of Luther’s party, but their final resolution was, to protect and defend him. In the mean time, though Luther’s condemnation was determined at Rome, Miltitz did not cease to treat in Germany, and to propose means of accommodation. To this end he applied to the chapter of the Augustine friars there, and prayed them to interpose their authority, and to beg of Luther that he would endeavour to conciliate the pope by a letter, full of submission and respect. Luther consented to write, and his letter bears date April the 6th; but matters had been carried too far on both sides, ever to admit of a reconciliation. The mischief Luther had done, and continued to do, to the papal authority, was irreparable; and the rough usage and persecutions he had received from the pope’s party had now inflamed his active spirit to that degree, that it was not possible to appease it, but by measures which the pope and the court of Rome could never be expected to adopt. At all events, the letter he wrote at this juncture could not be attended with any healing ednsequences; the style and sentiments were too irritating for a less degree of pride than that which presided at Rome. In this epistle Luther says, “that among the monsters of the age, with whom be had been engaged for three years past, he had often called to mind the blessed father Leo: that now he began to triumph over his enemies, and to despise them: that, though he had been obliged to appeal from his holiness to a general council, yet he had no aversion to him: that he had always wished and prayed for all sorts of blessings upon his person and see: that his design was only to defend the truth: that he had never spoken dishonourably of his holiness, but had called him a Daniel in the midst of Babylon, to denote the innocence and purity he had preserved among so many corrupt men: that the court of Rome was visibly more corrupt than either Babylon or Sodom; and that his holiness was as a lamb among wolves, a Daniel among lions, and an Ezekiel ampng scorpions: that there were not above three or four cardinals of any learning or piety: that it was against these disorders of the court of Rome he was obliged to appear: that cardinal Cajftan, who was ordered by his holiness to treat with him, bad shewn no inclinations to peace: that his nuncio JVliltitz had indeed come to two conferences with him, and that he had promised JVliltitz to be silent, and submit to the decision of the archbishop of Triers; but that the dispute at Leipsic had hindered the execution of this project, and put things into greater confusion: that Milt it/ hud applied a third time to the chapter of his order, at whose instigation he had written to his holiness: and that he now threw himself at his feet, praying him to impose silence upon his enemies: but that, as for a recantation on his part, be must not insist upon it, unless he would increase the troubles; nor prescribe him rules for the interpretation of the word of God, because it ought not to be limited. Then he admonishes the pope not to suffer himself to be seduced, by his flatterers, into a persuasion that he can command and require all things, that he is above a council and the universal church, that he alone has a right to interpret scripture; but to believe those rather who debase, than those who exalt him.”

The bull of Luther’s condemnation was carried into Germany, and published there by Eckius, who had solicited it at Rome; and who, together with Jerom Aleander, a person eminent for his learning and eloquence, was intrusted by the pope with the execution of it. In the mean time, Charles V. of Spain, after he had adjusted the affairs of the Low Countries, went into Germany, and was crowned emperor, Oct. the 21st, at Aix-la-Chapelle. The plague preventing his remaining long in that city, he went to Cologne, and appointed a diet at Worms, to meet Jan. the 6tb, 1521. Frederic, elector of Saxony, could not be present at the coronation, but was left sick at Cologne, where Aleander, who accompanied the emperor, presented him with a brief, which the pope had sent by him, and by which his holiness gave him notice of the decree he had made against the errors of Luther. Aleander told the elector, that the pope had intrusted himself and Eckius with the affair of Luther, which was of the utmost consequence to the whole Christian world, and, it' there were not a speedy stop put to it, would undo the empire: that he did not doubt, but that the elector woifld imitate the emperor, and other princes of the empire, who had received the pope’s judgment respectfully. He informed his highness also, that he had two things to request of him in the name of the pope: “First, That he would cause all Luther’s books to be burnt; and, secondly, that he would either put Luther to death, or imprison him, or send him to the pope.” The pope sent also a brief to the university of Wittemberg, to exhort them to put his bull in execution against Luther; but neither the elector nor the university paid any regard to his briefs. Luther, at the same time, renewed his appeal to a future council, in terms very severe upon the pope, calling him tyrant, heretic, apostate, antichrist, and blasphemer; and in it prays the emperor, electors, princes, and lords of the empire, to favour his appeal, nor suffer the execution of the bull, till he should be lawfully summoned, heard, and convicted, before impartial judges. This appeal is dated Nov. 17. Erasmus, indeed, and other German divines, were of opinion that things ought not to be carried to this extremity, foreseeing, that the fire which consumed Luther’s books would soon put all Germany into a flame. They proposed, therefore, to agree upon arbitrators, or to refer the whole cause to the first general council. But these pacific proposals came too late; and Eckius and Aleander pressed the matter so vigorously both to the emperor and the other German princes, that Luther’s books were burnt in several cities of Germany. Aleander also earnestly importuned the emperor for an edict against Luther; but he found many and great obstacles. Luther’s party was very powerful; and Charles V. was not willing to give so public an offence to the elector of Saxony, who had lately refused the empire, that he might have it.

He arrived accordingly at Worms April 16, where a prodigious multitude of people were assembled, for the sake of seeing a man of whom so much had no.w been heard. When he appeared before the diet, he had two questions put to him by John Eckius: “First, whether h$ owned those books for his that went under his name; and, secondly, Whether he intended to retract or defend what was contained in them.” These queries produced an altercation, which lasted some days; but which ended at length in this single and peremptory declaration of Luther, that “unless he was convinced by texts of scripture or evident reason (for he did not think himself obliged to submit to the pope or his councils), he neither could nor would retract any thing, because it was not lawful for him to act against nis conscience.” This being Luther’s final resolution, the emperor declared to the diet, That he was determined to proceed against him as a notorious heretic; but that he intended, nevertheless, he should return to Wittemberg, according to the conditions laid down in his “safe-conduct.” Luther left Worms April the 26th, conducted by Sturmius, who had brought him and being arrived at Friburg, he wrote letters to the emperor and princes of the diet, to commend his cause to them, and to excuse himself for not submitting to a recantation. These letters wt re conveyed by Sturmius, whom he sent back, on pretence that he was then out of danger; but in reality, as it is supposed, that Sturmius might not be present at the execution of a scheme which had been concerted befofe Luther set out from Worms; for, the elector of Satfony, foreseeing that the emperor was going to make a bloody edict against Luther, and finding it impossible to support and protect him any longer without involving himself in difficulties, resolved to have him taken away, and concealed. This was proposed to Luther, and accordingly when he went from Eysenac, May the 3d, through a wood, in his way to Wittemberg, he was suddenly set upon by some horsemen in disguise, deputed for that purpose, who pretended to take him by force, and carried him secretly into the castle of Wittemberg. Melchior Adam relates, that there were only eight nobles privy to this expedition, which was executed with so much address and fidelity, that no man knew what was become of him, or where he was. This contrivance produced two advantages to Luther: as, first, it caused people to believe that he was taken away by the intrigues of his enemies, which made them dious, and exasperated men’s minds against them; and, secondly, it secured him against the pr isecution which the pope and the empe or were making against him.

While the bull of Leo X. executed by Charles V. was thundering throughout the empire, Luther was safely shut up in his castle, which he afterwards called his Hermitage, and his Patmos. Here he held a constant correspondence with his friends at Wittemberg, and was employed in composing books in favour of his own cause, and against his adversaries. He did not however so closely confine himself, but that he frequently made excursions into the neighbourhood, though always under some disguise or other. One day he assumed the title and appearance of a nobleman: but it may be supposed that he did not act his part very gracefully; for a gentleman who attended him under that character, to an inn upon the road, was, it seems, so fearful of a discovery, that he thought it necessary to caution him against that absence of mind peculiar to literary men; bidding him “keep close to his sword, without taking the least notice of books, if by chance any should fall in his way.” He used sometimes even to go out a hunting with those few who were in his secret; which, however, we may imagine, he did more for health than for pleasure, as indeed may be collected from his own curious account of it. “I was,” says he, “lately two days a hunting, in which amusement I found both pleasure and pain. We killed a brace of hares, and took some unhappy partridges; a very pretty employment, truly, for an idle man! However, I could not forbear theologizing amidst dogs and nets; for, thought I to myself, do not we, in hunting innocent animals to death with dogs, very much resemble the devil, who, by crafty wiles and the instruments of wicked priests, is perpetually seeking whom he may devour? Again: We happened to take a leveret alive, which I put into my pocket, with an intent to preserve it; yet we were not gone far, before the dogs seized upon it, as it was in my pocket, and worried it. Just so the pope and the devil rage furiously to destroy the souls that I have saved, in spite of all my endeavours to prevent them. In short, I am tired of hunting these little innocent beasts; and had rather be employed, as I have been for some time, in spearing bears, wolves, tigers, and foxes; that is, in opposing and confounding wicked and impious divines, who resemble those savage animals in their qualities.”

The resolution of this diet was published in the form of an edict, March 6, 1523; but it had no effect in checking the Lutherans, who still went on in the same triumphant wanner. This year Luther wrote a great many tracts: among the rest, one upon the dignity and office of the supreme magistrate; with which Frederic elector of Saxony is said to have been highly pleased. He sent, about the same time, a writing in the German language to the Waldenses, or Picards, in Bohemia and Moravia, who had applied to him “about worshipping the body of' Christ in the eucharist.” He wrote also another book, which he dedicated to the senate and people of Prague, “concerning the institution of ministers of the church.” He drew up a form of saying mass. He wrote a piece entitled " Ad Example of Popish Doctrine and Divinity;: ' which Dnpin calls a satire against nuns, and those who profess a monastic life. He wrote also against the vows of virginity, in his preface to his commentary on 1 Cor. vii.: and his exhortations here were, it seems, followed with effects; for, soon after, nine nuns eloped from a nunnery, and were brought to Wittemberg. Whatever offence this proceeding might give to the papists, it was highly extolled by Luther; who, in a book written in the German language, compares the deliverance of these nuns from the slavery of a monastic life, to that of the souls whichJesus Christ has; delivered by his death. This year he had occasion to lament the death of two of his followers, who were burnt ar Brussels, and were the first who suffered martyrdom for his doctrine. He wrote also a consolatory epistle to three noble ladies at Misnia, who were banished from the duke of Saxony’s court at Friburg, for reading his books.

In the beginning of 1524, Clement VII. sent a legate into Germany to the diet which was to be held at Nuremberg. This pope had succeeded Adrian, who died in Oct. 1523, and had, a little before his death, canonized Benno, who Was bishop of Meissen in the time of Gregory VII. and one of the most zealous defenders of the holy se. Luther, imagining that this was done directly to oppose him, drew up a piece with this title, “Against the new Idol and Devil set up at Meissen;” in which he treats the memory of Gregory with great freedom, and does not spare even Adrian. Clement VII.'s legate, therefore, represented to the diet at Nuremberg the necessity of enforcing the execution of the edict of Worms, which had been strangely neglected by the princes of the empire; but, notwithstanding the legate’s solicitations, which were very pressing, the decrees of that diet were thought so ineffectual, that they were condemned at Rome, and rejected by the emperor. It was in this year that the dispute between Luther and Erasmus began about free-will. Erasmus had been much courted by the papists to write against Luther; but had hitherto avoided the task, by saying, “that Luther was too great a man for him to write against, and that he had learned more from one short page of Luther, than from all the large books of Thomas Aquinas.” Besides, Erasmus was all along of opinion, that writing would not be found an effectual way to end the differences, and establish the peace of the church. Tired out, however, at length with the importunities of the pope and the catholic princes, and desirous at the same time to clear himself from the suspicion of favouring a cause which he would not seem to favour, he resolved to write against Luther, though, as he tells Melancthon, it was with some reluctance; and he chose free-will for the subject. His book was entitled “A diatriba, or Conference about Free-will,” and was wriuen with much moderation, and without personal reflections. He tells Luther in the preface, “that he ought not to take his differing from him in opinion ill, because he had allowed himself the liberty of differing from the judgment of popes, councils, universities and doctors of the church.” Luther was some time before he answered Erasmus’s book, but at last published a treatise “De servo arbitrio, or, Of the Servitude of Man’s Will;” and though Melancthon had promised Krasmus, that Luther should answer him with civility and moderation, yet Luther had so little regard to Melancthon’s promise, that he never wrote any thing more severe. He accused Erasmus of being carelrsn about religion, and little solicitous what became of it, provided the world continued in peace; and that his notions were rather philosophical than Christian. Erasmus immediately replied to Luther,- in a piece called “Hyperaspistes”. in the first part of which he answers his arguments, and in the second his personal reflections.

In October 1524, Luther threw off the monastic habit; which, though not premeditated and designed, was yet a very proper preparative to a step he took the year after; we mean, his marriage with Catherine de Bore. Catherine cie Bore was a gentleman’s daughter, who had been a nun, and was one of those whom we mentioned as escaping from tue nunnery in 1523. Luther had a design to marry her to Glacius, a minister of Ortamuncien; but she did not like Glacius, and Luther married her himself, June 13, 1525. This conduct of his was blamed not only by the catholics, but, as Melancthon says, by those of his own party. He was even for some time ashamed of it himself; aud owns, “that his marriage had made him so despicable, that he hoped his humiliation would rejoice the angels, and vex the devils.” Melancthon found him so afflicted with what he had done, that he wrote some letters of consolation to him: he adds, however, that “this accident may possibly not be without its use, as it tends to humble him a little: for it is dangerous,” says he, “not only for a priest, but for any man, to be too much elated and puffed up; great success giving occasion to the sin of a high mind, not only, as the orator says, in fools, but sometimes even in wise men.” It was not so much the marriage, as the circumstances of the time, and the precipitation with which it was done, that occasioned the censures passed upon Luther. He married very suddenly, and at a time when Germany was groaning under the miseries of war, which was said at least to be owing to Lutheranism. It was thought also an indecent thing in a man of forty-two years of age, who was then, as he declared, restoring the gospel and reforming mankind, to involve himself in marriage with a woman of six and twenty, upon any pretext. But Luther, as soon as he had recovered himself a little from this abashment, assumed his former air of intrepidity, and boldly supported what he had done with reasons. “I took a wife,” says he, “in obedience to my father’s commands, and hastened the consummation, in or 1 r to prevent impediments, and stop the tongues of slanderers.” It appears from his own confessions, that,this reformer was very fond of Mrs. de Bore, and used to call her his Catherine; which occasioned some slanderous reflections and therefore, says he, “I married of a sudden, not only that J might not be obliged to hear the clamours which I knew would be raised against me, but to stop the mouths of those who reproached me with Catherine de Bore.” Luther also gives us to understand, that he did it partly as concurring with his grand scheme of opposing the catholics. “See,” says he, “because they are thus mad, I have so prepared myself, that, before I die, I may be found by God in the state in which I was created, and, if possible, retain nothing of my former popish life. Therefore let them rave yet more, and this will be their last farewell; for my mind presages, that I shall soon be called by God unto his grace: therefore, at my father’s commands, I have taken a xtife.” In another letter he speaks thus: “1 hope I shall live a little longer, and I would not deny this last obedience to my father, who required it in hopes of issue, and also to confirm the doctrines I have taught.”

Luther, notwithstanding, was not himself altogether satisfied with these reasons. He did not think the step he bad taken could be sufficiently justified upon the principles of human prudence; and therefore we find him, in other places, endeavouring to account for it from a supernatural impulse. “The wise men amongst us are greatly proyoked,” says he; “they are forced to own the thing to be of God, but the disguise of the persons under which it is transacted, namely, of the young woman and myself, makes them think and say every thing that is wicked.” And elsewhere: “The Lord brought me suddenly, when I was thinking of other matters, to a marriage with Catherine (le Bore, the nun.” His party seem also to have favoured this supposition. Thus says Melancthon: “As for the* unreasonableness and want of consideration in this marriage, on which account our adversaries will chiefly slander us, we must take heed lest that disturb us: for perhaps there is some secret, or something divine couched under it, concerning which it does not become us to inquire too curiously; nor ought we to regard the scoffs of those who exercise neither piety towards God, nor virtue towards men.” Bnt whether there was any thing divine in it or not, Luther found himself extremely happy in his new state, and especially after his wife had brought him a son. “My rib Kate,” says he in the joy of his heart, “desires her compliments to you, and thanks you for the favour of your kind letter. She is very well, through God’s mercy. She is obedient and complying with me in all things, and more agreeable, I thank God, than I could have expected; so tuat I would not change my p iverty for the wealth of Croesus.” He was heard to say, Seckeiulorf tells us, “that he would not exchange his wile for the kingdom of France, nor for the riches of the Venetians, and that for three reasons: first, because she had been given him by God, at the time when he implored the assistance of the Holy Ghost in finding a good wife: secondly, because, though she was not without faults, yet she had fewer than other women: and, thirdly, because she religiously observed the conjugal fidelity she owed him.” There was at first a report, that Catherine de Bore was brought to bed soon after her marriage with Luther; but Erasmus, who wrote that news to one of his friends, acknowledged the falsehood of it a little after, in one of his letters, dated the 13th of March, 1526: “Luther’s marriage is certain; the report of his wife’s being so speedily brought to bed is false; but I hear she is now with child. If the common story be true, that antichrist shall be born of a monk and a nun, as some pretended, how many thousands of antichrists are there in the world already? I was in hopes that a wife would have made Luther a little tamer: but he, contrary to all expectation, has published, indeed, a most elaborate, but as virulent a book against me, as ever he wrote. What will become of the pacific Erasmus, to be obliged to descend upon the stage, at a time of life when gladiators are usually dismissed from the service; and not only to fight, but to fight with beasts!”

In the mean time the disturbances in Germany increased everyday; and the war with the Turks, which brought the empire into danger, forced Charles V. at length to call a diet at Spires by his letters, May 24, 1525. After he had given the reasons why the diet was not held the year before, as it was appointed, he said, “That it was not because he thought that the imperial diets ought not to meddle with matters of religion; for he acknowledged, that, on the contrary, it was his duty to protect the Christian religion, to maintain the rights settled by their ancestors, and to prevent novelties and pernicious doctrines from arising and spreading but that, being certified that th<- edict of Worms was not executed in some parts of Germany, that there had been commotions and rebellions in some places, that the princes and members of the empire had many quarrels among themselves, that the Turk was ready to break in upon the territories of the empire, and that there were many disorders which needed a reformation, he had therefore appointed an imperial diet to meet at Augsburg upon the 1st of October.” Few of the princes, however, being able to meet at Augsburg, on account of the popular tumults which prevailed, the diet was prorogued, and fixed again at Spires, where it was held in June 1526. The emperor was not present in person: but Ferdinand his brother, and six other deputies, acted in his name. The elector of Saxony, and the landgrave of Hesse, who were of Luther’s party, came to it. At the opening of it, upon the 25th, the emperor’s deputies proposed such things as were to be the subject of consultation, and said, “That it was the emperor’s design, that the members of this diet should prescribe the means of securing the Christian religion, and the ancient discipline of the church derived to us by tradition; the punishments they should suffer, who did any thing contrary; and how the popish princes might assist each other best, in executing the edict of Worms.” The deputies nominated to debate this matter, were, among others, the landgrave of Hesse, Sturmius deputy of Strasburg, and Cressy deputy of Nuremberg, who embraced Luther’s doctrine; so that they could form no resolution conformable to the edict of Worms, but disputes ensued, and things were likely to end in a rupture. The elector of Saxony, landgrave of Hesse, and their party, were ready to withdraw; but Ferdinand, and the emperor’s deputies, foreseeing that if the diet broke up with these animosities, and came to no conclusion, all Germany would be in danger of falling into quarrels, took pains to pacify them, and brought them at last to make the following resolution viz. “That it being necessary, for the wel fart- m religion and the public peace, to call a national council in Germany, or a general one in Christendom, which should be opened within a year, deputies should be sent to the emperor, to desire him to return to Germany as soon as he could, and to hold a council; and that, in the mean time, the princes and states should so demean themselves concerning the edict of Worms, as to be able to give an account of their carriage to God and the emperor.”

Before this resolution of the diet appeared, the elector of Saxony, and landgrave of Hesse, proposed to the deputies of Strasbiirji and Nuremberg, to nuke1 league in the defence of those who should follow the new doctrine, and to bring the cities of Francfort and Ulm into it; but the deputies could then give no other answer, than that they would consult their cities about it. Affairs were now in great confusion in Germany; and they were not less so in Italy; for a quarrel arose between the pope and the emperor, during which Rome was twice taken, and the pope imprisoned. While the princes were thus employed in quarrelling with each other, Luther persisted in carrying on the work of the Reformation, as well by opposing the papists, as by combating the anabaptists and other fanatical sects; which, having taken the advantage of his contest ^with the church of. Rome, had sprung up and established themselves in several places. In 1527, Luther was suddenly seized with a coagulation of the blood about the heart, which had like to have put an end to his life; but recovering from this, he was attacked a second time with a spiritual temptation, which he calls, “Colaphum Satanae, a blow of Satan.” He seemed, as he tells us, to perceive at his left ear a prodigious beating, as it were of the waves of the sea, and this not only wiihin, but also without his head; and so violent withal, that he thought every moment he was going to expire. Afterwards, when he felt it only in the inner part of his head, he grew almost senseless, was all over chilly, and not able to speak: but, recovering himself a little, he applied himself to prayer, made a confession of his faith, and lamented grievously his unworthiness of martyrdom, which he had so often and so ardently desired. In this situation, he made a will, for he had a son, and his wife was again with child, in which he recommanded his family to the care of heaven: “Lord God,” says he, “I thank thee, that thou wouldst have me poor upon earth, and a beggar. I have neither house, nor land, nor possessions, nor money, to leave. Thou hast given me a wife and children take them, I beseech thee, under thy care, and preserve them, as thou hast preserved me.” He was, however, permitted to recover from this terrible condition; but he often spoke of it afterwards to his friends as one of the severest bufferings he had ever received from Satan. Perhaps our medical readers will be disposed to consider it in a very different light.

The troubles of Germany still continuing, the emperor was forced to call a diet at Spires in 1529, to require the assistance of the princes of the empire against the Turks, who had taken Buda, and to Bud out some means of allaying the contests about religion, which increased daily. In this diet were long and violent debates, utter winch the decree of the former diet oi Spues was again agreed to, in which it was ordered, that concerning me execution of the edict of Worms, the princes of the empire should act in such a manner, as that they might give a good account of their management to God and the emperor, but, because some had taken occasion from these general terms, to maintain all sorts of new doctrines, they made a new decree in this diet, to explain that of the former; by which it was appointed, “That in those places where the edict of Worms had hitherto been observed, they should still keep to the execution of it, nil a council should be called by the emperor; that those, who had taken up new opinions, and could not be brought to quit them without the hazard of some sedition, should be quiet for the future, and not admit of any alterations till the meeting of the council; that the new doctrine about the eucharist, which had been started of late, should not be entertained; that the mass should not be left off, nor the celebration of it be hindered, even in those places where the reformed doctrine prevailed; that the anabaptists should be proscribed; that the ministers of the word of God should preach it according to the interpretation of the church, and should abstain from speaking of any other doctrines, till the council should meet; that all the provinces of the empire should live in peace, and not commit acts of hostility upon one another, under a pretence of religion; and that one prince should not protect the subjects of another.”

The elector John of Saxony (for Frederic was dead), the elector of Brandenburg, Ernest and Francisdukes of Lunenburg, the landgrave of Hesse, and the prince of Anhalt, protested against this decree of the diet. Their reasons were, 4t Ttiat they ought not to do any thing to infringe upon the determination of the former diet, which had granted liberty in religion, till the holding of the council; that that resolution, having been taken by the unanimous consent of all the members of the empire, could not be repealed but by the like consent; that, in the diet of Nuremberg, the original cause of all the differences in religion was searched into, and that, to allay them, they had offered to the pope eighty articles, to which his holiness had given no answer; that the effect of their consultations had always been, that the best way to end disputes and reform abuses was to hold a council; that they could not suffer opinions to be forced from them, which th^y judged true and agreeable to the word of God, before the council was held; that their ministers had proved, by invincible arguments taken out of Scripture, that the popish mass was contrary to the institution of Jesus Christ, and the practice of the apostles, so that they could not agree to what uas ordered in the diet; that they knew the judgment of their churches concerning the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the eucharist; but that they ought not to make a decree against those who were of a contrary opinion, because they were neither summoned nor heard: that they could indeed venture to approve of the clause about preaching the gospel according to the interpretation received in the church, since that did not determine the matter, it being yet in dispute what was the true church; that there was nothing more certain than the word of Go4 itself, which explains itself, and therefore they would take care, that nothing else should be taught but the Old and New Testament in their purity; that they are the only infallible rule, and that all human traditions are uncertain; that the decree of the former diet was made for the preservation of peace, but that this last would infallibly beget wars and troubles. For these reasons they could not approve of the decree of the diet, but yet would do nothing that should be blame- worthy, till a council, either general or national, should be held." Fourteen cities, viz. Strasburg, Nuremberg, Ulm, Constance, Retlingen, Windsheim, Memmingen, Lindow, Ketnpten, Hailbron, Isny, Weissemburg, Nortlingen, S. Gal, joined in this protestation, which was put into writing, and published the 19th of April, 1529, by an instrument, in which they appealed from all that should be done, to the emperor, a future council, either general or national, or to unsuspected judges; and accordingly they appointed deputies to send to the emperor, to* petition that this decree might be revoked. This was the famous protestation, which gave the name of Protestants to the reformers in Germany.

The deputies having received this answer, drew up an act of appeal, and caused it to be presented to the emperor; which enraged him so extremely, that he confined them to their lodgings, and forbade them to write into Germany upon pain of death. One of the deputies, who happened to be absent when this order was given, wrote immediately to the senate of Nuremberg an account of what had passed; and this was transmitted to the elector of Saxony, the landgrave of Hesse, and other confederates, who met at Smalkald in November. Here it was first of all proposed, to agree upon a confession of faith; which accordingly was prepared, and afterwards offered at the diet of Augsburg, in June 1530. The emperor would not suffer it to be read in a full diet, but only in a special assembly of the princes and other members of the empire; after which the assembly was dismissed, that they might consult what resolutions should be formed. Some thought that the edict of Worms should be put in execution; others were for referring the matter to the decision of a certain number of honest, learned, and indifferent persons; a third party were for having it confuted by the catholic divines, and the confutation to be read in a full diet before the protestants; and these prevailed. The protestants afterwards presented an apology for their confession; but the emperor would not receive it; they were, however, both made public. This confession of faith, which was afterwards called “The confession of Augsburg,” was drawn up by Melancthon, the most moderate of all Luther’s followers, as was also the apology. He revised and corrected it several times, and, as Dupin tells us, could hardly please Luther at last. Maimbourg says, however, that Luther was exceedingly pleased with it, when Melancthon sent him a copy of it; and Seckendorf allows that Luther was very glad of the opportunity which was offered of letting the world know what he and his followers taught. It was signed by the elector of Saxony, the marquis of Brandenburg, Ernest and Francis dukes of Brunswick and Lurtenburg, the landgrave of Hesse, the princes of Anhalt, and the deputies of the cities of Nuremberg and Retlingen.

Luther had now nothing else to do but to sit down and contemplate the mighty work he had finished; and the remainder of his life was spent in exhorting princes, states, and universities, to confirm the reformation which had been brought about through him, and in publishing from time to time such writings as might encourage, direct, and aid them. The emperor threatened temporal punishments with armies, and the pope eternal with bulls and anathemas; but Luther cared for none of their threats. His friend and coadjutor Melancthon was not so indifferent, owing to the moderation and diffidence of his temper; and hence we find many of Luther’s letters, written on purpose to comfort him under his anxieties. “I am,” says he, in one of these letters, “much weaker than you in private conflicts, if I may call those conflicts private which I have with the devil; but you are much weaker than me in public. You are all diffidence in the public cause; I, on the contrary, am very sanguine, because I am confident it is a just and a true cause, the cause of God and of Christ, which need not look pale and tremble; whereas the case is very different with me in my private conflicts, who am a very miserable sinner, and therefore have great reason to look pale and tremble. Upon this account it is, that I can be almost an indifferent spectator amidst all the noisy threats and bullyings of the papists; for if we fall, the kingdom of Christ falls with us; and, if it should fall, I had rather fall with Christ, than stand with Caesar.” So again a little farther: “You, JNlelancthon, cannot bear these disorders, and labour to have things transacted by reason, and agreeable to that spirit of calmness and moderation which your philosophy dictates. You might as well attempt to be mad with reason. Do not you see that the matter is entirely out of your power and management, and that even Christ himself forbids your measures to take place?” This letter was written in 1530.

In 1533 Luther wrote a consolatory epistle to the citizens of Oschatz, who had suffered some hardships for adhering to the Augsburg confession of faith; in which, among other things, he says, " The devil is the host, and the world is his inn, so that wherever you come, you shall be sure to find this ugly host.' 1 He had also about this time a warm controversy with George duke of Saxony, who had such an aversion to Luther’s doctrine, that he obliged his subjects to take an oath that they would never embrace it. Sixty or seventy citizens of Leipsic, however, were found to have deviated a little from the catholic doctrine, in some point or other, and they were known previously to have consulted Luther about it on which George complained to the elector John, that, Luther had not only abused his person, but also preached up rebellion among his subjects. The elector ordered Luther to be acquainted with this, and to be told at tle same time, that if be did not clear himself of the charge, he could not possibly escape punishment. Luther, however, easily refuted the accusation, by proving that he had been so fur from stirring up his subjects against him on the score of religion, that, on the contrary, he had exhorted them rather to undergo the greatest hardships, and even to suffer themselves to be banished.

This year the court of Rome, finding it impossible to deal with the protestants by force, began to have recourse to stratagem. They affected therefore to think, that though Luther had indeed carried things to a violent extreme, yet what he had pleaded in defence of these measures was not entirely without foundation. They talked with a seeming shew of moderation; and Pius 111. who succeeded Clement VII. proposed a reformation first among themselves, and even went so far as to fix a place for a council to meet at for that purpose. But Luther treated this farce as it deserved to be treated; unmasked and detected it immediately; and, to ridicule it the more strongly, caused a picture to be drawn, in which was represented the pope seated on high upon a throne, some cardinals about him with fox’s tails, and seeming to evacuate upwards and downwards, “sursum deorsum repurgare,” as Melchior Adam expresses it. This was fixed against the title-page, to let the readers see at once the scope and design of the book which was, to expose that cunning and artifice with which those subtle politicians affected to cleanse and purify themselves from their errors and superstitions. Luther published about the same time “A Confutation of the pretended grant of Constanline to Sylvester bishop of Rome,” and also “Some letters of John Huss,” written from his prison at Constance to the Bohemians.

A thousand falsehoods were invented by the papists about his death. Some said that he died suddenly; others, that he killed himself; others, that the devil strangled him; others, that his corpse stunk so abominably that they were forced to leave it in the way as it was carried to be interred. Similar slanders were even invented about his death, while he was yet alive for a pamphlet was published at Naples, and in other places of Italy, the year before, wherein was given the following account: “Luther, being dangerously sick, desired to communicate, and died as soon as he had received the viaticum. As he was dying, he desired his body might be laid upon the altar, to be adored; but that request being neglected, he was buried. When, lo! at his interment there arose a furious tempest, as if the world was at an end; and the terror was universal. Some, in lifting their hands up to heaven, perceived that the host, which the deceased had presumed to take, was suspended in the air; upon which it was gathered up with great veneration, and laid in a sacred place, and the tempest ceased for the present; but it arose the night following with greater fury, and filled the whole town with consternation; and the next day Luther’s sepulchre was found open and empty, and a sulphureous stench proceeded from it, which nobody could bear. The assistants fell sick of it, and many of them repented, and returned to the catholic church.” We have related this as a specimen of the innumerable falsehoods that the papists have invented about Luther; in which, as Bayle observes very truly, they have shewn no regard either to probability, or to the rules of the art of slandering, but have assumed all the confidence of those who fully believe that the public will blindly and implicitly receive their stories, be they ever so absurd and incredible. Luther, however, to give the most effectual refutation of this account of his death, published an advertisement of his being alive; and wrote a book at the same time to prove that “Papacy was founded by the devil.” Amidst all this malice of the papists towards Luther, we must not forget a generous action of the emperor Charles V. which is an exception to it. While Charles’s troops quartered at Wittemberg in 1547, which was one year after Luther’s death, a soldier gave Luther’s effigies, in the church of the castle, two stabs with his dagger; and the Spaniards earnestly desired that his tomb might be pulled down, and his bones dug up and burnt: but the emperor wisely answered, “I have nothing farther to do with Luther; he has henceforth another judge, whose jurisdiction it is not lawful fur me to usurp. Know, that I make not war with the dead, but with the living, who still make war with me.” He would not therefore suffer his tomb to be demolished; and he forbad any attempt of that nature upon pain of death.

After this long, but we trust, not uninteresting account of the great founder of the Reformation, we shall select only, on the part of the Roman catholics, the opinion of father Simon, respecting his talents as an interpreter of scripture, for this is a part of his character which must appear very important, as he was the first who boldly undertook to reform an overgrown system of idolatry and superstition by the pure word of God. “Luther,” says this critical author, “was the first protestant who ventured to translate the dible into the vulgar tongue from the Hebrewtext, although he understood Hebrew but very indifferently. As he was of a free and bold spirit, he accuses St. Jerom of ignorance in the Hebrew tongue; but he had more reason to accuse himself of this fault, and for having so precipitately undertaken a work of this nature, which required more time than he employed about it. Thus we find that he was obliged to review his translation, and make a second edition; but, notwithstanding this review, the most learned protestants of that time could not approve of either the one or the other, and several of them took the liberty to mark the faults, which were very numerous.” In another place he speaks of him not as a translator, but as a commentator, in the following manner: “Luther, the German protestant’s patriarch, was not satisfied with making a translation of the whole Bible, both from the Hebrew and Greek, into his mother tongue, but thought he ought to explain the word of God according to his own method, for the better fixing of their minds whom he had drawn to his party. But this patriarch could succeed no better in his commentaries upon the Bible than in his translation. He made both the one and the other with too little consideration; and he very often consults only his own prejudices. That he might be thought a learned man, he spends time to no purpose in confuting of other people’s opinions, which he fancies ridiculous. He mixes very improperly theological questions and several other things with his commentaries, so that they may rather be called lectures, and disputes in divinity, than real commentaries. This may be seen in his exposition on Genesis, where there are many idle digressions. He thought, that by reading of morality, and bawling against those who were not of nis opinion, he might very much illustrate the word of God; yet one may easily see by his own books, that he was a turbulent and passionate man, who had only a little flashy wit and quickness of invention. There is nothing great or learned in his commentaries upon the Bible; every thing low and mean: and as he had studied divinity, he has rather composed a rhapsody of theological questions, than a commentary upon the scripture text: to which we may add, that he wanted understanding, and usually followed his senses instead of his reason.”

This is the language of those in the church of Rome who speak of Luther with any degree of moderation; for the generality allow him neither parts nor learning, nor any attainment intellectual or moral. They tell you that he was not only no divine, but even an outrageous enemy and calumniator of all kinds of science; and that he committed gross, stupid, and abominable errors against the principles of divinity and philosophy. They accuse him of having confessed, that after struggling for ten years together with his conscience, he at last became a perfect master of it, and fell into Atheism; and add, that he frequently said he would renounce his portion in heaven, provided God would allow him a pleasant life for 100 years upon earth. And, lest we should wonder that so monstrous and much unheard-of impiety should be found in a mere human creature, they make no scruple to say that an Incubus begat him. These, and many more such scandalous imputations, Bayle has been at the pains to collect, and has treated them with all the contempt and just indignation they deserve.

On the protestant side, the character given of Luther by Dr. Robertson, seems, on the whole, the most just and impartial that has yet appeared. “As he was raised by Providence,” says this excellent historian, " to be the author of one of the greatest and most interesting revolutions recorded in history, there is not any person, perhaps, whose character has been drawn with such opposite colours. In his own age, one party, struck with horror aud inflamed with rage, when they saw with what a daring hand he overturned everything which they held to be sacred, or valued as beneficial, imputed to him not only the defects and vices of a man, but the qualities of a demon. The other, warmed with the admiration and gratitude which they thought he merited, as the restorer of light and liberty to the Christian church, ascribed to hiui perfections above the condition of humanity, and viewed all his actions with a veneration bordering on that which should be paid only to those who are guided by the immediate inspiration of heaven. It is his own conduct, not the undistinguishing censure or the extravagant praise of his contemporaries, that ought to regulate the opinions of the present age concerning him. Zeal for what he regarded as truth; undaunted intrepidity to maintain his own system; abilities, both natural and acquired, to defend his principles; and unwearied industry in propagating them; are virtues which shine so conspicuously in every part of his behaviour, that even his enemies must allow him to have possessed them in an eminent degree. To these may be added, with equal justice, such purity and even austerity of manners, as became one who assumed the character of a reformer; such sanctity of life as suited the doctrine which he delivered; and such perfect disinterestedness, as affords no slight presumption of his sincerity. Superior to all selfish considerations, a stranger to the elegancies of life, and despising its pleasures, he left the honours and emoluments of the church to his disciples, remaining satisfied himself in his original state of professor in the university, and pastor of the town of Wittemberg, with the moderate appointments annexed to these offices. His extraordinary qualities were allayed by no inconsiderable mixture of human frailties and human passions. These, however, were of such a nature, that they cannot be imputed to malevolence or corruption of heart, but seem to have taken their rise from the same source with many of his virtues. His mind, forcible and vehement in all its operations, roused by great objects, or agitated by violent passions, broke out, on many occasions, with an impetuosity which astonishes men of feebler spirits, or such as are placed in a more tranquil situation. By carrying some praise-worthy dispositions to excess, he bordered sometimes on what was culpable, and was often betrayed into actions which exposed him to censure. His confidence that his own opinions were well-founded, appreached to arrogance; his courage in asserting them, to rashness; his firmness in adhering to them, to obstinacy; and his zeal in confuting his adversaries, to rage and scurrility. Accustomed himself to consider every thing as subordinate to truth, he expected the same deference for it from other men; and, without making any allowances for their timidity or prejudices, he poured forth against such as disappointed him in this particular, a torrent of invective mingled with contempt. Regardless of any distinction of rank or character when his doctrines were attacked, he chastised all his adversaries indiscriminately, with the same rough hand: neither the royal dignity of Henry VIII, nor the eminent learning and abilities of Erasmus, screened them from the same gross abuse with which he treated Tetzel or Eckius.

, an Italian artist, was born at Florence, in 1666. He was the disciple of Dominico Gabbiani, and at twenty-four his merit was judged equal to that of his master. He afterwards studied at Rome, under the patronage of the grand duke, and hoped to have profited by the instructions of Giro Ferri; but on his arrival he had to regret the death of that master. He now, however, pursued his studies with such success, that his works became much valued in England, France, and Germany. The emperor knighted him, and the elector of Mentz sent with his patent of knighthood, a cross set with diamonds Lutti was never satisfied with his own performances, and though he often retouched his pictures, yet they never appeared laboured; he always changed for the better, and his last thought was the best. There were three much-admired public works of his at Rome, viz. a Magdalene in the church of St. Catharine of Siena, at Monte Magna Napoli; the prophet Isaiah, in an oval, St. John de Lateran; and St. Anthony of Padua, in the church of the Holy Apostles; and at the palace Albani was a miracle of St. Pio, which some reckon his master-piece. Fuseli speaks of his “Cain, flying from his murdered brother,” he says has something of the sublimity and the pati it strike in the Pietro Martyre of Titian and his “Psyche” in the gallery of the capitol, breathes refinement of taste and elegance. His death is said to have been hastened by a fit of chagrin, owing to his not having been able to finish a picture of St. Eusebius, bishop of Vercelli, designed for Turin, for which he had received a large earnest, and promised to get it ready at a set time. But several disputes happening between him and those who bespoke the picture, brought on a fit of sickness, of which he died at Rome, in 1724, aged fifty-eight, and the picture was afterwards finished by Pietro Bianchi, one of his disciples. Lutti is blamed for not having placed his figures advantageously, but in such a manner as to throw a part of the arms and legs out of the cloth. This fault he possesses in common with Paul Veronese and Rubens, who, to give more dignity and grandeur to the subject they treated, have introduced into the fore-ground of their pictures, groups of persons on horseback, tops of heads, and arms and legs, of which no other part of the body appears.

Lutti was lively in conversation; he had a politeness in his behaviour, which, as it prompted him to treat every body with proper civility, so it also procured him a return of esteem and respect. He spoke well in general of all his contemporary painters, but contracted no particular acquaintance with any, though he was principal of the academy of St. Luke nor did he court the protection of the great, whom he never visited, and who very seldom visited him convinced that the true protection of a painter is his own merit.

, a very celebrated general and mareschal of France, was a posthumous son of the famous Bouteville, who was beheaded under Louis XIII. for fighting a duel. He was born in 1628, and in 1643 was present at the battle of Rocroi, under the great Conde, whose pupil he was, and whom he followed in all his fortunes. He also resembled that great man in many of his eminent qualities, in acuteness of perception, thirst for knowledge, promptness in action, and ardour of genius. These qualities he displayed in the conquest of Franche-Comte in 1668, where he served as lieutenant-general. He served also in the Dutch campaign of 1672, took many towns, and gained some trophies in the field. He closed this expedition by a retreat more famous than his victories, which he accomplished with an awny of 20,000 men, against the opposition, of 70,000. After distinguishing himself in another expedition in Franche-Comte, he was advanced in 1675, to the dignity of mareschal of France. He fought, during the remainder of that war, with various success. In the second war of Louis XIV. against the allied powers in 1690, he gained the battle of Fleurus, and it was generally allowed that he prevailed in it chiefly by the superiority of his genius to that of his antagonist the prince of Waldeck. In the ensuing year, 1691,“he gained the battles of Leufen and Steinkirk; and, continuing to be opposed to king William of England, he was again successful, in the bloody battle of Nerwinde, where there fell on the two sides near 20,000 men. It was said in France that on this occasion they should not sing Te Deum, but De profundis, the mass for the dead. The duke of Luxembourg is said to have had an ordinary countenance and a deformed figure, in consequence of which William III. whose constant antagonist he was, is reported to have said once with some impatience,” What! shall I never beat this hump-backed fellow?“This speech being repeated to the duke,” How should he know,“said he,” the shape of my back? I am sure he never saw me turn it to him.“The last great action of the duke’s life was a second famous retreat, in the presence of superior forces, through a considerable extent of country, to Tournay. This was in 1694, and he died the following year, Jan. 4, at the age of sixty-seven. Notwithstanding the disadvantages of his person, Luxembourg is said to have been much involved in intrigues of gallantry. He had some powerful enemies, particularly the minister Louvois, who once had him confined very unjustly in the Bastille. Among other frivolous calumnies on which he was then interrogated, he was asked whether he had not made a league with the devil, to marry His son to the daughter of the marquis de Louvois. His answer was replete with the high spirit of French nobility.” When Matthew of Montmorenci,“said he,” married a queen of France, he addressed himself, not to the devil, but to the states-general; and the declaration of the states was, that in order to gain the support of the house of Montmorenci for the young king in his minority, it would be right to conclude that marriage." Idle as the accusations against him were, they cost him a confinement of fourteen months, and he had no subsequent redress.

, a Greek poet and grammarian, was a native of Chalcis, in Eubcea, and according to Ovid, was killed by a shot with an arrow. He flourished about 304 years before Christ, and wrote a poem entitled “Alexandra,” or Cassandra, containing a long course of predictions, which he supposes to be made by Cassandra, daughter of Priam, king of Troy. This poem has created a great deal of trouble to the learned, on account of its obscurity, which procured him the title of “the tenebrous poet.” Suidas has preserved the titles of twenty tragedies of his composing; and he is reckoned in the number of the poets who were called the Pleiades, and who flourished under Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt. The best edition of “Lycophron,” is that at Oxford, 1697, by Dr. (afterwards archbishop) Potter; re-printed therein 1701, folio. A few years ago, the rev. Henry Meen, B. D. published “Remarks” on the “Cassandra,” which are highly judicious, and his conjectures in illustration of the obscurities of Lycophron, plausible and happy.

, the celebrated lawgiver of Sparta, flourished, according to the most judicious modern chronologers, about 898 years before the Christian aera. Plutarch seems to think that he was the fifth in descent from Procles, and the tenth from Hercules. When the sceptre devolved to him by the death of his brother Polydectes, the widow of that prince was pregnant. He was no sooner assured of this, than he determined to hold the sovereign power in trust only, in case the child should prove a son, and took the title of Prodicus or Protector, instead of that of king. It is added, that he had the virtue to resist the offers of the queen, who would have married him, with the dreadful promise that no son should be born to intercept his views. A son at length was born, and publicly presented by him to the people, from whose joy on the occasion he named the infant Charilaus, i. e. the people’s joy. Lycurgus was at this time a young man, and the state of Sparta was too turbulent and licentious for him to introduce any system of regulation, without being armed with some more express authority. How long he continued to administer the government is uncertain; probably till his nephew was of age to take it into his own hands. After resigning it, howeyer, he did not long remain in Sparta, but went as a traveller to visit other countries and study their laws, particularly those of Crete, which were highly renowned for their excellence, and had been instituted by Rhadamanthus and Minos, two illustrious legislators, who pretended to have received their laws from Jupiter. Lycurgus passed some years in this useful employment, but he had left behind him such a reputation for wisdom and justice, that when the corruption and confusion of the state became intolerable, he was recalled by a public invitation to assume the quality of legislator, and to new model the government.

, an Athenian orator, contemporary with Demosthenes, was born about 408 years before the Christian acra, and died about or after 328. He was an Athenian, and the son of a person named Lycophron. He studied philosophy under Plato, and rhetoric under Isocrates. He was of the most exalted character for integrity, in which he was severely scrupulous; a strenuous defender of liberty, a perpetual opposer of Philip and Alexander, and a firm friend of Demosthenes. As a magistrate, he proceeded with severity against criminals, but kept a register of all his proceedings, which, on quitting his office, he submitted to public inspection. When he was about to die, he publicly offered his actions to examination, and refuted the only accuser who appeared against him. He was one of the thirty orators whom the Athenians refused to give up to Alexander. One oration of his, against Leocrates, is still extant, and has been published in the collections of Aldus, Taylor, and Reiske. His eloquence partook of the manly severity and truth of his character.

, an ancient English poet, is recorded as one of the immediate successors of Chaucer. The few dates that have been recovered of his history are, that he was ordained a sub-deacon in 1339; a deacon in 1393, and a priest in 1397; from these it has been surmised that he was born about 1375, that is, twenty-five years before the death of Chaucer. There is a note of Wanley’s in the Harleian Catalogue (2251. 3.) which insinuates as if Lydgate did not die till 1482. This Dr. Percy thinks too long a date; he was, however, living in 1446, since in his “Philomela” he mentions the death of Henry duke of Warwick, who died that year. Some authorities place his death in 1461, and this date Mr. Ellis thinks is not improbable.

He was, says Warton, who of all our modern critics has considered him with most attention, a monk of the Benedictine abbey of Bury in Suffolk. After a short education at Oxford, he travelled into France and Italy; and returned a complete master of the language and the literature of both countries. He chiefly studied the Italian and French poets, particularly Dante, Boccaccio, and Alain Chartier; and became so distinguished a proficient in polite learning, that he opened a school in his monastery, for teaching the sons of the nobility the arts of versification, and the elegancies of composition. Yet, although philology was his object, he was not unfamiliar with the fashionable philosophy: he was not only a poet and a rhetorician, but a geometrician, an astronomer, a theologist, and a disputant. Mr. Warton is of opinion that he made considerable additions to those amplifications of our language, in which Chaucer, Gower, and Hoccleve, led the way; and that be is the first of our writers whose style is clothed wjth that perspicuity in which the English phraseology appears at this day to an English reader.

, an eminent English scholar, was born at Alkrington or Okerton, near Banbury in Oxfordshire, in 1572. His father, observing his natural talents, sent him to Winchester school, where he was admitted a scholar on the foundation, at thirteen; and, being elected thence to New-college in Oxford, was put under the tuition of Dr. (afterwards sir) Henry Martin, who became so well known during the rebellion. Mr. Lydiat was made probationer fellow in 1591, and two years after, actual fellow. Then taking his degree in arts, he applied himself to astronomy, mathematics, and divinity, in the last of which studies he was very desirous of continuing; but, finding a great defect in his memory and utterance, he chose rather to resign his fellowship, which he could not hold without entering the church, and live upon his small patrimony. This was in 1603; and he spent seven years after in finishing and printing such books as he had begun when in college. He first appeared as an author in 1605, by publishing his “Tractatus de variis annorum formis.” Of this he published a defence in 1607, against the censures of Joseph Scaliger, whom he more directly attacked in his “Emendatio Temporum ab initio mundi hue usque compendio facta, contra Scaligerum et alios,” 1609. This he dedicated to prince Henry, eldest son of James I. He was chronographer and cosmographer to that prince, who had a great respect for him, and, had he lived, would certainly have made a provision for him. In 1609, he became acquainted with Dr. Usher, afterwards archbishop of Armagh, who took him into Ireland, and placed him in the college at Dublin, where he continued two years; and then purposing to return to England, the lord-deputy and chancellor of Ireland made him, at his request, a joint promise of a competent support, upon his coming back thither. This appears to have been the mastership of the school at Armagh, endowed with 50l. per annum in laud.

When he came to England, which appears to have been in 1611, he is supposed to have been married, and to Usher’s sister; but for either supposition there seems very little foundation. Soon after his return, however, the rectory of Okerton becoming void, was offered to him; and though while he was fellow of New-college, he had refused the offer of it by his father, who was the patron, yet he now accepted it, and was instituted in 1612. Here he seems to have lived happily for many years: but being imprudently security for the debts of a near relation, which he was unable to pay, he was successively imprisoned at Oxford, the King’s-bench, and elsewhere, in 1629, or 1630, and remained a prisoner till sir William Boswell, a great patron of learned men, joining with Dr. Pink, warden of New-college, and Dr. Usher, paid the debt, and released him; and archbishop Laud also, at the request of sir Henry Martin, gave his assistance on this occasion . He had no sooner got his liberty, than, out of an ardent zeal to promote literature and the honour of his country, he petitioned Charles I for his protection and encouragement to travel into Turkey, Ethiopia, and the Abyssinian empire, in searcli of manuscripts relating to civil or ecclesiastical history, or any other branch of learning, and to print them in England. For the farther advancement of this design, he also requested the king would apply, by his ambassadors and ministers, to such princes as were in alliance with him, for a similar privilege to be granted to Lydiat and his assigns: this was a spirited design, but it was impossible for the king at that unhappy period to pay attention to it.

This disappointment, however, did not diminish his loyalty, and on that account he was a great sufferer during the rebellion. He was a man of undaunted mind, and talked frequently and warmly in behalf both of the king and the bishops, refused to comply with the demands of money made upon him by the parliament army, and with great personal courage defended his books and papers against their attempts to seize them. For these offences he was four times plundered by some troops of the parliament, at Compton-house in Warwickshire, to the value of at least 70l.; was twice carried away from his house at Okerton; once to Warwick, and another time to Bunbury; he was treated infamously by the soldiers, and so much debarred from decent necessaries, that he could have no change of linen for a considerable time, without borrowing from some charitable person. At length, after he had lived at his parsonage several years, in indigence and obscurity, he died April 3, 1646, and was interred the next day in the chancel of Okerton church, which had been rebuilt by him. A stone was laid over his grave in 1669, by the society of New-college, who also erecied an honorary monument, with an inscription to his memory, in the cloister of their college.

it was a subject of inquiry, who Lydiat was.

, a learned linguist and antiquary, the author of an excellent dictionary of the Saxon and Gothic languages, was born at Totnes in Devonshire, in 1704. He was educated partly at home, under his father, who kept a school at Totnes, partly under other preceptors, but chiefly (being obliged to return home from consumptive complaints) by his own private care and application. At the age of nineteen, he was admitted at Hart hall (now Hertford college) in Oxford, took his bachelor’s degree in 1716, was ordained deacon in 1717, and priest in 1719, soon after which he was presented to the living of Houghton-parva in Northamptonshire. In this retreat he laid the foundation of his great proficiency in the Anglo-Saxon language. He became master of arts in 1722.

Having now qualified himself completely for a work of that nature, he undertook the arduous task of publishing the “Etymologicum Anglicanum” of Francis Junius, from the manuscript of the author in the Bodleian Library. To this undertaking he was led, as he tells us in his preface, by the commendations which Hickes and other learned antiquaries had given to that unpublished work. In the seventh year from the commencement of his design, he published the work, with many additions, and particularly that of an Anglo-Saxon Grammar prefixed. The work was received with the utmost approbation of the learned. In 1750, Mr. Lye became a member of the society of antiquaries, and about the same time was presented by the earl of Northampton to the vicarage of Yardley Hastings, on which accession he resigned his former living of Houghton; giving an illustrious example of primitive moderation, especially as he had hitherto supported his mother, and had still two sisters dependent upon him. The next publication which he issued, was that of the Gothic Gospels, undertaken at the desire of Eric Benzelius, bishop of Upsal, who had collated and corrected them. This, which he had been long preparing, appeared from the Oxford press in the same year, with a Gothic Grammar prefixed. His last years were employed chiefly in finishing for the press his own great work, the Anglo-Saxon and Gothic Dictionary, which was destined to owe that to another editor, which he had performed for Junius. His manuscript was just completed, and given to the printer, when he died at Yardley Hastings, in 1767; and was there buried, with a commendatory but just and elegant epitaph. His Dictionary was published in 1772, in two volumes folio, by the rev. Owen Manning, with a grammar of the two languages united, and some memoirs of the author, from which this account is taken. It appears by some original correspondence between Mr. Lye and Dr. Ducarel (for the perusal of which we are indebted to Mr. Nichols), that Mr. Lye had been employed on his dictionary a long time before 1765, and that he had almost relinquished the design from a dread of the labour and expence. In the labour he had none to share with him, but at the time above mentioned archbishop Seeker offered him a subscription of 50l. to forward the work, and he appears to have hoped for similar instances of liberality.

In 1757 he had an opportunity again of rendering himself conspicuous in a political capacity, by the part which he took in the famous convention of Closter-seven, entered into between the duke of Richelieu, commander of the French forces, and the duke of Cumberland, who was then at the head of the allied army. In this, however, he met with many difficulties, as the history of that convention shows; and the king of France and his Britannic majesty at last refused their ratification. In March 1763 he was invested with the order of the elephant by Frederic V. the highest honour his sovereign could bestow; but some complaints being made against him on account of his administration, which were not altogether groundless, he resigned in Oct. 1765. The remainder of his life he passed in retirement at Lubennau, where he died of a dropsy of the breast, Nov. 1781, in the seventy-third year of his age. He was a man of considerable learning, elegant address, and various accomplishments. His works are, I. A translation of “Seneca de Beneficiis,” Hamburgh, 1753, 8vo. 2. A translation of Seneca on “The Shortness of Life,” 1754. 3. “Der Sonderling,” or “The Singular Man,” Hanover, 1761, 8vo, and in French, Copenhagen, 1777, 8vo, a work which, according to his biographer Busching, is well worth a perusal. 4. “Historical, Political, and Moral Miscellanies,” in four parts, 1775 1777, 8vo. 5 Paraphrases on “The Epistles,” printed at various times, 1754 1770. 6. “The real state of Europe in the year 1737,” and several other articles in Busching’s Magazine for History and Geography.

, son of a Polish Jew, who was a silversmith, and teacher of Hebrew at Cambridge, was born there, in 1739. He displayed wonderful talents as a young man; and shewed very early a great inclination to learning, particularly mathematics; but though Dr. Smith, then master of Trinity-college, offered to put him to school at his own expence, he would go only for a day or two, saying, “he could learn more by himself in an hour than in a day with his master.” He began the study of botany in. 1755, which he continued to his death; and could remember, not only the Linniean names of almost all the English plants, but even the synonyma of the old botanists, which form a strange and barbarous farrago of great bulk; and had collected large materials for a “Flora Cantabrigiensis,” describing fully every part of each plant from the life, without being obliged to consult, or being liable to be misled by, former authors. In 1758 he obtained much celebrity by publishing a treatise “on Fluxions,” dedicated to his patron, Dr. Smith; and in 1763 a work entitled “Fasciculus plantaruui circa Cantabrigiam nascentium, quae post Raium observatae fuere,” 8vo. Mr. Banks (now sir Joseph Banks, bart. and president of the royal society), whom he first instructed in this science, sent for him to Oxford, about 1762 or 1763, to read lectures; which he did with great applause, to at least sixty pupils; but could not be induced to make a long absence from Cambridge. He had a salary of a hundred pounds per annum for calculating the “Nautical Almanack,” and frequently received presents from the board of longitude for his inventions. He could read Latin and French with ease; but wrote the former ill; had studied the English history, and could quote whole passages from the Monkish writers verbatim. He was appointed by the board of longitude to go with captain Phipps (afterwards lord Mulgrave) to the North pote in 1773, and made the astronomical and other mathematical calculations, printed in the account of that voyage. After his return he married and settled in London, where, on May 1, 1775, he died of the measles. He was then engaged in publishing a complete edition of all the works of Dr. Halley. His “Calculations in Spherical Trigonometry abridged,” were printed in “Philosophical Transactions,*' vol. LXI. art. 46. After his death his name appeWed in the title-page of” A Geographical Dictionary,“of which the astronomical parts were said to be” taken from the papers of the late Mr. Israel Lyons, of Cambridge, author of several valuable mathematical productions, and astronomer in lord Mnlgrave’s voyage to the Northern hemisphere.“It remains to be noticed, that a work entitled” The Scholar’s Instructor, or Hebrew Grammar, by Israel Lyons, Teacher of the Hebrew Tongue in the University of Cambridge: the second edition, with many Additions and Emendations which the Author has found necessary in his long course of teaching Hebrew,“Cambridge, 1757, 8vo, was the production of his father; as was a treatise printed at the Cambridge press, under the title of” Observations and Enquiries relating to various parts of Scripture History, 1761," published by subscription at two shillings and six-pence. He died in August 1770, and was buried, agreeably to his own desire, although contrary to the Jewish principles, in Great St. Mary’s Church-yard, Cambridge. He was on this occasion carried through the church, and his daughter Judith read some form of interment-service over his grave. He had resided near forty years at Cambridge.

, or Lyranus, a celebrated Franciscan, in the 14th century, and one of the most learned men of his time, was born of Jewish parents at Lyre, a town in Normandy, in the diocese of Evreux. After having been instructed in rabbinical learning, he embraced Christianity, entered among the Franciscans at Verneuil, 1291, and taught afterwards at Paris with great credit. He rose by his merit to the highest offices in his order, and also gained the esteem of the great; queen Jane, countess of Burgundy, and wife of Philip the Long, appointed him one of her executors in 1325. He died at a very advanced age, October 23, 1340, leaving some “Postils,” or short Commentaries on the whole Bible, which were formerly in considerable reputation the most scarce edition of them is that of Rome, 1472, seven vols, folio; and the best that of Antwerp, 1634, six vols. folio. These commentaries are incorporated in the “Biblia Maxima,” Paris, 1660, nineteen vols. folio; and there is a French translation of them, Paris, 1511, and 1512, five vols. folio. He published also “A Disputation against the Jews,” in 8vo, a treatise against a particular rabbi, who made use of the New Testament to combat Christianity. These, and his other works not printed, show the author to have had a much more perfect knowledge of the Holy Scriptures than was common at that time.

, a learned Protestant theologian, was born at Winendeen in the territory of Wittemberg, in the year 1552. He was educated at Tubingen, at the expence of the duke of Saxony, and became a minister of the church of Wittemberg in 1577. He was one of the first to sign the “Concord,” and was deputed, with James Andreas, to procure the signature of the divines and ministers in the electorate of Saxony. He died at Dresden, where he was then minister, February 14, 1601, aged 50, leaving a great number of works, both in German and Latin. The principal are, 1. “Explanations of Genesis,” in six parts, or six volumes, 4to, each of which bears the name of the patriarch whose history it explains. 2. “Comraentaries on the two first chapters of Daniel,” 2 vols. 4to. 3. “A Paraphrase on the History of the Passion,” 4to, or 12mo. 4. “Explanation of Psalm CI,” 8vo. 5. “Commentaries on the Minor Prophets,” 4to, published at Leipsic, 1609, by Poly carp Lyserus, his great-grandson, who has added some remarks on Haggai, according to his ancestor’s method. 6. “Commentaries on the Epistle to the Hebrews.” 7. “Centuria qutestionum de articulis libri Christiana; Concordia?,” 4to. 8. “Christianismus, Papismus, Calvinismus,” 8vo. 9. “Harmonia Calvinianorum et Photinianorum in Doctrina de Sacra Cena,” 4to. 10. “Vindiciae Lyserianse, an sincretismus in rebus fidei cum Calvinianis coli prodest,” 4to. II. “Disputationes IX. Anti Steiniance quibus examinatur defensio concionis Irenicse Pauli Steinii,” 4to. 12. “Harmonia Evangelistarum continuata ad Christianam Harmoniam et ejusdem Epitome,” 8vo. 13. “Disput. de Deo patre Creatore coeli et terrae,” 4to. 14. “De seternitate Filii Dei,” 4to. 15. “De sacramentis decades duae,” 4to. He published also the “History of the Jesuits,” written by Elias Hasenmuller, who having quitted that society, and turned Lutheran, retired to Wittemberg, and died there before his work was printed. Father Gretser attacked this history, and Lyserus answered him by “Strena ad Gretserum pro honorario ejus,” 8vo.

, a celebrated statuary among the ancients, was a native of Sicyon, and flourished in the time of Alexander the Great. He was bred a locksmith, and followed that business for a while; but, by the advice of Eupompus, a painter, he applied himself to painting, which, however, he soon quitted for sculpture, and being thought to execute his works with more ease than the ancients, he became more employed than any other artist. The statue of a man wiping and anointing himself after bathing was particularly excellent: Agrippa placed it before his baths at Rome. Tiberius, who was charmed with it, and not able to resist the desire of being master of it, when he came to the empire, took it into his own apartment, and placed another very fine one in its place. But the Roman people demanding, in a full theatre, that he would replace the first statue, he found it necessary, notwithstanding his power, to comply with their solicitations, in order to appease the tumult. Another of Lysippus’s capital pieces was a statue of the sun, represented in a car drawn by four horses; this statue was worshipped at Rhodes. He made also several statues of Alexander and his favourites, which were brought to Rome by Metellus, after he had reduced the Macedonian empire. He particularly excelled in the representation of the hair, which he more happily expressed than any of his predecessors in the art. He also made his figures less than the life, that they might be seen such as statues appear when placed, as usual, at some height; and when he was charged with this fault, he answered, "That other artists had indeed represented men such as nature had made them, but, for his part, he chose to represent them such as they appeared to be to the eye/' He had three sons, who were all his disciples, and ac quired great reputation in the art,

When he returned from his continental tour, he was (May 4, 1729) made page of honour to the princess royal. He also obtained a seat in parliament, and soon distinguished himself among the most eager opponents of sir Robert Walpole, though his father, who was one of the lords of the admiralty, always voted with the court. For many years the name of George Lyttelton was seen in every account of every debate in the house of commons. Among the great leading questions, he opposed the standing army, and the excise, and supported the motion for petitioning the king to remove Walpole. The prince of Wales having, in consequence of a quarrel with the king, been obliged to leave St. James’s in 1737, kept a separate court, and opened his arms to the opponents of the ministry. Mr. Lyttelton was made his secretary, and was supposed to have great influence in the direction of his conduct. His name consequently occurs, although not very often, in Doddington’s Diary. He persuaded the prince, whose business it was now to be popular, tbat he would advance his character by patronage. Mallet was made under-secretary, with 2001. a year; and Thomson had a pension of 100l. The disposition of the two men must account for the difference in the sums. Mallet could do more political service than the honest-hearted Thomson. For Thomson, however, Mr. Lyttelton always retained his kindness, and was able at last to place him at ease. Moore courted his favour by an apologetical poem called “The Trial of Selim,” and was paid with kind words, which, as is common, says Dr. Johnson, raised great hopes, that at last were disappointed. This matter, however, is differently stated in our account of Moore.

Mr. Lyttelton now stood in the first rank of opposition; and Pope, who was incited, it is not easy to say how, to increase the clamour against the ministry, commended him among the other patriots. This drew upon him the reproaches of Mr. Henry Fox, who, in the House of Commons, was weak enough to impute to him as a crime his intimacy with a lampooner so unjust and licentious. Lyttelton supported his friend, and replied, “that he thought it an honour to be received into the familiarity of so great a poet.” While he was thus conspicuous, he married (1741) Miss Lucy Fortescue, sister to Matthew lord Fortescue, of Devonshire, by whom he had a son, Thomas, and two daughters, and with whom he appears to have lived in the highest degree of connubial felicity: but human pleasures are short; she died in childbed about six years afterwards (1747); and he solaced his grief by writing a “Monody” to her memory, without, however, condamning himself to perpetual solitude and sorrow; for soon after he sought to find the same happiness again in a second marriage with the daughter of sir Robert Rich (1749); but the experiment was unsuccessful, and he was for some years before his death separated from this lady. “She was,” says Gilbert West in a letter to Dr. Doddridge, “an intimate and dear friend of his former wife, which is some kind of proof of her merit; I mean of the goodness of her heart, for that is the chief merit which Mr. Lyttelton esteems; and I hope she will not in this disappoint his expectations; in all other points she is well suited to him; being extremely well accomplished in languages, music, painting, &c. very sensible, and well bred.” This lady died Sept. 17, 1795.

Lord Lyttelton had never the appearance of a strong or a healthy man; he had a slender uncompacted frame, and a meagre face : he lived, however, above sixty years, and then was seized with his last illness. Of his death this very affecting and instructive account has been given by his physician, Dr. Johnstone of Kidderminster. “On Sunday evening the symptoms of his lordship’s disorder, which for a week past had alarmed us, put on a fatal appearance, and his lordship believed himself to be a dying man. From this time he suffered by restlessness rather than pain; and though his nerves were apparently much fluttered, his mental faculties never seemed stronger, when he was thoroughly awake. His lordship’s bilious and hepatic complaints seemed alone not equal to the expected mournful event; his Iqng want of sleep, whether the consequence of the irritatton in the bowels, or, which is more probable, of causes of a different kind, accounts for his loss of strength, and for his death, very sufficiently. Though his lordship wished his approaching dissolution not to be lingering, he waited for it with resignation. He said, ‘ It is a folly, a keeping me in misery, now to attempt to prolong life;’ yet he was easily persuaded, for the satisfaction of others, to do or take any thing thought proper for him. On Saturday he had been remarkably better, and we were not without some hopes of his recovery. On Sunday, about eleven in the forenoon, his lordship sent for me, and said he felt a great hurry, and wished to have a little conversartion with me in order to divert it. He then proceeded to open the fountain of that heart, from whence goodness had so long flowed as from a copious spring. `Doctor,‘ said he, `you shall be my confessor: When I first set out in the world, I had friends who endeavoured to shake my belief in the Christian religion. I saw difficulties which staggered me; but I kept my mind open to conviction. The evidences and doctrines of Christianity, studied with attention, made me a most firm and persuaded believer of the Christian religion. I have made it the rule of my life, and it is the ground of my future hopes. I have erred and sinned; but have repented, and never indulged any vicious habit. In politics, and public life, I have made the public good the rule of my conduct. I never gave counsels which I did not at the time think the best. I have seen that I was sometimes in the wrong, but I did not err designedly. I have endeavoured, in private life, to do all the good in my power, and never for a moment could indulge malicious or unjust designs upon any person whatsoever.’ At another time he said, `I must leave my soul in the same state it was in before this illness; I find this a very inconvenient time for solicitude about any thing.‘ On the evening when the symptoms of death came on him, he said, `I shall die; but it will not be your fault.’ When lord and lady Valentia came to see his lordship, he gave them this solemn benediction, and said, `Be good, be virtuous, my lord. You must come to this.‘ Thus he continued giving his dying benediction to all arourvd him. On Monday morning a lucid interval gave some small hopes, but these vanished in the evening; and he continued dying, but with very little uneasiness, till Tuesday morning, August 22, when between seven and eight o’clock he expired, almost without a groan.” His lordship was buried at Hagley; with an inscription cut on the side of his lady’s monument.

We have more pleasure, however, in returning to the character of George lord Lyttelton, which has been uniformly delineated by those who knew him best, in favourable colours. Of the various sketches which we have seen, we are inclined to give a place to the following, which, although somewhat long, is less known than those to be found in the accounts of his biographers, and appears to have been written by a near observer “Few chapters,” says the writer, “recorded in the annals of this country, ever united so many rare, valuable, and amiable qualities, as that of the late lord Lyttelton. Whether we consider this great man in public or private life, we are justified in affirming, that he abounded in virtues not barely sufficient to create reverence and esteem, but to insure him the love and admiration of all who knew him. Look upon him as a statesman, and a public man; where shall we find another, who always thought right and meant well, and who so seldom acted wrong, or was misled or mistaken in his ministerial, or senatorial conduct? Look upon his lordship in the humbler scene of private and domestic life; and if thou hadst the pleasure of knowing him, gentle reader, point out the breast warm or cold, that so copiously abounded with every gift and acquirement which indulgent nature could bestow, or the tutored mind improve and refine, to win and captivate mankind.

“To such as were honoured with his friendship and his intimacy, his kindness was beyond example he shared at once his affections and his interests among his friends, and towards the latter part of his life, when his ability to serve them ceased, he felt only for those who depended on him for their future advancement in life. The unbounded authority he possessed over them was established in parental dominion, not in the cold, haughty, supercilious superiority of a mere patron. Among this latter description, the author of the present rude outline is proud of ranking himself, and is happy in recollecting, that he obeyed, or rather anticipated, the wishes of his noble friend, as far as lay in his power, with more chearfulness and alacrity than he would in executing even the confidential mandates of the greatest monarch or minister in Christendom.

“His lordship’s acquaintance with men and books was accurate and extensive. His studies in the early part of his life must have been well directed, and his taste remarkably judicious, for no person ever lived who was less tinctured with the vulgar moroseness, and self-conceited air of a pedant, nor with the affectation and frivolity of that rank in life, which his birth, fortune, and situation, rendered customary and familiar to him.

“His discernment of spirits, the term which the late lord Bolingbroke substitutes for the familiar phrase of knowing mankind, was no less conspicuous, when he thought proper to exert it with steadiness and vigour; but unfortunately for his own domestic peace, it was extremely difficult to rouse him. He trusted too much to the representations of others, and was always ready to leave the labour of discriminating characters, to those who too often found an interest in deceiving him. Though his steadiness of principle, penetration, and justness of reflection, might be well ranked in the first class, those talents were in a great measure effectually lost, because his employments and pursuits as a public man, his amusements as a man of taste and science, and, in the latter part of his life, his avocations as a writer, so totally engrossed his attention, that he entirely neglected his private affairs, and in a Variety of instances fell a prey to private rapine and literary imposition. This was the joint effect of native indolence, and a certain incurable absence of mind. To show that his want of discrimination was not native, but that the power of knowing those he communicated with, was rendered to some purpose useless, because it was not employed, a stronger proof need not be given, than his thorough knowledge of the court, as exhibited in parties, and the several individuals who composed them. He could tell the political value of almost every veteran courtier, or candidate for power. He could develope their latent views, he could foretell their change of conduct. He foresaw the effect of such and such combinations, the motives which formed them, the principles which held them together, and the probable date of their dissolutioe. Whenever he was imposed on, it was through the want of attention, not of parts; or from a kind of settled opinion, that men of common plain understandings, and good reputation, would hardly risque solid advantages in pursuit of unlawful gain, which last might eventually be accompanied with loss of character, as well as the object proposed to be attained. Whatever plausibility there may appear in this mode of reasoning, experience frequently informed his lordship, that it was not to be depended on. He was plundered by his servants, deceived by his humble companions, misled by his confidents, and imposed on by several of those whom he patronized. He felt the effects of all this, in his family, in his finances, and even in the rank he should have preserved. Those who were not acquainted with the solidity of his judgment, the acuteness of his wit, the brilliancy and justness of his thoughts, the depth of his penetration, and with the amazing extent of his genius, were apt to confound the consequences of his conduct, with the powers and resources of his mind. If his lordship remained out of place, on principle, the ignorant inclined to ascribe this seeming court proscription to simplicity or want of talents. If he did not support his rank with that ostentatious splendour now become so fashionable, the world was ready to impute it to a want of oeconotny, or a want of spirit; but in all those conjectures and conclusions, the world were much mistaken and misled. He had frequent offers, some of them the most flattering, to take a part in administration; but he uniformly rejected them. His manner of living at his seat at Hagley was founded on the truest principles of hospitality, politeness, and society; and as to money, he knew no other use of it but to answer his own immediate calls, or to enable him to promote the happiness of others.”

Much of this character corresponds with the accounts which might be extracted from the correspondence of his friends, who were so numerous as perhaps to include all the eminent literary persons of his time. With such he delighted to associate, was often a useful patron of rising genius, and to the last was ambitious of a personal acquaintance with men whose works he admired. We have a remarkable instance of this in his visiting (in 1767) old Dr. Lardner, and introducing himself as one who had read his volumes with pleasure and profit. Lardner was at this time so deaf that his visitors were obliged to carry on conversation with him by writing, to which tiresome condition lord Lyttelton gladly submitted.

, a very learned French writer, was born Nov. 23, 1632, at Pierre-mont, on the frontiers of Champagne. He was educated in the university of Rheims, and afterwards entered into the abbey of the Benedictines of St. Remy; where he took the habit in 1653, and made the profession the year following. He was looked upon at first as a person that would do honour to his order; but a perpetual head-acb, with which he was afflicted, almost destroyed all the expectations which were conceived of him. He was ordained priest at Amiens in 1660; and afterwards, lest too much solitude should injure his health, which was not yet re-established, was sent by his superiors to St. Denis, where he was appointed, during the whole year 1663, to shew the treasure and monuments of the kings of France. But having there unfortunately broken a looking-glass, which was pretended to have belonged to Virgil, he obtained leave to quit an employment, which, as he said, frequently obliged him to relate things he did not believe. As the indisposition of his head gradually abated, he began to shew himself more and more to the world. Father d'Acheri, who was then compiling his “Spicilegium,” desiring to have some young monk, who could assist him in that work, Mabillon was chosen for the purpose, and accordingly went to Paris in 1664, where he was very serviceable to d'Acheri. This began to place his talents in a conspicuous light, and to shew what might be expected from him. A fresh occasion soon offered itself to him. The congregation of St. Maur had formed a design of publishing new editions of the fathers, revised from the manuscripts, with which the libraries of the order of the Benedictines, as one of the most ancient, are furnished. Mabillon was ordered to undertake the edition of St. Bernard, which he had prepared with great judgment and learning, and published at Paris, in 1667, in two volumes folio, and nine octavo. In 1690 he published a second edition, augmented with almost fifty letters, new preliminary dissertations, and new notes; and just before his death was preparing to publish a third. He had no sooner published the first edition of St. Bernard, than the congregation appointed him to undertake an edition of the “Acts of the Saints of the order of Benedictines;” the first volume of which, he published in 1668, and continued it to nine volumes in folio, the last of which was published in 1701. The writers of the “Journal de Trevoux” speak not improperly of this work when they say that “it ought to be considered, not as a simple collection of memoirs relating to monastic history, but as a valuable compilation of ancient monuments; which, being illustrated by learned notes, give a great light to the most obscure part of ecclesiastical history.” The prefaces alone,“say they,” would secure to the author an immortal reputation. The manners and usages of those dark ages are examined with great care; and an hundred important questions are ably discussed.“Le Clerc, in the place referred to above, from which we have chiefly drawn our account of Mahillon, has given us one example of a question occasionally discussed by him in the course of his work, concerning the use of unleavened bread, in the celebration of the sacrament. Mabillon shews, in the preface to the third age of his” Acta Sanctorum,“t'hat the use of it is more ancient than is generally believed; and, in 1674, maintained it in a particular dissertation, addressed to cardinal Bona, who was before of a contrary opinion. But the work which is supposed to have done him the most honour is his” De re diplomatica libri sex, in quibus quicquid ad veterum instrumentorum antiquitatem, materiam, scripturam et stilutn; quicqnid ad sigilla, monogrammata, subscriptiones, ac notas chronologicas; quicquid inde ad antiquariam, historicam, forensemque disciplinam pertinet, explicatur, et illustratur. Accedunt commentarius de antiquis regum Francorum palatiis, veterum scripturarum varia specimina tabulis LX. comprehensa, nova ducentorum et amplius monumentoruoi collectio," Paris, 1631, folio. The examination of almost an infinite number of charters and ancient titles, which had passed through his hands, led him to form the design of reducing to certain rules and principles an art, of which before there had been only very confused ideas. It was a bold attempt; but he executed it with such success, that he was thought tp have carried it at once to perfection.

In 1682 he took a journey into Burgundy, in which M. Colbert employed him to examine some ancient titles relating to the royal family. That minister received all the satisfaction he could desire; and, being fully convinced of Mabillon’s experience and abilities in these points, sent him the year following into Germany, in order to search there, among the archives and libraries of the ancient abbeys for materials to illustrate the history of the church in general, and that of France in particular. He spent five months in this journey, and published an account of it. He took another journey into Italy in 1685, by order of the king of France; and returned the year following with a very noble collection of above three thousand volumes of rare books, both printed and manuscript, which he added to the king’s library; and, in 1687, composed two volumes of the pieces he had discovered in that country, under the title of “Museum Italicum.” After this he employed himself in publishing other works, which are strong evidences of his vast abilities and application. In 1698 he published a Latin letter concerning the worship of the unknown saints, which he called “Eusehii Romani ad Theophilum Gallum epistola.” The history of this piece does credit to his love of truth, and freedom from traditional prejudices. While at Rome he had endeavoured to inform himself particularly of those rules and precautions, wh:ch were necessary to be observed with regard to the bodies of saints taken out of the catacombs, in order to be exposed to the veneration of the public. He had himself visited those places, and consulted all persons who could give him light upon the subject; but five or six years elapsed after his return to France, without his having ever thought of making use of these observations. In 1692, however, he drew up the treatise above-mentioned; in which he gave it as his opinion, that the bodies found in the catacombs were too hastily, and without sufficient foundation, concluded to be the bodies of martyrs. Still, aware this was a subject of a very delicate nature, and thai such an opinion might possibly give offence, he kept it by him five years, without communicating it to above one person; and then sent it, under the seal of secresy, to cardinal Colloredo at Rome, whose opinion was, that it should not be published in the form it was then in. Nevertheless, in 1698 it was published; and, as might easily be foreseen, very ill received at Rome; and after many complaints, murmurs, and criticisms, it was in 1701 brought before the Congregation of the Index, and Mabillon fou.id it necessary to employ all his interest to prevent the censure of that body. Nor, perhaps, could he have averted this misfortune if he had not agreed to publish a new edition of it; in which, by softening some passages, and throwing upon inferior officers whatever abuses might be committed with regard to the bodies taken out of the catacombs, he easily satisfied his judges; who, to do them justice, had a great esteem for his learning and virtues, and were not very desirous of condemning him.

This eminent man died of a suppression of urine, at the abbey of St. Germain-des-Pres, in Dec. 1707. His great merit had procured him, in 1701, the place of honorary member of the academy of inscriptions. Du Pin tells us thac “it would be difficult to give Mabillon the praises he deserves: the voice of the public, and the general esteem of all the learned, are a much better commendation of him than any thing we can say. His profound learning appears from his works: his modesty, humility, meekness, and piety, are no less known to those who have had the least conversation with him. His style is masculine, pure, clear, and methodical, without affectation or superfluous ornaments, and suitable to the subjects of which he has treated.” Few men were more honoured by the notice of the great than Mabillon, and to this he was entitled both by his virtues and his extensive learning. Pope Clement XI. paid him the compliment to write to father Iluinart, expressing his hopes that the remains of such a man had been interred with the honours due to him. “Every man of learning who goes to Paris,” said cardinal Colloredo, “will ask where you have placed him”.

, a celebrated French political and miscellaneous writer, and brother to the abbé Condillac, was born at Grenoble in March 1709, and was educated in the Jesuits’ college at Lyons. In his youth he attached himself to his relation the cardinal de Tencin, but never took any higher order in the church than that of sub-deacon. On his coming into life, as it is called, he had the honour to be admitted, both as a relation and a man of letters, into the parties of madame de Tencin, so well known for her intrigues and her sprightly talents, who at that time gave dinners not only to wits, but to politicians. Here madame de Tencin was so much pleased with the figure Mably made in conversation with Montesquieu and other philosophical politicians at hertable, that she thought he might prove useful to her brother, then entering on his ministerial career. The first service he rendered to the cardinal was to draw out an abridgment of all the treaties from the peace of Westphalia to that time (about 1740): the second service he rendered his patron, was of a more singular kind. The cardinal soon becoming sensible that he had not the talent xof conveying his ideas in council, Mably suggested to him the lucky expedient of an application to the king, that he might be permitted to express his thoughts in writing, and there can be little doubt that m this also he profited by the assistance of his relative, who soon began himself to meddle in matters of state. In 1743 he was entrusted to negoeiate privately at Paris with the Prussian ambassador, and drew up a treaty, which Voltaire was appointed to carry to Berlin. Frederick, to whom* this was no secret, conceived from this time a very high opinion of the abbe, and, as Mably’s biographer remarks, it was somewhat singular that tvro men of letters, who had no political character, should be employed on a negociation which made such an important change in the state of affairs in Europe. The abbe" also drew up the papers which were to serve as the basis of the negociation carried on in the congress at Breda in the month of April 1746.

His success in these affairs had nearly fixed him in political life, when a dispute with the cardinal changed his destination, and the circumstance does credit to his liberality. The cardinal was not only minister of state, but archbishop of Lyons, when the question was agitated respecting the marriages of protestants. The abbe wished him to view this question with the eyes of a statesman only, but the cardinal would consider it only as a prince of the Romish church, and as he persisted in this opinion, the abbe saw him no more. From this time he gave himself up to study, without making any advances to fortune, or to literary men. He always said he was more anxious to merit general esteem than to obtain it. He lived a long time on a small income of a thousand crowns, and an annuity; which last, on the death of his brother, he gave up to his relations. The court, however, struck with this disinterested act, gave him a pension of 2800 Jivres, without the solicitation or knowledge of any of his friends. Mably not only inveighed against luxury and riches, but showed by his example that he was sincere; and to these moderate desires, he joined an ardent love of independence, which he took every opportunity to evince. One day when a friend brought him an invitation to dine with a minister of state, he could not prevail on him to accept it, but at length the abbe said he would visit the gentleman with pleasure as soon as he heard that he was “out of office.” He had an equal repugnance to become a member of any of the learned societies. The marshal Richelieu pressed him much to become a candidate for the academy, and with such arguments that he could not refuse to accept the offer; but he had fio sooner quitted the marshal than he ran to his brother the abbe Condillac, and begged he would get him released, cost what it would. “Why all this obstinacy?” said his brother. “Why!” rejoined the abbe“Mably,” because, if I accept it 1 shall be obliged to praise the cardinal de Uichelieu, which is contrary to my principles, or, it I do not praise him, as I owe every thing to his nephew, I shall be accused of ingratitude.“In the same spirit, he acquired a bluntness of manner that was not very agreeable in the higher circles, where he never tailed to take the part of men of genius who were poor, against the insults of the rich and proud. His works, by which the booksellers acquired large sums of money, contributed very little to his own finances, for he demanded no return but a lew copies to give as presents to his friends. He appeared always dissatisfied with the state of public affairs, and had the credit of predicting the French revolution. Political sagacity, indeed, was that on which he chiefly rested his fame, andhaving formed his theory from certain systems which he thought might be traced to the Greeks and Romans, and even the ancient Gauls, he went as far as must of his contemporaries in undervaluing the prerogatives of the crown, and introducing a representative government. In his latter works his own mind appears to have undergone a revolution, and he pro\ed that if he was before sincere in his notions of freedom, he was now equally illiberal. After enjoying considerable reputation, and bein^ considered as one of the most popular French writers on the subjects of politics, morals, and history, he died at Paris, April 23, 1785. The abbe Barruel ranks him among the class of philosophers, who wished to be styled the Moderates, but whom Rousseau calls the Inconsistents. He adds, that” without being impious like a Voltaire or a Condorcet, even though averse to their impiety, his own tenets were extremely equivocal. At times his morality was so very disgusting, that it was necessary to suppose his language was ambiguous, and that he had been misunderstood, lest one should be obliged to throw off all esteem for his character." Such at least was the defence which Barruel heard him make, to justify himself from the censures of the Sorbonne.

His works are, 1. “Parallele des Romains et des Franc.ais,” Paris, 1740, 2 vols. 12mo. 2. “Le Droit public de l'Enrope,” 1747, 3 vols. 12mo. 3. “Observations sur les Romains,” 2 vols. 12mo. 4. “Observations sur les Grecs,” 1751, 12mo, reprinted in 1766, with the title of “Observations sur Thistoire cle la Grece.” 5. “Des principes des negotiations,” 1757, 12mo. 6. ft Entretiens de Phocion sur le rapport de la morale avec la politiqoe,“Amst. (Piins), 1763, 12mo, reprinted in 1783, 3 vols. 12mo, and by Didot in 1795, 4to. Of this an English translation was published by Mr. Macbeau in 1770. It was once a very popular work in America, where his name was held in the highest honour, until he published his work on the constitution of the United States after the peace of 1783, when the Americans hung him in effigy as an enemy to toleration and liberty. 7.” Observations sur l'histoire de France,“1765, 2 vols. 12mo. 8.” Entretiens sur i'Histoire,“12 mo. This is the work by which he has been most known in England, but in it, as well as his other works, he gives too great preference to the ancients over the moderns. 9.” De la inaniere d'ecrire Phistoire,“Kehl, 1784, 2 vols. 12mo. The whole of his works were collected, with an eloge by the abbe Bnzard, in 15 vols. 8vo, 17i'4. In this are many pieces not enumerated above, particularly his work on” Morals,“and his” Observations on the Government and Laws of America," which last,as we have noticed, destroyed his popularity in America. In both are symptoms of decayed intellect, and that confusion of thought which is peculiar to men who have been theorizing all their lives.

, a Hungarian artist, was born at Maubeuge, a village in Hainault, in 1499, though in the Chronological Tables his birth is supposed to have been in 1492. It is not known from whom he derived his knowledge of the art of painting but, in his youth, he was laborious in his practice, and his principal studies were after nature, by which he acquired a great deal of truth in his compositions. To improve himself in his profession, he travelled to Italy, and became an artist of great repute. He had a good pencil, and finished his pictures highly, with great care; yet, notwithstanding his studies in Italy, and the correctness of his design, he never could arrive at the elegance of the Roman school. His manner was dry, stiff, and laboured; but he was exceedingly industrious to give a polished smoothness to his colouring. By king Henry VIII. of England he was employed to paint the portraits of some of his children, which gained him great reputation, as he finished them delicately, and gave them spirit and liveliness and he painted several others for the nobility who attended the court at London. His paintings are consequently not unfrequent in this country.

, or Graham, the name of her second husband, was born in 1733, at Ollantigh, in Kent, the seat of her father, John Sawbridge, esq. She appears to have had none of the regular education given to young ladies of her ranl$, but had an early taste for promiscuous reading, which at length terminated in a fondness for history. That of the Romans is supposed to have inspired her with the republican notions which she professed throughout life, and in which she was probably encouraged by her brother the late alderman Sawbridge, whose politics were of the same cast. In 1760 she married Dr. George Macaulay, a physician of London. Soon after this, she commenced her career in literature, and in 1763 published the first volume, in 4to, of her “History of England, from the accession of James I. to that of the Brunswick Line.” This work was completed in 8 vols. in 1783; it was read with some avidity at the period of its publication, as the production of a female pen, but has since fallen into so much disrepute, as scarcely ever to be inquired after. It was written in the true spirit of rancorous republicanism, and was greatly deficient in that impartiality which ought to be the characteristic of true history. While in the height of her fame, Mrs. Macaulay excited the admiration of Dr. Wilson, rector of St. Stephen’s, Walbrook, who in his dotage placed her statue, while living, in the chancel of his church. This disgraceful appendage, however, his successor thought himself justified in removing. Having been left a widow, Mrs. Macaulay in 1778 married Mr. Graham, a step which, from the disparity of years, exposed her to much ridicule. In the year 1785 she went to America, for the purpose of visiting the illustrious Washington, with whom she had before maintained a correspondence. She died at Bin field, in Berkshire, June 22, 1791. Her works, besides the history already referred to, which may be regarded as the principal, are, “Remarks on Hobbes’s Rudiments of Government and Society;” “Loose Remarks on some of Mr. Hobbes’s Positions;” the. latter being an enlarged edition of the former: the object of these is to shew the superiority of a republican to a monarchical form of government. In 1770, Mrs. Macaulay wrote a reply to Mr. Burke’s celebrated pamphlet entitled “Thoughts on the Causes of the Present Discontents;” and in 1775 she pub.­lished “An Address to the People of England, Scotland, and Ireland, on the present important Crisis of Affairs.” She wrote also “A Treatise on the Immutability of Moral Truth;” which she afterwards re-published, with much other original matter, under the title of “Letters on Education,” 1790. Her last publication was “Observations on the Reflections of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, oo the Revolution in France, in a letter to the Right Hon. the Earl of Stanhope,” 1790, 8vo. Many curious particulars of this lady may be found in our authorities.

, a distinguished physician, was born at Ballymony, co. Antrim, on the 26th of April, 1726. He was descended from an ancient family of his name in the shire of Galloway, in Scotland; but his grandfather, who was bred to the church, was called to officiate at Belfast to a congregation of Presbyterians, and his father became the minister of Ballymony, where David was born. Having received the first elements of his education at the public school of this place, and served his apprenticeship to a surgeon, he went into the navy, first in the capacity of mate to an hospital-ship, and subsequently in the rank of surgeon, in which station he remained for some years preceding the peace of Aix-laChapelle. At this period he was led from the frequent opportunities of witnessing the attacks of scurvy which a sea-faring life afforded him, to investigate the best method of cure for that disease, upon which he afterwards published a treatise. After the peace of Aix, Mr. Macbride went to Edinburgh and London, where he studied anatomy under those celebrated teachers doctors Monro and Hunter, and midwifery under Smellie. About the end of 1749, he settled in Dublin as a surgeon and accoucheur; but his youth and remarkable bashfulness occasioned him to remain a number of years in obscurity, little employed; although he was endeared to a small circle of friends by his great abilities, amiable dispositions, and his general knowledge in all the branches of polite literature and the arts. In 1764, he published his “Experimental Essays,” which were received with great applause, and were soon translated into different languages; and the singular merit of this performance induced the university of Glasgow to confer the degree of doctor of physic on its author. The improvement introduced by Dr. Macbride in the art of tanning, by substituting lime-water for common water in preparing ooze, procured him the honour of a silver medal from the Dublin Society, in 1768, and of a gold medal of considerable value from the society of arts and commerce in London.

, who in his Latin works called himself Cavellus, was titular primate of Armagh, and a learned writer in defence of Duns Scotus, whose opinions were generally embraced by his countrymen. He was born in the county of Down, in Ireland, in 1571, and became a Franciscan friar. He studied at Salamanca, in Spain, and afterwards for many years governed the Irish Franciscan college at Louvain, dedicated to St. Anthony, in the founding of which he had been instrumental. In this college he was also professor of divinity, which office he filled afterwards in the convent of Ara Cceli at Rome, was definitor-general of his order, and at length advanced by the pope to the see of Armagh; but died at Rome, as he was preparing for his journey to Ireland, Sept. 22, 1626, in the fifty -fifth year of his age. He was buried in the church of St. Isidore, under a monumental stone, and inscription, placed there by the earl of Tyrone. He was reckoned a man of great learning, and one of the best schoolmen of his time. His works, which consist chiefly of commentaries on and a defence of Scotus, were in substance incorporated in Wading' s edition of Scotus’s works, printed at Lyons, 1639, in 12 vols. folio.

, a learned French priest, was born at Paris about 1640, and pursued his divinity studies at the university of his native city, where he took his degrees. About this time he was appointed secretary to the council for managing the domains and finances of the queen, consort to Lewis XIV.; and when he took holy orders, in 1685, he was immediately appointed canon and rector of the church of St. Opportune, at Paris. He was a very diligent student as well in profane as in sacred literature, and was celebrated for his popular talents as a preacher. He died in 1721, leaving behind him a great number of works that do honour to his memory, of which we shall mention “A chronological, historical, and moral abridgment of the Old and New Testament,” in 2 vols. 4to “Scriptural Knowledge, reduced into four tables;” a French version of the apocryphal “Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs;” of which Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, gave the first Latin translation, Grabe the first Greek edition, from Mss. in the English universities, and Whiston an English version (S The History of the Four Ciceros,“in which he attempts to prove, that the sons of Cicero were as illustrious as their father. Mace (Thomas), a practitioner on the lute, but more distinguished among lovers of music by a work entitled” Music’s Monument, or a Remembrancer of the best practical Music, both divine and civil, that has ever been known to have been in the world," 1676, folio, was born in 1613, and became one of the clerks of Trinity-college, Cambridge. He does not appear to have held any considerable rank among musicians, nor is he celebrated either as a composer or practitioner on the lute: yet his book is a proof that he was an excellent judge of the instrument; and contains such variety of directions for the ordering and management of it, and for performing on it, as renders it a work of great utility. It contains also many particulars respecting himself, many traits of an original and singular character; and a vein of humour which, far from being disgusting, exhibits a lively portraiture of a good-natured gossiping old man. Dr. Burney recommends its perusal to all who have taste for excessive simplicity and quaintness, and can extract pleasure from the sincere and undissembled happiness of an author, who, with exalted notions of his subject and abilities, discloses to his reader every inward working of self-approbation in as undisguised a manner, as if he were communing with himself in all the plenitude of mental comfort and privacy. There is a print of him prefixed to his book, from an engraving of Faithorne, the inscription under which shews him to have been sixty-three in 1676: how long he lived afterwards, is not known. He had a wife and children.

, a Portuguese Jesuit, and most indefatigable writer, born at Coimbra, in 1596, quitted that order after a time to take the habit of a cordelier. He was strongly in the interest of the duke of Braganza when he seized the crown of Portugal. Being sent to Rome, he acquired for a time the favour of pope Alexander the Vllth, and was preferred by him to several important offices. The violence of his temper however soon embroiled him with this patron, and he went to Venice, where he disputed de omni scibili; and gaining great reputation, obtained the professorship of moral philosophy at Padua. Afterwards, having ventured to interfere in some state matter at Venice, where he had been held very high, he was imprisoned, and died in confinement, in 1681, at the age of 85. He is said, in the “Bibliotheque Portugaise,” to have published 109 different works: and in one of his own books he boasts that he had pronounced 53 public panegyrics, 60 Latin discourses, and 32 funeral orations; that he had written 48 epic poems, 123 elegies, 115 epitaphs, 212 dedications, 700 familiar letters, 2600 poems in heroic verse, 3000 epigrams, 4 Latin comedies, and had written or pronounced 150,000 verses extemporaucously. Yet the man who could declare all this, is hardly known by name in the greater part of Europe; and of the enormous list of his printed works, not more than five are thought worthy of mention by the writers of his life- To write much, is far easier than to write well. The works specified by his biographers are, 1. “Clavis Augustiniana liberi arbitrii,” a book written against father, afterwards cardinal Noris. The disputants were both silenced by authority; but Macedo, not to seem vanquished, sent his antagonist a regular challenge to a verbal controversy, which by some biographers has been mistaken for a challenge to fight. The challenge may be found in the “Journal Etranger” for June 1757. 2. “Schema Sanctae Congregationis,” 1676, 4to a dissertation on the inquisition, full of learning and absurdity. 3. “Encyclopaedia in agonem literatorum,” 1677, folio. 4. “Praise of the French,” in Latin, 1641, 4to; a book on the Jansenian controversy. 5. “Myrothecium Morale,” 4to. This is the book in which he gives the preceding account of what he had written and spoken, &c. He possessed a prodigious memory, and a ready command of language; but his judgment and taste were by no means equal to his learning and fecundity.

, was an ancient heretic of the church of Constantinople, whom the Arians made bishop of that see in the year 342, at the same time that the orthodox contended for Paul. This occasioned a contest, which rose at length to such a height, that arms were taken up, and many lives lost. The emperor Constantius, however, put an end to the dispute, by banishing Paul, and ratifying the nomination of Macedonius; who, after much opposition, which ended at the death of Paul, became peaceably and quietly settled in his see, and might have remained so had he been of a temper to be long peaceable and quiet in any situation: he soon fell into disgrace with Constantius, for acting the part of a tyrant, rather than a bishop. What made him still more disliked by the emperor, was his causing the body of Constantine to be translated from the temple of the Apostles to that of Acacius the martyr. This also raised great tumults and confusion among the people, some highly approving, others loudly condemning, the procedure of Macedonius and the parties again taking up arms, a great number on both sides were slain. Macedonius, however, notwithstanding the emperor’s displeasure, which he had incurred by his seditious and turbulent practices, contrived to support himself by his party, which he had lately increased by taking in the Semi-Arians; till at length, imprudently offending two of his bishops, they procured his deposition by the council of Constantinople, in the year 359. He was so enraged at this, as to resolve to revenge the insult by broaching a new heresy. He began to teach, therefore, that the Holy Spirit had no resemblance to either the Father or the Son, but was only a mere creature, one of God’s ministers, and somewhat more excellent than the angels. The disaffected bishops subscribed at once to this opinion; and to the Arians it could not be unacceptable. According to St. Jerome, even the Donatists of Africa joined with them: for he says, that Douatus of Carthage wrote a treatise upon the Holy Ghost, agreeable to the doctrine of the Arians; and the outward shew of piety, which the Macedonians observed, drew over to their party many others. One Maratorus, who had been formerly a treasurer, having amassed vast riches, forsook his secular life, devoted himself entirely to the service of the poor and sick, became a monk; and at last adopted the Macedonian heresy, which he disseminated very extensively. In this he succeeded in most cases by his riches; which, being freely and properly distributed, were found of more force in effecting conversions than all his arguments: and from this man, as Socrates relates, the Macedonians were called Maratorians. They were also called Pneumatomachi, or persons who were enemies of the Holy Ghost. The report of the Macedonian heresy being spread over Egypt, the bishop Serapion advertised Athanasius of it, who then was leading a monastic life, and lay hid in the desert and this celebrated saint was the hrst who confuted it.

, an ancient Latin poet, was born at Verona, and flourished about the year 24 B. C. Eusebius relates, that he died a few years after Virgil. Ovid speaks of a poem by him, on the nature and quality of birds, serpents, and herbs; which, he says, Macer, being then very old, had often read to him, and he is said also to have written a supplement to Homer; but the work by which his name is chiefly known, first printed at Naples in 1477, 4to, and often since under the title “De virtutibus Herbarum,” is unquestionably spurious, and the production of a much later writer. By some it is ascribed to Odo or Odobonus, a French physician of the ninth century. This barbarous poem is in Leonine verse, and various manuscripts of it are in our public libraries of Oxford, Cambridge, the British Museum, &c. It was, according to Dr. Pulteney, in common use in Enprland before the sera of printing, and was translated into English by John Lelamar, master of Hereford-school, who lived about 1473. Even Linacre did not disdain to employ himself on this work, as in “Macer’s Herbal practysed by Dr. Lin aero, translated out of Latin into English.” Lond. 1542, 12mo. This jejune performance, adds Dr. Pulteney, which is writ-r ten wholly on Galenical principles, treats on the virtues of not more than eighty eight simples.

, a Jesuit, was born at Paris in 1651, and was professor of rhetoric in his society, doctor of divinity, and rector of the Jesuits college at Rouen, then of the college de Clermont at Paris. He died March 15, 1619, aged 58. He published under the name of Callus, or Le Cocq, which was his mother’s name, “Jo. Galii jurisconsult! notationes in Historiam Thuani,” Ingoldstadt, 1614, 4to, a scarce volume, because suppressed in that year, as pernicious, seditious, and full of falsehoods and calumnies against the magistrates and officers of the king. Machault also translated from the Italian, a, “History of transactions in China and Japan, taken from letters written 1621 and 1622,” Paris, 1627, 8vo. John Baptist de Machault, another Parisian Jesuit, who died May 22, 1640, aged 29, after having been rector of the colleges at Nevers and Rouen, left “Gesta a Soc. Jes. in Regno Sinensi, ^thiopico, et Tibetano;” and some other works of the historical kind, but of little reputation. James de

, a celebrated political writer and historian, was born of a good family, at Florence, in 1469. He first distinguished himself as a dramatic writer, but his comedies are not formed on the purest morals, nor are the verses by which he gained some reputation about the same time, entitled to much praise. Soon after he had entered public life, either from the love of liberty, or a spirit of faction, he displayed a restless and turbulent disposition, which not only diminished the respect due to his abilities, but frequently endangered his personal safety. He involved himself in the conspiracy of Capponi and Boscoli, in consequence of which he was put to the torture, but endured it without uttering any confession, and was set at liberty by Leo X. against whose house that conspiracy had been formed. Immediately after the death of Leo, he entered into another plot to expel the cardinal de Medici from Florence. Afterwards, however, he was raised to hitjh honours in the state, and became secretary to the republic of Florence, the 'duties of which office he performed with great fidelity. He was likewise employed in embassies to king Lewis XII. of France; to the emperor Maximilian; to the college of cardinals; to the pope, Julius II., and to other Italian princes. Notwithstanding the revenues which must have accrued to him in these important situations, it would appear that the love of money had no influence on his mind, as he died in extreme poverty in June 1527. Besides his plays, his chief works are, 1. “The Golden Ass,” in imitation of Lucian and Apuleius 2. “Discourses on the first Decade of Livy” 3. “A History of Florence” 4. “The Life of Castruccio Castracani;” 5. “A Treatise on the Military Art;” 6. “A Treatise on the Emigration of the Northern Nations;” 7. Another entitled “Del Principe,” the Prince. This famous treatise, which was first published in 1515, and intended as a sequel to his discourses on the first decade of Livy, has created very discordant opinions between critics of apparently equal skill and judgment, some having considered him as the friend of truth, liberty, and virtue, and others as the advocate of fraud and tyranny. Most generally “the Prince” has been viewed in the latter light, all its maxims and counsels being directed to the maintenance of power, however acquired, and by any means; and one reason for this opinion is perhaps natural enough, namely, its being dedicated to a nephew of pope Leo X. printed at Rome, re*published in other Italian cities, and long read with attention, and even applause, without censure or reply. On the other hand it has been thought impossible that Machiavel, who was born under a republic, who was employed as one of its secretaries, who performed so many important embassies, and who in his conversation always dwelt on the glorious actions of Brutus and Cassius, should have formed such a system against the liberty and happiness of mankind. Hence it has frequently been urged on his behalf, that it was not his intention to suggest wise and faithlul counsels, but to represent in the darkest colours the schemes of a tyrant, and thereby excite odium against him. Even lord Bacon seems to be of this opinion. The historian of Leo considers his conduct in a different point of view; and indeed all idea of his being ironical in this work is dissipated by the fact, mentioned by Mr. Roscoe, that “many of the most exceptionable doctrines in” The Prince,“are also to be found in his” Discourses,“where it cannot be pretended that he had any indirect purpose in view; and in the latter he has in some instances referred to the former for the further elucidation of his opinions. In popular opinion” The Prince“has affixed to his name a lasting stigma; and Machiavelism has long been a received appellation for perfidious and infamous politics. Of the historical writings of Machiavel, the” Life of Castruccio Castracani“is considered as partaking too much of the character of a romance; but his” History of Florence," comprising the events of that republic, between 1205 and 1494, which was written while the author sustained the office of historiographer of the republic, although not always accurate in point of fact, may upon the whole be read with both pleasure and advantage. It has been of late years discovered tnat the diary of the most important events in Italy from 1492 to 1512, published by the Giunti in 1568, under the name of Biagio Buonaccorsi, is in fact a part of the notes of Machiavel, which he had intended for a continuation of his history; but which, after his death, remained in the hands of his friend Buonaccorsi. - This is a circumstance of which we were not aware when we drew up the account of this author under the name Esperiente.

Soon after Mr. Mackenzie had been employed as counsel for the marquis of Argyle, he was promoted to the office of a judge in the criminal court; which he discharged with so much credit and reputation, that he was made king’s advocate in 1674, and one of the lords of the privycouncil in Scotland. He was also knighted by his majesty. In these offices he met with a great deal of trouble on account of the rebellions which happened in his time; and his office of advocate requiring him to act with severity, he did not escape being censured for having, in the deaths of some particular persons who were executed, stretched the laws too far. This alludes to the noted trials of Baillie of Jerviswood, that of the earl of Argyle, and the prosecutions against Mitchel and Learmonth, events which make a great figure in the history of that unhappy period; but in the opinion of the late lord Woodhcusc lee, “his own defence will fully justify his conduct in the breast of every man whose judgment is not perverted by the same prejudices, hostile to all good government, which led those infatuated offenders to the doom they merited.” (See Mackenzie’s Works, Vindication of the government of Charles II.)

Upon the abrogation of the penal laws by James II. sir George, though he had always been remarkable for his loyalty, and censured for his zeal, thought himself obliged to resign his post; being convinced that he could not discharge the duties of it at that crisis with a good conscience. He was succeeded by sir John Dalrymple, who, however, did not long continue in it; for that unfortunate prince being convinced of his error, restored sir George to his post, in which he continued until the revolution, and then resigned it. He could not agree to the measures and terms of the revolution; he hoped that the prince of Orange would have returned to his own country, when matters were adjusted between the king and his subjects; but finding that the event proved otherwise, he quitted all his employments in Scotland, and retired to England, resolving to spend the remainder of his days in the university of Oxford. He accordingly arrived there in September 1689, and prosecuted his studies in the Bodleian library, being admitted a student there by a grace passed in the congregation June 2, 1690. In the spring following he went to London, where he contracted a disorder, of which he died May 2, 1691. His body was conveyed by land to Scotland, and interred with great pomp and solemnity at Edinburgh, his funeral being attended by all the council, nobility, college of justice, college of physicians, university, clergy, gentry, and a greater concourse of people than ever was seen on any similar occasion.

Besides the moral pieces mentioned above, he wrote several works to illustrate the laws and customs of his country, to vindicate the monarchy from the restless contrivances and attacks of those whom he esteemed its enemies, and to maintain the honour and glory of Scotland. To illustrate the laws and customs of his country, he published “A Discourse upon the laws and customs of Scotland in matters criminal,” 1674, 4to. “Idea eloquentiae tbrensis hodiernae, una cum actione forensi ex unaquaque juris parte,” 1681, 8vo. “Institutions of the laws of Scotland,” 1684, 8vo. “Observations upon the acts of parliament,” 1686, folio. Besides these, several other treatises of law are inserted in his works, printed at Edinburgh, 1716, in 2 vols. folio. In vindication of monarchy, he wrote his “Jus regium; or the just and solid foundations of monarchy in general, and more especially of the monarchy of Scotland; maintained against Buchanan, Naphthali, Doleman, Milton, &c.” Lond. 16S4, 8vo. This book being dedicated and presented by the author to the university of Oxford, he received a letter of thanks from the convocation. With the same view he published his * Discovery of the fanatic plot,“printed at Edinburgh, in 1684, folio; and his” Vindication of the government of Scotland during the reign of Charles II.“Also the” Method of Proceeding against Criminals and Fanatical Covenanters,“1691, 4to. The pieces which he published in honour of his nation, were as follow:” Observations on the Laws and Customs of Nations as to Precedency, with the science of heraldry, treated as a part of the civil law of nations; wherein reasons are given for its principles, and etymologies for its harder terms,“1680, folio.” A Defence of the Antiquity of the Royal Line of Scotland; with a true account when the Scots were governed by the kings in the Isle of Britain,“1685, 8vo. This was written in answer to” An historical Account of Church-Government as it was in Great Britain and Ireland, when they first received the Christian religion,“by Lloyd, bishop of St. Asaph. Sir George’s defence was published in June 1685; but before it came out it was animadverted upon by Dr. Stillingfleet, who had seen it in manuscript in the preface to his” Origines Britannicae.“Sir George replied the year following, in a piece entitled” The Antiquity of the Royal Line of Scotland farther cleared and defended against the exceptions lately offered by Dr. Stillingfleet, in his Vindication of the Bishop of St. Asaph;" and here the controversy appears to have ended. It is remarkable, however, that sir George’s books were translated into Latin, printed at Utrecht in 1689, and then presented to William-Henry prince of Orange, who wrote two very polite letters of thanks to him for his performance. Among the instances of this author’s zeal for his country, it is necessary to mention his founding of the lawyer’s library at Edinburgh, in 1689. This, which is now known by the name of the advocate’s library, was afterwards stored with variety of manuscripts, relating particularly to the antiquities of Scotland, and with a fine collection of books, in all sciences, classed in that excellent order, which he prescribed in an elegant Latin oration, pronounced upon the opening of it, and printed among his works.

Judging, says a late elegant and judicious writer, from the writings of sir George Mackenzie, his talents appear to have been rather splendid than solid. He certainly possessed uncommon assiduity and activity of mind, as the number and variety of his compositions testify; and perhaps the superficial manner in which he has treated many of those subjects foreign to his profession, is the less to be wondered at, in a man whose time was so occupied in professional duties. The obscurity and confusion that are discernible in some of his juridical discussions, may have arisen in a great measure from the rude, unmethodized, and almost chaotic state of the law of Scotland, both civil and criminal, in his days. On one account alone, although every other merit were forgotten, sir George Mackenzie is entitled to respect as a lawyer. He was the first who exploded from the practice of the criminal courts of Scotland that most absurd and iniquitous doctrine, that no defence was to be admitted in exculpation from a criminal indictment which was contrary to the libel (indictment); as, if John were accused of having murdered James, by giving him a mortal wound with a sword, it was not allowable for John to prove in his defence, that the wound was not given in any vital part, and that James died of a fever caught afterwards by contagion.

, the oldest actor, and perhapsthe oldest man of his time, is entitled to some notice in this work, although his fame seems to have been derived principally from his longevity. He is said to have been born in the county of West Meath in Ireland, May I, 1690. His family name was Mac-Laughlin, which, on his coming to London, he changed to Macklin. He was employed in early life, as badgeman in Trinity college, Dublin, until his twenty-first year, when he came to England, and associated with some strolling comedians, after which he went back to his situation in Trinity college. In 1716 he again came to England, and appeared as an actor in the theatre, Lincoln’s-inn-fields, where, in Feb. 1741, he established his fame by his performance of Shylock in the “Merchant of Venice,” in which he followed nature, truth, and propriety, with such effect, as to distance all other performers through the whole course of his long life. It was, however, the only character in which he was pre-eminent, and all his subsequent attempts in characters of importance, particularly in tragedy, were unsuccessful, or, at least, displayed no exclusive merit. The remainder of his life consists of a series of tragi-comic adventures, involving the history of the stage for a considerable period, of which it would be impossible to give a satisfactory abridgment. We therefore refer to our authorities, where his life is detailed with great minuteness, and in a manner highly interesting to those to whom the vicissitudes of the theatres, and the wit of the green-room, are matters of importance. He continued on the stage until 1789, when a decay of memory obliged him to take a last leave of it. In 1791, a sum of money was collected by public subscription for the purchase of an annuity, which rendered his circumstances easy. During the last years of his life, his understanding became more and more impaired, and in this state he died July 11, 1797, at the very great age of 107, if the date usually given of his birth be correct. As a dramatic writer, he appears to much advantage in his “Man of the World” and “Love Alamode,” which still retain their popularity. He was a man of good understanding, which he had improved by a course of reading, perhaps desultory, but sufficient to enable him to bear his part in conversation very satisfactorily. While his memory remained, his fund of anecdote was immense, and rendered his company highly agreeable. His age, however, had in his opinion, conferred a dictatorial ppwer, and it was not easy to argue with him, without exciting his irascible temper, which shewed itself in much coarseness of expression. He is said to have been in his better days, a tender husband, a good father, and a steady friend. By his firmness and resolution in supporting the rights of his theatrical brethren, they were long relieved from a species of oppression to which they had been ignominiouslv subjected for many years, whenever the caprice or malice of their enemies chose to exert itself. We allude, says one of his biographers, “to the prosecution which he commenced and carried on against a certain set of insignificant beings, who, calling themselves The Town, used frequently to disturb the entertainments of the theatre, to the terror of the actors, as well as to the annoyance and disgrace of the publick.” It is almost needless to add that this advantage has been again lost to his brethren, by the toleration recently granted to scenes of brntality in the theatres both of London and Dublin, and which has placed them at the mercy of the lowest and most unprincipled of the populace.

During this long course, Dr. Maclaine’s superior endowments of mind and heart, his genius, learning, and industry, constantly directed by a love of virtue and truth, by piety and charity, diffused a beneficial influence over the whole of his professional and domestic sphere. As a scholar, a gentleman, and a divine, uniformly displaying a judicious taste, an amiable deportment, and instructive example, he was admired and loved by all who courted and enjoyed his society; especially those of whom he was a distinguished archetype the man of education, the polished companion, the benevolent friend, and pious Christian.

, an eminent mathematician and philosopher, was the son of a clergyman, and born at Kilmodan, near Inverary, in Scotland, Feb. 1698. His family was originally from Tirey, one of the western islands. He was sent to the university of Glasgow in 1709, where he continued five years, and applied himself to study in a most intense manner, particularly to the mathematics. His great genius for this science discovered itself so early as at twelve years of age; when, having accidentally met with a copy of Euclid’s Elements in a friend’s chamber, he became in a few days master of the first six books without any assistance: and it is certain, that in his sixteenth year he had invented many of the propositions, which were afterwards published as part of his work entitled “Geometria Organica.” In his fifteenth year, he took the degree of master of arts; on which occasion he composed and publicly defended a thesis “On the power of gravity,” with great applause. After this he quitted the university, and retired to a country-seat of his uncle, who had the care of his education, his parents being dead some time. Here he spent two or three years in pursuing his favourite studies; and such was his acknowledged merit, that having in 1717 offered himself a candidate for the professorship of mathematics in the Marischal college of Aberdeen, he obtained it after a ten days trial against a very able competitor. In 1719 he went to London, where he left his “Geometria Organica” in the press, and where he became acquainted with Dr. Hoadly, bishop of Bangor, Dr. Clarke, sir Isaac Newton, and other eminent men. At the same time he was admitted a member of the royal society; and in another journey in 1721, he contracted an intimacy with Martin Folkes, esq. the president of it, which lasted to his death.

In 1722, lord Polwarth, plenipotentiary of the king of Great Britain at the congress of Cambray, engaged him to go as tutor and companion to his eldest son, who was then to set out on his travels. After a short stay at Paris,“and visiting other cities in France, they fixed in Lorrain; where Maclaurin wrote his treatise” On the percussion of Bodies,“which gained the prize of the royal academy of sciences, for 1724; but his pupil dying soon after at Montpelier, he returned immediately to his professorship at Aberdeen. He was hardly settled here when he received an invitation to Edinburgh; the patrons of that university being desirous that he should supply the place of Mr. James Gregory, whose great age and infirmities had rendered him incapable of teaching. On this occasion he had some difficulties to encounter, arising from competitors, who had great interest with the patrons of the university, and also from the want of an additional fund for the new professor; all which, however, at length were surmounted, in consequence of two letters from sir Isaac Newton. In one, addressed to himself, with allowance to shew it to the patrons of the university, sir Isaac expresses himself thus:” I am very glad to hear that you have a prospect of being joined to Mr. James Gregory, in the professorship of the mathematics at Edinburgh, not only because you are my friend, but principally because of your abilities; you being acquainted as well with the new improvements of mathematics, as with the former state of those sciences. I heartily wish*you good success, and shall be very glad to hear of your being elected.“In a second letter to the lord provost of Edinburgh, he writes thus:” I am glad to understand that Mr. Maclaurin is in good repute amongst you for his skill in mathematics, for I think he deserves it very well; and to satisfy you that I do not flatter him, and also to encourage him to accept the place of assisting Mr. Gregory, in order to succeed him, I am ready, if you please to give me leave, to contribute 20l. per annum towards a provision for him, till Mr Gregory’s place becomes void, if I live so long, and I will pay it to his order in London."

In 1745, having been very active in fortifying the city of Edinburgh against the rebel army, he was obliged to fly to the north of England; where he was invited by Herring, then archbishop of York, to reside with him during his stay in this country. “Here,” says he, in a letter to one of his friends, “I live as happy as a man can do, who is ignorant of the state of his family, and who sees the ruin of his country.” We regret to add, that in this expedition being exposed to cold and hardships, and naturally of a weak and tender constitution, he laid the foundation of a dropsical disorder, which put an end to his life June 14, 1746, aged 48. There is a circumstance recorded of him during his last moments, which shows that he was the inquiring philosopher to the last: He desired his friend Dr. Monro to account for a phenomenon he then observed in himself, viz. flashes of fire seeming to dart from his eyes, while in the mean time his sight was failing, so that he could scarcely distinguish one object from another."

, an author whose fame rests chiefly on his being the editor of Ossian’s poems, was descended from one of the most ancient families in the North of Scotland, being cousin-german to the chief of the clan of the Macphersons, who deduce their origin from the ancient Catti of Germany. His father, however, was a farmer of no great affluence. He was born in the parish of Kingcusie, Inverness-shire, in the latter end of 1738, and received the first rudiments of his education at one of the parish schools in the district, called Badenoch, from which, in 1752, he entered King’s college, Aberdeen, where he displayed more genius than learning, entertaining the society of which he was a member, and diverting the younger part of it from their studies by his humorous and doggrel rhimes. About two months after his admission into the university, the King’s college added two months to the length of its annual session or term, which induced Macpherson, with many other young men, to remove to Marischal college, where the session continued short: and this circumstance has led the biographer, from whom we borrow it, to suppose that his father was not opulent. Soon after he left college, or perhaps before, he was schoolmaster of Ruthven or Riven, of Badenocb, and afterwards is said to have delighted as little as his antagonist Johnson, in the recollection of that period, when he was compelled, by the narrowness of his fortune, to teach boys in an obscure school.

It was here, however, about 1758, that he published the “Highlander,” an heroic poem in six cantos, 12mo. Of this poem, which has not fallen in our way, we have seen two opinions, the one, that it indicated considerable genius in so young an author; the other that it is a tissue of fustian and absurdity, feeble, and in some parts ridiculous, and shews little or no talent in the art of versification. This last we take to be the opinion of the late Isaac Reed, who had a copy of the poem, which was purchased at his sale by George Chalmers, esq. Mr. Reed adds, that in a short time the author became sensible of its faults, and endeavoured to suppress it. About the same time he wrote an “Ode on the arrival of the Earl Marischal in Scotland,” which he called an attempt in the manner of Pindar, how justly, the reader may determine, as it was published in the European Magazine for 1796.

The next year he produced “Temora,” an ancient epic poem, in eight books: together with several other poems composed by Ossian, son. of Fingal, 4to, which, though well received, found the public somewhat less disposed to bestow the same measure of applause. Though these poems had been examined by Dr. Blair and others, and their authenticity asserted, there were not wanting some of equal reputation for critical abilities, who either doubted or declared their disbelief of the genuineness of them. After their publication, by which he is said to have gained twelve hundred pounds, Mr, Macpherson was called to an employment which withdrew him for some time from the muses and his country. In 1764, governor Johnstone was appointed chief of Pensacola, and Mr. Macpherson accompanied him as his secretary; but some difference having arisen between them, they parted before their return to England. Having contributed his aid to the settlement of the civil government of that colony, he visited several of the West-India islands, and some of the provinces of North America, and returned to England in 1766. He now resumed his studies, and in 1771 produced “An Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland,” 4to, a work which, he says, “without any of th ordinary incitements to literary labour, he was induced to proceed in by the sole motive of private amusement.” This work is not inelegantly written, but his hypotheses on Celtic origin brought upon him the resentment of some critics, who preserved very little decency on a subject that might certainly have been discussed in an amicable manner. His next performance was more justly entitled to contempt, as it showed him to be utterly destitute of taste, and consequently produced him neither reputation nor profit. This was “The Iliad of Homer” translated, in two volumes 4to, 1773, a work fraught with vanity and selfconsequence, and which met with the most mortifying reception from the public. It was condemned by the critics, ridiculed by the wits, and neglected by the world. Some of his friends, and particularly sir John Elliott, endeavoured to rescue it from contempt, and force it into notice, but their success was not equal to their efforts. After a very acute, learned, and witty critique, inserted in the Critical Review, the new translation was confessed to possess no merit, and ever since has been consigned to oblivion.

About this time seems to be the period of Mr. Macpherson’s literary mortifications. In 1773, Dr. Johnson and Mr. Boswell made the tour to the Hebrides; and in the course of it, the former took some pains to examine into the proofs of the authenticity of Ossian. The result of his inquiries he gave to the public in 1775, in his narrative of the tour, ai^d his opinion was unfavourable. “I believe they (i. e. the poems, says he) never existed in any other form than that which we have seen. The editor or author never could shew the original; nor can it be shewn by any other. To revenge reasonable incredulity by refusing evidence is a degree of insolence with which the world is not yet acquainted; and stubborn audacity is the last refuge of guilt. It would be easy to shew it if he had it; but whence could it be had? It is too long to be remembered, and the language had formerly nothing written. He has doubtless inserted names that circulate in popular stories, and may have translated some wandering ballads, if any can be found; and the names and some of the images being recollected, make an inaccurate auditor imagine, by the help of Caledonian bigotry, that he has formerly heard the whole.” Again, “I have yet supposed no imposture but in the publisher, yet 1 am far from certainty, that some translations have not been lately made, that may now be obtruded as parts of the original work. Credulity on one part is a strong temptation to deceit on the other, especially to deceit of which no personal injury is the consequence, and which flatters the author with his own ingenuity. The Scots have something to plead for their easy reception of an improbable fiction: they are seduced by their fondness for their supposed ancestors. A Scotchman must be a sturdy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth; he will always love it better than inquiry, and, if falsehood flatters his vanity, will not be very diligent to detect it. Neither ought the English to be much influenced by Scotch authority; for of the past and present state of the whole Erse nation, the Lowlanders are at least as ignorant as ourselves. To be ignorant is painful; but it is dangerous to quiet our uneasiness by the delusive opiate of hasty persuasion.”

In Mrs. Grant’s “Letters from the Mountains” we “have some affecting particulars of his death.” Finding some inward symptoms of his approaching dissolution, he sent for a consultation, the result of which arrived the day after his confinement. He was perfectly sensible and collected, yet refused to take any thing prescribed to him to the last, and that on this principle, that his time was come, and it did not avail. He felt the approaches of death, and hoped no relief from medicine, though his life was not such as one should like to look back on at that awful period. Indeed, whose is? It pleased the Almighty to render his last scene most affecting and exemplary. He died last Tuesday evening; and from the minute he was confined till, a very little before he expired, never ceased imploring the divine mercy in the most earnest and pathetic manner. People about him were overawed and melted by the fervour and bitterness of his penitence. He frequently and earnestly entreated the prayers of good serious people of the lower class who were admitted. He was a very goodnatured mart; and now that he had got all his schemes of interest and ambition fulfilled, he seemed to reflect and grow domestic, and shewed of late a great inclination to be an indulgent landlord, and very liberal to the poor, of which I could relate various instances, more tender and interesting than flashy or ostentatious. His heart and temper were originally good. His religious principles were, I fear, unfixed and fluctuating; but the primary cause that so much genius, taste, benevolence, and prosperity, did not produce or diffuse more happiness, was his living a stranger to the comforts of domestic life, from which unhappy connexions excluded him, &c."

, brother to the preceding, an eminent physician and chemist, was born at Paris, Oct. 9, 171S, and became a doctor of the' faculty of medicine in the university of that metropolis, professor of pharmacy, and censor-royal. He was, likewise, a member of the academies of sciences of Turin, Stockholm, and Paris, and conducted the medical and chemical departments of the Journal des Sgavans. He had the merit of pursuing chemistry as a department of natural philosophy, and was one of the most successful cultivators of the science, upon rational principles, previous to the new modelling which it has received within the last twenty-five years. He died Feb. 15, 1784, after having suffered much by an internal complaint, which appeared beyond the reach of skill. On this account he desired that his body might be opened, when it was discovered that his disorder was an ossification of the aorta, with strong concretions formed in the cavity of the heart. Mr. Macquer’s private character appears to have been truly amiable in every relation, and few men were more respected by his contemporaries. He published, 1. “Elemens de Chymie Theorique,” 1749 1753, 12mo. 2. “Elemens de Chymie Pratique,” 2 vols. 12mo. 3. “Plan d'un Cours de Chymie experimentale et raisonnee,” 1757, 12mo. This was composed in conjunction with M. Baume“, who was associated with him in his lectures. 4.” Dictionnaire de Chymie,“1766, 2 vols. 8vo. These works have all been translated into English and German; the Dictionary particularly, by Mr. Keir, with great additions and improvements. 5.” Formulae Medicamentorum Magistralium,“1763 and he had also a share in the compoposition of the” Pharmacopeia Parisiensis," of 1758.

, was a name assumed by a modern poet, whose true name was John Salmon; or, as some say, given to him on account of his excessive thinness, from the Latin adjective macer. It became, however, the current appellation of himself and Charles, his brother, who was also a writer of some celebrity, preceptor to Catherine of Navarre, sister of Henry IV, and who perished in the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Some have called Macrinus the French Horace, on account of his talents for poetry, particularly the lyric kind. He was born at Loudon, where he died in 1557, at an advanced age. He wrote hymns, naeniae, and other works, which appeared from 1522 to 1550: and was one of those who principally contributed to restore the taste for Latin poetry. Varillas relates a story of his drowning himself in a well, in despair, on being suspected of Lutheranism. But this, like most anecdotes of the same writer, is a matter of invention rather than fact.

, was an ancient Latin writer, who flourished towards the latter part of the fourth century. What countryman he was, is not clear Erasmus, in his Ciceronianus, seems to think he was a Greek and he himself tells us, in the preface to his “Saturnalia,” that he was not a Roman, but laboured under the inconveniences of writing in a language which was not native to him. Of what religion he was, Christian or pagan, is also uncertain. Barthius ranks him among the Christians; but Spanheira and Fabiicius suppose him to have been a heathen. It seems, however, agreed that he was a man of consular. dignity, and one of the chamberlains, or masters of the wardrobe to Theodosius; as appears from a rescript directed to Florentius, concerning those who were to obtain that office. He wrote “A Commentary upon Cicero’s Somnium Scipiouis,” full of Platonic notions, and seven books of “Saturnalia;” which resemble in plan the “Noctes Atticae” of Aulus Gellius. He termed them “Saturnalia,” because, during the vacation observed on these feasts of Saturn, he collected the principal literati of Rome, in his house, and conversed with them on all kinds of subjects, and afterwards set down what appeared to him, most interesting in their discourses. His Latinity is far from being pure, but as a collector of facts, opinions, and criticism, his works are valuable. The “Somnium Sci r pionis,” and “Saturnalia,” have been often printed; to which has been added, in the later editions, a piece entitled “De difterentiis & societatibus Graeci Latinique verbi.” The best editions are those of the Variorum; of Gronovius in 1670, and Leipsic in 1777. There is a specimen of an English translation of the “Saturnalia” in the Gent. Mag. for 1760, but it does not appear to have been completed.

, D. D. (“a name,” says Dr. Johnson, “which Ireland ought to honour,”) was born in 1687, and received his education at Dublin. He appears, however, to have been in England in 1729; and having written a tragedy called “Themistocles, or the Lover of his country,” was, as he himself says, tempted to let it appear, by the offer of a noble study of books from the profits of it. In 1731, he projected a scheme for promoting learning in the college of Dublin by premiums, at the quarterly examinations, which has proved highly beneficial. In 1732, he published his “Memoirs of the Twentieth Century; being original Letters of State under George the Sixth, relating to the most important events in Great-Britain, and Europe, as to church and state, arts and sciences, trade, taxes, and treaties, peace and war, and characters of the greatest persons of those times, from the middle of the eighteenth to the end of the twentieth century, and the world. Received and revealed in the year 1728; and now published, for the instruction of all eminent statesmen, churchmen, patriots, politicians, projectors, papists, and protestants.” In 6 vols. Lond. 1733, 8vo. In 1740, we find him in his native country, and in that year setting apart the annual sum of one hundred pounds to be distributed, by way of premium, to the inhabitants of Ireland only; namely, 50l. to the author of the best invention for improving any useful art or manufacture; 25l. to the per-> son who should execute the best statue or piece of sculpture; and 25l. to the person who should finish the best piece of painting, either in history or landscape the premiums to be decided by the Dublin society, of which Dr. Madden was the institutor. The good effects of these well applied benefactions have not only been felt to advantage in the kingdom where they were given, but have even extended their influence to its sister country, having giren rise to the society for the encouragement of arts and sciences in London. In 1743 or 4, he published a long poem, called “Boulter’s Monument;” which was corrected for the press by Dr. Johnson; and an epistle of about 200 lines by him is prefixed to the second edition of Leland’s “Life of Philip of Macedon.” In an oration spoken at Dublin, Dec. 6, 1757, by Mr. Sheridan, that gentleman took occasion to mention Dr. Madden’s bounty, and intended to have proceeded in the following manner, but was prevented by observing the doctor to be then present. Speaking of the admirable institutions of premiums, he went on, “Whose author, had he never contributed any thing farther to the good of his country, would have deserved immortal honour, and must have been held in reverence by the latest posterity. But the unwearied and disinterested endeavours, during a long course of years, of this truly good man, in a variety of branches, to promote industry, and consequently the welfare of this kingdom, and the mighty benefits which have thence resulted to the community, have made many of the good people of Ireland sorry, that a long-talked of scheme has not hitherto been put in execution: that we might not appear inferior in point of gratitude to the citizens of London, with respect to a fellow-citizen [sir John Barnard], (surely not with more reason,) and that like them we might be able to address our patriot, Praesenti tibi matures largimur honores.”

Mons. Grosley, a lively French traveller, speaking of a city in the centre of France, “which at the beginning of the fifteenth century served as a theatre to the grandest scene that England ever acted in that kingdom,” mentions several English families as lately extinct, or still subsisting there. “This city,” he adds, “in return, has given the British dominions an illustrious personage, to whom they are indebted for the first prizes which have been there distributed for the encouragement of agriculture and arts. His name was Madain: being thrown upon the coast of Ireland by events of which I could never hear any satisfactory account, he settled in Dublin by the name of Madden, there made a fortune, dedicated part of his estate, which amounted to four or five thousand pounds a year, to the prizes which I have spoken of, and left a rich succession part of this succession went over to France to the Madains his relations, who commenced a law-suit for the recovery of it, and caused ecclesiastical censures to be published against a merchant, to whom they had sent a letter of attorney to act for them, and whom they accused of having appropriated to himself a share of their inheritance.”

, a famous English prelate, born at London, July 27, 1697, of obscure parents, whom he lost while he was young, was taken care of by an aunt, who placed him in a charity-school, and afterwards put him on trial to a pastry-cook; but, before he was bound apprentice, the master told her that the boy was not fit for trade; that he was continually reading books of learning above his (the master’s) comprehension, and therefore advised that she should take him away, and send him back to school, to follow the bent of his inclination. He was on this sent, by an exhibition of some dissenting friends, to one of the universities of Scotland, Cole says, that of Aberdeen; but, not caring to take orders in that church, was afterwards, through the patronage of bishop Gibson, admitted to Queen’s-college, Cambridge, and was favoured with a doctor’s degree at Lambeth. After entering into orders, he first was curate of St. Bride’s, then domestic chaplain to Dr. Waddington, bishop of Chichester, whose niece he married, and was afterwards promoted to the rectory of St. Vedast, in Foster-lane, London. In 1729, he was appointed clerk of the closet to queen Caroline. In 1733, he became dean of Wells, and was consecrated bishop of St. Asaph, in 1736. He was translated to the see of Worcester, in 1743. In 1733 he published the first part of the “Review of Neal’s History of the Puritans,” under the title of, “A Vindication of the Government, Doctrine, and Worship of the Church of England, established in the reign of queen Elizabeth:” of which the late bishop Hallifax said, “a better vindication of the reformed church of England, I never read.” He was a great benefactor to the London hospitals, and the first promoter of the Worcester Infirmary in 1745, which has proved of singular benefit to the poor, and a great advantage to medical and surgical knowledge in that neighbourhood. He was also a great encourager of trade, engaging in the British fishery, by which he lost some money. He likewise was a strong advocate for the act against vending spirituous liquors. He married Elizabeth daughter of Richard Price, esq. of Hayes in Middlesex, in 1731; and had two daughters and a son, of whom only one daughter survived him, and was afterwards married to the hon. James Yorke, bishop of Gloucester, and late bishop of Ely. He died Sept. 27, 1739. Bishop Madox published fourteen occasional sermons preached between the years 1734 and 1752. Among other instances of his benevolence, we may mention his assigning 200l.perann. during his life, for the augmentation of the smaller benefices of his diocese. He corresponded with Dr. Doddridge with affectionate familiarity, and visited him when at Bristol, offering in the most obliging manner to convey him to the Wells in his chariot, at the stated times of drinking. He used to anticipate any hints respecting his origin by a joke which he was fond of repeating. When tarts wera on his table, he pressed the company to partake, saying “that he believed they were very good, but that they were not of his own making” This he varied, when John Whiston dined with him, into, “some people reckon me a good judge of that article!” Upon the whole he appears to have been an amiable and benevolent man, and to have employed his wealth as well as his talents to the best purposes. His widow survived him thirty years, dying Feb. 19, 1789.

, the great friend and counsellor of Augustus Caesar, was himself a polite scholar, but is chiefly memorable for having been the patron and protector of men of letters. He was descended from a most ancient and illustrious origin, even from the kings of Hetruria, as Horace often tells us; but his immediate forefathers were only of the equestrian order. He is supposed to have been born at Rome, because his family lived there; but in what year antiquity does not tell us. His education is supposed to have been of the most liberal kind, and agreeable to the dignity and splendour of his birth, as he excelled in every thing that related to arms, politics, and letters. How he spent his younger years is also unknown, there being no mention made of him, by any writer, before the death of Julius Caesar, which happened in the year of Rome 709. Then Octavius Caesar, who was afterwards called Augustus, went to Rome to take possession of his uncle’s inheritance; and, at the same time, Mæcenas became first publicly known; though he appears to have been Augustus’s friend, and, as it should seem, guardian, from his childhood. From that time he accompanied him through all his fortunes, and was his counsellor and adviser upon all occasions; so that Pedo Albinovanus, or rather the unknown author whose elegy has been ascribed to him, justly calls him “Caesaris dextram,” Caesar’s right hand.

A. U. C. 710, the year that Cicero was killed, and Ovid born, Mæcenas distinguished himself by his courage and military skill at the battle of Modena, where the consuls Hirtius and Pansa were killed in fighting against Antony; as he did afterwards at Philippi. After this last battle, began the memorable friendship between him and Horace. Horace, as Suetonius relates, was a tribune in the army of Brutus and Cassius, and, upon the defeat of those generals, made a prisoner of war. Mæcenas, finding him an accomplished man, became immediately his friend and protector, and afterwards recommended him to Augustus, who restored him to his estate, with no small additions. In the mean time, though Mæcenas behaved himself well as a soldier in these and other battles, yet his principal province was that of a minister and counsellor. He was the adviser, the manager, the negotiator, in every thing that related to civil affairs. When the league was made at Brundusium betwen Antony and Augustus, he was sent to act on the part of Augustus, and afterwards, when this league was about to be broken, through the suspicions of each party, he was sent to Antony to ratify it anew.

U. C. 717, when Augustus and Agrippa went to Sicily, to fight Sextus Pompeius by sea, Mæcenas went with them but soon after returned, to appease some commotions which were rising at Rome for though he usually attended Augustus in all his military expeditions, yet whenever there was any thing to be done at Rome, either with the senate or people, he was also dispatched thither for that purpose. He was indeed invested with the government while Augustus and Agrippa were employed in the wars. Thus Dion Cassius, speaking of the year 718, says that Mæcenas “had then, and some time after, the administration of civil affairs, not only at Rome, but throughout all Italy,” and V. Paterculus relates, that after the battle of Actium, which happened in the year 724, “the government of the city was committed to Mæcenas, a man of equestrian rank, but of an illustrious family.” Upon the total defeat of Antony at Actium, he returned to Rome, to take the government into his hands, till Augustus could settle some necessary affairs in Greece and Asia. Agrippa soon followed Mæcenas and, when Augustus arrived, he placed these two great men and faithful adherents, the one over his civil, the other over his military concerns. While Augustus was extinguishing the remains of the civil war in Asia and Kgypt, young Lepidus, the son of the triumvir, was forming a scheme to assassinate him at his return to Rome. This conspiracy was discovered at once by the extraordinary vigilance of Mæcenas who, as Paterculus says, “observing the rash councils of the headstrong youth, with the same tranquillity and calmness as if nothing at all had been doing, instantly put him to death, without the least noise and tumult, and by that means extinguished another civil war in its very beginning.”

The civil wars being now at an end, Augustus returned to Rome; and after he had triumphed according to custom, he began to talk of restoring the commonwealth. Whether he was in earnest, or did it only to try the judgment of his friends, we do not presume to determine however he consulted Mæcenas and Agrippa about it. Agrippa advised him to it but Mæcenas dissuaded him, saying, that it was not only impossible for him to live in safety as a private man, after what had passed, but that the government would be better administered, and flourish more in his hands than if he was to deliver it up to the senate and people. The author of the “Life of Virgil” says that Augustus, “wavering what he should do, consulted that poet upon the occasion.” But this life is not of sufficient authority; for, though it has usually been ascribed to Servius or Donatus, yet the critics agree, that it was not written by either of them. Augustus, in the mean time, followed Mæcenas’s advice, and retained the government and from this time Mæcenas indulged himself, at vacant hours, in literary amusements, and the conversation of the men of letters. In the year 734 Virgil died, and left Augustus and Mæcenas heirs to his possessions. Mæcenas was excessively fond of this poet, who, of all the wits of the Augustan age, stood highest in his esteem; and, if the “Georgics” and the “Æneid” be owing to the good taste and encouragement of this patron, as there is some reason to think, posterity cannot commemorate him with too much gratitude. The author of the “Life of Virgil” tells us that the poet “published the Georgics in honour of Mæcenas, to whom they are addressed” and adds, that “they were recited to Augustus four days together at Atella, where he rested himself for some time, in his return from Actium, Mæcenas taking upon him the office of reciting, as oft as Virgil’s voice failed him.” Horace may be ranked next to Virgil in Mæcenas’s good graces we have already mentioned how and what time their friendship commenced. Propertius also acknowledges Mæcenas for his favourer and protector nor must Varius be forgot, though we have nothing of his remaining; since we find him highly praised by both Virgil and Horace. He was a writer of tragedies: and Quintilian thinks he may be compared with any of the ancieats. In a word, Mæcenas’s house was a place of refuge and welcome to all the learned of his time-, not only to Virgil, Horace, Propertius, and Varius, but to Fundanius, whom Horace extols as an admirable writer of comedies: to Fuscus Aristius, a noble grammarian, and Horace’s intimate friend to Plotius Tucca, who assisted Varius in correcting the “Æneid” after the death of Virgil to Valgius, a poet and very learned man, who, as Pliny tells us, dedicated a book to Augustus “De usu Herbarum;” to Asinius Pollio, an excellent tragic writer, and to several others, whom it would be tedious to mention. All these dedicated their works, or some part of them at least, to Mæcenas, and repeatedly celebrated his praises in them; and we may observe further, what Plutarch tells us, that even Augustus himself inscribed his “Commentaries” to him and to Agrippa.

Mæcenas is said never to have enjoyed a good state of health in any part of his life; and many singularities are related of his bodily constitution. Thus Pliny tells us, that he was always in a, fever; and that, for three years before his death, he had not a moment’s sleep. Though he was certainly an extraordinary man, and possessed many admirable virtues and qualities, yet it is agreed on all hands that he was very luxurious and effeminate. Seneca has allowed him to have been a great man, yet censures him very severely on this head, and thinks that his effeminacy has infected even his style. “Every body knows,” says he, “how Mæcenas lived, nor is there any occasion for me to describe it the effeminacy of his walk, the delicacy of his manner, and the pride he took in shewing himself publicly, are things too notorious for me to insist on. But what! Is not his style as effeminate as himself? Are not his words as soft and affected as his dress, his equipage, the furniture of his house, and his wife?” Then, after quoting some of his poetry, “who does not perceive,” says he, “that the author of these verses must have been the man, who was perpetually walking about the city with his tunic loose, and all the other symptoms of the most effeminate mind?” V. Paterculus does not represent him as less effeminate than Seneca, but dwells more on his good qualities. “Mascenas,” says he, “was of the equestrian order, but sprung from a most illustrious origin. He was a man, who, when business required, was able to undergo any fatigue and watching; who consulted properly upon all occasions, and knew as well how to execute what he had consulted; yet a man, who in seasons of leisure was luxurious, soft, and effeminate, almost beyond a woman. He was no less dear to Caesar than to Agrippa, but distinguished by him with fewer honours; for he always continued of the equestrian rank, in which he was born; not that he could not have been advanced upon the least intimation, but he never solicited it.” His patronage of men of letters is, after all, the foundation of his fame; and having by general consent given a name to the patrons of literature, his own can never be forgotten.

Lady Mary Wortley Montague, in her letters lately published, has given a very lively description of Maffei’s employments: “After having made the tour of Europe in search of antiquities, he fixed his residence in his native town of Verona, where he erected himself a little empire, from the general esteem, and a conversation (so they call an assembly) which he established in his palace, one of the largest in that place, and so luckily situated, that it is between the theatre and the ancient amphitheatre. He made piazzas leading to each of them, filled with shops, where were sold coffee, tea, chocolate, all sorts of sweetmeats, and in the midst, a court well kept, and sanded, for the use of those young gentlemen who would exercise their managed horses, or show their mistresses their skill in riding. His gallery was open every evening at five o'clock, where he had a fine collection of antiquities, and two large cabinets of medals, intaglios, and cameos, arranged in exact order. His library joined to it: and on the other side a suite of five rooms, the first of which was destined to dancing, the second to cards (but all games of hazard excluded), and the others (where he himself presided in an easy chair), sacred to conversation, which always turned upon some point of learning, either historical or poetical. Controversy and politics being utterly prohibited, he generally proposed the subject, and took great delight in instructing the young people, who were obliged to seek the medal, or explain the inscription that illustrated any fact they discoursed of. Those who chose the diversion of the public walks, or theatre, went thither, but never failed returning to give an account of the drama, which produced a critical dissertation on that subject, the marquis having given shining proofs of his skill in that art. His tragedy of” Merope,“which is much injured by Voltaire’s translation, being esteemed a master-piece and his comedy of the” Ceremonies,“being a just ridicule of those formal fopperies, it has gone a great way in helping to banish them out of Italy. The walkers contributed to the entertainment by an account of some herb, or flower, which led the way to a botanical conversation; or, if they were such inaccurate observers as to have nothing of that kind to offer, they repeated some pastoral description. One day in the week was set apart for music, vocal and instrumental, but no mercenaries were admitted to the concert. Thus, at a very little expence (his fortune not permitting a large one), he had the happiness of giving his countrymen a taste of polite pleasure, and shewing the youth how to pass their time agreeably without debauchery.”

, a celebrated philosopher and mathematician, was born at Rome Octqber 23, 1637. After studying jurisprudence, in which he made a great and very rapid progress at Pisa, he began to devote his main attention to mathematics and natural philosophy, which he cultivated at Florence, during three years, under the celebrated Vincent Viviani, and was made secretary to the academy del Cimento, the duties of which office he discharged with the utmost assiduity and care. Being directed by the prince to draw up an account of the experiments made there, he published it in 1666, when it was received with universal applause by men of science. While engaged on this work, he obtained leave from Leopold to pay a visit to his father at Rome, and with a view to obtain some ecclesiastical promotion. Having failed in this object, he returned to Florence, and obtained a place at the court of the grand duke Ferdinand II.; and shortly after a pension was given him by pope Alexander VII. About 1666 he drew up and published a small volume relative to the history of China, which was received with great applause; and at the same time he published a small, but elegant compendium of the Moral Doctrine of Confucius. Having considerable poetical talents, he was the first person who published a good translation of the Odes of Anacreon in Italian verse. He was very conversant in many of the modern languages, and could write and speak French, Spanish, and English, with the correctness and ease of the natives of those countries. When in England he became the intimate friend of the illustrious Mr. Robert Boyle, whom he vainly attempted to convert from the errors of the protestant faith. After being employed in several missions to foreign princes, he was in 1674 appointed ambassador to the imperial court, where he acquired the particular favour of the emperor, and formed connections with the men most eminent for science and literature; but, finding a very inconvenient delay of the necessary pecuniary remittances from his court, he determined to return to Florence without waiting the permission of the duke. Shortly after, that prince recalled him, and gave him apartments in his palace, with a considerable pension, but Magalotti preferred retirement, and the quiet prosecution of his studies. In 1684 he composed fifteen Italian odes, in which he has drawn the picture of a woman of noble birth and exquisite beauty, distinguished not only by every personal, but by every mental charm, and yet rendering herself chiefly the object of admiration and delight by her manners and conduct, whom, with no great gallantry, he entitled “The Imaginary Lady.” His next work consisted of Letters against Atheists, in which his learning and philosophy appear to great advantage. In 169 he was appointed a counsellor of state to the grand duke, who sent him his ambassador into Spain to negotiate a marriage between one of his daughters and king Charles II.; but soon after he had accomplished the object of this mission, he sunk into a temporary melancholy. After recovering in about a year, he resumed his literary labours, and published works upon various subjects, and left others which were given to the world after his decease, which happened in 1712, when he had attained the age of 75. Magalotti was as eminent for his piety as he was for his literary talents; unimpeachable in his morals, liberal, beneficent, friendly, polite, and a lively and cheerful, as well as very instructive companion. His house was the constant resort of men of letters from all countries, whom he treated with elegant hospitality. He was deeply conversant with the writings of the ancient philosophers, and was a follower of the Platonic doctrine in his poems. In his natural and philosophical investigations he discarded all authority, and submitted to no other guide but experiment. Among the moderns he was particularly attached to Galileo. After his death a medal was struck in honour of his memory, with the figure of Apollo raised on the reverse, and the inscription Omnia Lustrat.

, an ingenious and learned man of the sixteenth century, was born at Anghiari in Tuscany. He was educated in the Italian universities, where his genius and application carried him almost through the whole circle of sciences; for, besides the belles lettres and law, he applied to the study of war, and even wrote books upon the subject. In this also he afterwards distinguished himself: for he was sent by the Venetians to the isle of Cyprus, with the commission of judge-martial and when the Turks besieged Famagosta, he performed all the services to the place that could have been expected from a skilful engineer. He contrived a kind of mine and fire-engines, by which he laid the labours of the Turks in ruins: and he destroyed in a moment works which had cost them no small time and pains. But they had too good an opportunity of revenging themselves on him; for the city falling at last into their hands, in 1571, Magius became their slave, and was used very barbarously. His comfort lay altogether in the stock of learning with which he was provided; and so prodigious was his memory, that he did not think himself unqualified, though deprived entirely of books, to compose treatises full of quotations. As, he was obliged all the day to do the drudgery of the meanest slave, he spent a great part of the night in writirjg. He wrote in prison a treatise upon bells, “De tintinnabulis,” and another upon the wooden horse, “De equuleo.” He was determined to the first of these subjects by observing, that the Turks had no bells; and to the second, by ruminating upon the various kinds of torture to which his dismal situation exposed him, which brought to his reflection, that the equuleus had never been thoroughly explained. He dedicated the first of these treatises to the emperor’s ambassador at Constantinople, and the other to the French ambassador at the same place. He conjured these ambassadors to use their interest for his liberty; which while they attempted to procure him, they only hastened his death: for the bashaw Mahomet, who had not forgot the mischief which Magius had done the Turks at the siege of Famagosta, being informed that he had been at the Imperial ambassador’s house, whither they had indiscreetly carried him, caused him to be seized again, and strangled that night in prison. This happened in 1572, or 1573, it is not certain which.

There were other men of considerable eminence in Italy of the same name, among whom we may enumerate, a brother of the preceding, Bartholomew Maggi, a physician at Bologna, who wrote a treatise in Latin, “On the Cure of Gun-shot Wounds,” Bologna, 1552, 4to; VlN­Cent Maggi, a native of Brescia, and celebrated professor of ethics at Ferrara and Padua, author of several works Francis Maria Maggi, who published “Syntagmata linguarum Georgia,” Romae, 1670, folio; and lastly, Charles Maria Maggi, an Italian poet of the seventeenth century, and one of the restorers of good taste in Italy, after the barbarous ravages of the school of Marini. He was born at Milan in 1630, and was secretary to the senate of that city. He died in 1690, and his works were published in the following year by Muratori, at Milan, in 4 vols. 12mo. This poet is mentioned with very high encomiums in the letters between Mrs. Carter and Miss Talbot. The dowager lady Spencer also, when resident at Pisa, published a “Scelta” of his works; and in 1811, “The Beauties” of C. M. Maggi, “paraphrased,” were published by Mariane Starke.

, one of the most celebrated, and certainly one of the most extraordinary men of his time, was born at Florence, Oct. 28 or 29, 1633. His parents, who were of low rank, are said to have been satisfied when they got him into the service of a man who sold fruit and herbs. He had never learned to read, and yet was perpetually poring over the leaves of old books, that were used as waste paper in his master’s shop. A bookseller who lived in the neighbourhood, and who had often observed this, and knew the boy could not read, asked him one day, “what he meant by staring so much on printed paper?” He said, “that he did not know how it was, but that he loved it; that he was very uneasy in the business he was in, and should be the happiest creature in the world, if he could live with him, who had always so many books about him.” The bookseller, pleased with his answer, consented to take him, if his master was willing to part with him. Young Magliabechi thanked him with tears in his eyes, and having obtained his master’s leave, went directly to his new employment, which he had not followed long before he could find any book that was asked for, as ready as the bookseller himself. This account of his early life, which Mr. Spence received from a gentleman of Florence, who was well acquainted with Magliabechi and his family, differs considerably from that given by Niceron, Tiraboschi, and Fabroni. From the latter, indeed, we learn that he was placed as an apprentice to a goldsmith, after he had been taught the principles of drawing, and he had a brother that was educated to the law, and made a considerable figure in that profession. His father died while he was an infant, but Fabroni makes no mention of his poverty. It seems agreed, however, that after he had learned to read, that became his sole employment, but he never applied himself to any particular study. He read every book almost indifferently, as they happened to come into his hands, with a surprizing quickness; and yet such was his prodigious memory, that he not only retained the sense of what he read, but often all the words, and the very manner of spelling them, if there was any thing peculiar of that kind in any author.

This extraordinary application, and talents, soon recommended him to Ermini, librarian to the cardinal de Medicis, and to Marmi, the grand duke’s librarian, who introduced him into the company of the literati, and made him known at court. Every where he began to be looked upon as a prodigy, particularly for his vast and unbounded memory, of which many remarkable anecdotes have been given. A gentleman at Florence, who had written a piece that was to be printed, lent the manuscript to Magliabechi; and some time after it had been returned with thanks, came to him again with the story of a pretended accident by which he had lost his manuscript. The author seemed inconsolable, and intreated Magliabechi, whose character for remembering what he read was already very great, to try to recollect as much of it as he possibly could, and write it down for him against his next visit. Magliabechi assured him he would, and wrote down the whole ms. without missing a word, or even varying any where from the spelling. Whatever our readers may think of this trial of his memory, it is certain that by treasuring up at least the subject and the principal parts of all the books he ran over, his head became at last, as one of his acquaintances expressed it to Mr. Spence, “An universal index both of titles and matter.”

By this time Magliabechi was become so famous for the vast extent of his reading, and his amazing retention of what he had read, that he was frequently consulted by the learned, when meditating a work on any subject. For example, and a curious example it is, if a priest was going to compose a panegyric on any saint, and came to consult Magliabechi, he would immediately tell him, who had said any thing of that saint, and in what part of their works, and that sometimes to the number of above an hundred authors. He would tell not only who had treated of the subject designedly, but point out such as had touched upon it only incidentally; both which he did with the greatest exactness, naming the author, the book, the words, and often the very number of the page in which they were inserted. All this he did so often, so readily, and so exactly, that he came at last to be looked upon as an oracle, on account of the ready and full answers that he gave to all questions, that were proposed to him in any faculty or science whatever. The same talent induced the grand duke Cosmo III. to appoint him his librarian, and no man perhaps was ever better qualified for the situation, or more happy to accept it, He was also very conversant with the books in the Laurentian library, and the keeping of those of Leopold and Francis Maria, the two cardinals of Tuscany. Yet all this, it is said, did not appease his voracious appetite; he was thought to have read all the books printed before his time, and all in it. Doubtless this range, although very extensive, must be understood of Italian literature only or principally. Crescembini paid him the highest compliment on this. Speaking of a dispute whether a certain poem had ever been printed or not, he concluded it had not, “because Magliabechi had never seen it.” We learn farther that it was a general custom for authors and printers to present him with a copy of whatever they printed, which must have been a considerable help towards the very large collection of books which he himself made. His mode of reading in his latter days is said to have been this. When a book first came into his hands, he would look over the title-page, then dip here and there in the preface, dedication and advertisements, if there were any; and then cast his eyes on each of the divisions, the different sections, or chapters, and then he would be able to retain the contents of that volume in his memory, and produce them if wanted. Soon after he had adopted this method of what Mr. Spence calls “fore-shortening his reading,” a priest who had composed a panegyric on one of his favourite saints, brought it to Magliabechi as a present. He read it over in his new way, the title-page and heads of the chapters, &c. and then thanked the priest very kindly “for his excellent treatise.” The author, in some pain, asked him, “whether that was all that he intended to read of his book?” Magliabechi coolly answered, “Yes, for I know very well every thing that is in it.” This anecdote, however, may be explained otherwise than upon the principles of memory. Magliabechi knew all that the writers before had said of this saint, and he knew this priest’s turn and character, and thence judged what he would chuse out of them and what he would omit. Magliabechi had even a local memory of the place where every book stood, as in his master’s shop at first, and in the Pitti, and several other libraries afterwards; and seems to have carried this farther than only in relation to the collections of books with which he was personally acquainted. One day the grand duke sent for him after he was his librarian, to ask him whether he could get him a book that was particularly scarce. “No, sir,” answered Magliabechi; “for there is but one in the world; that is in the grand signior’s library at Constantinople, and is the seventh book on the second shelf on the right hand as you go in.” Though this extraordinary man must have lived a sedentary life, with the most intense and almost perpetual application to books, yet he arrived to a good old age. He died in his eighty-first year, July 14, 1714. By his will he left a very fine library of his own collectionfor the use of the public, with a fund to maintain it and whatever should remain over to the poor. By the funds which he left, by the addition of several other collections, and the bounty of some of the grand dukes, his library was so much augmented as to vie with some of the most considerable in Europe. Of this collection, a catalogue and description of the works printed in the fifteenth century was published by Fossi, under the tide “Catalogus codicum sseculo XV impressorum in Bibliotheca Magliabechiana, Florentiae adservantur,” Florence, 3 vols. fol. 1793—1795.

, a celebrated botanist of Montpellier, was born in 1638. He was bred to physic, but, being a protestant, could not take his degree there. He appears, however, afterwards to have obtained it elsewhere, and practised physic at Montpellier for a long course of years, and at the same time very assiduously cultivated botany, with the most enlarged views to its advancement as a science. He was beloved for his urbanity, and esteemed for his knowledge. Numerous botanists flocked at this time to Montpellier, that neighbourhood being famous for its vegetable riches; and these were all eager to enjoy the society, and to benefit by the guidance and instructions of so able a man. Among the pupils of Magnol were Fagon and the illustrious Tournefort, who regularly studied under tym, and on many subsequent occasions gratefully acknowledged their obligations to him. He was not chosen public professor till 1694, when he assumed the guise at least of Catholicism.

In 1708 Magnol was admitted a member of the 'academic des sciences of Paris, in the place of his distinguished friend Tournefort, and contributed some papers to their memoirs. He died in 1715, at the age of seventy-seven. He left a son, named Anthony, who wa professor of physic at Montpellier, but not of Botany. To this son we are indebted for the publication of the “Novus Character Plantarum,” on which the fame of Magnol as a systematic botanist chiefly rests. This posthumous work appeared in 1720, making a quarto volume of 341 pages. The system therein taught is much celebrated by Linnæus, who in his Classes Plautarutn, 375 403, gives a general view of it, expressing his wonder that so new and singular a system had not made more proselytes. That noble genus of trees or shrubs, called the Magnolia, received that name from Plumier, in honour of our author.

After his father’s death he continued under the tuition of his mother till the eighth year of his age; when she also dying, he was taken home to his grandfather, who at his death, which happened the year after, committed him to the care of his uncle Abu Taleb, to be educated by him. Abu Taleb, being a merchant, taught him his business, and, as soon as he was of sufficient age, sent him with his camels into Syria; in which employment he continued under his uncle till the 25th year of his age. One of the chief men of the city then dying, and his widow, whose name was Cadiga, wanting a factor to manage her stock? she invited Mahomet into her service. He accepted her terms, traded three years for her at Damascus and other places, and acquitted himself in this charge so much to her satisfaction, that, about the twenty-eighth year of his age, she gave herself to him in marriage, although she was twelve years older. From being her servant he was now advanced to be master of both her person and fortune; and, finding himself equal in wealth to the best men of the city, he began to entertain ambitious thoughts of possessing the sovereignty over it.

Among the various means to effect this, none seemed to him more eligible than that imposture which he afterwards published with so much success, and so much mischief to the world. The extensive trade which he carried on in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, having made him well acquainted with both Christians and Jews, and given him an opportunity of observing with what eagerness they and the several sects into which the Christians of the Eastwerd then miserably divided, engaged against each other, he concluded that nothing would be more likely to gain a party firm to him for the attaining the ends at which he aimed, than the invention of a new religion. In this, however, he proceeded leisurely; for it was not till his thirty-eighth year that he began to prepare his design. He then withdrew himself from his former way of living, which is said to have been very licentious and wicked; and, affecting an hermit’s life, used every morning to retire into a solitary cave near Mecca, called the Cave of Hira; and there continued all day, exercising himself, as he pretended, in prayers, fastings, and holy meditations. Thus he went on for two years, during which time he gained over his wife Cadiga, who was his first proselyte, by pretending visions which he had seen, and voices which he had heard, in his retirement. It is to be observed, says Dr. Prideaux, that Mahomet began this imposture about the same time that the bishop of Rome, by virtue of a grant from the tyrant Phocas, first assumed the title of universal pastor. Phocas made this grant in the year 606, and Mahomet in the same year retired to his cave to contrive that deception which he began in the year 608 to propagate at Mecca.

In his fortieth year, Mahomet began to take upon him the style of the Apostle of God, and under that character to carry on the plan which he had now contrived; but for four years he confined his doctrines to such as he either had most confidence in, or thought himself most likely to gain. When he had gained a few disciples, some of whom, however, were the principal men of the city, he began to publish it to the people at Mecca, in his forty-fourth year, and openly to declare himself a prophet sent by God, to convert them from the error of paganism, and to teach them the true religion. On his first appearance, he was treated with derision and contempt, and called by the people a sorcerer, magician, liar, impostor, and teller of fables, of which he frequently complains in the Koran; so that for the first year he made little or no progress. But persevering in his design, which he managed with great address, he afterwards gained so many proselytes, that in the fifth year of his pretended mission, he had increased his party to the number of thirty-nine, himself making the fortieth. People now began to be alarmed at the progress he made. Those who were addicted to the idolatry of their forefathers, stood up to oppose him as an enemy of their gods, and a dangerous innovator in their religion. Others, who saw further into his designs, thought it time to put a stop to them, for the sake of preserving the government, at which they thought he aimed: and therefore they combined together against him, and intended to have cut him off with the sword. But Abu Taleb, his uncle, defeated their design; and by his power, as being chief of the tribe, preserved him from many other attempts of the same nature; for though Abu Taleb himself persisted in the paganism of his ancestors, yet he had so much affection for the impostor, as being his kinsman, and one that was bred up in his house, and under his care, that he extended his full protection to Mahomet as long as he lived. The principal arguments, which Mahomet employed to delude men into a belief of this imposture, were promises and threats, both well calculated to influence the affections of the vulgar. His promises were chiefly of Paradise, which with great art he framed agreeably to the taste of the Arabians: for they, lying within the torrid zone, were, through the nature of their climate, as well as the corruption of their manners, exceedingly given to the love of women; and the scorching heat and dryness of the country, making rivers of water, cooling drinks, shaded gardens, and pleasant fruits, most refreshing and delightful unto them, they were from hence apt to place their highest enjoyment in things of this nature. For this reason, he made the joys of his Paradise to consist totally in these particulars; which he promises them abundantly in many places of the Koran. On the contrary, he described the punishments of hell, which he threatened to all who would not believe in him, to consist of such torments as would appear to them the most afflicting and grievous to be borne; as, “that they should drink nothing but boiling and stinking water, nor breathe any thing but exceeding hot winds, things most terrible in Arabia; that they should dwell for ever in continual fire, excessively burning, and be surrounded with a black hot salt smoke, as with a coverlid, &c.” and, that he might omit nothing which could work on their fears, he terrified them with the threats of grievous punishments in this life. To which purpose he expatiated, upon all occasions, on the terrible calamities which had befallen such as would not be instructed by the prophets who, were sent before him; how the old world was destroyed by water, for not being reformed at the preaching of Noah; how Sodom was consumed by fire from heaven, for not hearkening to Lot when sent unto them; and how the Egyptians were plagued for despising Moses: for he allowed the divinity of both the Old and New Testament, and that Moses and Jesus Christ were prophets sent from God; but alledged that the Jews and Christians had corrupted those sacred books, and that he was sent to purge them from those corruptions, and to restore the law of Cod to that original purity in which it was first delivered. And this is the reason, that most of the passages which he takes out of the Old and New Testaments, appear different in the Koran from what we find them in those sacred books.

Mahomet pretended to receive all his revelations from the angel Gabriel, who, he said, was sent from God, on purpose to deliver them unto him. He was subject, it is said, to the falling-sickness, and whenever the fit was upon him, he pretended it to be a trance, and that then the angel Gabriel was come from God with some new revelations. These revelations he arranged in several chapters; which make up the Koran, the Bib!e of the Mahometans. The original of this book was laid up, as he taught his followers, in the archives of heaven; and the angel Gabriel brought him the copy of it, chapter by chapter, as occasion required that they should be published to the people; that is, as often as any new measure was to be pursued, any objection against him or his religion to be answered, any difficulty to be solved, any discontent among his people to be quieted, any offence to be removed, or any thing else done for the furtherance of his grand scheme, his constant recourse was to the angel Gabriel for a new revelation; and then appeared some addition to the Koran, to serve his purpose. But what perplexed him most was, that his opposers demanded to see a miracle from him; “for,” said they, “Moses, and Jesus, and the rest of the prophets, according to thy own doctrine, worked miracles to prove their mission from God; and therefore, if thou be a prophet, and greater than any that were sent before thee, as thou boastest thyself to be, do thou work the like miracles to manifest it unto us.” This objection he endeavoured to evade by several answers; all oi which amount omy to this, “that God had sent Moses and Jesus with miracles, and yet men would not be obedient to their word; and therefore he had now sent him in the last place without miracles, to force them by the power of the sword to do his will.” Hence it has become the universal doctrine of the Mahometans, that their religion is to be propagated by the sword, and that all true mussulmen are bound to fight for it. It has even been said to be a custom among them for their preachers, while they deliver their sermons, to have a drawn sword placed by them, to denote, that the doctrines they teach are to be defended and propagated by the sword Some miracles, at the same time, Mahomet is said to have wrought; as, “That he clave the moon in two; that trees went forth to meet him, &c. &c.” but those who relate them are only such as are ranked among their fabulous and legendary writers: their learned doctors renounce them all; and when they are questioned, how without miracles they can prove his mission, their common answer is, that the Koran itself is the greatest of all miracles; for that Mahomet, who was an illiterate person, who could neither write nor read, or that any man else, by human wisdom alone, should be able to compose such a book, is, they think, impossible. On this Mahomet himself also frequently insists, challenging in several places of the Koran, both men and devils, by their united skill, to compose any thing equal to it, or to any part of it. From all which they conclude, and as they think, infallibly, that this book could come from none other but God himself; and that Mahomet, from whom they received it, was his messenger to bring it unto them. That the Koran, as to style and language, is the standard of elegance in the Arabian tongue, and Uiat Mahomet was in truth what they aifirm him to have been, a rude and illiterate man, ate points agreed on all sides. A question therefore will arise among those who are not so sure that this book was brought by the angel Gabriel from heaven, by whose help it was compiled, and the imposture framed? There is the more reason to ask this, because this book itself contains so many particulars of the Jewish and Christian religions, as necessarily suppose the authors of it to have been well skilled in both; which Mahomet, who was bred an idolater, and lived so for the first forty years of his life, among a people totally illiterate, for such his tribe was by principle and profession, cannot be supposed to have been: but this is a question not so easily to be answered, because the nature of the thing required it to have been transacted very secretly. Besides this, the scene of this imposture being at least six hundred miles within the country of Arabia, amidst those barbarous nations, who all immediately embraced it, and would not permit any of another religion to live among them, it could not at that distance be so well investigated by those who were most concerned to discover the fraud. That Mahomet composed the Koran by the help of others, was a thing well known at Metca, when he first published his imposture there; and he was often reproached on that account by his opposers, as he himself more than once complains. In the twenty-fifth chapter of the Koran, has words are “They say, that the Koran is nothing but a lie of thy own invention, and others have been assisting to thee herein.” A passage in the sixteenth chapter also, particularly points at one of those who was then looked upon to have had a principal hand in this matter: “I know they will say, that a man hath taught him the Koran; but he whom they presume to have taught him is a Persian by nation, and speaketh the Persian language. But the Koran is in the Arabic tongue, full of instruction and eloquence.” The person here pointed at, was one Abdia Ben Salon, a Persian Jew, whose name he afterwards changed into Abdollah Ebn Salem, to make it correspond with the Arabic dialect; and almost all who have written of this imposture have mentioned him as the chief architect used by Mahomet in the framing of it: for he was an artful man, thoroughly skilled in all the learning of the Jews; and therefore Mahomet seems to have received from him whatsoever of the rites and customs of the Jews he has ingrafted into his religion. Besides this Jew, the impostor derived some aid from a Christian monk: and the many particulars in the Koran, relating to the Christian religion, plainly prove him to have had such an helper. He was a monk of Syria, of the sect of the Nestorians. The name which he had in his monastery, and which he has since retained among the western writers, is Sergius, though Bahira was that which he afterwards assumed in Arabia, and by which he has ever since been mentioned in the East, by all that write or speak of him. Mahomet, as it is related, became acquainted with this Bahira, in one of his journeys into Syria, either at Bostra or at Jerusalem: and receiving great satisfaction from him in many of those points in which he had desired to be informed, contracted a particular friendship with him; so that Bahira being not long after excommunicated for some great crime, and expelled his monastery, fled to Mecca to him, was entertained in his house, and became his assistant in the framing of his imposture, and continued with him ever after; till Mahomet having, as it is reported, no farther occasion for him, to secure the secret, put him to death.

Many other particulars are recorded by some ancient writers, both as to the composition of the Koran, and also as to the manner of its first propagation; as, that the impostor taught a bull to bring it him on his horns in a public assembly, as if it had been this way sent to him from God; that he bred up pigeons to come to his ears, to make it appear as if the Holy Ghost conversed with him; stories which have no foundation at all in truth, although they have been credited by great and learned men. Grotius in particular, in that part of his book “De veritate, &c.” which contains a refutation of Mahometanism, relates the story of the pigeon; on which our celebrated orientalist Pococke, who undertook an Arabic version of that performance, asked Grotius, “Where he had picked up this story, whether among the Arabians, or the Christians?” To which Grotius replied, that “he had not indeed met with it in any Arabian author, but depended entirely upon the authority of the Christian writers for the truth of it.” Pococke thought fit, therefore, to omit it in his version, lest we should expose ourselves to the contempt of the Arabians, by not being able to distinguish the religion ofc Mahomet from the tales and fictions which its enemies have invented concerning it; and by pretending to confute the Koran, without knowing the foundation on which its authority stands.

On their arrival at the first heaven, the angel knocked at the gate; and informing the porter who he was, and that he had brought Mahomet the friend of God, he was immediately admitted. This first heaven, he tells us, was all of pure silver; from whence he saw the stars hanging from it by chains of gold, each as big as mount Noho, near Mecca, in Arabia. On his entrance, he met a decrepid old man, who, it seems, was our first father, Adam; and as he advanced, he saw a multitude of angels in all manner of shapes; in the shape of birds, beasts, and men. We must not forget to observe, that Adam had the piety immediately to embrace the prophet, giving God thanks for so great a son; and then recommended himself to his prayers. From this first heaven, the impostor tells us, he ascended into the second, which was at the distance of five hundred years journey above it; and this he makes to be the distance of every one of the seven heavens, each above the other. Here the gates being opened to him as before, at his entrance he met Noah, who, rejoicing much at the sight of him, recommended himself to his prayers. This heaven was all of pure gold, and there were twice as many angels in it as in the former; for he tells us that' the number of angels in every heaven increased as he advanced. From this second heaven he ascended into the third, which was made of precious stones, where he met Abraham, who also recommended himself to his prayers; Joseph the son of Jacob, did the same in the fourth heaven, which was all of emerald; Moses in the fifth, which was all of adamant; and John the Baptist in the sixth, which was all of carbuncle: xvhence he ascended into the seventh, which was all of divine light, and here he found Jesus Christ. However, it is observed, that here he alters his style; for he does not say that Jesus Christ recommended himself to his prayers, but that he recommended himself to the prayers of Jesus Christ.

The first thing that Mahomet did after he had settled himself at Medina, was to marry his daughter Fatima* to his cousin Ali. She was the only child then living of six which were born to him of Cadiga his first wife; and indeed the only one which he had, notwithstanding the mcltifnde of his wives who survived him. Having now obtained the end at which he had long been aiming, that is, that of having a town at his command, he entered upon a scheme entirely new. Hitherto he had been only preaching his religion for thirteen years together; for the remaining ten years of his life he took the sword, and fought for it. He had long been teazed and perplexed at Mecca with questions, and objectiows, and disputes about what he had preached, by which he/v as often put to silence-; but iKjnceforth he forbad all manner of disputing, telling his disciples that his religion was to be propagated not by disputing, but by fighting. He commanded them therefore to arm themselves, and slay with the sword all that. would not embrace it, unless they submitted to pay a yearly tribute for the redemption of their lives: and according to this injunction, even to this day, all who live under any Mahometan government, and are not of their religion, pay an annual tax for a mulct of their infidelity; and are punished with death if they contradict or oppose any doctrine taught by Mahomet. After he had sufficiently infused this doctrine into his disciples, he next proceeded to put it in practice; and having erected his standard, called them all to come armed to it. His first expeditious were against the trading caravans, in their journeys between Mecca and Syria, which he attacked with various success; and-if we except the establishing and adjusting a few particulars relating to his grand scheme, as occasion required, his time, for the two first years after his flight, was wholly spent in predatory excursions upon his neighbours, in robbing, plundering, and destroying all those that lived near Medina, who would not embrace his religion.